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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36043-8.txt b/36043-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da6fbc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/36043-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18435 @@ +Project Gutenberg's History of the Commune of 1871, by P. Lissagary + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Commune of 1871 + +Author: P. Lissagary + +Translator: Eleanor Marx-Aveling + +Release Date: May 6, 2011 [EBook #36043] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE OF 1871 *** + + + + +Produced by Odessa Paige Turner, Barbara Kosker and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public +domain material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + HISTORY + OF + THE COMMUNE OF 1871 + + + + + THE REFORMERS' BOOKSHELF. + + _Large crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. each._ + + 1. THE ENGLISH PEASANT: His Past and Present. By RICHARD + HEATH. + + 2. THE LABOUR MOVEMENT. By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A. + Preface by R. B. HALDANE, M.P. + + 3 & 4. SIXTY YEARS OF AN AGITATOR'S LIFE: George Jacob + Holyoake's Autobiography. 2 vols. + + 5 & 6. BAMFORD'S PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A RADICAL. Edited, + and with an Introduction by HENRY DUNCKLEY ("Verax"). 2 vols. + + 7. RICHARD COBDEN AND THE JUBILEE OF FREE TRADE. By P. + LEROY-BEAULIEU, HENRY DUNCKLEY ("Verax"), Dr. THEODOR BARTH, + the Right Hon. LEONARD COURTNEY, M.P., and the Right Hon. + CHARLES VILLIERS, M.P. + + 8 & 9. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY: Lectures on + Political Economy and its History, delivered at Oxford, + 1887-1888. By Professor THOROLD ROGERS. Third edition. 2 vols. + + 10 & 11. THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. + By Professor THOROLD ROGERS. 2 vols. + + 12. THE GLADSTONE COLONY. By JAMES FRANCIS HOGAN, M.P. + + 13 & 14. CHARLES BRADLAUGH: A Record of His Life and Work. + By His Daughter, HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER. 2 vols. + + 15 & 16. THE INNER LIFE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Selected + from the Writings of WILLIAM WHITE, with a Prefatory Note by + his Son, and an Introduction by JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P. + + 17. POLITICAL CRIME. By LOUIS PROAL. + + 18 & 19. THE LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. By JOHN MORLEY. 2 vols. + + LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. + + + + + HISTORY + of + THE COMMUNE OF 1871 + + + + + FROM THE FRENCH OF + LISSAGARAY + + + + + [Illustration] + + + + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + 1902 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PROLOGUE. + PAGE + HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE 1 + + + CHAPTER I. + + FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS--THE BATTALIONS + OF THE NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR CANNON--THE + PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS 58 + + + CHAPTER II. + + THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE + CONSTITUTES ITSELF--M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT 69 + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH 78 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS--THE MAYORS OF + PARIS AND DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT 88 + + + CHAPTER V. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC + SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS 101 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY + COMBINE AGAINST PARIS--THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE + VENDÔME, AND IS PUNISHED 108 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND + CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS TO CAPITULATE 116 + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE 126 + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT 131 + + + CHAPTER X. + + THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE 142 + + + CHAPTER XI. + + THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS + --THE MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE 153 + + + CHAPTER XII. + + SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL--THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED + EVERYWHERE--FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED--THE VERSAILLESE + MASSACRE SOME PRISONERS 162 + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE 171 + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE--THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF + THE COUNCIL--NOMINATION OF CLUSERET--DECREE CONCERNING THE + HOSTAGES--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE--THE BANK 182 + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ANSNIÈRES--ORGANISATION AND + DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS 190 + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL--THE COMPLIMENTARY ELECTIONS OF + THE 16th APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL--FIRST + DISPUTES--THE GERMS OF DEFEAT 199 + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + OUR PARISIENNES--SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF + NEUILLY--THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS 207 + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + THE PUBLIC SERVICES--FINANCE--WAR--POLICE--EXTERIOR--JUSTICE + --EDUCATION--LABOR AND EXCHANGE 217 + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE--THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE + PART OF ISSY--CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 236 + + + CHAPTER XX. + + ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET--THE RIVALRIES--THE DEFENCE OF THE + FORT OF ISSY 246 + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + PARIS IS BOMBARDED--THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS--THE COUNCIL + ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--ROSSEL FLIES 254 + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE 265 + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES--THE EXTREME + LEFT BETRAYS PARIS 271 + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY-- + EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF ISSY + --THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY--THE EXPLOSION IN THE AVENUE + RAPP--FALL OF THE VENDÔME COLUMN 288 + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH 293 + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY, AT THREE + O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON--THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE + DISSOLVES 304 + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + MONDAY 22ND--THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE + EAST--PARIS RISES 313 + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + TUESDAY 23RD--MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN--THE WHOLESALE MASSACRES + --WE LOSE GROUND--PARIS ON FIRE--THE LAST NIGHT OF THE + HÔTEL-DE-VILLE 326 + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + + WEDNESDAY 24TH--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE + HÔTEL-DE-VILLE--THE PANTHÉON IS TAKEN--THE VERSAILLESE SHOOT + THE FEDERALS BY HUNDREDS--THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX HOSTAGES-- + THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON 339 + + + CHAPTER XXX. + + THURSDAY 25TH--THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF + THE TROOPS--DELESCLUZE DIES--THE BRASSARDIERS STIMULATE THE + MASSACRE--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE MAIRIE OF + THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT 353 + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + + THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE--FRIDAY, FORTY-EIGHT + HOSTAGES ARE SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO--SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE + TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS INVADED--THE PÈRE LACHAISE IS + TAKEN--SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE + MORNING--MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS SURRENDERED 365 + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + + THE VERSAILLESE FURY--THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES--THE PREVOTAL + COURTS--THE DEATH OF VARLIN--THE BURIALS 382 + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + + THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS--THE ORANGERIE--THE ARRESTS--SATORY + --THE DENUNCIATORS--THE PRESS--THE LEFT INSULTS THE + VANQUISHED--DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES 395 + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + + THE PONTOONS--THE FORTS--THE PRISONS--THE FIRST TRIALS 408 + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + + THE COURTS-MARTIAL--THE EXECUTIONS--BALANCE-SHEET OF THE + CONDEMNATIONS 424 + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + + NEW CALEDONIA--EXILE--BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS VENGEANCE + --THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY 445 + + + APPENDIX 467 + + + + +HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE. + +PROLOGUE. + + "Osons, ce mot renferme toute la politique de cette + heure."--_Rapport de St. Just à la Convention._ + + HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE. + + +_August 9, 1870._--In six days the Empire has lost three battles. Douai, +Frossart, MacMahon have allowed themselves to be isolated, surprised, +crashed. Alsace is lost, the Moselle laid bare. The dumbfoundered +Ministry has convoked the Chamber. Ollivier, in dread of a +demonstration, denounces if beforehand as "Prussian." But since eleven +in the morning an immense agitated crowd occupies the Place de la +Concorde, the quays, and surrounds the Corps Législatif. + +Paris is waiting for the _mot d'ordre_ of the deputies of the Left. +Since the announcement of the defeats they have become the only moral +authority. Bourgeoisie, workingmen, all rally round them. The workshops +have turned their army into the streets, and at the head of the +different groups one sees men of tried energy. + +The Empire totters--it has now only to fall. The troops drawn up before +the Corps Législatif are greatly excited, ready to turn tail in spite of +the decorated and grumbling Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. The people cry, +"To the frontier." Officers answer aloud, "Our place is not here." + +In the Salle des Pas Perdus well-known Republicans, the men of the +clubs, who have forced their way in, roughly apostrophise the +Imperialist deputies, speak loudly of proclaiming the Republic. The +pale-faced Mamelukes steal behind the groups. M. Thiers arrives and +exclaims, "Well, then, make your republic!" When the President, +Schneider, passes to the chair, he is received with cries of +"Abdication!" + +The deputies of the Left are surrounded by delegates from without. "What +are you waiting for? We are ready. Only show yourselves under the +colonnades at the gates." The honourables seem confounded, stupefied. +"Are you numerous enough? Were it not better to put it off till +to-morrow?" There are indeed only 100,000 men ready. Some one arrives +and tells Gambetta, "There are several thousands of us at the Place +Bourbon." Another, the writer of this history, says, "Make sure of the +situation to-day, when it may still be saved. To-morrow, having become +desperate, it will be forced upon you." But these brains seem paralysed; +no word escapes these gaping mouths. + +The sitting opens. Jules Favre proposes to this base Chamber, the +abettor of our disasters, the humus of the Empire, to seize upon the +government. The Mamelukes rise up in dudgeon, and Jules Simon, hair on +end, returns to us in the Salle des Pas Perdus. "They threaten to shoot +us," he shrieks; "I descended into the midst of the hall and said, +'Well, shoot us.'" We exclaim, "Put an end to this." "Yes," says he, "we +must make an end of it,"--and he returns to the Chamber. + +And thus ended their "damnable faces." The Mamelukes, who know their +Left, recover their self-assurance, throw Ollivier overboard and form a +_coup-d'état_ Ministry. Schneider precipitately breaks up the sitting in +order to get rid of the crowd. The people, feebly repulsed by the +soldiers, repair in masses to the bridges, follow those who leave the +Chamber, expecting every moment to hear the Republic proclaimed. M. +Jules Simon, out of reach of the bayonets, makes a heroic discourse, and +convokes the people to meet the next day at the Place de la Concorde. +The next day the police occupy all the approaches. + +Thus the Left abandoned to Napoleon III. our two last armies. One effort +would have sufficed to overthrow this pasteboard Empire.[1] The people +instinctively offered their help to render the nation unto herself. The +Left repulsed them, refused to save the country by a riot, and, +confining their efforts to a ridiculous motion, left to the Mamelukes +the care of saving France. The Turks in 1876 showed more intelligence +and elasticity. + +During three weeks it was the story of the Bas-Empire all over +again,--the fettered nation sinking into the abyss in the face of its +motionless governing classes. All Europe cried, "Beware!" They alone +heard not. The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might +ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies +have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them. +The Left exhausts itself in exclamations. On the 12th M. Gambetta cries, +"We must wage Republican war"--and sits down again. On the 13th Jules +Favre demands the creation of a Committee of Defence. It is refused. He +utters no syllable. On the 20th the Ministry announces that Bazaine has +forced three army corps into the quarries of Jaumont; the next day the +whole European press related, on the contrary, that Bazaine, three times +beaten, had been thrown back upon Metz by 200,000 Germans. And no deputy +rises to interpellate the liars! Since the 26th they have known +MacMahon's insane march upon Metz, exposing the last army of France, a +mob of 80,000 conscripts, and vanquished, to 200,000 victorious Germans. +M. Thiers, again restored to favour since the disasters, demonstrates in +the committees and in the lobbies that this march is the way to utter +ruin. The extreme Left says and bruits about that all is lost and of all +these responsible persons seeing the state ship tempest-tossed, not one +raises his hand to seize the helm. + +Since 1813 France had seen no such collapse of the governing classes. +The ineffable dastardliness of the Cent-jours pales before this superior +cowardice; for here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion. Thirteen months +later, at Versailles, I hear, amidst enthusiastic applause, the Empire +apostrophised, "Varus, give us back our legions." Who speaks, who +applauds thus? The same great bourgeoisie, which, for eighteen years +mute and bowed to the dust, offered their legions to Varus. The +bourgeoisie accepted the Second Empire from fear of Socialism, even as +their fathers had submitted to the first to make an end of the +Revolution. Napoleon I. rendered the bourgeoisie two services not +overpaid by his apotheosis. He gave them an iron centralisation and sent +to their graves 15,000 wretches still kindled by the flame of the +Revolution, who at any moment might have claimed the public lands +granted to them. But he left the same bourgeoisie saddled for all +masters. When they possessed themselves of the parliamentary government, +to which Mirabeau wished to raise them at one bound, they were incapable +of governing. Their mutiny of 1830, turned into a revolution by the +people, made the belly master. The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of +1790, had but one thought--to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the +bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat. The +fortune of his country is nothing to him, so that he fatten. To lead, to +compromise France, the parliamentary king has as free license as +Bonaparte. When by a new outburst of the people the bourgeoisie are +compelled to seize the helm after three years, spite of massacre and +proscription, it slips out of their palsied hands into those of the +first comer. + +From 1851 to 1869 they relapse into the same state as after the 18th +Brumaire. Their privileges safe, they allow Napoleon III. to plunder +France, make her the vassal of Rome, dishonour her in Mexico, ruin her +finances, vulgarise debauchery. All-powerful by their retainers and +their wealth, they do not risk a man, a dollar, for the sake of +protesting. In 1869 the pressure from without raises them to the verge +of power; a little strength of will and the government is theirs. They +have but the velleity of the eunuch. At the first sign of the impotent +master they kiss the rod that smote them on the 2nd December, making +room for the plebiscite which rebaptizes the Empire. + +Bismarck prepared the war, Napoleon III. wanted it, the great +bourgeoisie looked on. They might have stopped it by an earnest gesture. +M. Thiers contented himself with a grimace. He saw in this war our +certain ruin; he knew our terrible inferiority in everything; he could +have united the Left, the _tiers-parti_, the journalists, have made +palpable to them the folly of the attack, and, supported by this +strength of opinion, have said to the Tuileries, to Paris if needs be, +"War is impossible; we shall combat it as treason." He, anxious only to +clear himself, simply demanded the despatches instead of speaking the +true word, "You have no chance of success."[2] And these great +bourgeois, who would not have risked the least part of their fortunes +without the most serious guarantees, staked 100,000 lives and the +milliards of France on the word of a Leboeuf and the equivocations of +a Grammont.[3] + +And what then is the small middle-class doing meanwhile? This lean +class, which penetrates everything--industry, commerce, the +administration--mighty by encompassing the people, so vigorous, so ready +in the first days of our Hegira, will it not, as in 1792, rise for the +common weal? Alas! it has been spoilt under the hot corruption of the +Empire. For many years it has lived at random, isolating itself from the +proletariat, whence it issued but yesterday, and whither the great +barons of Capital will hurl it back again to-morrow. No more of that +fraternity with the people, of that zeal for reform, which manifested +themselves from 1830 to 1848. With its bold initiative, its +revolutionary instinct, it loses also the consciousness of its force. +Instead of representing itself, as it might so well do, it goes about in +quest of representatives among the Liberals. + +The friend of the people who will write the history of Liberalism in +France will save us many a convulsion. Sincere Liberalism would be folly +in a country where the governing classes, refusing to concede anything, +constrain every honest man to become a revolutionist. But it was never +anything else than the Jesuitism of liberty, a trick of the bourgeoisie +to isolate the workmen. From Bailly to Jules Favre, the moderantists +have masked the manoeuvres of despotism, buried our revolutions, +conducted the great massacres of proletarians. The old clear-sighted +Parisian sections hated them more than the down right reactionists. +Twice Imperial despotism rehabilitated them, and the small middle-class, +soon forgetting their true part, accepted as defenders those who +pretended to be vanquished like themselves. The men who had made +abortive the movement of 1848 and paved the way for the 2nd December +thus became during the darkness which followed it the acclaimed +vindicators of ravished liberty. At the first dawn they appeared what +they had ever been----the enemies of the working-class. Under the +Empire the Left never condescended to concern itself with the interests +of the workmen. These Liberals never found for them a word, a +protestation, even such as the Chambers of 1830-1848 sometimes +witnessed. The young lawyers whom they had affiliated to themselves soon +revealed their designs, rallying to the Liberal Empire, some openly, +like Ollivier and Darimon, others with prudence, like Picard. For the +timid or ambitious they founded the "open Left," a bench of candidates +for public office; and in 1870 a number of Liberals indeed solicited +official functions. For the "intransigeants" there was the "closed +Left," where the irreconcilable dragons Gambetta, Crémieux, Arago, +Pelletan guarded the pure principles. The chiefs towered in the centre. +These two groups of augurs thus held every fraction of bourgeois +opposition--the timorous and the intrepid. After the plebiscite they +became the holy synod, the uncontested chiefs of the small middle-class, +more and more incapable of governing itself, and alarmed at the +Socialist movement, behind which they showed it the hand of the Emperor. +It gave them full powers, shut its eyes, and allowed itself to drift +gradually towards the parliamentary Empire, big with portfolios for its +patrons. The thunderbolt of the defeats galvanised it into life, but +only for a moment. At the bidding of the deputies to keep quiet, the +small middle-class, the mother of the 10th August, docilely bent its +head and let the foreigner plunge his sword into the very bosom of +France. + +Poor France! Who will save thee? The humble, the poor, those who for six +years contended for thee with the Empire. + +While the upper classes sell the nation for a few hours of rest, and the +Liberals seek to feather their nests under the Empire, a handful of men, +without arms, unprotected, rise up against the still all-powerful +despot. On the one hand, young men who form the bourgeoisie have gone +over to the people, faithful children of 1789, resolved to continue the +work of the Revolution; on the other hand, working-men unite for the +study and the conquest of the rights of labor. In vain the Empire +attempts to split their forces, to seduce the working-men. These see the +snare, hiss the professors of Cæsarian socialism, and from 1863, without +journals, without a tribune, affirm themselves as a class, to the great +scandal of the Liberal sycophants, maintaining that 1789 has equalized +all classes. In 1867 they descend into the streets, make a manifestation +at the tomb of Manin, and, despite the bludgeons of the sbirri, protest +against Mentana. At this appearance of a revolutionary socialist party +the Left gnashes its teeth. When some working-men, ignorant of their own +history, ask Jules Favre if the Liberal bourgeoisie will support them on +the day of their rising for the Republic, the leader of the Left +impudently answers, "Gentlemen workmen, you have made the Empire; it is +your business to unmake it." And Picard says, "Socialism does not exist, +or at any rate we will not treat with it." + +Thus set right for the future, the working-men continue the struggle +single-handed. Since the re-opening of the public meetings they fill the +halls, and, in spite of persecution and imprisonment, harass, undermine +the Empire, taking advantage of every accident to inflict a blow. On the +26th October 1869 they threaten to march on the Corps Législatif; in +November they insult the Tuileries by the election of Rochefort; in +December they goad the Government by the _Marseillaise_; in January, +1870, they go 200,000 strong to the funeral of Victor Noir, and, well +directed, would have swept away the throne. + +The Left, terrified at this multitude, which threatens to overwhelm +them, brands their leaders as desperadoes or as police agents. They, +however, keep to the fore, unmasking the Left, defying them to +discussion, keeping up at the same time a running fire on the Empire. +They form the vanguard against the plebiscite. At the war rumors they +are the first to make a stand. The old dregs of Chauvinism, stirred by +the Bonapartists, discharge their muddy waters. The Liberals remain +impassible or applaud; the workingmen stop the way. On the 15th July, at +the very same hour when Ollivier from the tribune invokes war with a +light heart, the revolutionary socialists crowd the boulevards crying, +"Vive la paix!" and singing the pacific refrain-- + + "Les peuples sont pour nous des frères + Et les tyrans des ennemis." + +From the Château d'Eau to the Boulevard St. Denis they are applauded, +but are hissed in the Boulevards Bonne Nouvelle and Montmartre, and come +to blows with certain bands shouting for war. + +The next day they meet again at the Bastille, and parade the streets, +Ranvier, a painter on porcelain, well known in Belleville, marching at +their head with a banner. In the Faubourg Montmartre the +sergents-de-ville charge them with drawn swords. + +Unable to influence the bourgeoisie, they turn to the working-men of +Germany, as they had done in 1869:--"Brothers, we protest against the +war, we who wish for peace, labour, and liberty. Brothers, do not listen +to the hirelings who seek to deceive you as to the real wishes of +France." Their noble appeal received its reward. In 1869 the students of +Berlin had answered the pacific address of the French students with +insults. The working-men of Berlin in 1870 spoke thus to the working-men +of France: "We too wish for peace, labour, and liberty. We know that on +both sides of the Rhine there are brothers with whom we are ready to die +for the Universal Republic." Great prophetic words! Let them be +inscribed on the first page of the Golden Book just opened by the +workmen. + +Thus towards the end of the Empire there was no life, no activity, save +in the ranks of the proletariat and the young men of the middle-class +who had joined them. They alone showed some political courage, and in +the midst of the general paralysis of the month of July 1870, they alone +found the energy to attempt at least the salvation of France. + +They lacked authority; they failed to carry with them the small +middle-class, for which they also combat, because of their utter want of +political experience. How could they have acquired it during eighty +years, when the ruling class not only withheld light from them, but even +the right to enlighten themselves? By an infernal Machiavelism they +forced them to grope their way in the dark, so that they might hand them +over the more easily to dreamers and sectarians. Under the Empire, when +the public meetings and journals reappeared, the political education of +the workmen had still to be effected. Many, abused by morbid minds, in +the belief that their affranchisement depended on a _coup-de-main_, gave +themselves up to whoever spoke of overthrowing the Empire. Others, +convinced that even the most thorough-going bourgeois were hostile to +Socialism, and only courted the people in furtherance of their ambitious +plans, wanted the workmen to constitute themselves into groups +independent of all tutelage. These different currents crossed each +other. The chaotic state of the party of action was laid bare in its +journal, the _Marseillaise_, a hot mish-mash of doctrinaires and +desperate writers united by hatred of the Empire, but without definite +views, and above all, without discipline. Much time was wanted to cool +down the first effervescence and get rid of the romantic rubbish which +twenty years of oppression and want of study had made fashionable. +However, the influence of the Socialists began to prevail, and no doubt +with time they would have classified their ideas, drawn up their +programme, eliminated the mere spouters, entered upon serious action. +Already, in 1869, working-men's societies, founded for mutual credit, +resistance and study, had united in a Federation, whose headquarters +were the Place de la Corderie du Temple. The International, setting +forth the most adequate idea of the revolutionary movement of our +century, under the guidance of Varlin, a bookbinder of rare +intelligence, of Duval, Theisz, Frankel, and a few devoted men, was +beginning to gain power in France. It also met at the Corderie, and +urged on the more slow and reserved workmen's societies. The public +meetings of 1870 no longer resembled the earlier ones; the people wanted +useful discussions. Men like Millière, Lefrançais, Vermorel, Longuet, +etc., seriously competed with the mere declaimers. But many years would +have been required for the development of the party of labour, hampered +by young bourgeois adventurers in search of a reputation, encumbered +with conspiracy-mongers and romantic visionaries, still ignorant of the +administrative and political mechanism of the bourgeois régime which +they attacked. + +Just before the war some discipline was attempted. Some tried to move +the deputies of the Left, and met them at Crémieux'. They found them +stupefied, more afraid of a _coup-d'état_ than of the Prussian +victories. Crémieux, pressed to act, answered naïvely, "Let us wait for +a new disaster, as, for instance, the fall of Strasbourg." + +It was indeed necessary to wait, for without these shadows nothing could +be done. The small Parisian middle-class believed in the extreme Left, +as it had believed in our armies. Those who wished to do without them +failed. On the 14th the friends of Blanqui attempted to raise the +outlying districts, attacked the quarters of the firemen of La Villette, +and put the sergents-de-ville to flight. Masters of the field, they +traversed the boulevard up to Belleville, crying, "Vive la République! +Death to the Prussians!" No one joined them. The crowd looked on from +afar, astonished, motionless, rendered suspicious by the police agents, +who thus drew them off from the real enemy--the Empire. The Left +pretended to believe in the Prussian agent, to reassure the bourgeoisie, +and Gambetta demanded the immediate trial of the prisoners of La +Villette. The Minister Palikao had to remind him that certain forms must +be observed, even by military justice. The court-martial condemned ten +to death, although almost all the accused had had nothing to do with the +affray. Some true-hearted men, wishing to prevent these executions, went +to Michelet, who wrote a touching letter on their behalf. The Empire had +no time to carry out the sentences. + +Since the 25th MacMahon was leading his army into the snares laid by +Moltke. On the 29th, surprised and beaten at Beaumont l'Argonne, he knew +himself overreached, and yet pushed forward. Palikao had written to him +on the 27th: "If you abandon Bazaine we shall have the Revolution in +Paris." And to ward off the Revolution he exposed France. On the 30th he +threw his troops into the pit of Sedan; on the 1st September the army +was surrounded by 200,000 enemies, and 700 cannons crowned the heights. +The next day Napoleon III. delivered up his sword to the King of +Prussia. The telegraph announced it; all Europe knew it that same night. +The deputies, however, were silent; they remained so on the 3rd. On the +4th only, at midnight, after Paris had passed through a day of feverish +excitement, they made up their minds to speak. Jules Favre demanded the +abolition of the Empire and a Commission charged with the defence, but +took care not to touch the Chamber. During the day some men of tried +energy had attempted to raise the boulevards, and in the evening an +anxious crowd pressed against the railings of the Corps Législatif, +crying: "Vive la République." Gambetta met them and said, "You are +wrong; we must remain united; make no revolution." Jules Favre, +surrounded on his leaving the Chamber, strove to calm the people. + +If Paris had been guided by the Left, France would have capitulated that +very hour more shamefully than Napoleon III. But on the morning of the +4th of September the people assemble, and amongst them National Guards +armed with their muskets. The astonished gendarmes give way to them. +Little by little the Corps Législatif is invaded. At ten o'clock +notwithstanding the desperate efforts of the Left, the crowd fills the +galleries. It is time. The Chamber, on the point of forming a Ministry, +try to seize the government. The Left support this combination with all +its might, waxing indignant at the mere mention of a Republic. When that +cry bursts forth from the galleries, Gambetta makes unheard-of efforts +and conjures the people to await the result of the deliberations of the +Chamber,--a result known beforehand. It is the project of M. Thiers: a +Government Commission named by the Assembly; peace demanded and accepted +at any price; after that disgrace, the parliamentary monarchy. Happily a +new crowd of invaders bursts its way through the doors, while the +occupants of the galleries glide into the hall. The people expel the +deputies. Gambetta, forced to the tribune, is obliged to announce the +abolition of the Empire. The crowd, wanting more than this, asks for the +Republic, and carries off the deputies to proclaim it at the +Hôtel-de-Ville. + +This was already in the hands of the people. In the Salle du Trône were +some of those who for a month had attempted to rouse public opinion. +First on the ground, they might, with a little discipline, have +influenced the constitution of the government. The Left surprised them +haranguing, and, incited by an acclaiming multitude, Jules Favre took +the chair, which Millière gave up to him, saying, "At the present moment +there is but one matter at stake--the expulsion of the Prussians."[4] +Jules Favre, Jules Simon, Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Crémieux, Emmanuel +Arago, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Picard, uniting, +proclaimed themselves the Government, and read their own names to the +crowd, which answered by adding those of men like Delescluze, +Ledru-Rollin, Blanqui. They, however, declared they would accept no +colleagues but the deputies of Paris. The crowd applauded. This frenzy +of just-emancipated serfs made the Left masters. They were clever enough +to admit Rochefort. + +They next applied to General Trochu, named governor of Paris by +Napoleon. This general had become the idol of the Liberals because he +had sulked a little with the Empire.[5] His whole military glory +consisted in a few pamphlets. The Left had seen much of him during the +last crisis. Having attained to power, it begged him to direct the +defence. He asked, firstly, a place for God in the new régime; secondly, +for himself the presidency of the council. He obtained everything. The +future will show what secret bond so quickly united the men of the Left +to the loyal Breton who had promised "to die on the steps of the +Tuileries in defence of the dynasty."[6] + +Twelve individuals thus took possession of France. They invoked no other +title than their mandate as representatives of Paris, and declared +themselves legitimate by popular acclamation. + +In the evening the International and syndicates of the workmen sent +delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville. They had on the same day sent a new +address to the German workingmen. Their fraternal duty fulfilled, the +French workmen gave themselves up to the defence. Let the Government +organize it and they would stay by it. The most suspicious were taken +in. On the 7th, in the first number of his paper _La Patrie en Danger_, +Blanqui and his friends offered the Government their most energetic, +their absolute co-operation. + +All Paris abandoned itself to the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville, forgetting +their late defections, investing them with the grandeur of the danger. +To seize, to monopolize the government at such a moment, seemed a stroke +of audacity of which genius alone is capable. Paris, deprived for eighty +years of her municipal liberties, accepted as mayor the lachrymose +Etienne Arago. In the twenty arrondissements he named the mayors he +liked, and they again named the adjuncts agreeable to themselves. But +Arago announced early elections and spoke of reviving the great days of +1792. At this moment Jules Favre, proud as Danton, cried to Prussia, to +Europe, "We will cede neither an inch of our territories nor a stone of +our fortresses," and Paris rapturously applauded this dictatorship +announcing itself with words so heroic. On the 14th, when Trochu held +the review of the National Guard, 250,000 men stationed in the +boulevards, the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs-Elysées cheered +enthusiastically, and renewed a vow like that of their fathers on the +morning of Valmy. + +Yes, Paris gave herself up without reserve--incurable confidence--to +that same Left to which she had been forced to do violence in order to +make her revolution. Her outburst of will lasted but for an hour. The +Empire once overthrown, she re-abdicated. In vain did far-seeing +patriots try to keep her on the alert; in vain did Blanqui write, "Paris +is no more impregnable than we were invincible. Paris, mystified by a +braggart press, ignores the greatness of the peril; Paris abuses +confidence." Paris abandoned herself to her new masters, obstinately +shutting her eyes. And yet each day brought with it new ill omens. The +shadow of the siege approached, and the Government of Defence, far from +removing the superfluous mouths, crowded the 200,000 inhabitants of the +suburbs into the town. The exterior works did not advance. Instead of +throwing all Paris into the work, and taking these descendants of the +levellers of the Champ-de-Mars out of the enceinte in troops of 100,000, +drums beating, banners flying, Trochu abandoned the earthworks to the +ordinary contractors. The heights of Châtillon, the key to our forts of +the south, had hardly been surveyed, when on the 19th the enemy +presented himself, sweeping from the plateau an affrighted troop of +zouaves and soldiers who did not wish to fight. The following day, that +Paris which the press had declared could not be invested, was surrounded +and cut off from France. + +This gross ignorance very soon alarmed the Revolutionists. They had +promised their support, but not blind faith. Since the 4th September, +wishing to centralise the forces of the party of action for the defence +and the maintenance of the Republic, they had invited the public +meetings in each arrondissement to name a Committee of Vigilance charged +to control the mayors and to delegate four members to a Central +Committee of the twenty arrondissements. This tumultuous mode of +election had resulted in a committee composed of working-men, employés, +authors, known in the revolutionary movements of the last years. This +committee had established itself in the hall of the Rue de la Corderie, +lent by the International and the Federation of the syndicates. + +These had almost suspended their work, the service of the National Guard +absorbing all their activity. Some of their members again met in the +Committee of Vigilance and in the Central Committee, which caused the +latter to be erroneously attributed to the International. On the 4th it +demanded by a manifesto the election of the municipalities, the police +to be placed in their hands, the election and control of all the +magistrates, absolute freedom of the press, public meeting and +association, the expropriation of all articles of primary necessity, +their distribution by allowance, the arming of all citizens, the sending +of commissioners to rouse the provinces. But Paris was then infected +with a fit of confidence. The bourgeois journals denounced the committee +as Prussian. The names of some of the signers were, however, well known +in the meetings and to the press: Ranvier, Millière, Longuet, Vallès, +Lefrançais, Mallon, etc. Their placards were torn down. + +On the 20th, after Jules Favre's application to Bismarck, the Committee +held a large meeting in the Alcazar and sent a deputation to the +Hôtel-de-Ville to demand war _à outrance_ and the early election of the +Commune of Paris. Jules Ferry gave his word of honour that the +government would not treat at any price, and announced the municipal +elections for the end of the month. Two days after a decree postponed +them indefinitely. + +Thus this Government, which in seventeen days had prepared nothing, +which had allowed itself to be blocked up without even a struggle, +refused the advice of Paris, and more than ever arrogated to itself the +right of directing the defence. Did it then possess the secret of +victory? Trochu had just said, "The resistance is a heroic madness;" +Picard, "We shall defend ourselves for honour's sake, but all hope is +chimerical;" the elegant Crémieux, "The Prussians will enter Paris like +a knife goes into butter;"[7] the chief of Trochu's staff, "We cannot +defend ourselves; we have decided not to defend ourselves;"[8] and, +instead of honestly warning Paris, saying, "Capitulate at once or +conduct the combat yourselves," these men, who declared defence +impossible, claimed its undivided direction. + +What then is their aim? To negotiate. Since the first defeats they have +no other. The reverses which exalted our fathers only made the Left more +cowardly than the Imperialist deputies. On the 7th of August Jules +Favre, Jules Simon, and Pelletan had said to Schneider, "We cannot hold +out; we must come to terms as soon as possible."[9] All the following +days the left had only one plan of policy--to urge the Chamber to +possess itself of the government in order to negotiate, hoping to get +into office afterwards. Hardly established, these defenders sent M. +Thiers all over Europe to beg for peace, and Jules Favre to run after +Bismarck to ask his conditions,[10]--a step that revealed to the +Prussian with what tremblers he had to deal. + +When all Paris cried to them, "Defend us; drive back the enemy," they +applauded, accepted, but said to themselves, "You shall capitulate." +There is no more crying treason in history. The asinine confidence of +the immense majority no more diminishes the crime than the foolishness +of the dupe excuses the cheater. Did the men of the 4th September, yes +or no, betray the mandate they received? "Yes," will be the verdict of +the future. + +A tacit mandate, it is true, but so clear, so formal, that all Paris +started at the news of the proceedings at Ferrières. If the Defenders +had gone a step farther, they would have been swept away. They were +obliged to adjourn, to give way to what they termed the "madness of the +siege," to simulate a defence. In point of fact, they did not abandon +their idea for an hour, esteeming themselves the only men in Paris who +had not lost their heads. + +"There shall be fighting since those Parisians will have it so, but only +with the view to soften Bismarck." On his return from the review, this +scene of hopeful enthusiasm manifested by 250,000 armed men is said to +have affected Trochu, who announced that it would perhaps be possible to +hold the ramparts.[11] Such was the maximum of his enthusiasm: to hold +out--not to open the gates. As to drilling or organising these 250,000 +men, uniting them with the 240,000 mobiles, soldiers and marines +gathered together in Paris, and with all these forces forming a powerful +scourge to drive the enemy back to the Rhine, of this he never dreamt. +His colleagues thought of it as little, and only discussed with him the +more or less cavilling they might venture upon with the Prussian +invader. + +He was all for mild proceedings. His devoutness forbade him to shed +useless blood. Since, according to all military manuals, the great town +was to fall, he would make that fall as little sanguinary as possible. +Besides, the return of M. Thiers, who might at any moment bring back the +treaty, was waited for. Leaving the enemy to establish himself +tranquilly round Paris, Trochu organised a few skirmishes for the +lookers-on. One single serious engagement took place on the 30th at +Chevilly, when, after a success, we retreated, abandoning a battery for +want of reinforcements and teams. Public opinion still hoaxed by the +same men that had cried, "A Berlin," believed in a success. The +Revolutionists only were not taken in. The capitulation of Toul and of +Strasbourg was to them a solemn warning. Flourens, chief of the 63d +battalion, but who was the real commander of Belleville, could no longer +restrain himself. With the head and heart of a child, an ardent +imagination, guided only by his own impulse, Flourens conducted his +battalions to the Hôtel-de-Ville, demanded the _levée en masse_, +sorties, municipal elections, and the putting the town on short rations. +Trochu, who, to amuse him, had given him the title of major of the +rampart, made an elaborate discourse; the twelve apostles argued with +him, and wound up by showing him out. As delegates came from all sides +to demand that Paris should have a voice in her own defence, should name +a council, her Commune, the Government declared on the 7th that their +dignity forbade them to concede these behests. This insolence caused the +movement of the 8th October. The committee of the twenty arrondissements +protested in an energetic placard. Seven or eight hundred persons cried +"Vive la Commune" under the windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville. But the +multitude had not yet lost faith. A great number of battalions hastened +to the rescue; the Government passed them in review. Jules Favre opened +the flood-gates of his rhetoric and declared the election impossible +because--unanswerable reason!--everybody ought to be at the ramparts. + +The majority greedily swallowed the bait. On the 16th Trochu having +written to his crony Etienne Arago, "I shall pursue the plan I have +traced for myself to the end," the loungers announced a victory, and +took up the burden of their August song on Bazaine, "Let him alone; he +has his plan." The agitators looked like Prussians, for Trochu, as a +good Jesuit, had not failed to speak of "a small number of men whose +culpable views serve the projects of the enemy." Then Paris allowed +herself during the whole month of October to be rocked asleep to the +sound of expeditions commencing with success and always terminated by +retreats. On the 13th we took Bagneux, and a spirited attack would have +repossessed us of Châtillon: Trochu had no reserves. On the 21st a march +on the Malmaison revealed the weakness of the investment and spread +panic even to Versailles. Instead of pressing forward, General Ducrot +engaged only six thousand men, and the enemy repulsed him, taking two +cannons. The Government transformed these repulses into successful +reconnoitres, and coined money out of the despatches of Gambetta, who, +sent to the provinces on the 8th, announced imaginary armies, and +intoxicated Paris with the account of the brilliant defence of +Châteaudun. + +The mayors encouraged this pleasant confidence. They sat at the +Hôtel-de-Ville with their adjuncts, and this Assembly of sixty-four +members could have seen clearly what the Defence was if they had had the +least courage. But it was composed of those Liberals and Republicans of +whom the Left is the last expression. They knocked at the door of the +Government now and then, timidly interrogated it, and received only +vague assurances, in which they did not believe,[12] but made every +effort to make Paris believe. + +But at the Corderie, in the clubs, in the paper of Blanqui, in the +_Réveil_ of Delescluze, in the _Combat_ of Félix Pyat, the plan of the +men of the Hôtel-de-Ville is exposed. What mean these partial sorties +which are never sustained? Why is the National Guard hardly armed, +unorganized, withheld from every military action? Why is the casting of +cannon not proceeded with? Six weeks of idle talk and inactivity cannot +leave the least doubt as to the incapacity or ill-will of the +Government. This same thought occupies all minds. Let the sceptics make +room for those that believe in the Defence; let Paris regain possession +of herself; let the Commune of 1792 be revived to again save the city +and France. Every day this resolution sinks more deeply into virile +minds. On the 27th the _Combat_, which preached the Commune in +high-flown phraseology whose musical rhythm struck the masses more than +the nervous dialectics of Blanqui, hurls a terrific thunderbolt. +"Bazaine is about to surrender Metz, to treat for peace in the name of +Napoleon III.; his aide-de-camp is at Versailles." The Hôtel-de-Ville +immediately contradicted this news, "as infamous as it is false. The +glorious soldier Bazaine has not ceased harassing the besieging army +with brilliant sorties." The Government called down upon the journalist +"the chastisement of public opinion." At this appeal the drones of Paris +buzzed, burnt the journal, and would have torn the journalist to pieces +if he had not decamped. The next day the _Combat_ declared that they had +the statement from Rochefort, to whom Flourens had communicated it. +Other complications followed. On the 20th a surprise made us masters of +Bourget, a village in the northeast of Paris, and on the 29th the +general staff announced this success as a triumph. The whole day it left +our soldiers without food, without reinforcements, under the fire of the +Prussians, who, returning on the 30th 15,000 strong, recovered the +village from its 1,600 defenders. On the 31st of October, Paris on +awaking received the news of three disasters: the loss of Bourget, the +capitulation of Metz, together with the whole army of the "glorious +Bazaine," and the arrival of M. Thiers for the purpose of negotiating an +armistice. + +The men of the 4th September believed they were saved, that their goal +was reached. They had placarded the armistice side by side with the +capitulation, "good and bad news,"[13] convinced that Paris, despairing +of victory, would accept peace with open arms. Paris started up as with +an electric shock, at the same time rousing Marseilles, Toulouse, and +Saint-Etienne. There was such spontaneity of indignation, that from +eleven o'clock, in pouring rain, the masses came to the Hôtel-de-Ville +crying "No armistice." Notwithstanding the resistance of the mobiles who +defended the entrance, they invaded the vestibule. Arago and his +adjuncts hastened thither, swore that the Government was exhausting +itself in efforts to save us. The first crowd retired; a second followed +hard upon. At twelve o'clock Trochu appeared at the foot of the +staircase, thinking to extricate himself by a harangue; cries of "Down +with Trochu" answered him. Jules Simon relieved him, and, confident in +his rhetoric, even went to the square in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville and +expatiated upon the comforts of the armistice. The people cried "No +armistice." He only succeeded in backing out by asking the crowd to name +six delegates to accompany him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Trochu, Jules +Favre, Jules Ferry, and Picard received them. Trochu in Ciceronic +periods demonstrated the uselessness of Bourget, and pretended that he +had only just learnt the capitulation of Metz. A voice cried, "You are a +liar." A deputation from the Committee of the twenty arrondissements and +of the Committees of Vigilance had entered the hall a little while +before. Others, wishing to pump Trochu, invited him to continue his +speech. He recommenced, when a shot was fired in the square, putting an +end to the monologue and scaring away the orator. Calm being +re-established, Jules Favre supplied the place of the general, and took +up the thread of his discourse. + +While these scenes were going on in the Salle du Trône, the mayors, so +long the accomplices of Trochu, were deliberating in the hall of the +municipal council. To quell the riot, they proposed the election of +municipalities, the formation of battalions of the National Guard, and +their joining them to the army. The scapegoat Etienne Aragot was sent to +offer this salve to the Government. At two o'clock an immense crowd +inundated the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, crying, "Down with Trochu! Vive +la Commune!" and carrying banners with the inscription "No armistice." +They had several times come into collision with the mobiles. The +delegates who entered the Hôtel-de-Ville brought no answer. About three +o'clock, the crowd, growing impatient, rushed forward, breaking through +the mobiles, and forcing Félix Pyat, come to the Hôtel-de-Ville as a +sight-seer, into the Salle des Maires. He exclaimed, struggled, +protested that this was against all rules. The mayors supported him as +well as they could, and announced that they had demanded the election of +the municipalities, and that the decree in that sense was about to be +signed. The multitude, still pushing forward, goes up to the Salle du +Trône, cutting short the oration of Jules Favre, who had rejoined his +colleagues in the Government-room. + +While the people were thundering at the door, the Defenders voted the +proposition of the mayors--but in principle--not fixing the date for the +elections,[14]--another jesuitical trick. Towards four o'clock the mass +penetrated into the room. Rochefort in vain promised the municipal +elections. They asked for the Commune! One of the delegates of the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements, getting upon the table, +proclaimed the abolition of the Government. A Commission was charged to +proceed with the elections within forty-eight hours. The names of +Dorian, the only Minister who had taken the defence to heart, of Louis +Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, Victor Hugo, Raspail, Delescluze, Félix Pyat, +Blanqui and Millière were received with acclamation. + +Had this Commission seized on authority, cleared the Hôtel-de-Ville, +posted up a proclamation convoking the electors with the briefest +delay, the day's work would have been beneficially concluded. But Dorian +refused. Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Ledru-Rollin, Raspail, Félix Pyat +remained silent or turned tail altogether. Flourens had time to come up. +He broke in upon the assembly with his tirailleurs of Belleville, got +upon the table round which were gathered the members of the Government, +and instead of a Commune proposed a Committee of Public Safety. Some +applauded, others protested, declaring the question was not to +substitute one kind of dictatorship for another. Flourens got the upper +hand, read the names, his own first, then those of Blanqui, Delescluze, +Millière, Ranvier, Félix Pyat, and Mottu. Interminable discussions +followed, the disorder became terrible. The men of the 4th September +felt they were saved, and smiled as they looked at the conquerors who +allowed victory to slip through their fingers. + +Thenceforth all became involved in an inextricable imbroglio. Every room +had its government, its orators. The confusion was such that about eight +o'clock reactionary National Guards could, under Flourens' nose, pick up +Trochu and Jules Ferry, while others carried off Blanqui when some +franc-tireurs tried to rescue him. In the cabinet of the mayor, Etienne +Arago and his adjuncts convoked the electors for the next day under the +presidency of Dorian and Schoelcher. Towards ten o'clock their placard +was posted up in Paris. + +The whole day Paris had looked on. "On the morning of the 31st October," +says Jules Ferry, "the Parisian population, from highest to lowest, was +absolutely hostile to us.[15] Everybody thought we deserved to be +dismissed." Not only did Trochu's battalions not stir, but one of the +best, led to the succour of the Government by General Tamisier, +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, raised the butt end of their +guns on arriving at the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. In the evening +everything changed when it became known that the members of the +Government were prisoners, and above all who were their substitutes. +The measure seemed too strong. Such a one, who might have accepted +Ledru-Rollin or Victor Hugo, could not make up his mind to Flourens and +Blanqui.[16] In vain the whole day drums had been beating to arms; in +the evening they proved effective. Battalions refractory in the morning +arrived at the Place Vendôme, most of them believing, it is true, that +the elections had been granted; an assemblage of officers at the Bourse +only consented to wait for the regular vote on the strength of Dorian +and Schoelcher's placard. Trochu and the deserters from the +Hôtel-de-Ville again found their faithful flock. The Hôtel-de-Ville, on +the other hand, was getting empty. + +Most of the battalions of the Commune, believing their cause victorious, +had returned to their quarters. In the edifice there remained hardly a +thousand unarmed men, the only troops being Flourens' unmanageable +tirailleurs, while he wandered up and down amidst this mob. Blanqui +signed and again signed. Delescluze tried to save some remnants from +this great movement. He saw Dorian, received the formal assurance that +the elections of the Commune would take place the next day, those of the +Provisional Government the day after; put these assurances upon record +in a note where the insurrectional committee declared itself willing to +wait for the elections, and had it signed by Millière, Flourens and +Blanqui. Millière and Dorian went to communicate this document to the +members of the Defence. Millière proposed to them to leave the +Hôtel-de-Ville together, while charging Dorian and Schoelcher to +proceed with the elections, but on the express condition that no +prosecutions were to take place. The members of the Defence +accepted,[17] and Millière was just saying to them, "Gentlemen, you are +free," when the National Guards asked for written engagements. The +prisoners became indignant that their word should be doubted, while +Millière and Flourens could not make the Guards understand that +signatures are illusory. During this mortal anarchy the battalions of +order grew larger, and Jules Ferry attacked the door opening on to the +Place Lobau. Delescluze and Dorian informed him of the arrangement which +they believed concluded, and induced him to wait. At three o'clock in +the morning chaos still reigned supreme. Trochu's drums were beating on +the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. A battalion of Breton mobiles debouched +in the midst of the Hôtel-de-Ville through the subterranean passage of +the Napoleon Barracks, surprised and disarmed many of the tirailleurs. +Jules Ferry invaded the Government-room. The indisciplinable mass +offered no resistance. Jules Favre and his colleagues were set free. As +the Bretons became menacing, General Tamisier reminded them of the +convention entered upon during the evening, and, as a pledge of mutual +oblivion, left the Hôtel-de-Ville between Blanqui and Flourens. Trochu +paraded the streets amidst the pompous pageantry of his battalions. + +Thus this day, which might have buoyed up the Defence, ended in smoke. +The desultoriness, the indiscipline of the patriots restored to the +Government its immaculate character of September. It took advantage of +it that very night to tear down the placards of Dorian and Schoelcher; +it accorded the municipal elections for the 5th, but in exchange +demanded a plebiscite, putting the question in the Imperialist style, +"Those who wish to maintain the Government will vote _aye_." In vain the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a manifesto; in vain the +_Réveil_, the _Patrie en Danger_, the _Combat_, enumerated the hundred +reasons which made it necessary to answer _No_. Six months after the +plebiscite which had made the war, the immense majority of Paris voted +the plebiscite that made the capitulation. Let Paris remember and accuse +herself. For fear of two or three men she opened fresh credit to this +Government which added incapacity to insolence, and said to it, "I want +you," 322,000 times. The army, the mobiles, gave 237,000 ayes. There +were but 54,000 civilians and 9,000 soldiers to say boldly, _no_. + +How did it happen that those 60,000 men, so clear-sighted, prompt, and +energetic, could not manage to direct public opinion? Simply because +they were wanting in _cadres_, in method, in organizers. The fever of +the siege had been unable to discipline the revolutionary party, in such +dire confusion a few weeks before, nor had the patriarchs of 1848 tried +to do so. The Jacobins like Delescluze and Blanqui, instead of leading +the people, lived in an exclusive circle of friends. Félix Pyat, +vibrating between just ideas and literary epilepsy, only became +practical[18] when he had to save his own skin. The others, +Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, the hope of the Republicans +under the Empire, returned from exile shallow, pursy, rotten to the core +with vanity and selfishness, without courage or patriotism, disdaining +the Socialists. The dandies of Jacobinism, who called themselves +Radicals, Floquet, Clémenceau, Brinon, and other democratic politicians, +carefully kept aloof from the working-men. The old Montagnards +themselves formed a group of their own, and never came to the Committee +of the twenty arrondissements, which only wanted method and political +experience to become a power. So it was only a centre of emotions, not +of direction,--the Gravilliers section of 1870-71, daring, eloquent, +but, like its predecessor, treating of everything by manifestoes. + +There at least was life, a lamp, not always bright, but always burning. +What is the small middle-class contributing now? Where are their +Jacobins, even their Cordeliers? At the Corderie I see the proletariat +of the small middle-class, men of the pen and orators, but where is the +bulk of the army? + +All is silent. Save the faubourgs, Paris was a vast sick chamber, where +no one dared to speak above his breath. This moral abdication is the +true psychological phenomenon of the siege, all the more extraordinary +that it co-existed with an admirable ardour for resistance. Men who +speak of going to seek death with their wives and children, who say, "We +will burn our houses rather than surrender them to the enemy,"[19] get +angry at any controversy as to the power intrusted to the men of the +Hôtel-de-Ville. If they dread the giddy-headed, the fanatics, or +compromising collaborators, why do they not take the direction of the +movement into their own hands? But they confine themselves to crying, +"No insurrection before the enemy! No fanatics!" as though capitulation +were better than an insurrection; as though the 10th of August 1792 and +31st May 1793 had not been insurrections before the enemy; as though +there were no medium between abdication and delirium. And you, citizens +of the old sections of 1792-93, who furnished ideas to the Convention +and the Commune, who dictated to them the means of safety, who directed +the clubs and fraternal societies, entertained in Paris a hundred +luminous centres, say, do you recognise your offspring in these gulls, +weaklings, jealous of the people, prostrate before the Left like +devotees before the host? + +On the 5th and 7th they renewed their plebiscitory vote, naming twelve +of the twenty mayors named by Arago, four amongst them, Dubail, +Vautrain, Tirard, and Desmarets, belonging to the pure reaction. The +greater part of the adjuncts were of the Liberal type. The faubourgs, +always at their post, elected Delescluze in the nineteenth +arrondissement and Ranvier, Millière, Lefrançais, and Flourens in the +twentieth. These latter could not take their seats. The Government, +violating the convention of Dorian and Tamisier, had issued warrants for +their arrest, and for that of about twenty other revolutionists.[20] +Thus, out of seventy-five effective members, mayors and adjuncts, there +were not ten revolutionists. + +These shadows of municipal councillors looked upon themselves as the +stewards of the Defence, forbade themselves any indiscreet question, +were on their best behaviour, feeding and administering Trochu's +patient. They allowed the insolent and incapable Ferry to be appointed +to the central mairie, and Clément-Thomas, the executioner of June 1848, +to be made commander-in-chief of the National Guard. For seventy days, +feeling the pulse of Paris growing from hour to hour more weak, they +never had the honesty, the courage to say to the Government, "Where are +you leading us?" + +Nothing was lost in the beginning of November. The army, the mobiles, +the marines numbered, according to the plebiscite, 246,000 men and 7,500 +officers: 125,000 National Guards capable of serving a campaign might +easily have been picked out in Paris, and 129,000 left for the defence +of the interior.[21] The necessary armaments might have been furnished +in a few weeks, the cannon especially, every one depriving himself of +bread in order to endow his battalion with five pieces, the traditional +pride of the Parisians. "Where find 9,000 artillerists?" said Trochu. +Why, in every Parisian mechanic there is the stuff of a gunner, as the +Commune has sufficiently proved. In everything else there was the same +superabundance. Paris swarmed with engineers, overseers, foremen, who +might have been drilled into officers. There lying wasted were all the +materials for a victorious army. + +The gouty martinets of the regular army saw here nothing but barbarism. +This Paris, for which Hoche, Marceau, Kleber would have been neither too +young, nor too faithful, nor too pure, had for generals the residue of +the Empire and Orleanism, Vinoy of December, Ducrot, Luzanne, Leflô, and +a fossil like Chabaud-Latour. In their pleasant intimacy they made much +fun of the defence.[22] Finding, however, that the joke was lasting a +little too long, the 31st October enraged them. They conceived an +implacable, rabid hatred to the National Guard, and up to the last hour +refused to utilise it. + +Instead of amalgamating the forces of Paris, of giving to all the same +_cadres_, the same uniforms, the same flag, the proud name of National +Guard, Trochu had maintained the three divisions: the army, mobiles, and +civilians. This was the natural consequence of his opinion of the +Defence. The army, incited by the staff, shared its hatred of Paris, who +imposed on it, it was said, useless fatigues. The mobiles of the +provinces, prompted by their officers, the cream of the country squires, +became also embittered. All, seeing the National Guard despised, +despised it, calling them, "_Les à outrance! Les trente sous!_" (Since +the siege the Parisians received thirty sous--1s. 2-½d.--as indemnity.) +Collisions were to be feared every day.[23] + +The 31st of October changed nothing in the real state of affairs. The +Government broke off the negotiations, which, notwithstanding their +victory, they could not have pursued without foundering, decreed the +creation of marching companies in the National Guard, and accelerated +the cannon-founding, but did not believe a whit the more in defence, +still steered towards peace. Riots formed the chief subject of their +preoccupation.[24] It was not only from the "folly of the siege" that +they wished to save Paris, but above all from the revolutionists. In +this direction they were pushed on by the great bourgeoisie. Before the +4th September the latter had declared they "would not fight if the +working-class were armed, and if it had any chance of prevailing;"[25] +and on the evening of the 4th September Jules Favre and Jules Simon had +gone to the Corps Législatif to reassure them, to explain to them that +the new tenants would not damage the house. But the irresistible force +of events had provided the proletariat with arms, and to make them +inefficient in their hands became now the supreme aim of the +bourgeoisie. For two months they had been biding their time, and the +plebiscite told them it had come. Trochu held Paris, and by the clergy +they held Trochu, all the closer that he believed himself to be amenable +only to his conscience. Strange conscience, full of trap-doors, with +more complications than those of a theatre. Since the 4th of September +the General had made it his duty to deceive Paris, saying, "I shall +surrender thee, but it is for thy good." After the 31st October he +believed his mission two-fold--saw in himself the archangel, the St. +Michael of threatened society. This marks the second period of the +defence. It may perhaps be traced to a cabinet in the Rue des Postes, +for the chiefs of the clergy saw more clearly than any one else the +danger of inuring the working-men to war. Their intrigues were full of +cunning. Violent reactionists would have spoilt all, precipitated Paris +into a revolution. They applied subtle tricks in their subterranean +work, watching Trochu's every movement, whetting his antipathy to the +National Guard, penetrating everywhere into the general staff, the +ambulances, even the mairies. Like the fisherman struggling with too big +a prey, they bewildered Paris, now apparently allowing her to swim in +her own element, than suddenly weakening her by the harpoon. On the 28th +November Trochu gave a first performance to a full-band accompaniment. +General Ducrot, who commanded, presented himself like a Leonidas: "I +take the oath before you, before the whole nation. I shall return to +Paris dead or victorious. You may see me fall; you will never see me +retreat." This proclamation exalted Paris. She fancied herself on the +eve of Jemmappes, when the Parisian volunteers scaled the +artillery-defended heights; for this time the National Guard was to take +part in the proceedings. + +We were to force an opening by the Marne in order to join the mythic +armies of the provinces, and cross the river at Nogent. Ducrot's +engineer had taken his measures badly; the bridges were not in a fit +state. It was necessary to wait till the next day. The enemy, instead of +being surprised, was able to put himself on the defensive. On the 30th a +spirited assault made us masters of Champigny. The next day Ducrot +remained inactive, while the enemy, disgarnishing Versailles, +accumulated its forces upon Champigny. On the 2nd they recovered part of +the village. The whole day we fought severely. The former deputies of +the Left were represented on the field of battle by a letter to their +"very dear president." That evening we camped in our positions, but half +frozen, the "dear president" having ordered the blankets to be left in +Paris, and we had set out--a proof that the whole thing had been done in +mockery--without tents or ambulances. The following day Ducrot declared +we must retreat, and, "before Paris, before the whole nation," this +dishonoured braggart sounded the retreat. We had 8,000 dead or wounded +out of the 100,000 men who had been sent out, and of the 50,000 engaged. + +For twenty days Trochu rested on his laurels. Clément-Thomas took +advantage of this leisure time to disband and stigmatise the tirailleurs +of Belleville, who had, however, had many dead and wounded in their +ranks. On the mere report of the commanding general at Vincennes, he +also stigmatised the 200th battalion. Flourens was arrested. On the 20th +of December these rabid purgers of our own ranks consented to take a +little notice of the Prussians. The mobiles of the Seine were launched +without cannons against the walls of Stains and to the attack of +Bourget. The enemy received them with a crushing artillery. An advantage +obtained on the right of the Ville-Evrard was not followed up. The +soldiers returned in the greatest consternation, some of them crying, +"Vive la paix!" Each new enterprise betrayed Trochu's plan, enervated +the troops, but had no effect on the courage of the National Guards +engaged. During two days on the plateau D'Ouron they sustained the fire +of sixty pieces. When there was a goodly number of dead, Trochu +discovered that the position was of no importance, and evacuated. + +These repeated foils began to wear out the credulity of Paris. From hour +to hour the sting of hunger was increasing, and horse-flesh had become a +delicacy. Dogs, cats, and rats were eagerly devoured. The women waited +for hours in the cold and mud for a starvation allowance. For bread they +got black grout, that tortured the stomach. Children died on their +mothers' empty breasts. Wood was worth its weight in gold, and the poor +had only to warm them the despatches of Gambetta, always announcing +fantastic successes.[26] At the end of December their privations began +to open the eyes of the people. Were they to give in, their arms intact? + +The mayors did not stir. Jules Favre gave them little weekly receptions, +where they gossiped about the cuisine of the siege.[27] Only one did his +duty--Delescluze. He had acquired great authority by his articles in the +_Réveil_, as free of partiality as they were severe. On the 30th +December he interpellated Jules Favre, said to his colleagues, "You are +responsible," demanded that the municipal council should be joined to +the Defence. His colleagues protested, more especially Dubail and +Vacherot. He returned to the charge on the 4th of January, laid down a +radical motion--the dismissal of Trochu and of Clément-Thomas, the +mobilisation of the National Guard, the institution of a council of +defence, the renewal of the Committee of War. No more attention was paid +him than before. + +The Committee of the twenty arrondissements supported Delescluze in +issuing a red placard on the 6th: "Has the Government which charged +itself with the national defence fulfilled its mission? No. By their +procrastination, their indecision, their inertion, those who govern us +have led us to the brink of the abyss. They have known neither how to +administer nor how to fight. We die of cold, almost of hunger. Sorties +without object, deadly struggles without results, repeated failures. The +Government has given the measure of its capacity; it is killing us. The +perpetuation of this régime means capitulation. The politics, the +strategies, the administration of the Empire continued by the men of the +4th September have been judged. Make way for the people! Make way for +the Commune!"[28] This was outspoken and true. However incapable of +action the Committee may have been, its ideas were just and precise, and +to the end of the siege it remained the indefatigable, sagacious monitor +of Paris. + +The multitude who wanted illustrious names, paid no attention to these +placards. Some of those who had signed it were arrested. Trochu, +however, felt himself attainted, and the very same evening had posted on +all the walls, "The governor of Paris will never capitulate." And Paris +again applauded, four months after the 4th September. It was even +wondered at that, in spite of Trochu's declaration, Delescluze and his +adjuncts should tender their resignations.[29] + +Nevertheless, without obstinately shutting one's eyes it was impossible +not to see the precipice to which the Government was hurrying us on. The +Prussians bombarded our houses from the forts of Issy and of Vanves, and +on the 30th December, Trochu, having declared all further action +impossible, invoked the opinion of all his generals, and wound up by +proposing that he should be replaced. On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th January +the Defenders discussed the election of an Assembly which was to follow +the catastrophe.[30] But for the irritation of the patriots, Paris would +have capitulated before the 15th. + +The faubourgs no longer called the men of the Government other than "the +band of Judas." The great democratic lamas, who had withdrawn after the +31st October, returned to the Commune, thus proving their own +helplessness and the common sense of the people. The Republican +Alliance, where Ledru-Rollin officiated before half-a-dozen +incense-bearers, the Republican Union, and other bourgeois chapels, went +so far as to very energetically demand a Parisian Assembly to organise +the defence. The Government felt it had no time to lose. If the +bourgeoisie joined the people, it would become impossible to capitulate +without a formidable _émeute_. The population which cheered under the +shells would not allow itself to be given up like a flock of sheep. It +was necessary to mortify it first, to cure it of its "infatuation," as +Jules Ferry said, to purge it of its fever. "The National Guard will +only be satisfied when 10,000 National Guards have fallen," they said at +the Government table. Urged on by Jules Favre and Picard on the one +hand, and on the other by the simple-minded Emmanuel Arago, +Garnier-Pages, and Pelletan, the quack Trochu consented to give a last +performance. + +It was gotten up as a farce[31] at the same time as the +capitulation.[32] On the 19th the Council of Defence stated that a new +defeat would be the signal of the catastrophe. Trochu was willing to +accept the mayors as coadjutors on the question of capitulation and +revictualling. Jules Simon and Garnier-Pages were willing to surrender +Paris, and only make some reserve with regard to France. Garnier-Pages +proposed to name by special elections mandatories charged to capitulate. +Such was their vigil before the battle. + +On the 18th the din of trumpets and drums called Paris to arms and put +the Prussians on the alert. For this supreme effort Trochu had been able +to muster only 84,000 men, of whom nineteen regiments belonged to the +National Guard. He made them pass the night, which was cold and rainy, +in the mud of the fields of Mont-Valérien. + +The attack was directed against the defences that covered Versailles +from the side of La Bergerie. At ten o'clock, with the impulse of old +troops,[33] the National Guards and the mobiles, who formed the majority +of the left wing and centre,[34] had stormed the redoubt of Montretout, +the park of Buzenval, a part of St. Cloud, pushing forward as far as +Garches, occupying, in one word, all the posts designated. General +Ducrot, commanding the left wing, had arrived two hours behind time, and +though his army consisted chiefly of troops of the line, he did not +advance. + +We had conquered several commanding heights which the generals did not +arm. The Prussians were allowed to sweep these crests at their ease, and +at four o'clock sent forth assault columns. Ours gave way at first, +then, steadying themselves, checked the onward movement of the enemy. +Towards six o'clock, when the hostile fire diminished, Trochu ordered a +retreat. Yet there were 40,000 reserves between Mont-Valérien and +Buzenval. Out of 150 artillery pieces, thirty only had been employed. +But the generals, who during the whole day had hardly deigned to +communicate with the National Guard, declared they could not hold out a +second night, and Trochu had Montretout and all the conquered positions +evacuated. Battalions returned weeping with rage. All understood that +the whole affair was a cruel mockery.[35] + +Paris, which had gone to sleep victorious, awoke to the sound of +Trochu's alarm-bell. The General asked for an armistice of two days to +carry off the wounded and bury the dead. He said, "We want time, carts, +and many litters." The dead and wounded did not exceed 3000 men. + +This time Paris at last saw the abyss. Besides, the Defenders, +disdaining all further disguise, suddenly dropped the mask. Jules Favre +and Trochu summoned the mayors. Trochu declared that all was lost and +any further struggle impossible.[36] The sinister news immediately +spread over the town. + +During four months' siege, patriotic Paris had foreseen, accepted all; +pestilence, assault, pillage, everything save capitulation. On this +point the 20th of January found Paris, notwithstanding her credulity, +her weakness, the same Paris as on the 20th September. Thus, when the +fatal word was uttered, the city seemed at first wonder-struck, as at +the sight of some crime monstrous, unnatural. The wounds of four months +opened again, crying for vengeance. Cold, starvation, bombardment, the +long nights in the trenches, the little children dying by thousands, +death scattered abroad in the sorties, and all to end in shame, to form +an escort for Bazaine, to become a second Metz. One fancied one could +hear the Prussian sneering. With some, stupor turned into rage. Those +who were longing for the surrender threw themselves into attitudes. The +white-livered mayors even affected to fly into a passion. On the evening +of the 21st they were again received by Trochu. That same morning all +the generals had unanimously decided that another sortie was impossible. +Trochu very philosophically demonstrated to the mayors the absolute +necessity of making advances to the enemy, but declared he would have +nothing to do with it, insinuating that they should capitulate in his +stead. They cut wry faces, protested, still imagining they were not +responsible for this issue. + +After their departure the Defenders deliberated. Jules Favre asked +Trochu to tender his resignation. But he, the apostle, insisted upon +being dismissed by them, fancying thus to cheat history into the belief +that he had to the last resisted capitulation.[37] The discussion was +growing warm when, at three o'clock in the morning, they were informed +of the rescue of Flourens and other political prisoners confined at +Mazas. A body of National Guards headed by an adjunct from the +eighteenth arrondissement had presented themselves an hour before in +front of the prison. The bewildered governor had let them have their +way. The Defenders, fearing a repetition of the 31st October, hurried on +their resolution replacing Trochu by Vinoy. + +He wanted to be implored. Jules Favre and Leflô had to show him the +people in arms, an insurrection imminent. At that very moment, the +morning of the 22nd, the prefect of police, declaring himself powerless, +had sent in his resignation. The men of the 4th September had fallen so +low as to bend their knees before those of the 2nd December. Vinoy +condescended to yield. + +His first act was to arm against Paris, to dismantle her lines before +the Prussians, to recall the troops of Suresne, Gentilly, Les Lilas, to +call out the cavalry and gendarmerie. A battalion of mobiles commanded +by Vabre, a colonel of the National Guard, fortified itself in the +Hôtel-de-Ville. Clément-Thomas issued a furious proclamation: "The +factions are joining the enemy." He adjured the "_entire_ National +Guard to rise in order to smite them." He had not called upon it to rise +against the Prussians. + +There were signs of anger afloat, but no symptoms of a serious +collision. Many revolutionists, well aware that all was at an end, would +not support a movement which, if successful, would have saved the men of +the Defence and forced the victors to capitulate in their stead. Others, +whose patriotism was not enlightened by reason, still warm from the +ardour of Buzenval, believed in a _sortie en masse_. We must at least, +said they, save our honor. The evening before, some meetings had voted +that an armed opposition should be offered to any attempt at +capitulation, and had given themselves a rendezvous before the +Hôtel-de-Ville. + +At twelve o'clock the drums beat to arms at the Batignolles. At one +o'clock several armed groups appeared in the square of the +Hôtel-de-Ville; the crowd was gathering. A deputation, led by a member +of the Alliance, was received by G. Chaudey, adjunct to the mayor, for +the Government was seated at the Louvre since the 31st October. The +orator said the wrongs of Paris necessitated the nomination of the +Commune. Chaudey answered that the Commune was nonsense; that he always +had, and always would oppose it. Another and more eager deputation +arrived. Chaudey received it with insults. Meanwhile the excitement was +spreading to the crowd that filled the square. The 101st battalion +arrived from the left bank crying "Death to the traitors!" when the +207th of the Batignolles, who had marched down the boulevards, debouched +on the square through the Rue du Temple and drew up before the +Hôtel-de-Ville, whose doors and windows were closed. Others joined them. +Some shots were fired, the windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville were clouded +with smoke, and the crowd dispersed with a cry of terror. Sheltered by +lamp-posts and some heaps of sand, some National Guards sustained the +fire of the mobiles. Others fired from the houses in the Avenue +Victoria. The fusillade had been going on for half an hour when the +gendarmes appeared at the corner of the Avenue. The insurgents, almost +surrounded, made a retreat. About a dozen were arrested and taken to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, where Vinoy wanted to despatch them at once. Jules +Ferry recoiled, and had them sent before the regular court-martials. +Those who had got up the demonstration and the inoffensive crowd of +spectators had thirty killed or wounded, among others a man of great +energy, Commandant Sapia. The Hôtel-de-Ville had only one killed and two +wounded. + +The same evening the government closed all the clubs and issued numerous +warrants. Eighty-three persons, most of them innocent,[38] were +arrested. This occasion was also taken advantage of to send Delescluze, +notwithstanding his sixty-five years, and an acute bronchitis which was +undermining his health, to rejoin the prisoners of the 31st October, +thrown pell-mell into a damp dungeon at Vincennes. The _Réveil_ and the +_Combat_ were suppressed. + +An indignant proclamation denounced the insurgents as "the partisans of +the foreigners," the only resource left the men of the 4th September in +this shameful crisis. In this only they were Jacobins. Who served the +enemy? The Government ever ready to negotiate, or the men ever offering +a desperate resistance? History will tell how at Metz an immense army, +with _cadres_, well-trained soldiers, allowed itself to be given over +without a single marshal, _chef-de-corps_, or a regiment rising to save +it from Bazaine;[39] whereas the revolutionists of Paris, without +leaders, without organization, before 240,000 soldiers and mobiles +gained over to peace, delayed the capitulation for months and revenged +it with their blood. + +The simulated indignation of traitors raised only a feeling of disgust. +Their very name, "Government of Defence," cried out against them. On the +very day of the affray they played their last farce. Jules Simon having +assembled the mayors and a dozen superior officers,[40] offered the +supreme command to the military man who could propose a plan. This +Paris, which they had received exuberant with life, the men of the 4th +September, now that they had exhausted and bled her, proposed to abandon +to others. Not one of those present resented the infamous irony. They +confined themselves to refusing this hopeless legacy. This was exactly +the thing Jules Simon waited for. Some one muttered, "We must +capitulate." It was General Lecomte. The mayors understood why they had +been convoked, and a few of them squeezed out a tear. + +From this time forth Paris existed like the patient who is expecting +amputation. The forts still thundered, the dead and the wounded were +still brought in, but Jules Favre was known to be at Versailles. On the +27th at midnight the cannon were silenced. Bismarck and Jules Favre had +come to an _honourable_ understanding.[41] Paris had surrendered. + +The next day the Government of the Defence published the basis of the +negotiations--a fortnight's armistice, the immediate convocation of an +Assembly, the occupation of the forts, the disarmament of all the +soldiers and mobiles with the exception of one division. The town +remained gloomy. These days of anguish had stunned Paris. Only a few +demonstrations were made. A battalion of the National Guard came before +the Hôtel-de-Ville crying "Down with the traitors!" In the evening, 400 +officers signed a pact of resistance, naming as their chief Brunel, an +ex-officer expelled from the army under the Empire for his republican +opinions, and resolved to march on the forts of the east, commanded by +Admiral Saisset, whom the press credited with the reputation of a +Beaurepaire. At midnight the call to arms and the alarm bell summoned +the tenth, thirteenth, and twentieth arrondissements. But the night was +icy cold, the National Guard too enervated for an act of despair. Two +or three battalions only came to the rendezvous. Brunel was arrested two +days after. + +On the 29th January the German flag was hoisted on our forts. All had +been signed the evening before. 400,000 men armed with muskets and +cannons capitulated before 200,000. The forts, the enceinte were +disarmed. Paris was to pay 200,000,000 francs in a fortnight. The +Government boasted of having preserved the arms of the National Guard, +but every one knew that to take these it would have been necessary to +storm Paris. In fine, not content with surrendering Paris, the +Government of the National Defence surrendered all France. The armistice +applied to all the armies of the provinces save Bourbaki's, the only one +that would have profited by it. + +On the following days there arrived some news from the provinces. It was +known that Bourbaki, pressed by the Prussians, had, after a comedy of +suicide, thrown his whole army into Switzerland. The aspect and the +weakness of the Delegation of the Defence in the provinces had just +begun to reveal themselves, when the _Mot d'Ordre_, founded by +Rochefort, who had abandoned the Government after the 31st October, +published a proclamation by Gambetta, stigmatizing a shameful peace, and +a whole litany of Radical decrees: ineligibility of all the great +functionaries and official deputies of the Empire; dissolution of the +_conseils-généraux_, revocation of some of the judges[42] who had formed +part of the mixed commission of the 2nd December. It was ignored that +during the whole war the Delegation had acted in contradiction to its +last decrees, which, coming from a fallen power, were a mere electoral +trick, and Gambetta's name was placed on most of the electoral lists. + +Some bourgeois papers supported Jules Favre and Picard, who had been +clever enough to make themselves looked upon as the out-and-outers of +the Government; none dared to go so far as to support Trochu, Simon and +Ferry. The variety of electoral lists set forth by the republican party +explained its impotence during the siege. The men of 1848 refused to +accept Blanqui, but admitted several members of the International in +order to usurp its name, and their list, a medley of Neo-Jacobins and +Socialists, entitled itself "the list of the Four Committees." The clubs +and the workingmen's groups drew up lists of a more outspoken character; +one bore the name of the German Socialist deputy, Liebknecht. The most +decided one was that of the Corderie. + +The International and the Federal Chamber of the workingmen's societies, +mute and disorganized during the siege, again taking up their programme, +said, "We must also have workingmen amongst those in power." They came +to an arrangement with the Committee of the twenty arrondissements, and +the three groups issued the same manifesto. "This," said they, "is the +list of the candidates presented in the name of a new world by the party +of the disinherited. France is about to reconstitute herself; workingmen +have the right to find and take their place in the new order of things. +The Socialist-revolutionary candidatures signify the denial of the right +to discuss the existence of the Republic; affirmation of the necessity +for the accession of workingmen to political power; overthrow of the +oligarchical Government and of industrial feudalism." Besides a few +names familiar to the public, Blanqui, Gambon, Garibaldi, Félix Pyat, +Ranvier, Tridon, Longuet, Lefrançais, Vallès, these Socialist candidates +were known only in the workingmen's centers--mechanics, shoemakers, +ironfounders, tailors, carpenters, cooks, cabinetmakers, carvers.[43] +Their placards were but few in number. These disinherited could not +compete with bourgeois enterprise. Their day was to come a few weeks +later, when two-thirds of them were to be elected to the Commune. Now +those only received a mandate who were accepted by the middle-class +papers, five in all: Garibaldi, Gambon, Félix Pyat, Tolain, and Malon. + +The list of representatives of the 8th February was a harlequinade, +including every republican shade and every political crotchet. Louis +Blanc, who had played the part of a goody during the siege, and who was +supported by all the committees except that of the Corderie, headed the +procession with 216,000 votes, followed by Victor Hugo, Gambetta, and +Garibaldi; Delescluze obtained 154,000 votes. Then came a motley crowd +of Jacobin fossils, radicals, officers, mayors, journalists, and +inventors. One single member of the Government slipped in, Jules Favre, +although his private life had been exposed by Millière, who was also +elected.[44] By a cruel injustice, the vigilant sentinel, the only +journalist who during the siege had always shown sagacity, Blanqui, +found only 52,000 votes, about the number of those who opposed the +plebiscite, while Félix Pyat received 145,000 for his piping in the +_Combat_.[45] + +This confused incongruous ballot affirmed at least the republican idea. +Paris, trampled upon by the Empire and the Liberals, clung to the +Republic, who gave her promise for the future. But even before her vote +has been proclaimed she heard coming forth from the provincial ballot +boxes a savage cry of reaction. Before a single one of her +representatives had left the town, she saw on the way to Bordeaux a +troop of rustics, of _Pourceaugnacs_, of sombre clericals, spectres of +1815, 1830, 1848, high and low reactionists, who, mumbling and furious, +came by the grace of universal suffrage to take possession of France. +What signified this sinister masquerade? How had this subterranean +vegetation contrived to pierce and overgrow the summit of the country? + +It was necessary that Paris and the provinces should be crushed, that +the Prussian Shylock should drain our milliards and cut his pound of +flesh, that the state of siege should for four years weigh down upon +forty-two departments, that 100,000 Frenchmen should be cut off from +life or banished from their native soil, that the black brotherhood +should conduct their processions all over France, to bring about this +great conservative machination, which from the first hour to the last +explosion, the revolutionists of Paris and of the provinces had not +ceased to denounce to our treacherous or sluggish governors. + +In the provinces the field and the tactics were not the same. The +conspiracy, instead of being carried on within the Government, +circumvented it. During the whole month of September the reactionists +hid in their lurking-places. The Government of National Defence had only +forgotten one element of defence--the provinces, seventy-six +departments. Yet they were agitating, showed life; they alone held in +check the reaction. Lyons had even understood her duty earlier than +Paris; in the morning of the 4th September she proclaimed the Republic, +hoisted the red flag, named a Committee of Public Safety.--Marseilles +and Toulouse organized regional commissions.--The Defenders understood +nothing of this patriotic zeal, thought France disjointed, and delegated +to put it right again two Liberal relics very much tainted, Crémieux and +Glais-Bizoin, together with a former governor of Cayenne, the +Bonapartist Admiral Fourichon. + +They reached Tours on the 18th. The patriots hastened thither to meet +them. In the west and south, they had already organized Leagues to +marshal the departments against the enemy and supply the want of a +central impulse. They surrounded the delegates of Paris, asking them for +a _mot-d'ordre_, vigorous measures, the sending of commissioners, and +promised their absolute co-operation. The putridities answered, "We are +_entre nous_, let us speak frankly. Well, then, we have no longer any +army; all resistance is impossible. We only hold out for the sake of +making better conditions." We ourselves witnessed the scene.[46] There +was but one cry of indignation: "What! is this your answer when +thousands of Frenchmen come to offer you their lives and fortunes?" + +On the 28th, the Lyonese broke out. Hardly four departments separated +them from the enemy, who might at any moment come to levy a contribution +on their city, and since the 4th September they had in vain demanded +arms. The municipality, elected on the 16th in place of the Committee of +Public Safety, passed its time in squabbling with the Prefect, +Challemel-Lacour, an arrogant Neo-Jacobin. On the 27th, instead of any +serious measures of defence, the council had reduced by fivepence the +pay of the workingmen employed in the fortifications, and appointed +Cluseret general _in partibus_ of an army to be created.[47] + +The Republican committees of Les Brotteaux, of La Guillotière, of La +Croix-Rousse,[48] and the Central Committee of the National Guard +decided to urge on the Hôtel-de-Ville, and laid before it on the 28th +an energetic programme of defence. The workingmen of the fortifications, +led by Saigne, supported this step by a demonstration. They filled the +Place des Terreaux, and what with speeches, what with the excitement, +invaded the Hôtel-de-Ville. Saigne proposed the nomination of a +revolutionary commission, and perceiving Cluseret, named him commander +of the National Guard. Cluseret, much concerned for his future, only +appeared on the balcony to propound his plan and recommend calm. +However, the commission being constituted, he no longer dared to resist, +but set out in search of his troops. At the door, the mayor, Hénon, and +the prefect arrested him. They had penetrated into the Hôtel-de-Ville by +the Place de la Comédie. Saigne, springing upon the balcony, announced +the news to the crowd, which, throwing itself upon the Hôtel-de-Ville, +delivered the prospective general and in turn arrested the mayor and +prefect. + +The bourgeois battalions soon arrived at the Place des Terreaux; shortly +after those of La Croix-Rousse and of La Guillotière debouched. Great +misfortune might have resulted from the first shot. They parleyed. The +commission disappeared and the general swooned. + +This was a warning. Other symptoms manifested themselves in several +towns. The prefects even presided over Leagues and met each other. At +the commencement of October, the Admiral of Cayenne had only been able +to set on foot 30,000 men, and nothing came from Tours but a decree +convoking the election for the 16th. + +On the 9th, when Gambetta alighted from his balloon, all the patriots +started. The Conservatives, who had begun to creep out of their +recesses, quickly drew back again. The ardour and the energy of his +first proclamation carried people away. Gambetta held France absolutely; +he was all-powerful. + +He disposed of the immense resources of France, of the innumerable men; +of Bourges, Brest, L'Orient, Rochefort, Toulon for arsenals; workshops +like Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons; the seas +free; incomparably greater strength than that of 1793, which had to +fight at the same time the foreigner and internal rebellions. The +centers were kindling. The municipal councils made themselves felt, the +rural districts as yet showing no signs of resistance; the national +reserve intact. The burning metal needed only moulding. + +The début of the delegate was a serious blunder. He executed the decree +of Paris for the adjournment of the elections, which promised to be +republican and bellicose. Bismarck himself had told Jules Favre that he +did not want an Assembly, because this Assembly would be for war. +Energetic circulars, some measures against the intriguers, formal +instructions to the prefects, would have brightened and victoriously +brought out this patriotic fervor. An Assembly fortified by all the +republican aspirations, vigorously led, sitting in a populous town, +would have increased the national energy a hundredfold, brought to light +unhoped-for talents, and might have exacted everything from the country, +blood and gold. It would have proclaimed the Republic, and in case of +being obliged by reverses to negotiate, would have saved her from +foundering, prevented reaction. But Gambetta's instructions were formal. +"Elections at Paris would bring back days like June," said he. "We must +do without Paris," was our answer. All was useless. Besides, several +prefects, incapable of influencing their surroundings, predicted pacific +elections. Lacking the energy to grapple with the real difficulties of +the situation, Gambetta fancied he might shift them by the claptrap +expedient of his dictatorship. + +Did he bring a great political revolution? No. His whole programme was, +"To maintain order and liberty and push on the war."[49] Crémieux had +called the Bonapartists "republicans going astray." Gambetta believed, +or pretended to believe, in the patriotism of the reactionists. A few +pontifical zouaves who offered themselves, the abject submission of the +Bonapartist generals, the wheedling of a few bishops,[50] sufficed to +delude him. He continued the tactics of his predecessors to conciliate +everybody; he spared even the functionaries. In the department of +Finance and Public Instruction, he and his colleagues forbade the +dismissal of any official. The War Office for a long time remained under +the supreme direction of a Bonapartist, and always carried on an +underhand war against the defence. Gambetta maintained in some +prefectures the same employés who had drawn up the proscription lists of +the 2nd December, 1851. With the exception of a few justices of the +peace and a small number of magistrates, nothing was changed in the +political _personnel_, the whole subordinate administration remaining +intact. + +Was he wanting in authority? His colleagues of the council did not even +dare to raise their voices; the prefects knew only him; the generals put +on the manner of school-boys in his presence. Was a _personnel_ wanting? +The Leagues contained solid elements; the small bourgeoisie and +proletariat might have given the _cadres_. + +Gambetta saw here only marplots, chaos, federalism, and roughly +dismissed their delegates. Each department possessed groups of known, +tried republicans, to whom the administration and the part of spurring +the Defence under the direction of commissioners might have been +intrusted. Gambetta refused almost everywhere to refer to them; the few +whom he appointed he knew how to fetter closely. He vested all power in +the prefects, most of them ruins of 1848, or his colleagues of the +Conférence Molé, nerveless, loquacious, timorous, anxious to have +themselves well spoken of, and many anxious to feather themselves a nest +in their department. + +The Defence in the provinces set out on these two crutches--the War +Office and the prefects. On this absurd plan of conciliation the +Government was conducted. + +Did the new delegate at least bring a powerful military conception? "No +one in the Government, neither General Trochu nor General Leflô, no one +had suggested a military operation of any kind."[51] Did he at least +possess that quick penetration which makes up for want of experience? +After twenty days in the provinces he comprehended the military +situation no better than he had done at Paris. The capitulation of Metz +drew from him indignant proclamations, but he understood no more than +his colleagues of the Hôtel-de-Ville that this was the very moment to +make a supreme effort. + +With the exception of three divisions (30,000 men) and the greater part +of their cavalry, the Germans had been obliged to employ for the +investment of Paris all their troops, and they had no reserve left them. +The three divisions at Orléans and Châteaudun were kept in check by our +forces of the Loire. The cavalry, while infesting a large extent of +territory in the west, north and east, could not hold out against +infantry. At the end of October, the army before Paris, strongly +fortified against the town, was not at all covered from the side of the +provinces. The appearance of 50,000 men, even of young troops, would +have forced the Prussians to raise the blockade. + +Moltke was far from disregarding the danger. He had decided in case of +need to raise the blockade, to sacrifice the park of artillery then +being formed at Villecoublay, to concentrate his army for action in the +open country, and only to re-establish the blockade after the victory, +that is to say, after the arrival of the army of Metz. "Everything was +ready for our decampment; we only had to team the horses," has been said +by an eye-witness, the Swiss Colonel D'Erlach. The official papers of +Berlin had already prepared public opinion for this event. + +The blockade of Paris raised, even momentarily, might have led, under +the pressure of Europe, to an honorable peace; this was almost certain. +Paris and France recovering their salutary buoyancy, the revictualling +of the great town, and the consequent prolongation of her resistance, +would have given the time necessary for the organization of the +provincial armies. + +At the end of October our army of the Loire was in progress of +formation, the 15th corps at Salbris, the 16th at Blois, already +numbering 80,000 men. If it had pushed between the Bavarians at Orléans +and the Prussians at Châteaudun; if--and this was an easy matter with +its numerical superiority--it beat the enemy one after another, the +route to Paris would have been thrown open, and the deliverance of Paris +almost sure. + +The Delegation of Tours did not see so far. It confined its efforts to +recovering Orléans, in order to establish there an entrenched camp; so +on the 26th General D'Aurelles de Paladines, named by Gambetta +commander-in-chief of the two corps, received the order to rescue the +town from the Bavarians. He was a senator, a bigoted, rabid reactionist, +at best fit only to be an officer of zouaves, fuming in his heart at the +defence. It was resolved to make the attack from Blois. Instead of +conducting the 15th corps on foot, which by Romorantin would have taken +forty-eight hours, the Delegation sent it by the Vierzon railway to +Tours, a journey which took five days and could not be hidden from the +enemy. Still, on the 28th, D'Aurelles established before Blois, disposed +of 40,000 men at least, and the next day he was to have left for +Orléans. + +On the 28th, at nine o'clock in the evening, the commander of the German +troops had him informed of the capitulation of Metz. D'Aurelles, jumping +at this pretext, telegraphed to Tours that he should adjourn his +movement. + +A general of some ability, of some good faith, would, on the contrary, +have precipitated everything. Since the German army before Metz, now +disengaged, would swoop down upon the centre of France, there was not a +day to lose to be beforehand with it. Every hour told. This was the +critical juncture of the war. + +The Delegation of Tours was as foolish as D'Aurelles. Instead of +dismissing him, it contented itself with moans, ordering him to +concentrate his forces. This concentration was terminated on the 3d +November.[52] D'Aurelles then had 70,000 men established from Mer to +Marchenoir. He might have acted, for events seconded him. That very day +a whole brigade of Prussian cavalry had been obliged to abandon Mantes +and to retreat before bands of franc-tireurs; French forces were +observed to be marching from Courville in the direction of Chartres. +D'Aurelles did not stir, and the Delegation remained as paralyzed as he. +"M. le Ministre," wrote on the 4th November the Delegate at War, M. de +Freycinet,[53] "for some days the army and myself do not know if the +Government wants peace or war. At this moment, when we are just +disposing ourselves to accomplish projects laboriously prepared, rumors +of an armistice disturb the minds of our generals, and I myself, I seek +to revive their spirits and push them on, I know not whether the next +day I shall not be disavowed by the Government." Gambetta the same day +answered: "I agree with you as to the detestable influence of the +political hesitations of the Government. From to-day we must decide on +our march forward;" and on the 7th D'Aurelles still remained motionless. +At last, on the 8th, he set out, and went about fifteen kilometers, and +in the evening again spoke of making a halt.[54] All his forces together +exceeded 100,000 men. On the 9th he made up his mind to attack at +Coulmiers. The Bavarians immediately evacuated Orléans. Far from +pursuing them, D'Aurelles announced that he was going to fortify himself +before the town. The Delegation let him do as he liked, and gave him no +orders to pursue the enemy.[55] Three days after the battle Gambetta +came to the headquarters and approved of D'Aurelles's plan. The +Bavarians during this respite had fallen back upon Toury, and two +divisions hurried from Metz by the railway arrived before Paris. Moltke +could at his ease direct the 17th Prussian division towards Toury, where +it arrived on the 12th. Three other corps of the army of Metz approached +the Seine by forced marches. The ignorance of the Delegation, the +obstruction of Trochu, the ill-will and blunders of D'Aurelles, +frustrated the only chances of raising the blockade of Paris. + +On the 19th, the army of Metz protected the blockade in the north and in +the south. Henceforth the Delegation had but one part to play--to +prepare armies for France, solid, capable of manoeuvring, and finding +for this the necessary time, as in ancient times the Romans did, and in +our days the Americans. It preferred bolstering up vain appearances, +amusing public opinion with the din of arms, imagining that they could +thus puzzle the Prussians also. It threw upon them men raised but a few +days before, without instruction, without discipline, without +instruments of war, fatally destined to defeat. The prefects charged +with the organization of the mobiles, and those on the point of being +mobilized, were in continual strife with the generals, and lost +themselves in the details of the equipments. The generals, unable to +make anything of those ill-supplied contingents, only advanced on +compulsion.[56] Gambetta on his arrival had said in his proclamation, +"We will make young chiefs," and the important commands were given to +the men of the Empire, worn out, ignorant, knowing nothing of patriotic +wars. To these young recruits, who should have been electrified by +stirring appeals, D'Aurelles preached the word of the Lord and the +interest of the service.[57] The accomplice of Bazaine, Bourbaki,[58] +on his return from England, received the command of the army of the +East. The weakness of the new Delegate encouraged the resistance of all +malcontents. Gambetta asked the officers whether they would accept +service under Garibaldi;[59] he not only allowed them to refuse, but +even released a curé who in the pulpit had set a price on the General's +head. He humbly explained to the royalist officers that the question at +issue was not to defend the Republic but the territory. He gave leave to +the pontifical zouaves to hoist the banner of the Sacred Heart. He +suffered Admiral Fourichon to contend for the disposal of the navy with +the Delegation.[60] He indignantly rejected every project for an +enforced loan, and refused to sanction those voted in some departments. +He left the railway companies masters of the transport, in the hands of +reactionists, always ready to raise difficulties. From the end of +November, these boisterous and contradictory orders, these accumulations +of impracticable decrees, these powers given and taken back, clearly +proved that only a sham resistance was meant. + +The country obeyed, giving everything with passive blindness. The +contingents were raised without difficulty; there were no refractory +recruits in rural districts, although the gendarmerie were absent with +the army; the Leagues had given way on the first remonstrance. There was +only a movement on the 31st October. The Marseilles revolutionists, +indignant at the weakness of their Municipal Council, proclaimed the +Commune. Cluseret, who from Geneva had asked the "Prussian" Gambetta for +the command of an army corps, appeared at Marseilles, got himself named +general, again backed out and retired to Switzerland, his dignity +forbidding him to serve as a simple soldier. At Toulouse, the +population expelled the general. At Saint-Etienne the Commune existed +for an hour. But everywhere a word sufficed to replace the authority in +the hands of the Delegation; such was the apprehension of everybody of +creating the slightest embarrassment. + +This abnegation only served the reactionists. The Jesuits, who resumed +their intrigues, had been reinstated by Gambetta at Marseilles, whence +the indignation of the people had expelled them. The delegate cancelled +the suspension of papers that had published letters from Chambord and +D'Aumale. He protected the judges who had formed part of the mixed +commission, released the one who had decimated the department of the +Var, and dismissed the prefect of Toulouse for having suspended the +functions of another in the Haute-Garonne. The Bonapartists mustered +again.[61] The prefect of Bordeaux, an ultra-moderate Liberal, asking +for the authorization to arrest some of their ringleaders, Gambetta +severely answered him, "These are practices of the Empire, not of the +Republic." Crémieux, too, said, "The Republic is the reign of law." + +Then the Conservative Vendée arose. Monarchists, clericals, capitalists, +waited for their time; cowering in their castles, all their strongholds +remained intact; seminaries, tribunals, general councils, which for a +long time the Delegation refused to dissolve _en masse_. They were +clever enough to figure here and there in the field of battle, in order +to preserve the appearance of patriotism. In a few weeks they had seen +through Gambetta and found out the Liberal behind the Tribune. + +Their campaign was sketched, conducted from the beginning, by the only +serious political tacticians whom France possesses--by the Jesuits, +masters of the clergy. The arrival of M. Thiers provided the apparent +chief. + +The men of the 4th September had made him their ambassador. France, +almost without diplomatists since Talleyrand, has never possessed one +more easily gulled than this little man. He had gone naïvely to London, +to Petersburg, to Italy, whose inveterate enemy he had always been, +begging for vanquished France alliances which had been refused her when +yet intact. He was trifled with everywhere. He obtained but one +interview with Bismarck, and negotiated the armistice rejected by the +31st October. When he arrived at Tours in the first days of November, he +knew that peace was impossible, and that henceforth it must be war to +the knife. Instead of courageously making the best of it, of placing his +experience at the service of the Delegation, he had but one object, to +baffle the defence. + +It could not have had a more redoubtable enemy. The success of this man, +without ideas, without principles of government, without comprehension +of progress, without courage, would have been impossible everywhere, +save with the French bourgeoisie. But he has always been at hand when a +Liberal was wanted to shoot down the people, and he is a wonderful +artist in Parliamentary intrigue. No one has known like him how to +attack, to isolate a Government, to group prejudices, hatred, and +interests, to hide his intrigues behind a mask of patriotism and common +sense. The campaign of 1870-71 will certainly be his masterpiece. He had +made up his mind as to the lion's share due to the Prussians, and took +no more notice of them than if they had recrossed the Moselle. For him +the enemy was the defender. When our poor mobiles, without _cadres_, +without military training, succumbed to a temperature as fatal as that +of 1812, M. Thiers exulted at our disasters. His house had become the +headquarters for the Conservative notabilities. At Bordeaux especially +it seemed to be the true seat of the Government. + +Before the investment the reactionary press of Paris had organized a +provincial service, and from the outset cooled down the Delegation. +After the arrival of M. Thiers it carried on a regular war. It never +ceased harassing, accusing, pointing out the slightest shortcomings, +with a view not to instruct, but to slander, and to wind up by the +foregone conclusion: Fighting is madness, disobedience legitimate. From +the middle of December this watchword, faithfully followed by all the +papers of the party, spread over the rural districts. + +For the first time country squires found their way to the ear of the +peasant. This war was about to draw off all the men who were not in the +army or in the Garde Mobile, and camps were being prepared to receive +them. The prisons of Germany held 260,000 men; Paris, the Loire, the +army of the East, more than 350,000. Thirty thousand were dead, and +thousands filled the hospitals. Since the month of August France had +given at least 700,000 men. Where are they to stop? This cry was echoed +in every cottage: "It is the Republic that wants war! Paris is in the +hands of the _levellers_." What does the French peasant know of his +fatherland, and how many could say where Alsace lies? It is he above all +whom the bourgeoisie have in view when they resist compulsory education. +For eighty years all their efforts tended to transforming into coolies +the descendants of the volunteers of 1792. + +Before long a spirit of revolt infected the mobiles, almost everywhere +commanded by reactionists of mark. Here an equerry of the Emperor, there +rabid royalists led battalions. In the army of the Loire they muttered, +"We will not fight for M. Gambetta."[62] Officers of the mobilized +troops boasted of never having exposed the lives of their men. + +In the beginning of 1871 the provinces were undermined from end to end. +Some general councils that had been dissolved met publicly, declaring +that they considered themselves elected. The Delegation followed the +progress of this enemy, cursed M. Thiers in private, but took good care +not to arrest him. The revolutionists who came to tell it the lengths +things were going were curtly shown out. Gambetta, worn out, not +believing in the defence, thought only of conciliating the men of +influence and rendering himself acceptable for the future. + +At the signal of the elections, the scenery, laboriously prepared, +appeared all of a piece, showing the Conservatives grouped, +supercilious, their lists ready. We were far now from the month of +October, when, in many departments, they had not dared to put forward +their candidates. The decrees on the ineligibility of the high +Bonapartist functionaries only affected shadows. The coalition, +disdaining the broken-down men of the Empire, had carefully formed a +_personnel_ of pigtailed nobles, well-to-do farmers, captains of +industry, men likely to do the work bluntly. The clergy had skilfully +united on their lists the Legitimists and Orleanists, perhaps laid down +the basis for a fusion. The vote was carried like a plebiscite. The +republicans tried to speak of an honorable peace; the peasants would +only hear of peace at any price. The towns knew hardly how to make a +stand; at the utmost elected Liberals. Out of 750 members, the Assembly +counted 450 born monarchists. The apparent chief of the campaign, the +king of Liberals, M. Thiers, was returned in twenty-three departments. + +The conciliator _à outrance_ could rival Trochu. The one had worried out +Paris, the other the Republic. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The prefect of police, Pietri, attests it: "It is certain that on +that day the revolution might have succeeded, for the crowd which +surrounded the Corps Législatif on the 9th August was composed of +elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th September."-- +_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 258. + +[2] Let it be understood that I proceed, the words of our adversaries in +hand--parliamentary inquiries, memoirs, reports, histories; that I do +not attribute to them an act or a word which has not been avowed by +them, their documents, or their friends. When I say M. Thiers _saw_, M. +Thiers _knew_, it is that M. Thiers has said, _I saw_, page 6, _I knew_, +page 11, vol. i. of the _Enquête sur les Actes du Gouvernement de la +Defense Nationale_. It will be the same with all the acts and words of +all the official or adverse personages that I quote. + +[3] See the evidence of the Marquis de Talhouet, reporter of the +Commission charged to verify the famous despatch which precipitated the +vote for war. _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 121-124. + +[4] _Compte-rendu du 31 Octobre_, by Millière. + +[5] Which did not, however, prevent his accepting a secret mission +during the Crimean war. He was commissioned by Napoleon III. to propose +to the English to betray Turkey by limiting the war to the defence of +Constantinople. + +[6] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Brame, vol. i. p. 201. + +[7] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. ii. p. 194. + +[8] Ibid., p. 313. + +[9] Ibid., Jules Favre, vol. i. p. 330. + +[10] In his official report, Jules Favre, to clear the Government, did +not neglect to assume the responsibility of this mission, which he said +he had undertaken without the knowledge of his colleagues. + +[11] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Garnier-Pages, vol. i. p. 445. + +[12] "Constantly in relations with the anxious population, which +urgently asked what was going on, what the Government thought, what it +was doing, we were obliged to screen it; to say that it was acting for +the best; that it had given itself up entirely to the defence; that the +chiefs of the army were most devoted and working with ardour.... We said +this without knowing, without believing it. We knew nothing."--_Enquête +sur le 4 Septembre_, Corbon, vol. i. p. 375. + +[13] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Ferry. He even calls the +armistice a "compensation." + +[14] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 432. + +[15] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 395. The deposition of +this imbecile, always equally naïve, is all the more conclusive. + +[16] "We were able to unite 40,000 men by telling the National Guards +that Blanqui and Flourens occupied the Hôtel-de-Ville. These two names +did not fail to produce their usual effect."--_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, +ed. Adam, vol. ii. p. 157. "If the name of Blanqui had not been +pronounced, the new elections announced by the placard of Dorian and +Schoelcher would have taken place the next day."--_Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre_, Jules Ferry, vol. i. p. 396-431. + +[17] See the affirmation of Dorian. _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. +i. p. 527-528. + +[18] He offered a musket of honour to any one who would kill the King of +Prussia, and patronised a Greek-fire that was to roast the German army. + +[19] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 42. + +[20] Even Félix Pyat was arrested. He managed to get out of prison +through a jest, writing to Emmanuel Arago: "What a pity that I should be +your prisoner; you might have been my advocate." He was set free. + +[21] The Minister of War, Leflô, who naturally undervalues everything, +says, "This left us, while assuring the operations of the siege against +the Prussians, a disposable force of 230,000 to 240,000 men." + +[22] Appendix I. + +[23] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Cresson, vol. ii. p. 135. + +[24] Jules Simon, _Souvenirs du 4 Septembre_. His textual expressions. + +[25] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 43. + +[26] After the disaster of Orleans, which cut in two our army, he wrote: +"The army of the Loire is far from being annihilated; it is separated +into two armies of equal force." + +[27] They avoided drawing up minutes to prevent even the appearance of +being a municipality (_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Ferry, vol. i. +p. 406). A dozen of these brave ones met with a few adjuncts at the +mairie of the third arrondissement. They confined their whole efforts to +seeking some one to replace Trochu. One of them, M. Corbon, has said +(_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 613): "However displeased they +might have been at the manner affairs were conducted by the Defence, +they would not for the world overthrow or weaken the Government." + +[28] This placard was drawn up by Tridon and Vallès. + +[29] "See," said they, "what a terrible responsibility we should incur +if we consented any longer to remain the passive instruments of a policy +condemned by the interests of France and of the Republic." + +[30] See the Minutes of the Government of the Defence, evidently +arranged for the best by M. Dréo, the son-in-law of Garnier-Pages. + +[31] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Ducrot, vol. iii. p. xx. + +[32] See the Minutes of the Government of Defence. + +[33] Who bears witness to the bravery of the National Guard? Superior +officers themselves. See in the _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, the +depositions of General Leflô, Vice-Admiral Pothuan, Colonel Lambert, and +Trochu, speaking from the tribune: "If I did not fear to appear +intrusive, I could show that up to the close of the day the +inexperienced National Guards took and retook with the energy of old +troops, under terrific fire, the heights that had been abandoned. It was +necessary to hold them at any price in order to effect the retreat of +the troops engaged in the centre. I had told them so, and they +sacrificed themselves without hesitation." + +[34] Vinoy's corps, which took Montretout, had five regiments and one +battalion of infantry, nineteen battalions of mobiles, five regiments of +National Guards. That of General Bellemare, which took Buzenval, had +five regiments of line, seventeen battalions of mobiles, eight regiments +of National Guards. + +[35] "We shall give the National Guard a little peppering (_ecrabouiller +un peu la garde nationale_) since they wish it," said a colonel of +infantry, much annoyed at this affair. _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, +Colonel Chaper, vol. ii. p. 281. + +[36] He told them by way of consolation that "from the evening of the +4th September he had declared that it would be madness to attempt +sustaining a siege by the Prussian army."--_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, +Corbon, vol. iv. p. 889. + +[37] He has pronounced these words of perfect Jesuitism: "To yield to +hunger is to die, not to capitulate."--_Jules Simon, Souvenirs du 4 +Septembre_, p. 299. + +[38] Deposition of General Soumairs, _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. +ii. p. 215. + +[39] What disgrace! 175,000 men pretending that they had been sold by a +single one! In the Seven Years' War, in Westphalia, at Minden, when +General Morangies prepared to capitulate, 1500 men, roused by a +corporal, refused to surrender, forced their way, and rejoined the army +of the Count of Clermont. + +[40] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Arnaud de l'Ariège, vol. ii. p. +320-321. + +[41] "I return from Versailles. I have come to terms with M. de +Bismarck, and it has been agreed upon between us as a matter of honour +the firing should cease."--Order sent by Jules Favre on the 27th, seven +o'clock evening. Vinoy, _L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 67. + +[42] The decree sacrificed fifteen and spared twenty-four. + +[43] _A. Arnaud_, _Avrial_, _Beslay_, _Blanqui_, _Demay_, _Dereure_, +Dupas, E. Dupont, _J. Durand_, _E. Duval_, _Eudes_, Flotte, _Frankel_, +_Gambon_, _Goupil_, Granger, Humbert, Jaclard, Jarnigon, Lacambre, +Lacord, _Langevin_, _Lefrançais_, Leverdays, _Longuet_, Macdonnell, +_Malon_, _Meillet_, Minet, _Oudet_, _Pindy_, _F. Pyat_, _Ranvier_, Rey, +Rouillier, _Serraillier_, _Theisz_, Tolain, _Tridon_, _Vaillant_, +_Vallès_, _Varlin_. The names of those who were elected members of the +Commune are in italics. + +[44] In the _Vengeur_, which had taken the place of the _Combat_, he +proved, documents in hand, that for years Jules Favre had been guilty of +forgery, bigamy, and falsification of papers of legitimation. + +[45] After the five returned, sixteen candidates of La Corderie obtained +from 65,000 votes to 22,000 votes; Tridon 65,707, Duval 22,499. + +[46] Which, besides, has been recounted by Marc Dufraisse in the +_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. iv. p. 428. + +[47] Cluseret, an ex-officer, decorated in 1848 for his spirited +conduct. "I unfortunately displayed too much energy in that disastrous +battle," he wrote in _Fraser's Magazine_ of March 1878. Attached to the +Arabian Bureaux, he threw up his commission after the Crimean war, and +not being able to play a part in Europe, engaged in the American civil +war for a short time, then withdrew to New York, where he campaigned +with his pen. Misunderstood by the bourgeoisie of the two worlds, he +again took to politics, but from the opposite side; offered himself to +the Irish insurgents; landed in Ireland urging them to rise, and one +fine night abandoned them. The nascent International also saw this +powerful general come and offer his services. He did a good deal in the +way of pamphleteering; tried to impress upon the workmen that he was the +sword and buckler of Socialism. "We or nothing," said he to the sons of +the massacred of June. The Government of the 4th September having also +failed to appreciate his genius, he called Gambetta _Prussian_, and got +himself sent as delegate to Lyons by the Corderie, where Varlin, whom he +deceived for a long time, had introduced him. He offered the Lyons +council to organise an army of volunteers which was to operate on the +flank of the enemy. + +[48] The working-men's quarters of Lyons. + +[49] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 560. + +[50] The Jew Crémieux lived with the Ultramontane Archbishop Guibert +(since made Archbishop of Paris) in his episcopal palace at Tours, +dining every day at his table, and in return rendering him all the +little services asked for by the clergy. + +[51] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 561. + +[52] D'Aurelles de Paladines, _La Première Armée de la Loire_, p. 93. + +[53] De Freycinet, _La Guerre en Province_, p. 86, 87. + +[54] Ibid., p. 91. + +[55] On the 11th, the delegate telegraphed to D'Aurelles: "We fully +approve of the dispositions you had taken for your troops round +Orléans.... You will receive instructions. In the meantime redouble your +vigilance in prevision of a return to the offensive on the part of the +enemy."--_D'Aurelles de Paladines_, _La Première Armée de la Loire_, p. +120. Thus, far from speaking of attacking, the Delegation only thought +of the defensive. + +[56] "It was only when they could not help it that they made up their +minds to act," Gambetta has said in the _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_. +The avowal is precious, coming from him. + +[57] It is most amusing to hear D'Aurelles chaffing Trochu without +perceiving that he is just as ridiculous. In his evidence (_Enquête sur +le 4 Septembre_, vol. iii. p. 201) he says: "I did not deposit either a +plan or a testament at a lawyer's; I confined myself to writing to the +Bishop of Orléans: Monsignor, the army of the Loire to-day sets out on +its march to meet the army of General Ducrot. Pray, Monsignor, for the +salvation of France." + +[58] And what other name is merited by the general who abandoned his +post in the field to go and negotiate with the sovereign whom France had +expelled? + +[59] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Rolland, vol. iii. p. 456. + +[60] Ibid., Dalloz, vol. iv. p. 398. + +[61] If General Boyer, who saw the letter, is to be believed, the +Delegation of Tours on the 24th October made officious advances to the +Empress, and then gave the order to the chargé-d'affaires at London to +go and thank her for the patriotism that she had shown in refusing to +treat with Bismarck, who trifled with her as well as with Bazaine. See +_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. iv. p. 258. + +[62] _Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, Admiral Jaureguiberry, vol. iii. p. +297. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Le chef du pouvoir exécutif, pas plus que l'Assemblée + Nationale, s'appuyant l'un sur l'autre et se fortifiant + l'un par l'autre, n'avaient en aucune manière provoqué + l'insurrection parisienne."--_Discours de M. Dufaure contre + l'Amnistie_, _Séance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS--THE BATTALIONS + OF THE NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR + CANNON--THE PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS. + + +The invasion has brought back the "Chambre introuvable" of 1816. After +having dreamt of a regenerated France soaring towards the light, to feel +oneself hurled back half a century, under the yoke of the Jesuits of the +Congregation, of the brutal rurals! There were men who lost heart. Many +spoke of expatriating themselves. The thoughtless said, "The Chamber +will only last a day, since it has no mandate but to decide on peace and +war." Those, however, who had watched the progress of the conspiracy and +the leading part taken in it by the clergy, knew beforehand that these +men would not allow France to escape their clutches before they crushed +her. + +Men just escaped from famine-stricken but glowing Paris found on their +arrival at Bordeaux the Coblentz of the first emigration, but this time +invested with the power to glut rancors that had been accumulating for +forty years. Clericals and Conservatives were for the first time +allowed, without the interference of either emperor or king, to trample +to their hearts' content on Paris, the atheist, the revolutionist, who +had so often shaken off their yoke and baffled their schemes. At the +first sitting their choler burst out. At the farther end of the hall, +sitting alone on his bench, shunned by all, an old man rose and asked to +address the Assembly. Under his cloak glared a red shirt. It was +Garibaldi. At the call of his name, he wished to answer, to say in a few +words that he resigned the mandate with which Paris had honored him. His +voice was drowned in howls. He remained standing, raising his hand, but +the insults redoubled. The chastisement, however, was at hand. "Rural +majority! disgrace of France!" cried from the gallery a young vibrating +voice, that of Gaston Crémieux, of Marseilles. The deputies rose +threatening. Hundreds of "Bravos" answered from the galleries, +overwhelming the rurals. After the sitting the crowd cheered Garibaldi +and hooted his insulters. The National Guard presented arms, despite the +rage of M. Thiers, who under the peristyle apostrophized the commanding +officer. The next day the people returned, forming lines in front of the +theatre, and forced the reactionist deputies to undergo their republican +cheers. But they knew their strength, and from the beginning of the +sittings opened their attack. One of the rurals, pointing to the +representatives of Paris, cried, "They are stained with the blood of +civil war!" And when one of these representatives cried, "Vive la +République!" the majority hooted him, saying, "You are only a fraction +of the country." On the next day the Chamber was surrounded by troops, +who kept off the republicans. + +At the same time the Conservative papers united in their hissings +against Paris, denying even her sufferings. The National Guard, they +said, had fled before the Prussians; its only exploits had been the 31st +October and 22nd January. These calumnies fructified in the provinces, +long since prepared to receive them. Such was their ignorance of the +siege, that they had named some of them several times--Trochu, Ducrot, +Ferry, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Emmanuel Arago--to whom Paris had +refused a single vote. + +It was the duty of the Parisian representatives to clear up this +darkness, to recount the siege, to denounce the men responsible for the +failure of the defence, to explain the significance of the Parisian +vote, to unfurl the flag of republican France against the +clerico-monarchical coalition. They remained silent, contenting +themselves with puerile party meetings, from which Delescluze turned +away as heart-broken as from the Assembly of the Paris mayors. Our +Epimenides of 1848 answered with stereotyped humanitarian phrases the +clashing of arms of the enemy, who all the while affirmed his programme: +to patch up a peace, to bury the Republic, and for that purpose to +checkmate Paris. Thiers was named chief of the executive power with +general acclamation, and chose for his Ministers Jules Favre, Jules +Simon, Picard and Leflô, who might still pass muster with the provincial +republicans. + +These elections, these menaces, these insults to Garibaldi, to the Paris +representatives; Thiers, the incarnation of the Parliamentary monarchy, +first magistrate of the Republic, blow after blow was struck at Paris, a +feverish, hardly revictualled Paris, hungering still more for liberty +than bread. This then was the reward for five months of suffering and +endurance. These provinces, which Paris had invoked in vain during the +whole siege, dared now to brand her with cowardice, to throw her back +from Bismarck to Chambord. Well, then, Paris was resolved to defend +herself even against France. The new imminent danger, the hard +experience of the siege, had exalted her energy and endued the great +town with one collective soul. + +Already, towards the end of January, some republicans, and also some +bourgeois intriguers in search of a mandate, had tried to group the +National Guards with a view to the elections. A large meeting, presided +over by Courty, a merchant of the third arrondissement, had been held in +the Cirque. They had there drawn up a list, decided to meet again to +deliberate in case of double electoral returns, and had named a +committee charged to convoke all the companies regularly. This second +meeting was held on the 15th in the Vauxhall Douané Street. But who then +thought of the elections? One single thought prevailed: the union of all +Parisian forces against the triumphant rurals. The National Guard +represented all the manhood of Paris. The clear, simple, essentially +French idea of confederating the battalions had long been in every mind. +It was received with acclamation and resolved that the confederate +battalions should be grouped round a Central Committee. + +A commission during the same sitting was charged to elaborate the +statutes. Each arrondissement represented--eighteen out of twenty--named +a commissary. Who were these men? The agitators, the revolutionists of +La Corderie, the Socialists? No; there was not a known name amongst +them. All those elected were men of the middle classes, shopkeepers, +employés, strangers to the coteries, till now for the most part +strangers even to politics.[63] Courty, the president, was known only +since the meeting at the Cirque. From the first day the idea of the +federation appeared what it was--universal, not sectarian, and therefore +powerful. The next day, Clément-Thomas declared to the Government that +he could no longer be answerable for the National Guard, and sent in his +resignation. He was provisionally replaced by Vinoy. + +On the 24th, in the Vauxhall, before 2,000 delegates and guards, the +commission read the statutes it had drawn up, and pressed the delegates +to proceed immediately to the election of the Central Committee. The +Assembly was tempestuous, disquiet, little inclined for calm +deliberations. Each of the last eight days had brought with it more +insulting menaces from Bordeaux. They were going, it was said, to disarm +the battalions, suppress the thirty sous, the only resource of the +workingmen, and exact at once the owing house-rents and overdue +commercial bills. Besides, the armistice, prolonged for a week, was to +expire on the 26th, and the papers announced that the Prussians would +enter Paris on the 27th. For a week this nightmare had weighed on all +the patriots. The meeting, too, proceeded at once to consider these +burning questions. Varlin proposed: The National Guard only recognizes +the chiefs elected by itself. Another: The National Guard protests +through the Central Committee against any attempt at disarmament, and +declares that in case of need it will offer armed resistance. Both +propositions were voted unanimously. And now, was Paris to submit to the +entry of the Prussians, to let them parade her boulevards? It could not +even be discussed. The whole assembly, springing up over-excited, raised +one cry of war. Some warnings of prudence are disdained. Yes, they would +oppose their arms to the entry of the Prussians. The proposition would +be submitted by the delegates to their respective companies. And +adjourning to the 3rd March, the meeting broke up its sitting and +marched _en masse_ to the Bastille, carrying along with it a great +number of soldiers and mobiles. + +Since the morning, Paris, fearing the loss of her liberty, had gathered +round her revolutionary column, as she had before crowded round the +statue of Strasbourg when trembling for France. The battalions defiled, +headed by drums and flags, covering the rails and pedestal with crowns +of immortelles. From time to time a delegate ascended the plinth, and +from this tribune of bronze harangued the people, who answered with +cries of "Vive la République!" Suddenly a red flag was carried through +the crowd into the monument, reappearing soon after at the balustrade. A +formidable cry saluted it, followed by a long silence. A man, climbing +the cupola, had the daring to go and fix it in the hand of the statue of +Liberty surmounting the column. Thus, amidst the frantic cheering of the +people, for the first time since 1848, the flag of equality overshadowed +this spot, redder than its flag by the blood of a thousand martyrs. + +The following day the pilgrimages were continued, not only by National +Guards, but by the soldiers and mobiles. The army gave way to the +inspiration of Paris. The mobiles arrived preceded by their +quartermasters carrying large black crowns; the trumpeters, posted at +each corner of the pedestal, saluted them, and the crowd cheered them to +the echo. Women dressed in black suspended a tricolor flag bearing the +inscription, "The republican women to the martyrs." When the pedestal +was covered, the crowns and flowers soon wound themselves entirely round +the bust, encircling it from top to bottom with yellow and black +flowers, red and tricolor oriflammes, symbols of mourning for the past +and hope in the future. + +On the 26th the manifestations became innumerable and irritated. A +police agent, surprised taking down the names of the battalions, was +seized and thrown into the Seine. Twenty-five battalions defiled, +sombre, a prey to a terrible anguish. The armistice was about to expire +and the _Journal Officiel_ did not speak of a prorogation. The journals +announced the entry of the German army by the Champs-Elysées for the +next day. The Government was sending the troops to the left bank of the +Seine and clearing out the Palace de l'Industrie. They forgot only the +cannons of the National Guards accumulated at the Place Wagram and at +Passy. Already the carelessness of the capitulards had delivered 12,000 +more muskets to the Prussians than were stipulated for.[64] Who could +tell if the latter would not stretch out their hands to these fine +pieces, cast with the flesh and blood of the Parisians, marked with the +numbers of the battalions?[65] Spontaneously all Paris rose. The +bourgeois battalions of Passy, in accord with the municipality,[66] set +the example, drawing the pieces of the Ranelagh to the Parc +Monceaux.[67] Other battalions came to fetch their cannon in the Park +Wagram, wheeling them by the Rues St. Honoré and Rivoli to the Place +des Vosges, under the protection of the Bastille. + +During the day the troop sent by Vinoy to the Bastille had fraternized +with the people. In the evening, the rappel, the tocsin, the trumpets +had thrown thousands of armed men into the streets, who came to mass +themselves at the Bastille, the Château d'Eau, and the Rue de Rivoli. +The prison of St. Pélagie was forced and Brunel set free. At two o'clock +in the morning, forty thousand men remounted the Champs-Elysées and the +Avenue de la Grande Armée, silent, in good order, to encounter the +Prussians. They waited till daybreak. On their return, the battalions of +Montmartre seized all the cannon they found on their way, and took them +to the mairie of the eighteenth arrondissement and to the Boulevard +Ornano. + +To this feverish but chivalrous outburst Vinoy could only oppose an +order of the day stigmatizing it. And this Government, that insulted +Paris, asked her to immolate herself for France! A placard posted up on +the morning of the 27th announced the prolongation of the armistice, and +for the 1st of March the occupation of the Champs-Elysées by 30,000 +Germans. + +At two o'clock the commission charged to draw up the statutes for a +Central Committee held a sitting at the mairie of the third +arrondissement. Some of its members since the evening before, +considering themselves invested with powers by the situation, had tried +to organize a permanent sub-committee in this mairie; but not being +numerous enough, they had adjourned until the next day and consulted the +chiefs of the battalions. The sitting, presided over by Captain +Bergeret, was stormy. The delegates of the battalion of Montmartre, who +had established a committee of their own in the Rue des Rosiers, would +speak only of fighting, showed their _mandats impératifs_, and recalled +the resolution of the Vauxhall. It was almost unanimously resolved to +take up arms against the Prussians. The mayor, Bonvalet, rather uneasy +at having such guests, had the mairie surrounded, and, half by +persuasion, half by force, succeeded in getting rid of them. + +During the whole day the faubourgs had armed and seized the munitions; +the rampart pieces were remounted on their carriages; the mobiles, +forgetting that they were prisoners of war, went to retake their arms. +In the evening one crowd inveigled the marines of La Pepinière Barracks, +and led them to the Bastille to fraternize with the people. + +A catastrophe was inevitable but for the courage of a few men who dared +to oppose this dangerous current. All the societies that met at the +Place de la Corderie, the Central Committee of the twenty +arrondissements, the International, and the Federation, looked with +reserve upon this Central Committee, composed of unknown men, who had +never taken part in the revolutionary campaigns. On leaving the mairie +of the third arrondissement, some delegates of battalions who belonged +to the sections of the International came to the Corderie to tell of the +sitting and the desperate resolution come to. Every exertion was made to +pacify them, and speakers were sent to the Vauxhall, where a large +meeting was being held; they succeeded in making themselves heard. Many +other citizens made great efforts to recall the people to reason. The +next morning, the 28th, the three groups of the Corderie published a +manifesto conjuring the workingmen to beware. "Every attack," said they, +"would serve to expose the people to the blows of the enemies of the +Revolution, who would drown all social vindications in a sea of blood." +Pressed on all sides, the Central Committee was obliged to yield, as it +announced in a proclamation signed by twenty-nine names. "Every +aggression would result in the immediate overthrow of the Republic. +Barricades will be established all round the quarters to be occupied by +the enemy, so he will parade in a camp shut out from our town." This was +the first official appearance of the Central Committee. The twenty-nine +unknown men[68] capable of thus pacifying the National Guard were +applauded even by the bourgeoisie, who did not seem to wonder at their +power. + +The Prussians entered Paris on the 1st March. This Paris which the +people had taken possession of was no longer the Paris of the nobles and +the great bourgeoisie of 1815. Black flags hung from the houses, but the +deserted streets, the closed shops, the dried-up fountains, the veiled +statues of the Place de la Concorde, the gas not lighted at night, still +more pregnantly announced a town in its agony. Prostitutes who ventured +into the quarters of the enemy were publicly whipped. A café in the +Champs-Elysées which had opened its doors to the victors was ransacked. +There was but one _grand seigneur_ in the Faubourg St. Germain to offer +his house to the Prussians. + +Paris was still wincing under this affront, when a new avalanche of +insults poured down upon her from Bordeaux. Not only had the Assembly +not found a word or act to help her in this painful crisis, but its +papers, the _Journal Officiel_ at their head, were indignant that she +should have thought of defending herself against the Prussians. A +proposition was being signed in the bureaux to fix the seat of the +Assembly outside of Paris. The projected law on overdue bills and +house-rents opened the prospect of numberless failures. Peace had been +accepted, hurriedly voted like an ordinary business. Alsace, the greater +part of Lorraine, 1,600,000 Frenchmen torn from their fatherland, five +milliards to pay, the forts to the east of Paris to be occupied till the +payment of the first 500,000,000 francs, and the departments of the East +till the entire payment; this was what Trochu, Favre, and the coalition +cost us, the price for which Bismarck permitted us the _Chambre +introuvable_. And to console Paris for so much disgrace, M. Thiers +appointed as General of the National Guard the incapable and brutal +commander of the first army of the Loire, D'Aurelles de Paladines. Two +senators, Vinoy and D'Aurelles, two Bonapartists, at the head of +Republican Paris--this was too much. All Paris had the presentiment of a +_coup-d'état_.[69] + +That evening there were large groups gathered in the boulevards. The +National Guards, refusing to acknowledge D'Aurelles as their commander, +proposed the appointment of Garibaldi. On the 3rd two hundred battalions +sent their delegates to Vauxhall. Matters began with the reading of the +statutes. The preamble declared the Republic "the only Government by law +and justice superior to universal suffrage, which is its offspring." +"The delegates," said Article 6, "must prevent every attempt whose +object would be the overthrow of the Republic." The Central Committee +was composed of three delegates for each arrondissement, elected by the +companies, battalions, legions and of the _chefs-de-légion_.[70] While +awaiting the regular election, the meeting there and then named a +provisional executive committee. Varlin, Pindy, Jacques Durand, and some +other Socialists of the Corderie formed part of it, an understanding +having been come to between the Central Committee, or rather the +commission which had drawn up the statutes, and the three groups of the +Corderie. Varlin carried a unanimous vote on the immediate re-election +of the officers of the National Guard. Another motion was put: "That the +department of the Seine constitute itself an independent republic in +case of the Assembly attempting to decapitalize Paris,"--a motion +unsound in its conception, faultily drawn up, which seemed to isolate +Paris from the rest of France--an anti-revolutionist, anti-Parisian +idea, cruelly exploited against the Commune. Who then was to feed Paris +if not the provinces? Who was to save our peasants if not Paris? But +Paris had been confined to solitary life for six months; she alone to +the last moment had declared for the continuation of the struggle at +any price, alone affirmed the Republic by a vote. Her abandonment, the +vote of the provinces, the rural majority, made so many men ready to die +for the universal republic fancy that the Republic might be shut up +within Paris. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[63] 3rd arrondissement, A. Genotal; 4th, Alavoine; 5th, Manet; 6th, V. +Frontier; 7th, Badois; 8th, Morterol?; 9th, Mayer; 10th, Arnold; 11th, +Piconel; 12th, Audoynaud; 13th, Soncial; 14th, Dacosta; 15th, Masson; +16th, Pé; 17th, Weber; 18th, Trouillet; 19th, Lagarde; 20th, A. Bonit. +Courty remained president, Ramel secretary. + +[64] Vinoy, _L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 128. + +[65] The reactionists have said that this fear was feigned; that the +cannon were safe from the Prussians. This is so false that the general +staff itself feared a surprise. See Mortemart, chef d'état-major, +_Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. ii. p. 844. + +[66] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Colonel Lavigne, vol. ii. p. 467. + +[67] "The first cannons were taken, carried away, on the news of the +entry of the Prussians. And these, gentlemen, believe me, were carried +off by citizens devoted to order, the National Guards of Passy and +Auteuil, and taken where? From the Ranelagh."--_Jules Ferry_, _Enquête +sur le 18 Mars_, vol ii. p. 68. + +[68] A. Alavoine, A. Bouit, Frontier, Boursier, David, Buisson, Harond, +Gritz, Tessier, Ramel, Badois, Arnold, Piconel, Audoynaud, Masson, +Weber, Lagarde, J. Laroque, J. Bergeret, Pouchain, Lavalette, Fleury, +Maljournal, Chouteau, Cadaze, Gastaud, Dutil, Matté, Mutin. Ten only of +those elected on the 15th figure in this document. Various delegations, +abstentions, and irregular adhesions had given nearly twenty new names. + +[69] Roger du Nord, the chief of D'Aurelles' staff, "heard it said in +all the fractions of the National Guard, 'Why place a man of such energy +at the head of the National Guard if not to make a _coup +d'état_?'"--_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. + +[70] The National Guards of each of the twenty arrondissements were +formed into a separate legion. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "Cette république a été menacée par l'Assemblée, a-t-on dit, + Messieurs, quand l'insurrection a éclaté, l'Assemblée ne + s'était encore signalée au point de vue politique que par + deux actes: la nomination du chef du pouvoir exécutif et + l'acceptation d'un cabinet républicain."--_Discours de M. + Larcy, du Centre Gauche, contre l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 + Mai 1876._ + + THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE + CONSTITUTES ITSELF--M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT. + + +To the rural plebiscite the Parisian National Guard had answered by +their federation; to the threats of the monarchists, to the projects of +decapitalization, by the manifestation of the Bastille; to D'Aurelles' +appointment, by the resolutions of the 3rd March. What the perils of the +siege had not been able to effect the Assembly had brought about--the +union of the middle class with the proletariat. The immense majority of +Paris looked upon the growing army of the Republic without regret. On +the 3rd the Minister of the Interior, Picard, having denounced "the +anonymous Central Committee," and called upon "all good citizens to +stifle these culpable manifestations," no one stirred. Besides, the +accusation was ridiculous. The Committee showed itself in the open day, +sent its minutes to the papers, and had only made a manifestation to +save Paris from a catastrophe. It answered the next day: "The Committee +is not anonymous; it is the union of the representatives of free men +aspiring to the solidarity of all the members of the National Guard. Its +acts have always been signed. It repels with contempt the calumnies +which accuse it of inciting to pillage and civil war." The signatures +followed.[71] + +The chiefs of the coalition saw clearly which way events were drifting. +The republican army each day increased its arsenal of muskets, and +especially of cannon. There were now pieces of ordnance at ten different +places--at the Barrière d'Italie, at the Faubourg St. Antoine, at the +Buttes Montmartre. A red placard informed Paris of the formation of the +Central Committee of the federation of the National Guards, and invited +citizens to organize in each arrondissement committees of battalions and +councils of legions, and to appoint the delegates to the Central +Committee. The ensemble, the ardour of the movement seemed to bear +witness to the powerful organization of the Central Committee. A few +days more and the answer of the people would be complete if a blow were +not struck at once. + +What they misunderstood was the stout heart of the enemy. The victory of +the 22nd January blinded them. They believed in the stories of their +journals, in the cowardice of the National Guards, in the bragging of +Ducrot, who, in the bureaux of the Assembly swore eternal hatred to the +demagogues, but for whom, he said, he would have conquered.[72] The +bullies of the reaction fancied they could swallow Paris at a mouthful. + +The operation was conducted with clerical skill, method, and discipline. +Legitimists and Orleanists, disagreeing as to the name of the monarch, +had accepted the compromise of Thiers, an equal share in the Government, +which was called "the pact of Bordeaux." Besides, against Paris there +could be no division. + +From the commencement of March the provincial papers held forth at the +same time, speaking of incendiarism and pillage in Paris. On the 4th +there was but one rumor in the bureaux of the Assembly--that an +insurrection had broken out; that the telegraphic communications were +cut off; that General Vinoy had retreated to the left bank of the Seine. +The Government, which propagated these rumors,[73] despatched four +deputies, who were also mayors, to Paris. They arrived on the 5th, and +found Paris perfectly calm, even gay.[74] The mayors and adjuncts, +assembled by the Minister of the Interior, attested to the tranquility +of the town. But Picard, no doubt in the conspiracy, said, "This +tranquility is only apparent. We must act." And the ultra-Conservative +Vautrain added, "We must take the bull by the horns and arrest the +Central Committee." + +The Right never ceased baiting the bull. Sneers, provocations, insults, +were showered upon Paris and her representatives. Some among them, +Rochefort, Tridon, Malon, and Ranc, when withdrawing after the vote +mutilating the country, were followed by cries of "Pleasant journey to +you." Victor Hugo defending Garibaldi was hooted. Delescluze demanding +the impeachment of the members of the National Defence was no better +listened to. Jules Simon declared that he would maintain the law against +association. On the 10th the breach was opened. A resolution was passed +that Paris should no longer be the capital, and that the Assembly should +sit at Versailles. This was calling forth the Commune, for Paris could +not remain at the same time without a Government and without a +municipality. The field of battle once found, despair was to supply it +with an army. The Government had already decided to continue the pay of +the National Guards to those only who should ask for it. The Assembly +decreed that the bills due on the 13th November, 1870, should be made +payable on the 13th March, that is, in three days. The Minister Dufaure +obstinately refused any concession on this point. Notwithstanding the +urgent appeals of Millière, the Assembly refused to pass any protective +bill for the tenants whose house-rents had been due for six months. Two +or three hundred thousand workmen, shopkeepers, model makers, small +manufacturers working in their own lodgings, who had spent their little +stock of money and could not yet earn any more, all business being at a +stand-still, were thus thrown upon the tender mercies of the landlord, +of hunger and bankruptcy. From the 13th to the 17th of March 150,000 +bills were dishonored. Finally, the Right obliged M. Thiers to declare +from the tribune "that the Assembly could proceed to its deliberations +at Versailles without fearing the paving stones of an _émeute_," thus +constraining him to act at once, for the deputies were to meet again at +Versailles on the 20th. + +D'Aurelles commenced operations against the National Guard, declaring he +would submit it to rigorous discipline and purge it of its bad elements. +"My first duty," said his order of the day, "is to secure the respect +due to law and property,"--this eternal provocation on the part of the +bourgeoisie when lifted to supreme power by revolutionary events. + +The other senators also joined in. On the 7th Vinoy threw into the +streets with a pittance of eight shillings a head the twenty-one +thousand mobiles of the Seine. On the 11th, the day on which Paris +learnt her decapitalization and the ruinous decrees, Vinoy suppressed +six Republican journals, four of which, _Le Cri du Peuple_, _Le Mot +d'Ordre_, _Le Père Duchêne_, and _Le Vengeur_, had a circulation of +200,000. The same day the court-martial which judged the accused of the +31st October condemned several to death, among others Flourens and +Blanqui. Thus everybody was hit--bourgeois, republicans, revolutionists. +This Assembly of Bordeaux, the deadly foe of Paris, a stranger to her +in sentiment, mind, and language, seemed a Government of foreigners. The +commercial quarters as well as the faubourgs rang with a general outcry +against it.[75] + +From this time the last hesitation disappeared. The mayor of Montmartre, +Clémenceau, had been intriguing for several days to effect the surrender +of the cannon, and he had even found officers disposed to capitulate; +but the battalion protested, and on the 12th, when D'Aurelles sent his +teams, the guards refused to deliver the pieces. Picard, making an +attempt at firmness, sent for Courty, saying, "The members of the +Central Committee are risking their heads," and obtained a +quasi-promise. The Committee expelled Courty. + +It had since the 6th met at the hall of the Corderie. Although keeping +aloof from, and entirely independent of, the three other groups, the +reputation of the place was useful to it. It gave evidence of good +policy and baffled the intrigues of the _commandant_, Du Bisson, an +officer who had served abroad and been employed in undertakings of an +equivocal character, and who was trying to constitute a Central +Committee from above with the chiefs of the battalions. The Central +Committee sent three delegates to this group, where they met with lively +opposition. One chief of battalion, Barberet, showed himself +particularly restive; but another, Faltot, carried away the Assembly, +saying, "I am going over to the people." The fusion was concluded on the +10th, the day of the general meeting of the delegates. The Committee +presented its weekly report. It recounted the events of the last days, +the nomination of D'Aurelles, the menaces of Picard, remarking very +justly, "That which we are, events have made us: the reiterated attacks +of a press hostile to democracy have taught it, the menaces of the +Government have confirmed it; we are the inexorable barrier raised +against every attempt at the overthrow of the Republic." The delegates +were invited to push forward the elections of the Central Committee. An +appeal to the army was drawn up: "Soldiers, children of the people! Let +us unite to serve the Republic. Kings and emperors have done us harm +enough." The next day the soldiers lately arrived from the army of the +Loire gathered in front of these red placards, which bore the names and +addresses of all the members of the Committee. + +The Revolution, bereft of its journals, spoke now through placards, of +the greatest variety of color and opinion, posted on all the walls. +Flourens and Blanqui, condemned in contumacy, placarded their +protestations. Sub-committees were being formed in all the popular +arrondissements. That of the thirteenth arrondissement had for its chief +a young iron founder, Duval, a man of cold and commanding energy. The +sub-committee of the Rue des Rosiers surrounded their cannon by a ditch +and had them guarded day and night.[76] All these committees quashed the +orders of D'Aurelles and were the true commanders of the National Guard. + +No doubt Paris was roused, ready to redeem her abdication during the +siege. This Paris, lean and oppressed by want, adjourned peace and +business, thinking only of the Republic. The provisional Central +Committee, without troubling itself about Vinoy, who had demanded the +arrest of all its members, presented itself on the 15th at the general +assembly of the Vauxhall. Two hundred and fifteen battalions were +represented, and acclaimed Garibaldi as commander-in-chief of the +National Guard. An orator, Lullier, led the Assembly astray. He was an +ex-naval officer, completely crack-brained, with a semblance of military +instruction, and when not heated by alcohol having intervals of lucidity +which might deceive any one. He was named commanding colonel of the +artillery. Then came the names of those elected members of the Central +Committee, about thirty in all, for several arrondissements had not yet +voted. This was the regular Central Committee which was to be installed +at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Many of those elected had formed part of the +preceding commission. The others were all equally obscure, belonging to +the proletariat and small middle class, known only to their battalions. + +What mattered their obscurity? The Central Committee was not a +Government at the head of a party. It had no Utopia to initiate. A very +simple idea, fear of the monarchy, could alone have grouped together so +many battalions. The National Guard constituted itself an assurance +company against a _coup-d'état_; for if Thiers and his agents repeated +the word "Republic," their own party and the Assembly cried "Vive le +Roi!" The Central Committee was a sentinel, that was all. + +The storm was gathering; all was uncertain. The International convoked +the Socialist deputies to ask them what to do. But no attack was +planned, nor even suggested. The Central Committee formally declared +that the first shot would not be fired by the people, and that they +would only defend themselves in case of aggression. + +The aggressor, M. Thiers, arrived on the 15th. For a long time he had +foreseen that it would be necessary to engage in a terrible struggle +with Paris; but he intended acting at his own good time, to retake the +town when disposing of an army of forty thousand men, well picked, +carefully kept aloof from the Parisians. This plan has been revealed by +a general officer. At this moment Thiers had only the mere wreck of an +army. + +The 230,000 men disarmed by the capitulation, mostly mobiles or men +having finished their term of service, had been sent home in hot haste, +as they would only have swelled the Parisian army. Already some mobiles, +marines, and soldiers had laid the basis of a republican association +with the National Guards. There remained to Vinoy only the division +allowed him by the Prussians and 3,000 sergents-de-ville or gendarmes, +in all 15,000 men, rather ill-conditioned. Lefiô sent him a few thousand +men picked up in the armies of the Loire and of the North, but they +arrived slowly, almost without _cadres_, harassed, and disgusted at the +service. At Vinoy's very first review they were on the point of +mutinying. They left them straggling through Paris, abandoned, mixing +with the Parisians, who succored them, the women bringing them soups and +blankets to their huts, where they were freezing. In fact, on the 19th +the Government had only about 25,000 men, without cohesion and +discipline, two-thirds of them gained over to the faubourgs. + +How disarm 100,000 men with this mob? For, to carry off the cannon, it +was necessary to disarm the National Guard. The Parisians were no longer +novices in warfare. "Having taken our cannon," they said, "they will +make our muskets useless." The coalition would listen to nothing. Hardly +arrived, they urged M. Thiers to act, to lance the abscess at once. The +financiers--no doubt the same who had precipitated the war to give fresh +impulse to their jobbery[77]--said to him, "You will never be able to +carry out financial operations if you don't make an end of these +scoundrels."[78] All these declared the taking of the cannon would be +mere child's play. + +They were indeed hardly watched, but because the National Guard knew +them to be in a safe place. It would suffice to pull up a few paving +stones to prevent their removal down the narrow steep streets of +Montmartre. On the first alarm all Paris would hasten to the rescue. +This had been seen on the 16th, when gendarmes presented themselves to +take from the Place des Vosges the cannon promised by Vautrain. The +National Guards arrived from all sides and unscrewed the pieces, and +the shopkeepers of the Rue des Tournelles commenced unpaving the street. + +An attack was nonsensical, and it was this that determined Paris to +remain on the defensive. But M. Thiers saw nothing, neither the +disaffection of the middle classes nor the deep irritation of the +faubourgs. The little man, a dupe all his life, even of a MacMahon, +prompted by the approach of the 20th March, spurred on by Jules Favre +and Picard, who, since the failure of the 31st of October, believed the +revolutionists incapable of any serious action, and jealous to play the +part of a Bonaparte, threw himself head foremost into the venture. On +the 17th he held a council, and, without calculating his forces or those +of the enemy, without forewarning the mayors--(Picard had formally +promised them not to attempt to use force without consulting +them)--without listening to the chiefs of the bourgeois battalions,[79] +this Government, too weak to arrest even the twenty-five members of the +Central Committee, gave the order to carry off two hundred and fifty +cannon[80] guarded by all Paris. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Arnold, J. Bergeret, Bouit, Castioni, Chauvière, Chouteau, Courty, +Dutil, Fleury, Frontier, H. Fortuné, Lacord, Lagarde, Lavalette, +Maljournal, Matté, Ostyn, Piconel, Pindy, Prudhomme, Varlin, H. Verlet, +Viard. Many of these names, those of the representatives elected on the +3rd, were new ones. On the other hand, many of those that had figured in +the placard of the 28th were missing, because only those signed who were +present at the sitting. + +[72] He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on the 3rd +"to save Paris from any demagogic attempts." + +[73] The prefecture of Rennes placarded this despatch of the Government: +"A criminal insurrection is being organised in Paris. I send forces +which, joined to the honest National Guards of Paris and to the other +regular troops which are still stationed there, will suppress, I hope, +this odious attempt." + +[74] Jules Ferry, who had remained at Paris, telegraphed on the 5th to +the Government: "Never has a Sunday been calmer, notwithstanding +sinister reports. The population is enjoying the sun and their +promenades as if nothing had happened. I no longer believe in the +danger." + +[75] "The vote of the Assembly," wrote Jules Favre, "was received at +Paris with extreme disfavour; not only amongst the fanatics and the +agitators; all classes of the population showed themselves almost +unanimous. Every one saw in it an affront and a menace. It was repeated +everywhere that this was the first act of a monarchical _coup-d'état_; +that the Assembly was ready to name a king, and that, knowing the +unpopularity of its work, it sought to accomplish it far from the eyes +of those who might oppose it." + +[76] This is the Committee which many took for the Central Committee. + +[77] Some Bourse speculators, in the belief that a campaign of six weeks +would give a fresh impulse to the speculations they were living upon, +said, "It is a disagreeable moment to pass through, some 50,000 men to +be sacrificed, after which the horizon will clear and commerce +revive."--_M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 9. + +[78] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, M. Thiers, vol. ii. p. 11. + +[79] In the evening D'Aurelles assembled forty of the most reliable, and +asked them if their battalions would march. They all said their men were +not to be counted upon. _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 435, 456. + +[80] This is the number of pieces given by M. Thiers in the _Enquête sur +le 18 Mars_. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "Nous avons donc fait ce que nous devions faire; rien n'a + provoqué l'insurrection de Paris."--_Discours de M. Dufaure + contre l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH. + + +The execution was as foolish as the conception. On the 18th of March, at +three o'clock in the morning, several columns dispersed in various +directions to the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, the Faubourg du Temple, +the Bastille, the Hôtel-de-Ville, Place St. Michel, the Luxembourg, the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Invalides. General Susbielle marched +on Montmartre with two brigades about 6,000 men strong. All was silent +and deserted. The brigade Paturel took possession of the Moulin de la +Galette without striking a blow. The brigade Lecomte gained the Tower of +Solferino, only meeting with one sentinel, Turpin, who crossed bayonets +with them and was hewn down by the gendarmes. They then rushed to the +post of the Rue des Rosiers, stormed it, and threw the National Guards +into the caves of the Tower of Solferino. At six o'clock the surprise +was complete. M. Clémenceau hurried to the Buttes to congratulate +General Lecomte. Everywhere else the cannon were surprised in the same +way. The Government triumphed all along the line, and D'Aurelles sent +the papers a proclamation written in the conqueror's vein. + +There was only something wanted--teams to convey the spoil. Vinoy had +almost forgotten them. At eight o'clock they began to put some horses to +the pieces. Meanwhile the faubourgs were awaking and the early shops +opening. Around the milkmaids and before the wineshops the people began +talking in a low voice; they pointed to the soldiers, the mitrailleuse +levelled at the streets, the walls covered with the still wet placard +signed by M. Thiers and his Ministers. They spoke of paralyzed commerce, +suspended orders, frightened capitals: "Inhabitants of Paris, in your +interest the Government has resolved to act. Let the good citizens +separate from the bad ones; let them aid public force; they will render +a service to the Republic herself," said MM. Pouyer-Quertier, De Larcy, +Dufaure and other Republicans. The conclusion is borrowed from the +phraseology of December: "The culpable shall be surrendered to justice. +Order, complete, immediate and unalterable, must be re-established." +They spoke of order;--blood was to be shed. + +As in our great days, the women were the first to act. Those of the 18th +March, hardened by the siege--they had had a double ration of +misery--did not wait for the men. They surrounded the mitrailleuses, +apostrophized the sergeant in command of the gun, saying, "This is +shameful; what are you doing there?" The soldiers did not answer. +Occasionally a non-commissioned officer spoke to them: "Come, my good +women, get out of the way." At the same time a handful of National +Guards, proceeding to the post of the Rue Doudeauville, there found two +drums that had not been smashed, and beat the _rappel_. At eight o'clock +they numbered 300 officers and guards, who ascended the Boulevard +Ornano. They met a platoon of soldiers of the 88th, and, crying, "Vive +la République!" enlisted them. The post of the Rue Dejean also joined +them, and the butt-end of their muskets raised, soldiers and guards +together marched up to the Rue Muller that leads to the Buttes +Montmartre, defended on this side by the men of the 88th. These, seeing +their comrades intermingling with the guards, signed to them to advance, +that they would let them pass. General Lecomte, catching sight of the +signs, had the men replaced by sergents-de-ville, and confined them in +the Tower of Solferino, adding, "You will get your deserts." The +sergents-de-ville discharged a few shots, to which the guards replied. +Suddenly a large number of National Guards, the butt-end of their +muskets up, women and children, debouched on the other flank by the Rue +des Rosiers. General Lecomte, surrounded, three times commanded fire. +His men stood still, their arms ordered. The crowd, advancing, +fraternized with them, and Lecomte and his officers were arrested. + +The soldiers whom he had just shut up in the tower wanted to shoot him, +but some National Guards having succeeded in disengaging him with great +difficulty--for the crowd took him for Vinoy--conducted him with his +officers to the Château-Rouge, where the staff of the battalions of the +National Guard was seated. There they asked him for an order to evacuate +the Buttes. He signed it without hesitation.[81] The order was +immediately communicated to the officers and soldiers of the Rue des +Rosiers. The gendarmes surrendered their chassepots, and even cried, +"Vive la République!" Three discharges from the cannon announced the +recapture of the Buttes. + +General Paturel, who wanted to carry away the cannon, surprised at the +Moulin de la Galette, came into collision with a living barricade in the +Rue Lepic. The people stopped the horses, cut the traces, dispersed the +artillerymen, and took back the cannon to their post. In the Place +Pigalle, General Susbielle gave the order to charge the crowd collected +in the Rue Houdon, but the chasseurs, intimidated, spurred back their +horses and were laughed at. A captain, dashing forward, sabre in hand, +wounded a guard, and fell, pierced with balls. The General fled. The +gendarmes, who commenced firing from behind the huts, were soon +dislodged, and the bulk of the soldiers went over to the people. + +At Belleville, the Buttes Chaumont, the Luxembourg, the troops +fraternized everywhere with the crowds that had collected at the first +alarm. + +By eleven o'clock the people had vanquished the aggressors at all +points, preserved almost all their cannon, of which only ten had been +carried off, and seized thousands of chassepots. All their battalions +were now on foot, and the men of the faubourgs commenced unpaving the +streets. + +Since six o'clock in the morning D'Aurelles had had the rappel beaten in +the central quarters, but in vain. Battalions formerly noted for their +devotion to Trochu sent only twenty men to the rendezvous. All Paris, on +reading the placards, said, "This is the _coup-d'état_." At twelve +o'clock D'Aurelles and Picard sounded the alarm: "The Government call on +you to defend your homes, your families, your property. Some misguided +men, under the lead of some secret chiefs, turn against Paris the cannon +kept back from the Prussians." These reminiscences of June, 1848, this +accusation of indelicacy toward the Prussians, failing to rouse any one, +the whole Ministry came to the rescue: "An absurd rumor is being spread +that the Government is preparing a _coup-d'état_. It has wished and +wishes to make an end of an insurrectional Committee, whose members only +represent Communist doctrines." These alarms, repeatedly sounded, raised +in all 500 men.[82] + +The Government were at the Foreign Office, and, after the first +reverses, M. Thiers had given the order to fall back with all the troops +on the Champ-de-Mars. When he saw the desertion of the National Guards +of the Centre, he declared that it was necessary to evacuate Paris. +Several Ministers objected, wanted a few points to be guarded, the +Hôtel-de-Ville, its barracks occupied by the brigade Derroja, the Ecole +Militaire, and that they should take a position on the Trocadéro. The +little man, quite distracted, would only hear of extreme measures. +Leflô, who had almost been made a prisoner at the Bastille, vigorously +supported him. It was decided that the whole town should be evacuated, +even the forts on the south, restored by the Prussians a fortnight +before. Towards three o'clock the popular battalions of the Gros Caillou +marched past the Hôtel-de-Ville, headed by drums and trumpets. The +Council believed itself surrounded.[83] M. Thiers escaped by a back +stair, and left for Versailles so out of his senses that at the bridge +of Sévres he gave the written order to evacuate Mont-Valérien. + +At the self-same hour when M. Thiers ran away, the revolutionary +battalions had not yet attempted any attack or occupied any official +posts.[84] The aggression of the morning had surprised the Central +Committee, as it had all Paris. The evening before they had separated as +usual, giving themselves a rendezvous for the 18th, at eleven o'clock at +night, behind the Bastille, at the school in the Rue Basfroi; the Place +de la Corderie, actively watched by the police, no longer being safe. +Since the 15th new elections had added to their numbers, and they had +appointed a Committee of Defence. On the news of the attack, some ran to +the Rue Basfroi, others applied themselves to raising the battalions of +their quarters: Varlin at the Batignolles, Bergeret, recently named +chef-de-légion, at Montmartre, Duval at the Panthéon, Pindy in the third +arrondissement, Faltot in the Rue de Sévres. Ranvier and Brunel, without +belonging to the Committee, were agitating Belleville and the tenth +arrondissement. At ten o'clock a dozen members met together, overwhelmed +with messages from all sides, and receiving from time to time some +prisoners. Positive intelligence only came in towards two o'clock. They +then drew up a kind of plan by which all the federalist battalions were +to converge upon the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then dispersed in all +directions to transmit orders.[85] + +The battalions were indeed on the alert, but did not march. The +revolutionary quarters, fearing a resumption of the attack, and ignoring +the plenitude of their victory, were strongly barricading themselves, +and remained where they were. Even Montmartre was only swarming with +guards in search of news, and disbanded soldiers for whom collections +were being made, as they had had nothing to eat since the morning. +Towards half-past three o'clock the Committee of Vigilance of the +eighteenth arrondissement, established in the Rue de Clignancourt, was +informed that General Lecomte was in great danger. A crowd, consisting +chiefly of soldiers, surrounded the Château-Rouge and demanded the +General. The members of the Committee of Vigilance, Ferré, Jaclard, and +Bergeret, immediately sent an order to the commander of the +Château-Rouge to guard the prisoner, who was to be put on his trial. +When the order arrived Lecomte had just left. + +He had long been asking to be taken before the Central Committee. The +chiefs of the post, much perturbed by the cries of the crowd, anxious to +get rid of their responsibility, and believing this Committee was +sitting in the Rue des Rosiers, decided to conduct the General and his +officers there. They arrived at about four o'clock, passing through a +terribly irritated crowd, yet no one raised a hand against them. The +General was closely guarded in a small front room on the ground floor. +There the scenes of the Château-Rouge recommenced. The exasperated +soldiers asked for his death. The officers of the National Guard made +desperate efforts to quiet them, crying, "Wait for the Committee." They +succeeded in posting sentinels and appeasing the commotion for a time. + +No member of the Committee had arrived when, at half-past four, +formidable cries filled the street, and hunted by a fierce multitude, a +man with a white beard was thrust against the wall of the house. It was +Clément-Thomas, the man of June, 1848, the insulter of the revolutionary +battalions. He had been recognized and arrested at the Chaussée des +Martyrs, where he was examining the barricades. Some officers of the +National Guard, a Garibaldian captain, Herpin-Lacroix, and some +franc-tireurs had tried to stop the deadly mass, repeating a thousand +times, "Wait for the Committee! Constitute a court-martial!" They were +jostled, and Clément-Thomas was again seized and hurled into the little +garden of the house. Twenty muskets levelled at him battered him down. +During this execution the soldiers broke the windows of the room where +General Lecomte was confined, threw themselves upon him, dragging him +towards the garden. This man, who in the morning had three times +commanded fire upon the people, wept, begged for pity, and spoke of his +family. He was forced against the wall and fell under the bullets. + +These reprisals over, the wrath of the mass subsided. They allowed the +officers of Lecomte's suite to be taken back to the Château-Rouge, and +at nightfall they were set at liberty. + +While these executions took place, the people, so long standing on the +defensive, had begun to move. Brunel surrounded the Prince Eugène +Barracks, held by the 120th of the line. The colonel, accompanied by +about a hundred officers, assuming lofty airs, Brunel had them all +locked up. Two thousand chassepots fell into the hands of the people. +Brunel continued his march by the Rue du Temple towards the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The Imprimerie Nationale was occupied at five o'clock. +At six the crowd attacked the doors of the Napoleon Barracks with +hatchets. A discharge was made, fired from the opening, and three +persons fell; but the soldiers made signs from the windows of the Rue +de Rivoli, crying, "It is the gendarmes who have fired. Vive la +République!" Soon after they opened the doors and allowed their arms to +be carried off.[86] + +At half-past seven the Hôtel-de-Ville was almost invested. The gendarmes +who occupied it fled by the subterranean passage of the Lobau Barracks. +About half-past eight Jules Ferry and Vabre, entirely abandoned by their +men, left without any order by the Government, also stole away. Shortly +after Brunel's column debouched on the place and took possession of the +Hôtel-de-Ville, where Ranvier arrived at the same time by the quays. + +The number of the battalions augmented incessantly. Brunel had given +order to raise barricades in the Rue de Rivoli, on the quays, manned all +the approaches, distributed the posts, and sent out strong patrols. One +of these, surrounding the mairie of the Louvre, where the mayors were +deliberating, almost succeeded in catching Ferry, who saved himself by +jumping out of a window. The mayors returned to the mairie of the Place +de la Bourse. + +They had already met there during the day together with many adjuncts, +much offended at the senseless governmental attack, waiting for +information and for ideas. Towards four o'clock they sent delegates to +the Government. M. Thiers had already made off. Picard politely showed +them out. D'Aurelles washed his hands of the whole affair, saying the +lawyers had done it. At night, however, it became necessary to take a +resolution. The federal battalions already surrounded the Hôtel-de-Ville +and occupied the Place Vendôme, whither Varlin, Bergeret, and Arnold had +conducted the battalions of Montmartre and the Batignolles. Vacherot, +Vautrain, and a few reactionists spoke of resisting at any price, as +though they had had an army to back them. Others, more sensible, sought +for some expedient. They thought they could calm down every thing by +naming as prefect of police Ed. Adam, who had distinguished himself +against the insurgents of June, 1848, and as General of the National +Guards the giddy Proudhonist Langlois, a former Internationalist, who +had been for the movement of the 31st of October in the morning, against +it in the evening, and was named deputy, thanks to a scratch received +while gesticulating at Buzenval. The delegates went to propose this +brilliant solution to Jules Favre. He refused outright, saying, "We +cannot treat with assassins." This comedy was only played to justify the +evacuation of Paris, which he concealed from the mayors. During the +conference it was announced that Jules Ferry had abandoned the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The other Jules feigned surprise, and engaged the mayors +to call out the battalions of order for the purpose of replacing the +vanished army. + +They returned overwhelmed by this raillery, humbled at having been +altogether left in the dark about the intention of the Government. If +possessed of some political courage, they would have gone straight to +the Hôtel-de-Ville, instead of commencing to deliberate again in their +mairie. At last, at ten o'clock in the morning, Picard informed them +that they might bring out their Lafayette. They immediately sent +Langlois to the Hôtel-de-Ville. + +Some of the members of the Central Committee had been there since ten +o'clock, generally very anxious and very hesitating. Not one of them had +dreamt that power would fall so heavily upon their shoulders. Many did +not want to sit at the Hôtel-de-Ville. They deliberated. At last it was +decided that they would only stay during the two or three days wanted +for the elections. Meanwhile it was necessary to ward off any attempt at +resistance. Lullier was present, buzzing around the Committee, in one of +his intervals of grave lucidity, promising to ward off all danger and +appealing to the vote of Vauxhall. He had played no part during the +whole day.[87] The Committee committed the blunder of appointing him +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, while Brunel, who had rendered +such service since the morning, was already installed in the +Hôtel-de-Ville. + +At three o'clock, Langlois, the competitor of Lullier, announced +himself. He was full of confidence in himself, and had already sent his +proclamation to the _Journal Officiel_. "Who are you?" the sentinels +asked him. "General of the National Guard," answered Langlois. Some +deputies of Paris, Lockroy, Cournet, &c., accompanied him. The Committee +consented to receive them. "Who has named you?" said they to Langlois. +"M. Thiers." They smiled at this aplomb of a madman. As he pleaded the +rights of the Assembly they put him to the test; "Do you recognise the +Central Committee?" "No." He decamped to run after his proclamation. + +The night was calm, fatally calm for liberty. By the gates of the south +Vinoy marched off his regiments, his artillery, and his baggage to +Versailles. The disbanded troops jogged along peevishly, insulting the +gendarmes.[88] The staff, true to its traditions, had lost its head, and +left in Paris three regiments, six batteries, and all the gunboats, +which it would have sufficed to leave to the current of the river. The +slightest demonstration of the federals would have stopped this exodus. +Far from thinking of closing the gates, the new commander of the +National Guard--he boasted of it before the council of war--left open +all issues to the army. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] This order enjoining the troop to file off in the midst of the +National Guards was drawn up in pencil by a captain. Lecomte copied it +in ink without changing a word. The court-martial has denied this, in +order to glorify this general, who died so pusillanimously. + +[82] Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers; fourteen men per battalion, +says Jules Perry. _Enquête sur le 18 Mars._ + +[83] M. Thiers in the _Enquéte sur le 18 Mars_ says, firstly, "We let +them defile," then, twenty lines farther, "We repulsed them." Leflô has +not concealed the fright the Council was in: "The moment seemed critical +to me. And I said, 'I think we are done for; we shall be carried off;' +and indeed the battalions had only to penetrate into the palace and we +were all taken to the last man. But the three battalions marched off +without saying anything."--Vol. ii. p. 80. + +[84] The report of the _Enquéte sur le 18 Mars_ said that "the Committee +did not hesitate on the afternoon of the 18th March to take possession +of all the administrations." This is if not a lie, intended to palliate +the stampede of M. Thiers,--one of the grossest proofs of the ignorance +of this report, which attributes the manifestation of the 24th of +February to an order of the Central Committee. + +[85] See Appendix II., the details of the proceedings of the Central +Committee during this day, told by one of its members. + +[86] Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book _L'Armistice et la +Commune_: "The general assembled his men, and _sword in hand_ he bravely +placed himself at the head of his troops." + +[87] Ten days after he recounted in a crazy letter written in the +Conciergerie that he had done everything; taken the Hôtel-de-Ville, the +Prefecture of Police, the Place Vendôme, the Tuileries, &c.; and this +letter is referred to as an authority by the report of the _Enquête sur +le 18 Mars_! For the future, I shall abstain from pointing out the +errors that abound in this report, which is an ignorant and malignant +résumé of the lies, inaccuracies, and animosity accumulated in this +_Inquiry_, from which all the vanquished, and even the smallest +adversaries, were excluded. Entirely insufficient as a historical +source, it may well serve to set forth the intelligence and morality of +the French bourgeoisie of the epoch. + +[88] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Marreille, vol. ii. p. 200. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + "Nos coeurs brisés font appel aux vôtres."--_Les Maires et + Adjoints de Paris et les Députés de la Seine à la Garde + Nationale et à tous les Citoyens._ + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS--THE MAYORS OF + PARIS AND DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT. + + +Paris only became aware of her victory on the morning of the 19th of +March. What a change in the scene, even after all the scene-shifting in +the drama enacted during these last seven months! The red flag floated +above the Hôtel-de-Ville. With the early morning mists the army, the +Government, the Administration had evaporated. From the depths of the +Bastille, from the obscure Rue Basfroi, the Central Committee was lifted +to the summits of Paris in the sight of all the world. Thus on the 4th +September the Empire had vanished; thus the deputies of the Left had +picked up a derelict power. + +The Committee, to its great honour, had only one thought, to restore its +power to Paris. Had it been sectarian, hatching decrees, the movement +would have ended like that of the 31st October. Happily it was composed +of new-comers, without a past, and without political pretensions; men of +the small middle-class, as well as workmen, shopkeepers, commercial +clerks, mechanics, sculptors, architects, caring little for systems, +anxious above all to save the Republic. At this giddy height they had +but one idea to sustain them, that of securing to Paris her +municipality. + +Under the Empire this was one of the favourite schemes of the Left, by +which it had mainly won over the small Parisian bourgeoisie, much +humiliated at the sight of Governmental nominees enthroned at the +Hôtel-de-Ville for full eighty years. Even the most pacific amongst them +were shocked, scandalised by the incessant increase of the budget, the +multiplied loans, and the financial swindling of Haussmann. And how they +applauded Picard, revindicating for the largest and most enlightened +city of France at least the rights enjoyed by the smallest village, or +when he defied the Pasha of the Seine to produce regular accounts! +Towards the end of the Empire, the idea of an elective municipal council +had taken root; it had to a certain extent been put into practice during +the siege, and now its total realisation could alone console Paris for +her decentralisation. + +On the other hand, the popular masses, insensible to the bourgeois ideal +of a municipal council, were bent on the Commune. They had called for it +during the siege as an arm against the foreign enemy; they still called +for it as a lever for uprooting despotism and misery. What did they care +for a council, even elective, but without real liberties and fettered to +the state--without authority over the administration of schools and +hospitals, justice and police, and altogether unfit for grappling with +the social slavery of its fellow-citizens? What the people strove for +was a political form allowing them to work for the amelioration of their +condition. They had seen all the constitutions and all the +representative governments run counter to the will of the so-called +represented elector, and the state power, grown more and more despotic, +despoil the workmen even of the right to defend his labour, and this +power, which has ordained even the very air to be breathed, always +refusing to interfere in capitalist brigandage. After so many failures, +they were fully convinced that the actual governmental and legislative +régime was from its very nature unable to emancipate the workingman. +This emancipation they expected from the autonomous Commune, sovereign +within the limits compatible with the maintenance of the national unity. +The communal constitution was to substitute for the representative +lording it over his elector the strictly responsible mandatory. The old +state power grafted upon the country, feeding upon its substance, +usurping supremacy on the foundation of divided and antagonistic +interests, organising for the benefit of the few, justice, finance, +army, and police, was to be superseded by a delegation of all the +autonomous communes. + +Thus the municipal question, appealing to the legitimate +susceptibilities of the one, to the bold aspirations of the other, +gathered all classes round the Central Committee. + +At half-past eight they held their first sitting in the same room where +Trochu had been enthroned. The president was a young man of about +thirty-two; Edward Moreau, a small commission agent. "He was not in +favour," he said, "of sitting at the Hôtel-de-Ville, but since they were +there, it was necessary to at once regularise their situation, tell +Paris what they wanted, proceed to the elections within the briefest +term possible, provide for the public services, and protect the town +from a surprise." + +Two of his colleagues immediately said, "We must first march on +Versailles, disperse the Assembly, and appeal to France to pronounce." + +Another, the author of the Vauxhall motion, said, "No. We have only the +mandate to secure the rights of Paris. If the provinces share our views, +let them imitate our example." + +Some wanted to consummate the revolution before referring to the +electors. Others opposed this vague suggestion. The Committee decided to +proceed at once to the elections, and charged Moreau to draw up an +appeal. While it was being signed, a member of the Committee arrived, +saying, "Citizens, we have just been told that most of the members of +the Government are still in Paris; an attempt at resistance is being +organised in the first and second arrondissements; the soldiers are +leaving for Versailles. We must take prompt measures to lay hands on the +Ministers, disperse the hostile battalions, and prevent the enemy from +leaving the town." + +In fact, Jules Favre and Picard had hardly left Paris. The clearing of +the Ministries was publicly going on; files of soldiers were still +marching off through the gates of the left bank. But the Committee +continued signing, neglecting this traditional precaution--the shutting +of the gates--and lost itself in the elections. It saw not--very few saw +as yet--that this was a death-struggle with the Assembly of Versailles. + +The Committee, distributing the work to be done, appointed the delegates +who were to take possession of the Ministries and direct the various +services. Some of these delegates were chosen outside the Committee, +from amongst those who were reputed men of action, or the +revolutionists. Some one having spoken of an increase of pay, his +colleagues indignantly answered, "We are not here to imitate the +Government of the Defence. We have lived till now on our pay; it will +still suffice." Arrangements were made for the permanent presence of +some members at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then they adjourned at one +o'clock. + +Outside the joyous clamor of the people enlivened the streets. A spring +sun smiled on the Parisians. This was their first day of consolation and +of hope for eight months. Before the barricades of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +at the Buttes Montmartre, in all the boulevards, lookers-on were +thronging. Who then spoke of civil war? Only the _Journal Officiel_. It +recounted the events in its own way. "The Government had exhausted every +means of conciliation," and in a despairing appeal to the National Guard +it said, "A committee taking the name of Central Committee has +assassinated in cold blood the Generals Clément-Thomas and Lecomte. Who +are the members of this Committee? Communists, Bonapartists, or +Prussians? Will you take upon yourselves the responsibility of these +assassinations?" These lamentations of runaways moved only a few +companies of the centre. Yet--a grave symptom this--the young bourgeois +of the Polytechnic School came to the mairie of the second +arrondissement, where the mayors had flocked, and the students of the +universities, till now the advanced guard of all our revolutions, +pronounced against the Committee. + +For this revolution was made by proletarians. Who were they? What did +they want? At two o'clock every one hurried to see the placards of the +Committee just issued from the Imprimerie Nationale. "Citizens, the +people of Paris, calm and impassible in their strength, have awaited +without fear, as without provocation, the shameless fools who want to +touch our Republic. Let Paris and France together lay the foundation of +a true Republic, the only Government which will for ever close the era +of revolutions. The people of Paris is convoked to make its elections." +And turning to the National Guard: "You have charged us to organise the +defence of Paris and of your rights. Our mandate has now expired. +Prepare, and at once make your communal elections. Meanwhile we shall, +in the name of the people, hold the Hôtel-de-Ville." Twenty names[89] +followed, which, save three or four, Assi, Lullier, and Varlin, were +only known through the placards of the last few days. Since the morning +of the 10th August, 1792, Paris has not seen in her Hôtel-de-Ville such +an advent of obscure men. + +And yet their placards were respected, their battalions circulated +freely. They took possession of the posts; at one o'clock the Ministries +of Finance and of the Interior; at two o'clock the Naval and War +Offices, the telegraph, the _Journal Officiel_, and Duval was installed +at the Prefecture de Police. And they had hit the mark. What indeed +could be said against this new-born power whose first word was its own +abdication? + +Everything around them bore a warlike aspect. Let us cross the half-open +barricades of the Rue de Rivoli. Twenty thousand men camped in the +square of the Hôtel-de-Ville; bread stuck on the end of their muskets. +Fifty ordnance pieces, cannon, and mitrailleuses drawn up along the +façade served as the _chevaux de frise_ of the town hall. The court and +staircases encumbered with guards taking their meals, the large Salle du +Trône swarming with officers, guards, and civilians. In the hall on the +left, which was used by the staff, the noise subsided. The room by the +river-side, at the corner of the edifice, was the antechamber of the +Committee. About fifty men were writing there, bending over a long +table. There discipline and silence reigned. We were far from the +anarchists of the 31st October. From time to time the door, guarded by +two sentinels, opened to a member of the Committee who carried orders or +made inquiries. + +The sitting had recommenced. A member asked the Committee to protest +against the executions of Clément-Thomas and Lecomte, to which it was +entirely foreign. "Take care not to disavow the people," answered +another, "for fear they in turn should disavow you." A third said, "The +_Journal Officiel_ declares the execution took place under our eyes. We +must stop these calumnies. The people and the bourgeoisie have joined +hands in this revolution. This union must be maintained. You want +everybody to take part in the elections." "Well, then," he was +apostrophised, "abandon the people in order to gain the bourgeoisie; the +people will withdraw, and you will see if it is with the bourgeois that +revolutions are made."[90] + +The Committee decided that a note should be inserted in the _Journal +Officiel_ to re-establish the truth. Ed. Moreau proposed and read the +draft of a manifesto, which was adopted. + +The Committee were discussing the date and mode of the elections when it +was informed that a large meeting of the chiefs of battalions, the +mayors and deputies of the Seine was being held at the mairie of the +third arrondissement. M. Thiers, during the morning, had given over to +the union of the mayors the provisional administration of Paris, and +they were trying their authority on the National Guard. The Committee +was assured that they intended to convoke the electors. + +"If it is so," said several members, "we must come to an agreement with +them to make the situation regular." Others, remembering the siege, +simply wanted to have them arrested. One member said, "If we wish to +have France with us, we must not frighten her. Think what an effect the +arrest of the deputies and mayors would produce, and what, on the other +hand, the effect of their adhesion would be." Another, "It is important +to collect an imposing number of voters. All Paris will go to the +ballot-boxes if the representatives and mayors join us." "Say rather," +cried an impetuous colleague, "that you are not equal to your position; +that your only preoccupation is to disengage yourselves." They finally +decided to send Arnold to the mairie as delegate. + +He was badly enough received. The most radical adjuncts and deputies, +Socialists like Millière and Malon, flatly declared against the +Hôtel-de-Ville, appalled at the dangerous initiative of the people. Many +too said, "Who are these unknown men?" Even at the Corderie, +Internationalists and former members of the Committee of the twenty +arrondissements maintained a diffident attitude. However, the meeting +decided to send commissioners to the Hôtel-de-Ville, for, whether they +liked it or not, there was the power. + +The Central Committee had, in the meantime, fixed the elections for the +Wednesday, decreed the raising of the state of siege, the abolition of +the court-martials, and amnesty for all political crimes and offences. +It held a third sitting at eight o'clock to receive the commissioners. +These were the deputies Clémenceau, Millière, Tolain, Cournet, Malon, +and Lockroy, the mayors Bonvalet and Mottu, the adjuncts Murat, Jaclard, +and Léo Meillet. + +Clémenceau, half accomplice, half dupe of M. Thiers' _coup d'état_, in +his quality of mayor and deputy, was the spokesman. He was prolix and +pedantic. "The insurrection has been undertaken upon an illegitimate +motive; the cannon belong to the State. The Central Committee is without +a mandate and in no wise holds Paris. Numerous battalions were gathering +round the deputies and mayors. Soon the Committee will become ridiculous +and its decrees will be despised. Besides, Paris has no right to revolt +against France, and must absolutely acknowledge the authority of the +Assembly. The Committee has but one other way of getting out of the +difficulty--to submit to the union of the deputies and mayors, who are +resolved to obtain from the Assembly the satisfaction claimed by Paris." + +He was frequently interrupted during this speech. What! They dared speak +of an insurrection! Who had began the civil war, attacked first? What +had the National Guards done but answer a nocturnal aggression, taken +back cannon paid for by themselves? What had the Central Committee done +but follow the people and occupy the deserted Hôtel-de-Ville? + +A member of the Committee said, "The Central Committee has received a +regular, imperative mandate. This mandate forbids them to allow the +Government or the Assembly to touch their liberties or the Republic. Now +the Assembly has never ceased putting the existence of the Republic in +question. It has placed a dishonoured general at our head, decapitalised +Paris, tried to ruin her commerce. It has sneered at our sufferings, +denied the devotion, the courage, the abnegation Paris has shown during +the siege, hooted her best-loved representatives, Garibaldi and Victor +Hugo. The plot against the Republic is evident. The attempt was +commenced by gagging the press; they hoped to terminate it by the +disarmament of our battalions. Yes, our case was one of legitimate +defence. If we have bowed our heads under this new affront, there was +an end of the Republic. You have just spoken of the Assembly of France. +The mandate of the Assembly has expired. As to France, we had not the +pretension of dictating her laws--we have too often suffered under +hers--but we will not submit to her rural plebiscites. You see it; the +question is no longer to know which of our mandates is the most regular. +We say to you the revolution is made; but we are not usurpers. We wish +to call upon Paris to name her representatives. Will you aid us, and +proceed with us to consult the elections? We eagerly accept your +co-operation." + +As he spoke of autonomous communes and their federation, "Have a care," +said Millière; "if you unfurl this flag they will launch all France upon +Paris, and I foresee days fatal as those of June. The hour of the social +revolution has not yet struck. Progress is obtained by slower marches. +Descend from the heights where you have placed yourselves. Victorious +to-day, your insurrection may be vanquished to-morrow. Make as much of +it as you can, but do not hesitate to content yourselves with little. I +adjure you to leave the field open to the union of the mayors and +deputies; your confidence will be well placed." + +One of the Committee: "Since the social revolution has been spoken of, I +declare our mandate does not go so far." (Others of the Committee, "Yes! +Yes!" "No! No!") "You have spoken of a federation, of Paris as a free +town. Our duty is more simple. It is to proceed to the elections. The +people will afterwards decide on their action. As to yielding to the +deputies and mayors, this is impossible. They are unpopular and have no +authority in the Assembly. The elections will take place with or without +their concurrence. Will they help us? We will receive them with open +arms. If not, we shall do without them, and, if they attempt to obstruct +our way, we shall know how to reduce them to impotency." + +The delegates resisted. The discussion grew hot. "But, in fine," said +Clémenceau, "what are your pretensions? Do you confine your mandate to +asking the Assembly for a municipal council?" + +Many of the Committee: "No! No!" "We want," said Varlin, "not only the +election of the municipal council, but real municipal liberties, the +suppression of the prefecture of police, the right of the National Guard +to name its chiefs and to reorganise itself, the proclamation of the +Republic as the legal Government, the pure and simple remittance of the +rents due, an equitable law on overdue bills, and the Parisian territory +interdicted the army." + +Malon: "I share your aspirations, but the situation is perilous. It is +clear that the Assembly will listen to nothing as long as the Committee +occupies the Hôtel-de-Ville. If, on the contrary, Paris intrusts herself +again to her legal representatives, I believe they could do more than +you." + +The discussion was protracted until half-past ten; the Committee +defending its right to proceed to the elections, the delegates their +pretension of superseding the Committee. They at last agreed that the +Committee should send four of its members to the second arrondissement. +Varlin, Moreau, Arnold, and Jourde were appointed. + +There they found the whole staff of Liberalism: deputies, mayors, and +adjuncts; Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Carnot, Peyrat, Tirard, Floquet, +Desmarets, Vautrain, and Dubail, about sixty altogether. The cause of +the people there had a few partisans, sincere, but terribly dismayed by +the uncertain future. The mayor of the second arrondissement, Tirard, +presided, a Liberal, nervous, haughty, one of those who had helped to +paralyse Paris in the hands of Trochu. In his evidence before the Rural +Committee of Inquiry, he has mutilated, travestied this sitting, where +the Radico-Liberal bourgeoisie laid bare all its baseness. We shall now, +for the instruction of and in justice to the people, give the plain +truth. + +The delegates: "The Central Committee does not wish anything better than +to come to an agreement with the municipalities, if they will proceed +with the elections." + +Schoelcher, Tirard, Peyrat, Louis Blanc, all the Radicals and Liberals +in chorus: "The municipalities will not treat with the Central +Committee. There is only one authority--the union of the mayors +invested with the delegation by the Government." + +The delegates: "Let us not discuss the point. The Central Committee +exists. We have been named by the National Guard and we hold the +Hôtel-de-Ville. Will you proceed to make the elections?" + +"But what is your programme?" + +Varlin set it forth. He was attacked from all sides. The four delegates +had to face twenty assailants. The great argument of the Liberals was +that Paris could not convoke herself, but ought to wait for the +permission of the Assembly. A reminiscence this of the times of the +siege, when they fell prone before the Government of the Defence. + +The delegates affirmed, on the contrary: "The people has the right to +convoke itself. It is an undeniable right, which it has more than once +made use of in our history in moments of great peril, and at present we +are passing through such a crisis, since the Assembly of Versailles is +making for monarchy." + +Then recriminations followed: "You are now face to face with force," +said the delegates. "Beware of letting loose a civil war by your +resistance." "It is you who want a civil war," replied the Liberals. At +midnight Moreau and Arnold, quite disheartened, withdrew. Their +colleagues were about to follow, when some adjuncts entreated them to +stay. "We promise," said the mayors and deputies, "to make every effort +to obtain the municipal elections with the shortest delay." "Very well," +answered the delegates, "but we maintain our position; we want +guarantees." The deputies and mayors, growing obstinate, pretended that +Paris must surrender unconditionally. Jourde was about to retire, when +some of the adjuncts again detained him. For a moment they seemed to be +coming to an understanding. The Committee was to give up all the +administrative services to the mayors, and let them occupy one part of +the Hôtel-de-Ville; itself, however, was to continue sitting there, to +retain the exclusive direction of the National Guard, and to watch over +the security of the town. This agreement only required to be confirmed +by the issue of a common proclamation, but when the heading of the +latter came to be discussed, the contest grew more violent than before. +The delegates proposed, "The deputies, mayors, and adjuncts, in accord +with the Central Committee." These gentlemen, on the contrary, desired +to hide themselves behind a mask. For an hour Louis Blanc, Tirard, and +Schoelcher overwhelmed the delegates with indignities. Louis Blanc +cried to them, "You are insurgents against a most freely elected +Assembly.[91] We, the regular mandatories, we cannot avow a transaction +with insurgents. We should be willing to prevent a civil war, but not to +appear as your auxiliaries in the eyes of France." Jourde answered the +mannikin that this transaction, in order to be accepted by the people of +Paris, must be publicly consented to, and, despairing of making anything +out of this meeting, withdrew. + +And amongst this _élite_ of the Liberal Bourgeoisie, former exiles, +publicists, historians of our revolutions, not one indignant voice +protested, "Let us cease these cruel disputes, this barking at a +revolution. Woe to us if we do not recognise the force manifesting +itself through unknown men! The Jacobins of 1794 denied it, and they +perished; the Montagnards of 1848 abandoned it, and they perished; the +Left under the Empire, the Government of the National Defence, disdained +it, and our integrity as a nation has perished. Let us open our eyes, +our hearts; let us break out of the beaten track. No; we will not widen +the gulf that the days of June, 1848, and the Empire have placed between +us and the workmen. No; with the disasters of France in view, we shall +not allow her living forces still in reserve to be touched. The more +abnormal, monstrous our situation is, the more we are bound to find the +solution, even under the eye of the Prussian. You, the Central +Committee, who are the spokesmen of Paris, we, who are listened to by +Republican France, we will mark out a field for common action. You +supply the force, the large aspirations, we the knowledge of realities +and their inexorable behests. We shall present to the Assembly this +charter free from all Utopian views, equally regardful of the rights of +the nation and of those of the capital. If the Assembly rejects it, we +shall be the first to make the elections, to ask for your suffrage. And +when France sees Paris raising her force counterpoised by prudence at +her Hôtel-de-Ville, vigorous new-comers allied with men of old repute, +the only possible bulwark against royalists and clericals, she will rise +as in the days of the Federation, and at her voice Versailles will have +to yield." + +But what was to be expected of men who had not even been able to pluck +up sufficient courage to wrench Paris from Trochu? Varlin single-handed +had to stand their combined attack. Exhausted, worn out--this contest +had lasted five hours--he at last gave way, but under protest. On +returning to the Hôtel-de-Ville, he recovered all his wonted energy, his +calm intelligence, and told the Committee he now saw the snare, and +advised it to reject the pretensions of the mayors and deputies. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[89] Assi, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, C. Dupont, Varlin, +Boursier, Mortier, Gouhier, Lavalette, F. Jourde, Rousseau, C. Lullier, +Blanchet, J. Grollard, Barrond, H. Geresme, Fabre, Fougeret, the members +present at the morning sitting. The Committee decided later on that its +publications should bear the names of all its members. + +[90] The minutes of the first Central Committee have disappeared, but +one of its most assiduous members has restored the principal sittings +from memory. It is from his notes, checked by several of his colleagues, +that we have taken these details. It is superfluous to say that the +minutes published by the _Paris Journal_, which have been used by +reactionist historians, are incomplete, inexact, drawn up from hearsay, +unintelligent indiscretions, and often from pure imagination. Thus, for +instance, they make all the sittings presided over by Assi, attributing +to him the principal part, because under the Empire he was very +incorrectly supposed to have directed the strike of Creuzot. Assi never +had any influence in the Committee. + +[91] Textual. It is from the little man of Paris that the little man of +Versailles borrowed the phrase while he completed it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "Je croyais que les insurgés de Paris ne pourraient pas + conduire leur barque."--_Jules Favre, Enquête sur le + 18 Mars._ + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC + SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS. + + +Thus no agreement had been come to, only one of the four delegates +having, from sheer weariness, given way to a certain extent. So on the +morning of the 20th, when the mayor Bonvalet and two adjuncts sent by +the mayors came to take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville, the members of +the Committee unanimously exclaimed, "We have not treated." But +Bonvalet, feigning to believe in a regular agreement, continued, "The +deputies are to-day going to ask for the municipal franchises. Their +negotiations cannot succeed if the administration of Paris is not given +up to the mayors. On pain of frustrating the efforts which will save +you, you must fulfil the engagements of your delegates." + +One of the Committee: "Our delegates received no mandate to enter into +such engagements for us. We do not ask to be saved." + +Another: "The weakness of the deputies and of the mayors is one of the +causes of the revolution. If the Committee abandons its position and +disarms, the Assembly will grant nothing." + +Another: "I have just come from the Corderie. The Committee of the +second arrondissement is holding a sitting, and it adjures the Central +Committee to remain at its post till the elections." + +Others were about to speak, when Bonvalet declared that he had come to +take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville, not to discuss, and walked off. +His superciliousness confirmed the worst suspicions. Those who the +evening before had been favourable to making terms said, "These men want +to betray us." Behind the mayors the Committee beheld the implacable +reaction. In any case, to ask them for the Hôtel-de-Ville was to ask +their lives, for the National Guards would have believed them traitors, +and punished them on the spot. In one word, compromise had become +impossible. The _Journal Officiel_, for the first time in the hands of +the people, and the placards had spoken. + +"The election of the municipal council will take place on Wednesday +next, 22nd March," decreed the Central Committee. And in a manifesto it +said, "The offspring of a Republic whose device bears the great word +Fraternity, the Central Committee pardons its traducers, but it would +convince the honest people who have believed their calumnies through +ignorance. It has not been secret, for its members have signed their +names to all its proclamations. It has not been unknown, for it was a +free expression of the suffrage of 215 battalions. It has not been the +fomenter of disorder, for the National Guard has committed no excess. +And yet provocations have not been wanting. The Government calumniated +Paris and set on the provinces against her, wished to impose on us a +general, attempted to disarm us, and said to Paris, 'Thou hast shown +thyself heroic, we are afraid of thee, hence we will tear from thee the +crown of the capital of France.' What has the Central Committee done in +answer to these attacks? It has founded the Federation, preached +moderation, generosity. One of the greatest causes of anger against us +is the obscurity of our names. Alas! many names were known, well known, +and this notoriety has been fatal to us. Notoriety is cheaply gained; +often hollow phrases or a little cowardice suffice; recent events have +proved this. Now that our object is attained, we say to the people, who +esteemed us enough to listen to the advice that has often clashed with +their impatience, 'Here is the mandate you intrusted to us.' There, +where our personal interest commences, our duty ends. Do your will. You +have freed yourselves. Obscure a few days ago, obscure we shall return +to your ranks, and show our governors that it is possible to descend the +steps of your Hôtel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of +receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands."[92] +By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel +the deputies and the mayors placarded a few dry and colourless lines, +where they promised to demand of the Assembly that same day the election +of all the chiefs of the National Guard and the establishment of a +municipal council. + +At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified +functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five +or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition +was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight--this was not +what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which +they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of +taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the +provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at +Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of +soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was +to place a few posts along the routes of Châtillon and Sèvres, and +protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses. + +The President, Grévy, who during the whole war had cowered in the +provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by +stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could +extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession +towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before +the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection, +without general views, and without a preamble to explain them. First a +bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then +another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. +Millière alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to +prolong them for six months. + +Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled +at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a +deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous +scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had +softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own +treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen +times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for +his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him +with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the +National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orléans two +generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who +took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without +endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them, +was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a +fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions. +"I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This +story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.[93] + +From the first sitting one could see what the struggle between +Versailles and Paris was to be. The monarchical conspirators, abandoning +their dream for a moment, hastened to do the most urgent work first: to +save themselves from the Revolution. They surrounded M. Thiers and +promised him their absolute support to crush Paris. Thus this Ministry, +that a truly National Assembly would have impeached, became, even +through its crime, all-powerful. Scarcely recovered from the fright of +their stampede, M. Thiers and his Ministers dared to play the +swaggerers. And indeed, would not the provinces hasten to their rescue, +as in June, 1848? And proletarians without political education, without +administration, without money, how could they be able "to steer their +bark"? + +In 1831 the proletarians, masters of Lyons, had failed in their attempt +at self-government, and how much greater was the difficulty for those of +Paris! All new powers had until then found the administrative machine in +working order, in readiness for the victor. On the 20th March the +Central Committee found it taken to pieces. At the signal from +Versailles the majority of functionaries had abandoned their posts. +Octrois, street inspection, lighting, markets, public charity, +telegraphs, all the respiratory and digestive apparatus of the town of +1,600,000 souls, everything had to be extemporised. Certain mayors had +carried off the seals, the registers, and the cash of their mairies. The +military intendance left without a farthing six thousand sick in the +hospitals and ambulances.[94] M. Thiers had tried to disorganise even +the management of the cemeteries. + +Poor man! who never knew anything of our Paris, of her inexhaustible +strength, her marvellous elasticity. The Central Committee received +support from all sides. The committees of arrondissements furnished a +_personnel_ to the mairies; some of the small middle-class lent their +experience, and the most important services were set to rights in no +time by men of common sense and energy, which soon proved superior to +routine. The employés who had remained at their posts in order to hand +over the funds to Versailles were soon discovered and obliged to flee. + +The Central Committee overcame a more menacing difficulty. Three hundred +thousand persons without work, without resources of any kind, were +waiting for the thirty sous upon which they had lived for the last seven +months. On the 19th, Varlin and Jourde, delegates to the finance +department, took possession of that Ministry. The coffers, according to +the statement of accounts handed over to them, contained 4,600,000 +francs; but the keys were at Versailles, and, in view of the movement +for conciliation then being carried on, the delegates did not dare to +force the locks. The next day they went to ask Rothschild to open them a +credit at the bank, and he sent word that the funds would be advanced. +The same day the Central Committee broached the question more forcibly, +and sent three delegates to the bank to request the necessary advances. +They were answered that a million was placed at the disposition of +Varlin and Jourde, who at six o'clock in the evening were received by +the governor, M. Rouland. "I expected your visit," he said. "On the +morning following a change of Government, the bank has always to find +the money for the new-comers. It is not my business to judge events; the +Bank of France has nothing to do with politics. You are a _de facto_ +Government, and the bank gives you for to-day a million. Only be so kind +as to mention in your receipt that this sum has been requisitioned on +account of the town of Paris."[95] The delegates took away a million +francs in bank-notes. All the employés of the Ministry of Finance had +disappeared since the morning, but with the help of a few friends the +sum was rapidly divided among the paying officers. At ten o'clock the +delegates were able to tell the Central Committee that the pay was being +distributed in all the arrondissements. + +The bank acted prudently: the Central Committee firmly held Paris. The +mayors and deputies had not been able to unite more than three or four +hundred men, although they had charged Admiral Saisset with the +organisation of the resistance. The Committee was so sure of its +strength that it had the barricades demolished. Everybody came to it, +the garrison of Vincennes spontaneously surrendering themselves with the +fort. Its victory was too complete, for it was perilous, obliging it to +disperse its troops in order to take possession of the abandoned forts +on the south. Lullier, intrusted with this mission, had the forts of +Ivry, Bicêtre, Montrouge, Vanves, and Issy occupied on the 19th and +20th. The last to which he sent the National Guard, Mont-Valérien, was +the key of Paris, and, at that time, of Versailles. + +For thirty-six hours the impregnable fortress had remained empty. On the +evening of the 18th, after the order of evacuation, it had to defend it +only twenty muskets and some chasseurs of Vincennes, interned there for +mutiny. The same evening they burst open the locks of the fortress and +returned to Paris. + +When the evacuation of Mont-Valérien became known at Versailles, +generals and deputies begged M. Thiers to have it reoccupied. He +obstinately refused, declaring this fort had no strategical value. +During the whole day of the 19th they still failed. At last Vinoy, in +his turn, urged by them, succeeded on the 20th, at one o'clock in the +morning, in wresting an order from M. Thiers. A column was immediately +despatched, and at mid-day a thousand soldiers occupied the fortress. +Not until evening, at eight o'clock, did the battalions of Ternes +present themselves; the governor easily got rid of their officers. +Lullier, on making his report to the Central Committee, said he had +occupied all the forts, and even named the battalion which, according to +him, was then in possession of Mont-Valérien. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[92] I need not justify the long quotations I shall make. The French +proletarian has never been allowed to speak in books of history; at +least he should do so in the recital of his own revolution. + +[93] The two generals have testified to the extreme consideration shown +them in their prison. See the _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_. Two days later, +on Chanzy's simple promise not to serve against Paris, the Central +Committee set them free. + +[94] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Dr. Danet, vol. ii. p. 531. + +[95] Of course the Radicals have seen in this a Bonapartist manoeuvre, +have written and said from the tribune of the Assembly, "The Bonapartist +director of the Bank of France saved the Revolution; without the million +of the Monday the Central Committee would have capitulated." Two facts +answer this: From the 19th the Committee had in the Ministry of Finance +4,600,000 francs; the municipal coffers contained 1,200,000 francs, and +on the 21st the Octroi had brought in 500,000 more. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + "L'ideé de voir un massacre me remplissait de douleur."-- + _Jules Favre, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre._ + + THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY + COMBINE AGAINST PARIS--THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE + VENDÔME, AND IS PUNISHED. + + +On the 21st the situation stood out in bold relief. + +At Paris--the Central Committee, with it all the workmen and all the +generous and enlightened men of the small middle-class. The Committee +said, "We have but one object--the elections. Everybody is welcome to +co-operate with us, but we shall not leave the Hôtel-de-Ville before +they have been made." + +At Versailles--the Assembly;--all the monarchists, all the great +bourgeoisie, all the slaveholders. They yelled, "Paris is only a rebel, +the Central Committee a band of brigands." + +Between Versailles and Paris--a few Radical deputies, all the mayors, +many adjuncts. They comprised the Liberal bourgeois, that sacred herd +that makes all revolutions and allows all the empires to be made. +Despised by the Assembly, disdained by the people, they cried to the +Central Committee, "Usurpers!" and to the Assembly, "You will spoil +all." + +The day of the 21st is memorable, for on it all these voices made +themselves heard. + +The Central Committee: "Paris has in nowise the intention of separating +from France; far from it. For France she has borne with the Empire and +the Government of the National Defence, with all their treachery and +defections, certainly not to abandon her now, but only to say to her as +an elder sister: Sustain thyself as I have sustained myself; oppose +thyself to oppression as I have done." + +And the _Journal Officiel_, in the first of those articles where Moreau, +Longuet, and Rogeard commented upon the new revolution, said: "The +proletarians of the capital, amidst the failures and treasons of the +ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to +save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of +public affairs. Hardly possessed of the government, they have hastened +to convoke the people of Paris to the ballot-boxes. There is no example +in history of a provisional government so anxious to divest itself of +its mandate. In the presence of conduct so disinterested, one may well +ask how a press can be found unjust enough to pour out upon these +citizens slander, contumely, and insult? The workingmen, those who +produce everything and enjoy nothing, are they then for ever to be +exposed to outrage? The bourgeoisie, which has accomplished its +emancipation, does it not understand that now the time for the +emancipation of the proletariat is come? Why, then, does it persist in +refusing the proletariat its legitimate share?" + +It was the first Socialist note struck in the movement. Parisian +revolutions never remain purely political. The approach of the +foreigner, the abnegation of the workmen, had, on the 4th September, +silenced all social demands. Peace once concluded, the workmen in power, +their voice would naturally make itself heard. How just was this +complaint of the Central Committee! What an act of accusation the French +proletariat could draw up against its masters! And on the 18th March, +1871, could not the people, making greater their great words of 1848, +say, "We had placed eighty years of patience at the service of our +country"? + +The same day the Central Committee suspended the sale of objects pledged +in the pawnshops, prolonged the overdue bills for a month, and forbade +landlords to dismiss their tenants till further notice. In three lines +it did justice, beat Versailles, and gained Paris. + +On the other hand, the representatives and mayors told the people, "No +election; everything is for the best. We wanted the maintenance of the +National Guard; we shall have it. We wanted Paris to recover her +municipal liberty; we shall have it. Your requests have been brought +before the Assembly. The Assembly _has satisfied them_ by a unanimous +vote, which guarantees the municipal elections. Awaiting these, the only +legal elections, we declare that we shall abstain from the elections +announced for to-morrow, and we protest against their illegality." + +Thrice-lying address! The Assembly had not said a word of the National +Guard; it had promised no municipal liberty, and several of the +signatures were supposititious. + +The bourgeois press followed suit. Since the 19th the Figarist papers, +supported by the police, the altar, and the alcove, the Liberal +gazettes, by which Trochu had prepared the capitulation of Paris, had +not ceased to fall foul of the federal battalions. They spoke of the +public coffers and private property being pillaged, of Prussian gold +streaming into the faubourgs, of documentary evidence hurtful to the +members of the Central Committee destroyed by them. The Republican +journals also discovered gold in the movement, but Bonapartist gold; and +the best of them, naïvely convinced that the Republic belonged to their +patrons, inveigled against the accession of the proletariat, saying, +"These people dishonour us." Emboldened by the mayors and deputies, they +all agreed to revolt; and on the 21st, in a collective declaration, +asked the electors to consider as null and void the illegal convocation +of the Hôtel-de-Ville. + +Illegality! Thus the question was put by the Legitimists, twice imposed +on us by foreign bayonets; by the Orléanists, raised to power through +barricades; by the brigands of December; even by the exiles returned +home, thanks to an insurrection. What! When the bourgeois, who make all +laws, always act illegally, how are the workmen to proceed, against whom +all the laws are made? + +These attacks of the mayors and deputies and of the press screwed up the +courage of the Hectors of the reaction. For two days this rabble of +runaways, who during the siege had infested the cafés of Brussels and +the Haymarket of London, gesticulated on the fashionable boulevards, +asking for order and _work_. On the 21st, at about ten o'clock, at the +Place de la Bourse, about a hundred of these strange workingmen marched +round the Stock Exchange, banners flying, and advancing along the +boulevards to the cries of "Vive l'Assemblée!" came to the Place +Vendôme, shouting before the general staff, "Down with the Committee!" +The commander of the Place, Bergeret, told them to send delegates. "No, +no!" cried they; "no delegates! You would assassinate them!" The +federals, losing patience, had the Place cleared. The riotous fops gave +themselves a rendezvous for the next day before the new Opera-House. + +At the same hour the Assembly made its demonstration. The draft of an +address to the people and the army, a tissue of lies and insults to +Paris, having just been read, and Millière having pointed out that it +contained some unfortunate expressions, was hooted. The demand of the +Left to at least conclude the address with the words "Vive la +République!" was frantically refused by an immense majority. Louis Blanc +and his group, entreating the Assembly to immediately examine their +project of municipal law and oppose a vote to the elections that the +Committee announced for the next day, M. Thiers answered, "Give us time +to study the question." "Time!" exclaimed M. Clémenceau, "we have none +to lose." Then M. Thiers gave those drones a lesson they richly +deserved: "What would be the use of concessions?" said he. "What +authority have you at Paris? Who would listen to you at the +Hôtel-de-Ville? Do you think that the adoption of a bill would disarm +the party of brigands, the party of assassins?" Then he charged Jules +Favre to expatiate on this theme for the special benefit of the +provinces. For an hour and a half that bitter follower of Guadet, +spinning round Paris his elaborate periods, limed her with his venom. No +doubt he again saw himself on the 31st October, when the people held him +in their power and pardoned him, a cruel remembrance for his rankling +spirit. He commenced by reading the declaration of the press, +"courageously written," said he, "under the knife of the assassins." He +spoke of Paris as in the power of "a handful of scoundrels, putting +above the right of the Assembly I know not what bloody and rapacious +ideal." Then, humbly supplicating monarchists and Catholics: "What they +want," cried he, "what they have realised, is an attempt at that baleful +doctrine which in philosophy may be called individualism and +materialism, and which in politics means the Republic placed above +universal suffrage." At this idiotic quibbling the Assembly burst into +roars of applause. "These new doctors," continued he, "have the +pretension of separating Paris from France. But let the insurgents know +this: if we left Paris, it was with the intention of returning in order +to combat them resolutely." (Bravo! bravo!) Then stirring the panic of +those rurals who every moment expected to see the federal battalions +coming down upon them: "If some of you fall into the hands of these men, +who have only usurped power for the sake of violence, assassination and +theft, the fate of the unfortunate victims of their ferocity would be +yours." And finally, garbling, improving with ferocious skill the +maladroitness of an article in the _Journal Officiel_ on the execution +of the generals: "No more temporising. For three days I combated the +exigencies of the victor who wanted to disarm the National Guard. I ask +pardon for it of God and of man." Each new insult, each banderillo +thrust into the flesh of Paris, drew from the Assembly mad hurrahs. +Admiral Saisset stamped, emphasizing certain phrases of the speaker with +his hoarse interjections. Goaded by these wild cheers, Jules Favre +doubled his invective. Since the Gironde, since Isnard's curse, Paris +had not undergone such an imprecation. Even Langlois, unable to stand it +any longer, exclaimed, "Oh, it is outrageous, atrocious to speak thus!" +And when Jules Favre concluded, implacable, impassible, only foaming a +little at the mouth: "France will not be lowered to the bloody level of +the wretches who oppress the capital," the whole Assembly rose raving. +"Let us appeal to the provinces," shrieked the rurals. And Saisset: +"Yes, let us appeal to the provinces and march on Paris." In vain one +of the deputies of the Seine adjured the Assembly not to let them return +to Paris empty-handed. This great bourgeoisie, which had just +surrendered the honour, the fortune, and the territory of France to the +Prussian, trembled with rage at the mere thought of conceding anything +to Paris. + +After this horrible scene, the Radical deputies found nothing better to +do than to issue a lachrymose address inviting Paris to be patient. The +Central Committee was obliged to adjourn the elections till the 23rd, +for several mairies belonged to the enemy; but on the 22nd it warned the +papers that provocation to revolt would be severely repressed. + +The matadors of reaction, reanimated by Jules Favre's speech, took this +warning for an idle boast. On the 22nd at mid-day they assembled at the +Place du Nouvel Opera. At one o'clock they numbered a thousand dandies, +squireens, journalists, notorious familiars of the Empire, who marched +down the Rue de la Paix to the cry of "Vive l'ordre!" Their plan was, +under the cloak of a pacific demonstration, to force the Place Vendôme +and to expel the Federals from it; then, masters of the mairie of the +first arrondissement, of half of the second and of Passy, they would +have cut Paris in two and menaced the Hôtel-de-Ville. Admiral Saisset +followed them. + +Before the Rue Neuve St. Augustin these pacific demonstration-men +disarmed and ill-treated two detached sentries of the National Guard. +Seeing this, the Federals of the Place Vendôme seized their muskets and +hurried in marching order to the top of the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs. +They were but 200, the whole garrison of the place; the two cannon +levelled at the Rue de la Paix had no cartridges. The reactionists soon +encountered the first line with the cry, "Down with the Committee! Down +with the assassins!" waving a banner and their handkerchiefs, while some +of them stretched out their hands to seize the muskets. Bergeret, +Maljournal, members of the Committee, in the first ranks, summoned the +rioters to retire. Furious cries of "Cowards! brigands!" drowned their +voices, and sword-canes were pointed at them. Bergeret made a sign to +the drummers. A dozen times the _sommations_ were made and repeated. For +several minutes only the roll of the drums was heard, and between these +savage cries. The ranks in the rear of the manifestation pushed on those +in front and tried to break through the lines of the Federals. At last, +despairing no doubt of succeeding by mere bravado, the insurgents fired +their revolvers;[96] two guards were killed and seven wounded;[97] +Maljournal was struck in the thigh. + +The muskets of the guards went off, so to say, spontaneously. A volley +and a terrible cry, followed by silence more dismal. In a few seconds +the crowded Rue de la Paix was emptied. In the deserted road, strewn +with revolvers, sword-canes, and hats, lay about a dozen corpses. If the +Federals had only aimed at foes' hearts, there would have been 200 +killed, for in this compact mass no shot would have missed. The +insurgents had killed one of their own, the Vicomte de Molinat, fallen +in the front ranks, his face towards the place, a ball in the occiput. +On his body was found a poniard fixed by a small chain. A witty ball +struck in the rear the chief editor of the _Paris Journal_, the +Bonapartist De Pène, one of the basest revilers of the movement. + +The runaways traversed Paris shouting, "Murder!" The shops of the +boulevards were closed and the Place de la Bourse filled with rabid +groups. At four o'clock some of the reactionist companies appeared, +resolute, in good order, their muskets on their shoulders, and took +possession of the quarters of the Bourse. + +At three o'clock the event became known at Versailles. The Assembly had +just rejected Louis Blanc's bill on the municipal council, and Picard +was reading another one refusing all justice to Paris, when the news +arrived. The Assembly precipitately raised the sitting; the Ministers +looked dumbfoundered. + +All their swaggering of the evening before had only been meant to +frighten Paris, to encourage the men of order, and provoke a +_coup-de-main_. The incident had occurred, but the Central Committee +triumphed. For the first time M. Thiers began to believe that this +Committee, able to repress a riot, might after all be a Government. + +The news in the evening was more reassuring. The fusillade seemed to +have roused the _men of order_. They were flocking to the Place de la +Bourse. A great many officers just returned from Germany came to offer +their help. The reactionary companies were establishing themselves +solidly in the mairie of the ninth arrondissement and reoccupying that +of the sixth, dislodging the Federals of the station of St. Lazare, +guarding all the approaches of the occupied quarters, and forcibly +arresting the passers-by. They formed a town within the town. The mayors +were constituting a permanent committee in the mairie of the second +arrondissement. Their resistance was now provided with an army. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[96] The aggression was so evident, that not one of the twenty +court-martials that searched into every detail of the revolution of the +18th March dared allude to the affair of the Place Vendôme. + +[97] Their names were published in the _Journal Officiel_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND + CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS TO CAPITULATE. + + +The Central Committee was equal to the occasion. Its proclamations, its +Socialist articles in the _Officiel_, the truculence of the mayors and +deputies, had at last rallied round it all the revolutionary groups. It +had also added to its members some men better known to the masses.[98] +By its order the Place Vendôme was provided with barricades; the +battalions of the Hôtel-de-Ville were reinforced; strong patrols +remounted the boulevards before the reactionary posts of the Rues +Vivienne and Drouot. Thanks to it, the night passed tranquilly. + +As the elections on the next day had become impossible, the Committee +declared they could only take place on the 26th, and said to Paris: "The +reaction, excited by your mayors and your deputies, has declared war on +us. We must accept the struggle and break this resistance." It announced +that it would summon before it all the journalists libelling the +people. It sent a battalion of Belleville to reoccupy the mairie of the +sixth, and replaced by its delegates the mayors and adjuncts of the +third, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and eighteenth arrondissements, in +spite of their protestations. M. Clémenceau wrote that he yielded to +force, but would not himself resort to force. This was all the more +magnanimous that his whole force consisted of himself and his adjunct. +The Federals installed themselves at the Batignolles on the railway +lines, and stopped the trains, thus preventing the occupation of the St. +Lazare station. Lastly, the Committee proceeded energetically against +the Bourse. + +The reaction counted upon famine to make the Committee capitulate. The +million of the Monday was gone; a second one had been promised. On the +Thursday morning, Varlin and Jourde, going to fetch an instalment, +received only threats. They wrote to the governor: "To starve out the +people, such is the aim of a party that styles itself honest. Famine +disarms no one; it will only encourage devastation. We take up the glove +that has been flung down to us." And, without deigning to take any +notice of the swashers of the Bourse, the Committee sent two battalions +to the bank, which had to give in. + +At the same time the Committee neglected nothing in order to reassure +Paris. Numerous ticket-of-leave men had been let loose upon the town. +The Committee denounced them to the vigilance of the National Guard, and +posted upon the doors of the Hôtel-de-Ville, "Every individual taken in +the act of stealing will be shot." Picard's police had failed to put an +end to the gamblers who every night since the siege had encumbered the +streets; a single order of the Committee sufficed. The great scarecrow +of the reactionists was the Prussians, and Jules Favre had announced +their early intervention. The Committee published the despatches that +had passed between it and the commander of Compiègne, to this effect: +"The German troops will remain passive so long as Paris does not take a +hostile attitude." The Committee had answered with great dignity: "The +Revolution accomplished at Paris is of an essentially municipal +character. We are not qualified to discuss the preliminaries of peace +voted by the Assembly." Paris was therefore without anxiety on that +head. + +The only disturbance proceeded from the mayors. Authorised by M. Thiers, +they appointed as chief of the National Guards Saisset, the madman of +the sitting of the 21st, giving him Langlois and Schoelcher as +coadjutors, and made every effort to attract National Guards to the +Place de la Bourse, where they distributed the pay due to the guards of +the invaded mairies. Many came only to get the pay, not to fight. Even +the chiefs began to be divided amongst themselves. The most rabid +certainly spoke of sweeping away everything before them. Those were +Vautrain, Dubail, Denormandie, Degouve-Denuncques, and Héligon, an +ex-workingman, an idle fellow, admitted into the bourgeois servants' +hall, and bumptious like other lackeys. But many others flagged and +thought of conciliation, especially since some of the deputies and +adjuncts--Millière, Malon, Dereure, and Jaclard--had withdrawn from the +union of the mayors, thus still further setting forth its frankly +reactionary character. Finally, some soft-headed mayors, still believing +that the Assembly needed only enlightenment, extemporised a melodramatic +scene. + +They arrived at Versailles on the 23rd, at the moment when the rurals, +again plucking up their courage, made an appeal to the provinces to +march on Paris. In most solemn attitude these mayors put in their +appearance before the tribune of the president, girdled with their +official scarfs. The Left applauded, crying "Vive la République!" The +Lamourettes returned the compliment. But the Right and the Centre cried +"Vive la France! Order! Order!" and with clenched hands they +apostrophised the deputies of the Left, who naïvely answered, "You +insult Paris!" to which the others replied, "You insult France!" and +they left the House. In the evening a deputy, who was also a mayor, +Arnaud De l'Ariège, read from the tribune the declaration that they had +brought, and wound up by saying, "We are on the eve of an awful civil +war. There is but one way to prevent it--that the election of the +commander-in-chief of the National Guard be fixed for the 28th, and that +of the municipal council for the 3rd of April." These propositions were +referred to the Committee. + +The mayors returned home indignant. A despatch of the evening before had +already disquieted Paris. M. Thiers announced to the provinces that the +Bonapartist Ministers, Rouher, Chevreau, and Boitelle, arrested by the +people of Boulogne, had been protected, and that Marshal Canrobert, one +of the accomplices of Bazaine, had offered his services to the +Government. The insult inflicted upon the mayors irritated the whole +middle-class, and called forth a sudden change in their Republican +journals. The attacks against the Central Committee relaxed. Even the +Moderates began to expect the worst from Versailles. + +The Central Committee took advantage of this change of opinion. Having +just been informed of the proclamation of the Commune at Lyons, it spoke +out all the more clearly in its manifesto of the 24th. "Some battalions, +misled by their reactionary chiefs, have thought it their duty to clog +our movements. Some mayors and deputies, forgetting their mandates, have +encouraged this resistance. We rely upon your courage for the +accomplishment of our mission. It is objected that the Assembly promises +us at some indefinite period the election of the municipal council and +that of our chiefs, and that consequently our resistance ought not to be +prolonged. We have been deceived too often to be entrapped again; the +left hand would take back what the right hand gives. See what the +Government has already done. In the Chamber, through the voice of Jules +Favre, it has challenged a terrible civil war, called on the provinces +to destroy Paris, and covered us with the most odious calumnies." + +Having spoken, the Committee now acted, and named three +generals--Brunel, Duval, and Eudes. It had to confine the drunkard +Lullier, who, assisted by a staff of traitors, had the evening before +allowed a whole regiment of the army encamped at the Luxembourg to leave +Paris with arms and baggage. Now, too, it was known that Mont-Valérien +was lost by his fault. + +The generals made a profession not to be misunderstood: "This is no +longer a time for Parliamentarism. We must act. Paris wishes to be free. +The great city will not permit public order to be disturbed with +impunity." + +A direct caution this addressed to the camp of the Bourse, which, +moreover, was visibly growing less. The desertions from it multiplied at +every sitting of the rurals. Women came to fetch their husbands. The +Bonapartist officers, overshooting the mark, irritated moderate +Republicans. The programme of the mayors--submission to +Versailles--discouraged the middle-class. The general staff of this +helter-skelter army had been foolishly established at the Grand Hôtel. +There sat the crazy trio--Saisset, Langlois, and Schoelcher--who, from +extreme confidence, had fallen into a state of utter dejection. The most +crack-brained of them, Saisset, took upon himself to announce by +placards that the Assembly had granted the complete recognition of the +municipal franchise, the election of all the officers of the National +Guard, including the general-in-chief, modifications of the law on the +overdue commercial bills, and a bill on rents favourable to the tenants. +This gigantic hoax only mystified Versailles. + +The Committee, pushing forward,[99] ordered Brunel to seize the mairies +of the first and second arrondissements. Brunel, with 600 men of +Belleville, two pieces of artillery, and accompanied by two delegates of +the Committee, Lisbonne and Protot, presented himself at three o'clock +at the mairie of the Louvre. The bourgeois companies assumed an air of +resistance. Brunel had his cannon advanced, when the passage was at once +opened to him. He declared to the adjuncts, Meline and Ad. Adam, that +the Committee would proceed with the elections as soon as possible. The +adjuncts, intimidated, sent to the mairie of the second arrondissement +to ask for the authorisation to treat. Dubail answered that they might +promise the elections for the 3rd April. Brunel insisted on appointing +the 30th March. The adjuncts acquiesced. The National Guards of the two +camps saluted this agreement with enthusiastic acclamations, and +mingling their ranks, marched to the mairie of the second +arrondissement. In the Rue Montmartre a few companies of the Bourse +army, trying to stop the way, were told, "Peace is made," and they let +them pass. At the mairie of the second arrondissement, Schoelcher, who +presided at the meeting of the mayors, Dubail, and Vautrain resisted, +refusing to ratify the convention, insisting on the date of the 3rd +April. But the great majority of their colleagues accepted that of the +30th, and the election of the commander-in-chief of the National Guard +for the 3rd April. Immense cheers hailed the good news, and the popular +battalions, saluted by the bourgeois battalions, defiled through the Rue +Vivienne and the boulevards, dragging along their cannon, mounted by +lads with green branches in their hands. + +The Central Committee could not accept this transaction. Twice it had +postponed the elections. A new adjournment would have given certain +mayors five days for plotting and playing into the hands of Versailles. +Besides, the Federal battalions, on foot since the 18th, were really +tired out. Ranvier and Arnold the same evening went to the mairie of the +second arrondissement to say that the Hôtel-de-Ville adhered to the date +of the 26th for the elections. The mayors and adjuncts, many of whom had +only the one purpose, as they have avowed since,[100] of gaining time, +inveighed against a breach of faith. The delegates protested, for +Brunel had had no mandate but that of occupying the mairies. For several +hours everything was tried to talk over the delegates, but they held +their ground, and went away at two o'clock in the morning without any +conclusion being arrived at. After their departure the more intractable +discussed the chance of resistance. The irrepressible Dubail wrote a +call to arms, sent it to the printing-office, and spent the whole night +with his faithful Héligon in transmitting orders to the chiefs of +battalions and providing the mairie with mitrailleuses. + +While they were thus bent upon resistance the rurals thought themselves +betrayed. Every day they became more nervous, being deprived of their +creature-comforts, obliged to camp in the lobbies of the castle of +Versailles, exposed to all winds and to all panics. They felt weary of +the incessant interference of the mayors, and were thunderstruck by the +proclamation of Saisset. They fancied that M. Thiers was coquetting with +the _émeute_, that the _petit bourgeois_, as he hypocritically called +himself, wanted to cozen the monarchists, and, using Paris as his lever, +overthrow them. They spoke of removing him, and appointing as +commander-in-chief one of the D'Orléans, Joinville or D'Aumale. Their +plot might have come to a head at the evening sitting, when the +proposition of the mayors was to be read. M. Thiers was beforehand with +them, implored the Assembly to adjourn the discussion, adding that an +ill-considered word might cost torrents of blood. Grévy shuffled through +the sitting in ten minutes. But the rumour of a plot got abroad. + +Saturday was the last day of the crisis. Either the Central Committee or +the mayors had to disappear. The Committee on that very morning +placarded: "The transport of mitrailleuses to the mairie of the second +arrondissement compels us to maintain our resolution. The election will +take place on the 26th March." Paris, which had believed peace +concluded, and for the first time since five days had passed a quiet +night, was very angry at seeing the mayors recommence the wrangle. The +idea of the election had made its way in all ranks, and many papers +declared for it, even among those that had signed the protestation of +the 21st. No one could understand this quarrel about a date. One +irresistible current of fraternisation swayed the whole town. The ranks +of the two or three hundred soldiers of order who had remained faithful +to Dubail dwindled away from hour to hour, leaving Admiral Saisset alone +to make his proclamation in the desert of the Grand Hôtel. The mayors +had no longer an army when, at ten o'clock, Ranvier came to ask for +their final decision. Their dispute grew hot when some deputies of Paris +on their return from Versailles announced the news that the Duc d'Aumale +was proclaimed lieutenant-general. Several mayors and adjuncts then at +last understood that the Republic was at stake, and, convinced of their +impotence, capitulated. The draft of a placard was drawn up to be signed +by the mayors, deputies, and for the Central Committee by the two +delegates Ranvier and Arnold. The Committee wanted to sign _en masse_, +and slightly modified the text, saying, "The Central Committee, round +which the deputies of Paris, the mayors, and adjuncts have rallied, +convokes...." Thereupon some of the mayors, on the look-out for a +pretext, rose, crying, "This is not our convention; we said the +deputies, the mayors, the adjuncts, and the members of the +Committee...;" and, at the risk of rekindling the embers, placarded the +protest. Yet the Committee might well say, "Which have rallied?" since +it had yielded no point. However, Paris overruled the mischief-mongers. +Admiral Saisset had to disband the four men who remained to him. Tirard +in a placard advised the electors to vote; for M. Thiers that same +morning had given him the hint, "Do not continue a useless resistance. I +am reorganising the army. I hope that in a fortnight or three weeks we +shall have a sufficient force to relieve Paris."[101] + +Five deputies only signed the address for the election, MM. Lockroy, +Floquet, Clémenceau, Tolain, and Greppo; the rest of Louis Blanc's group +had kept aloof from Paris for several days. These weaklings, having all +their life sung the glories of the Revolution, when it rose up before +them ran away appalled, like the Arab fisher at the apparition of the +genie. + +With these mandarins of the tribune of history and of journalism, mute +and lifeless, contrast strangely the sons of the multitude, obscure, but +rich in will, faith, and eloquence. Their farewell address was worthy of +their advent: "Do not forget that the men who will serve you best are +those whom you will choose from amongst yourselves, living your life, +suffering the same ills. Beware of the ambitious as much as of the +upstarts. Beware also of mere talkers. Shun those whom fortune has +favoured, for only too rarely is he who possesses fortune prone to look +upon the workingman as a brother. Give your preference to those who do +not solicit your suffrages. True merit is modest, and it is for the +workingmen to know those who are worthy, not for these to present +themselves." + +They could indeed "come down the steps of the Hôtel-de-Ville head +erect," these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the +18th March. Named only to organise the National Guard, thrown at the +head of a revolution without precedent and without guides, they had been +able to resist the impatient, quell the riot, re-establish the public +services, victual Paris, baffle intrigues, take advantage of all the +blunders of Versailles and of the mayors, and, harassed on all sides, +every moment in danger of civil war, known how to negotiate, to act at +the right time and in the right place. They had embodied the tendency of +the movement, limited their programme to communal revindications, and +conducted the entire population to the ballot-box. They had inaugurated +a precise, vigorous, and fraternal language unknown to all bourgeois +powers. + +And yet they were obscure men, all with an incomplete education, some of +them fanatics. But the people thought with them. Paris was the brazier, +the Hôtel-de-Ville the flame. In the Hôtel-de-Ville, where illustrious +bourgeois have only accumulated folly upon defeat, these new-comers +found victory because they listened to Paris. + +May their services absolve them from two grave faults--allowing the +escape of the army and of the functionaries, and the retaking of +Mont-Valérien by Versailles. It has been said that on the 19th or 20th +they ought to have marched on Versailles. But on the first alarm these +would have fled to Fontainebleau, with the Administration and the Left, +everything that was wanted to govern and deceive the provinces. The +occupation of Versailles would only have displaced the enemy, and it +would not have been for long, as the popular battalions were too badly +provided, too badly commanded, to hold at the same time this open town +and Paris. + +At all events, the Central Committee left its successor all the means +necessary to disarm the enemy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[98] Here are the names of those who signed the proclamations and +notices of the Committee. We shall restore, as far as possible, their +correct orthography, often altered, even in the _Officiel_, to the +extent of giving fictitious names:--Andignoux, A. Arnaud, G. Arnold, A. +Assi, Babick, Barroud, Bergeret, Billioray, Bouit, Boursier, Blanchet, +Castioni, Chouteau, C. Dupont, Eudes, Fabre, Ferrat, Fleury, H. Fortuné, +Fougeret, Gaudier, Geresme, Gouhier, Grêlier, J. Grollard, Josselin, +Jourde, Lavalette, Lisbonne, Lullier, Maljournal, Ed. Moreau, Mortier, +Prudhomme, Ranvier, Rousseau, Varlin, Viard. Notwithstanding the +decision of the Committee, all its members did not always sign the +proclamations. Finally, some who took part in certain deliberations +never signed at all. + +[99] This order had been given the evening before. The treachery of Du +Bisson, nominated chief of the staff by Lullier, had prevented its +execution. + +[100] Tirard: "My whole preoccupation and that of my colleagues had been +to postpone the elections so as to reach the date of the 3rd +April"--_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 340. Vautrain: "My +colleagues and I thus gained eight days more."--_Ibid._, p. 379. J. +Favre: "For eight days we were the only barricade raised up between the +insurrection and the Government."--_Ibid._, p. 385. Desmarets: "I +believed it necessary to remain exposed to danger in order to give the +Government of Versailles time for arming."--_Ibid._, p. 412. + +[101] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, Tirard, vol. ii. p. 342. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "Une portion considérable de la population et de la garde + nationale de Paris sollicite le concours des départements pour + le rétablissement de l'ordre."--_Circulaire de M. Thiers aux + Préfets, le 27 Mars._ + + PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE. + + +This week ended with the triumph of Paris. Paris-Commune again resumed +her part as the capital of France, again became the national initiator. +For the tenth time since 1789 the workmen put France upon the right +track. + +The bayonets of Prussia had laid bare our country, such as eighty years +of bourgeois domination had left it--a Goliath at the mercy of his +driver. + +Paris broke the thousand fetters which bound France down to the ground, +like Gulliver a prey to ants; restored the circulation to her paralysed +limbs; said, "The life of the whole nation exists in each of her +smallest organisms; the unity of the hive, and not that of the barracks. +The organic cell of the French Republic is the municipality, the +commune." + +The Lazarus of the Empire and of the siege resuscitated, having torn the +napkin from his brow and shaken off the grave-clothes, was about to +begin a new existence with the regenerated Communes of France in his +train. This new life gave to all Paris a youthful aspect. Those who had +despaired a month before were now full of enthusiasm. Strangers +addressed each other and shook hands. For indeed we were not strangers, +but bound together by the same faith and the same aspirations. + +Sunday the 26th was a day of joy and sunshine. Paris breathed again, +happy like one just escaped from death or great peril. At Versailles +the streets looked gloomy, gendarmes occupied the station, brutally +demanded passports, confiscated all the journals of Paris, and at the +slightest expression of sympathy for the town arrested you. At Paris +everybody could enter freely. The streets swarmed with people, the cafés +were noisy; the same lad cried out the _Paris Journal_ and the +_Commune_; the attacks against the Hôtel-de-Ville, the protestation of a +few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the placards of +the Central Committee. The people were without anger because without +fear. The voting paper had replaced the chassepot. + +Picard's bill only gave Paris sixty municipal councillors, three for +each arrondissement, whatever might be its population. Thus the 150,000 +inhabitants of the eleventh arrondissement had the same number of +representatives as the 45,000 of the sixteenth. The Central Committee +had decreed that there was to be a councillor for every 20,000 +inhabitants, and for each fraction of 10,000; ninety in all. The +elections were to be conducted with the lists of February and in the +usual manner; only the Committee had expressed the wish that for the +future open voting should be considered the only mode worthy of +democratic principles. All the faubourgs obeyed, and gave an open vote. +The electors of the St. Antoine quarter formed in long columns, and, +headed by a red flag, their voting papers stuck in their hats, defiled +before the column of the Bastille, and in the same order marched to +their sections. + +The adhesion and convocation of the mayors dissipating all scruple, also +made the bourgeois quarters vote. The elections became legal since +plenipotentiaries of the Government had given their consent. Two hundred +and eighty-seven thousand men voted, relatively a far greater number +than in the elections of February; for since the opening of the gates +after the siege, a great part of the easy classes had rushed to the +provinces there to recruit their health. + +The elections were conducted in a way becoming a free people. At the +approach to the halls, no police, no intrigues. And yet M. Thiers dared +telegraph to the provinces: "The elections will take place to-day +without liberty and without moral authority." The liberty was so +absolute that in all Paris not one single protestation occurred. + +The moderate papers even commended the articles of the _Officiel_, in +which the delegate Longuet set forth the part of the future Communal +Assembly: "Above all, it must define its mandate, fix the boundaries of +its attributes. Its first work must be the discussion and the drawing up +of its charter. This done, it must consider the means of having that +statute of the municipal autonomy recognised and guaranteed by the +central power." The plainness, the prudence, the moderation which marked +all official acts was beginning to move the most obdurate. Only the +hatred of the Versaillese did not abate. That same day M. Thiers cried +from the tribune, "No, France will not let those wretches triumph who +would drown her in blood." + +The next day 200,000 "wretches" came to the Hôtel-de-Ville there to +instal their chosen representatives, the battalion drums beating, the +banners surmounted by the Phrygian cap and with red fringe round the +muskets; their ranks, swelled by soldiers of the line, artillerists, and +marines faithful to Paris, came down from all the streets to the Place +de Gréve like the thousand streams of a great river. In the middle of +the Hôtel-de-Ville, against the central door, a large platform was +raised. Above it towered the bust of the Republic, a red scarf slung +round it. Immense red streamers beat against the frontal and the belfry, +like tongues of fire announcing the good news to France. A hundred +battalions thronged the place, and piled their bayonets, lit up by the +sun, in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville. The other battalions that could not +get into the place lined the streets up to the Boulevard de Sebastopol +and to the quays. The banners were grouped in front of the platform, +some tricolour, all with red tassels, symbolising the advent of the +people. While the place was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played +the _Marseillaise_ and the _Chant du Départ_, trumpets sounded the +charge, and the cannon of the old Commune thundered on the quay. + +Suddenly the noise subsided. The members of the Central Committee and of +the Commune, their red scarfs over their shoulders, appeared on the +platform. Ranvier said, "Citizens, my heart is too full of joy to make a +speech. Permit me only to thank the people of Paris for the great +example they have given the world." A member of the Committee announced +the names of those elected. The drums beat a salute, the bands and two +hundred thousand voices chimed in with the _Marseillaise_. Ranvier, in +an interval of silence, cried out, "In the name of the People the +Commune is proclaimed." + +A thousandfold echo answered, "Vive la Commune!" Caps were flung up on +the ends of bayonets, flags fluttered in the air. From the windows, on +the roofs, thousands of hands waved handkerchiefs. The quick reports of +the cannon, the bands, the drums, blended in one formidable vibration. +All hearts leaped with joy, all eyes filled with tears. Never since the +great Federation had Paris been thus moved. + +The filing off was very cleverly managed by Brunel, who, while having +the place evacuated on the one hand, brought in those battalions that +were without, all equally anxious to acclaim the Commune. Before the +bust of the Republic the flags were lowered, the officers saluted with +their sabres, the men raised their muskets. Not until seven o'clock did +the last procession pass by. + +The agents of M. Thiers returned in dismay to tell him, "It was really +the whole of Paris that took part in the manifestation." And the Central +Committee might well exclaim in its enthusiasm, "To-day Paris opened a +fresh page in the book of history, and there inscribed her powerful +name. Let the spies of Versailles, who are prowling around us, go and +tell their masters what the common movement of an entire population +means. Let these spies carry back to them the image of the magnificent +spectacle of a people recovering their sovereignty." + +This lightning would have made the blind to see. 287,000 voters, 200,000 +men with the same watchword. This was not a secret committee, a handful +of factious rioters and bandits, as had been said for ten days. Here was +an immense force at the service of a definite idea--Communal +independence, the intellectual life of France--an invaluable force in +this time of universal anæmia, a godsend as precious as the compass +saved from the wreck and saving the survivors. This was one of those +great historical turning-points when a people may be remoulded. + +Liberals, if it was in good faith that you called for decentralisation +under the Empire; Republicans, if you have understood June, 1848, and +December, 1851; Radicals, if you really want the self-government of the +people, listen to this new voice, avail yourselves of this marvellous +opportunity. + +But the Prussian! What does it matter? Why not forge arms under the eye +of the enemy? Bourgeois, was it not in sight of the foreigner that your +ancestor Etienne Marcel tried to remake France? And your Convention, did +not it first act in the very midst of the hurricane? + +What did they answer? Death to Paris! + +The red sun of civil discord melts veneer and all masks. There they are +side by side as in 1791, 1794, and 1848, Monarchists, Clericals, +Liberals, Radicals, all of them, their hands raised against the +people--one army in different uniforms. Their decentralisation is rural +and capitalist federalism; their self-government, the exploitation of +the budget by themselves, just as the whole political science of their +statesmen consists only in massacre and the state of siege. + +What bourgeoisie in the world after such immense disasters would not +with careful heed have tended such a reservoir of living force? They, +seeing this Paris capable of engendering a new world, her heart swelled +with the best blood of France, had but one thought--to bleed Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "Toutes les parties de la France sont unies et ralliées + autour de l'Assemblée et du gouvernement."--_Circulaire de + M. Thiers à la Province, le 23 au soir._ + + THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT. + + +What was the state of the provinces? + +For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon +lying despatches of M. Thiers,[102] then looked at the signatures to the +proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the +Left nor the democratic paragons, said, "Who are these unknown men?" The +Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the +siege of Paris--very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative +press--as their fathers had formerly said, "Pitt and Coburg," when +unable to comprehend popular movements, they cried, "These unknown men +can be nothing but Bonapartists." The people alone showed true instinct. + +The Paris Commune found its first echo at Lyons. This was a necessary +reverberation. Since the advent of the Assembly the workmen found +themselves watched. The municipal councillors, weak men, some of them, +almost to reaction, had lowered the red flag under the pretext that "the +proud flag of resistance _à outrance_ should not survive the humiliation +of France." The clumsy trick had not deceived the people, who, at the +Guillotière, mounted guard round their flag. The new prefect, Valentin, +an ex-officer as brutal as vulgar, a kind of Clément-Thomas, +sufficiently forewarned the people what sort of Republic was in store +for them. + +On the 19th, at the first news, Republicans were on the alert, nor did +they hide their sympathy for Paris. The next day Valentin issued a +provocative proclamation, seized the Parisian journals, and refused to +communicate any despatches. On the 21st, in the municipal council, some +of the members grew indignant, and one said, "Let us at least have the +courage to be the Commune of Lyons." On the 22nd, at mid-day, eight +hundred delegates of the National Guard assembled at the Palais de St. +Pierre. A motion was put proposing to choose between Paris and +Versailles. A citizen just arrived from Paris explained the movement +there, and many wanted the meeting to declare itself immediately for +Paris. The Assembly finally sent delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville to ask +for the extension of the municipal liberties, the appointment of the +mayor as chief of the National Guard, and his investiture with the +functions of prefect. + +The municipal council was just sitting. The mayor, Hénon, a +wooden-headed relic of 1848, opposed all resistance to Versailles. The +mayor of the Guillotière, Crestin, a known Republican, demanded that +they should at least protest. Others wanted the council to extend its +prerogatives. Hénon threatened to tender his resignation if they went on +like that, and proposed they should repair to the prefect, who was then +convoking the reactionary battalions. + +The delegates of the Palais St. Pierre arrived, and were roughly +received by Hénon. One deputation succeeded the other, always meeting +with the same rebuffs. However, during this time the battalions of +Brotteaux and La Guillotière were preparing, and at eight o'clock a +dense mass filled the Place des Terreaux in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +crying, "Vive la Commune! Down with Versailles!" The reactionary +battalions did not respond to the prefect's appeal. + +Part of the council had met again at nine o'clock, while the others, +together with Hénon, were still wrangling with the delegates. After an +answer from the mayor, which left them no hope of coming to an +understanding, the delegates invaded the council-chamber, and the crowd, +apprised of this, rushed into the Hôtel-de-Ville. The delegates, sitting +down round the council table, named Crestin mayor of Lyons. He refused, +and, summoned to give his reasons, declared that the direction of the +movement belonged to those who had initiated it. After a great uproar, +the National Guards acclaimed a Communal Commission, at the head of +which they placed five municipal councillors--Crestin, Durand, +Bouvatier, Perret and Velay. The delegates sent for Valentin, and asked +him if he were for Versailles. He answered that his proclamation could +leave no doubt on that head, whereupon he was put under arrest. Then +they decided on the proclamation of the Commune, the dissolution of the +municipal council, the dismissal of the prefect and of the general of +the National Guard, who was to be replaced by Ricciotti Garibaldi, noted +alike by his name and his services in the army of the Vosges. These +resolutions were announced to the people and hailed with cheers. The red +flag was again unfurled from the balcony. + +The next day, the 23rd March, early in the morning, the five councillors +named the evening before backed out, thus obliging the insurgents to +present themselves single-handed to Lyons and the neighboring towns. +"The Commune," they said, "must vindicate for Lyons the right to impose +and administer her own taxes, to have her own police, and to dispose of +her National Guard, which is to occupy all posts and forts." This rather +meagre programme was a little further expanded by the committees of the +National Guard and the Republican Alliance: "With the Commune, the taxes +will be lightened, the public money will no longer be squandered, +social institutions demanded by the working-class will be founded. Much +misery and suffering will be alleviated pending the final disappearance +of that hideous social evil, pauperism." Insufficient proclamations +these, inconclusive, mute as to the danger of the Republic and the +clerical conspiracy, the only levers by which the small middle-class +might have been roused. + +So the Commission found itself isolated. It had taken the fort of +Charpennes, accumulated cartridges, disposed the cannons and +mitrailleuses round the Hôtel-de-Ville; but the popular battalions, +except two or three, had withdrawn without leaving a picket, and the +resistance was being organised. General Crouzat at the station picked up +all the soldiers, marines, and mobiles dispersed about Lyons. Hénon +named a general of the National Guard. The officers of the battalions of +order protested against the Commune, and placed themselves at the +disposition of the municipal council, which sat in the cabinet of the +mayor, close to the Commission. + +Forgetting it had dissolved the Council the evening before, it invited +the Council to hold their sitting in the ordinary council-room. They +arrived at four o'clock. The Commission gave up the place to them, +National Guards occupying that part of the room reserved to the public. +Had there been some vigour in this middle class, some foreboding of the +Conservative atrocities, the Republican councillors would have taken the +lead of this popular movement; but they were still, some of them, the +same mercantile aristocrats, chary of their gold and their persons +during the war of the national defence; the others, the same overweening +Radicals who had always striven for the subordination instead of the +emancipation of the working-class. While they were deliberating without +coming to any resolution, the assistants, growing impatient, uttered a +few exclamations shocking to their lordliness, and they brusquely raised +the sitting in order to go and draw up an address with Hénon. + +In the evening two delegates of the Central Committee of Paris arrived +at the club of the Rue Duguesclin. They were taken to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, where from the large balcony they harangued the mass, +who answered with cries of "Vive Paris! Vive la Commune!" and +Ricciotti's name was again acclaimed. + +But this was only a demonstration. The delegates were themselves too +inexperienced to keep alive and direct this movement. On the 24th there +remained on the Place de Terreaux but a few groups of idlers. The +_rappel_ sounded in vain. The four important journals of Lyons, Radical, +Liberal and Clerical, "energetically repudiated all connivance with the +Parisian, Lyonese, and other insurrections;" and General Crouzat spread +the rumour that the Prussians, camping at Dijon, threatened to occupy +Lyons within twenty-four hours if order were not re-established. The +Commission, more and more deserted, again turned to the Council, which +now held its sitting at the Bourse, proposing to hand over the +administration to them. The Council refused to treat. "No," said the +mayor, "we will never accept the Commune." And as the mobiles from +Belfort were announced, the Council decided to give them a solemn +reception. This was a declaration of war. + +The parley had been going on the whole afternoon until late into the +evening. Little by little the Hôtel-de-Ville grew empty, and the members +of the Commission disappeared. At four o'clock in the morning the only +two who remained cancelled their powers,[103] dismissed the sentries who +guarded the prefect, and left the Hôtel-de-Ville. The next day Lyons +found her Commune gone. + + * * * * * + +On the same evening, when dying out at Lyons, the revolutionary movement +burst forth at St. Etienne. Since the 31st October, when they had almost +succeeded in officially proclaiming the Commune, the Socialists had not +ceased calling for it, despite the resistance, and even the threats, of +the municipal council. + +There were two Republican centres--the Committee of the National Guard, +spurred on by the revolutionary club of the Rue de la Vierge, and the +Republican Alliance at the head of the advanced Republicans. The +municipal council was, with one or two exceptions, composed of those +Radicals who know not how to resist the people without being crushed by +the reaction. The Committee and the Alliance agreed to ask for its +renewal. + +The 18th March was enthusiastically welcomed by the workmen. The Radical +organ, _L'Eclaireur_, said, without drawing any conclusion: "If the +Assembly prevails, the Republic is done for; if, on the other hand, the +deputies of Paris separate from the Central Committee, they must have a +good reason for it." The people went straight on. On the 23rd the Club +de la Vierge sent delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville to ask for the +Commune. The mayor promised to submit the question to his colleagues. +The Alliance also came to demand the adjunction to the council of a +certain number of delegates. + +The next day, the 24th, the delegations returned. The Council tendered +their resignation, and declared they would only officiate till their +replacement by the electors, to be convoked with the briefest delay. +This was a defeat, for the same day the prefect _ad interim_, Morellet, +adjured the population not to proclaim the Commune, but to respect the +authority of the Assembly. At seven o'clock in the evening a company of +the National Guard relieved the sentinel to the cries of "Vive la +Commune!" The Central Committee invited the Alliance to join them in +taking possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville. The Radicals refused, saying +that the promise of the Council sufficed; that the movements of Paris +and Lyons were of a vague character, and that it was necessary to affirm +order and public tranquility. + +During these negotiations the people had assembled at the Club de la +Vierge, accusing the first delegates of weakness, resolved to send +others, and to accompany them, so that they could not give way. At ten +o'clock two columns of 400 men each drew up before the rails that cover +the Hôtel-de-Ville. These had been closed by order of the new prefect, +M. De l'Espée, an autocrat of iron works, who had just then arrived, +eager to subdue the disturbers. But the people began pulling down the +rails, and it was necessary to let in their delegates. They found the +mayor and Morellet, asked for the Commune, and provisionally the +adjunction of a popular commission. The mayor refused, the former +prefect obstinately tried to demonstrate that the Commune was a Prussian +invention. Hopeless of convincing the delegates, he went to warn M. De +l'Espée--the prefecture being contiguous to the mairie--and both then +making off by the garden, succeeded in rejoining General Lavoye, the +commander of the garrison. + +At midnight the delegates, unable to obtain anything, declared that +nobody would be allowed to leave the Hôtel-de-Ville, and proceeding to +the rails, told the demonstrators to reflect. Some ran off in quest of +arms, others penetrated into the Salle des Prudhommes, where they held a +meeting. The night passed tumultuously. The delegates, who had just +learned the miscarriage of the movement at Lyons wavered. The people +threatened and were for beating the _rappel_. The mayor refused. At +last, at seven o'clock, he found an expedient, and promised to propose a +plebiscite on the establishment of the Commune. A delegate read this +declaration to the people, who at once withdrew from the Hôtel-de-Ville. + +At the same moment M. De l'Espée conceived the brilliant idea of beating +the _rappel_, which the people had in vain asked for since midnight. He +picked up some National Guards of order, re-entered the now empty +Hôtel-de-Ville, and promulgated his victory. The municipal council +informing him of the morning's agreement, De l'Espée refused to fix the +date of the elections. Besides, said he, the general had promised him +the aid of the garrison. + +At eleven o'clock the prefect's call to arms had reassembled all the +popular battalions. Groups formed before the Hôtel-de-Ville, crying +"Vive la Commune!" De l'Espée sent for his troops, consisting of 250 +foot-soldiers and two squadrons of hussars, who came up sluggishly. The +multitude surrounded them; the Council protested; and the prefect had to +discharge his warriors, there remaining to face the crowd only a line of +firemen, and in the Hôtel-de-Ville two companies, of which but one was +favourable to the party of order. + +Towards mid-day a delegation summoned the Council to keep their promise. +The councillors present--only few in number--were not adverse to +accepting as coadjutors two delegates from each company, but De l'Espée +formally declared against any concession. At four o'clock a very +numerous delegation from the Committee presented itself. The prefect +spoke of retrenching himself and of strengthening the gates for defence; +but the firemen raised the butt end of their muskets, opened the +passage, and De l'Espée had to receive some of the delegates. + +The crowd outside waxed unruly, impatient at these useless parleys. At +half-past four the workmen from the manufactory of arms arrived, when a +shot was fired from one of the houses of the place, killing Lyonnet, a +workingman. A hundred shots answered; the drums beat, the trumpets +sounded the charge, and the battalions rushed into the Hôtel-de-Ville, +while others searched the house whence the attack was supposed to have +come. + +At the noise of the firing the prefect broke off the conference and +tried to escape as on the night before, mistook his way, was recognised +and seized, together with the deputy of the _procureur de la +République_, brought back with the latter into the large hall, and shown +from the balcony. The crowd hooted him, convinced that he had given the +order to fire upon the people. One of the reactionist guards, M. De +Ventavon, on his flight from the mairie, was taken for the murderer of +Lyonnet, and carried about on the litter on which the corpse had just +been transported to the hospital. + +The prefect and the procureur's deputy were left in the large hall in +the midst of exasperated men. Many accused De l'Espée of having provoked +the fusillade of the miners of Aubin under the Empire. He protested, +stating that he had been director of the mines of Archambault, not those +of Aubin. Little by little, the crowd, tired out, dispersed, and at +eight o'clock about forty guards only remained in the hall. The +prisoners took some food, when the president of the Commune, which was +constituting itself in a neighbouring room, seeing everything calm, also +withdrew. At nine o'clock the crowd returned, crying, "La Commune! La +Commune! Sign!" De l'Espée offered to sign his resignation, but added +that he did so under compulsion. The prisoners were in charge of two +men, Victoire and Fillon, the latter an old exile, quite distracted, who +turned now against the crowd, now against the prisoners. At ten o'clock, +being hard pressed by the throng of people, Fillon, as in a dream, faced +about, fired two shots from his revolver, killing his friend Victoire +and wounding a drummer. Instantaneously the muskets were levelled at +him, and Fillon and De l'Espée fell dead. The deputy, covered by the +corpse of Fillon, escaped the discharge. The next day he and M. De +Ventavon were set free. + +During the evening a Commission constituted itself, chosen from amongst +the officers of the National Guards and the habitual orators of the Club +de la Vierge. It had the station occupied, took possession of the +telegraph, seized the cartridges of the powder-magazine, and convoked +the electors for the 29th. "The Commune," it said, "does not mean +incendiarism, nor theft, nor pillage, as so many are pleased to give +out, but the conquest of the franchises and the independence ravished +from us by imperial and monarchical legislation; it is the true basis of +the Republic." This was the whole preamble. In this industrial hive, by +the side of the thousands of miners of La Ricamarie and Firminy, they +found not a word to say on the social question. The Commission only knew +how to beat the _rappel_, which, as at Lyons, was not responded to. + +The next day, Sunday, the town, calm and curious, read the proclamation +of the Commune, placarded side by side with the appeals of the general +and of the procureur. While this latter, as became a good Radical, spoke +of a Bonapartist plot, the general invited the Council to withdraw its +resignation. He went to the councillors, who had taken refuge in the +barracks, and said to them, "My soldiers won't fight, but I have a +thousand chassepots. If you will make use of them, forward!" The +councillors protested their unfitness for military exploits; but at the +same time, as at Lyons, refused to communicate with the Hôtel-de-Ville, +considering "that one can only treat with honest men." + +On the 27th the Alliance and _L'Eclaireur_ altogether withdrew, and the +Commission gradually dwindled down. In the evening, the few faithful +still holding out received two young men, whom the delegates from the +Central Committee at Lyons had sent. They urged resistance; but the +Hôtel-de-Ville was being deserted, and on the morning of the 28th there +were only about a hundred left. At six o'clock General Lavoye presented +himself with the francs-tireurs of the Vosges and some troops come from +Montbrison. The National Guards, on his appeal to lay down their arms in +order to avoid bloodshed, consented to evacuate the mairie. + +Numerous arrests were made. The Conservatives overwhelmed the Commune +with the customary insults, and recounted that cannibals had been seen +amongst the murderers of the prefect.[104] _L'Eclaireur_ did not fail to +demonstrate that the movement was purely Bonapartist. The workingmen +felt themselves vanquished, and at the solemn funeral of M. De l'Espée +not loud but deep curses were uttered. + + * * * * * + +At Creuzot, also the proletarians were defeated. Yet the Socialists +administered the town from the 4th September, the mayor, Dumay, being a +former workman at the iron works. On the 25th, at the news from Lyons, +they spoke of proclaiming the Commune. At their review on the 26th the +National Guards cried "Vive la Commune!" and the crowd accompanied them +to the Place of the Mairie, held by the colonel of cuirassiers, +Gerhardt. He ordered the foot-soldiers to fire. They refused. He then +ordered the cavalry to charge; but the guards levelled their bayonets +and invaded the mairie. Dumay pronounced the abolition of the Versailles +Government, proclaimed the Commune, and the red flag was hoisted. + +But there, as everywhere else, the people did not move. The commander of +Creuzot came back the next day with a reinforcement, dispersed the +crowd, which was standing curious and passive in the square, and took +possession of the mairie. + +In four days all the revolutionary centres of the east, Lyons, St. +Etienne, and Creuzot, were lost to the Commune. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[102] He then and there inaugurated this incomparable lying campaign, +the progress of which we shall closely watch. On the 19th he said, "The +army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated in good order at +Versailles." There were 23,000 men (the number given by himself in the +_Enquête_) totally disbanded. On the 20th: "The Government did not want +to enter into a bloody struggle, though provoked." By the 21st the army +had grown to 45,000 men: "The insurrection is disavowed by everybody." +On the 22nd: "From all sides the Government is offered battalions of +mobiles to support it against anarchy." On the 27th, while the votes +were being counted: "A considerable proportion of the population and of +the National Guard of Paris solicits the help of the provinces to +re-establish order." + +[103] "Considering," said they in their declaration, "that the +Provisional Commune of Lyons, acclaimed by the National Guard, is no +longer feeling itself supported by them, the members of the Commune +declare themselves released from their engagements towards their +electors, and resign all powers they have received." + +[104] Certain infamous evidence must be quoted in full in order to give +a notion of the delirium tremens of the great bourgeoisie when speaking +of the Commune. Four months after these events the Prefect Ducros, the +inventor of the famous bridges of the Marne, deposed before the +_Commission d'Enquête sur le 18 Mars_: "They did not respect his corpse; +they cut off his head. In the night, horrible to say, one of the men who +had participated in the assassination, and who has been put on his +trial, came to a café offering those present pieces of M. De l'Espée's +skull, and cracking under his teeth pieces of the same skull." And +Ducros dared to add: "The man had been arrested, put on his trial, and +acquitted." Horrible imaginings, which even the Radicals of St. Etienne +have stigmatised. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE. + + +Since the elections of the 8th February, the advent of the reactionists, +the nomination of M. Thiers, the patched-up and shameful peace, the +monarchy in prospect, the defiances and the defeats were as bitterly +resented by the valiant town of Marseilles as by Paris. There the news +of the 18th March fell upon a powder-magazine. Nevertheless, further +details were looked for, when the 22nd brought the famous despatch of +Rouher-Canrobert. + +The clubs, playing a great part in the ardent life of Marseilles, were +at once thronged. The prudent and methodical Radicals affected the club +of the National Guard; the popular elements met at the El Dorado. There +they applauded Gaston Crémieux, an elegant and effeminate speaker, now +and then happy at epigrammatic turns, as, for instance, at Bordeaux. +Gambetta owed him his election at Marseilles under the Empire. Crémieux +at once hurried to the club of the National Guard, denounced Versailles, +told them they could not allow the Republic to perish, but ought to act. +The club, though highly indignant at the despatch, cautioned him against +over-hastiness. The proclamations of the Central Committee, they said, +did not announce any clearly defined politics. Signed by unknown names, +they might well proceed from Bonapartists. + +This Jacobin argument was ridiculous at Marseilles, where the despatch +of M. Thiers had given the signal for the commotion. Who smacked of +Bonapartism--these unknown men rising against Versailles, or M. Thiers +patronising Rouher and his Ministers, and boasting of Canrobert's +offer? + +After a speech of Bouchet, the deputy of the _procureur de la +République_, Gaston Crémieux reconsidering his first impulsive step, and +accompanied by the delegates of the club, repaired to the El Dorado. +There he read and made comments upon the _Officiel_ of Paris, which he +had got from the prefect, and calmed the excitement. "The Government of +Versailles have raised their crutch against what they call the +insurrection of Paris; but it has broken in their hands, and their +attempt has brought forth the Commune. Let us swear that we are united +for the defence of the Government of Paris, the only one that we +recognise." They separated, ready for resistance, but resolved to bide +their time. + +Thus the excited population still checked itself when the prefect goaded +it by the most stupid of provocations. This Admiral Cosnier, a +distinguished naval officer, but politically a mere cipher, quite out of +his element in these surroundings, where he had only just arrived, was +the passive tool of the reaction, which since the 4th September had +already several times fallen out with the National Guard--the +_civiques_--who had proclaimed the Commune and expulsed the Jesuits. The +Rev. Father Tissier, though absent, was still its leader. The moderation +of the town it mistook for cowardice. Like M. Thiers on the 17th, it +believed itself strong enough to make a brilliant stroke. + +In the evening the Admiral held council with the mayor, Bories, an old +wreck of 1848, who had dabbled in all the clerico-liberal coalitions, +the _procureur de la République_, Guibert, a timid trimmer, and General +Espivent de la Villeboisnet, one of those cruel caricatures in which the +civil wars of South America abound. An obtuse Legitimist, a besotted +zealot, the Syllabus incarnate, a carpet knight and former member of the +Mixed Commissions of 1851, during the war he had been expelled from +Lille by the people, indignant alike at his utter incapacity and his +antecedents. He brought the council the _mot d'ordre_ of the priests +and reactionists, and proposed convoking the National Guards to make an +armed manifestation in favour of Versailles. He would have asked for +more, no doubt, but the garrison was solely composed of waifs of the +army of the East and of a few disbanded artillerists. Cosnier, quite led +astray, approved of the manifestation, and gave orders to the mayor and +to the colonel of the National Guards to prepare for it. + +On the 23rd March, at seven o'clock in the morning, the call to arms +sounded. The ingenious idea of the prefect had spread over the town, and +the popular battalions made ready to do it honour. From ten o'clock they +arrived at the Cours du Chapitre, and the artillery of the National +Guard was drawn up along the St. Louis Cours. At twelve, francs-tireurs, +National Guards, soldiers of all arms mingling, gathered in the Belzunce +Cours. Soon all the battalions of the Belle-de-Mai and of Endourre[105] +mustered in full strength, while the battalions of order remained +invisible. + +The municipal council, taking fright, disavowed the manifestation and +placarded a Republican address. The club of the National Guard joined +the council and demanded the return of the Assembly to Paris and the +exclusion from public functions of all the accomplices of the Empire. +The deputy of the procureur Bouchet tendered his resignation. + +All this time the battalions were marching up and down crying "Vive +Paris!" Popular orators harangued them, and the club, apprehensive of an +imminent explosion, sent Gaston Crémieux, Bouchet, and Frayssinet, to +ask the prefect to break up the ranks and communicate the despatches +from Paris. The delegates were discussing with Cosnier, when a terrific +clamour rose from without. The prefecture was besieged. + +At four o'clock the battalions, on foot for six hours, had moved, headed +by their drums. Twelve or thirteen thousand men having debouched through +the Cannebière and the Rue St. Ferréol, drew up before the prefecture. +The delegates of the club tried to parley, when a shot was fired, and +the crowd, rushing into the prefecture, arrested the prefect, his two +secretaries, and General Ollivier. Gaston Crémieux appeared on the +balcony, spoke of the rights of Paris, and recommended the maintenance +of order. The crowd cheered, but still continued to enter and ask for +arms. G. Crémieux had two columns formed and sent them to the iron works +of Menpenti, whose guns were surrendered. + +During this tumult a Commission of six members was formed: G. Crémieux, +Job, Etienne, a street-porter, Maviel, a shoemaker, Gaillard, a +mechanic, and Allerini, who deliberated in the midst of the crowd. G. +Crémieux proposed setting at liberty the prisoners just made, but from +all sides they cried, "Keep them as sureties." The Admiral was conducted +into a neighbouring room, closely watched, and--strange mania of all +these popular movements--asked for his resignation. Cosnier, quite out +of his latitude, signed what he was asked for.[106] + +The Commission placarded that all the powers were concentrated in its +hands, and feeling the necessity of strengthening itself, invited the +municipal council and the club of the National Guard to send three +delegates each. The council named David Bosc, Desservy, and Sidore; the +club, Bouchet, Cartoux, and Fulgéras. The next day they made a moderate +proclamation: "Marseilles has wished to prevent the civil war provoked +by the circulars of Versailles. Marseilles will support a regularly +constituted Republican Government sitting in the capital. The +Departmental Commission, formed with the concourse of all Republican +groups, will watch over the Republic till a new authority emanating from +a regular Government sitting at Paris relieves it." + +The names of the municipal council and of the club reassured the +middle-class. The reactionists continued drawing in their horns, and the +army had evacuated the town during the night. Leaving the prefect in the +trap into which he had thrust him, the coward Espivent, on the +investment of the prefecture, went to hide himself at the mistress's of +a commander of the National Guard named Spir, on whom he afterwards +conferred the knighthood of the Legion of Honour for this service to +moral order. At midnight he sneaked off and rejoined the troops, who, +without hindrance from the people, lulled into security by its victory, +reached the village of Aubagne, about seventeen kilometres from +Marseilles. + +Thus Marseilles was entirely in the hands of the people. The victory was +even too complete for heads prone to exultation. That "city of the sun" +is not propitious to soft tints; its sky, its fields, its men all affect +crude colours. On the 24th the civil guards hoisted the red flag and +already deemed the Commission too lukewarm. Sidore, Desservy, and +Fulgéras, regardless of their duty, kept aloof from the prefecture; +Cartoux had gone to Paris for information, and so the whole burden +weighed upon Bosc and Bouchet, who, with Gaston Crémieux, strove to +regularise the movement. Having said that the red flag was inopportune, +the detention of the hostages useless, they soon became suspected and +menaced. On the evening of the 24th, Bouchet, quite discouraged, gave in +his resignation, but, on G. Crémieux' complaint to the club of the +National Guard, consented to resume his post. + +These disagreements were already bruited about the town, and on the 25th +the Commission was obliged to announce that "the most perfect accord +united it with the municipal council." But the latter on the same day +declared itself the only existing power, and called upon the National +Guard to rouse from apathy. Trimming between the reaction and the +people, it began that miserable play that was to end in ignominy. + +While the Liberals were imitating the Tirards and the deputies of the +extreme Left, to whom Dufaure referred in his despatches, Espivent in +every point copied General Thiers. He had rifled all the administrative +departments of Marseilles. The treasury office of the garrison had been +shuffled off to Aubagne. Fifteen hundred Garibaldians of the army of +the Vosges and soldiers who were rejoining their depots in Africa were +left without bread, without pay, without _feuilles-de-routes_, and would +have remained without refuge if Gaston Crémieux and Bouchet had not +caused a provisional quartermaster to be named by the council. Thanks to +the Commission, those who had shed their blood for France received bread +and shelter. Gaston Crémieux said to them in an address, "You will +remember when the time comes, the fraternal hand that we have held out +to you." He was a gentle enthusiast, who beheld the revolution under +rather a bucolic aspect. + +On the 26th the isolation of the Commission became more obvious. No one +armed against it, but no one joined it. Almost all the mayors of the +department refused to placard its proclamations, and at Arles a +manifestation in favor of the red flag miscarried. The fiery spirits at +the prefecture did nothing to explain the import of the flag which they +had unfurled, and, in the midst of this dull calm, in view of Marseilles +looking on curiously, it hung from the campanile of the prefecture +motionless and mute as an enigma. + + * * * * * + +The capital of the south-west also saw its insurrection die out. +Toulouse had vibrated at the thunder-burst of the 18th March. In the +Faubourg St. Cyprien there was an intelligent and valiant workingmen's +population that formed the very sinews of the National Guard, and had +since the 19th relieved the watch to the cries of "Vive Paris!" A few +revolutionists summoned the prefect, Duportal, to pronounce for or +against Paris. For a month the _Emancipation_, which he directed, had +made a campaign against the rurals, and he had even in a public meeting +emphasized his Republican views. But he was not the man to take the +initiative, and refused to break with Versailles. The clubs, however, +beset him, obliging the officers of the National Guard to take an oath +to defend the Republic, and asked for cartridges. M. Thiers, seeing that +Duportal would after all follow their lead, named as prefect De Kératry, +the former prefect of police of the 4th September. He arrived on the +night of the 21st-22nd at the house of the general of the division, +Nansouty, and being told that the garrison consisted of only 600 +disbanded men, and that the whole National Guard would declare for +Duportal, he beat his retreat on Agen. + +On the 23rd the National Guard prepared a manifestation in order to take +possession of the arsenal, when Duportal and the mayor rushed off to the +Capitol, the Hôtel-de-Ville of Toulouse. The mayor declared that the +intended review was not to take place, and Duportal that he would tender +his resignation rather than pronounce for the movement. But the +generals, afraid of this outbreak of the faubourg, took refuge in the +arsenal. The mayor and the municipal council, understanding it would no +longer do to continue their Platonic rôle, fled in their turn, and hence +Duportal, left alone in his prefecture, shone forth as a great +revolutionist, and therefore all the more worthy of the sympathy of the +National Guard. He exerted himself to reassure the generals, went to the +arsenal, intimated there his firm resolution to maintain order in the +name of the Government of Versailles, the only one he recognised as +legitimate, and was so successful that they advised M. Thiers to keep +him in his post. Kératry, availing himself of his declaration, requested +his aid to take possession of the prefecture, and Duportal gave him a +rendezvous before the officers of the mobiles and of the National Guard, +convoked for the next day, the 24th. Kératry understood and remained at +Agen. + +The object of this meeting was to find the volunteers against Paris +asked for by the Assembly. Four officers of mobiles out of sixty offered +their services to Versailles. The officers of the National Guard did not +come to the prefecture, but, on the contrary, prepared at that same +moment a demonstration against Kératry. At one o'clock 2,000 men were +assembled in the Place du Capitole, and, their banner flying, repaired +to the prefecture, where Duportal received their officers. One of them +declared that, far from supporting the Assembly, they were ready to +march against it, and that if M. Thiers did not make peace with Paris +they would proclaim the Commune. At this name cries burst forth from all +corners of the room, "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris!" The officers, +growing hot, decreed the arrest of Kératry, proclaimed the Commune, and +summoned Duportal to place himself at their head. He tried to back out, +and proposed to act only as the officious prompter of the chiefs of the +Commune; but the officers, inveighing against defection, induced him to +come out to the square of the prefecture, where he was acclaimed by the +National Guard, and they proceeded to the Capitol. + +Hardly arrived in the large hall, the leaders seemed much embarrassed. +They offered the presidency in turn to the mayor, to other municipal +councillors, who slunk away, and to Duportal, who got off by drawing up +a manifesto, which was read from the large balcony. "The Commune of +Toulouse," it said, "declares for the Republic one and indivisible, +adjures the deputies of Paris to be the intermediaries between the +Government and the great town, and summons M. Thiers to dissolve the +Assembly." The mass cheered this milk-and-water Commune, which believed +in the deputies of the Left and the oppression of M. Thiers by the rural +majority. + +In the evening some officers of the National Guard appointed an +Executive Commission, composed, with two or three exceptions, of mere +talkers; in this the principal leaders of the movement did not figure. +It contented itself with placarding the manifesto, and neglected the +smallest precautions, even that of occupying the railway station. The +generals, nevertheless, did not dare to stir from their arsenal, where +they were joined on the 26th by the first president of the court and the +procureur-general, who launched an address calling upon the population +to rally round them. The National Guard wanted to answer by storming the +arsenal, and already the faubourg flocked to the Capitol. But the +Commission preferred to negotiate, sent word to the arsenal that it +would dissolve if the Government appointed a Republican prefect in the +stead of Kératry and entirely abandoned Duportal, who, it is true, had +done nothing. The negotiations lasted all the evening, and the National +Guard, tired out, deceived by their chiefs, and fancying everything +settled, returned to their homes. + +Kératry, well informed of all these failures, arrived the next day at +the railway station with three squadrons of cavalry, proceeded to the +arsenal, broke off the negotiations, and gave the order to march. At one +o'clock the Versaillese army, 200 cavalry and 600 ill-assorted soldiers +strong, opened its campaign. One column occupied the St. Cyprien Bridge, +in order to separate the town from the faubourg, another proceeded to +the prefecture, and the third, with Nansouty, Kératry, and the +magistrates, marched on the Capitol. + +About 300 men filled the courts, the windows, and the terrace. The +Versaillese deployed their troops and placed six guns in line at about +sixty yards from the edifice, thus recklessly exposing their infantry +and artillerists to the muskets of the insurgents. The first president +of the court and the procureur-general advanced to parley, but obtained +nothing. Kératry made the _sommations_, his voice being drowned by +cries. A single blank-cartridge volley would have scared soldiers and +artillerists, who might besides have been harassed on both flanks. But +the leaders had fled from the Capitol. The courage of a few men might +still have brought about a fight, when the Republican Association +interposed, persuaded the guards to retreat, and saved Kératry. The +prefecture was taken just as easily, and that same evening Kératry +installed himself there. The members of the Executive Commission the +next day published a manifesto of such platitude as to secure them +impunity, and one of them got himself named mayor by Kératry. + +Thus the generous workingmen of Toulouse, who had risen to the cry of +"Vive Paris!" were left in the lurch by those who had raised the +insurrection. A disastrous check this for Paris, for the whole south +would have followed the example of Toulouse if victorious. + + * * * * * + +The man of thought and energy, wanting in all these movements, appeared +in the insurrection of Narbonne. The old city, Gallic in its enthusiasm, +Roman in its tenacity, is the true centre of democracy in the department +of Aude. Nowhere during the war had a more vigorous protest been entered +against the shortcomings of Gambetta. For this very reason the National +Guards of Narbonne had not yet received their muskets, when those of +Carcassonne had long since been armed. At the news of the 18th March, +Narbonne did not hesitate, but declared for Paris. To proclaim the +Commune, an exile of the Empire, a man of strong convictions and firm +character, Digeon, was at once applied to. Digeon, as modest as +resolute, offered the direction of the movement to his comrade in exile, +Marcou, the recognised chief of the democracy in the Aude, one of the +most ardent opponents of Gambetta during the war. Marcou, a crafty +lawyer, afraid of compromising himself, and dreading the energy of +Digeon in the chief town of the department, induced him to leave for +Narbonne. Digeon arrived there on the 23rd, and first thought of +converting the municipal council to the principles of the Commune. But +on the refusal of the mayor, Raynal, to summon the council, the people, +out of all patience, invaded the Hôtel-de-Ville on the evening of the +24th, and arming themselves with the muskets detained by the +municipality, installed Digeon and his friends. He appeared on the +balcony, proclaimed the Commune of Narbonne united to that of Paris, and +immediately proceeded to take measures of defence. + +The following day Raynal tried to rally the garrison, and some companies +formed before the Hôtel-de-Ville; but the people, especially the women, +worthy of their Parisian sisters, disarmed the soldiers. A captain and a +lieutenant were retained as hostages; the rest of the garrison went and +shut itself up in the St. Bernard Barracks. As Raynal still continued +stirring up resistance, the people arrested him on the 26th; and Digeon, +with the three hostages, at the head of a detachment of Federals, went +to take possession of the prefecture, placing pickets at the railway +station and telegraph office. To get arms he forced the arsenal, where, +despite their lieutenant, who commanded them to fire, the soldiers +surrendered their guns. The same day the delegates from the neighbouring +Communes arrived, and Digeon set to work to generalise the movement. + +He had clearly understood that the departmental insurrections would soon +founder if not well combined, and he wanted to hold out a helping hand +to the rising of Toulouse and of Marseilles. Béziers and Cette had +already promised him their support, and he was preparing to leave for +Béziers, when, on the 28th, two companies of Turcos arrived, soon +followed by other troops sent from Montpellier, Toulouse, and Perpignan. +From this moment Digeon was obliged to stand on the defensive. He had +barricades thrown up, reinforced the posts, ordering the Federals always +to await the attacks and to aim at the officers. + +We shall return to this subject later on. Paris now recalls us. The +other provincial movements were but momentary vibrations. On the 28th, +when Paris was still elated with victory, all the Communes of France +were already swept away save those of Marseilles and Narbonne. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[105] The popular quarters of Marseilles. + +[106] This abdication was revealed before the court-martial by the +advocate of one of the accused. Cosnier, fearing that it might be +interpreted as an act of cowardice, blew out his brains. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS--THE + MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE. + + +The Place of the Hôtel-de-Ville was still astir when the newly elected +members of the Commune assembled in the municipal council-hall. + +The ballot had returned sixteen mayors, adjuncts, and Liberals of all +shades,[107] a few Radicals,[108] and about sixty Revolutionists of all +sorts.[109] + +How came these latter to be chosen? All must be told, and virile truth +at last substituted for the stale flattery of the old romantic school +styling itself "Revolutionary." There might be something more terrible +than the defeat: to misconstrue or to forget its causes. + +Responsibility weighs heavily enough upon the elected, but we must not +charge it all to one side--the electors also have their share of it. + +The Central Committee had told the people on Sunday, the 19th instant, +"Prepare for your communal elections." They thus had a whole week in +which to frame a mandate and select their mandatories. No doubt the +resistance of the mayors and the occupation of the military posts kept +away many of the revolutionary electors from their arrondissements, but +there still remained enough citizens to conduct the work of selection. + +Never had a mandate been more indispensable, for the question at issue +was to give Paris a communal constitution acceptable to all France. +Never did Paris stand in such need of enlightened and practical men, +capable at once of negotiating and of combating. + +Yet there was never less preparatory discussion. A few men only recalled +to prudence a people habitually so over-scrupulous in electoral matters, +and which had just made a revolution to get rid of their +representatives. The Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a +manifesto very pertinent in several points, and which might have served +as an outline; the two delegates at the Home Office tried, through an +article in the _Officiel_, to impress Paris with the importance of her +vote. Not a single assembly framed the general programme of Paris; only +two or three arrondissements gave some sort of mandate. + +Instead of voting for a programme, they voted for names. Those who had +demanded the Commune, made a mark at the Corderie or during the siege, +were elected without being asked for further explanations, some even +twice, like Flourens, in spite of the blunders of the 31st October. Only +seven or eight, and those not the best, of the obscure men of the +Central Committee were named, the latter, it is true, having decided +not to present itself for election. The public meetings in many +arrondissements sent up the most violent talkers, romanticists sprung up +during the siege, and lacking all knowledge of practical life. Nowhere +were the candidates put to any test. In the ardour of the struggle they +took no thought for the morrow. One might have fancied that the object +in view was a simple manifestation, not the foundation of a new order of +things. + +Twenty-four workmen only were elected, and of these a third belonged +rather to the public meetings than to the International or the +workingmen's societies. The other delegates of the people were chosen +from the small middle-class and the so-called liberal professions, +accountants, publicists--there were as many as twelve of these--doctors +and lawyers. These, save a few really studious men, whether veterans or +new-comers, were as ignorant as the workmen of the political and +administrative mechanism of the bourgeoisie, albeit full of their own +personality. The safety of the Central Committee lay in this, that it +was unadorned with great men, each one provided with a formula of his +own. The Council of the Commune, on the contrary, abounded in chapels, +groups, semi-celebrities, and hence endless competition and rivalry. + +Thus the precipitation and heedlessness of the Revolutionary electors +sent up to the Hôtel-de-Ville a majority of men, most of them devoted, +but chosen without discernment, and, into the bargain, abandoned them to +their own inspirations, to their whims, without any determined mandate +to restrain and guide them in the struggle entered upon. + +Time and experience would no doubt have corrected this negligence, but +time was wanting. The people never holds sway but for an hour, and woe +to them if they are not then ready, armed _cap-à-pie_. The elections of +the 26th March were irreparable. + +Only about sixty of those elected were present at the first sitting. At +its opening, the Central Committee came to congratulate the Council. The +chairman by seniority, Beslay, a capitalist of a fraternising turn of +mind, made the opening speech. He very happily defined this young +revolution: "The enfranchisement of the Commune of Paris is the +enfranchisement of all the communes of the Republic. Your adversaries +have said that you have struck the Republic. It is as with the pile, to +be driven deeper into the earth. The Republic of 1793 was a soldier, who +wanted to centralise all the forces of the nation; the Republic of 1871 +is a workman, who above all wants liberty to fecundate peace. The +Commune will occupy itself with all that is local, the Department with +what is regional, the Government with what is national. Let us not +overstep this limit, and the country and the Government will be happy +and proud to applaud this revolution." This was the naïve illusion of an +old man, who, nevertheless, had had the experience of a long political +life. This programme, so moderate in its form, was nothing less than the +death-knell of the great bourgeoisie, as shown during this very sitting. + +There were already some jarring notes. The violent and the giddy-headed +launched out into random motions, and wanted the Commune to declare +itself omnipotent. Tirard, elected by his arrondissement, improved this +occasion to withdraw, stating that his mandate was purely municipal, +that he could not recognise the political character of the Commune, gave +in his resignation, and ironically bade farewell to the Council: "I +leave you my sincere good wishes; may you succeed in your task," &c. + +The insolence of this dishonest man, who for eight days had been busy in +fomenting civil war and now threw up the mandate solicited in his +address to the electors, evoked general indignation. The more impatient +wanted to have him arrested, others to declare his mandate forfeited. He +escaped scot-free because he had said at the Versailles tribune, "When +you enter the Hôtel-de-Ville, you are not sure to return from it." + +This incident no doubt induced the Council to vote the secrecy of their +sittings, their awkward pretext being that the Commune was not a +parliament. This decision produced a very bad effect, violating the +best traditions of the great Commune of 1792-93, as it gave the Council +the appearance of a conspiracy, and it was found necessary to quash it +two weeks after, when the newspapers abounded in fantastic reports, as a +natural consequence of the secret sittings. But the publicity never +consisted in anything but the insertion of curtailed reports in the +_Officiel_. The Council never admitted the public, whose presence would +have prevented many faults. + +The next day the Council subdivided itself into commissions charged with +the various services. A Military Commission, and others of Finance, +Justice, Public Safety, Labour and Exchange, Provisions, Foreign +Affairs, Public Services, and Education were named. The Executive +Commission was composed of Lefrançais, Duval, Félix Pyat, Bergeret, +Tridon, Eudes, and Vaillant, of whom Duval, Bergeret, and Eudes also +belonged to the Military Commission. + +It had just been voted that all decrees should be signed _The +Commune_--a vote too soon forgotten--when the delegates of the Central +Committee were announced. After waiting half an hour they were +introduced. "Citizens," said their spokesman, "the Central Committee +comes to hand over to you its revolutionary powers. We resume the +functions defined by our statutes." + +This was the moment for the Council to affirm its authority. The only +representative of the population, alone responsible, it should now have +absorbed all powers, not tolerating the co-existence of a Committee +which was sure always to remember the paramount position it had held and +strive to recover it. In the previous sitting, the Council had done +justice to the Central Committee in voting that they had deserved well +of Paris and the Republic, and now taking them at their word, ought to +have declared that the rôle of the Committee had come to an end. Instead +of an authoritative decision in this sense, recriminations were resorted +to. + +A member of the Council recalled the promise of the Central Committee +to dissolve after the elections. Unless they aimed at power, there was +no necessity for the maintenance of their organisation. Varlin and +Beslay defended the existence of the Committee, which was combated by +Jourde and Rigault. The delegates, who would have yielded to a +peremptory word, held out against this weakness. "This is," they said, +"the Federation that has saved the Republic. The last word is not yet +said. To dissolve this organisation is to break your strength. The +Central Committee does not pretend to share in the government. It +remains the bond of union between you and the National Guard, the right +hand of the Revolution. We again become what we were, the great _conseil +de famille_ of the National Guard." + +This simile made a marked impression. The debate was prolonged, and the +delegates of the Committee withdrew, no conclusion having been arrived +at. + +Thereupon, without preamble, like a Jack-in-the-box, Félix Pyat jumped +up and proposed the abolition of the conscription. + +On the 3rd March he had stolen away from the National Assembly, as he +had on the 31st October deserted the Hôtel-de-Ville, and, a few days +after, sneaked out of prison. On the 18th March he did not stir, while +Delescluze had joined the revolution from the first day. Félix Pyat +waited for the triumph, and on the eve of the elections came to sound +the timbrel before the Committee, "which teaches modesty to the proudest +name and inspires men of genius with a feeling of inferiority." Elected +by about 12,000 votes in the tenth arrondissement, he was now forward to +take his seat at the Hôtel-de-Ville. + +The hour awaited for twenty years had at last struck; he was about to +tread the boards. Amidst the crowd of dramatists, thaumaturgists, +romanticists, visionaries, and Jacobin relics, trailing since 1830 at +the heels of the social revolution, his business had been that of +appeals to regicide, to revolutionary chouannerie, of epistles, +allegories, toasts, invocations, evocations, pieces of rhetoric on the +events of the day, tinkering the old Montagnard wares, and doing them +up with a little humanitarian varnish. Under the Empire his rabid +manifestoes had been the joy of the police and of the Bonapartist +journals, excellent sops to throw to the people, who could not extract +from them a practical idea or a grain of sense. This intoxication was +more than half-feigned. The dishevelled madman of the stage behind the +scenes turned crafty, trickish, and wary to a degree. At bottom he was +only a splenetic sceptic, sincere only in his self-idolatry. He came to +the Commune his pockets crammed with decrees. + +When he read his motion, it was lustily cheered by the romanticists and +passed at once. Yet still in the morning the Council had intimated +nothing of the sort, but only stated in the proclamation in which they +presented themselves to Paris: "To-day the decision on house-rents, +to-morrow that on the overdue bills, the public services re-established +and simplified, and the National Guards reorganised, these are our first +acts." And now it abruptly encroached upon national affairs. Commune in +the morning, Constituent Assembly in the evening. + +If they wanted to change the revolution from a communal into a national +one, they ought to have said so, boldly set forth their whole programme, +and demonstrated to France the necessity of their attempt. But what +signified this decree, improvised at random, without a preliminary +declaration and without a sequel? This _quid pro quo_ was not even taken +up. Under pretext of avoiding parliamentarism, the matters at issue were +hurried over. + +Then the Council decreed the general release of rents due between +October, 1870, and July, 1871. Versailles had offered only delays; this +was contrary to equity. The Council released rents for the good reason +that property ought to bear its share of the general sacrifices; but it +did not except a lot of industrials who had realised scandalous profits +during the siege. This was contrary to justice. + +Finally, they neglected to announce themselves to the provinces, already +so forsaken by the Central Committee. A commission had certainly been +charged to draw up an address, but its work had not pleased, and another +one had been named, so that what with one commission and another, the +programme of the Commune was kept in suspense for twenty-two days, and +the Council had allowed all the insurrections of the provinces to die +out without giving them any advice or ideas. + +These encroachments, this disorder, disturbed Paris with the thought +that the new power had neither very clear ideas nor consciousness of the +situation. The Liberal fraction of the Council took advantage of this +pretext to withdraw. If their convention of the 20th had been sincere, +if they had cared for the destinies of Paris, the mayor and adjuncts +elected would have courageously stood by their mandates. Like those of +the provinces, they deserted, but were still more culpable, since they +had not protested against their elections. Many had never been seen at +the Hôtel-de-Ville; others wrung their hands, lamenting, "Where are we +going?" Some shammed mortal illness: "You see I am at my last gasp." +Those who have been most abusive since, then sought for humble evasions. +Not one broke boldly. + +Their resignations,[110] the double elections, left twenty-two seats +vacant on the 30th, when the Council verified the credentials. Faithful +to the best traditions of the French Republic, it admitted the Hungarian +Frankel, one of the most intelligent members of the International, +elected in the thirteenth arrondissement. Six candidates had not +received the eighth part of the votes required by the law of 1849; the +Council passed by this irregularity because the arrondissements of these +candidates, composed of reactionary quarters, were emptying themselves +from day to day. + +The men of order, twice chastised, continued migrating to Versailles, +which they stocked with a new store of rancour and rhodomontades. The +town had assumed a warlike aspect; all announced that the struggle was +near at hand. Already M. Thiers had cut off Paris from France. On the +eve of the April term, the 31st March, the director of the general +post-office, Rampont, belying the word of honour he had given the +delegate of the Central Committee, Theisz, made off after having +disorganised the postal service, and M. Thiers suppressed all the goods +trains and kept back all correspondence destined for Paris. + +On the 1st April he officially announced war. "The Assembly," he +telegraphed to the prefects, "is sitting at Versailles, where the +organisation of one of the finest armies that France has ever possessed +is being completed. Good citizens may then take heart and hope for the +end of a struggle which will be sad but short." A cynical boast of that +same bourgeoisie which had refused to organise armies against the +Prussians. "One of the finest armies," was as yet only the rabble of the +18th March, strengthened by five or six regiments; about 35,000 men, +with 3,000 horses, and 5,000 gendarmes or sergents-de-ville, the only +corps that had any solidity. + +Paris would not believe in the existence even of this army. The popular +papers demanded a sortie, speaking of the journey to Versailles as a +promenade. The most impetuous was the _Vengeur_, in which Félix Pyat +furiously shook his cap and bells. He exhorted the Commune "to press +Versailles. Poor Versailles! it no longer remembers the 5th and 6th +October, 1789, when the women of the Commune alone sufficed to catch its +king." On the morning of Sunday the 2nd April the same member of the +Executive Commission announced to Paris: "Yesterday at Versailles the +soldiers, requested to vote by _aye_ or _no_ if they were to march on +Paris, answered No!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Ad. Adam, Meline, Rochard, Barré (1st arrondissement, Louvre); +Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Chéron (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat (3rd, +Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. Ferry, Nast +(9th, Opéra); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Passy). + +[108] Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lefévre (7th, Palais-Bourbon); A. +Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Opéra). + +[109] Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, C. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. Arnould, +Lefrançais, Clémence, E. Gérardin (4th, Hôtel-de-Ville); Régère, Jourde, +Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Panthéon); Beslay, Varlin (6th, +Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon); Raoul +Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elysées); Gambon, +Félix, Pyat, H. Fortuné, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (10th, Enclos St. +Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure +(11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Geresme, Theisz, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly); +Léo Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray, +Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Clément, J. Vallès, Langevin +(15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Clément, Ch. Gérardin, Chalain, Malon +(17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Clément, Ferré, +Vermorel, P. Grousset (18th, Montmartre); Oudet, Puget, Delescluze, J. +Miot, Ostyn, Flourens (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Bergeret, Ranvier, +Flourens, Blanqui (20th, Menilmontant). Blanqui had been arrested in the +South of France, where he had gone for the sake of his health. + +[110] See Appendix III. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL--THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED + EVERYWHERE--FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED--THE VERSAILLESE + MASSACRE SOME PRISONERS. + + +That very day, the 2nd April, at one o'clock, without warning, without +summons, the Versaillese opened fire and threw their shells into Paris. + +For several days their cavalry had exchanged shots with our advanced +posts at Châtillon and Putteaux. We occupied Courbevoie, that commands +the route to Versailles, which made the rurals very anxious. On the 2nd, +at ten o'clock in the morning, three brigades of the best Versailles +troops, 10,000 strong, arrived at the cross-roads of Bergères. Six or +seven hundred cavalry of the brigade Gallifet supported this movement, +while we had only three federal battalions at Courbevoie, in all five or +six hundred men, defended by a half-finished barricade on the road of +St. Germain. Their watch, however, was well kept; their vedettes had +killed the head-surgeon of the Versaillese army, whom they had mistaken +for a colonel of gendarmerie. + +At mid-day the Versaillese, having cannonaded the barracks of Courbevoie +and the barricade, launched themselves to the assault. At the first +shots from our men they scampered off, abandoning on the road cannon and +officers. Vinoy was obliged to come himself and rally the runagates. +Meanwhile the 113th of the line outflanked Courbevoie on the right, and +the infantry of marines turned the left, marching through Putteaux. Too +inferior in number and fearing to be cut off from Paris, the Federals +evacuated Courbevoie, and, pursued by shells, fell back on the Avenue de +Neuilly, leaving twelve dead and some prisoners. The gendarmes had +taken five, one of whom was a child of fifteen, beating them +unmercifully, and shot them at the foot of Mont-Valérien. This +expedition concluded, the army regained its cantonment. + +At the report of the cannon all Paris started. No one believed in an +attack, so completely did all, since the 28th, live in an atmosphere of +confidence. It was no doubt an anniversary, a misunderstanding at the +utmost. When the news, the ambulance-carriages, arrived; when the word +was spoken, "The siege is recommencing!" an explosion of horror shook +all the quarters. An affrighted hive, such was Paris. The barricades +were again thrown up, the call to arms beaten everywhere, and the cannon +drawn to the ramparts of the Porte-Maillot and of the Ternes. At three +o'clock 80,000 men were on their legs crying, "To Versailles!" The women +excited the battalions, and spoke of marching in the vanguard. + +The Executive Commission met and placarded a proclamation: "The royalist +conspirators have attacked; despite the moderation of our attitude, they +have attacked. Our duty is to defend the great city against these +culpable aggressions." In the Commission, the generals Duval, Bergeret, +and Eudes declared for an attack. "The enthusiasm," they said, "is +irresistible, unique. What can Versailles do against 100,000 men? We +must sally out." Their colleagues resisted, especially Félix Pyat, +confronted with his rant and vapourings of the morning. His poltroonery +stood him in the stead of a life-preserver. "One does not start," said +he, "at random, without cannon, without _cadres_, and without chiefs;" +and he demanded the return of the strength of the troops. Duval, who +since the 19th March had been strongly bent upon a sortie, violently +apostrophised him: "Why, then, for three days have you shouted, 'To +Versailles?'" The most energetic opponent of the sortie was Lefrançais. +Finally, the four civil members--that is, the majority--decided that the +generals should present a detailed statement as to their forces in men, +artillery, munitions, and transports. The same evening the Commission +named Cluseret delegate at War jointly with Eudes, who, being a member +of the so-called party of action, owed this post only to the patronage +of his old cronies. + +In spite of the majority of the Commission, the generals set out. They +had, besides, received no formal order to the contrary. Félix Pyat had +even concluded by saying, "After all, if you think you are ready...." +They saw Flourens always ready for a _coup-de-main_, other colleagues +equally adventurous, and, on their own authority, certain of being +followed by the National Guard. They sent to the _chefs-de-légion_ the +order to form columns. The battalions of the right bank were to +concentrate at the Place Vendôme and Place Wagram; those of the left +bank, at the Place d'Italie and Champ-de-Mars. + +These movements, without staff officers to guide them, were very badly +executed. Many men marched hither and thither, grew tired. Yet at +midnight there were still about 20,000 men on the right bank of the +Seine and about 17,000 on the left. + +From eight o'clock to midnight the Council was sitting. The inexorable +Félix Pyat, always pertinent, demanded the abolition of the budget of +public worship. The majority immediately satisfied him. He might just as +well have decreed the abolition of the Versaillese army. Of the sortie, +of the military preparations deafening Paris, no one breathed a word in +the Council--no one disputed the field with the generals. + +The plan of the latter, which they communicated to Cluseret, was to make +a strong demonstration in the direction of Rueil, while two columns were +to march on Versailles by Meudon and the plateau of Châtillon. Bergeret, +assisted by Flourens, was to operate on the right; Eudes and Duval were +to command the columns of the centre and the left. A simple idea, and +easy of execution with experienced officers and solid heads of columns. +But most of the battalions had been without chiefs since the 18th March, +the National Guards without _cadres_, and the generals who assumed the +responsibility of leading 40,000 men had never conducted a single +battalion into the field. They neglected even the most elementary +precautions, knew not how to collect artillery, ammunition-waggons, or +ambulances, forgot to make an order of the day, and left the men for +several hours without food in a penetrating fog. Every Federal chose the +chief he liked best. Many had no cartridges, and believed the sortie to +be a simple demonstration. The Executive Commission had just placarded a +despatch from the Place Vendôme, headquarters of the National Guard: +"Soldiers of the line are all coming to us, and declare that, save the +superior officers, no one wants to fight." + +At three o'clock in the morning Bergeret's column, about 10,000 men +strong and with only eight ordnance pieces, arrived at the bridge of +Neuilly. It was necessary to give the men, who had taken nothing since +the evening before, time to recover themselves. At dawn they moved in +the direction of Rueil. The battalions marched by sections in line in +the middle of the road, without scouts, and cheerfully climbed the +Plateau des Bergères, when suddenly a shell burst into their ranks, +followed by a second. Mont-Valérien had opened fire. + +A terrible panic broke the battalions, amidst thousandfold cries of +"Treason!" the whole National Guard believing that we occupied +Mont-Valérien. Many members of the Commune, of the Central Committee, at +the Place Vendôme, knew the contrary, and very foolishly concealed it, +living in the hope that the fortress would not fire. It possessed, it is +true, only two or three badly appointed guns, the range of which the +Guards might have escaped by one quick movement; but, surprised when in +a state of blind confidence, they fancied themselves betrayed, and fled +on all sides. Bergeret exhausted every means to stay them. A shell cut +in two the brother of the chief of his staff, an officer of the regular +army gone over to the Commune. The greater part of the Federals +dispersed in the fields and regained Paris. The 91st only and a few +others, 1,200 men in all, remained with Bergeret, and, dividing into +small groups, reached Rueil. Shortly after, Flourens arrived by the road +of Asnières, bringing hardly a thousand men.[111] The rest had lagged +behind in Paris or on the way. Flourens, all the same, pressing forward, +arrived at the Malmaison, put Gallifet's chasseurs to flight, and the +Parisian vanguard pushed as far as Bougival. + +The Versaillese, surprised by this sortie, only drew up very late, +towards ten o'clock. Ten thousand men were launched against Bougival, +and the batteries placed on the hill of La Jonchère cannonaded Rueil. +Two brigades of cavalry on the right and that of Gallifet on the left +defended the wings. The Parisian vanguard--a mere handful of +men--offered a determined resistance, in order to give Bergeret time to +operate his retreat, which commenced towards one o'clock, on Neuilly, +where they fortified the bridge-head. Some valiant men, who had +obstinately held out in Rueil, with great difficulty gained the bridge +of Asnières, whither they were pursued by the cavalry, who took some +prisoners. + +Flourens was surprised at Rueil, and the house which he occupied with +some officers surrounded by gendarmes. While preparing to defend +himself, the officer of the detachment, Captain Desmarets, cleft his +head with so furious a blow of the sabre that the brains gushed out. The +body was thrown into a dust-cart and taken to Versailles, where the fine +ladies gathered to enjoy the spectacle. Thus ended the large-hearted +man, loved of the Revolution. + +At the extreme left Duval had passed the night with six or seven +thousand men on the plateau of Châtillon. Towards seven o'clock he +formed a column of picked men, advanced to Petit-Bicêtre, dispersed the +outpost of General du Barail, and sent an officer to reconnoitre +Villecoublay, that commanded the route. The officer announced that the +roads were free, and the Federals advanced without fear. When near the +hamlet firing commenced. The men deployed as skirmishers, and Duval, +uncovered, in the middle of the road, set them the example. They held +out for several hours. A few shells would have sufficed to dislodge the +enemy; but Duval had no artillery. Even cartridges were already +wanting, and he had to send to Châtillon for more. + +The bulk of the Federals who occupied the redoubt, confounded in an +inextricable disorder, already believed themselves surrounded on all +sides. The messengers of Duval on their arrival begged, menaced, but +could not obtain either reinforcements or munitions. An officer even +ordered a retreat. The unfortunate Duval, totally abandoned, was +assailed by the Derroja brigade and the whole Pellé division, 8,000 men. +He retired with his troops to the plateau of Châtillon. + +Our efforts in the centre were not more fortunate. Ten thousand men had +left the Champ-de-Mars at three o'clock in the morning with Ranvier and +Avrial. General Eudes as his whole battle array had ordered the troops +to move on. At six o'clock the 61st reached the Moulineaux, defended by +gendarmes; these were soon forced to retreat to Meudon, strongly +occupied by a Versaillese brigade entrenched in the villas and provided +with mitrailleuses. The Federals had only eight pieces, while Paris +possessed hundreds, and each of these had only eight rounds. At six +o'clock, weary of shooting at walls, they retreated to Moulineaux. +Ranvier went in search of cannon, and mounted them in the fort of Issy, +thus preventing the Versaillese from taking the offensive. + +We were beaten at all points, and the Communalist papers shouted +"Victory!" Led astray by staffs which did not even know the names of the +generals, the Executive Commission announced the junction of Flourens +and Duval at Courbevoie. Félix Pyat, again become bellicose, six times +cried in his _Vengeur_, "To Versailles!"[112] Despite the runaways of +the morning, the popular enthusiasm did not flag. A battalion of 300 +women marched up the Champs-Elysées, the red flag at their head, +demanding to sally forth against the enemy. The journals of the evening +announced the arrival of Flourens at Versailles. + +At the ramparts the sad truth was discovered. Long files of guards +re-entered by all the gates, and at six o'clock the only army outside +Paris was the guards on the plateau de Châtillon. A few shells falling +in their midst completed the disorder. Some of the men threatened Duval, +who was making desperate efforts to keep them together. He remained, +surrounded only by a handful of men, but always equally resolute. The +whole night he, usually so taciturn, did not cease repeating, "I will +not retreat." + +The next day at eight o'clock the plateau and the neighbouring villages +were surrounded by the brigade Derroja and the division Pellé. +"Surrender and your lives will be spared," General Pellé had told them. +The Parisians surrendered. The Versaillese at once seized the soldiers +fighting in the ranks of the Federals and shot them. The prisoners, +between two lines of chasseurs, were sent on to Versailles, while their +officers, bare-headed, their _galons_ torn off, were put at the head of +the convoy. + +At Petit-Bicêtre they met the general-in-chief, Vinoy. He commanded the +officers to be shot, but the chief of the escort reminding him of +General Pellé's promise, Vinoy said, "Is there a chief?" "Myself," said +Duval, darting from the ranks. Another advanced: "I am the chief of +Duval's staff." Then the commander of the volunteers of Montrouge placed +himself by their side. "You are awful scoundrels," said Vinoy; and, +turning to his officers, "Shoot them." Duval and his comrades disdained +to reply, cleared a ditch, and leant against a wall on which were +inscribed the words, "Duval, horticulturist." They undressed, and, +crying "Vive la Commune," died for it. A horseman tore off Duval's boots +and carried them about as a trophy,[113] and an editor of the _Figaro_ +took possession of his blood-stained collar. + +Thus the army of order inaugurated the civil war by the massacre of the +prisoners. It had begun on the 2nd; on the 3rd, at Chatou, General +Gallifet had three Federals shot who were surprised in an inn taking +their meal, and then he published a ferocious proclamation: "War has +been declared by the bandits of Paris. They have assassinated my +soldiers. It is a merciless war which I declare against these assassins. +I had to make an example." + +The general who called the combatants of Paris "bandits" and these +assassinations "an example" was a scamp of high life, first ruined, then +kept by actresses. Famous for his brigandage in Mexico, he had in a few +years obtained a generalship of brigade by the charms of his wife, +prominent in the orgies of the Imperial court. Nothing is more edifying +in this civil war than the standard-bearers of the "honest people." + +Their band in full strength hastened to the Paris Avenue at Versailles +to receive the prisoners of Châtillon. The whole Parisian emigration, +functionaries, elegants, women of the world and of the streets, all came +with the rage of hyenas to strike the Federals with closed hands, with +canes and parasols, pushing off their képis and cloaks, crying, "Down +with the assassins! To the guillotine!" Amongst these "assassins" was +the geographer Elisée Reclus, taken with Duval. In order to give them +time to glut their fury, the escort made several halts before conducting +their prisoners to the barracks of the gendarmes. They were then thrown +into the docks of Satory, and thence carried to Brest in cattle-trucks. + +Picard wanted to associate all the honest people of the provinces in +this baiting. "Never," telegraphed this Falstaff of pustulous aspect, +"have baser countenances of a base demagogy met the afflicted gaze of +honest men." + +Already, the evening before, after the assassinations of Mont-Valérien +and of Chatou, M. Thiers had written to his prefects, "The moral effect +is excellent." Odious repetition of those words, "Order reigns in +Warsaw," and "The chassepot has done wonders." Ah! it is well known that +it was not the French bourgeoisie, but a daughter of the people who +spoke those great words, "I have never seen French blood shed without my +hair standing on end." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[111] MacMahon, with his _coup-d'oeil_ of Reischoffen and Sedan, saw +there 17,000 men. _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 22. + +[112] "To Versailles, if we don't want again to resort to balloons! To +Versailles, if we don't want to fall back upon pigeons! To Versailles, +if we don't want to be reduced to bran bread," &c., &c.--_Le Vengeur_, +3rd April. + +[113] These details, related in part by the journals of the time, have +been completed by numerous comrades of Duval whom we have questioned. In +his mutilated, lying, naïvely cynical book, Vinoy dared to say: "The +insurgents threw down their arms an surrendered _at discretion_: the man +called Duval was _killed in the affray_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE. + + +The same sun that saw the scale turn against Paris looked also on the +defeat of the people of Marseilles. + +The paralytic Commission still continued to dose, when, on the 26th, +Espivent beat the réveille, placed the department in a state of siege, +and issued a proclamation _à la_ Thiers. The municipal council began to +tremble, and on the 27th withdrew their delegates from the prefecture. +Gaston Crémieux and Bouchet were at once sent to the Mairie to announce +that the Commission was ready to withdraw before the council. The +council asked for time to consider. + +The evening was passing away, and the Commission searching for a +loophole by which to escape from a position become untenable, when +Bouchet proposed to telegraph to Versailles that they would resign their +powers into the hands of a Republican prefect. Poor issue of a great +movement! They knew what the Republican prefects of M. Thiers were. The +Commission, jaded, discouraged, let Bouchet draw up the telegram, when +Landeck, Amouroux, and May arrived, sent, they said, by Paris. They +spoke in the name of the great town. Bouchet wanted to verify their +powers and contested their validity, which were indeed more than +contestable, whereat the members of the Commission grew indignant. The +magic name of victorious Paris resuscitated the enthusiasm of the first +hours, and Bouchet left the place. At midnight the municipal council +decided to maintain its resolution, and communicated this to the club of +the National Guard, who immediately followed their example. At half-past +one in the morning the delegates of the club informed the Commission +that their powers were at an end. The Liberal bourgeoisie, coward-like, +stole away, the Radicals backed out, and the people remained alone to +face the reaction. + +This was the second phase of the movement. The most exalted of the three +delegates, Landeck, became an authority paramount to the Commission. The +cold-blooded Republicans who heard him and knew of his past dealings +with the Imperialist police, suspected a Bonapartist under the grossly +ignorant bully. He was indeed but a juggler, meant for the itinerant +stage, of grotesque vanity, and shrinking from nothing, because ignorant +of everything. The situation waxed tragic with this mountebank for a +leader. G. Crémieux, unable to find another issue, was still for the +solution of the evening before. On the 28th he wrote to the municipal +council that the Commission was ready to retire, leaving them the +responsibility of events, and urged his colleagues to release the +hostages; this only rendered him the more suspected of moderatism. +Closely watched, threatened, he lost heart at these disputes, and that +same evening left the prefecture. His secession divested the Commission +of all authority. It succeeded in discovering his retreat, made an +appeal to his devotion to the cause, and led him back to the prefecture, +there to resume his strange part of a chief at once captive and +responsible. + +The municipal council did not answer G. Crémieux' letter and on the 29th +the Commission renewed its proposal. The council still remained silent. +In the evening 400 delegates of the National Guard, met at the museum, +decided to federate the battalions, and appointed a commission charged +to negotiate between the Hôtel-de-Ville and the prefecture. But these +delegates represented only the revolutionary element of the battalions, +and the Hôtel-de-Ville plunged more and more into a slough of despond. + +A war of proclamations now ensued between the two powers. On the 30th +the council answered the deliberations of the museum meeting by a +proclamation of the chiefs of the reactionary battalions. The Commission +launched a manifesto demanding the autonomy of the Commune and the +abolition of prefectures; immediately after, the council declared the +general secretary of the prefect the legal representative of the +Government, and invited him to retake his post. The secretary turned a +deaf ear and took refuge aboard _La Couronne_, many councillors also +betaking themselves to the frigate--gratuitous cowardice, since the most +notorious reactionists went to and fro without being in the least +interfered with. The energy of the Commission was mere show; it arrested +only two or three functionaries, the procureur Guibert, the deputy, and +for a short time the director of the customhouse, and the son of the +mayor. General Ollivier was set free as soon as it became known that he +had refused to form part of the Mixed Commissions of 1851. They even +were so facile as to leave a post close to the prefecture in the hands +of chasseurs forgotten by Espivent. The flight of the council, +therefore, appeared only the more shameful. The town continued to be +calm, gay, facetious. One day the advice-boat _Le Renard_ coming to show +its cannon at the Cannebière, the crowd thronging on the quay hooted so +much that it was obliged to slip its cable and rejoin the frigate in the +new harbour. + +Therefore the Commission inferred this, that no one would dare to attack +them, and thus took no measures of defence. They might easily have armed +the heights of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, which commanded the town, and +enlisted a great number of Garibaldians, some officers of the last +campaign having offered to organise everything. The Commission thanked +them, said that the troops would not come, and that even if they did, +they would fraternise with the people. They contented themselves with +hoisting the black flag, addressing a proclamation to the soldiers, and +accumulating at the prefecture arms and cannon without projectiles of +corresponding calibre. Landeck, for his part, wanting to distinguish +himself, declared Espivent's grade forfeited, and in his place nominated +a former cavalry sergeant named Pelissier. "Until the assumption of his +functions," said the decree, "the troops will remain under the orders of +General Espivent." This gross farce dated from the 1st April. Before +the court-martial which tried him, Pelissier hit the mark. When asked, +"Of what armies were you general?" "I was general of the situation," was +his reply; and indeed he never did lead any troops. On the morning of +the 24th the workmen had returned to their work, for the National +Guards, save the guardians of the prefecture, were not paid. Men to +garrison the posts were found with difficulty, and at midnight the +prefecture had but a hundred defenders. + +A _coup-de-main_ would have been easy, and some rich bourgeois wanted to +try it. The men were there and the manoeuvres agreed upon. At midnight +the Commission was to be carried off and the prefecture taken possession +of, while Espivent was to march on the town so as to get there by +daybreak. An officer was despatched to Aubagne. The general refused +under the pretext of prudence, but his retinue revealed the true motive +of the refusal. "We," they told the messenger, "have stolen away from +Marseilles like thieves; we want to re-enter it as conquerors." + +Such a performance seemed rather difficult with the army of Aubagne, 600 +or 700 men, without _cadres_ and without discipline. One single +regiment, the 6th Chasseurs, showed a more martial carriage. But +Espivent relied upon the sailors of _La Couronne_, the National Guards +of order, in continual relations with him, and above all, on the +well-known supineness of the Commission. + +The latter tried to strengthen itself by the adjunction of delegates +from the National Guard. They voted the dissolution of the municipal +council, and the Commission convoked the electors for the 3rd April. +This measure, if taken on the 24th March, might perhaps have settled +everything, but on the 2nd April it was only a stroke in the air. + +On the 3rd, at the news from Versailles, Espivent sent an order to the +chiefs of the reactionary battalions to hold themselves in readiness. In +the evening, at eleven o'clock, Garibaldian officers came to inform the +prefecture that the troops at Aubagne were moving. The Commission +recommenced its old refrain: "Let them come; we are ready to receive +them." At half-past one they decided to beat the retreat, and towards +four o'clock some men mustered at the prefecture. About a hundred +franc-tireurs established themselves at the station, where the +Commission had not even thought of placing a battery. + +At five o'clock Marseilles was on the alert. Some reactionary companies +appeared at the Place du Palais de Justice and in the Cours Bonaparte; +the sailors of _La Couronne_ were drawn up before the Bourse; the first +shots were fired at the station. + +Espivent's troops presented themselves at three points--the station, the +Place Castellane, and La Plaine. The franc-tireurs, notwithstanding a +fine defence, were soon surrounded and obliged to retreat. The +Versaillese shot the Federalist stationmaster under the eyes of his son, +a child of sixteen, who threw himself at the feet of the officer, +offering his life for his father's. The second stationmaster, Funel, was +able to escape with only a broken arm. The columns of La Plaine and +L'Esplanade pushed their advanced posts as far as 300 yards from the +prefecture. + +The Commission, always in the clouds, sent an embassy to Espivent. G. +Crémieux and Pélissier set out, followed by an immense mass of men and +children, crying "Vive Paris!" At the outposts of the Place Castellane, +the seat of the staff, the chief of the 6th Chasseurs, Villeneuve, came +forward towards the delegates. "What are your intentions?" asked G. +Crémieux. "We want to re-establish order." "What! you would dare fire on +the people?" cried G. Crémieux, and commenced haranguing, when the +Versaillese threatened to order his chasseurs to march on. The delegates +then had themselves conducted to Espivent. He first spoke of putting +them under arrest, but then would allow them five minutes for the +evacuation of the prefecture. G. Crémieux on his return found the +chasseurs struggling with the crowd, who sought to disarm them. A new +current of people, preceded by a black flag, arrived, making a vigorous +push against the soldiers. A German officer of Espivent's staff arrested +Pelissier, but the Versaillese chiefs, seeing their men waver, ordered +a retreat. + +The mass applauded, believing they would disband. Two infantry corps had +already refused to march, and the Place de la Prefecture was filled with +groups certain of success. Suddenly, towards ten o'clock, the chasseurs +debouched by the Rues de Rome and De l'Armény. The people shouted and +surrounded them, when many raised the butt-end of their muskets. One +officer who, urging on his company, made them cross bayonets, fell, his +head pierced by a bullet. His men charged the Federals, who took refuge +and were taken prisoners in the prefecture, whither the chasseurs +followed. The volleys of the National Guards of order and the chasseurs +from the Cours Bonaparte and from the house of the Frères Ignorantins, +keeping up a running fire, were replied to by the Federals from the +windows of the prefecture. + +The fusillade had lasted two hours, and no reinforcement arrived in +support of the Federals. Inexpugnable in the prefecture, a solid square +building, they were none the less vanquished, having neither provisions +nor sufficient munition, and it would have sufficed to wait with arms +ordered till they had exhausted their cartridges. But the general of the +Sacré Coeur would not put up with such a half-triumph. This was his +first campaign; he wanted blood, and, above all, noise. Since eleven +o'clock he had had the prefecture bombarded from the top of +Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, a distance of about 500 yards. The Fort St. +Nicolas also opened its fire, but its shells, less far-seeing than those +of our Lady-de-la-Garde, dashed down upon the aristocratic houses of the +Cours Bonaparte, killing one of those heroic guards of order who fired +from behind the soldiers. At three o'clock the prefecture hoisted a flag +of truce. Espivent continued to fire. An envoy was sent to him, but he +insisted upon their surrender at discretion. At five o'clock more than +300 shells had traversed the edifice, wounding many Federals. Little by +little, the defenders, seeing that they were not supported, left the +place. The prefecture had long ceased firing when Espivent was still +bombarding it. The fright of this brute was so great that he continued +throwing shells till nightfall. At half past seven the sailors of _La +Couronne_ and _Le Magnanime_ courageously stormed the prefecture, void +of all its defenders. + +They found the hostages safe and sound, as were the chasseurs taken +prisoner in the morning. Yet the Jesuitic repression was atrocious. The +men of order arrested at hazard, and dragged their victims into the +lamp-stores of the station. There an officer scrutinised the prisoners, +made a sign to one or the other of them to step out, and blew out his +brains. The following days there were rumours of summary executions in +the barracks, the forts and the prisons. The number of dead the people +lost is unknown, but it exceeded 150, besides many wounded who concealed +themselves. The Versaillese had thirty killed and fifty wounded. More +than 900 persons were thrown into the casemates of the Château d'If and +of the Fort St. Nicolas. G. Crémieux was arrested at the porter's of the +Israelite Cemetery. He voluntarily discovered himself to those who +sought him, strong in his good faith, and still believing in the judges. +The brave Etienne was also taken. Landeck, of course, had made his exit +in good time. + +On the 5th Espivent entered triumphantly, acclaimed with savage frenzy +by the reactionists. But from the further ranks of the crowd cries and +hisses rose against the murderers. At the Place St. Ferréol a captain +was fired at, and the people stoned the windows of a house from which +the sailors had been cheered. + +Two days after the struggle, on its return from _La Couronne_, the +municipal council recovered its voice to strike the vanquished. + +The National Guard was disarmed, a fierce reaction raged, the Jesuits +again lorded it, and Espivent paraded about, receiving ovations to the +cries of "Vive Jésus! Vive le Sacré Coeur!" The club of the National +Guard was closed, Bouchet arrested, and the Radicals, insulted, +persecuted, once more saw what it costs to desert the people. + +Narbonne, too, was subdued. On the 30th March the prefect and the +procureur-general issued a proclamation in which they spoke of "the +handful of factious men," presented themselves as upholders of the true +Republic, and telegraphed everywhere the failure of the provincial +movements. "Is this a reason," Digeon answered in a placard, "to lower +before force this red flag dyed in the blood of our martyrs? Let others +consent to live eternally oppressed." Whereupon he prepared for battle, +and barricaded the streets leading to the Hôtel-de-Ville. The women, +always to the fore, pulled up pavements and piled up furniture. The +authorities, afraid of a serious resistance, sent M. Marcou to his +friend Digeon. The Brutus of Carcassonne bestrode the Hôtel-de-Ville, +accompanied by two Republicans of Limoux, to offer in the name of the +procureur-general a full and complete amnesty to those who would +evacuate the edifice. They offered Digeon twenty-four hours to gain the +frontier. Digeon assembled his council, and all refused to fly. M. +Marcou hastened to inform the military authorities that they might now +act.[114] General Zentz was at once sent to Narbonne. + +At three o'clock in the morning a detachment of Turcos reconnoitred the +barricades of the Rue du Pont. The Federals, anxious to fraternise, +cleared it, and were received with a volley, killing two men and +wounding three. On the 31st, at seven o'clock, Zentz in a proclamation +announced that the bombardment was about to recommence. Digeon at once +wrote to him, "I have the right to reply to such a savage menace in the +same style. I warn you that if you bombard the town, I shall have the +three prisoners who are in my power shot." Zentz for all answer arrested +the envoy, and had brandy distributed to the Turcos, the only troops who +would march. These brutes arrived at Narbonne eager to loot, and had +already pillaged three cafés. The fight was about to begin, when the +procureur-general again sent two envoys, offering amnesty to all those +who would evacuate the Hôtel-de-Ville before the opening of the fire, +but the execution of the hostages would be punished by the massacre of +all its occupants. Digeon wrote out these conditions under the dictation +of one of the envoys, read them to the Federals, and left every one free +to withdraw. At this moment the procureur-general presented himself with +the Turcos before the terrace of the garden. Digeon rushed thither. The +procureur harangued the multitude, and as he spoke of indulgence, Digeon +protested that an amnesty had just been promised. The procureur drowned +the discussion in a roll of drums, read the legal _sommation_ in front +of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and asked for the hostages, whom the soldiers who +had deserted delivered over to him. + +All these parleys had profoundly enervated the defence. Besides, the +Hôtel-de-Ville could do nothing against a bombardment that would have +battered the town. Digeon had the edifice evacuated, and shut himself up +alone in the cabinet of the mayor, resolved to sell his life dearly; but +the people, in spite of his resistance, carried him off. The +Hôtel-de-Ville was empty when the Turcos arrived. They plundered in all +its corners, and officers were seen to deck themselves with stolen +valuables. + +Notwithstanding the formal promises of amnesty, numerous warrants of +arrest were issued. Digeon refused to fly, and wrote to the +procureur-general that he might arrest him. Such a man at Toulouse would +have saved the movement and raised the whole South. + + * * * * * + +Limoges had one glimpse of hope on the fatal day of the 4th April. That +revolutionary capital of the Centre could not look on the efforts of +Paris unmoved. On the 23rd March the Société Populaire, centralised all +the democratic forces and passed a vote of thanks to the army of Paris +for its conduct on the 18th. When Versailles called for volunteers, the +Society enjoined the municipal council to prevent such an incitement to +civil war. The workingmen's societies despatched a delegate to Paris +soon after the proclamation of the Commune, there to inquire into its +principles, and to request the sending of a commissary to Limoges. The +members of the Commune replied that this was impossible for the present, +that they would consider it by and by; and never sent anybody. The +Société Populaire was thus obliged to act alone. It urged the municipal +council to hold a review of the National Guards, certain that it would +result in a demonstration against Versailles. The council composed, with +few exceptions, of timid men, tried to gain time, when the news of the +3rd April became known. On the morning of the 4th, on reading on the +walls the triumphant telegram from Versailles, the workmen revolted. A +detachment of five hundred soldiers was about to leave for Versailles; +the crowd followed them to the station, and the workmen urged them to +join the people. The soldiers, surrounded, much excited, fraternised, +surrendered their arms, many of which were taken to the Société +Populaire, and hidden there. + +The rappel was at once beaten. The colonel of cuirassiers, Billet, who, +accompanied by orderlies, rode through the town, was hemmed in by the +people, and constrained to cry, "Vive la République!" At five o'clock +the whole National Guard was in arms on the Place de la Mairie. The +officers met in the Hôtel-de-Ville, where a councillor proposed to +proclaim the Commune. The mayor objected, but the cry resounded on all +sides. Captain Coissac took upon himself to go to the station in order +to stop the train ready for the departure of the troops. The other +officers consulted their companies, which answered with one unanimous +cry, "Vive Paris! A bas Versailles!" Soon after, the battalions, filing +off before the Hôtel-de-Ville, preceded by two municipal councillors in +their official costume, went to ask the general for the release of the +soldiers arrested during the course of the day. The general gave the +order to set them free, and at the same time sent word to Colonel Billet +to prepare against the insurrection. From the Place Tourny the Federals +repaired to the prefecture, occupying it in spite of the resistance of +the Conservative National Guards, and commenced throwing up some +barricades. A few soldiers arriving from the Rue des Prisons, several +citizens adjured the officers not to commence a civil war. These +hesitated, retired, when Colonel Billet, at the head of about fifty +cuirassiers, debouched on the Place de l'Eglise St. Michel, and ordered +his men to advance and draw swords. They fired their pistols, the +Federals answered, and the colonel was mortally wounded. His horse +turning about, carried its rider as far as the Place St. Pierre, the +other horses following, and the Federals thus remained masters of the +field. But lacking organisation, they disbanded in the night and left +the prefecture. The next day the company that occupied the station +seeing themselves abandoned withdrew. The arrests began, and many were +obliged to hide. + + * * * * * + +Thus the revolts of the great towns died out one by one like the lateral +craters of an exhausted volcano. The revolutionists of the provinces +showed themselves everywhere completely disorganised, without any +faculty to wield power. Everywhere victorious at the outset, the workmen +had only known how to pronounce for Paris. But at least they showed some +vitality, generosity, and pride. Eighty years of bourgeois domination +had not been able to transform them into a nation of mercenaries; while +the Radicals, who either combated or held aloof from them, once more +attested the decrepitude, the egotism of the middle-class, always ready +to betray the workingmen to the "upper" classes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[114] "The general commanding the department and the procureur-general, +aware that I had for thirty years been the friend of the man who +commanded the Commune at Narbonne, came to solicit my intervention to +induce him to submit. It was arranged that if I did not succeed I should +immediately send a telegram to General Robinet, in order that the +military authorities might act in consequence. At midnight I sent the +telegram.... You do not know me; it is thanks to my personal influence +that order was maintained at Carcassonne."--_Speech of M. Marcou to the +Assembly in answer to M. de Gavardie, Sitting of the 27th January +1874._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE--THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF THE + COUNCIL--NOMINATION OF CLUSERET--DECREE CONCERNING THE + HOSTAGES--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE--THE BANK. + COMMITTEE--THE BANK. + + +After an armistice of seventy days, Paris again took up the struggle for +France single-handed. It was no longer the territory only which she +strove for, but the very ground-work of the nation. Victorious, her +victory would not be sterile as those of the battlefield; regenerated, +the people would set to the great work of remaking the social edifice; +vanquished, all liberty would be quenched, the bourgeoisie turn its +whips into scorpions, and a generation glide into the grave. + +And Paris, so generous, so fraternal, did not shudder at the impending +civil war. She stood up for an idea that exalted her battalions. While +the bourgeois refuses to fight, saying, "I have a family," the workman +says, "I fight for my children." + +For the third time since the 18th March Paris had but one soul. The +official despatches, the hireling journalists established at Versailles, +pictured her as the pandemonium of all the black-legs of Europe, +recounted the thefts, the arrests _en masse_, the endless orgies, +detailed sums and names. According to them, honest women no longer dared +venture into the streets; 1,500,000 persons oppressed by 20,000 ruffians +were offering up ardent prayers for Versailles. But the traveller +running the risk of a visit to Paris, found the streets and boulevards +tranquil, presenting their usual aspect. The pillagers had only pillaged +the guillotine, solemnly burnt before the mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement. From all quarters the same murmur of execration rose +against the assassination of the prisoners and the ignoble scenes at +Versailles. The incoherence of the first acts of the Council was hardly +noticed while the ferocity of the Versaillese was the topic of the day. +Persons coming full of indignation against Paris, seeing this calm, this +union of hearts, these wounded men crying "Vive la Commune!" these +enthusiastic battalions; there Mont-Valérien vomiting death, here men +living as brothers, in a few hours caught the Parisian malady. + +This was a fever of faith, of blind devotion, and of hope--of hope above +all. What rebellion had been thus armed? It was no longer a handful of +desperate men fighting behind a few pavements, reduced to charging their +muskets with slugs or stones. The Commune of 1871, much better armed +than that of 1793, possessed at least 60,000 men, 200,000 muskets, 1,200 +cannon, five forts; an enceinte covered by Montmartre, Belleville, the +Panthéon overtowering the whole city, munitions enough to last for +years, and milliards at her bidding. What else is wanted to conquer? +Some revolutionary instinct. There was not a man at the Hôtel-de-Ville +who did not boast of possessing it. + +The sitting of the 3rd April during the battle was stormy. Many +inveighed against this mad sortie. Lefrançais, indignant at having been +deceived, withdrew from the Commission, which, called upon to explain, +threw all the blame upon the generals. The friends of the latter took up +their defence, demanded that news should be waited for. Soon the +disastrous tidings were brought, and they could not hesitate any longer. +For such a usurpation of authority there was but one atonement possible. +Flourens and Duval had made it voluntarily. The others ought to have +followed. Thus the dead would have been appeased, similar follies once +for all cut short, and the authority of the Commune brought home to the +most refractory. + +But the men at the Hôtel-de-Ville were not of such inflexibility. Many +had fought, plotted together under the Empire, lived in the same +prisons, identified the Revolution with their friends. And besides, the +generals, were they alone guilty? So many battalions could not have +bestirred themselves all the night without the Council being informed +thereof. Though blind or deaf, they were none the less responsible. In +order to be just they ought to have decimated themselves. They felt +this, no doubt, and did not dare strike the generals. + +They might at least have dismissed them. They contented themselves with +replacing them on the Executive Commission, and notified this measure +most respectfully. "The Commune was desirous to leave them all liberty +in the conduct of the military operations; it was as far from wishing to +disoblige them as from wishing to weaken their authority." And yet their +heedlessness, their incapacity, had been mortal. Their ignorance only +saved them from the suspicion of having betrayed. This indulgence was +big with promises for the future. + +This future meant Cluseret. From the first days he had beset the Central +Committee, the Ministries, in quest of a generalship, his hands full of +war plans against the mayors. The Committee would have nothing to do +with him. He then clung to the Executive Commission, which on the 2nd +April, at seven o'clock in the evening, appointed him delegate at war, +with the order to enter upon his duties immediately.[115] The rappel was +being beaten at that moment for the fatal sortie. Cluseret took good +care not to take possession of his post, allowed the generals to ruin +themselves, and on the 3rd appeared before the Council to denounce their +"_gaminerie_." It was this military pamphlet-monger, with no pledge but +his decoration, won against the Socialists of 1848, who had played the +marionette in three insurrections, whom the Socialists of 1871 charged +with the defence of their Revolution. + +The choice was execrable, the very idea of naming a delegate faulty. The +Council had just decided to keep on the defensive. To guard the lines, +regularise the services, provision and administer the battalions, the +best delegate would have been common sense. A commission, composed of a +few active and laborious men, would have offered all guarantees of +security. + +Moreover, the Council failed to point out what sort of defence they had +in view. The defence of the forts, of the redoubts, of the accessory +positions, required thousands of men, experienced officers, a war with +the mattock as well as the musket. The National Guard was not qualified +for such soldiership. Behind the ramparts, on the contrary, it became +invincible. It would have sufficed to blow up the forts of the south, to +fortify Montmartre, the Panthéon, and the Buttes-Chaumont, to strongly +arm the ramparts, to create a second, a third enceinte, to render Paris +inaccessible or untenable to the enemy. The Council did not indicate +either of these systems, but allowed its delegates to dabble with the +two, and finally annulled the one by the other. + +If they wished by the appointment of a delegate to concentrate the +military power, why not dissolve the Central Committee? The latter +acted, spoke more boldly and much better than the Council which had +excluded it from the Hôtel-de-Ville. The Committee had installed itself +in the Rue de l'Entrepôt, behind the Customs House, near its cradle. +Thence on the 5th April it launched a fine proclamation: "Workmen, do +not deceive yourselves about the import of the combat. It is the +engagement between parasitism and labour, exploitation and production. +If you are tired of vegetating in ignorance and wallowing in misery, if +you want your children to be men enjoying the benefit of their labour, +and not mere animals trained for the workshop and the battlefield, if +you do not want your daughters, whom you are unable to educate and +overlook as you yearn to do, to become instruments of pleasure in the +arms of the aristocracy of money, if you at last want the reign of +justice, workmen, be intelligent, rise!" + +The Committee certainly declared in another placard that it did not +pretend to any political power, but power in times of revolution of +itself belongs to those who define it. For eight days the Council had +not known how to interpret the Commune, and its whole baggage consisted +in two insignificant decrees. The Central Committee, on the contrary, +very distinctly set forth the character of this contest, that had become +a social one, pointed out behind the struggle for municipal liberties +that devouring sphinx the question of the proletariat. + +The Council might have profited by the lesson, endorsed if necessary +that manifesto, and then, referring to the protestations of the +Committee, obliged it to dissolve itself. This was all the more easy +that the Committee, much weakened by the elections, only existed thanks +to four or five members and its eloquent mouthpiece, Moreau. But the +Council contented itself with mildly protesting at the sitting of the +5th, and as usual letting things get along as best they could. + +It was already drifting from weakness to weakness; and yet, if ever it +believed in its own energy it was that day. The savagery of the +Versaillese, the assassination of the prisoners, of Flourens and Duval, +had excited the most calm. They had been there full of life three days +ago, these brave colleagues and friends. Their empty places seemed to +cry out for vengeance. Well, then, since Versailles waged a war of +cannibals, they would answer an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. +Besides, if the Council did not act, the people, it was said, would +perhaps revenge itself, and more terribly. They decreed that any one +accused of complicity with Versailles would be judged within forty-eight +hours, and if guilty, retained as a hostage. The execution by Versailles +of a defender of the Commune would be followed by that of a hostage--by +three said the decree, in equal or double number said the proclamation. + +These different readings betrayed the troubled state of their minds. The +Council alone believed in having frightened Versailles. The bourgeois +journals certainly shouted "Abomination!" and M. Thiers, who shot +without any decrees, denounced the ferocity of the Commune. At bottom +they all laughed in their sleeves. The reactionists of any mark had long +since fled; there only remained in Paris the small fry and a few +isolated men, whom, if needs be, Versailles was ready to sacrifice.[116] +The members of the Council, in their childish impetuosity, had not seen +the real hostages staring them in the face--the bank, the civil +register, the domains and the suitors' fund. These were the tender +points by which to hold the bourgeoisie. Without risking a single man, +the Commune had only to stretch out its hand and bid Versailles +negotiate or commit suicide. + +The timid delegates of the 26th March were not the men to dare this. In +allowing the Versaillese army to file off, the Central Committee had +committed a heavy fault; that of the Council was incomparably more +damaging. All serious rebels have commenced by seizing upon the sinews +of the enemy--the treasury. The Council of the Commune was the only +revolutionary Government that refused to do so. While abolishing the +budget of public worship, which was at Versailles, they bent their knees +to the budget of the bourgeoisie, which was at their mercy. + +Then followed a scene of high comedy, if one could laugh at negligence +that has caused so much bloodshed. Since the 19th March the governors of +the bank lived like men condemned to death, every day expecting the +execution of their treasure. Of removing it to Versailles they could not +dream. It would have required sixty or eighty vans and an army corps. On +the 23rd, its governor, Rouland, could no longer stand it, and fled. The +sub-governor, De Ploeuc, replaced him. From his first interview with +the delegates of the Hôtel-de-Ville he had seen through their timidity, +given battle, then seemed to soften, yielded little by little, and doled +out his money franc by franc. The bank, which Versailles believed almost +empty, contained: coin, 77 millions;[117] bank-notes, 166 millions; +bills discounted, 899 millions; securities for advances made, 120 +millions; bullion, 11 millions; jewels in deposit, 7 millions; public +effects and other titles in deposit, 900 millions; that is, 2 milliards +180 million francs: 800 millions in bank-notes only required the +signature of the cashier, a signature easily made. The Commune had then +three milliards in its hands, of which over a milliard realised, enough +to buy all the generals and functionaries of Versailles; as hostages, +90,000 depositors of titles, and the two milliards in circulation whose +guarantee lay in the boxes in the Rue de la Vrillière. + +On the 29th March old Beslay presented himself before the tabernacle. De +Ploeuc had mustered his 430 clerks, armed with muskets without +cartridges. Beslay, led through the lines of these warriors, humbly +prayed the governor to be so kind as to supply the pay of the National +Guard. De Ploeuc answered superciliously, spoke of defending himself. +"But," said Beslay, "if, to prevent the effusion of blood, the Commune +appointed a governor." "A governor! never!" said De Ploeuc, who +understood his man; "but a delegate! If you were that delegate we might +come to an understanding." And, doing the pathetic, "Come, M. Beslay, +help me to save this. This is the fortune of your country; this is the +fortune of France." + +Beslay, deeply moved, hurried off to the Executive Commission, repeated +his lesson all the better that he believed it and prided himself on his +financial lore. "The bank," he said, "is the fortune of the country: +without it, no more industry, no more commerce. If you violate it, all +its notes will be so much waste-paper."[118] This trash circulated in +the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the Proudhonists of the Council, forgetting +that their master put the suppression of the bank at the head of his +revolutionary programme, backed old Beslay. At Versailles itself, the +capitalist stronghold had no more inveterate defenders than those of the +Hôtel-de-Ville. If some one had at least proposed, "Let us at least +occupy the bank," but the Executive Commission had not the nerve to do +this, and contented itself with commissioning Beslay. De Ploeuc +received the good man with open arms, installed him in the nearest +cabinet, even persuading him to sleep at the bank, made him his hostage, +and once more breathed freely. + +Thus since the first week the Assembly of the Hôtel-de-Ville showed +itself weak towards the authors of the sortie, weak towards the Central +Committee, weak towards the bank, trifling in its decrees, in the choice +of its delegate to the War Office, without a military plan, without a +programme, without general views, and indulging in desultory +discussions. The Radicals who had remained in the Council saw whither it +was drifting, and, not inclined to play the martyrs, they sent in their +resignations. + +O Revolution! thou dost not await the well-timed day and hour. Thou +comest suddenly, blind and fatal as the avalanche. The true soldier of +the people accepts the combat wherever hazard may place him. Blunders, +defections, compromising companions do not dishearten him. Though +certain of defeat, he struggles still; his victory looms in the future. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[115] Such is the text of the decree. + +[116] M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, M. Thiers' secretary, answered Barral +de Montaut, who spoke of the possibility of a massacre in the prisons: +"The hostages! the hostages! But we can do nothing. What should we do? +So much the worse for them."--_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 271. + +[117] M. Beslay, in his book _Mes Souvenirs_, Paris, 1873, says: "The +cash in hand was forty and some odd millions." These "some odd" were no +less than 203 millions. They presented the good man fictitious +statements, with which they gulled him. In his evidence and the annexes +(_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. iii. errata, p. 488), M. de Ploeuc has +given the true statements. + +[118] These were all the reasons he could ever allege, even in his book +written in Switzerland, whither M. de Ploeuc himself went to deposit him +after the fall of the Commune. Besides his life being saved, he, later +on, received a judicial ordinance to the effect that no further judicial +proceedings were to be taken against him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ASNIÈRES--ORGANISATION AND + DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS. + + +The rout of the 3rd April daunted the timorous but exalted the fervent. +Battalions inert until then rose; the armament of the forts no longer +lagged. Save Issy and Vanves, rather damaged, the forts were intact. All +Paris soon heard these fine cannon of seven, which Trochu had +disdained,[119] firing so lustily and with such correct aim, that on the +evening of the 4th the Versaillese were obliged to evacuate the plateau +of Châtillon. The trenches that protected the forts were manned. Les +Moulineaux, Clamart, Le Val-Fleury resounded with the fusillade. To the +right we reoccupied Courbevoie, and the bridge of Neuilly was +barricaded. + +Thence we continued to threaten Versailles. Vinoy received the order to +take Neuilly. On the morning of the 6th, Mont-Valérien, recently armed +with 24-pounders, opened fire on Courbevoie. After six hours of +bombardment the Federals evacuated the cross-roads and took up a +position behind the large barricade of the bridge of Neuilly. The +Versaillese cannonaded it while it was protected by the Porte-Maillot. + +This Porte-Maillot, which has become legendary, had only a few cannon +exposed to the fire from above of Mont-Valérien. For forty-eight days +the Commune found men to hold this untenable post. Their courage +electrified all. The crowd went to the Arc-de-Triomphe to see them, and +the boys hardly waited for the explosion to run after the fragments of +the shells. + +The Parisian intrepidity soon reappeared in the first skirmishes. The +bourgeois papers themselves regretted that so much ardour should not +have been spent on the Prussians. The panic of the 3rd April had +witnessed heroic deeds, and the Council, happily inspired, wanted to +give the defenders of the Commune a funeral worthy of them. It appealed +to the people. On the 6th, at two o'clock, an innumerable multitude +hurried up to the Beaujon Hospital, whither the dead had been +transported. Many, shot after the combat, bore on their arms the marks +left by cords. There were heart-rending scenes. Mothers and wives +bending over these bodies uttered cries of fury and vows of vengeance. +Three immense catafalques, each containing thirty-five coffins, covered +with black crape, adorned with red flags, drawn by eight horses each, +slowly rolled towards the great boulevards, preceded by trumpets and the +_Vengeurs de Paris_. Delescluze and five members of the Commune, with +their red scarfs on and bare-headed, walked as chief mourners. Behind +them followed the relations of the victims, the widows of to-day +supported by those of to-morrow. Thousands upon thousands, men, women, +and children, immortelles in their button-holes, silent, solemn, marched +to the sound of the muffled drums. At intervals subdued strains of music +burst forth like the spontaneous mutterings of sorrow too long +contained. On the great boulevards we numbered 200,000, and 100,000 pale +faces looked down upon us from the windows. The women sobbed, many +fainted. This Via Sacra of the Revolution, the scene of so many woes and +so many joys, has perhaps never witnessed such a communion of hearts. +Delescluze exclaimed in ecstasy, "What an admirable people! Will they +still say that we are a handful of malcontents?" At the Père la Chaise +he advanced to the common grave. Wrinkled, stooping, sustained only by +his indomitable faith, this dying man saluted the dead. "I will make +you no long speeches; these have already cost us too dear.... Justice +for the families of the victims; justice for the great town which, after +five months of siege, betrayed by its Government, still holds in its +hands the future of humanity.... Let us not weep for our brothers who +have fallen heroically, but let us swear to continue their work, and to +save Liberty, the Commune, the Republic!" + +The following day the Versaillese cannonaded the barricade and the +Avenue of Neuilly. The inhabitants, whom they had not the humanity to +forewarn, were obliged to take refuge in their cellars. Towards +half-past four the fire of the Versaillese ceased, and the Federals were +snatching a little rest, when the soldiers debouched en masse on the +bridge. The Federals, surprised, attempted to arrest their progress, +wounding one general and killing two, one of whom, Besson, was +responsible for the surprise of Beaumont l'Argonne during the march on +Sedan. But the soldiers in overwhelming force succeeded in pushing as +far as the old park of Neuilly. + +The loss of this outlet was all the more serious that Bergeret, in a +letter published in the _Officiel_, had answered for Neuilly. The +Executive Commission replaced him by the Pole Dombrowski, whom Garibaldi +had demanded for his general staff during the war in the Vosges. +Bergeret's staff protested, and their bickerings led to the arrest of +their chief by the Council, already grown suspicious. The National Guard +itself showed some distrust of the new general. The Commission had to +present him to Paris, and, misinformed, invented a legend in his favour. +Dombrowski was not long in making it good. + +The same day the Federals of Neuilly beheld a young man, small of +stature, in a modest uniform, slowly inspecting the vanguards in the +thick of the fire. It was Dombrowski. Instead of the explosive glowing +French bravery, the cool and, as it were, unconscious courage of the +Slav. In a few hours the new chief had conquered all his men. The able +officer soon revealed himself. On the 9th, during the night, with two +battalions from Montmartre, Dombrowski, accompanied by Vermorel, took +the Versaillese by surprise at Asnières, drove them off, seized their +cannon, and from the ironclad railway carriages cannonaded Courbevoie +and the bridge of Neuilly from the flank. At the same time his brother +stormed the castle of Bécon, that commands the road from Asnières to +Courbevoie. Vinoy having tried to retake this post on the night of the +12th-13th, his men were shamefully repulsed, and fled to Courbevoie as +fast as their legs would carry them. + +Paris was ignorant of this success, so defective was the service of the +general staff. This brilliant attack was the deed of one man, just as +the defence of the forts was the spontaneous work of the National Guard. +There was as yet no direction. Whoever cared to rush into some venture +did so; whoever wanted cannon or reinforcements went to ask for them at +the Place Vendôme, at the Central Committee, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, of +the generalissime Cluseret. + +The latter had made his début with a blunder, calling out only the +unmarried men from seventeen to thirty-five, thus depriving the Commune +of its most energetic defenders, the grey-headed men, the first and last +under fire in all our insurrections. Three days after, this decree had +to be revoked. On the 5th, in his report to the Council, this profound +strategist announced that the attack of Versailles masked a movement for +occupying the forts of the right bank, at that moment in the hands of +the Prussians. Like Trochu, he blamed the cannonades of the last few +days, for squandering, as he said, the munitions. And this when Paris +abounded in powder and shell; when her young troops should have been +amused and sustained by artillery; when the Versaillese of Châtillon, +incessantly pursued by our fire, were obliged to remove every night; +when an uninterrupted cannonade alone could save Neuilly. + +The Council was no wiser in its measures of defence. It decreed +compulsory service and the disarmament of the refractory; but the +perquisitions, made at random, without the assistance of the police, did +not procure a man or a hundred muskets the more. It voted life-pensions +to the widows, to the parents of the Federals killed in combat, to +their children an annuity till the age of eighteen, and adopted the +orphans. Excellent measures these, raising the spirits of the +combatants, only they assumed the Commune victorious. Was it not better, +as in the cases of Duval and Dombrowski, to give at once a few thousand +francs to those having a right to them? In fact, these unfortunate +pensioners received but fifty francs from the Commune. + +These measures, incomplete, ill-managed, implied a want of study and of +reflection. The members came to the Council as to a public meeting, +without any preparation, there to proceed without any method. The +decrees of the day before were forgotten, questions only half solved. +The Council created councils of war and court-martials, and allowed the +Central Committee to regulate the procedure and the penalties; it +organised one-half of the medical service and Cluseret the other; it +suppressed the title of general, and the superior officers retained it, +the delegate at War conferring it on them. In the middle of a sitting, +Félix Pyat bounded from his chair to demand the abolition of the Vendôme +column, while Dombrowski was making desperate appeals for +reinforcements. + +He had hardly 2,500 men to hold Neuilly, Asnières, and the whole +peninsula of Gennevilliers, while the Versaillese were accumulating +their best troops against him. From the 14th to 17th April they +cannonaded the castle of Bécon, and on the morning of the 17th attacked +it with a brigade. The 250 Federals who occupied it held out for six +hours, and the survivors fell back upon Asnières, where panic entered +with them. Dombrowski, Okolowitz, and a few sturdy men hastened thither, +succeeded in re-establishing a little order and fortified the +bridge-head. Dombrowski asking for reinforcements, the War Office sent +him only a few companies. The following day our vanguard was surprised +by strong detachments, and the cannon of Courbevoie battered Asnières. +After a well-contested struggle, towards ten o'clock, several +battalions, worn out, abandoned the southern part of the village. In the +northern part the combat was desperate. Dombrowski, in spite of +telegram after telegram received only 300 men. At five o'clock in the +evening the Versaillese made a great effort, and the Federals, +exhausted, fearing for their retreat, threw themselves upon the bridge +of boats, which they crossed in disorder. + +The reactionary journals made much ado about this retreat. Paris was +stirred by it. This fierce obstinacy of the combat began to open the +eyes of the optimists. Till then many persons believed it all some +dreadful misunderstanding and formed groups of conciliation. How many +thousands in Paris failed to understand the plan of M. Thiers and the +coalition till the day of the final massacre! On the 4th April some +manufacturers and tradesmen had created the _National Union of the +Syndical Chambers_, and taken for their programme, maintenance and +enfranchisement of the Republic, acknowledgment of the municipal +franchises of Paris. The same day, in the Quartier des Ecoles, +professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and students placarded a +manifesto demanding a democratic and laical Republic, an autonomous +Commune and the federation of the communes. An analogous group placarded +a letter to M. Thiers: "You believe in a riot, and you find yourself +brought face to face with precise and universal convictions. The immense +majority of Paris demands the Republic as a right superior to all +discussion. Paris has seen in the whole conduct of the Assembly the +premeditated design of re-establishing the monarchy." Some dignitaries +of the Freemason lodges appealed at once to Versailles and to the +Council: "Stop the effusion of such precious blood." + +Finally, a certain number of those mayors and adjuncts who had not +capitulated till the eleventh hour, like Floquet, Corbon, Bonvalet, &c., +pompously got up the _Republican Union League for the Rights of Paris_. +Now they asked for the recognition of the Republic, the right of Paris +to govern herself, and the custody of the town exclusively confided to +the National Guard; all that the Commune had wanted--all that they had +contented against from the 19th to the 25th of March. + +Other groups were forming. All agreed on two points--the consolidation +of the Republic and the recognition of the rights of Paris. Almost all +the Communal journals reproduced this programme, and the Republican +journals accepted it. The deputies of Paris were the last to speak, and +then only to fall foul of Paris. In that lachrymose and Jesuitical tone +with which he has travestied history,[120] in those long-winded +sentimental periods which serve to mask the aridity of his heart and the +pettiness of his mind, that king of gnomes, Louis Blanc, wrote in the +name of his colleagues: "Not one member of the majority has as yet +questioned the Republican principle.... As to those engaged in the +insurrection, we tell them that they ought to have shuddered at the +thought of aggravating, of prolonging the scourge of the foreign +occupation by adding thereto the scourge of civil discords." + +It is this that M. Thiers repeated word for word to the first +conciliators, the delegates of the _Union Syndicale_, who applied to him +on the 8th May: "Let the insurrection disarm; the Assembly cannot +disarm. But Paris wants the Republic. The Republic exists; by my honour, +so long as I am in power, it will not succumb. But Paris wants municipal +franchises. The Chamber is preparing a law for all communes; Paris will +get neither more nor less." The delegates read a project of compromise +which spoke of a general amnesty and a suspension of arms. M. Thiers let +them read on, did not formally contest a single article, and the +delegates returned to Paris convinced that they had discovered the basis +of an arrangement. + +They had hardly left when M. Thiers rushed off to the Assembly, which +had just endowed all communes with the right of electing their mayors. +M. Thiers ascended the tribune, demanding that this right should be +restricted to towns of less than 20,000 souls. They cried to him, "It is +already voted." He persisted, declaring that "in a republic the +Government must be all the better armed because order is the more +difficult to maintain;" threatened to hand in his resignation, and +forced the Assembly to annul its vote. + +On the 10th, the _League of the Rights of Paris_ sounded the trumpet and +had a solemn declaration placarded: "Let the Government give up +assailing the facts accomplished on the 18th March. Let the general +re-election of the Commune be proceeded with.... If the Government of +Versailles remains deaf to these legitimate revindications, let it be +well understood that all Paris will rise to defend them."[121] The next +day the delegates of the League went to Versailles, and M. Thiers took +up his old refrain, "Let Paris disarm," and would hear neither of an +armistice nor of an amnesty. "Pardon shall be extended" said he, "to +those who will disarm, save to the assassins of Clément-Thomas and +Lecomte." This was to reserve himself the choice of a few thousands. In +short, he wanted to be replaced in his position of the 18th March with +victory into the bargain. The same day he said to the delegates of the +Masonic lodges, "Address yourselves to the Commune; what is wanted is +the submission of the insurgents, and not the resignation of legal +power." To facilitate this submission, the next day the _Officiel_ of +Versailles compared Paris to the plain of Marathon infested by a band of +"brigands and assassins." On the 13th, a deputy, Brunet, having asked +whether the Government would or would not make peace with Paris, the +Assembly adjourned this interpellation for a month. + +The League, thus well whipped, went on the 14th to the Hôtel-de-Ville. +The Council, foreign to all these negotiations, left them entirely free, +and had only forbidden a meeting announced at the Bourse by +ill-disguised Tirards. It contented itself with opposing to the League +its declaration of the 10th: "You have said that if Versailles remained +deaf all Paris would rise. Versailles has remained deaf; arise." And to +make Paris the judge, the Council loyally published in its _Officiel_ +the report of the conciliators. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[119] Out of 400 pieces cast by Paris during the siege, the Government +of the National Defence only accepted forty, on the pretence that the +others were imperfect.--Vinoy, _Siège de Paris_, p. 287. + +[120] Sometimes even to falsification. In his account of the 9th +Thermidor, he makes Barrère say to Billaud-Varennes, "Do _not_ attack +Robespierre;" and on the strength of this expatiates on the greatness of +his hero. Now, the report of Courtois that he quotes, hoping, no doubt, +that no one would examine the accuracy of the statement, says, "Attack +_only_," and not "Do _not_ attack." + +[121] It seems there was a split in the League. The Radicals, Floquet, +Corbon, &c., disapproved of this semi-commanding attitude, and boasted +of it later on before the Committee of Inquiry into the 18th March; but +during the Commune they made no public protest against this address. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL--THE COMPLEMENTARY ELECTIONS OF + THE 16TH APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL--FIRST + DISPUTES--THE GERMS OF DEFEAT. + + +For the second time the situation was distinctly marked out. If the +Council did not know how to define the Commune, was it not in the most +unmistakable manner, and before the eyes of all Paris, declared to mean +a camp of rebels by the fighting, the bombardment, the fury of the +Versaillese, and the rebuff of the conciliators? The complementary +elections of the 16th April--death, double election returns, and +resignations had given thirty-one vacant seats--revealed the effective +forces of the insurrection. The illusion of the 26th March had vanished; +the votes were now taken under fire. Also the journals of the Commune +and the delegates of the Syndical Chambers in vain summoned the electors +to the ballot-box. Out of 146,000 who had mustered in these +arrondissements at the election of the 26th March, there came now only +61,000. The arrondissements of the councillors who had deserted their +seats gave 16,000 instead of 51,000 votes. + +It was now or never the moment to explain their programme to France. The +Executive Commission had on the 6th, in an address to the provinces, +protested against the calumnies of Versailles, but had confined itself +to the statement that Paris fought for all France, and had not set forth +any programme. The Republican protestations of M. Thiers, the hostility +of the extreme Left, the desultory decrees, had completely led astray +the provinces. It was necessary to set them right at once. On the 19th, +a commission charged to draw up a programme presented its work, or +rather the work of another. Sad and characteristic symbol this; the +declaration of the Commune did not emanate from the Council, its twelve +publicists notwithstanding. Of the five members charged to draw up the +project, only Delescluze contributed some passages; the technical part +was the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis. + +In the _Cri du Peuple_ he had taken up and formulated as a law the whim +of _Paris a free town_, hatched in the first gush of passion of the +Vauxhall meetings. According to this legislator, Paris was to become a +Hanseatic town, crowning herself with all liberties, and from the height +of her proud fortress say to the enchained communes of France, "Imitate +me if you can; but mind, I shall do nothing for you but set an example." +This charming plan had turned the heads of several members of the +Council, and too many traces of it were visible in the declaration. + +"What does Paris demand?" it said. "The recognition of the Republic. +Absolute autonomy of the Commune extended to all localities of France. +The inherent rights of the Commune are: the vote of the communal budget; +the settlement and repartition of taxes; the direction of the local +services; the organisation of its magistracy, of its internal police, +and of education; the administration of communal goods; the choice and +permanent right of control over the communal magistrates and +functionaries; the absolute guarantee of individual liberty, of the +liberty of conscience and the liberty of labour; the organisation of +urban defence and of the National Guard; the Commune alone charged with +the surveillance and assurance of the free and just exercise of the +right of meeting and of publicity.... Paris wants nothing more ... on +condition of finding in the great central administration, the delegation +of the federated communes, the realisation and practical application of +the same principle." + +What were to be the powers of that central delegation, the reciprocal +obligations of the Communes? The declaration did not state these. +According to this text, every locality was to possess the right to shut +itself up within its autonomy. But what to expect of autonomy in Lower +Brittany, in nine-tenths of the French Communes, more than half of which +have not 600 inhabitants,[122] if even the Parisian declaration violated +the most elementary rights, charged the Commune with the surveillance of +the _just_ exercise of the right of meeting and of publicity, forgetting +to mention the right of association? It is notorious, it has been proved +but too well. The rural autonomous communes would be a monster with a +thousand suckers attached to the flank of the Revolution. + +No! Thousands of mutes and blind are not fitted to conclude a social +pact. Weak, unorganised, bound by a thousand trammels, the people of the +country can only be saved by the towns, and the people of the towns +guided by Paris. The failure of all the provincial insurrections, even +of the large towns, had sufficiently testified this. When the +declaration said, "Unity such as has been imposed upon us until to-day +by the Empire, the monarchy and parliamentarism is only despotic, +unintelligent centralisation," it laid bare the cancer that devours +France; but when it added, "Political unity, as understood by Paris, is +the voluntary association of all local initiative," it showed that it +knew nothing whatever of the provinces. + +The declaration continued, in the style of an address, sometimes to the +point: "Paris works and suffers for all France, whose intellectual, +moral, administrative, and economical regeneration she prepares by her +combats and her sufferings.... The communal revolution, commenced by the +popular initiative of the 18th March, inaugurates a new era." But in all +this there was nothing definite. Why not, taking up the formula of the +28th March, "To the commune what is communal, to the nation what is +national," define the future commune, sufficiently extended to endow it +with political life, sufficiently limited to allow its citizens easily +to combine their social action, the commune of 15,000 to 20,000 souls, +the canton-commune, and clearly set forth its rights and those of +France? They did not even speak of federating the large towns for the +conquest of their common enfranchisement. Such as it was, this +programme, obscure, incomplete, impossible in many points, could not, +spite of some generous ideas, contribute much to the enlightenment of +the provinces. + +It was only a project. No doubt the Council was going to discuss it. It +was voted after the first reading. No debate, hardly an observation. +This assembly, which gave four days to the discussion on overdue +commercial bills, had not one sitting for the study of this declaration, +its programme in case of victory, its testament if it succumbed. + +To make things worse, a new malady infected the Council, the germs of +which, sown for some days, were brought to full maturity by the +complementary elections. The Romanticists gave rise to the Casuists, and +both came to loggerheads on the verification of the new mandates. + +On the 30th March the Council had validated six elections with a +relative majority. The reporter on the election of the 16th proposed +declaring all those candidates elected who had received an absolute +majority. The Casuists grew indignant. "This would be," said they, "the +worst blow that any Government had dealt universal suffrage." But it was +impossible to go on continually convoking the electors. Three of the +most devoted arrondissements had given no result; one of them, the +thirteenth, being deprived of its best men, then fighting at the +advanced posts. A new ballot would only set forth in bolder relief the +isolation of the Commune; and then, is the moment of the fight, when the +battalion is decimated, deprived of its chief, the opportune time for +insisting upon a regular promotion? + +The discussion was very warm, for in this outlawed Hôtel-de-Ville there +sat outrageous legality-mongers. Paris was to be strangled by their +saving principles. Already, in the name of holy autonomy, which forbade +intervention with the autonomy of one's neighbour, the Executive +Commission had refused to arm the communes round Paris that asked to +march against Versailles. M. Thiers took no more efficient measure to +isolate Paris. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-six voices against thirteen voted the conclusions of the report. +Twenty elections only were declared valid,[123] which was illogical; one +with less than 1100 votes was admitted, another with 2500 rejected. All +the elections should have been declared valid, or none at all. Four of +the new delegates were journalists, six only workmen. Eleven sent by the +public meetings came to strengthen the Romanticists. Two whose elections +had been validated by the Council refused to sit because they had not +obtained the eighth part of the votes. The author of the admirable +_Propos de Labiénus_, Rogeard, allowed himself to be deceived by a false +scruple of legality--the only weakness of this generous man, who devoted +to the Commune his pure and brilliant eloquence. His resignation +deprived the Council of a man of common sense, but once more served to +unmask the apocalyptic Félix Pyat. + + * * * * * + +Since the 1st April, scenting the coming storm and professing the same +horror for blows as Panurge, Félix Pyat had attempted to leave Paris, +sent in his resignation as member of the Executive Commission to the +Council, and declared his presence at Versailles indispensable. The +Versaillese hussars making the sortie too perilous, he had condescended +to stay, but at the same time assuming two masks, one for the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the other for the public. In the Council, at the secret +sittings, he urged violent measures with the vivacity of a wild cat; in +the _Vengeur_ he held forth pontifically, shaking his grey hairs, +saying, "To the ballot-box, not to Versailles!" In his own paper he had +two faces. Did he want the suppression of the journals, he signed "Le +Vengeur;" did he want to cajole, he signed Félix Pyat. The defeat of +Asnières struck him again with fear, and anew he looked out for a +loophole. The resignation of Rogeard opened it. Under the shelter of +this pure name Félix Pyat slipped in his resignation. "The Commune has +violated the law," wrote he. "I do not want to be an accomplice." And, +to debar himself from any return to the Council he involved the dignity +of the latter. If, said he, it persisted, he would be forced, to his +great regret, to send in his resignation "_before the victory_." + +He had counted on stealing away as from the Assembly of Bordeaux; but +his roguery disgusted the Council. The _Vengeur_ had just blamed the +suppression of several reactionary papers demanded many and many a time +by Félix Pyat. Vermorel denounced this duplicity. One member: "It has +been said here that resignations would be considered as treason." +Another: "A man must not leave his post when that post is one of peril +and of honour." A third formally demanded the arrest of Félix Pyat. "I +regret," said another, "that it has not been distinctly laid down that +resignation can only be tendered to the electors themselves." And +Delescluze added, "Nobody has the right to withdraw for personal rancour +or because some measure does not chime in with his ideal. Do you then +believe that every one approves what is done here? Yes; there are +members who have remained, and who will remain till the end, +notwithstanding the insults hurled at us. For myself, I am decided to +remain at my post, and if we do not see victory, we shall not be the +last to fall on the ramparts or on the steps of the Hôtel-de-Ville." + +These manly words were received with prolonged cheers. No one's devotion +was more meritorious. The habits of Delescluze, grave and laborious, his +high aspirations, alienated him more than any other from many of his +colleagues, light-headed idlers, prone to personal bickerings. One day, +weary of this chaos, he wanted to resign. It sufficed to tell him that +his withdrawal would be very prejudicial to the cause of the people to +persuade him to remain, and await, not victory--as well as Félix Pyat he +knew that impossible--but the death that fecundates the future. + +Félix Pyat, so lashed from all sides, not daring to snap at Delescluze, +turned round upon Vermorel, whom for all argument he called "spy;" and +as Vermorel was a member of the Commission of Public Safety, accused him +in the _Vengeur_ of putting out of the way evidence accumulated against +him at the prefecture of police. This member of the leporide species +called Vermorel "_bombic_." Such was his mode of discussion. Under the +veil of literary refinement lurked the amenities of Billingsgate. In +1848, in the _Constituante_, he called Proudhon "_swine_;" and in 1871, +in the _Commune_, he called Tridon "_dunghill_." He was the only member +of this Assembly, where there were workmen of rude professions, who +introduced ribaldry into the discussions. + +Vermorel, replying in the _Cri du Peuple_, easily floored him. The +electors of Félix Pyat sent him three summations to remain at his post: +"You are a soldier; you must stay in the breach. It is we alone who have +the right to revoke you." Ferreted out by his mandatories, threatened +with arrest by the Council, this Greek chose the lesser danger, and +re-entered the Hôtel-de-Ville in mincing attitude. + +Versailles was jubilant at these miserable triflings. For the first time +the public became acquainted with the interior of the Council, its +infinitesimal coteries, made up of purely personal friendships or +antipathies. Whoever belonged to such a group got thorough support, +whatever his blunders. Far more; in order to be allowed to serve the +Commune, it was necessary to belong to such a confraternity. Many +sincerely devoted men offered themselves, tried democrats, intelligent +employés, deserters from the Government, even Republican officers. They +were overweeningly met by some incapable upstarts of yesterday, whose +devotion was not to outlast the 20th May. And yet the insufficiency of +the _personnel_ and the want of talent each day became more +overwhelming. The members of the Council complained that nothing was +getting on. The Executive Commission did not know how to command, nor +its subordinate how to obey; the Council devolved power and retained it +at the same time, interfered every moment with the slightest details of +the service; conducted the government, the administration, and the +defence like the sortie of the 3rd April. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[122] Seventy-three communes have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 108 have +from 10,000 to 20,000; 309 from 5000 to 10,000; 249 from 4000 to 5000; +and 581 from 3000 to 4000. There are then only 1320 communes having more +than 3000 inhabitants, 800 at most that possess any political life. + +[123] Vesinier, Cluseret, Pillot, Andrieu (1st arrondissement, Louvre); +Pothier, Serraillier, J. Durand, Johannard (2nd, Bourse); Courbet, +Rogeard (6th, Luxembourg); Sicard (7th, Palais-Bourbon); Briosne (9th, +Opéra); Philippe, Lonclas (12th, Reuilly); Longuet (16th, Passy); Dupont +(17th, Batignolles); Cluseret, Arnold (18th, Montmartre); Menotti +Garibaldi (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Viard, Trinquet (20th Ménilmontant). + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + OUR PARISIENNES--SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF + NEUILLY--THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS. + + +The glorious flame of Paris still hid these failings. One must have been +enkindled by it to describe it. Beside it the Communard journals, in +spite of their romanticism, show pale and dull. It is true the _mise en +scéne_ was unpretending. In the streets, in the silent boulevards, a +battalion of a hundred men setting out for the battle or returning from +it; a woman who follows, a passer-by who applauds--that is all. But it +is the drama of the Revolution, simple and gigantic as a drama of +Æschylus. + +The commander in his _vareuse_, dusty, his silver lace singed, his men +greyheads or youths, the veterans of June 1848 and the pupils of March, +the son often marching by the side of the father.[124] + +This woman, who salutes or accompanies them, she is the true Parisienne. +The unclean androgyne, born in the mire of the Empire, the madonna of +the pornographers, the Dumas fils and the Feydeaux, has followed her +patrons to Versailles or works the Prussian mine at St. Denis. She, who +is now uppermost, is the Parisienne, strong, devoted, tragic, knowing +how to die as she loves. A helpmeet in labour, she will also be an +associate in the death-struggle. A formidable equality this to oppose to +the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is doubly strong--one heart and four +hands. On the 24th of March a Federal addressed these noble words to the +bourgeois battalions of the first arrondissement, making them drop +their arms: "Believe me, you cannot hold out; your wives are all in +tears, and ours do not weep." + +She does not keep back her husband.[125] On the contrary, she urges him +to battle, carries him his linen and his soup, as she had before done to +his workshop. Many would not return, but took up arms. At the plateau de +Châtillon they were the last to stand the fire. The _cantinières_, +simply dressed as workwomen, not fancy costumes, fell by dozens. On the +3rd April, at Meudon, the Citoyenne Lachaise, _cantinière_ of the 66th +battalion, remained the whole day in the field of battle, tending the +wounded, alone, without a doctor. + +If they return, it is to call to arms. Having formed a central committee +at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, they issued fiery +proclamations: "We must conquer or die. You who say, 'What matters the +triumph of our cause if I must lose those I love?' know that the only +means of saving those who are dear to you is to throw yourselves into +the struggle." Their committees multiplied. They offered themselves to +the Commune, demanding arms, posts of danger, and complaining of the +cowards who swerved from their duty.[126] Madame André Léo, with her +eloquent pen, explained the meaning of the Commune, summoned the +delegate at the War Office to avail himself of the "holy fever that +burns in the hearts of the women." A young Russian lady, of noble +birth, educated, beautiful, rich, called Demitrieff, was the Théroigne +de Méricourt of this Revolution. The proletarian character of the +Commune was embodied in Louise Michel, a teacher in the seventeenth +arrondissement. Gentle and patient with the little children, who adored +her, in the cause of the people the mother became a lioness. She had +organised a corps of ambulance nurses, who tended the wounded even under +fire. There they suffered no rivals. They also went to the hospitals to +save their beloved comrades from the harsh nuns; and the eyes of the +dying brightened at the murmur of those gentle voices that spoke to them +of the Republic and of hope. + +In this contest of devotion the children fought with men and women. The +Versaillese, victorious, took 660 of them, and many perished in the +battle of the streets. Thousands served during the siege. They followed +the battalions to the trenches, in the forts, especially clinging to the +cannon. Some gunners of the Porte-Maillot were boys of from thirteen to +fourteen years old. Unsheltered, in the open country, they performed +exploits of mad heroism.[127] + +This Parisian flame radiated beyond the enceinte. The municipalities of +Sceaux and St. Denis united at Vincennes to protest against the +bombardment, revindicate the municipal franchises and the establishment +of the Republic. Its heat was even felt in the provinces. + +They began to believe Paris was impregnable, and laughed much at the +despatches of M. Thiers, saying on the 3rd April, "This day is decisive +of the fate of the insurrection;" on the 4th, "The insurgents have +to-day suffered a decisive defeat;" on the 7th, "This day is decisive;" +on the 11th, "Irresistible means are being prepared at Versailles;" on +the 12th, "We expect the decisive moment." And despite so many decisive +successes and irresistible means, the Versaillese army was all the while +baffled at our advanced posts. Its only decisive victories were against +the houses of the enceinte and the suburbs. + +The neighbourhood of the Porte-Maillot, the Avenue de la Grande Armée, +and the Ternes were continually lighting up with conflagrations. +Asnières and Levallois were filling with ruins, the inhabitants of +Neuilly starving in their cellars. The Versaillese threw against these +points alone 1500 shells a day; and yet M. Thiers wrote to his prefects, +"If a few cannon-shots are heard, it is not the act of the Government, +but of a few insurgents trying to make us believe they are fighting, +while they hardly dare show themselves." + +The Commune assisted the bombarded people of Paris, but could do nothing +for those of Neuilly, caught between two fires. A cry of pity went up +from the whole press. All the journals demanded an armistice for the +evacuation of Neuilly; the Freemasons and the _Ligue des Droits de +Paris_ interposed. With much trouble, for the generals did not want an +armistice, the delegates got a suspension of arms for eight hours. The +Council appointed five of its members to receive the bombarded people; +the municipalities prepared them an asylum, and some of the women's +committees left Paris to assist them. + +On the 25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the cannon from the +Porte-Maillot to Asnières were silent. Thousands of Parisians went to +visit the ruins of the Avenue and the Porte-Maillot, a mortar of earth, +granite, and fragments of shells; stood still, deeply moved, before the +artillerists leaning on their famous pieces, and then dispersed all over +Neuilly. The little town, once so coquettish, displayed in the bright +rays of the sun its shattered houses. At the limits agreed upon were two +barriers, one of soldiers of the line, the other of Federals, separated +from each other by an interval of about twenty yards. The Versaillese, +chosen from amongst their most reliable troops, were watched by officers +with hangdog looks. The Parisians, good fellows, approached the +soldiers, speaking to them. The officers immediately ran up shouting +furiously. When a soldier gave a polite answer to two ladies, an officer +threw himself upon him, tore away his musket, and pointing the bayonet +at the Parisiennes, cried, "This is how one speaks to them." Some +persons having crossed the boundary marked out were taken prisoners. +Still five o'clock struck without any massacre having occurred. The +Avenue grew empty. Each Parisian on returning home carried his sack of +earth to the fortifications of the Porte-Maillot, which found themselves +re-established as if by magic. + +In the evening the Versaillese again opened fire. It had not ceased +against the forts of the south. That same day the enemy unmasked on this +side the batteries he had been constructing for a fortnight,--the first +part of the plan of General Thiers. + +He had on the 6th placed all the troops under the command of that +MacMahon, his stains of Sedan still upon him. The army at this time was +46,000 strong, for the most part the residuum of depots, incapable of +any serious action. To reinforce it and obtain soldiers, M. Thiers had +sent Jules Favre whining to Bismarck. The Prussians had set free 60,000 +prisoners on harsher conditions of peace, and authorised his gossip +Thiers to augment to 130,000 men the number of soldiers round Paris, +which, according to the preliminaries of peace, were not to have +exceeded 40,000 men. On the 25th April the Versaillese army comprised +five corps, two of them, those of Douai and Clinchant, composed of the +released prisoners from Germany and a reserve commanded by Vinoy, all in +all 110,000 men. It increased to 170,000 receiving rations, of whom +130,000 were combatants. M. Thiers displayed real ability in setting it +against Paris. The soldiers were well fed, well dressed, severely +overlooked; discipline was re-established. There occurred mysterious +disappearances of officers guilty of having given utterance to their +horror at this fratricidal war. Still this was not yet the army for an +attack, the men always scampering away before a steady resistance. +Despite official brag, the generals only counted upon the artillery, to +which they owed the successes of Courbevoie and of Asnières. Paris was +only to be overcome by fire. + +As during the first siege, Paris was literally hemmed in by bayonets, +but this time half-foreign, half-French. The German army, forming a +semi-circle from the Marne to St. Denis, occupying the forts of the east +and of the north; the Versaillese army, closing the circle from St. +Denis to Villeneuve St. Georges, mistress only of Mont-Valérien. The +latter could then only attack the Commune by the west and south. The +Federals had then the five forts of Ivry, Bicêtre, Montrouge, Vanves, +and Issy to defend themselves, with the trenches and the advanced posts +that united them to each other, and the principal villages, Neuilly, +Asnières, and St. Ouen. + +The vulnerable point of the enceinte facing the Versaillese was on the +south-west, the salient of the Point du Jour, defended by the fort of +Issy. Sufficiently covered on the right by the park, the castle of Issy +and a trench uniting it to the Seine, commanded by our gunboats, this +fort was overtopped in front and on the left by the heights of Bellevue, +Meudon, and Châtillon. M. Thiers armed them with siege pieces which he +had sent from Toulon, Cherbourg, Douai, Lyons, and Besançon--293 +ordnance pieces--and their effect was such that from the first days the +fort of Issy was shaken. General Cissey, charged with the command of +these operations, immediately commenced manoeuvring. + +To crush the fort of Issy and that of Vanves, which supported it, then +to force the Point du Jour, whence the troops could deploy into Paris, +such was M. Thiers' plan. The only object of the operations from St. +Ouen to Neuilly was to prevent our attack by Courbevoie. + +What forces and what plan did the Commune oppose? + +The returns stated about 96,000 men and 4000 officers for the active +National Guard; for the reserve, 100,000 men and 3500 officers.[128] +Thirty-six free corps claimed to number 3450 men. All deductions made, +60,000 combatants might have been obtained had they known how to set +about it. But the weakness of the Council, the difficulty of supervision +and repression, allowed the less brave and those who did not stand in +need of pay, to shirk all control. Many contrived to limit their +services to the interior of Paris. Thus for want of order the effective +forces remained very weak, and the line from St. Ouen to Ivry was never +held by more than 15,000 or 16,000 Federals. + +The cavalry existed only on paper. There were only 500 horses to drag +the guns or the waggons and to mount the officers and estafettes. The +engineer department remained in a rudimentary state, the finest decrees +notwithstanding. Of the 1200 cannon possessed by Paris, only 200 were +utilised. There were never more than 500 artillerists, while the returns +stated 2500. + +Dombrowski occupied the bridge of Asnières, Levallois, and Neuilly with +4000 or 5000 men at the utmost.[129] To protect his positions he had at +Clichy and Asnières about thirty ordnance pieces and two ironclad +railway carriages, which from the 15th April to the 22nd May, even after +the entry of the Versaillese, did not cease running along the lines; at +Levallois, a dozen pieces. The ramparts of the north assisted him, and +the valiant Porte-Maillot covered him at Neuilly. + +On the left bank, from Issy to Ivry, in the forts, the villages, and the +trenches, there were 10,000 to 11,000 Federals. The fort of Issy +contained on an average 600 men and 50 pieces of 7 and 12 centimetres, +of which two-thirds were inactive. The bastions 72 and 73 relieved him a +little, aided by four ironclad locomotives established on the viaduct of +the Point du Jour. Underneath, the gunboats, re-armed, fired on +Breteuil, Sèvres, Brimborion, even daring to push as far as Châtillon, +and, unsheltered, cannonaded Meudon. A few hundred tirailleurs occupied +the park and the castle of Issy, the Moulineaux, Le Val, and the +trenches which united the fort of Issy to that of Vanves. This latter, +exposed like Issy, valiantly supported its efforts with a garrison of +500 men and about 20 cannon. The bastions of the enceinte supported it +very little. + +The fort of Montrouge, with 350 men and 10 to 15 ordnance pieces, had +only to support the fort of Vanves. That of Bicêtre, provided with 500 +men and 20 pieces, had to fire at objects hidden from its view. Three +considerable redoubts protected it--the Hautes Bruyères, with 500 men +and 20 pieces; the Moulin Saquet, with 700 men and about 14 pieces; and +Villejuif, with 300 men and a few howitzers. At the extreme left, the +fort of Ivry and its dependencies had 500 men and about 400 pieces. The +intermediate villages, Gentilly, Cachan, and Arcueil, were occupied by +2000 to 2500 Federals. + +The nominal command of the forts of the south, first confided to Eudes, +assisted by an ex-officer of Garibaldi, La Cécilia, on the 20th passed +into the hands of the Alsatian Wetzel, an officer of the army of the +Loire. From his headquarters of Issy he was to superintend the trenches +of Issy and of Vanves and the defence of the forts. In reality, their +commanders, who often changed, did just as they pleased. + +The command, from Issy to Arcueil was, towards the middle of April, +entrusted to General Wroblewski, one of the best officers of the Polish +insurrection, young, an adept in military science, brave, methodical, +and shrewd, turning everybody and everything to account; an excellent +chief for young troops.[130] + +All these general officers never received but one order: "Defend +yourselves." As to a general plan, there never was one. Neither Cluseret +nor Rossel held councils of war. + +The men were also abandoned to themselves, being neither cared for nor +controlled. Scarcely any, if any, relieving of the troops under fire +ever took place. The whole strain fell upon the same men. Certain +battalions remained twenty, thirty days in the trenches, while others +were continually kept in reserve. If some men grew so inured to fire +that they refused to return home, others were discouraged, came to show +their clothes covered with vermin and asked for rest. The generals were +obliged to retain them, having no one to put in their places. + +This carelessness soon destroyed all discipline. The brave wanted to +rely only upon themselves, and the others slunk from the service. The +officers did the same, some leaving their posts to assist the fight at a +contiguous place, others returning to the town. The court-martial +sentenced a few of them very severely. The Council quashed the +sentences, and commuted one condemnation to death to three years' +imprisonment. + +As they recoiled from rigour, from regular war discipline, they ought to +have changed their method and their tactics. But the Council was now +even less capable of showing will of its own than on the first day. It +always lamented that things were at a stand-still, but did not know how +to set them going. On the 26th, the military commission, declaring that +decrees and orders remained a dead letter, charged the municipalities, +the Central Committee, and the _chefs-de-légions_ with the +reorganisation of the National Guard. Not one of these mechanisms +functioned methodically; the Council had not even thought of organising +Paris by sections; the Central Committee intrigued; the _chefs de +légions_ were agitated; certain members of the Council and generals +dreamt of a military dictatorship. In the midst of this fatal wrestling, +the Council discussed during several sittings whether the pawn-tickets +to be given back gratuitously to their owners should amount to twenty or +thirty francs, and whether the _Officiel_ should be sold for five +centimes. + +Towards the end of April, no observer of any perspicacity could fail to +see that the defence had become hopeless. In Paris, active and devoted +men exhausted their strength in enervating struggles with the bureaux, +the committees, the sub-committees, and the thousand pretentious rival +administrations, often losing a whole day in order to obtain possession +of a single cannon. At the ramparts, some artillerists riddled the line +of Versailles, and, asking for nothing but bread and iron, stood to +their pieces until torn away by shells. The forts, their casemates +staved in, their embrasures destroyed, lustily answered the fire from +the heights. Brave skirmishers, unprotected, surprised the line-soldiers +in their lurking-places. All this devotion and dazzling heroism were +spent in vain, like the steam of an engine escaping through hundreds of +issues. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Appendix IV. + +[125] And what sublime faith in their naïveté! We heard in an omnibus +two women on their return from the trenches. The one wept; the other +said to her, "Do not distress yourself; our husbands will come back. And +then the Commune has promised to take care of us and of our children. +But no! it is impossible they should be killed in defending so good a +cause. Besides I would rather have my husband dead than in the hands of +the Versaillese." + +[126] "My heart bleeds to see that only those ready to volunteer engage +in the combat. This is not, citizen delegate, a denunciation; far from +me such a thought; but I fear lest the weakness of the members of the +Commune should cause our great projects for the future to miscarry." +This heroic letter is taken from a book, _Le Fond de la Société sous la +Commune_, which contains documents found by the army in different +mairies and administrations. The work in general is an odious +caricature, of which the author himself, a Joseph Prudhomme, in the +shape of a bloodhound, is certainly the most ridiculous trait. + +[127] Appendix V. + +[128] Very approximate numbers. The return of the _Officiel_ of the 6th +May is very incomplete. In general, these statements were erroneous, +fictitious, especially after the administration of Meyer. + +[129] The figures which I give have been carefully verified _de visu_, +first during the struggle, afterwards with generals, superior officers, +and functionaries of the War Office. General Appert has drawn up merely +fantastic returns. He has created imaginary brigades, manufactured +effective returns by counting as regular combatants all men who, at any +time, might have been told off for active service, and constantly +duplicated the items of his accounts. He has thus contrived to give more +than 20,000 men to Dombrowski, and as much as 50,000 to the three +commanders--quite ridiculous figures. His report swarms with mistakes as +to names and functions; he does not even know the names of certain +general commanders. It possesses no kind of historical value. + +[130] A member of the Council discovered him, and presented him at the +War Office, where he explained his ideas: "But," it was remarked to him, +"this is word for word what Félix Pyat does not cease saying to us." "A +few days ago," answered Wroblewski, "I sent Félix Pyat a memorandum." +Rossel went to Pyat's bureau, and there found the memorandum. For +several days this trickster had been making capital of the ideas of +Wroblewski without the least allusion to their author, and astounding +the Commission by his common sense and technical knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + THE PUBLIC SERVICES--FINANCE--WAR--POLICE--EXTERIOR--JUSTICE + --EDUCATION--LABOUR AND EXCHANGE. + + +The insufficiency and the weakness of the Executive Commission became so +shocking, that on the 20th the Council decided to replace it by the +delegates of the nine commissions, amongst whom it had distributed its +different functions. These commissions were renewed the same day. In +general they were rather neglected; and how could one man attend to the +daily sittings of the Hôtel-de-Ville, to his commission and his mairie? +For the Council had charged its members with the administration of their +respective arrondissements; and the real work of the several commissions +weighed on the delegates who had presided over them from their origin, +and for the most part were not changed on the 20th April. They continued +to act, as heretofore, almost single-handed. Before proceeding with our +narrative we will look more narrowly into their doings. + +Two delegations required only good-will--those of the victualling +department and of the public or municipal services. The provisioning of +the town was carried on through the neutral zone, where M. Thiers, +however anxious to starve Paris,[131] could not prevent a regular supply +of food. All the foremen having remained at their posts, the municipal +services did not suffer. Four delegations--Finance, War, Public Safety, +Exterior--required special aptitude. The three others, Education, +Justice, Labour and Exchange, had to propound the philosophical +principles of this revolution. All the delegates save Frankel, a +workman, belonged to the small middle-class. + +The Commission of Finance centered in Jourde, who, with his +inexhaustible garrulity, had eclipsed the too modest Varlin. The task +imposed was to procure every morning 675,000 francs for the payment of +the services, to feed 250,000 persons, and find the sinews of war. +Besides the 4,658,000 francs in the coffers of the Treasury, 214 +millions in shares and other effects had been found in the Finance +Office; but Jourde could not or would not negotiate them, and to fill +his exchequer he had to lay hold of the revenues of all the +administrations--the telegraph and postal offices, the octrois, direct +contributions, custom house offices, markets, tobacco, registration and +stamps, municipal funds and the railway duties. The bank, little by +little, paid back the 9,400,000 francs due to the town, and even parted +with 7,290,000 francs on its own account. From the 20th March to the +30th April, twenty-six millions were thus scraped together. During the +same period the War Office alone absorbed over twenty. The Intendance +received 1,813,000 francs, all the municipalities together 1,446,000, +the Interior 103,000, Marine 29,000, Justice 5500, Commerce 50,000, +Education _one thousand_ only, Exterior 112,000, Firemen 100,000, +National Library 80,000, Commission of Barricades 44,500, L'Imprimerie +Nationale 100,000, the Association of Tailors and Shoemakers 24,882. +These proportions remained almost the same from the 1st May to the fall +of the Commune. The expenses of the second period rose to about twenty +millions. The sum total of the expenses of the Commune was about +46,300,000 francs, of which 16,696,000 were supplied by the bank, and +the rest by the various services, the octrois yielding nearly twelve +millions. + +Most of these Services were under the superintendence of workmen or +former subordinate employés, and were all carried on with a fourth part +of their ordinary numerical strength. The director of the postal +department, Theisz, a chaser, found the Service quite disorganised, the +divisionary bureaux closed, the stamps hidden away or carried off, the +material, seals, the carts, &c., taken away, and the coffers empty. +Placards posted up in the hall and courts ordered the employés to +proceed to Versailles on pain of dismissal, but Theisz acted with +promptitude and energy. When the subordinate employés who had not been +forewarned came as usual to organise the mail service, he addressed +them, discussed with them, and had the doors shut. Little by little they +gave way. Some functionaries who were Socialists also lent their help, +and the direction of the various services was intrusted to the +head-clerks. The divisionary bureaux were opened, and in forty-eight +hours the collection and distribution of letters for Paris reorganised. +As to the letters destined for the provinces, clever agents threw them +into the offices of St. Denis and ten miles round, while for the +introduction of letters into Paris every latitude was given to private +initiative. A superior council was instituted, which raised the wages of +postmen, sorters, porters, caretakers of the bureaux, shortened the time +of service as supernumeraries, and decided that the ability of the +employés should be tested for the future by means of tests and +examinations.[132] + +The Mint, directed by Camélinat, a bronze-mounter, one of the most +active members of the International, manufactured the postage stamps. At +the Mint, as at the general post-office, the Versaillese director and +principal employés had first parleyed, then made off. Camélinat, +supported by some friends, bravely took this place, had the works +continued, and every one contributing his professional experience, +improvements in the machinery as well as new methods were introduced. +The bank, which concealed its bullion, was obliged to furnish about +110,000 francs' worth, immediately coined into five-franc pieces. A new +coin-plate was engraved, and was about to be put into use, when the +Versaillese entered Paris. + +The department of Public Assistance also depended on that of the +Finances. A man of the greatest merit, Treilhard, an old exile of 1851, +reorganised this administration, which he found entirely out of order. +Some doctors and agents of the service had abandoned the hospitals; the +director and the steward of the Petits-Ménages at Issy had fled, thus +reducing many of their pensioners to go out begging. Some employés +forced our wounded to wait before the doors of the hospital, while the +sisters of mercy tried to make them blush for their glorious wounds; but +Treilhard soon put all in order, and, for the second time since 1792, +the sick and the infirm found friends in their guardians and blessed the +Commune. This kind-hearted and intellectual man, who was assassinated by +a Versaillese officer on the 24th May at the Panthéon, has left a very +elaborate report on the suppression of bureaux of charity, which chain +the poor to the Government and to the clergy. He proposed having them +replaced by a bureau of assistance in each arrondissement, under the +direction of a communal committee. + +The Telegraph-office, Registration, and Domains, cleverly directed by +the honest Fontaine; the Service of the Contributions, entirely +re-established by Faillet and Combault; the National Printing Press, +which Debock reorganised and administered with remarkable +dexterity,[133] and the other departments connected with that of +Finance, ordinarily reserved to the great bourgeoisie, were managed with +skill and economy--the maximum of the salaries, 6000 francs, was never +reached--by workmen, subordinate employés; and this is not one of their +least crimes in the eyes of the Versaillese bourgeoisie. + +Compared with the Finance department, that of War was a region of +darkness and utter confusion. Officers and guards encumbered the offices +of the Ministry, some demanding munitions and victuals, others +complaining of not being relieved. They were sent back to the Place +Vendôme, maintained in the teeth of common sense, and directed by the +rather equivocal colonel, Henry Prudhomme. On the floor below, the +Central Committee, installed there by Cluseret, bustled, spent time and +breath in endless sittings, found fault with the delegate at war, amused +itself with creating new insignia, received the malcontents of the +Ministry, asked returns from the general staff, claimed to give advice +on military operations. In its turn, the Committee of Artillery, founded +on the 18th March, wrangled about the disposal of the cannon with the +War Office. The latter had the pieces of the Champ-de-Mars and the +Committee those of Montmartre. Attempts at creating a central park of +artillery,[134] or even at learning the exact number of the ordnance +pieces, were made in vain. Pieces of long range remained to the last +moment lying along the ramparts, while the forts had only pieces of +seven and twelve centimetres to answer the huge cannon of Marine, and +often the munitions sent were not of corresponding calibre. The +commissariat, assailed by adventurers of all sorts, took their stores at +haphazard. The construction of the barricades, which were to form a +second and third enceinte, instituted on the 9th April, had been left to +a crotchety fellow, sowing works broadcast without method and against +the plans of his superiors. All the other Services were conducted in the +same style, without fixed principles, without limitation of their +respective provinces, the wheels of the machine not working within one +another. In this concert without a conductor, each instrumentalist +played what he liked, confusing his own score with his neighbour's. + +A firm and supple hand would soon have restored harmony. The Central +Committee, despite its assumption of lecturing the Commune, which it +said was "its daughter and must not be allowed to go astray," was now +only an assemblage of talkers devoid of all authority. It had, to a +great extent, been renewed since the establishment of the Commune, and +the much-contested elections to it--for many aspired to the title of +member--had given a majority of flighty, heedless men.[135] In its +present state this Committee derived its whole importance from the +jealousy of the Council. The Committee of Artillery, monopolised by +brawlers, would have yielded at once to the slightest pressure. The +commissariat and the other services depended entirely upon the action of +the delegate at War. + +The phantom general, stretched on his sofa, hatched orders, circulars, +now melancholy, now commanding, and never stirred a finger to watch over +their execution. If some member of the Council came to rouse him, "What +are you doing? Such a place is in peril;" he answered loftily, "All my +precautions are taken; give my combinations time to be accomplished," +and turned over again. One day he bullied the Central Committee, which +left the Ministry to go and sulk in the Rue de l'Entrepôt; a week later +he went after the same Committee, reinstating it at the War Office. Vain +to shamelessness,[136] he showed sham letters from Todleben proposing +plans of defense, and spent his time in posing to correspondents of +foreign journals. With an affectation of pride, he never put on a +uniform, which, however, at that time was the true dress of the +proletarian. It took the Council almost a month to recognise that this +pithless braggart was only a disappointed officer of the standing army, +his airs of an innovator notwithstanding. + +Many hopes turned to the chief of his staff, Rossel, a young Radical, +twenty-eight years old, self-restrained, puritanic, who was sowing his +revolutionary wild oats. A captain of engineers in the army of Metz, he +had attempted to resist Bazaine, and escaped from the Prussians. +Gambetta had appointed him colonel of engineers at the camp of Nevers, +where he was still lingering on the 18th March. He was dazzled; saw in +Paris the future of France, and his own; threw up his commission and +hurried thither, where some friends placed him in the 17th Legion. He +was haughty, soon became unpopular, and was arrested on the 3rd April. +Two members of the Council, Malon and Ch. Gérardin, had him set free +and presented him to Cluseret, by whom he was accepted as chief of the +general staff. Rossel, fancying that the Central Committee was a power, +made up to it, seemed to ask it for advice, and sought out the men he +thought popular. His coldness, his technical vocabulary, his clearness +of speech, his get up as a great man, enchanted the bureaux, but those +who studied him more closely noticed his unsteady look, the infallible +sign of a perturbed spirit. By degrees the young revolutionary officer +became the fashion, and his consular bearing did not displease the +public, sickened at the flabbiness of Cluseret. + +Nothing, however, justified this infatuation. Chief of the general staff +since the 5th April, he allowed all the Services to shift for +themselves; the only one in some measure organised, the _Control of +General Information_, was the work of Moreau, who every morning +furnished the War Office and the Commune with detailed, and often very +picturesque, reports on the military operations and the moral condition +of Paris. + +This was about all the police the Commune had. The Commission of Public +Safety, which should have thrown light upon the most secret recesses, +emitted only a fitful glimmering. + +The Central Committee had appointed Raoul Rigault, a young man of +twenty-four, much mixed up in the revolutionary movement, as civil +delegate to the prefecture of police, but under the severe direction of +Duval. Rigault well kept in hand might have made a very good subaltern, +and so long as Duval lived he did not go wrong. The unpardonable fault +of the Council was to place him at the head of a service where the +slightest mistake was more dangerous than at the advanced posts. His +friends, who, with the exception of a small number, Ferré, Regnard, and +two or three others, were as young and as giddy-headed as himself, +discharged in a boyish way the most delicate functions. The Commission +of Public Safety, which ought to have superintended Rigault, only +followed his example. There, above all, did they live as boon +companions, apparently unaware of having assumed the guardianship of, +and the responsibility for, 100,000 lives. + +No wonder the mice were soon seen playing round the prefecture of +police. Papers suppressed in the morning were cried out in the evening +in the streets; the conspirators wormed themselves into all the services +without exciting the suspicion of Rigault or his companions. They never +discovered anything; it was always necessary to do it for them. They +made arrests like military marches in the daytime, with large +reinforcements of National Guards. After the decree on the hostages, +they had only managed to lay hands on four or five ecclesiastics of +mark, the Gallican Archbishop Darboy, an arrant Bonapartist; his +grand-vicar, Lagarde; the curate of the Madeleine; Deguerry, a kind of +De Morny in cassock; the Abbé Allard, the Bishop of Surat; and a few +Jesuits of nerve. Chance only delivered into their hands the president +of the Court of Appeal, Bonjean,[137] and Jecker, the famous inventor of +the expedition to Mexico.[138] + +This culpable heedlessness, which the people have paid for with their +blood, was the salvation of criminals. Some National Guards had brought +to light the mysteries of the Picpus convent, discovered three +unfortunate women shut up in grated cages, strange instruments,[139] +corselets of iron, straps, racks, which smacked strangely of the +Inquisition, a treatise on abortion, and two skulls still covered with +hair. One of the prisoners, the only one whose reason had not given way, +said that she had been in this cage for ten years. The police contented +itself with sending the nuns to St. Lazare.[140] Some inhabitants of the +tenth arrondissement had discovered feminine skeletons in the caves of +the St. Laurent Church. The prefecture only made a show of inquiry that +ended in nothing. + +However, in the midst of all these faults, the humanitarian idea +revealed itself, so thoroughly sound was this popular revolution. The +chief of the Bureau of Public Safety, making an appeal to the public for +the victims of the war, said, "The Commune has sent bread to ninety-two +wives of those who are killing us. The widows belong to no party. The +Republic has bread for every misery and care for all the orphans." +Admirable words these, worthy of Châlier and of Chaumette. The +prefecture, overrun by denunciations, declared that it would take no +account of the anonymous ones. "The man," said the _Officiel_, "who does +not dare to sign a denunciation serves a personal rancour and not the +public interest." The hostages were allowed to obtain from without food, +linen, books, papers, to be visited by their friends, and to receive the +reporters of foreign journals. An offer was even made M. Thiers to +exchange the hostages of greatest mark, the Archbishop, Deguerry, +Bonjean, and Lagarde, for the single Blanqui. To conduct this +negotiation the Vicar-General was sent to Versailles, after having sworn +to the Archbishop and the delegate to return to his prison in case of +non-success. But M. Thiers thought that Blanqui would give a head to the +movement, while the Ultramontanes, eagerly covetous of the episcopal +seat of Paris, took good care not to save the Gallican Darboy, whose +death would be a double profit, leaving them a rich inheritance, and +giving them at small expense a martyr. M. Thiers refused, and Lagarde +remained at Versailles.[141] The Council did not punish the Archbishop +for this want of faith, and a few days after set his sister at liberty. +Never even in the days of despair was the privilege of women forgotten. +The culpable nuns of Picpus and the other religieuses conducted to St. +Lazare were confined in a special part of the building. + +The prefecture and the delegation of Justice also evinced their humanity +in ameliorating the service of the prisons. The Council in its turn, +striving to guarantee individual liberty, decreed that every arrest +should be immediately notified to the delegate of Justice, and that no +perquisition should be made without a regular warrant. National Guards, +misinformed, having arrested certain individuals reputed suspicious, the +Council declared in the _Officiel_ that every arbitrary act would be +followed by a dismissal and immediate prosecution. A battalion looking +for arms at the gas company's thought itself authorised to seize the +cash-box; the Council at once had the sum returned. The commissary of +police who arrested Gustave Chaudey, arraigned for having commanded fire +on the 22nd January, had also seized the money of the prisoner; the +Council dismissed the commissary. To prevent all abuse of power, it +ordered an inquiry into the state of the prisoners and the motives of +their detention, authorising at the same time all its members to visit +the prisoners. Rigault thereupon sent in his resignation, which was +accepted, for he was beginning to weary everybody, and Delescluze had +been obliged to rebuke him. His pranks filled the columns of the +Versaillese journals, always on the look-out for scandals. They accused +this childish police of terrorising Paris, and represented the members +of the Council, who refused to endorse the condemnations of the +court-martial, as assassins. The Figarist historians have kept up this +legend. That vile bourgeoisie, which bent its head under the 30,000 +arrests of December, the _lettres de cachet_ of the Empire, and +applauded the 50,000 arrests of May, still howls about the 800 or 900 +arrests made under the Commune. They never exceeded this figure in two +months of strife, and two-thirds of those arrested were only imprisoned +a few days, many only a few hours. But the provinces, only fed with news +by the Versaillese press, believed in its inventions, amplified in the +circulars of M. Thiers telegraphing to the prefects: "The insurgents +are emptying the principal houses of Paris in order to put the furniture +to sale." + +To enlighten the provinces and provoke their intervention, such was the +rôle of the delegation of the Exterior, which, under an ill-chosen +title, was only second in importance to that of War. Since the 4th +April--(I shall afterwards recount these movements)--the departments had +been stirring. Save that of Marseilles, in part disarmed, the National +Guard everywhere had guns. In the centre, east, west and south, powerful +diversions might easily have been made, the stations occupied, and +thereby the reinforcements and artillery destined for Versailles +arrested. + +The delegation contented itself with sending some few emissaries, +without knowledge of the localities they were sent to, without tact and +without authority. It was even exploited by traitors, who pocketed its +money and handed over its instructions to Versailles. Well-known +Republicans, familiar with the habits of the provinces, offered their +services in vain. There, as elsewhere, it was necessary to be a +favourite. Finally, for the work of enlightening and rousing France to +insurrection, only a sum of 100,000 francs was allowed. + +The delegation put forth only a small number of manifestoes, one a true +and eloquent résumé of the Parisian revolution, and two addresses to the +peasants, one by Madame André Leo, simple, fervent, quite within the +reach of the peasantry: "Brother, you are being deceived. Our interests +are the same. What I ask for, you wish it too. The affranchisement which +I demand is yours.... What Paris after all wants is the land for the +peasant, the instrument for the workmen." This good seed was carried +away in free balloons, which, by a cleverly-contrived mechanism, from +time to time dropped the printed papers. How many were lost, fell among +thorns! + +This delegation, created only for the exterior, entirely forgot the rest +of the world. Throughout all Europe the working-classes eagerly awaited +news from Paris, were in their hearts fellow-combatants of the great +town, now become their capital, multiplied their meetings, processions, +and addresses. Their papers, poor for the most part, courageously +struggled against the calumnies of the bourgeois press. The duty of the +delegation was to hold out a hand to these priceless auxiliaries: it did +nothing. Some of these papers exhausted their last means in defense of +the Commune, which allowed its defenders to succumb for want of bread. + +The delegation, without experience, without resources, could not fight +against the astute cleverness of M. Thiers. It showed great zeal in +protecting foreigners, and sent the rich silver plate of the Ministry to +the Mint, but it did almost no real work. + +Now we come to the delegations of vital importance. Since, by the force +of events, the Commune had become the champion of the Revolution, it +ought to have proclaimed the aspirations of the century, and, if it was +to die, leave at least their testament on its tomb. It would have +sufficed to state lucidly the ensemble of institutions demanded for +forty years by the revolutionary party. + +The delegate of Justice, a lawyer, had only to make a summary of the +reforms long since demanded by all Socialists. It was the part of a +proletarian revolution to show the aristocracy of our judicial system +the despotic and antiquated doctrines of the Code Napoleon; the +sovereign people hardly ever judging themselves, but judged by a caste +issued from another authority than their own, the absurd hierarchy of +judges and tribunals, the _tabellionat_, the procureurs, 400,000 +notaries, solicitors, sheriffs' officers, registrars, bailiffs, +advocates and lawyers, draining national wealth to the amount of many +hundreds of millions. It was, above all, for a revolution made in the +name of the Commune to endow the Commune with a tribunal at which the +people, restored to their rights, should judge by jury all cases, civil +and commercial, misdemeanours as well as crimes; a final tribunal, +without any appeal but for informalities, to state how solicitors, +registrars, sheriffs, may be rendered useless, and the notaries replaced +by simple registration officers. The delegate mostly limited himself to +appointing notaries, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs, provided with a +fixed salary,--very useless appointments in a time of war, and which, +besides, had the fault of consecrating the principle of the necessity +for such officers. Scarcely anything progressive came of it. It was +decreed that, in case of arrests, the minutes were to state the motives +and the names of the witnesses to be called, while the papers, valuables +and effects of the prisoners were to be deposited at the Suitors' Fund. +Another decree ordered the directors of lunatic asylums to send the +nominal and explanatory statement concerning their patients within four +days. If the Council had thrown some light on these institutions, which +veil so many crimes, humanity would have been its debtor. However, these +decrees were never executed. + +Did practical instinct make up for want of science on the part of the +delegation? Did it shed light upon the mysteries of the caves of Picpus, +the skeletons of St. Laurent? It seemed to take no notice of them, and +the reaction made merry at these supposed discoveries. The delegation +even missed the opportunity of winning over to the Commune, if only for +one day, all Republicans of France. Jecker was in their power. Rich, +brave, audacious, he had always lived certain of impunity, since +bourgeois legality inflicts no chastisement for crimes like the Mexican +expedition. The Revolution alone could smite him. Nothing was more easy +than to proceed against him. Jecker, pretending to have been the dupe of +the Empire, craved to make revelations. In a public court, before twelve +jurors chosen at hazard, in the face of the world, through him the +Mexican expedition might have been sifted, the intrigues of the clergy +unveiled, the pockets of the thieves turned out; it might have been +shown how the Empress, Miramon, and Morny had set the plot on foot, in +what cause and for what men France had lost seas of blood and hundreds +of millions. Afterwards the expiation might have been accomplished in +the open day, on the Place de la Concorde, in face of the Tuileries. +Poets, who rarely get shot, would perhaps have sighed, but the people, +the eternal victim, would have applauded, and said, "The Revolution +alone does justice." They neglected even to question Jecker. + +The delegation at the Education department was bound to write one of the +finest pages of the Commune, for, after go many years of study and +experiments this question should spring forth ready armed from a truly +revolutionary brain. The delegation has not left a memoir, a sketch, an +address, a line, to bear witness for it in the future. Yet the delegate +was a doctor, a student of the German universities. He contented himself +with suppressing the crucifixes in the schoolrooms and making an appeal +to all those who had studied the question of teaching. A commission was +charged to organise primary and professional instruction, whose work +consisted in announcing the opening of a school on the 6th May. Another +commission for the education of women was named on the day the +Versaillese entered Paris. + +The administrative action of the delegate was confined to impracticable +decrees and a few appointments. Two devoted and talented men, Elie +Reclus and B. Gastineau, were charged with the reorganisation of the +National Library. They forbade the lending of books, thus putting an end +to the scandalous practice by which a privileged few carved out a +private library from public collections. The federation of artists, +presided over by Courbet, elected member of the Council on the 16th +April, occupied itself with the re-opening and superintendence of the +museums. + +Nothing would be known of the ideas of this revolution on education were +it not for a few circulars of the municipalities. Many had reopened the +schools abandoned by the Congregationists and the municipal teachers, or +driven away the priests who had remained. The municipality of the +twentieth arrondissement clothed and fed the children; that of the +fourth said, "To teach children to love and respect their +fellow-creatures, to inspire them with a love of justice, to teach them +that they must instruct themselves in the interests of all, such are the +principles of morality on which for the future communal education will +be based." "The teachers of the schools and infant asylums," declared +the municipality of the seventeenth arrondissement, "will for the future +exclusively employ the experimental and scientific method, that which +always starts from facts, physical, moral, intellectual." But these +vague formulas could not make amends for the want of a complete +programme. + +Who, then, will speak for the people? The delegation of Labour and +Exchange. Exclusively composed of revolutionary Socialists, its purpose +was, "The study of all the reforms to be introduced into the public +services of the Commune or into the relations of the working men and +women with their employers; the revision of the commercial code and +customhouse duties; the transformation of all direct and indirect taxes, +the establishment of statistics of labour." It intended collecting from +the citizens themselves the materials for the decrees to be submitted to +the Commune. + +The delegate to this department, Leo Frankel, procured the assistance of +a commission of initiative composed of workingmen. Registers for offers +and demands of work were opened in all the arrondissements. At the +request of many journeymen bakers night-work was suppressed, a measure +of hygiene as much as of morality. The delegation prepared a project for +the suppression of pawnshops, a decree concerning stoppages of wages, +and supported the decree relative to workshops abandoned by their +runaway masters. + +Their plan gratuitously returned the pledged objects to the victims of +war and to the necessitous. Those who might refuse to confess this +latter title were to receive their pledges in exchange for a promise of +repayment in five years. The report terminated with these words: "It is +well understood that the suppression of the pawnshops is to be succeeded +by a social organisation giving serious guarantees of support to the +workmen thrown out of employment. The establishment of the Commune +necessitates institutions protecting the workmen from the exploitation +of capital." + +The decree that abolished stoppages of salaries and wages put an end to +one of the most crying iniquities of the capitalist régime, these fines +often being inflicted on the most futile pretext by the employer +himself, who is thus at once judge and plaintiff. + +The decree relative to the deserted workshops made restitution to the +mass, dispossessed since centuries, of the property of their own labour. +A commission of inquiry named by the Syndical Chambers was to draw up +the statistics and the inventory of the deserted workshops to be given +back into the hands of the workmen. Thus "the expropriators were in +their turn expropriated." The nineteenth century will not pass away +without having begun this revolution; every progress in machinery brings +it nearer. The more the exploitation of labour concentrates itself in a +few hands, the more the working multitude are massed together and +disciplined. Soon, conscious and united, the producing class will, like +the young France of 1789, have to confront but a handful of privileged +appropriators. The most inveterate revolutionary Socialist is the +monopolist. + +No doubt this decree contained voids and stood in need of an elaborate +explanation, especially on the subject of the co-operative societies to +which the workshops were to be handed over. It was no more than the +other applicable in this hour of strife, and required a number of +supplementary decrees; but it at least gave some idea of the claims of +the working-class, and had it nothing else on its credit side, by the +mere creation of the Commission of Labour and Exchange, the revolution +of the 18th March would have done more for the workmen than all the +bourgeois Assemblies of France since the 5th May, 1789. + +The delegation of Labour wanted to look carefully into the contracts of +the commissariat. It demonstrated that in the case of contracts +adjudicated to the lowest bidder, the running down of prices falls upon +wages and not on the profit of the contractor. "And the Commune is +blind enough to lend itself to such manoeuvres," said the report, "and +at this very moment, when the workingman dares death rather than submit +any longer to this exploitation." The delegate demanded that the +estimate of charges should specify the cost of labour, that the orders +should by preference be given to the workmen's corporations, and the +contracting prices fixed by arbitration between the commissariat, the +Syndical Chamber of the corporation, and the delegate of Labour. + +To overlook the financial administration of all the delegations, the +Council in the month of May instituted a superior commission charged to +audit their accounts. It decreed that functionaries or contractors +guilty of peculation or theft should be punished with death. + +In short, save the delegation of Labour, where they did work, the +fundamental delegations were unequal to their task. All committed the +same fault. During two months they had in their hands the archives of +the bourgeoisie since 1789. There was the Cour des Comptes (a judicial +board of accounts) to disclose the mysteries of official jobbery; the +Council of State, the dark deliberations of despotism; the Prefecture of +Police, the scandalous under-currents of social power; the Ministry of +Justice, the servility and crimes of the most oppressive of all classes. +In the Hôtel-de-Ville there lay deposited the still unexplored records +of the first Revolution, of those of 1815, 1830, 1848, and all +diplomatists of Europe dreaded the opening of the portfolios at the +Foreign Office. They might have laid bare before the eyes of the people +the intimate history of the Revolution, the Directory, the first Empire, +the monarchy of July, 1848, and of Napoleon III. They published only two +or three fascicles.[142] The delegates slept by the side of these +treasures, heedless, as it seemed, of their value. + +The Radicals, seeing these lawyers, these doctors, these publicists, who +allowed Jecker to remain mute and the Cour des Comptes closed, would +not believe in such ignorance, and still affect to unriddle the enigma +with the word "Bonapartism." A stupid accusation, given the lie by a +thousand proofs. For the honour even of the delegates the bitter truth +must be told. Their ignorance was not simulated, but only too real. To a +great extent it was the offspring of past oppression. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[131] Appendix VI. + +[132] Appendix VII., report by Theisz. + +[133] Appendix VIII. + +[134] There were five parks--the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, the +Ecole Militaire, Montmartre, Vincennes. In all, including the artillery +of the forts and that of the open country, the Commune had more than +1100 cannon, howitzers, mortars, and mitrailleuses. + +[135] The second Central Committee was composed of forty members, of +whom twelve only had formed part of the first Committee. + +[136] "Do you know," said he to Delescluze, "that Versailles has offered +me a million?" "Be silent!" answered Delescluze, turning his back upon +him. + +[137] He was arrested on the 20th March in his private room in the +Palace of Justice, where he had given the procureur-general a +rendezvous. + +[138] He was recognised as he asked for his passport at the prefecture +of police. + +[139] The correspondent of the _Times_ wrote in the number of 9th May: +"The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopædic +instruments--a superficial falsehood. The mattress and straps struck me +as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French +midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its +adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of +brutal force which no disease at present known would justify." + +[140] The nun who filled the post of superior, a big and bold virago, +answered Rigault in an easy-going manner. "Why have you shut up these +women?" "To do their families a service; they were mad. See gentlemen, +you are young men of good families; you'll understand that sometimes one +is glad to conceal the madness of one's relations." "But do you not know +the law?" "No, we obey our superiors." "Whose books are these?" "We know +nothing about them." Thus affecting simpleness, they sold the +simpletons. + +[141] This negotiation has in part been recounted in the _Officiel_ of +the Commune. We add further details. Soon after his arrest the +Archbishop wrote to M. Thiers begging him to stop the execution of the +prisoners, on which the lives of the hostages depended. M. Thiers did +not answer. An old friend of Blanqui's, Flotte, went to the President to +propose an exchange, and said that the Archbishop might incur peril. M. +Thiers made a decided gesture: "What does it matter to me?" Flotte again +took up the negotiation through Darboy, who named Deguerry as envoy to +Versailles. The prefecture, unwilling to give up such a hostage, the +Vicar-General Lagarde took Deguerry's place. The Archbishop furnished +him with instructions, and on the 12th April Flotte conducted Lagarde to +the station and made him swear to return if he failed in his mission. +Lagarde swore, "Even if to be shot, I shall return. Can you believe that +I could for a single moment harbour the thought of leaving Monseigneur +alone here?" At the moment when the train was about to start, Flotte +insisted again, "Do not go if you have not the intention of returning." +The priest again renewed his oath. He went off, and handed over a letter +in which the Archbishop solicited the exchange. M. Thiers, pretending to +know nothing of this one, answered the first, which a Communalist +journal had just published. His answer is one of his masterpieces of +hypocrisy and falsehood: "The facts to which you call my attention are +absolutely false, and I am really surprised that so enlightened a +prelate as you, Monseigneur.... Our soldiers have never shot prisoners +nor sought to kill the wounded. That, in the heat of the combat, they +may have turned their arms against men who assassinate their generals, +is possible; but, the combat terminated, they resume the natural +generosity of the national character. I therefore spurn, Monseigneur, +the calumny that has been told you. I affirm that our soldiers have +never shot prisoners." On the 17th Flotte received a letter in which +Lagarde informed him that his presence was still indispensable at +Versailles. Flotte complained to the Archbishop, who could not believe +in this desertion. "It is impossible," said he, "that M. Lagarde should +remain at Versailles; he will come back; he has sworn it to me myself," +and he gave Flotte a note for Lagarde. The latter answered that M. +Thiers retained him. On the 23rd Darboy wrote to him again: "On the +reception of this letter, M. Lagarde is immediately to retrace his steps +to Paris and to re-enter Mazas. This delay compromises us gravely, and +may have the saddest results." Lagarde did not answer any more. + +Blanqui, transported to the Fort du Taureau, was rigorously kept in +solitary confinement. His friends thought of delivering him, and a sum +of 50,000 francs was prepared for his release. But much more would have +been necessary, and, above all, adroit agents, for the least imprudence +would have cost the life of the prisoner. The affair was procrastinated, +and part of the funds were still in the coffers of the Committee of +Public Safety at the entry of the Versaillese. + +[142] Georges Duchêne began examining the commercial transactions of the +Government of National Defence, but he published nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE--THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE + FORT OF ISSY--CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY. + + +M. Thiers was fully acquainted with the failings of the Commune, but he +also knew the weakness of his army. Besides, he piqued himself upon +playing the soldier before the Prussians. In order to appease his +colleagues, eager for the assault on Paris, he received haughtily the +conciliators, who multiplied their advances and their lame combinations. + +Everybody intermeddled, from the good and visionary Considérant down to +the cynic Girardin, down to Saisset's ex-aide-de-camp Schoelcher, who +had replaced his plan of battle of the 24th March by a plan of +conciliation. These encounters became the common topics of raillery. +Since its pompous declaration, "All Paris will rise," the _Ligue des +Droits de Paris_ had been altogether sunk out of sight. It was perfectly +understood that these Radicals were in search of some decent contrivance +to back out of the peril. At the end of April their sham movements +served only as a foil to set off the courageous conduct of the +Freemasons. + +On the 21st April the Freemasons, having gone to Versailles to ask for +the armistice, complained of the municipal law recently voted by the +Assembly. "What!" M. Thiers replied, "but this is the most liberal one +we have had in France for eighty years." "We beg your pardon, and how +about the communal institutions of 1791?" "Ah! you want to return to the +follies of our fathers?" "But, after all, are you then resolved to +sacrifice Paris?" "There will be some houses riddled, some persons +killed, but the law will be enforced." The Freemasons had this hideous +answer placarded in Paris. + +On the 26th they met at the Châtelet, and several proposed that they +should go and plant their banners on the ramparts. A thousand cheers +answered. M. Floquet, who, with an eye to the future, had sent in his +resignation as deputy, together with MM. Lockroy and Clémenceau, +protested against this co-operation of the small middle-class with the +people. His shrill voice was drowned in the enthusiastic cries in the +hall.[143] On the motion of Ranvier, the Freemasons went up to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, preceded by their banner, where they were met by the +Council in the Court of Honour. "If at the outset," said their +spokesman, Thirifocq, "the Freemasons did not wish to act, it was +because they wanted to have certain proof that Versailles would not hear +of conciliation. They are ready to-day to plant their banner on the +rampart. If one single ball touches it, the Freemasons will march with +the same ardour as yourselves against the common enemy." This +declaration was loudly applauded. Jules Vallès, in the name of the +Commune, tendered his red scarf, which was twisted round the banner, and +a delegation of the Council accompanied the brethren to the Masonic +temple in the Rue Cadet. + +They came three days after to redeem their word. The announcement of +this intervention had given great hope to Paris. From early in the +morning an immense crowd encumbered the approaches to the Carrousel, the +rendezvous of all the lodges; and, despite a few reactionary Freemasons, +who had protested in a placard, at ten o'clock 10,000 brethren, +representing fifty-five lodges, had gathered in the Carrousel. Six +members of the Council led them to the Hôtel-de-Ville in the midst of +the crowd and a lane of battalions. A band, playing music of solemn and +ritual character, preceded the procession; then came superior officers, +the grand-masters, the members of the Council, and the brethren, with +their wide blue, green, white, red or black ribbon, according to their +grade, grouped around sixty-five banners that had never before been +displayed in public. The one carried at the head of the procession was +the white banner of Vincennes, bearing in red letters the fraternal and +revolutionary inscription, "_Love one another_." A lodge of women was +especially cheered. + +The banners and a numerous delegation were introduced into the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the members of the Council waiting to receive them on +the balcony of the staircase of honour. The banners were fixed along the +steps. These standards of peace by the side of the red flag, this small +middle-class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of +the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled, brightened up even the +most downcast. Félix Pyat indulged in a rhapsody of words and rhetorical +antitheses. Old Beslay was much more eloquent in a few words broken by +true tears. A brother solicited the honour of being the first to plant +on the rampart the banner of his lodge, _La Persévérance_, founded in +1790, in the era of the great federations. A member of the Council +presented the red flag: "Let it accompany your banners; let no hand +henceforth turn us against each other." And the orator of the +delegation, Thirifocq, pointing to the banner of Vincennes: "This will +be the first to be presented before the ranks of the enemy. We will say +to them, 'Soldiers of the mother country, fraternise with us, come and +embrace us.' If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war." + +When the delegates left the Hôtel-de-Ville, a free balloon, marked with +the three symbolical points, made an ascent, here and there dropping the +manifesto of the Freemasons. The immense procession having shown the +Bastille and the boulevards its mysterious banners, frantically +applauded, arrived about two o'clock at the cross-roads of the +Champs-Elysées. The shells of Mont-Valérien obliged them to take the +bye-streets on their way to the Arc-de-Triomphe. There a delegation of +all the venerables went to plant the banners at the most dangerous +posts, from the Porte-Maillot to the Porte-Bineau. When the white flag +was hoisted on the outpost of the Porte-Maillot the Versaillese ceased +firing. + +The delegates of the Freemasons and some members of the Council, +appointed by their colleagues to accompany them, advanced, headed by +their banner, into the Avenue of Neuilly. At the bridge of Courbevoie, +before the Versaillese barricade, they found an officer who conducted +them to General Montaudon, himself a Freemason. The Parisians explained +the object of their manifestation, and asked for a truce. The general +proposed that they should send a deputation to Versailles. Three +delegates were chosen, and their companions returned to the town. In the +evening silence reigned from St. Ouen to Neuilly, Dombrowski having +taken upon himself to continue the truce. For the first time for +twenty-five days the sleep of Paris was not disturbed by the report of +cannon. + +The next day the delegates returned. M. Thiers had hardly deigned to +receive them, had shown himself impatient, irritated, decided to grant +nothing and to admit no more deputations. The Freemasons then resolved +to march to battle with their insignia. + +In the afternoon the _Alliance Républicaine des Départements_ made an +act of adhesion to the Commune. Millière, who had quite joined the +movement without being able to gain the confidence of the +Hôtel-de-Ville, exerted himself to group the provincials residing at +Paris. Who does not know what the provinces contributed in blood and +sinew to the great town? Out of 35,000 prisoners of French origin +figuring in the official reports of Versailles, there were, according to +their own statement, only 9,000 born Parisians. Each departmental group +was to strain itself to enlighten its native place, to send circulars, +proclamations, delegates. On the 30th all the groups met in the Court of +the Louvre to vote an address to the departments, and all, about 15,000 +men, headed by Millière, went to the Hôtel-de-Ville "to renew their +adhesion to the patriotic work of the Commune of Paris." + +The procession was still passing when a sinister rumour spread: the fort +of Issy had been evacuated. + +Under cover of their batteries, the Versaillese, pushing forward, had on +the night of the 26th to the 27th surprised the Moulineaux, by which the +park of Issy may be reached. On the following day sixty pieces of +powerful calibre concentrated their shells on the fort, while others +occupied Vanves, Montrouge, the gunboats and the enceinte. Issy answered +valiantly, but our trenches, to which Wetzel ought to have attended, +were in bad condition. On the 29th the bombardment redoubled and the +projectiles ploughed the park. At eleven o'clock in the evening the +Versaillese ceased firing, and in the nocturnal stillness surprised the +Federals and occupied the trenches. On the 30th, at five o'clock in the +morning, the fort, which had received no warning of this incident, found +itself surrounded by a semi-circle of Versaillese. The commander, Mégy, +was disconcerted, sent for reinforcements, but received none. The +garrison grew alarmed, and these Federals, who had cheerfully withstood +a hailstorm of shells, took fright at a few skirmishers. Mégy held a +council, and the evacuation was decided upon. The cannon were +precipitately spiked--so badly that they were unnailed the same +evening--and the bulk of the garrison left. Some men with different +notions of duty made it a point of honour to stay at their post. In the +course of the day a Versaillese officer summoned them to surrender +within a quarter of an hour on pain of being shot. They did not even +answer. + +At three o'clock Cluseret and La Cécilia arrived at Issy with a few +companies picked up in haste. They deployed as skirmishers, drove the +Versaillese from the park, and at six o'clock the Federals reoccupied +the fort. At the entrance they found a child, Dufour, near a wheelbarrow +filled with cartridges and cartouches, ready to blow himself up, and, as +he believed, the vault with him. In the evening Vermorel and Trinquet +brought other reinforcements, and we reoccupied all our positions. + +At the first rumour of the evacuation, National Guards had hurried to +the Hôtel-de-Ville interpellating the Executive Commission. It denied +having given any order to evacuate the fort, and promised to punish the +traitors if there were any. In the evening it arrested Cluseret on his +arrival from the fort of Issy. Strange rumours circulated about him, and +he quitted the Ministry without leaving the slightest trace of any +useful work whatever. As to the defence of the interior, all he had done +was to bury cannon at the Trocadéro, which, he said, were to breach +Mont-Valérien. At a later period, after the fall of the Commune, he +endeavoured to throw his whole incapacity upon his colleagues, treating +them in English reviews as vain and ignorant fools, imputing villanies +to a man like Delescluze, stating that his arrest had ruined everything, +and modestly calling himself the "incarnation of the people."[144] + +This panic of Issy was the origin of the Committee of Public Safety. +Already on the 28th April, at the end of the sitting, Miot, one of the +best-bearded men of 1848, had risen to demand "without phrases" the +creation of a Committee of Public Safety, having authority over all the +Commissions. Being pressed to give his reasons, he majestically replied +that he believed the Committee necessary. There was only one opinion as +to the necessity of strengthening the central control and action, for +the second Executive Commission had shown itself as impotent as the +first, each delegate going his own way and decreeing on his own account. +But what signified this word Committee of Public Safety, this parody of +the past and scarecrow of boobies? It jarred with this proletarian +revolution, this Hôtel-de-Ville, whence the original Committee of Public +Safety had torn away Chaumette, Jacques Roux and the best friends of the +people. But the Romanticists of the Council had only a smattering of the +history of the Revolution, and this high-sounding title delighted them. +They would have there and then voted it but for the energy of some +colleagues, who insisted on a discussion. "Yes," said these latter, "we +want a vigorous Commission, but give us no revolutionary pasticcio. Let +the Commune be re-formed; let it cease to be a small talkative +parliament, quashing one day, just as it suits its caprices, what it +created the day before." And they proposed an Executive Committee. The +votes were equally divided. + +The affair of Issy turned the scale. On the 1st May 34 _Ayes_ against 28 +_Noes_ carried the title of Committee of Public Safety. On the whole of +the project 48 voted for and 23 against. Several had voted for the +Committee notwithstanding its title, with the only object of creating a +strong power. Many explained their votes. Some alleged they were obeying +the _mandat imperatif_ of their electors. Some wanted "to make the +cowards and traitors tremble;" others simply declared, like Miot, that +"it was an indispensable measure." Félix Pyat, who had egged on Miot, +and violently supported the proposition in order to win back the esteem +of the ultras, gave this cogent reason: "Yes: considering that the words +_Salut Public_ are absolutely of the same epoch as the words French +Republic and Commune of Paris." But Tridon: "No: because I dislike +useless and ridiculous cast-off old clothes." Vermorel: "No: they are +only words, and the people have too long taken up with words." Longuet: +"Not believing any more in words of salvation than in talismans and +amulets, I vote No." Seventeen collectively declared against the +institution of a Committee, which, they said, would create a +dictatorship, and others pleaded the same motive, which was puerile +enough. The Council remained so sovereign that eight days after it +overturned the Committee. + +Having protested by this vote, the opponents ought afterwards to have +made the best of the situation. Tridon had certainly said, "I see no men +to put in such a Committee;" all the more reason not to leave the place +to the Romanticists. Instead of coming to an understanding with those of +their colleagues who were desirous to concentrate the power and not +galvanise a corpse, the opponents folded their arms. "We can," they +said, "appoint no one to an institution considered by us as useless and +fatal.... We consider abstention as the only dignified, logical, and +politic attitude." + +The ballot, thus stigmatised beforehand, gave a power without authority; +there were only 37 votes. Ranvier, A. Arnaud, Leo Meillet, Ch. Gérardin, +Félix Pyat were named. The alarmists might comfort themselves. The only +one of real energy, the upright and warm-hearted Ranvier, was at the +mercy of his blind kindliness. + +The friends of the Commune, the brave soldiers of the trenches and of +the forts, then learnt that there was a minority at the Hôtel-de-Ville. +It put in its appearance at the very moment when Versailles unmasked its +batteries. This minority, which, with the exception of some ten members, +comprised the most enlightened and the most laborious members of the +Council, was never able to accommodate itself to the situation. These +men could never understand that the Commune was a barricade, not a +government. This was the general error, the superstitious belief in +their governmental longevity; hence, for instance, they delayed for +seven months the date for the total return of the pledges at the +pawnshops. There were perhaps as many dreamers in the minority as in the +majority. Some put forward their principles like the head of a Medusa, +and would have made no concessions even for the sake of victory. They +strained the reaction against the principle of authority to the verge of +suicide. "We," they said, "were for liberty under the Empire; in power +we will not deny it." Even in exile they have fancied that the Commune +perished through its authoritative tendencies. With a little diplomacy, +by yielding to circumstances and the weaknesses of their colleagues, +they might have detached from the majority all men of real value.[145] +Tridon had come to them uninvited, but his was a superior mind; they +ought to have made advances to the others, opposing to the mere +braggarts precise ideas, and by true energy reduced the turbulent. They +remained unrelenting, dogged, and contented themselves with forcible +protests. + +Thenceforth divergences degenerated into hostilities. The council-room +was small, badly ventilated; the soon overheated atmosphere ruffled the +temper. The discussions grew bitter, and Félix Pyat turned them into +attacks. Delescluze never spoke but for union, concord. The other would +have preferred the Commune dead rather than saved by one of those he +bore a grudge to, and he hated whoever smiled at his craziness. He did +not mind discrediting the Council, aspersing its most devoted members, +so that he resented a trespass on his vanity. He could lie with perfect +effrontery, carve out some infamous calumny, slaver a colleague, then +suddenly, in emotional attitude, open his arms, exclaiming, "Let us +embrace." He now accused Vermorel of having sold his journal to the +Empire after having offered it to the Orléanists. He glided about in the +lobbies, the Commissions, a Barrère of the boards, now insinuating, now +foaming, now patriarchal. "The Commune! why it is my child! I have +watched over it for twenty years. I have nursed, I have rocked it." To +hear him, the 18th March was owing to him. He thus enlisted the naïve, +the light-headed sent to the Council by the public meetings, and, +despite his blank incapacity, shown by the man while a member of the +first executive, despite his attempts at fight, he picked up twenty-four +voices at the election of the Committee of Public Safety. The aspic +profited by it to hiss forth discord. + +Disunion within the Council was fatal, the mother of defeat. It +ceased--let the people know this as well as their faults--when they +thought of the people, when they rose above these miserable personal +quarrels. They followed the funeral of Pierre Leroux, who had defended +the insurgents of June, 1848; ordered the demolition of the Bréa church, +built in memory of a justly punished traitor; of the expiatory monument, +an affront to the Revolution; were not forgetful of the political +prisoners still at the Bagnio, and ennobled the Place d'Italie with the +name of Duval. All Socialist decrees passed unanimously; for though +they differed they were all Socialists. There was but one voice in the +Council to expel two of its members guilty of some former offence,[146] +and no one even in the thick of the peril dared to utter the word +capitulation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[143] Before the Commission of Inquiry at the Assembly he has assumed +the attitude of a Daniel in the lions' den. The meeting, however, +contented with hissing him, for Paris let these impotent drones buzz as +much as they liked without taking any notice of them. + +[144] Appendix IX. + +[145] The minority formed a nucleus of twenty-two members: Andrieu, +Arnold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Clémence, V. Clément, Courbet, +Frankel, E. Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, +Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Vallès, Varlin, Vermorel. + +[146] Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Clément, who under +the Empire had offered his services to the police. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET--THE RIVALRIES--THE DEFENCE OF THE + FORT OF ISSY. + + +The last act of the second Executive Commission was to name Rossel +delegate at War. On the same evening (the 30th April) it sent for him. +He came at once, recited the history of famous sieges, and promised to +make Paris impregnable. No one asked him for a written plan, and there +and then, as on the stage, his nomination was signed. He forthwith wrote +to the Council, "I accept these difficult functions, but I want your +entire support in order not to succumb under the weight of these +circumstances." + +Rossel knew these circumstances through and through. For twenty-five +days chief of the general staff, he was the best-informed man in Paris +as to all her military resources. He was familiar with the members of +the Council, of the Central Committee, the officers, the effective +forces, the character of the troops he undertook to lead. + +At the outset he struck a wrong chord in his answer to the Versaillese +officer who had summoned the fort of Issy to surrender. "My dear +comrade, the first time you permit yourself to send us such an insolent +summons, I shall have your flag of truce shot. Your devoted comrade." +The cynical levity smacked of the condottiere. Certainly he who +threatened to shoot an innocent soldier, and bestowed his _dear_, his +_devoted comrade_ upon a collaborator of Gallifet, was foreign to the +great heart of Paris and her civil war. + +No man understood Paris, the National Guard, less than Rossel. He +imagined that the _Père Duchesne_ was the real mouthpiece of the +workmen. Hardly raised to the Ministry, he spoke of putting the +National Guard into barracks, of cannonading the runaways; he wanted to +dismember the legions and form them into regiments, with colonels named +by himself. The Central Committee, to which the _chefs-de-légion_ +belonged, protested, and the battalions complained to the Council, which +sent for Rossel. He set forth his project in a professional way in +sober, precise words, so different from the Pyatical declamations, that +the Council believed it beheld a man and was charmed. Still his project +was the breaking-up of the National Guard, and the Council no more than +the Executive Commission got a general plan of defence from him. He +certainly demanded that the municipalities should be charged with +concentration of arms, the horses, and prosecution of the refractory, +but he made no condition _sine quâ non_. + +He sent in no report on the military situation. He gave orders for the +construction of a second enceinte of barricades, and of three citadels +at Montmartre, the Trocadéro, and the Panthéon, but never personally +concerned himself about their execution. He extended the command of +General Wroblewski over all troops and forts on the left bank, but three +days after restricted it again to bestow it upon La Cécilia, who had +none of the qualities necessary in a superior commander. He never gave +the generals any instructions for attack or defence. Despite certain +fits and starts, he had in reality so little energy that he named Eudes +commander of the second active reserve at the very moment when, against +formal orders, this latter left the fort of Issy, which he had commanded +since the reoccupation. + +The Versaillese had recommenced firing with perfect fury. The shells, +the bombs, battered the casemates, the grapeshot paved the trenches with +iron. In the night of the 1st-2nd, the Versaillese, always proceeding by +nocturnal surprises, attacked the station of Clamart, which was taken +almost without a struggle, and the castle of Issy, which they had to +conquer foot by foot. On the morning of the 2nd the fort again found +itself in the same situation as three days before. A part of the village +of Issy was even in the hands of the soldiers. During the day the +francs-tireurs of Paris dislodged them at the point of the bayonet. +Eudes, who in vain demanded reinforcements, went to the War Office to +declare that he would not remain if Wetzel were not discharged. Wetzel +was replaced by La Cécilia, but Eudes did not return to the fort, and +left the command to the chief of his staff. + +Thus since the 3rd it was evident that everything would go on as under +Cluseret, and the Central Committee grew bolder. It had been thrown more +and more into the shade, for the Commission of War kept it at a +distance. Its sittings, more and more confused and void, were little +attended--by about ten members, sometimes even by less. The enterprise +of Rossel against the legions gave it back a little authority and +daring. On the 3rd, in accord with the _chefs-de-légion_, they resolved +to ask the Council for the direction and administration of the War +Office. Rossel got wind of the affair, and had one of its members +arrested; the others in great numbers, the _chefs-de-légion_ with their +sabres at their sides, went up to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were +received by Félix Pyat, deeply moved by the odd conceit that they came +to lay hands on him. "Nothing is getting along at the War Office," said +they. "All the services are in disorder. The Central Committee offers +itself to direct them. The delegate will conduct the operations, the +Committee will see to the administration." Félix Pyat approved of the +idea and submitted it to the Council. The minority took umbrage at the +pretensions of the Committee, and even spoke of having them arrested. +The majority left the matter to the Committee of Public Safety, which +issued a decree admitting the co-operation of the Central Committee. +Rossel accepted the situation and announced it to the chiefs of corps. +The Commission of War continued, in spite of all this, to squabble with +the Committee. + +Our men paid dearly for these small cabinet revolutions. Tired out, +badly commanded, they were negligent of their watches, and thus exposed +to every surprise. The most terrible one took place in the night of the +3rd-4th May at the redoubt of the Moulin Saquet, held by 500 men at +this moment. They were sleeping in their tents, when the Versaillese, +having seized the sentinels, entered the redoubt and butchered about +fifty Federals. The soldiers pierced the tents with their bayonets, +slashing the corpses, and then made off with five pieces and 200 +prisoners. The captain of the 55th was accused of having betrayed the +watchword. The truth is not known, as--incredible fact!--the Council +never inquired into the affair. + +M. Thiers announced this "elegant _coup-de-main_"[147] in a bantering +despatch to the effect that they had killed two hundred men; that "such +was the victory the Commune might announce in its bulletins." The +prisoners, taken to Versailles, were received by the elegant rabble who +killed time in the cafés of St. Germain, now become the headquarters of +high-life prostitution, or who went to the heights to see the shells +battering the walls and the Parisians. But what were these insipid +amusements by the side of a convoy of prisoners, whom they could beat, +spit upon, and revile, a thousand times renewing the agonies of Mathô? + +The simply bestial ferocity of the soldiers was much less horrible. +These poor wretches firmly believed that the Federals were thieves or +Prussians, and that they tortured their prisoners. There were some who, +taken to Paris, for a long time refused all nourishment in dread of +poison. The officers propagated these horrible stories; some even +believed them.[148] The greater part, arriving from Germany in a state +of extreme irritation against Paris,[149] said publicly, "We shall give +these scoundrels no quarter," and they set the example of summary +executions. On the 25th April, at the Belle-Epine, near Ville-Juif, four +National Guards, surprised by mounted chasseurs, called upon to +surrender, laid down their arms. The soldiers were leading them when an +officer appeared, and, without further ado, discharged his revolver at +them. Two were killed; the two others, left for dead, were able to drag +themselves as far as the neighbouring trenches, where one of them +expired.[150] The fourth was transported to the ambulance. Paris, +erstwhile besieged by the Prussians, was now tracked by tigers. + +These sinister forebodings of the lot reserved to the vanquished made +the Council indignant, but did not enlighten it. The disorder grew +greater with the danger. Rossel set nothing going. Pyat, whom he had +often silenced with a word, abhorred him, and never ceased undermining +his authority. "You see this man," said he to the Romanticists, "well, +he is a traitor--a Cæsarian! After the Trochu plan, the Rossel plan." On +the 8th May he had the direction of the military operations transferred +to Dombrowski, leaving only nominal functions to Rossel, who, apprised +of this that same evening, hurried to the Committee of Public Safety and +forced it to revoke the decree.[151] On the 4th Félix Pyat sent orders +to General Wroblewski without informing Rossel. The next day Rossel +complained to the Council of the Committee of Public Safety of this +mischievous interference, which embroiled everything. "Under these +circumstances I cannot be responsible," said he, and demanded the +publicity of the sittings, as he had always been received in private +audience. Instead of forcing him to communicate his plan, they amused +themselves with making him pass a sort of Freemason examination. The +antediluvian Miot asked him what were his democratic antecedents. Rossel +extricated himself very cleverly. "I will not tell you that I have +studied the question of social reforms profoundly, but I abominate this +society which has just betrayed France in so dastardly a way. I do not +know what will be the new order of Socialism. I like it on trust, and it +will anyhow be better than the old one." Everybody put him the questions +he chose personally, and not through the medium of the president. He +answered them all with sangfroid and precision, disarming all their +scruples, and carried away cheers, but nothing more. + +Had he possessed the strong head he was credited with, he would long +since have fathomed the situation, understood that for this struggle +without precedent new tactics were wanted, found a field of battle for +these improvised soldiers, organised the internal defence, and awaited +Versailles from the heights of Montmartre, the Trocadéro, and +Mont-Valérien. But he dreamt of battles, was at bottom but a bookish +soldier, original only in speech and style. While always complaining of +want of discipline and of men, he allowed the best blood of Paris to be +shed in the sterile struggles without the town, in heroic challenges at +Neuilly, Vanves, and Issy. + +At Issy above all. It was no longer a fort, hardly a strong position, +but a medley of earth and rubble-work battered by shells. The staved-in +casemates opened a view upon the country, the powder magazines were laid +bare, half of bastion 3 was in the moat, one could drive up to the +breach in a carriage. Ten pieces at most answered the fire of sixty +Versaillese ordnance pieces, while the fusillade of the trenches aimed +at the embrasures killed almost all our artillerists. On the 3rd the +Versaillese renewed their summons to surrender; they were answered with +the word of Cambronne. The chief of the general staff left by Eudes had +also made off, but happily the fort remained in the valiant hands of +the engineer Rist and of Julien, commander of the 14th battalion of the +eleventh arrondissement. It is to them and to the Federals who stood by +them that the honour of this prodigious defence belongs. Here are a few +notes from their military journal. + +"_4th May._--We are receiving explosive balls that burst with the noise +of percussion-caps. The waggons do not come; food is scanty and the +shells of seven centimetres, our best pieces, will soon fail us. The +reinforcements promised every day do not appear. Two chiefs of +battalions have been to Rossel. He received them very badly, and said +that he had the right to shoot them for having abandoned their post. +They explained our situation. Rossel answered that a fort defends itself +with the bayonet and quoted the work of Carnot. Still he has promised +reinforcements. The Freemasons have planted their banner on our +ramparts. The Versaillese knocked it down in an instant. Our ambulances +are full; the prison and corridor that lead to it are crammed with +corpses. An ambulance omnibus arrives in the evening. We put in as many +of our wounded as possible. During its passage from the fort to Issy the +Versaillese pepper it with balls. + +"_5th._--The fire of the enemy does not cease for a moment. Our +embrasures no longer exist; the pieces of the front still answer. At two +o'clock we receive ten waggons of shells of seven centimetres. Rossel +has come. He looked at the works of the Versaillese for a long time. The +_enfants-perdus_ who serve the pieces of bastion 5 are losing many men; +they remain steadfast. There are now in the dungeons two yards deep of +corpses. All our trenches, riddled by artillery, have been evacuated. +The trench of the Versaillese is sixty yards from the counterscarp. They +push on more and more. The necessary precautions are taken in case of an +attack to-night. All the flank pieces are loaded with grapeshot. We have +two mitrailleuses above the _terre-plein_ to sweep at once the moat and +the glacis. + +"_6th._--The battery of Fleury regularly discharges its six rounds on +us every five minutes. A cantinière has just been brought to the +ambulance, wounded in the left side of the groin. For four days past +three women have gone into the thickest of the fire to tend the wounded. +This one is dying and bids us remember her two little children. No more +food. We eat only horse-flesh. Evening: the rampart is untenable. + +"_7th._--We are receiving as many as ten shells a minute. The ramparts +are totally uncovered. All the pieces, save two or three, are +dismounted. The Versaillese works almost touch us. There are thirty more +dead. We are about to be surrounded." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[147] _La Guerre des Communeux_ by a superior officer of the Versaillese +army. + +[148] On the 12th May, at the barricade of Petit-Vanves, an officer of +engineers of the Lacretelle division, second corps, Captain Rozhem, was +taken prisoner. When brought before the commander of the trenches, "I +know what is in store for me," said he; "shoot me." The commander +shrugged his shoulders and took him to Delescluze. "Captain," said the +delegate, "promise that you will not fight against the Commune and you +are free." The officer promised, and, deeply moved, asked Delescluze for +permission to shake hands with him. This is one fact among a hundred +such. Is it necessary to add that from the 3rd April to the 23rd May the +Federals did not shoot _one single_ prisoner, officer or soldier? + +[149] Appendix X. + +[150] This fact was established through the minute inquiry which the +Council charged three of its members to make. Two of these, Gambon and +Langevin, are by their characters above all suspicion. They received the +declaration of the wounded man and saw one of the bodies, the two others +not having been found. + +[151] It never appeared in the _Officiel_, but was announced in the +_Vengeur_; for Félix Pyat abused his functions in order to give his +journal the first news of the official decisions. This time he was a +little too quick. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + "La plus grande infamie dont l'histoire moderne ait garde la + souvenir, s'accomplit à cette heure, Paris est bombardé." + --Jules Favre, Jules Simon, E. Picard, Trochu, Jules Ferry, + E. Arago, Garnier-Pages, Pelletan. _Proclamation du + Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale à propos du bombardement + Prussien._ + + "Nous avons écrasé tout un quartier de Paris."--_M. Thiers à + l'Assemblée Nationale, Séance du 5 Août 1871._ + + PARIS IS BOMBARDED--THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS--THE COUNCIL + ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--ROSSEL FLIES. + + +We must leave this heroic atmosphere to return to the quarrels of the +Council and of the Central Committee. Why did they not hold their +sittings at the Muette or under the eyes of the public?[152] The shells +of Montretout, which had just unmasked its powerful battery, the severe +attitude of the people, would no doubt have made them unite against the +common enemy. He had commenced to batter in breach. + +On the 8th May, in the morning, seventy marine pieces began to attack +the enceinte from the bastion 60 to the Point du Jour. The shells of +Clamart already reached the quay of Javelle, and the battery of Breteuil +covered the Grenelle quarter with projectiles. In a few hours half Passy +had become uninhabitable. + +M. Thiers accompanied his shells with a proclamation: "Parisians, the +Government will not bombard Paris, as the men of the Commune will not +fail to tell you. It will discharge its cannon.... It knows, it would +have understood, even if you had not said so on all sides, that as soon +as the soldiers cross the enceinte you will rally round the national +flag." And he invited the Parisians to open the gates to him. What was +the action of the Council in reply to this appeal to treason? + +On the 8th it entered upon a random discussion on the minutes of its +sittings[153] and the publicity of the latter, which one member of the +majority wanted to suppress altogether. The minority complained of the +Central Committee, which had encroached upon all services in spite of +the Commission of War; it had driven away Varlin from the commissariat, +entirely reorganised by him. They asked whether the Government called +itself Central Committee or Commune. Félix Pyat justified himself by +accusing Rossel. "It is not the fault of the Committee of Public Safety +if Rossel has neither the strength nor the intelligence to keep the +Central Committee within its functions." The friends of Rossel answered, +accusing Pyat of continually interfering even in purely military +questions. If the Moulin Saquet had been surprised, it was because +Wroblewski, who commanded on that side, received a formal order from +Félix Pyat to repair to Issy. "It is false," said Pyat; "I have never +given such an order." They let him thoroughly enmesh himself, and then +produced the order, written entirely in his own hand. He took hold of +it, turned it round, feigned astonishment, and was finally obliged to +confess.[154] The discussion then reverted to the Central +Committee--were they to dissolve it, arrest its members, or surrender to +it the administration of the War Office? The Council, as usual, did not +dare to decide, and, after a confused debate, abode by the resolution of +the 3rd May--the Central Committee will be held subordinate to the +Military Commission. + +At this very moment strange scenes were enacted at the War Office. The +_chefs-de-légion_, who were stirring more and more against Rossel, had +that day resolved to ask him for the report of all the decisions he was +about to take with respect to the National Guard. Rossel knew of their +project. In the evening, when they arrived at the Ministry, they found +in its court an armed platoon, and beheld Rossel watching them from his +window. "You are audacious," said he; "do you know that this platoon is +here to shoot you?" They, without appearing to care much: "There is no +need of audacity; we simply come to speak to you of the organisation of +the National Guard." Rossel relaxed, went to the window, gave orders to +the platoon to re-enter. This burlesque demonstration did not miss its +effect. The _chefs-de-légion_ disputed the project on the regiments +point by point, demonstrating its impossibility. Tired of arguing, +Rossel said to them, "I am fully aware that I have no forces, but I +affirm you have not either. You have, say you? Well, give me the proof. +To-morrow, at eleven o'clock, bring me 12,000 men to the Place de la +Concorde, and I will try to do something." He wanted to make an attempt +by the Clamart station. The _chefs-de-légion_ engaged to find the men, +and spent the whole night in search of them. + +While these contests went on, the fort of Issy was being evacuated. +Since the morning it had been reduced to the last extremity. Any of its +defenders who approached the guns was a dead man. In the evening the +officers assembled, and came to the conclusion that they could no longer +hold out. Thereupon the men, driven away from all sides by the shells, +massed themselves under the entrance vault, when a shell from the Moulin +de Pierre fell in their midst, killing sixteen of them. Rist, Julien, +and several others, who were stubbornly bent upon holding these ruins, +were at last obliged to yield. About seven o'clock the evacuation began. +The commander, Lisbonne, one of the members of the first Central +Committee, a man of extraordinary courage, covered the retreat amidst a +shower of bullets. + +A few hours after, the Versaillese, crossing the Seine, established +themselves before Boulogne in front of the bastions of the Point du +Jour, and opened a trench three hundred yards from the enceinte. All +that night and the whole morning of the 9th the War Office and the +Committee of Public Safety knew nothing of the evacuation of the fort. + +On the 9th, at mid-day, the battalions asked for by Rossel were drawn up +along the Place de la Concorde. Rossel arrived on horseback, hardly +looked at the front lines, and then addressed the _chefs-de-légion_, +"There are not enough men here for me;" and at once turning about, rode +off to the War Office, where he was informed of the evacuation of the +fort of Issy. He seized his pen, wrote, "The tricolor flag floats from +the fort of Issy, abandoned yesterday evening by the garrison," and, +without apprising the Council or the Committee of Public Safety, gave +the order to placard ten thousand copies of these two lines, while six +thousand was the number usually printed. + +He next sent in his resignation: "Citizens, members of the Commune, I +feel myself incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a +command where every one deliberates and no one obeys. The Central +Committee of Artillery has deliberated and prescribed nothing. The +Commune has deliberated and resolved upon nothing. The Central +Committee deliberates and has not yet known how to act. During this +delay the enemy has hemmed in the fort of Issy by imprudent attacks, for +which I would punish him if I had the smallest military force at my +disposal." He then recounted in his own fashion, and very inaccurately, +the evacuation of the fort, the review on the Place de la Concorde; said +that, instead of the 12,000 men promised, there were only 7,000,[155] +and concluded: "Thus the nullity of the Committee of Artillery prevented +the organisation of the artillery; the hesitation of the Central +Committee stopped the administration; the paltry pre-occupations of the +_chefs-de-légion_ paralysed the mobilisation of the troops. My +predecessor committed the fault of struggling against this absurd +situation. I retire, and have the honour to ask you for a cell at +Mazas." + +He thus thought to clear his military reputation; but point by point he +might have been categorically answered. Why did you accept this "absurd" +situation with which you were thoroughly conversant? Why did you make no +conditions on entering the Ministry on the 1st April, no condition to +the Council on the 2nd and 3rd May? Why did you send away at least 7,000 +men this morning, when you pretend not to have "the smallest military +force" at your disposal? Why did you know nothing for fifteen hours of +the evacuation of a fort whose straits it was your duty to watch from +hour to hour? Where is your second enceinte? Why has no work been done +at Montmartre and the Panthéon? + +Rossel might perhaps have addressed his reproaches to the Council, but +he committed an unpardonable fault in sending his letters to the +journals. Thus in less than two hours he had disheartened 8,000 +combatants, spread panic, stigmatised the brave men of Issy, denounced +the weakness of the defence to the enemy, and that at the very moment +when the Versaillese were rejoicing over the taking of Issy. + +There every one was merrymaking. M. Thiers and MacMahon harangued the +soldiers, who, singing, brought back the few pieces found in the fort. +The Assembly suspended its sittings and came into the marble court to +applaud these children of the people who thought themselves victors. M. +Thiers a month later said from the tribune, "When I see these sons of +our soil, strangers often to an education that elevates, die for you, +for us, I am profoundly touched." Touching emotion this of the hunter +before his pack. Remember this avowal and the sort of men for whom you +die, sons of the soil! + +And at the Hôtel-de-Ville they were still disputing! Rigault +recriminated. The majority of the Council had named him procureur of the +Commune in spite of his culpable levity at the Prefecture. The +discussion was growing angry when Delescluze entered hastily and +exclaimed, "You discuss when it has been placarded that the tricolor +flag floats from the fort of Issy. I make an appeal to you all. I had +hoped that France would be saved by Paris and Europe by France. The +Commune is pregnant with a power of revolutionary instinct capable of +saving the country. Cast aside to-day all your animosities. We must save +the country. The Committee of Public Safety has not answered our +expectations. It has been an obstacle instead of a stimulus. With what +is it occupying itself? With individual appointments instead of general +measures. A decree signed Meillet names this citizen himself governor of +the fort of Bicêtre. We had a man there, a soldier,[156] who was thought +too severe. It is desirable that all were as severe as he. Your +Committee of Public Safety is undone, crushed beneath the weight of the +memories attached to it. I say it must disappear." + +The Assembly, thus brought back to a sense of its duty, resolved into a +secret committee, thoroughly discussing the Committee of Public Safety. +What had it done for a week past? Installed the Central Committee at the +War Office, increased the disorder, sustained two disasters. Its members +lost themselves in details or else did amateur service. One deserted +the Hôtel-de-Ville to go and shut himself up in a fort; if at least it +had been that of Issy or of Vanves! Félix Pyat passed the greater part +of his time in the office of the _Vengeur_, there venting his spleen in +long-winded articles. A member of the Committee of Public Safety +endeavoured to defend it by pleading the vagueness of its attributes. He +was answered that Article 3 of the decree gave the Committee full powers +over all the Commissions. Finally, after many hours, they decided to +renew the Committee at once; to appoint a civil delegate to the War +Office; to draw up a proclamation; to meet, save in cases of emergency, +only three times a week; to establish the new Committee permanently at +the Hôtel-de-Ville, while the other members of the Council were to stay +regularly in their respective arrondissements. Delescluze was named +Delegate at War. + +In the evening, at ten o'clock, there was a second meeting for the +nomination of the new Committee. The majority voted Félix Pyat, quite +exasperated at the attacks of the afternoon, to the chair. He opened the +sitting by demanding the arrest of Rossel. Cleverly grouping together +appearances which seemed proofs to the suspicious, he made Rossel the +scapegoat of the faults of the Committee, turning the anger of the +Council against him. For half an hour he disparaged the absent man, whom +he would not have dared attack to his face. "I told you, citizens, that +he was a traitor. You would not believe me. You are young; you did not, +like our paragons of the Convention, know how to mistrust military +power." This reminiscence ravished the Romanticists. They had but one +dream--to be Conventionnels. So difficult was it for this revolution of +proletarians to rid itself of bourgeois tinsel. + +The ire of Pyat was not wanted to convince the Assembly. Rossel's act +was culpable in the eyes of the least prejudiced. His arrest was decreed +unanimously, less two voices, and the Commission of War received the +order to carry it out. + +They next passed to the nomination of the Committee. The minority, a +little reassured by the election of Delescluze and Jourde, which seemed +to acknowledge the right of the Council to appoint the delegates, +resolved to take part in the vote, and asked for a place in the list of +the majority. This was an excellent occasion to efface all differences, +to re-establish union against Versailles. But the perfidious promptings +of Félix Pyat had induced the Romanticists to look upon their colleagues +of the minority as veritable reactionists. After his speech the sitting +was suspended; little by little the members of the minority found +themselves alone in the council-hall. They looked for their colleagues +and surprised them in a neighbouring room deliberating apart. After a +violent altercation they all returned to the Council. + +A member of the minority demanded that they should put an end to these +shameful divisions. A Romanticist answered by asking for the arrest of +the factious minority, and the President, Pyat, was about to empty the +vials of his wrath, when Malon cried to him, "Silence! you are the evil +genius of this revolution. Do not continue to spread your venomous +suspicions, to stir up discords. It is your influence that is ruining +the Commune!" And Arnold, one of the founders of the Central Committee, +"It is still these fellows of 1848 who will undo the revolution." + +But it was too late now to engage in the struggle, and the minority was +to expiate its doctrinairism and maladroitness. The whole list of the +majority passed; Ranvier, Arnaud, Gambon, Delescluze, and Eudes. The +nomination of Delescluze to the War Office having left a vacancy, there +was after two days a second vote, and the minority proposed Varlin. The +majority, abusing their victory, committed the impropriety of preferring +Billioray, a most worthless member. + +The Council broke up at one o'clock in the morning. "Did not we do them? +and what do you think of the way I managed the business?" said Félix +Pyat to his friends on leaving the chair.[157] This honest mandatory, +altogether absorbed in the work of "doing" his colleagues, had forgotten +to verify the capture of the fort of Issy. And that same evening, +twenty-six hours after the evacuation, the Hôtel-de-Ville placarded on +the door of the mairies, "It is false that the tricolor flag floats on +the fort of Issy. The Versaillese do not and shall not occupy it." This +contradiction was as good as Trochu's apropos of Metz. + +During these tempests at the Hôtel-de-Ville the Central Committee had +sent for Rossel, reproached him with the placard of the afternoon, and +the unusual number of copies printed. He defended himself acrimoniously. +"It was my duty. The greater the danger, the greater the duty to make it +known to the people." Yet he had done nothing of the kind on the +surprise of the Moulin-Saquet. After his departure the Committee +deliberated at length. Some one said, "We are lost if we get no +dictatorship." For some days this idea was uppermost in the Committee. +The latter voted quite seriously that there should be a dictator, and +that the dictator was to be Rossel. A deputation of five members gravely +went to fetch him; he came down to the Committee, pretended to reflect, +and finally said, "It is too late. I am no longer delegate. I have sent +in my resignation." Some waxing angry with him, he rebuked them and +left. In his cabinet he found the Commission of War, Delescluze, Tridon, +Avrial, Johannard, Varlin, and Arnold, who had just arrived. + +Delescluze explained their mission. Rossel listened very calmly; said +that though the decree was unjust, he submitted to it. He then described +the military situation, the rivalries of all kinds that had continually +clogged him, the weakness of the Council. "It has not known," said he, +"how to utilise the Central Committee, nor how to break it at the +opportune time. Our resources are quite sufficient, and I am ready, for +my own part, to assume all responsibility, but on the condition of being +supported by a strong and homogeneous power. I could not in the face of +history take upon myself the responsibility for certain necessary +repressions without the assent and support of the Commune." He spoke at +great length in that clear and nervous style that twice in the Council +had won over his most decided adversaries. The Commission, much struck +by his arguments, withdrew to another room. Delescluze declared that he +could not make up his mind to arrest Rossel till the Council had heard +him. His colleagues were of the same opinion, and left the ex-delegate +under the guard of Avrial and Johannard, who the next morning conducted +him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Avrial stayed with Rossel in the questor's +office, while Johannard went to apprise the Council of their arrival. + +Some wanted Rossel to be heard; the greater number, distrustful of +themselves, were afraid lest his voice should again bring round the +Council, maintained that his hearing was contrary to equity, and cited +the example of Cluseret, who had been arrested without being heard, as +though one injustice could sanction another. The admission of Rossel was +refused. + +Ch. Gérardin, a member of the Council, repaired to the questor's office. +"What has the Commune decided?" said Avrial. "Nothing yet," answered Ch. +Gérardin, who nevertheless had just left the sitting, and seeing +Avrial's revolver on the table, he said to Rossel, "Your guardian +fulfils his duty conscientiously." "I do not suppose," answered Rossel +hurriedly, "that this precaution concerns me. Besides, Citizen Avrial, I +give you my word of honour as a soldier that I shall not seek to +escape." + +Avrial, very tired of his post as sentry, had already asked the Council +to relieve him. Receiving no answer, he thought he might leave his +prisoner under the guard of a member of the Committee of Public +Safety--for Ch. Gérardin had not yet been discharged from his +functions--and he proceeded to the Council. When he returned, Rossel and +Ch. Gérardin were gone. The ambitious young man had slunk like a weasel +out of this civil war into which he had heedlessly thrown himself. + +One may divine whether Pyat was sparing of adjectives against the +fugitive. The new Committee having just been informed of the discovery +of two conspiracies, launched a desperate proclamation: "Treason had +slipped into our ranks. The abandonment of the fort of Issy announced in +an impious placard by the wretch who surrendered it, was only the first +act of the drama. A monarchical insurrection in our midst coinciding +with the surrender of one of our gates was to follow. All the threads of +the dark plot are now in our hands. Most of the culprits are arrested. +Let all eyes be open, all arms ready to strike the traitors!" + +This was going off into melodrama when cold blood and precision were +wanted. And the Committee boasted strangely when it pretended to have +arrested "most of the culprits" and that it held "in its hands all the +threads of the dark plot." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[152] On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be admitted, +and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the decree was +not executed, although in the Hôtel-de-Ville itself there was the +splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few hours. + +[153] The reports in the _Officiel_, confided to inexperienced writers, +who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the +printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret +committees, give but a very vague idea of these sittings. + +[154] "Committee of Public Safety, No. 98.--Paris, 3rd May +1871.--General Wroblewski,--Please repair immediately to the fort of +Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering, +artillery, &c. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Félix +Pyat, Ant. Arnaud. Enclosed is a despatch from the commander of the +fort." + +Before the public, ignorant of this despatch, Pyat kept up his lie. He +said in the _Vengeur_: "The only order given directly to the generals by +the Committee of Public Safety to defend Issy, which Rossel did not +defend, was addressed to General Wroblewski, intrusted with the forts of +the south. The Committee of Public Safety, in ordering him to watch over +Issy, did not displace him." In point of fact, not Wroblewski was +charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La Cécilia, who since +the reoccupation held the chief post on this side, and commanded Wetzel, +intrusted with the defence of the approaches of the fort. + +[155] The _chefs-de-légion_ have said 10,000. The truth lies between the +two. + +[156] P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian General +Bossack. + +[157] Heard and reported by Lefrançais, whose veracity is above +suspicion. _Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste par G. Lefrançais_, p. +294. Neuchâtel, 1870. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE. + + +The Commune had given rise to the various trades of the plot-monger, the +betrayer of gates, the conspiracy-broker. Vulgar sharpers, Jonathan +Wilds of the gutter, whom a shadow of police would have scared away, +they had no other strength than the weakness of the prefecture and the +carelessness of the delegations. The evidence relative to them is to a +certain extent still in the keeping of the Versaillese; but they have +themselves published a good deal, often borne witness against each +other, and what with private information, what with the opportunities +offered by our exile, we shall be able to penetrate into this realm of +blackguardism. + +From the end of March they levied contributions upon all the Ministries +of Versailles, offering for a few sous to surrender some of the gates of +Paris or to kidnap the members of the Council. By degrees they were more +or less classed. The colonel of the staff, Corbin, was charged with the +organisation of the faithful National Guards still at Paris. The +commander of a reactionary battalion, Charpentier, a former drill +officer of St. Cyr, offered him his services, was accepted, and +presented a few of his cronies, Durouchoux, Demay, and Gallimard. Their +instructions were to recruit clandestine battalions, who were to occupy +the strategic points of the town on the day when the general attack +would summons all the Federals to the ramparts. A naval officer, +Domalain, offered at that moment to surprise Montmartre, the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the Place Vendôme, and the commissariat, with a few +thousand volunteers, whom he professed to have at hand. He entered into +partnership with Charpentier. + +They bestirred themselves with might and main, grouped an astonishing +number of persons around official posts, and soon gave notice of 6,000 +men and 150 artillerists provided with spiking machines. All these brave +ones only waited for a signal. In the meanwhile, money was of course +wanted to keep up their zeal, and Charpentier and Domalain, through the +agency of Durouchoux, indeed drew several hundred thousand francs from +the Versaillese. + +Towards the end of April they found a redoubtable rival in Le Mère de +Beaufond, an ex-naval officer and governor of Cayenne _ad interim_. +Instead of drumming up for bourgeois recruits, an idea he declared +ridiculous, Beaufond proposed paralysing the resistance by means of +clever agents who should provoke defections and disorganise the +services. His plan, quite in accord with M. Thiers' notions, was +favourably looked upon at Versailles, which gave him full powers. He +took as helpmates two men of resolution, Laroque, a clerk at the bank, +and Lasnier, an ex-officer of Schoelcher's legion. + +Besides these, the Ministry had still other bloodhounds--the Alsatian +Aronshonne, colonel of a free corps during the war, cashiered by his +men, who at Tours had accused him of theft; Franzini, later on +extradited by England and condemned as a swindler; Barral de Montaut, +who boldly presented himself at the War Office, and, thanks to his +aplomb, got himself named chief of the seventh legion; the Abbé Cellini, +chaplain of one knows not what fleet, patronised by Jules Simon; last, +the noble-minded conspirators, the great generals disdained by the +revolution, Lullier, Du Bisson, Ganier d'Abin. These honest Republicans +could not allow the Commune to ruin the Republic. If they accepted money +from Versailles, it was only with a view to saving Paris and the +Republican party from the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville. They wanted to +overthrow the Commune, but betray it, oh! no, by no means! + +One Brière de St.-Lagier framed comprehensive reports on all these +knights, and M. Thiers' secretary, Troncin-Dumersan, condemned three +years after as swindler, travelled backwards and forwards between Paris +and Versailles, brought the money, superintended and held in his hand +all the threads of these multifarious conspiracies, the one being often +carried on behind the back of the other. + +Thence continual collisions. The ragamuffins mutually denounced each +other. Brière de St.-Lagier wrote: "I beg M. le Ministre of the Interior +to have M. Le Mère de Beaufond watched. I strongly suspect him of being +a Bonapartist. The money he has received has been used to a great extent +to pay his debts." By way of compensation another report said, "I +suspect MM. Domalain, Charpentier, and Brière de St.-Lagier. They often +meet at Peter's, and instead of occupying themselves with the great +cause of the deliverance, imitate Pantagruel. They pass for +Orleanists."[158] + +The most venturesome of these enterprisers, Beaufond, managed to enter +into relations with the general staff of Colonel Henry Prodhomme, with +the Ecole Militaire, commanded by Vinot, and with the War Office, where +the chief of the artillery, Guyet, contrived to embroil the service of +the munitions. His agents, Lasnier and Laroque, worked upon a certain +Muley, who, having circumvented the Central Committee, got himself named +chief of the seventeenth legion, and to some extent disabled it. An +officer of artillery, Captain Piguier, placed at their disposal by the +Ministry, traced the plan of the barricades, and one of the band could +write on the 8th May, "No torpedoes are laid; the army may enter to the +flourish of trumpets." Now they had recourse to direct subornation; now +acting the part of fervent Communards, they knew how to draw out +information; while the imprudence of the functionaries singularly +facilitated their task. Staff officers, chiefs of services, fond of +assuming consequential airs, discussed the most delicate matters in the +cafés of the boulevards, full of spies.[159] Cournet, who had succeeded +Rigault at the prefecture of police, despite the gravity of his +deportment, did not better the service of general safety. Lullier, twice +arrested, each time escaping, openly spoke in the cafés of sweeping away +the Commune. Troncin-Dumersan, known for twenty years as the police +agent of the Ministry of the Interior, freely promenaded on the +boulevards, passing his retainers in review. The contractors charged +with the fortification of Montmartre every day found new pretexts to +defer the opening of the works; the Bréa Church remained intact; the +undertaker of the demolition of the expiatory monument managed to put it +off till the entry of the troops. Hazard alone discovered the _brassard_ +(armlet) plot, and the fidelity of Dombrowski disclosed that of Vaysset. + +This commercial agent had gone to Versailles to propose to the Ministry +an operation of revictualling. Shown out, he again turned up, but this +time with the offer to bribe Dombrowski. Under the patronage of Admiral +Saisset--more crazy than ever--he got up his enterprise in the shape of +a commercial society, found shareholders, twenty thousand francs for the +incidental expenses, and entered into communication with an aide-de-camp +of Dombrowski's named Hutzinger, afterwards employed by the Versaillese +police as spy amongst the exiles in London. Vaysset told him that +Versailles would give Dombrowski a million if the general surrendered +the gates under his command. Dombrowski at once apprised the Committee +of Public Safety, and proposed to allow one or two Versaillese army +corps to enter the town and then to crush them by battalions lying in +ambush. The Committee would not risk this venture, but ordered +Dombrowski to follow up the negotiation.[160] Hutzinger accompanied +Vaysset to Versailles, saw Saisset, who offered to surrender himself as +hostage in guarantee of the execution of the promises made to +Dombrowski. The admiral was even, on a certain night, to repair secretly +to the Place Vendôme, and the Committee of Public Safety, forewarned, +was preparing to arrest him, when Barthélemy St. Hilaire dissuaded +Saisset from this new blunder. + +Then M. Thiers began to abandon the hope of taking the town by surprise. +This was his hobby of the first days of May. Upon the faith of a +bailiff, who promised to get the Dauphine gate surrendered by his friend +Laporte, chief of the sixteenth legion, M. Thiers had built up a whole +plan in spite of the repugnance of MacMahon and of the army, eager for a +triumphal entry.[161] In the night of the 3d May the whole active army +and part of the reserve were set on foot, and General Thiers went to +sleep at Sévres. At midnight the troops were massed in the Bois de +Boulogne before the lower lake, their eyes fixed on the closed gates. +The latter were to be thrown open by a reactionary company which had +formed at Passy under the orders of Wéry, a lieutenant of the +thirty-eighth, acting as deputy of his former commander, Lavigne. But +the intelligent conspirators had forgotten to warn Lavigne, and the +company that was to relieve the Federals having had no order from their +superior, suspected an ambush, and refused the service. Thus the trusty +watch was not relieved. At dawn, after waiting in vain for several +hours, the troops returned to their cantonments. Two days after Laporte +was arrested and set free again, much too soon. + +Beaufond, taking up the bailiff's plan, guaranteed the surrender of the +gates of Auteuil and Dauphine for the night of the 12th to the 13th May. +M. Thiers, again caught, forwarded all the gear for an escalade, and +several detachments were directed towards the Point du Jour, while the +army held itself in readiness to follow. But at the last moment the +profound combinations of the conspirators were foiled,[162] and, as on +the 3rd, the army had to turn tail. This attempt was known to the +Committee of Public Safety, who had known nothing of the first one. + +Lasnier was arrested the next day. The Committee had just laid hands +upon the tricolor armlets which the National Guards of order were to +have worn on the entry of the army. The woman Legros, who made them, +neglected to pay the girls in her employ. One of them, believing that +the work was done on account of the Commune, went to ask for her wages +at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Inquiries made at the woman Legros' put them on +the traces of Beaufond and his accomplices. Beaufond and Laroque managed +to hide; Troncin-Dumersan packed off to Versailles. Charpentier thus +remained master of the field. Corbin urged him to organise his men by +tens and hundreds, and traced him out a whole plan by which to get +possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville immediately after the entry of the +troops. Charpentier, always imperturbable, diverted him day by day by +news of fresh conquests, spoke of 20,000 recruits, asked for dynamite to +blow up the houses,[163] and in true Pantagruelic style gobbled up the +considerable sums made over to him by Durouchoux. + +After all, the whole gang of conspirators did not succeed in +surrendering one single gate, but they lent considerable aid in +disorganising the services. Still great care should be taken in availing +oneself of their reports, often inflated with imaginary successes to +justify the disbursement of the hundreds of thousands of francs that +they pocketed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[158] All the unpublished reports that I quote and on which I rely have +been copied from the originals. + +[159] Appendix XI. + +[160] Appendix XII. + +[161] "It was better to take possession of the town by main force," said +the apostolic Comte de Mun (_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 277). +"Thus right manifests itself in peremptory manner"--the right of +carnage, no doubt. "It was better that it should not be said that we had +got in by the back-door." + +[162] It has been stated that a Polish officer of Dombrowski's staff, +killed afterwards during the street fight, was the agent in this +attempted treason. I have been unable, in spite of a minute search, to +discover the least proof of this imputation. + +[163] See a letter from Colonel Corbin, quoted in the _Histoire des +Conspirations sous la Commune_, a work by A. J. Dalsème, arranged in the +form of a novel, but containing some documents. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + "C'est par le canon et par la politique que nous avons pris + Paris."--_M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 18 Mars._ + + M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES--THE EXTREME + LEFT BETRAYS PARIS. + + +Who was the great conspirator against Paris? The Extreme Left. + +On the 19th March, what remained to M. Thiers wherewith to govern +France? He had neither an army, nor cannon, nor the large towns. These +possessed arms, and their workmen were on the alert. If that small +middle-class which makes the provinces endorse the revolutions of the +metropolis had followed the movement, imitated their kindred of Paris, +M. Thiers could not have opposed to them a single regiment. In order to +subsist, retain the provinces, and induce them to provide the soldiers +and the cannon that were to reduce Paris, what were the resources of the +chief of the bourgeoisie? A word and a handful of men. The word was +Republic; the men, the recognised chiefs of the Republican party. + +Though the dull rurals barked at the mere name of the Republic, and +refused to insert it in their proclamations, M. Thiers, more cunning, +mouthed it lustily, and distorting the votes of the Assembly,[164] gave +it out as the watchword to his underlings.[165] Since the first risings +all the provincial officials had the same refrain: "We defend the +Republic against the factions."[166] + +This was certainly something; but the rural votes, the past of M. +Thiers, clashed with these Republican protestations. The former heroes +of the National Defence were no longer acceptable as securities even for +the provinces. M. Thiers was well aware of it, and invoked the purest of +the pure--the chevroned returned from exile. Their prestige was still +intact in the eyes of the provincial democrats. M. Thiers met them in +the lobbies, told them they held the fate of the Republic in their +hands, flattered their senile vanity, and inveigled them so +successfully, that, from the 23rd,[167] they served him as +bottle-holders. When the small middle-class republicans of the provinces +beheld the profound Louis Blanc, the intelligent Schoelcher, and the +most famous grumblers of the radical vanguard fly to Versailles, and +insult the Central Committee, and, on the other hand, received neither +programme nor able emissaries from Paris, they turned away, and let the +flame enkindled by the workmen die out. + +The cannonading of the 3rd April roused them a little. On the 5th, the +municipal council of Lille, composed of Republican notabilities, spoke +of conciliation, and called upon M. Thiers to affirm the Republic. That +of Lyons drew up a like address; St. Omer sent delegates to Versailles; +Troyes declared that it was "heart and soul with the heroic citizens who +fought for their republican convictions." Mâcon summoned the Government +and the Assembly to put an end to this struggle by the recognition of +republican institutions. The Drôme, the Var, Vaucluse, the Ardèche, the +Loire, Savoy, the Hérault, the Gers, and the Eastern Pyrénées, twenty +departments, issued similar addresses. The workmen of Rouen declared +their adhesion to the Commune; the workmen of Havre, rebuffed by the +bourgeois Republicans, constituted an independent group. On the 16th +April, at Grenoble, 600 men, women, and children went to the station to +prevent the departure of the troops and munitions for Versailles. On the +18th, at Nîmes, the people, headed by a red flag, marched through the +town to the cry of "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris! Down with Versailles!" +On the 16th, 17th, 18th, there were disturbances at Bordeaux. Some +police agents were imprisoned, some officers ill-treated, the infantry +barracks pelted with stones, the people crying, "Vive Paris! Death to +the traitors!" The movement even spread to the agricultural classes. At +Saincoin in the Cher, at the Charité-sur-Loire, at Pouilly in the +Nièvre, the National Guards in arms carried about the red flag. Cosne +followed on the 18th, Fleury-sur-Loire on the 19th. The red flag was +permanently hoisted in the Ariège; at Foix they stopped the transport of +the cannon; at Varilhes they tried to run the munition trains off the +lines. At Périgueux, the workmen of the railway station seized the +mitrailleuses. + +On the 15th April five delegates from the municipal council of Lyons +presented themselves to M. Thiers. He protested his devotion to the +Republic, swore that the Assembly should not turn into a Constituent +Assembly. If he chose his functionaries outside the Republicans, it was +in order to treat all parties with consideration in the interest of the +Republic itself. He defended it against the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +its worst enemies, said he; the delegates might assure themselves of +this even in Paris, and he was quite ready to furnish them with +safe-conducts. Besides, if Lyons dared to stir, 30,000 men were ready to +quell it.[168] This was his typical speech. All the deputations +received the same answer, given with such an air of bonhommie and such +complaisant familiarity as quite to overwhelm the provincials. + +From the presidency they proceeded to the luminaries of the Extreme +Left, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Adam, and other eminent democrats, who +endorsed M. Thiers' words. These gentlemen, if condescending to admit +that the cause of Paris was not altogether wrong, declared it ill-begun +and compromised by a criminal combat. When Paris once disarmed they +would see what could be done. Opportunism is not of yesterday's growth. +It was born[169] into the world on the 19th March, 1871, had Louis Blanc +& Co. for godfathers, and was baptized in the blood of 30,000 Parisians. +"With whom should they treat in Paris?" asked Louis Blanc. "Without +speaking of Bonapartist and Prussian intrigues, the people who were +there striving to seize the government were fanatics, fools, or +rogues."[170] And all the Radicals bridled up: "Should we not be at +Paris if Paris were in the right?" The majority of the delegates, +lawyers, doctors, business men, brought up in veneration of these +shining lights, hearing besides the young men speaking like the +pontiffs, went back to the provinces, and as the Left preached to them, +preached in turn that it was necessary to abandon the Commune in order +to save the Republic. A few of them had visited Paris; but seeing the +divisions of the Hôtel-de-Ville, often received by men unable to +formulate their ideas, threatened by Félix Pyat in the _Vengeur_, they +came back convinced that nothing could emerge from this disorder. When +they again passed through Versailles the deputies of the Left triumphed. +"Well, what did we tell you?" Even Martin-Bernard gave his electors the +ass's kick. + +At Paris there were people who could not believe in such barefaced +treachery on the part of the Left, and still adjured them. "What are you +about at Versailles when Versailles is bombarding Paris?" said an +address of the end of April. "What figure can you cut in the midst of +these colleagues who assassinate your electors? If you persist in +remaining amongst the enemies of Paris, at least do not make yourselves +their accomplices by your silence. What! you allow M. Thiers to write to +the departments, '_The insurgents are emptying the principal houses of +Paris in order to put the furniture to sale_,' and you do not ascend the +tribune to protest! What! the whole Bonapartist and rural press may +inundate the departments with infamous articles, in which they affirm +that at Paris murder, violation, and theft reign supreme, and you are +silent! What! M. Thiers may assert that his gendarmes do not assassinate +the prisoners; you cannot ignore these atrocious executions, and you are +silent! Ascend the tribune; tell the departments the truth, which the +enemies of the Commune conceal from them. But our enemies, are they +yours also?" + +A useless appeal, which the cowardice of the Left knew how to elude. +Louis Blanc, in his Tartuffe style, exclaimed, "O civil war! hideous +struggle! The cannon thunder! People are killing each other and dying; +and those in the Assembly who would willingly give their life to see +this sanguinary problem pacifically resolved are condemned to the +torture of not being able to make an act, utter a cry, speak a word." +Since the birth of the French Assemblies so ignominious a Left had never +been seen. The spectacle of the prisoners smitten, reviled, spat upon, +was unable to draw a protest from these wretched Parisian deputies. One +only, Tolain, asked for an explanation on the assassination at the +Belle-Epine. Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Greppo, Adam, Langlois, Brisson, +&c., the Gérontes and the Scapins, sanctimoniously contemplated their +bombarded electors, and, fully aware of the facile forgetfulness of +Paris, dreamt of their future re-election. + +Their calumnies succeeded in stifling the action but not the anguish of +the provinces. With heart and soul the workmen of France were with +Paris. The employés at the railway stations harangued the soldiers on +their passage, adjuring them to raise the butt-ends of their guns; the +official placards were torn during the night; the large centres sent +their addresses by the hundred; all the Republican papers demanded +peace, sought for some method of conciliation between Paris and +Versailles. + +Paris and Versailles! The agitation becoming chronic, M. Thiers launched +forth Dufaure, the Chapelier of the modern bourgeoisie, one of the most +odious executors of its dirty work. He enjoined his procureurs to +prosecute all the writers countenancing the Commune, "that dictatorship +usurped by foreigners and ticket-of-leave men, which signalises its +reign by burglary, breaking open private houses in the dead of night and +by force of arms," and to lay hands upon "the conciliators who entreat +the Assembly to hold out its noble hand to the blood-stained hand of its +enemies." Versailles thus hoped to strike terror at the moment of the +municipal elections, which took place on the 30th April. + +They were everywhere Republican. These provinces, which had risen +against Paris in June, 1848, and in the elections of 1849, did not send +a hundred volunteers in 1871, and would only fight the Assembly. At +Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme) the people occupied the Hôtel-de-Ville, hoisted the +red flag, and seized the telegraphs. There occurred disturbances at +Souppe, Nemours, Château-Landau, in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. +At Dordives (Loiret) the Communards planted a poplar surmounted by the +red flag in front of the mairie. At Montargis they raised the red flag, +placarded the appeal of the Commune to the rural districts, and forced a +solicitor who had tried to tear down the placard to ask pardon on his +knees. At Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) a demonstration took place to the +cries of "Vive la République! Vive la Commune!" + +Lyons rose in insurrection. Since the 24th March the tricolor lorded it +here, save at the Guillotière,[171] where the people maintained the red +one. The Council on its return to the Hôtel-de-Ville had demanded the +recognition of the rights of Paris, the election of a Constituent +Assembly, and named an officer of _francs-tireurs_, Bourras, commander +of the National Guard. While the Council multiplied its addresses and +its applications to M. Thiers, the National Guard was again stirring. It +presented a programme to the municipal council, which officially +rejected it. The rebuff met by the delegates sent to Versailles +increased the irritation. When the communal elections were announced for +the 30th April, the revolutionary element maintained that the municipal +law voted by the Assembly was null and void, because that Assembly had +not the rights of a constituent one. Two delegates from Paris summoned +the mayor, Hénon, to postpone the elections; and one of the actors in +the affray of the 28th September, Gaspard Blanc, reappeared on the +scene. The Radicals, always upon the scent of Bonapartism, have made +much ado about the presence of that personage. However, at that time he +was as yet but a madcap, and only in exile put on the Imperialist +livery. On the 27th, at the Brotteaux, in a large public meeting, +abstention from voting was decided upon. All the committees of the +Guillotière followed, and in a public sitting of the 29th resolved to +oppose the vote. + +On the 30th, the day of the elections, from six o'clock in the morning +the _rappel_ was beaten at the Guillotière; armed citizens carried off +the ballot-boxes, and posted sentinels at the entrance of the hall. A +proclamation was placarded: "The city of Lyons can no longer look on +while her sister the heroic city of Paris is being strangled. The +Lyonnese revolutionists have with one accord named a Provisional +Commission. Its members are above all determined, rather than sustain +defeat, to make one heap of ruins of a town cowardly enough to allow the +assassination of Paris and the Republic." The Place de la Mairie was +thronged with an excited crowd; the mayor, Crestin, and his adjutant, +who attempted to interfere, were not listened to, and a Revolutionary +Commission installed itself in the Mairie. + +Bourras sent an order to the commanders of the Guillotière to unite +their battalions. They drew up towards two o'clock in the Des Brosses +court. A great number of guards disapproved the movement, yet no one was +willing to be the soldier of Versailles. The crowd surrounded them, and +finally broke the ranks; about a hundred, led by their captain, went to +the Mairie to hoist their red field-colours. The mayor was sent for, and +the Commission called upon him to join the movement; but he refused, as +he had done on the 22nd March. Suddenly the cannon thundered. + +Hénon and his council, as the month before, would have liked to +temporise; while Valentin and Crouzat dreamt of Espivent. At five +o'clock the 38th of the line debouched by the bridge of the Guillotière; +the crowd penetrated into the ranks of the soldiers, conjuring them not +to fire, and the officers were constrained to take back their men to the +barracks. During this time the Guillotière was fortifying itself. A +large barricade, extending from the store-houses of the Nouveau-Monde to +the angle of the Mairie, barred the Grande Rue; another was thrown up at +the entrance of the Rue des Trois Rois; a third on a level with the Rue +de Chabrol. + +At half-past six the 38th came out of their barracks, but this time +watched by a battalion of chasseurs. Valentin, Crouzat, and the +procureur de la république marched at their head. In front of the mairie +the Riot Act was read; some shots answered it, wounding the prefect. The +cavalry swept the Des Brosses court and the Place de la Mairie, while +two pieces of cannon opened fire on the edifice. Its doors soon gave way +and the occupants abandoned it. The troops entered after having killed +the sentinel, intent upon mounting guard to the very last. It has been +said that five insurgents, taken by surprise in the interior of the +building, were killed by a Versaillese officer with shots from his +revolver. + +The struggle continued during part of the night in the neighbouring +streets, and the soldiers, deceived by the darkness, killed about a +hundred of their own men. The losses of the Communards were less great. +By three o'clock in the morning all was over. + +At the Croix-Rousse some citizens had invaded the mairie and scattered +the voting-papers; the check of the Guillotière cut short their +resistance. + +The Versaillese took advantage of this victory to disarm the battalions +of the Guillotière; but the population refused, rallying round the +victors. Some monarchists had been elected during the day, but everybody +considering the elections of the 30th null and void, they were obliged +to submit to a second ballot, and not one of them was re-elected. The +movement in favour of Paris continued. + +These newly-elected republican councillors might have effectively +counterbalanced the authority of Versailles; the advanced press +encouraged them. The _Tribune_ of Bordeaux had the honour first to +propose a congress of all the towns of France, for the purpose of +terminating the civil war, assuring the municipal franchises, and +consolidating the Republic. The municipal council of Lyons issued an +identical programme, inviting all the municipalities to send delegates +to Lyons. On the 4th May the delegates of the councils of the principal +towns of the Hérault met at Montpellier. The _Liberté_ of the Hérault, +in a warm appeal reproduced by fifty journals, convoked the departmental +press to a congress. A common action was about to take the place of the +incoherent agitations of the last few weeks. If the provinces understood +their own strength, the time, their wants--if they found a group of men +equal to the occasion, Versailles, taken between Paris and the +departments, would have been obliged to capitulate to Republican France. +M. Thiers, with a vivid presentment of the danger, affected the attitude +of a strong Government, and energetically forbade the congresses. "The +Government would betray the Assembly, France, civilisation," said the +_Officiel_ of the 8th May, "if it allowed the assizes of Communism and +of the rebellion to constitute themselves by the side of the regular +power issued from universal suffrage." Picard, speaking from the tribune +of the instigation of the congress, said, "Never was there a more +criminal attempt than theirs. Outside the Assembly there exists no +right." The procureurs-généraux and the prefects received the order to +prevent all meetings. Some members of the _Ligue des Droits de Paris_ on +their way to Bordeaux were arrested. + +More was not needed to frighten the Radicals. The organisers of the +congress of Bordeaux held their peace; those of Lyons wrote a piteous +address to Versailles, to the effect that they had only intended +convoking an assembly of the notables. M. Thiers, having attained his +object, disdained to prosecute them, even allowed the delegates of +eighteen departments to draw up their grievances, and seriously declare +that they "made that one of the two combatants responsible who should +refuse their conditions." And yet they might feel proud. Their chief had +done less. Gambetta had retired to Spain, to St. Sébastien, and there, +mute, without a sign of sympathy for those who sacrificed themselves for +the Republic, he in a cynical _far niente_ awaited the issue of the +civil war. + +Thus the small middle-class of the provinces missed a rare chance of +conquering their liberties, of again taking up their grand rôle of 1792. +It became obvious how much its blood and its intelligence had been +impoverished by a long political vassalage and the complete absence of +all municipal life. From the 19th March to the 5th April they had +forsaken the workmen, when by seconding their efforts they might have +saved and continued the Revolution. When at last they wanted to +pronounce, they found themselves alone, the toy and laughing-stock of +their enemies. Such is their history since Robespierre. + +So on the 10th May M. Thiers entirely mastered the situation. Making use +of all arms, of corruption as well as of patriotism, lying in his +telegrams, making his journals lie, by turns familiar and haughty in his +interviews with the deputations, putting forward now his gendarmes, now +the deputies of the Left, he had succeeded in baffling all attempts at +conciliation. He had just signed the peace of Frankfort, and, free on +this side, rid of the provinces, he remained alone face to face with +Paris. + +It was time. Five weeks of siege had exhausted the patience of the +rurals; the suspicions of the first days were reviving; they fancied +that the "petit bourgeois" was procrastinating in order to spare Paris. +The _Union des Syndicats_ had just published a report of a new +interview, in which M. Thiers had seemed to relax. A deputy of the Right +rushed to the tribune accusing M. Thiers of putting off the entry into +Paris. He answered curtly, "The opening by our army of trenches only six +hundred yards from Paris does not signify that we do not want to enter +there." The following day, 12th May, the Right returned to the charge. +Was it true that M. Thiers had said to the mayor of Bordeaux, "If the +insurgents will cease hostilities the gates of Paris shall be flung wide +open during a week for all except the assassins of the generals?" Could +it be that the Government intended withdrawing some Parisians out of the +clutches of the Assembly? M. Thiers inveighed, whined. "You select the +day when I am exiled, on which my house is being pulled down. It is an +indignity. I am obliged to command terrible acts; I command them. I must +have a vote of confidence." At last, nettled out of patience, he +retorted upon the rural growls with a snarl. "I tell you that there are +among you imprudent men, who are in too great a hurry. They must have +another eight days. At the end of these eight days there will be no more +danger, and the task will be proportionate to their courage and to their +capacity." + +Eight days! Do you hear, members of the Commune? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[164] On the 23rd, Picard telegraphed to the procureur-general of Aix: +"The Republic was, the day before yesterday, again affirmed in a +proclamation of the Assembly." The very proclamation which the Assembly +had refused to conclude by the cry "Vive la République!" + +[165] The same day--it was that of the Marseilles insurrection--Dufaure +telegraphed to the same procureur-general: "Read the name République +Française at the head of all the despatches I send you." + +[166] I have in my possession about twenty proclamations of prefects or +magistrates. They are all on this point identically the same. + +[167] "A great speech of the President of the Council has been applauded +by the Extreme left." The speech of the 21st March against Paris. +Dufaure to the procureur-general at Aix, 23rd March. + +[168] He confessed his trickery in a speech pronounced at Bordeaux in +1875: "I was enabled with the remains of the defeated army to unite a +military force of 150,000 men, but if this force was sufficient to tear +Paris from the Commune, it could not have kept down the large towns of +France, keenly bent on the maintenance of the Republic, and coming to +ask me with distrust and irritation if it were the monarchy that we +combated for." + +[169] I should say "resuscitated," if it were not doing these eunuchs +too much honour to compare them to Robespierre, who by their side +appears a hero. But how prevent one's thoughts from wandering to the +pontiff declaring inopportune the Republican outburst of June-July 1791; +inopportune the cries of Paris famished by engrossers; inopportune the +people asking for a single article in their favour in the Constitution +of 1798; inopportune the commissaries, without whom France would have +been dismembered; inopportune the great movement against the Church; +inopportune the Socialists and Jacques Roux, whom he did to death; +inopportune the popular societies closed by him, and after the +disappearance of which Paris expired; inopportune Clootz, yearning to +rally round France all the revolutionary forces of the world; +inopportune Hébert, who, nevertheless, had helped him to stifle the +Socialists; inopportune, in fine, all that was not cut out after his own +amiable pattern up to the day when he was himself declared inopportune +by the great bourgeoisie, who found it as easy as opportune to swallow +him at a mouthful as soon as he had purged, bled, muzzled for them the +revolutionary lion. + +[170] Appendix XIII. + +[171] The workmen's quarter in Lyons. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY-- + EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF + ISSY--THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY--THE EXPLOSION IN + THE AVENUE RAPP--FALL OF THE VENDÔME COLUMN. + + +At the advent of the new Committee on the 10th May our military +situation had not changed within the line from St. Ouen to Neuilly, +where both sides faced each other on the same level; but it was becoming +serious from La Muette. The powerful battery of Montretout, that of +Meudon, of Mont-Valérien, covered Passy with shells and greatly injured +the ramparts. The Versaillese trenches extended from Boulogne to the +Seine. Their skirmishers were pressing upon the village of Issy, and +occupied the trenches between the fort and that of Vanves, which they +tried to cut off from Montrouge. The negligence of the defence was still +the same. The ramparts from La Muette to the fort of Vanves were hardly +armed; our gunboats supported almost alone the fire of Meudon, Clamart, +and Val-Fleury. + +The first act of the new Committee was to order the demolition of M. +Thiers' house. This giddy act helped the bombarder to a palace, which +the Assembly voted him the day after. Then the Committee issued its +proclamation: "Treason had slipped into," &c. + +Delescluze issued one on his own account. He dragged himself along, +panting for breath, and might well say, "If I consulted only my strength +I should have declined this function. The situation is grave; but when I +contemplate the sublime future in store for our children, even though it +should not be given us to reap what we have sown, I shall still +enthusiastically hail the revolution of the 18th March." + +On entering the Ministry, he found the Central Committee also +elaborating a proclamation. "The Central Committee declares that it is +its duty not to allow this revolution of the 18th March, which it had so +well begun, to succumb. It will unsparingly break down all resistance. +It is determined to make an end of all controversies, put down the +malignants, quell rivalry, ignorance, and incapacity." This was to speak +more authoritatively than the Council, and, above all, to flatter itself +strangely. + +From the first night it was necessary to repair a disaster. The fort of +Vanves, upon which all the fires formerly directed against Issy were now +concentrated, had become almost untenable, and its commander had +evacuated it. Wroblewski, informed of this, took the command from La +Cécilia, who had fallen ill, and in the night of the 10th to the 11th +hurried thither at the head of the 187th and the 105th battalions of the +celebrated 11th legion, which up to the last day did not cease to supply +the defence with men. At four o'clock in the morning Wroblewski appeared +before the glacis where the Versaillese were stationed, charged them at +the point of the bayonet, put them to flight, took some prisoners, and +recovered the fort. Once more our brave Federals showed what they could +do when properly commanded. + +During the day the Versaillese recommenced the bombardment. They +overwhelmed the convent Des Oiseaux and the whole village of Issy, whose +principal street was now one heap of ruins, with shells, grenades filled +with potassium picrate. On the night of the 12th to the 13th they +surprised the Lycée of Vanves, and on the 13th they attacked the +seminary of Issy. For five days Brunel exhausted himself in trying to +bring a little order into the defence of this village. Rossel had sent +for this brave member of the Council, whom the jealousy of coteries kept +at a distance, and said to him, "The situation of Issy is almost lost; +will you undertake its defence?" Brunel devoted himself, threw up +barricades, asked for artillery (there were only four pieces), and new +battalions to relieve the 2,000 men who had held out for forty-one +days.[172] They only sent him two or three hundred men. He tried to make +something of these, and fortified the seminary, which the Federals, +under a hailstorm of shells, were unable to hold. Brunel organised a +second line of defence in the houses of the village, and in the evening +repaired to the War Office, where Delescluze wanted him to assist at the +Council of War. + +The first and only Council of War held under the Commune. Dombrowski, +Wroblewski, and La Cécilia were present. Dombrowski, very enthusiastic, +spoke of raising 100,000 men. Wroblewski, more practical, proposed to +concentrate all the efforts uselessly spent at Neuilly against the +trenches of the south. After a long debate no conclusion was come to. +When Brunel arrived the sitting was already raised; so he was obliged to +go and look for Delescluze at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then he retraced +his steps to Issy. At the gate of Versailles he perceived his battalions +on the other side of the rampart. These, deaf to their chiefs, had +evacuated the village and wanted to re-enter the town. Brunel forbade +the lowering of the drawbridge, and tried to get out by the gates of +Vanves, where they refused to let him pass. He returned to the War +Office, explained the situation, asked for men, wandered about the whole +night looking for some, and at four o'clock in the morning set out with +150 Federals, but found the village entirely occupied by the +Versaillese. The officers of Issy were tried by court-martial. Brunel +gave evidence, and complained bitterly of the culpable carelessness +which had paralysed the defence. For answer he was arrested. + +He spoke but too truly. The disorder of the War Office rendered all +resistance chimerical. Delescluze had brought only his devotion. Of a +weak character despite his apparent rigidity, he was at the mercy of the +general staff, still directed by Prodhomme, who, surviving all his +chiefs, had succeeded in making himself thought indispensable. The +Central Committee, emboldened by the timidity of the Council, intruded +everywhere, published decrees, ordered the payment of expenses without +submitting them to the control of the Military Commission. The members +of the Commission, men of intelligence, but belonging to the minority, +complained to the Committee of Public Safety, which replaced them by +Romanticists. The dispute went on all the same, and waxed so violent +that rumours of a rupture between the Council and the Central Committee +spread amongst the legions. + +The Versaillese, on their part, still pushed on. In the night of the +13th to the 14th the fort of Vanves, which now only fired occasional +volleys, was quite extinguished, and could no more be rekindled. The +garrison, cut off on all sides, retired by the quarries of Montrouge, +and the Versaillese occupied what remained of the fort. There was again +an ovation at Versailles. + +On the 16th May we had not a single man from the left bank to the Petit +Vanves, where about 2,000 Federals, under the command of La Cécilia and +Lisbonne, were encamped. We attempted to retake the village of Issy, but +were repulsed. Henceforth the enemy could continue his approaches and +arm the two bastions of the fort of Issy that faced the town. His fire, +counteracted for a moment by the ramparts, now showed a marked +superiority, and joined the batteries that crushed the sixteenth +arrondissement. This unfortunate quarter was now taken in enfilade from +the front and the flank by nearly a hundred ordnance pieces. It was +indeed time to think of the defence of the interior. Delescluze extended +the powers of the three generals to the quarters of the town contiguous +to their command; he disbanded the battalion of the barricades, which +had been of no utility whatever; he confided the works to the military +engineers, and made an appeal to the navvies. But all his decrees +remained so much waste paper or were crossed by others. When the +delegate offered the navvies 3 francs 50 centimes, the Committee of +Public Safety, in the same column of the _Officiel_, offered them 3 +francs 75 centimes. + +The Committee of Public Safety contributed to the defence by a decree +obliging all the inhabitants of Paris to provide themselves with a civil +card, whose production might be requested by any National Guard--as +impracticable and unpractised a decree as that on the refractory +recruits. The Hôtel-de-Ville awed nobody; behind its big words impotence +made itself felt. On the 12th, some battalions having surrounded the +Bank and wanting to make a search, old Beslay prevented them doing so, +and the terrible dictators of the Committee of Public Safety disavowed +their own agent. The public chaffed--a terrible thing! A last blow, and +it was all over with the authority of the Commune; and this blow came +from the minority. + +The latter was exasperated at seeing its most capable members expelled +from the services--Vermorel from the Commission of Public Safety, +Longuet from the _Officiel_, Varlin from the Commissariat--and was +struck with dismay at the disorder of the War Office. It had the +unfortunate idea of denying its own responsibility, prepared a +manifesto, and brought it to the sitting of the 15th. The majority, +forewarned, with the exception of four or five members, kept away. The +minority had their absence verified, and instead of waiting for the next +sitting, sent the declaration to the papers. "The Commune," it said, +"has abdicated its power into the hands of a dictatorship, to which it +has given the name of Committee of Public Safety. The majority has +declared itself irresponsible by its vote. The minority, on the +contrary, affirms that the Commune owes it to the revolutionary movement +to accept all responsibilities. As to ourselves, we claim the right of +being alone answerable for our acts without screening ourselves behind a +supreme dictatorship. We withdraw to our arrondissements. Convinced that +the question of the war takes the lead of all other ones, we shall spend +the time left us by our municipal functions in the midst of our brothers +of the National Guard." + +A great fault this, and altogether inexcusable. The minority had not the +right to cry out about a dictatorship, having voted, without making any +express reserve, for the second Committee. It had not the right to say +that the elected delegates of the people were encroaching upon its +sovereignty, for this concentration of power was quite accidental, +necessitated by the battle, and leaving the principle of the people's +sovereignty intact under ordinary circumstances. It would have been more +dignified to openly disavow the acts of the Committee, and then propose +something better themselves. It would have been logical, since "the +question of the war took the lead of all others," not to thus morally +weaken the defence by deserting the Hôtel-de-Ville. It was not with a +view to retain them in their arrondissements that the arrondissements +had sent delegates to the Council. + +Several members of the minority brought the question before public +meetings, which called on them to return to their posts. Those of the +fourth arrondissement gave an explanation in the Théâtre-Lyrique, in +which they said "that their guiding principle was that the Commune was +to be only the executive agent of the public will, manifesting itself +continually, and indicating day by day what was to be done to secure the +triumph of the revolution." No doubt that principle was correct, and the +revolution can only be made safe by the direct legislation of the +people. But was this a time to legislate when the cannon ruled supreme? +And in the midst of the fire, is the "executive agent" to expect that +the soldier who does battle for him will also bring him ideas? + +The Versaillese journals crowed over this manifesto. Many of those who +had signed it understood their mistake, and fifteen of them presented +themselves at the sitting of the 17th. The Council had never been so +numerous; the roll-call was answered by sixty-six members. The Council +was first taken up with a proposition prompted by a traitor. Barral de +Montaut, chief of the staff of the 7th legion, had just published that +the Versaillese of Vanves had shot an ambulancière of the Commune. +Urbain, urged by Montaut, who had managed to gain his friendship, asked +that, as reprisal, five hostages should be shot in the interior of +Paris, and five at the advanced posts. The Council passed to the order +of the day. Immediately after this incident, a member of the majority +interpellated those of the minority. He demonstrated without any +difficulty the futility of the reasons invoked in their manifesto, and, +growing warm, called his adversaries Girondists. "What! Girondists!" +answered Frankel; "one can see that you go to bed at night and get up in +the morning with the _Moniteur_ of 1793, else you would know the +difference there is between us Socialist Revolutionists and the +Girondists." The discussion became heated. Vallès, who had signed the +manifesto, said, "I have declared that we must come to an understanding +with the majority; but they must also respect the minority, which is a +force;" and he demanded that all forces should be turned against the +enemy. Citizen Miot answered severely from the profound depths of his +beard. A member of the majority spoke of conciliation; immediately Félix +Pyat, to incense their ire, asked for the reading of the manifesto. In +vain Vaillant said, with sense and justice, "When our colleagues come +back to us disavowing their programme, we must not put it under their +eyes to engage them to persevere in their faults," and a conciliatory +order of the day was beaten by that of Miot, drawn up in terms offensive +to the minority. + +Suddenly a tremendous explosion interrupted the dispute. Billioray +rushed into the room with the news that the cartridge factory of the +Avenue Rapp had just blown up. + +The whole east of Paris was shaken. A pyramid of flame, of molten lead, +human remains, burning timber and bullets burst forth from the +Champ-de-Mars to an enormous height, and showered down upon the +environs. Four houses fell in; more than forty persons were wounded, and +the catastrophe would have been still more terrible if the firemen of +the Commune had not torn waggons of cartridges and barrels of gunpowder +from the midst of the flames. A maddened crowd gather, and believe in a +crime; a few individuals were arrested, and an artillerist was taken to +the Ecole Militaire. + +Who was the culprit? Nobody knows. Neither the Council nor the procureur +of the Commune examined the affair. Yet the Committee of Public Safety +announced in a proclamation that it held four of the culprits, and +Delescluze that the case was to be sent before the court-martial. No +more was heard about it, although it was as much the duty as the +interest of the Council to throw light upon this affair. A serious +inquest would probably have revealed a crime. The women, who usually +left the factory at seven o'clock, had been on that day dismissed at six +o'clock. It has been seen that Charpentier asked Corbin for dynamite; it +might have been very useful to the conspirators to spread panic with one +stroke at the War Office, the Ecole Militaire, the artillery park and +the huts of the Champ-de-Mars, which were always occupied by a few +Federals.[173] Paris firmly believed in a plot. The reactionists said, +"This is the revenge for the Vendôme column." + +It had been pulled down the evening before with great ceremony. Its +demolition, the idea of which had become quite current during the first +siege,[174] was decreed on the 12th April.[175] This inspiration, +popular, humane, profound, showing that a war of classes was to +supersede the war of nations, aimed at the same time a blow at the +ephemeral triumph of the Prussian. The rather expensive preparations, +costing almost 15,000 francs, had been much protracted, owing to the +lukewarmness of the engineer and the continual efforts to suborn the +workmen. On the 16th May, at two o'clock, an immense crowd thronged all +the neighbouring streets, rather anxious as to the result of the +operation. The reactionists foretold all sorts of catastrophes; the +engineer, on the contrary, affirmed that there would be no shock; that +the column would break to pieces during its descent. He had sawn it +horizontally a little above the pedestal; a slanting groove was to +facilitate the fall backwards upon a vast bed of faggots, sand, and +dung, accumulated in the direction of the Rue de la Paix. + +A rope attached to the summit of the column was twisted round a capstan +fixed at the entrance of the street. The place was crowded with National +Guards; the windows, the roofs were filled with curious spectators. In +default of MM. Jules Simon and Ferry, erewhile warm partisans of the +operation, M. Glais-Bizoin felicitated the new prefect of police, Ferré, +who had just taken the place of Cournet, and confided to him that for +forty years it had been his ardent desire to see the expiatory monument +demolished. The bands played the "Marseillaise," the capstan turned +about, the pulley broke, and a man was wounded. Already rumours of +treason circulated among the crowd; but a second pulley was soon +supplied. At a quarter past five an officer appeared on the balustrade +for some time, waved a tricolor flag, then fixed it on the rails. At +half-past five the capstan again turned, and a few minutes after the +extremity of the column slowly displaced itself; the shaft little by +little gave way, then, suddenly reeling to and fro, broke and fell with +a low moan. The head of Bonaparte rolled on the ground, and his +parricidal arm lay detached from the trunk. An immense acclamation, as +that of a people freed from a yoke, burst forth. The ruins were climbed +upon and saluted by enthusiastic cries, and the red flag floated from +the purified pedestal, which on that day had become the altar of the +human race. + +The people wanted to divide among themselves the fragments of the +column, but were prevented by the inopportune interference of the +Council members present. A week afterwards, the Versaillese picked them +up. One of the first acts of the victorious bourgeoisie was to again +raise this enormous block, the symbol of their sovereignty. To lift up +Cæsar on his pedestal they needed a scaffolding of 30,000 corpses. Like +the mothers under the First Empire, may those of our days never look +upon this bronze without weeping. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172] These were what General Appert calls the Brunel brigade. 7882 +strong. + +[173] Appendix XIV. + +[174] During the first siege, the _Journal Officiel_ of the mairie of +Paris had inserted a letter from Courbet demanding the overthrow of the +column. + +[175] Thus Courbet was not as yet a member of the Council. Nevertheless +he was considered as the principal author of the fall of the column, and +condemned in the costs of its re-erection. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH. + + +The Paris of the Commune has but three days more to live; let us engrave +upon our memory her luminous physiognomy. + +He who has breathed in thy life that fiery fever of contemporaneous +history, who has panted on thy boulevards and wept in thy faubourgs, who +has sung to the morns of thy revolutions and a few weeks after bathed +his hands in powder behind thy barricades, he who can hear from beneath +thy stones the voices of the martyrs of sublime ideas and read in every +one of thy streets a date of human progress, even he does less justice +to thy original grandeur than the stranger, though a Philistine, who +came to glance at thee during the days of the Commune. The attraction of +rebellious Paris was so strong that men hurried thither from America to +behold this spectacle unprecedented in the world's history--the greatest +town of the European continent in the hands of the proletarians. Even +the pusillanimous were drawn towards her. + +In the first days of May one of our friends arrived--one of the most +timid men of the timid provinces. His kith and kin had escorted him on +his departure, tears in their eyes, as though he were descending into +the infernal regions. He said to us, "What is true in all the rumours +bruited about?" "Well, come and search all the recesses of the den." + +We set out from the Bastille. Street-arabs cry Rochefort's _Mot +d'Ordre_, the _Père Duchêne_, Jules Vallès' _Cri du Peuple_, Félix +Pyat's _Vengeur_, _La Commune_, _L'Affranchi_, _Le Pilori des +Mouchards_. The _Officiel_ is little asked for; the journalists of the +Council stifle it by their competition. The _Cri du Peuple_ has a +circulation of 100,000. It is the earliest out; it rises with +chanticleer. If we have an article by Vallès this morning, we are in +luck; but in his stead, Pierre Denis, with his autonomy _à outrance_, +makes himself too often heard. Only buy the _Père Duchêne_ once, though +its circulation is more than 60,000. Take Félix Pyat's article in the +_Vengeur_ as a fine example of literary intoxication. The bourgeoisie +has no better helpmates than these vain and ignorant claptrap-mongers. +Here is the doctrinaire journal _La Commune_, in which Millière +sometimes writes, and in which Georges Duchêne takes the young men and +the old of the Hôtel-de-Ville to task with a severity which would better +fit another character than his. Do not forget the _Mot d'Ordre_, +whatever the romanticists may say. It was one of the first to support +the Revolution of the 18th March, and darted terrible arrows at the +Versaillese. + +In the kiosques are the caricatures. Thiers, Picard, and Jules Favre +figure as the Three Graces, clasping each other's paunches. This fine +fish, the _maquereau_, with the blue-green scales, who is making up a +bed with an imperial crown, is the Marquis de Gallifet. _L'Avenir_, the +mouthpiece of the _Ligue_. _Le Siècle_, become very hostile since the +arrest of Gustave Chaudey; and _La Vérité_, the Yankee Portalis's paper, +are piled up, melancholy and intact. Many reactionist papers have been +suppressed by the prefecture, but for all that are not dead; for a lad, +without any mystery about him, offers them to us. + +Read, search, find one appeal to murder, to pillage, a single cruel line +in all these Communard journals excited by the battle, and then compare +them with the Versaillese papers, demanding fusillades _en masse_ as +soon as the troops shall have vanquished Paris. + +Let us follow those catafalques that are being taken up the Rue de la +Roquette, and enter with them into the Père Lachaise cemetery. All those +who die for Paris are entombed with obsequies in the great +resting-place. The Commune has claimed the honour of paying for their +funerals; its red flag blazes from the four corners of the hearse, +followed by some comrades of the battalion, while a few passers-by +always join the procession. This is a wife accompanying her dead +husband. A member of the Council follows the coffin; at the grave he +speaks not of regrets, but of hope, of vengeance. The widow presses her +children in her arms, and says to them, "Remember and cry with me, 'Vive +la République! Vive la Commune!'"[176] + +On retracing our steps, we pass by the mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement. It is hung with black, the mourning of the last +Imperialist plébiscite, of which the people of Paris was innocent and +became the victim. We cross the Place de la Bastille, gay, animated by +the ginger-bread fair. Paris will yield nothing to the cannon; she has +even prolonged the annual fair for a week. The swings move to and fro, +the wheels-of-fortune turn, booth-keepers cry their sixpenny wares, the +mountebanks allure spectators, and promise half their receipts to the +wounded. + +We go down these great boulevards. A crowd pushes against the Napoleon +Circus, where 5,000 people are gathered, filling it from the area to the +ceiling. Small flags, each one bearing the name of a department, urge +the provincials to group themselves. This meeting has been called by +some merchants, who propose to the citizens of the departments to send +delegates to their respective deputies, in the belief that the latter +may be brought round and peace gained by explanations. A tall, thin man, +with a sad face, asks for permission to address the people, and gets +upon the platform. It is Millière, whom the crowd cheers. "Peace," said +he, "we all wish for it, citizens. But who, then, has commenced the war? +Who attacked Paris on the 18th March? M. Thiers. Who attacked her on the +2nd April? M. Thiers. Who has spoken of conciliation, multiplied +attempts at peace? Paris. Who has always repulsed them? M. Thiers. +Conciliation! M. Dufaure has said, 'Why, insurrection is less criminal.' +And that which neither the Freemasons, nor the leagues, nor the +addresses, nor the municipal councillors of the provinces could do, you +expect to get from a deputation chosen from amongst the Parisians! See, +without knowing it, you are enervating the defence. No, no more +deputations, but active correspondence with the provinces--there lies +salvation!" "This, then, is that energumen whom we are so frightened of +in the provinces!" exclaimed our friend. "Yes, and these thousands of +men of all conditions, who in common seek for peace, consult each other, +answer courteously, these are the demented people, the handful of +bandits who hold the capital." + +Before the Prince Eugène Barracks we notice the 1,500 soldiers who +remained in Paris on the 18th March, and whom the Commune entertains +without asking them for any service. At the top of the Boulevard Magenta +we visit the numerous skeletons of the St. Laurent Church, arranged in +the same order they were found in, without coffins or winding-sheets. +Are not interments in churches formally prohibited? Some, however, Notre +Dame des Victoires especially, abound in skeletons. Is it not the duty +of the Commune to expose these illegal proceedings, which are perhaps +crimes? + +On the boulevards, from Bonne-Nouvelle to the Opéra, we find the same +Paris loitering before the shops, sitting in front of the cafés. +Carriages are rare, for the second siege has cut short the provisions +for horses. By the Rue du 4 Septembre we reach the Stock Exchange, +surmounted by the red flag, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, where +readers are sitting round the long tables. Crossing the Palais-Royal, +whose arcades are always noisy, we come to the Museum of the Louvre; the +rooms, hung with their pictures, are open to the public. The Versaillese +journals none the less say the Commune is selling the national +collections to foreigners. + +We descend the Rue de Rivoli. On the right, in the Rue Castiglione, a +huge barricade obstructs the entrance of the Place Vendôme. The issue of +the Place de la Concorde is barred by the St. Florentin redoubt, +stretching to the Ministry of Marine on its right, and the garden of +the Tuileries on its left, with three rather badly directed embrasures +eight yards wide. An enormous ditch, laying bare all the arteries of +subterranean life, separates the place from the redoubt. The workmen are +giving it the finishing stroke, and cover the epaulments with gazon. +Many promenaders look on inquisitively, and more than one brow lowers. A +corridor skilfully constructed conducts us to the Place de la Concorde. +The proud profile of the Strasbourg statue stands out against the red +flags. The Communards, who are accused of ignoring France, have piously +replaced the faded crowns of the first siege by fresh spring flowers. + +We now enter the zone of battle. The avenue of the Champs-Elysées +unrolls its long-deserted line, cut by the dismal bursting of the shells +from Mont-Valérien and Courbevoie. These reach as far as the Palais de +l'Industrie, whose treasures the employés of the Commune courageously +protect. In the distance rises the mighty bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. +The sight-seers of the first days have disappeared, for the Place de +l'Etoile has become almost as deadly as the rampart. The shells break +off the bas-reliefs that M. Jules Simon had caused to be iron-clad +against the Prussians. The main arch is walled up to stop the +projectiles that enfiladed it. Behind this barricade they are getting +ready to mount some pieces on the platform, which is almost as high as +Mont-Valérien. + +By the Faubourg St. Honoré we pass along the Champs-Elysées. In the +right angle comprised between the Avenue de la Grande Armée, that of the +Ternes, the ramparts, and the Avenue Wagram there is not a house intact. +You see M. Thiers "does not bombard Paris, as the people of the Commune +will not fail to say." Some shreds of a placard hang from a +half-battered wall; it is M. Thiers' speech against King Bomba, which a +group of conciliators have been witty enough to reproduce. "You know, +gentlemen," said he to the bourgeois of 1848, "what is happening at +Palermo. You all have shaken with horror on hearing that during +forty-eight hours a large town has been bombarded. By whom? Was it by a +foreign enemy exercising the rights of war? No, gentlemen, it was by +its own Government. And why? Because that unfortunate town demanded its +rights. Well, then, for the demand of its rights it has got forty-eight +hours of bombardment!" Happy Palermo! Paris already has had forty days +of bombardment. + +We have some chance of getting to the Boulevard Péreire by the left side +of the Avenue des Ternes. From there to the Porte-Maillot every spot is +beset with danger. Watching for a momentary lull, we reach the gate, or +rather the heap of ruins that mark its place. The station no longer +exists, the tunnel is filled up, the ramparts are slipping into the +moats. And yet there are human salamanders who dare to move about amidst +these ruins. Facing the gate there are three pieces commanded by Captain +La Marseillaise; on the right, Captain Rouchat with five pieces; on the +left, Captain Martin with four. Monteret, who commands this post for the +last five weeks, lives with them in this atmosphere of shells. The +Mont-Valérien, Courbevoie, and Bécon have thrown more than eight hundred +of them. Twelve pieces are served by ten men, naked to the waist, their +body and arms blackened with powder, in a stream of perspiration, often +a match in each hand. The only survivor of the first set, the sailor +Bonaventure, has twenty times seen his comrades dashed to pieces. And +yet they hold out, and these pieces, continually dismounted, are +continually renewed; their artillerists only complain of the want of +munition, for the waggons no longer dare approach. The Versaillese have +very often attempted, and may attempt, surprises. Monteret watches day +and night, and he can without boasting write to the Committee of Public +Safety that so long as he is there the Versaillese will not enter by the +Porte-Maillot. + +Every step towards La Muette is a challenge to death. But our friend +must witness all the greatness of Paris. On the ramparts, near the gate +of La Muette, an officer is waving his képi toward the Bois de Boulogne; +the balls are whistling around him. It is Dombrowski, who is amusing +himself with inveighing against the Versaillese of the trenches. A +member of the Council who is with him succeeds in making him forego +this musketeer foolhardiness, and the general takes us to the castle, +where he has established one of his headquarters. All the rooms are +perforated by shells. Still he remains there, and makes his men remain. +It has been calculated that his aides-de-camp on an average lived eight +days. At this moment the watch of the Belvedere rushes in with appalled +countenance; a shell has traversed his post. "Stay there," says +Dombrowski to him; "if you are not destined to die there you have +nothing to fear." Such was his courage--all fatalism. He received no +reinforcements despite his despatches to the War Office; believed the +game lost, and said so but too often. + +This is my only reproach, for you do not expect me to apologise for the +Commune's having allowed foreigners to die for it. Is not this the +revolution of all proletarians? Is it not for the people to at last do +justice to that great Polish race which all French governments have +betrayed? + +Dombrowski accompanies us across Passy as far as the Seine, and shows us +the almost abandoned ramparts. The shells crush or mow down all the +approaches to the railway; the large viaduct is giving way at a hundred +places; the iron-clad locomotives have been overthrown. The Versaillese +battery of the Billancourt Isle fires point-blank at our gunboats, and +sinks one, _L'Estoc_, under our very eyes. A tug arrives in time, picks +up the crew, and ascends the Seine under the fire that follows it up to +the Jena Bridge. + +A clear sky, a bright sun, peaceful silence envelop this stream, this +wreck, these scattered shells. Death appears more cruel amidst the +serenity of nature. Let us go and salute our wounded at Passy. A member +of the Council, Lefrançais, is visiting the ambulance of Dr. Demarquay, +whom he questions as to the state of the wounded. "I do not share your +opinions," answers the doctor, "and I cannot desire the triumph of your +cause; but I have never seen wounded men preserve more calm and +sangfroid during operations. I attribute this courage to the energy of +their convictions." We then visit the beds; most of the sick anxiously +inquire when they will be able to resume their service. A young fellow +of eighteen, whose right hand had just been amputated, holds out the +other, exclaiming, "I have still this one for the service of the +Commune!" An officer, mortally wounded, is told that the Commune has +just handed over his pay to his wife and children. "I had no right to +it," answers he. "These, my friend, these are the brutish drunkards who, +according to Versailles, form the army of the Commune." + +We return by the Champ-de-Mars; its huts are badly manned. Other +_cadres_, a different discipline would be needed to retain the +battalions there. Before the Ecole, 1500 yards from the ramparts, and a +few steps from the War Office, a hundred ordnance pieces remain inert, +loaded with mud. Leaving on our right the War Office, that centre of +discord, let us enter the Corps Législatif, transformed into a workshop. +Fifteen hundred women are there, sewing the sand sacks that are to stop +up the breaches. A tall and handsome girl, Marthe, round her waist the +red scarf with silver fringe given her by her comrades, distributes the +work. The hours of labour are shortened by joyous songs. Every evening +the wages are paid, and the women receive the whole sum, eight centimes +a sack, while the former contractors hardly gave them two. + +We now proceed along the quays, lulled in imperturbable calm. The +Academy of Sciences holds its Monday sittings. It is not the workmen who +have said, "The Republic wants no savants." M. Delaunay is in the chair. +M. Elie de Beaumont looks through the correspondence, and reads a note +from his colleague, M. J. Bertrand, who has fled to St. Germain. We +shall find the report in the _Officiel_ of the Commune. + +We must not leave the left bank without visiting the military prison. +Ask the soldiers if they have met with a single menace, a single insult +in Paris; if they are not treated as comrades, subjected to no +exceptional rules, set free when willing to help their Parisian +brothers. + +Meanwhile evening has set in. The theatres are opening. The Lyrique +gives a grand performance for the benefit of the wounded, and the +Opéra-Comique is preparing another. The Opéra promises us a special +performance for the following Monday, when we shall hear Gossec's +revolutionary hymn. The artists of the Gaieté, abandoned by their +manager, themselves direct their theatre. The Gymnase, Châtelet, +Théâtre-Français, Ambigu-Comique, Délassements, have large audiences +every night. Let us pass to more virile spectacles, such as Paris has +not witnessed since 1793. + +Ten churches open, and the Revolution mounts the pulpits. In the old +quarter of the Gravilliers, St. Nicholas des Champs is filling with the +powerful murmur of many voices. A few gas-burners hardly light up the +swarming crowd; and at the farther end, almost hidden by the shadow of +the vaults, hangs the figure of Christ draped in the popular oriflamme. +The only luminous centre is the reading-desk, facing the pulpit, hung +with red. The organ and the people chant the _Marseillaise_. The orator, +over-excited by these fantastic surroundings, launches forth into +ecstatic apostrophes, which the echo repeats like a menace. The people +discuss the events of the day, the means of defence; the members of the +Council are severely censured, and vigorous resolutions are voted to be +presented to the Hôtel-de-Ville the next day. Women sometimes ask to +speak; at the Batignolles they have a club of their own. No doubt, few +precise ideas come forth from these feverish meetings, but many find +there a provision of energy and of courage. + +It is only nine o'clock, and we may still be in time for the concert of +the Tuileries. At the entrance, citoyennes, accompanied by +commissioners, are making a collection for the widows and orphans of the +Commune. The immense rooms are animated by a decent and gay throng. For +the first time respectably-dressed women are seated on the forms of the +court. Three orchestras are playing in the galleries, but the soul of +the fête is in the Salle des Maréchaux, where Mademoiselle Agar recites +from "Les Châtiments" in that same place, where, ten months before, +Bonaparte and his band were enthroned. Mozart, Meyerbeer, Rossini, the +great works of art have driven away the musical obscenities of the +Empire. From the large central window the harmonious strains vibrate to +the garden; joyous lights shine like stars on the green-sward, dance +among the trees, and colour the playing fountains. Within the arbours +the people are laughing; but the noble Champs-Elysées, dark and +desolate, seem to protest against these popular masters, whom they have +never acknowledged. Versailles, too, protests by that conflagration of +which a wan reflex lights up the Arc de Triomphe, whose sombre mass +overtowers the civil war. + +At eleven o'clock, as the crowd is retiring, we hear a noise from the +side of the chapel. M. Schoelcher has just been arrested. He has been +taken to the prefecture, where, a few hours after, the procureur Rigault +sets him at liberty. + +The boulevards are thronged with the people coming from the theatres. At +the Café-Peters there is a scandalous gathering of staff-officers and +prostitutes. Suddenly a detachment of National Guards appears and leads +them off. We follow them to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where Ranvier, who is on +duty there, receives them. Short shrift is made: the women to St. +Lazare, the officers, with spades and mattocks, to the trenches. + +One o'clock in the morning. Paris sleeps tranquilly. Such, my friend, is +the Paris of the brigand. You have seen this Paris thinking, weeping, +combating, working, enthusiastic, fraternal, severe to vice. Her streets +free during the day, are they less safe in the silence of the night? +Since Paris has her own police crime has disappeared.[177] Each one is +left to his instincts, and where do you see debauchery victorious? These +Federals, who might draw milliards, live on ridiculous pay compared with +their usual salaries. Do you at last recognise this Paris, seven times +shot down since 1789, and always ready to rise for the salvation of +France? Where is her programme, say you? Why, seek it before you, and +not at the faltering Hôtel-de-Ville. These smoking ramparts, these +explosions of heroism, these women, these men of all professions +united, all the workmen of the earth applauding our combat, all +monarchs, all the bourgeois coalesced against us, do they not speak +loudly enough our common thought, and that all of us are fighting for +equality, the enfranchisement of labour, the advent of a social society? +Woe to France if she does not comprehend! Leave at once; recount what +Paris is. If she dies, what life remains to you? Who, save Paris, will +have strength enough to continue the Revolution? Who save Paris will +stifle the clerical monster? Go, tell the Republican provinces, "These +proletarians fight for you too, who perhaps may be the exiles of +to-morrow." As to that class, the purveyor of empires, that fancies it +can govern by periodical butcheries, go and tell them, in accents loud +enough to drown their clamours, "The blood of the people will enrich the +revolutionary field. The idea of Paris will arise from her burning +entrails and become an inexorable firebrand with the sons of the +slaughtered." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[176] Funeral of Lieutenant Châtelet, of the 61st. + +[177] See the evidence of the chief of police, M. Claude, _Énquête sur +le 18 Mars_. vol. ii. p. 106. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + "La porte de St. Cloud vient de s'abatre. Le général Douai + s'y est précipité."--_M. Thiers aux Préfets, le 21 Mai._ + + THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY. AT THREE + O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON--THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE + DISSOLVES. + + +The great attack approached; the Assembly drew up in battle-array. On +the 16th May it refused to recognise the Republic as the Government of +France, and voted public prayers by 417 voices out of 420. On the 17th +the army established its breach batteries against the gates of La +Muette, Auteuil, St. Cloud, Point du Jour, Issy. The batteries in the +rear continued to pound the enceinte of the Point du Jour and to +confound Passy. The pieces of the Château de Brécon ruined the +Montmartre cemetery, and reached as far as the Place St. Pierre. We had +five arrondissements under shell. + +On the 18th, in the evening, the Versaillese surprised the Federals of +Cachan by approaching them with the cry of "Vive la Commune!" However, +we succeeded in preventing their movement towards the Hautes-Bruyères. +The Dominican monks who from their convent gave signals to the enemy +were arrested and taken to the Fort de Bicêtre. + +_19th._--Despite the Versaillese approaches, our defence did not become +more vigorous. The bastions 72 and 73 threw a few occasional shells upon +the village and the fort of Issy. From the Point du Jour to the +Porte-Maillot we had only the cannon of the Dauphine gate to answer the +hundred Versaillese pieces and check their works in the Bois de +Boulogne. A few barricades at the Bineau and Asnières gates and the +Boulevard d'Italie, two redoubts at the Place de la Concorde and Rue +Castiglione, a moat in the Rue Royale and another at the Trocadéro; this +was all that the Council had done in seven weeks for the defence of the +interior. There were no works at the Mont-Parnasse Station, the +Panthéon, the Buttes Montmartre, where two or three pieces had been +fired off on the 14th, only to kill our own men at Laval's. At the +terrace of the Tuileries about twelve navvies sadly dug away at a +useless fosse. The Committee of Public Safety could not, they said, find +workmen, when they had 1,500 idlers at the Prince-Eugène Barracks, +100,000 sedentary guards, and millions of francs to hand. An iron will +and firm direction might still have saved everything; and we were now in +the period of coma, of immense lassitude. The competitions, quarrels, +and intrigues had relaxed all energy. The Council occupied itself with +details, with trifles. The Committee of Public Safety multiplied its +romantic proclamations, which moved nobody. The Central Committee +thought only of seizing upon a power it was unable to wield, and on the +19th announced itself administrator of the War Office. Its members had +made so sure of their sway, that one of them by a decree inserted in the +_Officiel_ ordered all the inhabitants of Paris to "present themselves +at their homes within forty-eight hours," on pain of "having their +rent-titles on the grand livre burnt." This was the pendant of the civic +card. + +Our best battalions, decimated, abandoned to themselves, were but +wrecks. Since the beginning of April we had lost 4,000 men, killed or +wounded, and 3,500 prisoners. There now remained to us 2,000 men from +Asnières to Neuilly, 4,000 perhaps from La Muette to Petit-Vanves. The +battalions designated for the posts of Passy were not there, or stayed +in the houses far from the ramparts; many of their officers had +disappeared. At the bastions 36 to 70, precisely at the point of attack, +there were not twenty artillerists; the sentinels were absent. + +Was it treason? The conspirators boasted a few days after of having +dismantled these ramparts; but the terrible bombardment would suffice to +explain this dereliction. Still there was a culpable heedlessness. +Dombrowski, weary of struggling against the inertness of the War Office, +was discouraged, went too often to his quarters at the Place Vendôme, +while the Committee of Public Safety, informed of the abandonment of the +ramparts, contented itself with warning the War Office instead of +hurrying to the rescue and taking the situation in hand. + +On Saturday, the 20th May, the breach batteries were unmasked; 300 naval +guns and siege-pieces blending together their detonations announced the +beginning of the end. + +The same day De Beaufond, whom Lasnier's arrest had not discouraged, +sent his habitual emissary to warn the chief of the Versaillese general +staff that the gates of Montrouge, Vanves, Vaugirard, Point du Jour, and +Dauphine were entirely deserted. Orders for concentrating the troops +were immediately issued. On the 21st the Versaillese found themselves in +readiness, as on the 3rd and 12th, but this time success seemed certain; +the gate of St. Cloud was dashed to pieces. + +For several days some members of the Council had pointed out this breach +to the chief of the general staff, Henry Prodhomme. He answered à la +Cluseret that his measures were taken; that he was even going to throw +up a terrible iron-clad barricade before this gate; but he did not stir. +On the Sunday morning, Lefrançais, traversing the moat on the ruins of +the drawbridge, at about fifteen yards distance, ran up against the +Versaillese trenches. Struck by the imminence of the peril, he sent +Delescluze a note, which was lost. + +At half-past two, under the shade of the Tuileries, a monster concert +was being given for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the +Commune. Thousands of people had come; the bright spring dresses of the +women lit up the green alleys; people eagerly inhaled the fresh air sent +forth from the great trees. Two hundred yards off, on the Place de la +Concorde, the Versaillese shells burst, uttering their discordant note +amidst the joyous sounds of the bands and the invigorating breath of +spring. + +At the end of the concert a staff officer ascended the platform of the +conductor of the orchestra. "Citizens," said he, "M. Thiers promised to +enter Paris yesterday. M. Thiers has not entered; he will not enter. I +invite you to come here next Sunday, to the same place, to our second +concert for the benefit of the widows and orphans." + +At that very hour, at that very minute, almost within gunshot, the +vanguard of the Versaillese was making its entry into Paris. + +The expected signal had at last been given from the St. Cloud gate, but +did not come from the licensed conspirators. An amateur spy, Ducatel, +was crossing these quarters, when he saw everything, gates and ramparts, +quite deserted. He thereupon climbed the bastion 64, waving a white +handkerchief, and cried to the soldiers of the trenches, "You can enter; +there is no one here." A naval officer came forward, interrogated +Ducatel, crossed over the ruins of the drawbridge, and was able to +assure himself that the bastions and neighbouring houses were entirely +abandoned. Returning immediately to the trenches, the officer +telegraphed the news to the nearest generals. The breach batteries +ceased firing, and the soldiers of the trenches near penetrated by small +platoons into the enceinte. M. Thiers, MacMahon, and Admiral Pothuan, +who were just then at Mont-Valérien, telegraphed to Versailles to have +all the divisions put in motion. + +Dombrowski, absent from his headquarters of La Muette for several hours, +arrived at four o'clock. A commander met him, and informed him of the +entry of the Versaillese. Dombrowski let the officer terminate his +report, then, turning to one of his aides-de-camp, with that coolness +that he exaggerated in critical circumstances, said, "Send to the +Ministry of Marine for a battery of seven cannon; warn such and such +battalions. I shall take the command myself." He also addressed a +despatch to the Committee of Public Safety and the War Office, and sent +the battalion of volunteers to occupy the gate of Auteuil. + +At five o'clock, National Guards, without képis, without arms, uttered a +cry of alarm in the streets of Passy; some officers unsheathing their +swords tried to stop them; the Federals left their houses, some loading +their guns, others maintaining that it was a false alarm. The commander +of the volunteers picked up and led off as many men as he could get to +follow him. + +These volunteers were troops inured to fire. Near the railway station +they saw the red-coats, and received them with a volley. A Versaillese +officer on horseback, who hurried up trying to urge on his men with +drawn sabre, fell beneath our balls, and his soldiers retreated. The +Federals established themselves solidly on the viaduct and at the +opening of the Murat Boulevard, while, at the same time, the quay +abreast of the Jena Bridge was being barricaded. + +Dombrowski's despatch had reached the Committee of Public Safety. +Billioray, on duty at this moment, at once proceeded to the Council. The +Assembly was just putting Cluseret on his trial, and Vermorel was +speaking. The ex-delegate, seated on a chair, listened to the orator +with that vain nonchalance which the naïve took for talent. Billioray, +very pale, entered, and for a moment sat down; then, as Vermorel went +on, cried to him, "Conclude! conclude! I have to make a communication of +the greatest importance to the Assembly; I demand a secret sitting." + +Vermorel: "Let citizen Billioray speak." + +Billioray rose and read a paper that trembled slightly in his hand. +"Dombrowski to War and Committee of Public Safety. The Versaillese have +entered by the Porte de St. Cloud. I take measures to drive them back. +If you can send me reinforcements, I answer for everything."[178] + +There was first a silence of anguish, soon broken by interpellations. +"Some battalions have marched off," answered Billioray; "the Committee +of Public Safety watches." + +The discussion was again taken up, and naturally cut short. The Council +acquitted Cluseret; the ridiculous impeachment brought forward by Miot, +made up only of gossip, neglected the only incriminating fact--the +inactivity of Cluseret during his delegation. They then formed into +groups and commented on the despatch. The confidence of Dombrowski, the +assurance of Billioray, proved quite sufficient to the romanticists. +What with faith in the general, the solidity of the ramparts, the +immortality of the cause; what with the responsibility of the Committee +of Public Safety, the question at issue was slurred over; let every one +go about in search of information, and in case of need betake himself to +his own arrondissement. + +The time was wasted in small-talk; there were neither motion nor debate; +eight o'clock struck, and the president raised the sitting. The last +sitting of the Council! And there was no one to demand a permanent +committee; no one to call on his colleague to wait here for news, to +summon the Committee of Public Safety to the bar of the Council. There +was no one to insist that at this critical moment of uncertainty, when +perhaps it might be necessary to improvise a plan of defence at a +moment's notice or take a great resolution in case of disaster, the post +of the guardians of Paris was in the centre, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and +not in their respective arrondissements. + +Thus the Council of the Commune disappeared from history and the +Hôtel-de-Ville at the moment of supreme danger, when the Versaillese +penetrated into Paris. + +The same prostration reigned at the War Office, where they had received +the news at five o'clock. The Central Committee went to Delescluze, who +seemed very calm, and said, what many indeed believed, that the fight in +the streets would be favourable to the Commune. The commander of the +section of the Point du Jour having just come to report that nothing +serious had happened, the delegate accepted his statements without +corroboration. The chief of the general staff did not even think it +worth while to go and make a personal recognisance, and towards eight +o'clock he had this incredible despatch placarded: "The observatory of +the Arc de Triomphe denies the entry of the Versaillese; at least, it +sees nothing that looks like it. The commander (Renaud) of the section +has just left my cabinet, and declares that there has only been a panic, +and that the gate of Auteuil has not been forced; that if a few +Versaillese have entered, they have been repulsed. I have sent for +eleven battalions of reinforcements, by as many officers of the general +staff, who are not to leave them till they have led them to the posts +which they are to occupy." + +At the same hour M. Thiers telegraphed to his prefects, "The gate of St. +Cloud has fallen under the fire of our cannon. General Douai has dashed +into the town." A two-fold lie. The gate of St. Cloud had been wide open +for three days without the Versaillese daring to pass it, and General +Douai had crept in very modestly, man by man, introduced by treason. + +At night the Ministry seemed to wake up a little. Officers flocked +thither asking for orders. The general staff would not allow the tocsin +to be sounded, on the pretext that the population must not be alarmed. +Some members of the Council pored over the plan of Paris at last, +studying those strategical points that had been forgotten for six weeks. +When it was necessary at once to find an idea, a method, and give +precise instructions, the delegate shut himself in his cabinet in order +to frame a proclamation. + +While in the midst of Paris, confident in her trustees, a few men, +without soldiers, without information, prepared the first resistance, +the Versaillese continued to slip in through the breaches of the +ramparts. Wave on wave their flood grew silent, veiled by the dusk. By +degrees they massed themselves between the railway line and the +fortifications. At eight o'clock they were numerous enough to divide +into two columns, one of which, turning to the left, crowned the +bastions 66 and 67, while the other filed off to the right on the route +to Versailles. The first lodged itself in the centre of Passy, occupying +the St. Périne asylum, the church, and the place of Auteuil; the other, +having swept away the rudimentary barricade constructed on the quay at +the top of the Rue Guillon, towards one o'clock in the morning, by the +Rue Raynouard, scaled the Trocadéro, neither fortified nor manned on +this side, and at once took possession of it. + +At the Hôtel-de-Ville the members of the Committee of Public Safety had +at last assembled. Billioray alone had vanished not to appear again. +They knew nothing of the number and position of the troops, but knew +that under the cover of night the enemy had entered Passy. Staff +officers sent to the Muette to reconnoitre came back with the most +reassuring news. Thereupon, at eleven o'clock, a member of the Council, +Assi, entered the Rue Beethoven, where the lights had been put out. Soon +his horse refused to advance; it had slipped down in large pools of +blood, and National Guards seemed to lie asleep along the walls. +Suddenly men sprang forward. They were the Versaillese waiting in +ambush; these sleepers were murdered Federals. + +The Versaillese were slaughtering within the walls of Paris, and Paris +knew it not. The night was clear, starlit, mild, fragrant; the theatres +were crowded, the boulevards sparkling with life and gaiety, the bright +cafés swarming with visitors, and the cannon were everywhere hushed--a +silence unknown for three weeks. If "the finest army that France ever +had" were to push straight on by the quays and boulevards, entirely free +of barricades, with one bound, without firing a shot, it would crush the +Commune of Paris. + +The volunteers held out on the railway line till midnight; then, +exhausted, left without any reinforcements, they fell back upon La +Muette. General Clinchant followed them, occupied the Auteuil gate, +passed by that of Passy, and marched on the headquarters of Dombrowski. +Fifty volunteers for some time still kept up a skirmish in the château, +but outflanked on the east, about to be closed in from the Trocadéro, at +half-past one in the morning they beat a retreat on the Champs-Elysées. + +On the left bank General Cissey had the whole evening massed his forces +at about 200 yards from the enceinte. At midnight his sappers crossed +the moat, scaled the ramparts, without even falling in with a sentinel, +and opened the gates of Sèvres and Versailles. + +At three o'clock in the morning the Versaillese inundated Paris through +the five gaping wounds of the gates of Passy, Auteuil, St. Cloud, +Sèvres, and Versailles. The greater part of the fifteenth arrondissement +was occupied, the Muette taken; taken all Passy and the heights of the +Trocadéro, taken too the powder-magazine of the Rue Beethoven, immense +catacombs running underneath the sixteenth arrondissement, crammed with +3,000 barrels of powder, millions of cartridges, thousands of shells. At +five o'clock the first Versaillese shell fell upon the Légion d'Honneur. +As on the morning of the 2nd December, Paris was asleep. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[178] The original of this document has been lost, but we have been able +to re-establish the text with the evidence of Dombrowski's brother and +of a great number of members of the Council present at this sitting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + "Les généraux qui ont conduit l'entree à Paris sont de grands + hommes de guerre."--_M. Thiers à l'Assemblée Nationale, 22 + Mai 1871._ + + MONDAY 22ND--THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE + EAST--PARIS RISES. + + +At two o'clock Dombrowski arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, pale, dejected, +his chest bruised with stones ploughed up by shot. He told the Committee +of Public Safety of the entry of the Versaillese, the surprise of Passy, +his useless efforts to rally the men. As he was pressed for news, as +they appeared astonished at such a rapid invasion, so little did the +Committee know of the military situation, Dombrowski, who misunderstood +them, exclaimed, "What! the Committee of Public Safety takes me for a +traitor! My life belongs to the Commune." His gesture, his voice, +testified to his bitter despair. + +The morn was warm and bright, as the day before. The call to arms, the +tocsin, set three or four thousand men on foot, who hurried towards the +Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the War Office; but hundreds of +others at that moment had abandoned their posts, left Passy, and emptied +the fifteenth arrondissement. The Federals of Petit-Vanves came back to +Paris at five o'clock, and seeing the Trocadéro occupied by the +Versaillese, refused to hold out. On the left bank, at the St. Clothilde +Square, some officers attempted to stay them, but were repulsed by the +guards. "It is now a war of barricades," said they; "every one to his +quarter." At the Légion d'Honneur they forced their way; the +proclamation of Delescluze had released them. + +Thus began that fatal proclamation placarded on all the walls:-- + +"Enough of militarism! No more staff-officers with their +gold-embroidered uniforms! Make way for the people, for the combatants +with naked arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck! The +people know nothing of learned manoeuvres. But when they have a gun in +their hands, pavement under their feet, they fear not all the +strategists of the monarchical school!" + +When the Minister of War thus stigmatises all discipline, who will +henceforth obey? When he repudiates all method, who will listen to +reason? Thus we shall see hundreds of men refusing to quit the pavement +of their street, paying no heed to the neighboring quarter in agonies, +remaining motionless up to the last hour waiting for the army to come +and overwhelm them. + +At five o'clock in the morning the official retreat began. The chief of +the general staff, Henri Prodhomme, had the War Office precipitately +evacuated, without carrying off or destroying the papers. The next day +they fell into the hands of the Versaillese, and furnished the +courts-martial with thousands of victims. + +On leaving the Ministry, Delescluze met Brunel, who, set at liberty only +the evening before, had at once rallied his legion, and now came to +offer his services, for he was one of those men of convictions too +strong to be shaken by the most cruel injustice. Delescluze gave him the +order to defend the Place de la Concorde. Brunel repaired thither, and +disposed 150 tirailleurs, three pieces of 4 cm., one of 12, two of 7 on +the terrace of the Tuileries and by the bank of the river. He provided +the St. Florentin redoubt with a mitrailleuse and a piece of 4; that of +the Rue Royale, at the entrance of the Place de la Concorde, with two +pieces of 12. + +In front of Brunel, at the Place Beauvan, some men of the 8th legion +made vain efforts to stop the fugitives from Passy and Auteuil, and then +betook themselves to put the quarter in a fit state of defence. +Barricades were thrown up in the Faubourg St. Honoré as far as the +English Embassy, in the Rue de Suresne and Ville-Levêque; obstacles were +heaped up at the Place St. Augustin, the opening of the Boulevard +Haussmann, and in front of the Boulevard Malesherbes, when the +Versaillese presented themselves. + +Early in the morning they had begun their onward march. At half-past +five Douai, Clinchant, and Ladmirault, passing along the ramparts, +debouched on the Avenue de la Grande Armée. The artillerists of the +Porte-Maillot, turning round, beheld in their rear the Versaillese, +their neighbours for some ten hours. Not a sentinel had denounced them. +Monteret filed off his men by the Ternes; then, alone with a child, +charged one of the cannon of the Porte-Maillot, fired his last round at +the enemy, and succeeded in escaping by the Batignolles. + +The column Douai remounted the Avenue as far as the barricade in front +of the Arc de Triomphe, which they took without a struggle, the Federals +hardly having time to carry off the cannon that were to have surmounted +the Arc de Triomphe. The soldiers marched up the quay, and ventured on +the silent Place de la Concorde; suddenly the terrace of the Tuileries +lighted up; the Versaillese, received with a point-blank volley, fled as +far as the Palais de l'Industrie, leaving many dead. + +On the left the soldiers occupied the abandoned Elysée, and by the Rues +Morny and Abbatucci debouched on the Place St. Augustin, where the +barricades, hardly begun, could not resist, and towards half-past seven +the Versaillese installed themselves at the Pepinière Barracks. The +Federals formed a second line in the rear, closing the Boulevard +Malesherbes at the top of the Rue Boissy d'Anglas. + +On the left of Douai, Clinchant and Ladmirault continued their movement +along the ramparts. The important works at the gates of Bineau, +Courcelles, Asnières, and Clichy, directed against the fortifications, +became useless, and the Ternes were occupied without striking a blow. At +the same time one of the Clinchant divisions passed by the outer +ramparts. The Federal battalions on duty at Neuilly, Levallois-Perret, +and St. Ouen were assailed with balls from the rear--(this was the +first intimation they got of the entry of the Versaillese)--and many +Federals were taken prisoners. Others succeeded in returning to Paris by +the gates of Bineau, Asnières, and Clichy, spreading panic and rumours +of treason in the seventeenth arrondissement. + +The rappel had been beaten all night in the Batignolles, and had called +out the sedentary guards and the youths. A battalion of engineers rushed +forward to encounter Clinchant's skirmishers, and began firing in front +of the Parc Monceaux and the Place Wagram, when the National Guards, +deceived by their red trousers, opened a deadly fire upon them. They +retreated and laid bare the Parc, which the Versaillese occupied, and +then pushed on to the Batignolles. There they were stopped by barricades +rising on all sides; on the left, from the Place Clichy to the Rue +Lévis; in the centre, in the Rues Lebouteux, La Condamine, and Des +Dames; on the right, La Fourche, the rival position of the Place Clichy, +had been fortified, and soon the Batignolles formed a serious outwork +for Montmartre, our principal fortress. + +The latter, for seventeen hours,[179] had looked silently on the entry +of the troops of Versailles. In the morning the columns of Douai and +Ladmirault, their artillery and their waggons, had met each other, and +become entangled on the Place du Trocadéro. A few shells from +Montmartre[180] would have changed this confusion into a rout, and the +least check met with by the troops on their entry would have been for +Paris a second 18th March; but the cannon of the Buttes remained mute. + +Monstrous negligence, which alone would suffice to condemn the Council, +the War Office, and the delegates of Montmartre. Eighty-five cannon and +about twenty mitrailleuses were lying there, dirty, pell-mell, and no +one during these eight weeks had even thought of cleaning them. +Projectiles of 7 cm. abounded, but there were no cartridges. At the +Moulin de la Galette three pieces of 24 cm. alone were supplied with +carriages, but there were neither parapets, blindages, nor even +platforms. At nine o'clock in the morning they had not yet fired; after +the first discharge the recoil overthrew the carriages, and much time +was required to set them up again. These three pieces themselves had +very little munition. Of fortifications or earthworks there were none; +merely a few barricades at the foot of the external boulevards had been +begun. At nine o'clock La Cécilia sent to Montmartre, and found the +defence in this disgraceful state. He immediately addressed despatches +to the Hôtel-de-Ville, conjuring the members of the Council to come +themselves, or at least to send reinforcements of men and munitions. + +A similar thing occurred at the same time on the left bank at the Ecole +Militaire. Face to face with its park of artillery, the Versaillese +since one o'clock in the morning were manoeuvring on the Trocadéro +without a single cannon shot being fired at them. What, then, was the +governor of the Ecole about? + +At daybreak the Langourian brigade attacked the huts of the +Champ-de-Mars. The Federals defended themselves several hours, and were +only dislodged by the shells of the Trocadéro, which enkindled a +conflagration.[181] They then fell back upon the Ecole, and for a long +time checking the effort of the troops, gave the seventeenth +arrondissement time to rise. The quay as far as the Légion d'Honneur, +the Rues de Lille, De l'Université, and the Boulevard St. Germain up to +the Rue Solferino were being barricaded. Half-a-dozen of the armlet +conspirators, led by Durouchoux and Vrignault, were coming down the Rue +du Bac at great speed, when a member of the Council, Sicard, arrested +them before the Petit St. Thomas. A bullet struck Durouchoux; his +acolytes carried him away, and took advantage of the occasion not to +appear again. The Rue de Beaune, Verneuil, and St. Pères were put in a +state of defence, and a barricade was thrown up in the Rue de Sèvres at +the Abbaye-au-Bois. + +On the right Cissey's soldiers descended the Rue de Vaugirard without +hindrance as far as the Avenue du Maine; another column filed off along +the railway, and at half-past six reached the Mont-Parnasse station. +This position, of supreme importance, had been utterly neglected; about +twenty men defended it, and they were soon short of cartridges, and +obliged to retreat to the Rue de Rennes, where, under the fire of the +troops, they constructed a barricade at the top of the Rue du Vieux +Colombier. On his extreme right Cissey occupied the Vanves gate and +lined the whole railway of the west. + +Paris rose to the roar of the cannon and read the proclamation of +Delescluze. The shops were at once shut up again, the boulevards +remained empty, and Paris, the old insurgent, resumed her combative +physiognomy. Estafets dashed through the streets, and remainders of +battalions came to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where the Central Committee, the +Committee of Artillery, and all the military services were concentrated. + +At nine o'clock twenty members of the Council had assembled. A miracle! +There was Félix Pyat, who had cried "To arms!" in his paper that very +morning. He had put on his patriarchal air. "Well, my friends, our last +hour has come. Oh, for myself what matters it! My hair is grey, my +career run out. What more glorious end could I hope for than that of the +barricade. But when I see around me so many in the prime of youth, I +tremble for the future of the Revolution!" Then he demanded that the +names of the members present should be entered, in order to mark out +distinctly those true to their duty. He signed his name, and, with tears +in his eyes, the old comedian trotted off to a hiding-place, surpassing +by his last cowardice all his former villainies. + +A sterile meeting this, spent in discussing the news of the day; no +impulsion given, no system of defence propounded. The Federals were left +to their own inspirations--left to look after themselves. During the +whole past night neither Dombrowski, nor the War Office, nor the +Hôtel-de-Ville had thought of the battalions outside the town. +Henceforth each corps had nothing to expect but from its own initiative, +from the resources it might be able to create and the intelligence of +its chiefs. + +In default of direction proclamations abounded. + +"Let good citizen rise! To the barricades! The enemy is within our +walls. No hesitation. Forward, for the Commune and for liberty. To +arms!" + +"Let Paris bristle up with barricades, and from behind these improvised +ramparts still hurl at her enemies her cry of war, of pride, of +defiance, but also of victory; for Paris with her barricades is +inexpugnable." + +Great words; nothing but words. + +_Mid-day._--General Cissey had turned the Ecole Militaire, and thereby +forced its last defenders. The soldiers invaded the Esplanade des +Invalides and entered the Rue Grenelle St. Germain, when L'Ecole +d'Etat-major exploded and put them to flight. Two of our cannon +enfiladed the Rue de l'Université; four gunboats, anchored under the +Pont-Royal, opened fire on the Trocadéro. In the centre, in the eighth +arrondissement, the Versaillese skirmished. At the Batignolles they did +not advance, but their shells harassed the Rue Lévis. We also lost many +men in the Rue Cardinet, where children were fighting furiously. + +Malon and Jaclard, who directed this part of the defence, had since +morning in vain applied to Montmartre for reinforcements; so towards one +o'clock they themselves went in search of them. Not one of the +staff-officers could give them the slightest information. The Federals +were wandering about the streets or chatting in small groups. Malon +wanted to take them back with him, but they refused, reserving +themselves, they said, for the defence of their own quarter. The cannon +of the Buttes were mute, being short of cartridges; the Hôtel-de-Ville +had sent only words. + +Still there were two generals on the heights, Cluseret and La Cécilia, +the ex-delegate melancholily airing his somnolent incapacity, while La +Cécilia, unknown in this quarter, at once found himself powerless. + +_Two o'clock._--The Hôtel-de-Ville had again assumed its grand aspect of +March. On the right the Committee of Public Safety and on the left the +War Office were overrun. The Central Committee was multiplying its +orders and exclaiming against the incapacity of the members of the +Council, though itself incapable of setting forth a single precise idea. +The Committee of Artillery, more beset than ever, could not yet make out +its cannon, did not know to whom to give them, and often refused pieces +for the most important positions. + +The delegates of the Congress of Lyons, conducted by MM. Jules Amigues +and J. Larroque, came to offer their intervention, but they had no +mandate, and did not even know whether M. Thiers would admit them. They +were received rather coldly. Besides, many at the Hôtel-de-Ville +believed in victory, and almost rejoiced at the entry of the +Versaillese; for indeed Paris seemed to be rising. + +The barricades increased quickly. That of the Rue de Rivoli, which was +to protect the Hôtel-de-Ville, was erected at the entrance of the St. +Jacques Square, at the corner of the Rue St. Denis. Fifty workmen did +the mason-work, while swarms of children brought wheelbarrows full of +earth from the square. This work, several yards deep, six yards high, +with fosses, embrasures, an outwork, as solid as the Florentin redoubt, +which had taken weeks to raise, was finished in a few hours--an example +this of what an intelligent effort at the right time might have done for +the defence of Paris. In the ninth arrondissement, the Rues Auber, De la +Chaussée d'Antin, De Châteaudun, the cross-roads of the Faubourg +Montmartre, Notre Dame de Lorette, De la Trinité, and the Rue des +Martyrs were being unpaved. The large approaches, La Chapelle, Buttes +Chaumont, Belleville, Ménilmontant, the Rue de la Roquette, the +Bastille, the Boulevards Voltaire and Richard Lenoir, the Place du +Château d'Eau, the large boulevards especially from the Porte St. Denis; +and on the left bank the whole length of the Boulevard St. Michel, the +Panthéon, the Rue St. Jacques, the Gobelins, and the principal avenues +of the thirteenth arrondissement were being barricaded. A great many of +these works of defence were never finished. + +While Paris was preparing for the last struggle, Versailles was wild +with joy. The Assembly had met at an early hour, and M. Thiers would not +leave to any of his Ministers the glory of announcing the first +butcheries in Paris. His appearance on the tribune was hailed by +ferocious cheers. "The cause of justice, order, humanity, and +civilisation has triumphed," screamed the little man. "The generals who +have conducted the entry into Paris are great men of war. The expiation +will be complete. It will take place in the name of the law, by the law, +with the law." The Chamber understanding this promise of carnage, rose +to a man, and by a unanimous vote, Right, Left, Centre, Clericals, +Republicans, Monarchists, swore that "the Versaillese army and the chief +of the executive power had merited well of the country."[182] + +The sitting was at once raised, the deputies rushing off to the Lanterne +de Diogène, Châtillon, and Mont-Valérien, to all the heights whence they +could, as from an immense Colosseum, observe the butchery of Paris +without incurring the least danger. The population of idlers accompanied +them, and on this route of Versailles deputies, courtesans, women of the +world, journalists, functionaries stung by the same craving, sometimes +crammed into the same carriage, displayed before the Prussians and +France the spectacle of a saturnalia of the bourgeoisie. + +After eight o'clock the army ceased to advance, save in the eighth +arrondissement, where the barricade before the English Embassy was +turned by the gardens. Our line of the Faubourg St. Germain resisted +from the Seine to the Mont-Parnasse Station, which we were cannonading. + +With nightfall the fusillade slackened, but the cannonade still went on. +A red light glared in the Tuileries; the Ministry of Finance was +burning. It had during the whole day received part of the Versaillese +shells, destined for the terrace of the Tuileries, and the papers piled +up in its upper storeys had taken fire. The firemen of the Commune had +at first extinguished this conflagration, interfering with the defence +of the St. Florentin redoubt, but it had soon lit up again, and become +unquenchable. + +Then began those nights of horror, where, amidst the roaring of the +cannon, by the glimmer of burning houses, men sought each other in pools +of blood. The Paris of the revolt had at length been roused. Her +battalions descended towards the Hôtel-de-Ville headed by bands and the +red flag. Small in number, a battalion perhaps two hundred strong, but +resolute, these Federals marched on in silence; there were seen also, +muskets on their shoulders, those men, devoted to the Social Revolution, +whom personal jealousy had kept at a distance. But in this hour none +thought of such recriminations. Because of the incapacity of the chiefs +ought the soldiers to desert their flag? The Paris of 1871 represented +against Versailles the Social Revolution and the new destinies of the +nation; one must be against or for her despite the faults committed. +Cowards only abstained. All the true revolutionists rose, even those who +had no illusions as to the issue of the struggle, eager to defy death in +the service of their immortal cause. + +_Ten o'clock._--We proceeded to the Hôtel-de-Ville. An irritated group +of Federals had just arrested Dombrowski. The general, without any +command since morning, had repaired with his officers to the outposts of +St. Ouen, and believing his rôle terminated, wanted in the night to ride +through the Prussian ranks and gain the frontier. A commander, who was +afterwards shot as a traitor, had incited his men against the general +under the pretext that he was betraying them. Led before the Committee +of Public Safety, Dombrowski indignantly exclaimed, "They say I have +betrayed!" The members of the Committee welcomed him affectionately, and +the incident had no further consequences. + +Messengers arrived at the War Office from all the points of the battle. +A great number of guards and officers issued orders and despatches in +the midst of a continual bustle. The inner courts were full of waggons +and carriages, the horses all ready harnessed; munitions were being +taken out or brought in, and not the least sign of discouragement, or +even of anxiety, was visible, but everywhere an almost gay activity. + +The streets and boulevards, with the exception of the invaded quarters, +had been lighted as usual. At the entrance of the Faubourg Montmartre +the light ceased abruptly, giving it the appearance of an enormous black +hole. This obscurity was guarded by Federal sentinels, uttering every +now and then their cry, "Passez au large!" Beyond this only a menacing +silence. These shadows moving about in the night seemed to assume +gigantic forms; one fancied oneself haunted by a sinister dream; the +bravest were appalled. + +There were nights more noisy, more glaring, more grandiose, when the +conflagrations and the cannonade enveloped Paris, but none of more +lugubrious impress. A night of meditation this, the vigil of battle. We +sought each other in the gloom, spoke low, giving and taking comfort. At +the cross-roads we consulted each other in order to examine our +positions, and then to work! Now for the spade and the pavements! Let +the earth be heaped up where the shells may flatten themselves against +it; let the mattresses thrown from the windows shelter the combatants. +Henceforth there is to be no more rest; let the stones cemented with +hate press against each other like the shoulders of men arrayed for the +battlefield. The enemy has taken us by surprise, defenceless. May he +to-morrow encounter a Saragossa or a Moscow! + +Every passer-by was requisitioned. "Come, citizen, lend a hand for the +Republic!" At the Bastille and in the interior boulevards one met crowds +of workers, some digging the earth, others carrying the paving-stones; +children using spades and mattocks as big as themselves. The women +encouraged the men; the delicate hand of the young girl raised the heavy +pickaxe that fell with a sharp sound, emitting fiery sparks. It took an +hour to seriously break through the soil. What matter! they will spend +their night at it. On the Tuesday evening, at the intersection of the +Square St. Jacques and the Boulevard Sebastopol, many _dames de la +halle_ worked for a long time, filling earth sacks and wicker +baskets.[183] + +And these were no longer the traditional redoubts two storeys high. Save +four or five in the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue de Rivoli, the barricades +of May consisted of a few paving-stones hardly a man's height; behind +these sometimes a cannon or a mitrailleuse; and in the midst, wedged in +by two paving-stones, the red flag, the colour of vengeance. Behind +these shreds of ramparts thirty men held regiments in check. + +If this general effort had been directed by the least thought of +combination, if Montmartre and the Panthéon had crossed their fires, the +Versaillese army would have melted away in Paris; but the Federals, +without directions, without military knowledge, saw no further than just +their own quarter, or even their own streets; so that instead of 200 +strategical solidary barricades, easy to defend with 7,000 or 8,000 men, +hundreds were scattered about which it was impossible to arm +sufficiently. The general mistake was a belief that they would be +attacked from the front; while the Versaillese, thanks to their +numbers, everywhere executed flank movements. + +In the evening the Versaillese line extended from the station of the +Batignolles to the extremity of the Railway of the West on the left +bank, passing by the St. Lazare Station, the Pépinière Barracks, the +English Embassy, the Palais de l'Industrie, the Corps Législatif, the +Rue de Bourgogne, the Boulevard des Invalides, and the Mont-Parnasse +Station. To face the invader there were but embryo barricades. If with +one effort he were to break through this line still so weak, he would +surprise the centre quite disarmed. But these 130,000 men did not dare +to. Soldiers and chiefs were afraid of Paris. They fancied the streets +would open, the houses fall upon them; as witness the fable of the +torpedoes, of the mines under the sewers, invented later on to justify +their indecision.[184] On the Monday evening, masters of several +arrondissements, they still trembled, fearful of some terrible surprise. +They needed all the tranquility of the night to recover from their +conquest, and convince themselves that the Committee of Defence, despite +their boasting, had neither foreseen nor prepared anything. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[179] "Seventeen hours were required to get in 130,000 men and our +numerous artillery."--_M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 18 Mars._ + +[180] "From this unexpected obstruction there resulted a confusion that +lasted till after the passage of the troops, and might have had serious +consequences. If the insurgents had then opened fire upon the Trocadéro, +from the batteries of Montmartre, their shells would have harassed us a +great deal. But the cannon of Montmartre still kept silent. It was only +a little after nine o'clock that they commenced firing; the passage was +then already cleared."--_Vinoy, La Commune_, p. 130. + +[181] The first conflagration of the days of May, and the Versaillese +have admitted that they themselves kindled it.--_Vinoy, L'Armistice et +la Commune_, p. 809. + +[182] No deputy protested either on this day or after, or declared he +had abstained from voting, neither those of the extreme Left nor those +of the extreme Right. They are then, all of them equally answerable for +this vote. + +[183] "At the Place Blanche," wrote G. Maroteau in the _Salut Public_ of +the next day, "there was a barricade perfectly constructed and defended +by a battalion of women, about 120. At the moment when I arrived, a dark +form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It was a young girl +with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, a +cartridge-box by her side. 'Stand, citizen! no one passes here!' I +stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed me +to go to the foot of the barricade." + +[184] Appendix XV. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + TUESDAY 23RD--MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN--THE WHOLESALE MASSACRES + --WE LOSE GROUND--PARIS ON FIRE--THE LAST NIGHT OF THE + HÔTEL-DE-VILLE. + + +The defenders of the barricades slept on their paving-stones. The +hostile outposts were on the watch. At the Batignolles the Versaillese +reconnaissance carried off a sentinel. The Federal cried out with all +his might, "Vive la Commune!" and his comrades, thus warned, were able +to put themselves on their guard. He was shot there and then. In like +manner fell D'Assas and Barra. + +At two o'clock La Cécilia, accompanied by the members of the Council, +Lefrançais, Vermorel, and Johannard, and the journalists Alphonse +Humbert and G. Maroteau, brought up a reinforcement of 100 men to the +Batignolles. To Malon's reproaches for having left the quarter without +succour the whole day, the General answered, "I am not obeyed." + +_Three o'clock._--To the barricades! The Commune is not dead! The fresh +morning air bathes the fatigued faces and revives hope. The enemy's +cannonade along the whole line salutes the break of day. The +artillerists of the Commune, from Mont-Parnasse to the Buttes +Montmartre, which seem awaking, answered as well as they could. + +Ladmirault, almost motionless the day before, now launched his men along +the fortifications, taking all the gates from Neuilly to St. Ouen in the +rear. On his right, Clinchant attacked by the same movement all the +barricades of the Batignolles. The Rue Cardinet yielded first, then the +Rues Noblet, Truffaut, La Condamine, and the lower Avenue of Clichy. +Suddenly the gate of St. Ouen opened, and the Versaillese poured into +Paris; it was the Montaudon division, which since evening had been +operating in the exterior. The Prussians had surrendered the neutral +zone, and so, with the help of Bismarck, Clinchant and Ladmirault were +able to take the Buttes by the two flanks. + +Nearly surrounded in the mairie of the seventeenth arrondissement, Malon +ordered the retreat on Montmartre, whither a detachment of twenty-five +women, come to offer their services under the conduct of the citoyennes +Dimitrieff and Louise Michel, were also sent. + +Clinchant, pursuing his route, was arrested by the barricade of the +Place Clichy. To reduce these badly disposed paving-stones, behind which +hardly fifty men were fighting, required the combined effort of the +Versaillese of the Rue de St. Pétersbourg and their tirailleurs of the +Collége Chaptal. The Federals, having no more shells, charged with +stones and bitumen; their powder exhausted, they fell back upon the Rue +des Carrières, and Ladmirault, master of the St. Ouen Avenue, turned +their barricade by the Montmartre Cemetery. About twenty guards refused +to surrender, and were at once shot by the Versaillese. + +In the rear, the quarter Des Epinettes still held out for a time; at +last all resistance ceased, and about nine o'clock the entire +Batignolles belonged to the army. + +The Hôtel-de-Ville knew nothing yet of the progress of the troops when +Vermorel rushed thither in search of munitions for Montmartre. As he was +setting out at the head of the waggons he met Ferré, and, with the smile +familiar to him, said, "Well, Ferré, the members of the minority fight." +"The members of the majority will do their duty," answered Ferré. +Generous emulation of these men, who were both devoted to the people, +and who were to die so nobly. + +Vermorel could not take his waggons as far as Montmartre, the +Versaillese already investing the heights. Masters of the Batignolles, +they had but to stretch out their hand to seize upon Montmartre. The +Buttes seemed dead; panic had during the night hurried on its underhand +work; the battalions, one after the other, had grown smaller, vanished. +Individuals seen later on in the ranks of the army had stirred +defections, spread false news, and every moment arrested civil and +military chiefs, under the pretext that they were betraying. Only about +a hundred men lined the north side of the hill; a few barricades had +been commenced in the night, but without spirit; the women alone had +shown any ardour. + +Cluseret had, according to his usual habit, gone off in a vapour. +Despite his despatches and the promises of the Hôtel-de-Ville, La +Cécilia had received neither reinforcements nor munitions. At nine +o'clock, no longer hearing the cannon of the Buttes, he hurried up, and +found the cannoniers gone. The runaways from the Batignolles arriving at +ten o'clock only brought in panic. The Versaillese might have presented +themselves; there were not 200 combatants there to receive them. + +MacMahon, however, only dared attempt the assault with his best troops, +so redoubtable was this position, so great the renown of Montmartre. Two +entire army corps assailed it by the Rues Lepic, Mercadet, and the +Chaussée Clignancourt. From time to time some shots were fired from a +few houses; forthwith frightened columns came to a stand-still and began +regular sieges. These 20,000 men, who completely surrounded Montmartre, +helped by the artillery established on the terre-plein of the enceinte, +took three hours to climb these positions, defended without method by a +few dozen tirailleurs. + +At eleven o'clock the cemetery was taken, and shortly after the troops +reached the Château-Rouge. In the environs there were some fusillades, +but the few obstinate men who still fought were soon killed, or withdrew +discouraged at their isolation. The Versaillese, scrambling up to the +Buttes by all the acclivities that lead to them, at mid-day installed +themselves at the Moulin de la Galette, descended by the Place St. +Pierre to the mairie, and occupied the whole of the eighteenth +arrondissement without any resistance. + +Thus without a battle, without an assault, without even a protestation +of despair, was this impregnable fortress abandoned, from which a few +hundred resolute men might have kept the whole Versaillese army in +check, and constrained the Assembly to come to terms. + +Hardly arrived at Montmartre, the Versaillese staff offered a holocaust +to the manes of Lecomte and Clément-Thomas. Forty-two men, three women, +and four children were conducted to No. 6 in the Rue des Rosiers and +forced to kneel bare-headed before the wall, at the foot of which the +generals had been executed on the 18th March; then they were killed. A +woman, who held her child in her arms, refused to kneel down, and cried +to her companions, "Show these wretches that you know how to die +upright." + +On the following day these massacres continued. Each batch of prisoners +halted some time before this wall, marked with bullets, and were then +despatched on the slope of the Buttes that overlooks the St. Denis +route.[185] + +The Batignolles and Montmartre witnessed the first wholesale massacres. +Every individual wearing a uniform or regulation boots was shot, as a +matter of course, without questions put, without explanations given. +Thus the Versaillese had been assassinating since the morning in the +Square des Batignolles, Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, and at the gate of +Clichy. The Parc Monceaux was their principal slaughter-house in the +seventeenth arrondissement. At Montmartre the centres of massacre were +the Buttes, the Elysée, of which every step was strewn with corpses, and +the exterior boulevards. + +A few steps from Montmartre the catastrophe was not known. At the Place +Blanche the women's barricade held out for several hours against +Clinchant's soldiers; they then retreated towards the Pigalle barricade, +which fell at about two o'clock. Its chief was led before a Versaillese +chief of battalion. "Who are you?" asked the officer. "Lévêque, mason, +member of the Central Committee." The Versaillese discharged his +revolver in his face; the soldiers finished him. + +On the other bank of the Seine our resistance was more successful. The +Versaillese had been able since morning to occupy the Babylone Barracks +and L'Abbaye-au-Bois, but Varlin stopped them at the cross-roads of the +Croix-Rouge. This cross-road will remain celebrated in the defence of +Paris. All the streets that open into it had been powerfully barricaded, +and this stronghold was only abandoned when fire and shells had reduced +it to a heap of ruins. On the banks of the river, the Rues de +l'Université, St. Dominique, St. Germain, and De Grenelle, the 67th, +135th, 138th, and 147th battalions, supported by the _enfants perdus_ +and _les tirailleurs_, resisted obstinately. In the Rue de Rennes and on +the contiguous boulevards the Versaillese exhausted their strength. In +the Rue Vavin, where Lisbonne conducted the defence, the resistance was +prodigious; for two days this advanced sentinel kept back the invasion +from the Luxembourg. + +We were less secure on our extreme left. The Versaillese had early in +the day invested the Mont-Parnasse Cemetery, which we held with a +handful of men. Near the restaurant Richefeu, the Federals, allowing the +enemy to approach, unmasked their mitrailleuses; but in vain, for the +Versaillese were numerous enough to surround the few defenders of the +cemetery on all sides, and soon stormed it. From there, passing by the +ramparts of the fourteenth arrondissement, they arrived at the Place St. +Pierre. The fortifications of the Avenue d'Italie and of the Route de +Châtillon, long since carefully prepared, but always against the +ramparts, were taken in the rear by the Chaussée du Maine, and the whole +defence of the cross-roads of the Quatre-Chemins was concentrated round +the church. From the top of the steeple about a dozen Federals of +Montrouge supported the barricade that barred two-thirds of the Chaussée +du Maine, held by thirty men for several hours. At last, their +cartridges exhausted, the tricolor flag was hoisted at the mairie, at +the same hour that it floated above the Buttes Montmartre. Henceforth +the route to the Place d'Enfer was open, and the Versaillese arrived +there after having undergone the fire from the Observatoire, where some +Federals had made a stand. + +Behind these lines thus forced other defences were thrown up, thanks to +the care of Wroblewski. The day before, the general, receiving the order +to evacuate the forts, had answered, "Is it treachery or a +misunderstanding? I will not evacuate." Montmartre taken, the general +went to Delescluze, urging him to transfer the defence to the left bank. +The Seine, the forts, the Panthéon, the Bièvre, formed, in his opinion, +a safe citadel, with the open fields for a retreat; a very just +conception this with regular troops, but one cannot at will displace the +heart of an insurrection, and the Federals were more and more bent on +remaining in their own quarters. + +Wroblewski returned to his headquarters, assembled the commanders of the +forts, prescribed all the dispositions to be taken for their defence, +and came back to resume the command of the left bank, given him by +earlier decrees. But on sending orders to the Panthéon, he was answered +that Lisbonne commanded there. Wroblewski, undeterred, placed the +section left to him in a state of defence. He installed a battery of +eight pieces and two batteries of four on the Butte-aux-Cailles, a +dominant position between the Panthéon and the forts; he fortified the +Boulevards d'Italie, De l'Hôpital, and De la Gare. His headquarters were +established at the Mairie des Gobelins, and his reserve at the Place +d'Italie, Place Jeanne d'Arc, and at Bercy. + +At the other extremities of Paris the fourteenth and twentieth +arrondissements also prepared their defence. The brave Passedouet had +replaced Du Bisson, who still dared to present himself as +_chef-de-légion_ of La Villette. They barricaded the Grande Rue de la +Chapelle behind the Strasbourg Railway, the Rues d'Aubervilliers, De +Flandre, and the canal, so as to form five lines of defence, protected +on the flank by the boulevards and the fortifications. Cannon were +placed in the Rue Riquet at the gasworks, while rampart pieces were +carried by the men on to the Buttes Chaumont and others to the Rue de +Puebla. A battery of six was mounted on the height of the Père Lachaise, +covering Paris with its rumbling reports. + +A mute and desolate Paris. As on the day before, the shops remained +closed, and the streets, bleached by the sun, looked empty and menacing. +Estafets riding at full speed, pieces of artillery shifted from their +places, combatants on the march, alone broke this solitude. Cries of +"Open the shutters!" "Draw up the blinds!" alone interrupted this +silence. Two journals, _Le Tribun du Peuple_ and _Le Salut Public_, were +published, notwithstanding the Versaillese shells that were falling into +the printing-office of the Rue Aboukir. + +A few men at the Hôtel-de-Ville did their best to attend to details. One +decree authorised the chiefs of barricades to requisition the necessary +implements and victuals; another condemned every house from which +Federals were shot at to be burned. In the afternoon the Committee of +Public Safety issued an appeal to the soldiers:-- + +"The people of Paris will never believe that you could raise your arms +against them. When they face you your hands will recoil from an act that +would be a veritable fratricide. + +"Like us, you too are proletarians. That which you did on the 18th March +you will do again. Come to us, brothers, come to us; our arms are open +to receive you." + +The Central Committee at the same time placarded a similar appeal--a +puerile but generous illusion; and on this point the people of Paris +entirely agreed with their mandatories. In spite of the frenzy of the +Assembly, the fusillade of the wounded, the treatment inflicted upon the +prisoners for six weeks, the workingmen did not admit that children of +the people could rend the entrails of that Paris who combated for them. + +At three o'clock M. Bonvalet and other members of the _Ligue des Droits +de Paris_ presented themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville, where some members +of the Council and of the Committee of Public Safety received them. They +bewailed this struggle, proposed to interfere, as they had so +successfully done during the siege, and to carry to M. Thiers the +expression of their sorrow; further, they placed themselves at the +disposition of the Hôtel-de-Ville. "Well, then," they were answered, +"shoulder a gun and go to the barricades!" Before this direct appeal +the League fell back upon the Central Committee, which had the weakness +to listen to them. + +There was no question of negotiating in the midst of the battle. The +Versaillese, following up their success at Montmartre, were at this +moment pushing towards the Boulevard Ornano and the Northern Railway +station. At two o'clock the barricades of the Chaussée Clignancourt were +abandoned, and in the Rue Myrrha, by the side of Vermorel, Dombrowski +fell mortally wounded. In the morning Delescluze had told him to try his +best in the neighbourhood of Montmartre; and, without hope, without +soldiers, suspected since the entry of the Versaillese, all Dombrowski +could do was to die. He expired two hours afterwards at the Lariboisière +Hospital. His body was taken to the Hôtel-de-Ville, the men of the +barricades presenting arms as he was carried by. His glorious death had +disarmed suspicion. + +Clinchant, thenceforth free on his left, proceeded to the ninth +arrondissement. A column marched down the Rues Fontaine, St. Georges, +and Notre Dame de Lorette, and made a halt at the cross-roads; while +another cannonaded the Rollin Collége before penetrating into the Rue +Trudaine, where it was held in check until the evening. + +More in the centre, at the Boulevard Haussmann, Douai pressed close upon +the barricade of the Printemps shop, and with gunshots dislodged the +Federals who occupied the Trinité Church. Five pieces established under +the porch of the church were then directed at the very important +barricade that barred the Chaussée d'Antin at the entrance of the +boulevard. A detachment penetrated into the Rues Châteaudun and +Lafayette, but at the cross-roads of the Faubourg Montmartre a +barricade, a yard high at the utmost, defended by twenty-five men, +arrested them until night. + +Douai's right was still powerless against the Rue Royale. There for two +days Brunel sustained a struggle only equalled by that of the +Butte-aux-Cailles, of the Bastille, and the Château d'Eau. His main +barricade, transversely crossing the street, was overlooked by the +neighbouring houses, from which the Versaillese decimated the Federals; +and Brunel, impressed with the importance of the post confided to him, +ordered these murderous houses to be burned down. A Federal obeying him +was struck by a ball in the eye, and came back dying to Brunel's side, +saying, "I am paying with my life for the order you have given me. Vive +la Commune!" All the houses comprised between No. 13 and the Faubourg +St. Honoré were caught in the flames, and the Versaillese, appalled, ran +away, some passing over to the Federals. One of them put on the Parisian +uniform and became Brunel's orderly. + +On the right the Boulevard Malesherbes, on the left the terrace of the +Tuileries, which Bergeret occupied since the day before, seconded +Brunel's efforts. The Boulevard Malesherbes, furrowed by shells, was +like a field ploughed up by gigantic shares. The fire of eighty pieces +of artillery at the Quay d'Orsay, Passy, the Champ-de-Mars, the Barrière +de l'Etoile converged on the terrace of the Tuileries and the barricade +St. Florentine. About a dozen Federal pieces bore up against this +shower. The Place de la Concorde, taken between these cross-fires, was +strewn with fragments of fountains and lamp-posts. The statue of Lille +was beheaded, that of Strasbourg pitted by the grapeshot. + +On the left bank the Versaillese made their way from house to house. The +inhabitants of the quarter lent their assistance, and from behind their +closed blinds fired on the Federals, who, indignant, forced and set fire +to the treacherous houses. The Versaillese shells had already begun the +conflagration, and the rest of the quarter was soon in flames. The +troops continued to gain ground, occupied the Ministry of War, the +telegraph office, and reached the Bellechasse Barracks and the Rue de +l'Université. The barricades of the quay and the Rue du Bac were +battered down by the shells; the Federal battalions, which for two days +had held out at the Légion d'Honneur, had no longer any retreat but the +quays. At five o'clock they evacuated this unclean place after having +set it on fire. + +At six o'clock the barricade of the Chaussée d'Antin was lost to us; +the enemy advancing by the side streets had occupied the Nouvel Opéra, +entirely dismantled, and from the top of the roofs the marine-fusileers +commanded the barricade. Instead of imitating them, of also occupying +the houses, the Federals, there as everywhere else, obstinately kept +behind the barricade. + +At eight o'clock the barricade of the Rue Neuve des Capucines, at the +entrance of the Boulevard, gave way under the fire of the pieces of 4 +cm. established in the Rue Caumartin. The Versaillese approached the +Place Vendôme. + +At all points the army had made decided progress. The Versaillese line, +starting from the Northern Railway station, following the Rues +Rochechouart, Cadet, Drouot, whose mairie was taken, the Boulevard des +Italiens, stretched to the Place Vendôme and the Place de la Concorde, +passed along the Rue du Bac, the Abbaye-au-Bois, and the Boulevard +d'Enfer, ending at the bastion 81. The Place de la Concorde and the Rue +Royale, surrounded on their flanks, stood out like a promontory in the +midst of a tempest. Ladmirault faced La Villette; on his right Clinchant +occupied the ninth arrondissement; Douai presented himself at the Place +Vendôme; Vinoy supported Cissy operating on the left bank. At this hour +hardly one-half of Paris was still held by the Federals. + +The rest was given over to massacre. They were still fighting at one end +of a street when the conquered part was already being sacked. Woe to him +who possessed arms or a uniform! Woe to him who betrayed dismay! Woe to +him who was denounced by a political or personal enemy! He was dragged +away. Each corps had its regular executioner, the provost; but to speed +the business there were supplementary provosts in the streets. The +victims were led there--shot. The blind fury of the soldiers encouraged +by the men of order served their hatred and liquidated their debts. +Theft followed massacre. The shops of the tradesmen who had supplied the +Commune, or whom their rival shopkeepers accused, were given over to +pillage; the soldiers smashed their furniture and carried off the +objects of value. Jewels, wine, liqueurs, provisions, linen, perfumery, +disappeared into their knapsacks. + +When M. Thiers was apprised of the fall of Montmartre, he believed the +battle over, and telegraphed to the prefects. For six weeks he had not +ceased to announce that, the ramparts taken, the insurgents would fly; +but Paris, contrary to the habits of the men of Sedan and Metz and of +the National Defence, contested street by street, house by house, and +rather than surrender, burned them. + +A blinding glare arose at nightfall. The Tuileries were burning, so also +the Légion d'Honneur, the Conseil d'Etat, and the Cour des Comptes. +Formidable detonations were heard from the palace of the kings, whose +walls were falling, its vast cupolas giving way. Flames, now slow, now +rapid as darts, flashed from a hundred windows; the red tide of the +Seine reflected the monuments, thus redoubling the conflagration. Fanned +by an eastern wind, the blazing flames rose up against Versailles, and +cried to the conqueror of Paris that he will no longer find his place +there, and that these monarchical monuments will not again shelter a +monarchy. The Rue du Bac, the Rue du Lille, La Croix-Rouge, dashed +luminous columns into the air; the Rue Royale to St. Sulplice seemed a +wall of fire divided by the Seine. Eddies of smoke clouded all the west +of Paris, and the spiral flames shooting forth from these furnaces +emitted showers of sparks that fell upon the neighbouring quarters. + +_Eleven o'clock._--We go to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Sentinels on far +advanced posts made it secure against any surprise; at long intervals a +gaslight flickered in the obscurity; at several barricades there were +torches, and even bivouac fires. That of the St. Jacques Square, +opposite the Boulevard Sebastopol, made of large trees, whose branches +swung to and fro in the wind, muttered and fluttered in the redoubtable +gloom. + +The façade of the Hôtel-de-Ville was reddened by distant flames; the +statues, which the reflection seemed to move, stirred in their niches. +The interior courts were filled with crowds and tumult. Artillery +ammunition waggons, carts, omnibuses, crammed with munitions, rolled off +with a great noise under the vaults. The fêtes of Baron Haussmann awoke +no such sonorous echoes. Life and death, agony and laughter, jostled +each other on these staircases, on every storey, illumined by the same +dazzling light of the gas. + +The lower lobbies were encumbered by National Guards rolled up in their +blankets. The wounded lay groaning on their reddened mattresses; blood +was trickling from the litters placed along the walls. A commander was +brought in who no longer presented a human aspect; a ball had passed +through his cheek, carried away the lips, broken the teeth. Incapable of +articulating a sound, this brave fellow still waved a red flag, and +summoned those who were resting to replace him in the combat. + +In the notorious chamber of Valentine Haussmann the corpse of Dombrowski +was laid out upon a bed of blue satin. A single taper threw its lurid +light on the heroic soldier. His face, white as snow, was calm, the nose +fine, the mouth delicate, the small fair beard standing out pointed. Two +aides-de-camp seated in the darkened corners watched silently, another +hurriedly sketched the last traits of his general. + +The double marble staircase was filled with people coming and going, +whom the sentinels could hardly keep away from the delegate's cabinet. +Delescluze signed orders, mute and wan as a spectre. The anguish of +those later days had absorbed his last vital powers; his voice was only +a death-rattle; the eye and the heart alone lived still in this moribund +athlete. + +Two or three officers calmly prepared the orders, stamped and sent the +despatches; many officers and guards surrounded the table. No speeches, +a little conversation, among the various groups. If hope had waned, +resolution had not grown less. + +Who are these officers who have laid aside their uniforms, these members +of the Council, these functionaries who have shaved their beards? What +are they doing here amongst these brave men? Ranvier, meeting two of his +colleagues thus disguised, who during the siege had been among the most +beplumed, apostrophised them, threatening to shoot them if they did not +at once return to their arrondissements. + +A great example would not have been useless. From hour to hour all +discipline foundered. At that same moment the Central Committee, which +believed itself invested with power by the abdication of the Council, +launched a manifesto, in which it made conditions: "Dissolution of the +Assembly and of the Commune; the army to leave Paris; the Government to +be provisionally confided to the delegates of the large towns, who will +have a Constituent Assembly elected; mutual amnesty." The ultimatum of a +conqueror. This dream was placarded on a few walls, and threw new +disorder into the resistance. + +From time to time some greater clamour arose from the square. A spy was +shot against the barricade of the Victoria Avenue. Some were audacious +enough to penetrate into the most intimate councils.[186] That evening, +at the Hôtel-de-Ville, Bergeret had received the verbal authorisation to +fire the Tuileries, when an individual pretending to be sent by him +asked for this order in writing. He was still speaking when Bergeret +returned. "Who sent you?" said he to the personage. "Bergeret." "When +did you see him?" "Just here, a moment ago." + +During this evening, Raoul Rigault, taking orders from himself only, and +without consulting any of his colleagues, repaired to the prison of Ste. +Pélagie, and signified to Chaudey that he was to die. Chaudey protested, +said he was a Republican, and swore that he had not given the order to +fire on the 22nd January. However, he had been at that time the only +authority in the Hôtel-de-Ville. His protestations were of no avail +against Rigault's resolution. Led into the exercise-ground of Ste. +Pélagie, Chaudey was shot, as were also three gendarmes taken prisoners +on the 18th March. During the first siege he had said to some partisans +of the Commune, "The strongest will shoot the others." He died perhaps +for those words. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[185] Appendix XVI. + +[186] Appendix XVII. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + "Nos vaillants soldats se conduisent de manière à inspirer la + plus haute estime, la plus grande admiration à + l'étranger."--_Discours de M. Thiers, à l'Assemblée + Nationale le 24 Mai 1871._ + + WEDNESDAY 24TH--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE + HÔTEL-DE-VILLE--THE PANTHÉON IS TAKEN--THE VERSAILLESE + SHOOT THE FEDERALS BY HUNDREDS--THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX + HOSTAGES--THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON. + + +The defenders of the barricades, already without reinforcements and +munitions, were now left even without food, and altogether thrown on the +resources of the neighbourhood. Many, quite worn out, went in search of +some nourishment; their comrades, not seeing them return, grew +desperate, while the chiefs of the barricades strained themselves to +keep them back. + +At nine o'clock Brunel received the order to evacuate the Rue Royale. He +went to the Tuileries to tell Bergeret that he could still hold out, but +at midnight the Committee of Public Safety again sent him a formal order +to retreat. Forced to abandon the post he had so well defended for two +days, the brave commander first removed his wounded and then his cannon +by the Rue St. Florentin. The Federals followed; when at the top of the +Rue Castiglione, they were assailed by shots. + +It was the Versaillese, who, masters of the Rue de la Paix and the Rue +Neuve des Capucines, had invaded the Place Vendôme, entirely deserted, +and by the Hôtel-du-Rhin turned the barricade of the Rue Castiglione. +Brunel's Federals, abandoning the Rue de Rivoli, forced the rails of the +garden, went up the quays, and regained the Hôtel-de-Ville. The enemy +did not dare to pursue them, and only at daybreak occupied the Ministry +of Marine, long since abandoned. + +The rest of the night the cannon were silent. The Hôtel-de-Ville had +lost its animation. The Federals slept in the square; in the bureaux the +members of the committees and the officers snatched a few moments of +repose. At three o'clock a staff officer arrived from Notre Dame, +occupied by a detachment of Federals. He came to tell the Committee of +Public Safety that the Hôtel-Dieu harboured eight hundred sick, who +might suffer from the proximity of the struggle, and the Committee +commanded the evacuation of the cathedral in order to save these +unfortunate people. + +And now the sun rose, eclipsing the glare of the conflagrations; the day +dawned radiant, but with no ray of hope for the Commune. Paris had no +longer a right wing; her centre was broken; to assume the offensive was +impossible. The prolongation of her resistance could now only serve to +bear witness to her faith. + +Early in the morning the Versaillese moved on all points. They pushed +towards the Louvre, the Palais-Royal, the Bank, the Comptoir d'Escompte, +the Montholon Square, the Boulevard Ornano, and the line of the Northern +Railway. From four o'clock they cannonaded the Palais-Royal, round which +desperate battles were being fought. By seven o'clock they were at the +Bank and at the Bourse; thence they descended to St. Eustache, where +they met an obstinate resistance. Many children fought with the men; and +when the Federals were outflanked and massacred, these children had the +honour not to be excepted. + +On the left bank the troops with difficulty marched up the quays and all +that part of the sixth arrondissement bordering upon the Seine. In the +centre, the barricade of the Croix-Rouge had been evacuated during the +night, like that of the Rue de Rennes, which thirty men had held for two +days. The Versaillese were then able to enter the Rues d'Assas and +Notre-dame-des-Champs. On the extreme right they reached the Val de +Grace, and advanced against the Panthéon. + +At eight o'clock about fifteen members of the Council assembled at the +Hôtel-de-Ville and decided to evacuate it. Two only protested. The third +arrondissement, intersected by narrow and well-barricaded streets, +sheltered the flank of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which defied every attack +from the front and by the quays. Under such conditions of defence to +fall back was to fly, to strip the Commune of the little prestige still +remaining to it; but no more than the days before were they able to +collect two sound ideas. They feared everything, because ignorant of +everything. Already the commander of the Palais Royal had received the +order to evacuate that edifice, after having set it on fire. He had +protested, and declared he could still hold out, but the order was +repeated. Such was the state of bewilderment, that a member proposed a +retreat on Belleville. They might as well abandon the Château d'Eau and +the Bastille at once. As usual, the time was spent in small-talk. The +governor of the Hôtel-de-Ville went backwards and forwards impatient. + +Suddenly the flames burst forth from the summit of the belfry; an hour +after the Hôtel-de-Ville was but one glow. The old edifice, witness of +so many perjuries, where the people have so often installed powers that +have afterwards shot them down, now cracked and fell with its true +master. With the noise of the crumbling pavilions, of the toppling +vaults and chimneys, of the dull detonations and the loud explosions, +mingled the sharp reports of the cannon from the large barricade St. +Jacques, that swept the Rue de Rivoli. + +The War Office and all the services moved off to the mairie of the +eleventh arrondissement. Delescluze had protested against the desertion +of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and predicted that this retreat would discourage +many combatants. + +The next day they left the Imprimerie Nationale, where the _Officiel_ of +the Commune appeared on the 24th for the last time. Like an _Officiel_ +that respects itself, it was a day behind time; it contained the +proclamations of the day before and a few details of the battle, but +not beyond the Tuesday morning. + +This flight from the Hôtel-de-Ville, cutting the defence in two, +increased the difficulty of the communications. The staff officers who +had not disappeared reached the new headquarters with great trouble; +they were stopped at every barricade and constrained to carry +paving-stones. On producing their despatches pleading urgency, they were +answered, "To-day there are no more epaulettes." The anger they had +inspired for a long time broke out this very morning. In the Rue +Sedaine, near the Place Voltaire, a young officer of the general staff, +the Count de Beaufort, was recognised by the guards of the 166th +battalion, whom he had threatened some days before at the War Office. +Arrested for having tried to violate the orders of the post, Beaufort, +losing his temper, had flung out a menace to purge the battalion. Now, +the day before, near the Madeleine, the battalion had lost sixty men, +and believed in a revenge on the part of Beaufort. This officer was +arrested and conducted before a court-martial, which installed itself in +a shop of the Boulevard Voltaire. Beaufort produced such certificates +that the accusation was abandoned. Nevertheless, the judges decided that +he was to serve in the battalion as a simple guard. Some of those +present objected and named him captain. He came out triumphant. The +crowd, ignorant of his explanation, grumbled on seeing him free. A guard +rushed at him, and Beaufort was imprudent enough to draw out his +revolver. He was immediately seized and thrown back into the shop. The +chief of the general staff did not dare to come to the rescue of his +officer. Delescluze hurried up, asked for a respite, said that Beaufort +should be judged; but the crowd would hear of nothing, and it was +necessary to yield in order to prevent a terrible affray. Beaufort, +conducted to the open space situated behind the mairie, was shot. + +Close by this outburst of fury, at the Père Lachaise, Dombrowski was +receiving the last honours. His corpse had been transported thither in +the night, and during the passage to the Bastille a touching scene had +taken place. The Federals of these barricades had stopped the cortège +and placed the corpse at the foot of the July column; some men, torches +in their hands, formed into a circle, and all the Federals, one after +the other, came to place a last kiss on the brow of the general, while +the drums beat a salute. The body, enveloped in a red flag, was then put +into the coffin. Vermorel, the general's brother, his aides-de-camp, and +about 200 guards were standing up bareheaded. "There is he," cried +Vermorel, "who was accused of treachery! One of the first, he has given +his life for the Commune. And we, what are we doing here instead of +imitating him?" He went on stigmatising cowardice and panics. His +speech, usually intricate, now flowed from him, heated by passion, like +molten metal. "Let us swear to leave here only to seek death!" This was +his last word; he was to keep it. The cannon a few steps off had at +intervals covered his voice; few of the men present but shed tears. + +Happy those who may have such funerals! Happy those buried during the +battle saluted by their cannon, wept over by their friends. + +At that same moment the Versaillese agent who had flattered himself he +could corrupt Dombrowski was being shot. Towards mid-day the +Versaillese, vigorously pushing their attack on the left bank, had +stormed the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Institute, the Mint, which its +director, Camélinat, left only at the last minute. On the point of being +shut up in the Ile Notre Dame, Ferré had given the order to evacuate the +Prefecture of Police and to destroy it. The 450 prisoners arrested for +slight offences were, however, first set at liberty; one only, Vaysset, +was retained and shot on the Pont-Neuf before the statue of Henry IV. +Just before his death he uttered these strange words, "You will answer +for my death to the Comte de Fabrice."[187] + +The Versaillese, neglecting the Prefecture, entered the Rue Tarranes and +the contiguous streets. They were held in check for two hours at the +barricade of the Place de l'Abbaye, which the inhabitants of the +quarter helped to outflank. Eighteen Federals were shot. More to the +right the troops penetrated into the Place St. Sulpice, where they +occupied the mairie of the sixth arrondissement; thence they entered the +Rue St. Sulpice on one side, and on the other penetrated by the Rue de +Vaugirard into the garden of the Luxembourg. After two days of struggle +the brave Federals of the Rue Vavin fell back, and on their retreat blew +up the powder-magazine of the Luxembourg garden. The commotion for a +moment suspended the combat. The Palace of the Luxembourg was not +defended. Some soldiers crossed the garden, broke down the rails facing +the Rue Soufflot, traversed the boulevard, and surprised the first +barricade in that street. + +Three barricades were raised before the Panthéon; the first at the +entrance of the Rue Soufflot--it had just been taken; the second in the +centre; the third extending from the mairie of the fifth arrondissement +to the Ecole de Droit. Varlin and Lisbonne, hardly escaped from the +Croix-Rouge, had hastened up again to face the enemy. Unfortunately the +Federals would listen to no chief, remained on the defensive, and, +instead of attacking the handful of soldiers exposed at the entrance of +the Rue Soufflot, gave the reinforcements time to arrive. + +The bulk of the Versaillese reached the Boulevard St. Michel by the Rues +Racine and De l'Ecole de Médecine, which women had defended. The St. +Michel Bridge ceased firing for want of munitions, so that the soldiers +were able to pass over the boulevard in a body, and got as far as the +Place Maubert, while at the same time on the right they remounted the +Rue Mouffetard. At four o'clock the height Ste. Geneviève, well-nigh +abandoned, was invaded by all its slopes and its few defenders +dispersed. Thus the Panthéon, like Montmartre, fell almost without a +struggle. As at Montmartre, too, the massacres commenced immediately. +Forty prisoners were shot one after the other in the Rue St. Jacques, +under the eyes and by the orders of a colonel. + +Rigault was killed in this neighbourhood. The soldiers seeing a Federal +officer knocking at the door of a house in the Rue Gay-Lussac fired +without hitting him. The door opened and Rigault went in. The soldiers +followed at full speed, rushed into the house, seized the landlord, who +proved his identity, and hastened to deliver up Rigault. The soldiers +were dragging him to the Luxembourg, when, in the Rue Royal-Collard, a +Versaillese staff colonel met the escort, and asked the name of the +prisoner. Rigault bravely answered, "Vive la Commune! Down with +assassins!" He was immediately thrown against a wall and shot. May this +courageous end be counted to him! + +When the fall of the Panthéon, so valiantly defended in June, 1848, +became known in the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, they at once +cried out against traitors; but what then had the Council and the +Committee of Public Safety done for the defence of this capital post? At +the mairie, as at the Hôtel-de-Ville, they were deliberating. + +At two o'clock the members of the Council, of the Central Committee, +superior officers, and the chiefs of the services were assembled in the +library. Delescluze spoke first, amidst a profound silence, for the +least whisper would have covered his dying voice. He said all was not +lost; that they must make a great effort, and hold out to the last. +Cheers interrupted him. He called upon each one to state his opinion. "I +propose," said he, "that the members of the Commune, engirded with their +scarfs, shall make a review of all the battalions that can be assembled +on the Boulevard Voltaire. We shall then at their head proceed to the +points to be conquered." + +The idea appeared grand, and transported those present. Never since the +sitting when he had said that certain delegates of the people would know +how to die at their post, had Delescluze so profoundly moved all hearts. +The distant fusillade, the cannon of the Père Lachaise, the confused +clamours of the battalions surrounding the mairie, blended with, and at +times drowned his voice. Behold, in the midst of this defeat, this old +man upright, his eyes luminous, his right hand raised defying despair, +these armed men fresh from the battle suspending their breath to listen +to this voice which seemed to ascend from the tomb. There was no scene +more solemn in the thousand tragedies of that day. + +There was a superabundance of most vigorous resolutions. Open on the +table lay a large case of dynamite; an imprudent gesture might explode +the Mairie. They spoke of cutting off the bridges, of upheaving the +sewers. What was the use of this tall talking? Very different munitions +were needed now. Where is the engineer-in-chief who had said that at his +bidding an abyss would open and swallow up the enemy? He is gone. Gone +too the chief of the general staff. Since the execution of Beaufort, he +has felt an ill wind blowing for his epaulettes. More motions were made, +and motions will still be made to the end. The Central Committee +condescended to declare that it would subordinate itself to the +Committee of Public Safety. It seemed settled at last that the chief of +the 11th legion was to group all the Federals who had taken refuge in +the eleventh arrondissement; perhaps he might succeed in forming the +columns of which Delescluze had spoken. + +The Delegate at War then visited the defences. Solid preparations were +being made at the Bastille. In the Rue St. Antoine, at the entrance of +the place, a barricade provided with three pieces of artillery was being +finished; another at the entrance of the faubourg covered the Rues de +Charenton and De la Rouqette; but here, as everywhere else, the flanks +were not guarded. Cartridges, shells, were piled up along the houses, +exposed to all projectiles. The approaches to the eleventh +arrondissement were hastily armed, and at the intersection of the +Boulevards Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir a barricade was being thrown up +with casks, pavements, and large bales of paper. This work, inaccessible +from the front, was also to be turned. Before it, at the entrance of the +Boulevards Voltaire, Place du Château d'Eau, a wall of pavement two +yards high was raised. Behind this mortal rampart, assisted by two +pieces of cannon, the Federals for twenty-four hours stopped all the +Versaillese columns debouching on the Place du Château d'Eau. On the +right, the bottom of the Rues Oberkampf, D'Angoulême, of the Faubourg du +Temple, the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi, and the Avenue des Amandiers were +already on the defensive. Higher up, in the tenth arrondissement, +Brunel, arrived that same morning from the Rue Royale, was again to the +fore, like Lisbonne, like Varlin, eager for new perils. A large +barricade cut off the intersection of the Boulevards Magenta and +Strasbourg; the Rue du Château d'Eau was barred, and the works of the +Porte St. Martin and St. Denis, at which they had worked day and night, +were filling with combatants. + +Towards ten o'clock the Versaillese had been able to gain possession of +the Northern Railway station by turning the Rue Stephenson and the +barricades of the Rue de Dunkerque; but the Strasbourg Railway, the +second line of defence of La Villette, withstood their shock, and our +artillery harassed them greatly. On the Buttes Chaumont, Ranvier, who +directed the defence of these quarters, had established three howitzers +of 12 cm., two pieces of 7 near the Temple de la Sybille, and two pieces +of 7 on the lower hill, while five cannon enfiladed the Rue Puebla and +protected the Rotonde. At the Carrières d'Amérique there were two +batteries of three pieces; the pieces of the Père Lachaise fired +incessantly at the invaded quarters, seconded by cannon of large calibre +at the bastion 24. + +The ninth arrondissement filled with fusillades. We lost much ground in +the Faubourg Poissonnière. Despite their success in the Halles, the +Versaillese were not able to get into the third arrondissement, +sheltered by the long arm of the Boulevard Sébastopol, and we commanded +the Rue Turbigo by the Prince Eugène Barracks. The second +arrondissement, almost totally occupied, still held out on the banks of +the Seine; from the Pont-Neuf the barricades of the Avenue Victoria and +Quai de Gèvres resisted till night. Our gunboats having been abandoned, +the enemy seized and re-armed them. + +The only success of our defence was at the Butte aux Cailles, where, +under the impulsion of Wroblewski, it changed into the offensive. +During the night the Versaillese had examined our positions, and at +daybreak they mounted to the assault. The Federals did not wait for +them, and rushed forward to meet them. Four times the Versaillese were +repulsed, four times they returned; four times they retreated, and the +soldiers, discouraged, no longer obeyed their officers. + +Thus La Villette and the Butte aux Cailles, the two extremities of our +defence, kept their ground; but what gaps all along the line! Of Paris, +all theirs on Sunday, the Federals now only possessed the eleventh, +twelfth, nineteenth, and twentieth arrondissements, and a part only of +the third, fifth, and thirteenth. + +On that day the massacres took that furious flight which in a few hours +left St. Bartholomew's Day far behind. Till then only the Federals or +the people denounced had been killed; now the soldiers knew neither +friend nor foe. When the Versaillese fixed his eye upon you, you must +die; when he searched a house, nothing escaped him. "These are no longer +soldiers accomplishing a duty," said a conservative journal, _La +France_. And indeed these were hyenas, thirsting for blood and pillage. +In some places it sufficed to have a watch to be shot. The corpses were +searched,[188] and the correspondents of foreign newspapers called those +thefts the last perquisition. And the same day M. Thiers had the +effrontery to tell the Assembly: "Our valiant soldiers conduct +themselves in such a manner as to inspire foreign countries with the +highest esteem and admiration." + +Then, too, was invented that legend of the petroleuses, which, born of +fear and propagated by the press, cost hundreds of unfortunate women +their lives. The rumour was spread that furies were throwing burning +petroleum into the cellars. Every woman badly dressed, or carrying a +milk-can, a pail, an empty bottle, was pointed out as a petroleuse, her +clothes torn to tatters, she was pushed against the nearest wall, and +killed with revolver-shots. The monstrously idiotical side of the legend +is that the petroleuses were supposed to operate in the quarters +occupied by the army. + +The fugitives from the invaded quarters brought the news of these +massacres to the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. There, within +smaller compass and more menacing, reigned the same confusion as at the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The narrow courts were full of waggons, cartridges, and +powder; every step of the principal staircase was occupied by women +sewing sacks for the barricades. In the Salle des Mariages, whither +Ferré had removed the office of Public Safety, the delegate, assisted by +two secretaries, gave orders, signed free passes, questioned the people +brought to him with the greatest calm, and pronounced his decisions in a +polite, soft, and low voice. Farther on, in the rooms occupied by the +War Office, some officers and chiefs of services received and expedited +despatches; some of them, as at the Hôtel-de-Ville, doing their duty +with perfect sangfroid. At this hour certain men revealed extraordinary +strength of character, especially among the secondary actors of the +movement. They felt that all was lost, that they were about to die, +perhaps even at the hands of their own people, for the fever of +suspicion had reached its utmost degree of paroxysm; yet they remained +in the furnace, their hearts calm, their minds lucid. Never had a +Government, with the exception of that of the National Defence, more +resources, more intelligence, more heroism at its disposal than the +Council of the Commune; never was there one so inferior to its electors. + +At half-past seven a great noise was heard before the prison of La +Roquette, where the day before the three hundred hostages, detained +until then at Mazas, had been transported. Amidst a crowd of guards, +exasperated at the massacres, stood a delegate of the Public Safety +Commission, who said, "Since they shoot our men, six hostages shall be +executed. Who will form the platoon?" "I! I!" was cried from all sides. +One advanced and said, "I avenge my father;" another, "I avenge my +brother." "As for me," said a guard, "they have shot my wife." Each one +brought forward his right to vengeance. Thirty men were chosen and +entered the prison. + +The delegate looked over the jail register, pointed out the Archbishop +Darboy, the President Bonjean, the banker Jecker, the Jesuits Allard, +Clerc, and Ducoudray; at the last moment Jecker was replaced by the Curé +Deguerry. + +They were taken to the exercise-ground. Darboy stammered out, "I am not +the enemy of the Commune. I have done all I could. I have written twice +to Versailles." He recovered a little when he saw death was inevitable. +Bonjean could not keep on his legs. "Who condemns us?" said he. "The +justice of the people." "Oh, this is not the right one," replied the +president. One of the priests threw himself against the sentry-box and +uncovered his breast. They were led further on, and, turning a corner, +met the firing-party. Some men apostrophised them; the delegate at once +ordered silence. The hostages placed themselves against the wall, and +the officer of the platoon said to them, "It is not we whom you must +accuse of your death, but the Versaillese, who are shooting the +prisoners." He then gave the signal and the guns were fired. The +hostages fell back in one line, at an equal distance from each other. +Darboy alone remained standing, wounded in the head, one hand raised. A +second volley laid him by the side of the others.[189] + +The blind justice of revolutions punishes in the first-comers the +accumulated crimes of their caste. + +At eight o'clock the Versaillese closed in upon the barricade of the +Porte St. Martin. Their shells had long since set the theatre on fire, +and the Federals, pressed by this conflagration, were obliged to fall +back. + +That night the Versaillese bivouacked in front of the Strasbourg +Railway, the Rue St. Denis, the Hôtel-de-Ville (occupied towards nine +o'clock by Vinoy's troops), the Ecole Polytechnique, the Madelonnettes, +and the Monsouris Park. They presented a kind of fan, of which the fixed +point was formed by the Pont-au-Change, the right side by the +thirteenth arrondissement, the left by the streets of the Faubourg St. +Martin and the Rue de Flandre, the arc by the fortifications. The fan +was about to close at Belleville, which formed the centre. + +Paris continued to burn furiously. The Porte St. Martin, the St. +Eustache Church, the Rue Royale, the Rue de Rivoli, the Tuileries, the +Palais-Royal, the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Théâtre-Lyrique, the left bank +from the Légion d'Honneur up to the Palais de Justice and the Prefecture +de Police, stood out bright red in the darkness of night. The caprices +of the fire displayed a blazing architecture of arches, cupolas, +spectral edifices. Great volumes of smoke, clouds of sparks flying into +the air, attested formidable explosions; every minute stars lit up and +died out again in the horizon. These were the cannon of the fort of +Bicêtre, of the Père Lachaise, and the Buttes Chaumont, which fired on +the invaded quarters. The Versaillese batteries answered from the +Panthéon, the Trocadéro, and Montmartre. Now the reports followed each +other at regular intervals; now there was a continuous thunder along the +whole line. They aimed at random, blindly, madly. The shells often +exploded in the midst of their career; the whole town was enveloped in a +whirl of flame and smoke. + +What men this handful of combatants, who, without chiefs, without hope, +without retreat, disputed their last pavements as though they implied +victory! The hypocritical reaction has charged them with the crime of +incendiarism, as if in war fire were not a legitimate arm; as if the +Versaillese shells had not set fire to at least as many edifices as +those of the Federals; as if the private speculation of certain men of +order had not its share in the ruins.[190] And that same bourgeois who +spoke of "burning everything"[191] before the Prussians, calls this +people scoundrels because they preferred to bury themselves in the +ruins rather than abandon their faith, their property, their families, +to a coalition of despots a thousand times more cruel and more lasting +than the foreigner. + +At eleven o'clock two officers entered Delescluze's room and informed +him of the execution of the hostages. He listened to the recital without +ceasing to write, and then only asked, "How did they die?" When the +officers were gone, Delescluze turned to the friend who was working with +him, and, hiding his face in his hands, "What a war!" cried he, "what a +war!" But he knew revolutions too well to lose himself in bootless +reflections, and, mastering his emotion, he exclaimed, "We shall know +how to die!" + +During the whole night despatches succeeded each other without +intermission, all demanding cannon and men under the threat of +abandoning such or such a position. But where to find cannon? And men +began to be as rare as the bronze. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[187] One of the commanders of the German troops. + +[188] Appendix XVIII. + +[189] At half-past eight o'clock in the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement the delegate Genton made this recital, which we heard, +and reproduce verbatim. + +[190] Appendix XIX. + +[191] "Burn everything! I have heard these words from the most wise, the +most virtuous men."--_Jules Favre, Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. +42. "Rather Moscow than Sedan," wrote during the first siege one of +these wise and virtuous men--M. Jules Simon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + THURSDAY 25TH--THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF + THE TROOPS--DELESCLUZE DIES--THE BRASSARDIERS[192] + STIMULATE THE MASSACRE--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE + THE MAIRIE OF THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT. + + +A few thousand men could not indefinitely hold a line of battle several +miles long. When night had set in, many Federals abandoned their +barricades in order to snatch a little rest. The Versaillese, who were +on the look-out, took possession of their defences, and the glimmering +of dawn saw the tricolor where on the eve had floated the red flag. + +In the darkness the Federals evacuated the greater part of the tenth +arrondissement, whose artillery pieces were transported to the Château +d'Eau. Brunel and the brave _pupilles de la Commune_ still stood their +ground in the Rue Magnan and on the Quay Jemappes, the troops holding +the top of the Boulevard Magenta. + +On the left bank, the Versaillese erected batteries at the Place +d'Enfer, the Luxembourg, and the bastion 81. More than fifty cannon and +mitrailleuses were levelled at the Butte aux Cailles; for, despairing of +taking it by assault, Cissey wished to crush it with his artillery. +Wroblewski, on his side, did not remain inactive. Besides the 175th and +176th battalions, he had under his command the legendary 101st, which +was to the troops of the Commune what the 32nd brigade had been to the +army of Italy. Since the 3rd April the 101st had not rested. Day and +night, their guns hot, they had roamed about the trenches, the +villages, the fields; the Versaillese of Neuilly, of Asnières, ten times +fled before them. They had taken three cannon from them, which, like +faithful mastiffs, followed them everywhere. All citizens of the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Mouffetard quarter, undisciplined, +undisciplinable, wild, rough, their clothes and flag torn, obeying only +one order, that to march forward, mutineering when inactive, when hardly +out of fire rendering it necessary to plunge them into it again. +Sérizier commanded, or rather accompanied them; for indeed their rage +was their only commander. While at the front they attempted surprises, +seized outposts, kept the soldiers in alarm. Wroblewski, uncovered on +his right since the taking of the Panthéon, secured his communications +with the Seine by a barricade on the Bridge of Austerlitz, and furnished +the Place Jeanne d'Arc with cannon, in order to check the troops who +might venture along the railway station. + +That day M. Thiers dared to telegraph to the provinces that Marshal +MacMahon had just, for the last time, summoned the Federals to +surrender. This was an odious lie added to so many others. Like +Cavaignac in 1848, M. Thiers, on the contrary, wanted to prolong the +battle. He knew that his shells were setting Paris on fire, that the +massacre of the prisoners, of the wounded, would fatally entail that of +the hostages. But what cared he for the fate of a few priests and a few +gendarmes? What cared the bourgeoisie if it triumphed amidst ruins--if +on these ruins it could write, "Paris waged war with the privileged; +Paris is no more!" + +The Hôtel-de-Ville and the Panthéon in the power of the troops, their +whole efforts concentrated upon the Château d'Eau, the Bastille, and the +Butte aux Cailles. At four o'clock Clinchant resumed his march towards +the Château d'Eau. One column, setting out from the Rue Paradis, went up +the Rues du Château d'Eau and De Bondy; another advanced against the +barricade of the Boulevards Magenta and Strasbourg; while a third from +the Rue des Jeuneurs pushed on between the boulevards and the Rue +Turbigo. The corps Douay on the right supported this movement, and +endeavoured to remount the third arrondissement by the Rues Charlot and +De Saintonge. Vinoy advanced towards the Bastille by the small streets +that abut upon the Rue St. Antoine, the quays of the right and of the +left banks. Cissey, with more modest strategy, cannonaded the Butte aux +Cailles, before which his men had so often turned tail. + +Painful scenes were enacted in the forts. Wroblewski, whose left wing +was covered by them, relied for their preservation upon the energy of +the member of the Council who had assumed the functions of delegate. The +evening before the commander of Montrouge had abandoned that fort and +had retreated to Bicêtre with his garrison. The fort of Bicêtre did not +hold out much longer. The battalions declared that they wanted to return +to the town in order to defend their quarters, and the delegate, in +spite of his threats, was unable to retain them; so, after having spiked +their guns, the whole garrison returned to Paris. The Versaillese +occupied the two evacuated forts, and there at once erected batteries +against the fort of Ivry and the Butte aux Cailles. + +The general attack on the Butte did not begin till mid-day. The +Versaillese followed the ramparts as far as the Avenue d'Italie and the +Route de Choisy, with the view of making sure of the Place d'Italie, +which they attacked from the side of the Gobelins. The Avenues d'Italie +and De Choisy were defended by powerful barricades which they could not +dream of forcing; but that of the Boulevard St. Marcel, protected on one +side by the conflagration of the Gobelins, could be turned by the +numerous gardens intersecting this quarter, and the Versaillese +succeeded in doing this. They first took possession of the Rue des +Cordillières St. Marcel, where twenty Federals who refused to surrender +were massacred, and then entered the gardens. For three hours a long and +obstinate fusillade enveloped the Butte aux Cailles, battered down by +the Versaillese cannon, six times as numerous as Wroblewski's. + +The garrison of Ivry arrived towards one o'clock. On leaving the fort +they had set fire to a mine which sprung two bastions. Soon after the +Versaillese penetrated into the abandoned fort, and then there was no +struggle, as M. Thiers tried to make it appear in one of those bulletins +in which he very cleverly intermingled truth and falsehood. + +Towards ten o'clock on the right bank the Versaillese reached the +barricade of the Faubourg St. Denis, near the St. Lazare prison, +outflanked and shot seventeen Federals.[193] Thence they went to occupy +the St. Laurent barricade at the junction of the Boulevard Sébastopol, +erected batteries against the Château d'Eau, and by the Rue des +Récollets gained the Quay Valmy. On the night, their debouching on the +Boulevard St. Martin was retarded by the Rue de Lanery, against which +they fired from the Ambigu-Comique Théatre. In the third arrondissement +they were stopped in the Rue Meslay, Rue Nazareth, Rue du Vert-Bois, Rue +Charlot, Rue de Saintonge. The second arrondissement, invaded from all +sides, was still disputing its Rue Montorgueuil Nearer the Seine, Vinoy +succeeded in entering the Grenier d'Abondance by circuitous streets, and +in order to dislodge him the Federals set fire to this building, which +overlooks the Bastille. + +_Three o'clock._--The Versaillese invaded the thirteenth arrondissement +more and more. Their shells falling upon the prison of the Avenue +d'Italie, the Federals evacuated it, at the same time taking out the +prisoners, amongst whom were the Dominicans of Arcueil, who had been +brought back to Paris with the garrison of Bicêtre. The sight of these +men, doubly odious, exasperated the combatants, whose guns, so to say, +spontaneously went off, and a dozen of the apostles of the Inquisition +fell under the bullets at the moment they were running away by the +Avenue. All the other prisoners were respected. + +Since the morning Wroblewski had received the order to fall back upon +the eleventh arrondissement. He persisted in holding out, and had +shifted the centre of his resistance a little further to the rear, to +the Place Jeanne d'Arc. But the Versaillese, masters of the Avenue des +Gobelins, made their junction with the columns of the Avenues d'Italie +and Choisy in the thirteenth arrondissement. One of their detachments +continuing to file along the rampart, reached the embankment of the +Orleans Railway, and the red-coats were already showing themselves on +the Boulevard St. Marcel. Wroblewski, almost hemmed in on all sides, was +at last forced to consent to a retreat. Moreover, the subaltern chiefs +had, like their general, received the order to fall back; and so, +protected by the fire of the Austerlitz Bridge, the able defender of the +Butte aux Cailles passed the Seine in good order with his cannon and a +thousand men. A certain number of Federals, who obstinately remained +behind in the thirteenth arrondissement, were surrounded and taken +prisoners. + +The Versaillese did not dare to disturb Wroblewski's retreat, although +they held part of the Boulevard St. Marcel, the Orleans Station, and +their gunboats were ascending the Seine. The latter were delayed for a +moment at the entrance of the St. Martin's Canal, but putting on full +steam, they overcame the obstacle, and in the evening lent assistance in +the attack on the eleventh arrondissement. + +The whole left bank now belonged to the enemy; the Bastille and the +Château d'Eau became the centre of the combat. + +In the Boulevard Voltaire might now be seen all the true-hearted men who +had not perished, or whose presence was not indispensable in their +quarters. One of the most active was Vermorel, who during the whole +struggle showed a courage composed at once of fire and coolness. On +horseback, his red scarf tied round him, he rode from barricade to +barricade, encouraging the men, fetching and bringing reinforcements. At +the Mairie another meeting was held towards twelve o'clock. Twenty-two +members of the Council were present; about ten more were defending +their arrondissements, the others had disappeared. Arnold explained that +the evening before, the secretary of Mr. Washburne, the ambassador of +the United States, had come to offer the mediation of the Germans. The +Commune, he said, had now only to send commissaries to Vincennes in +order to regulate the conditions of an armistice. The secretary, +introduced to the meeting, renewed this declaration, and the discussion +began. Delescluze showed great reluctance to accept this plan. What +motive induced the foreigner to intervene? To put an end to the +conflagration and preserve their guarantee, he was answered. But their +guarantee was the Versaillese Government, whose triumph was no longer +doubtful at this moment. Others gravely asserted that the inveterate +defence of Paris had inspired the Prussian with admiration. No one asked +whether this insensate proposition did not hide some snare; if the +pretended secretary were not a simple spy. They clung like drowning men +to this last chance of salvation. Arnold even set forth the basis of an +armistice similar to that of the Central Committee. Four of the members +present, and amongst them Delescluze, were charged to accompany the +American secretary to Vincennes. + +At three o'clock they reached the gate of Vincennes, but the commissary +of police refused to let them pass. They showed their scarfs, their +cards of members of the Council. The commissary insisted upon a +safe-conduct from the Commission of Public Safety. While the discussion +was going on some Federals came up. "Where are you going?" said they. +"To Vincennes." "Why?" "On a mission." A painful controversy ensued. The +Federals thought the members of the Council wanted to abscond, and they +were even about to ill-use them, when some one recognised Delescluze. +His name saved the others; but the commissary still insisted upon a +safe-conduct. + +One of the delegates run off to the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement to procure it, but, even on Ferré's order, the guards +refused to lower the drawbridge. Delescluze addressed them, said that +the common weal of all was at stake; but prayers and threats proved +alike unable to overcome the idea of a defection. Delescluze came back +shivering all over. For one moment he had been suspected of cowardice; +this was to him a death-blow. + +Before the mairie he found a crowd shouting at some flags, surmounted by +eagles, which had just, they said, been taken from the Versaillese. +Wounded were being brought from the Bastille. Mademoiselle Dimitrieff, +wounded herself, supported Frankel, wounded at the barricade of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. Wroblewski just arriving from the Butte aux +Cailles, Delescluze offered him the command-in-chief. "Have you a few +thousand resolute men?" asked Wroblewski. "A few hundred at most," +answered the delegate. Wroblewski could not accept any responsibility of +command under such unequal conditions, and continued to fight as a +simple soldier. He was the only general of the Commune who had showed +the qualities of a chef-de-corps. He always asked to have those +battalions sent him which everybody else declined, undertaking to +utilise them. + +The attack was coming nearer and nearer the Château d'Eau. This place, +constructed with the object of checking the faubourgs, and opening into +eight large avenues, had not been really fortified. The Versaillese, +masters of the Folies-Dramatiques Théatre and of the Rue du Château +d'Eau, attacked it by turning the Prince Eugène Barracks. House by house +they tore the Rue Magnan from the _pupilles de la Commune_. Brunel, +after facing the enemy for four days, fell wounded in the thigh. The +_pupilles_ carried him away on a litter across the Place du Château +d'Eau amidst a shower of bullets. + +From the Rue Magnan the Versaillese soon reached the barracks, and the +Federals, too few in number to defend this vast monument, had to +evacuate it. + +The fall of this position uncovered the Rue Turbigo, thus enabling the +Versaillese to occupy the whole upper part of the third arrondissement, +and to surround the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. After a rather +long struggle the Federals abandoned the barricade of the Conservatoire, +leaving behind them a loaded mitrailleuse. A woman also remained. As +soon as the soldiers were within range she discharged the mitrailleuse +at them. + +The barricades of the Boulevards Voltaire and Dejazet's Théâtre had +henceforth to sustain the whole fire of the Prince Eugène Barracks, the +Boulevard Magenta, the Boulevard St. Martin, the Rue du Temple, and the +Rue Turbigo. Behind their fragile shelter the Federals gallantly +received this avalanche. How many men have been called heroes who never +showed a hundredth part of this simple courage, without any stage +effects, without a history, which shone forth during these days in a +thousand places in Paris! At the Château d'Eau a young girl of nineteen, +rosy and charming, with black, curling hair, dressed as a marine +fusileer, fought desperately a whole day. At the same place a lieutenant +was killed in front of the barricade; a child of fifteen, Dauteuille, +went to pick up the képi of the dead man in the thick of the bullets, +and brought it back amidst the cheers of his companions. + +For in the battle of the streets, as in the open field, the children +proved themselves as brave as the men. At a barricade of the Faubourg du +Temple the most indefatigable gunner was a child. The barricade taken, +all its defenders were shot, and the child's turn also came. He asked +for three minutes' respite; "so that he could take his mother, who lived +opposite, his silver watch, _in order that she might at least not lose +everything_." The officer, involuntarily moved, let him go, not thinking +to see him again; but three minutes after the child cried, "Here I am!" +jumped on to the pavement, and nimbly leant against the wall near the +corpses of his comrades. Paris will never die as long as she brings +forth such people. + +The Place du Château d'Eau was ravaged as by a cyclone. The walls +crumbled beneath the shells and bombs; enormous blocks were thrown up; +the lions of the fountains perforated or overthrown, the basin +surmounting it shattered. Fire burst out from twenty houses. The trees +were leafless, and their broken branches hung like limbs all but parted +from the main body. The gardens, turned up, sent forth clouds of dust. +The invisible hand of death alighted upon each stone. + +At a quarter to seven, near the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, +we saw Delescluze, Jourde, and about a hundred Federals marching in the +direction of the Château d'Eau. Delescluze wore his ordinary dress, +black hat, coat, and trousers, his red scarf, little conspicuous as was +his wont, tied round his waist. Without arms, he lent on a cane. +Apprehensive of some panic at the Château d'Eau, we followed the +delegate. Some of us stopped at the St. Ambroise Church to get arms. We +then met a merchant from Alsace, who, exasperated at those who had +betrayed his country, had been fighting for five days, and had just been +severely wounded; farther on, Lisbonne, who, like Brunel, having too +often defied death, had at last fallen at the Château d'Eau; he was +being brought back almost dead; and finally, Vermorel, wounded by the +side of Lisbonne, whom Theisz and Jaclard were carrying off on a litter, +leaving behind him large drops of blood. We thus remained a little +behind Delescluze. At about eighty yards from the barricade the guards +who accompanied him kept back, for the projectiles obscured the entrance +of the boulevard. + +Delescluze still walked forward. Behold the scene; we have witnessed it; +let it be engraved in the annals of history. The sun was setting. The +old exile, unmindful whether he was followed, still advanced at the same +pace, the only living being on the road. Arrived at the barricade, he +bent off to the left and mounted upon the paving-stones. For the last +time his austere face, framed in his white beard, appeared to us turned +towards death. Suddenly Delescluze disappeared. He had fallen as if +thunderstricken on the Place du Château d'Eau. + +Some men tried to raise him. Three out of four fell dead. The only thing +to be thought of now was the barricade, the rallying of its few +defenders. A member of the Council, Johannard, almost in the middle of +the boulevard, raising his gun, and weeping with rage, cried to those +who hesitated, "No! you are not worthy of defending the Commune!" Night +set in. We returned heart-broken, leaving, abandoned to the outrages of +an adversary without respect for death, the body of our friend. + +He had forewarned no one, not even his most intimate friends. Silent, +having for confidant only his severe conscience, Delescluze walked to +the barricade as the old Montagnards went to the scaffold. An eventful +life had exhausted his strength; he had but a breath left, and he gave +it. The Versaillese have stolen his body, but his memory will remain +enshrined in the heart of the people as long as France shall be the +mother-country of the Revolution. He lived only for Justice. That was +his talent, his science, the pole-star of his life. He proclaimed her, +confessed her, through thirty years of exile, prisons, insult, +disdaining the persecutions that crushed him. A Jacobin, he fell with +the men of the people to defend her. It was his recompense to die for +her, his hands free, in the open daylight, at his own time, not +afflicted by the sight of the executioner. + +Compare the conduct of the Minister of War of the Commune with the +cowardice of the Bonapartist Minister and generals escaping death by +surrendering their swords. + +The whole evening the Versaillese attacked the entrance of the Boulevard +Voltaire, protected by the conflagration of the two corner houses. On +the side of the Bastille they did not get beyond the Place Royale, but +they were breaking into the twelfth arrondissement. Under the shelter of +the wall of the quay, they had in the course of the day penetrated +beneath the Austerlitz Bridge; in the evening, protected by their +gunboats and the batteries of the Jardin des Plantes, they pushed as far +as Mazas. + +Our right wing held out better. The Versaillese had not been able to +proceed further than the Eastern Railway line. From afar they attacked +the Rue d'Aubervilliers, aided by the fire of the Rotonde. Ranvier +vigorously cannonaded Montmartre, when a despatch from the Committee of +Public Safety informed him that the red flag was floating from the +Moulin de la Galette. Ranvier, unable to believe this, refused to cease +firing. + +In the evening the Versaillese formed in front of the Federals a broken +line, commencing from the Eastern Railway, passing the Château d'Eau and +the Bastille, and ending at the Lyons Railway. There remained to the +Commune but two arrondissements intact, the nineteenth and twentieth, +and about half of the eleventh and twelfth. + +The Paris of Versailles no longer presented a civilised aspect. Fear, +hate, and fiendish brutishness smothered all feelings of humanity. It +was a universal "furious madness," said the Siècle of the 26th. "One no +longer distinguishes the just from the unjust, the innocent from the +guilty. The life of citizens weighs no more than a hair. For a cry, for +a word, one is arrested, shot." The ventilators of the cellars were +blocked up by order of the army, which wanted to give credit to the +legend of the petroleuses. The National Guards of order crept out from +their lurking-places, proud of their armlets, offering their services to +the officers, ransacking the houses, revindicating the honour of +presiding at the fusillades. In the tenth arrondissement the former +mayor, Dubail, assisted by the commander of the 109th battalion, led the +soldiers to hunt those who had formerly been under his administration. +Thanks to the _brassardiers_, the tide of prisoners swelled so that it +became necessary to centralise the carnage. The victims were pushed into +the mairies, the barracks, the public edifices, where prevotal courts +were organised, and shot in troops. When the fusillade proved +insufficient the mitrailleuse mowed them down. All did not die at once, +and in the night there arose from these bleeding heaps ghastly cries of +agony. + +The shades of night brought back the spectacle of the conflagrations. +Where the rays of the sun had only shown sombre clouds, pyramids of fire +now appeared. The Grenier d'Abondance illuminated the Seine far beyond +the fortifications. The column of the Bastille, entirely perforated by +the shells, which had set its covering of crowns and flags on fire, +blazed like a gigantic torch. The Boulevard Voltaire was burning on the +side of the Château d'Eau. + +The death of Delescluze had been so simple and so rapid, that even at +the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement it was doubted. Towards +midnight some members of the Council agreed to evacuate the Mairie. +What! always fly before powder and shot! Is the Bastille taken? Does not +the Boulevard Voltaire still hold out? The whole strategy of the +Committee of Public Safety, its whole plan of battle, was to retreat. At +two o'clock in the morning, when a member of the Commune was wanted to +support the barricade of the Château d'Eau, only Gambon was found, +asleep in a corner. An officer awoke him and begged his pardon. The +worthy Republican answered, "It is as well it should be I as another; I +have lived," and he departed. But the balls already swept the Boulevard +Voltaire up to the St. Ambroise Church. The barricade was deserted. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[192] Armlet conspirators. + +[193] Summoned several times to surrender, the Federals answered, "Vive +la Commune!" They were thrown against the wall of the prison and fell +with the same cry, one of them still clasping the red flag of the +barricade. Before such faith the Versaillese officer felt a little +ashamed. He turned to the people who had hurried up from the +neighbouring houses, and several times repeated by way of excuse, "It is +their fault! Why did they not surrender!" As though all Federals were +not regularly and mercilessly massacred by them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + "Le commandant Ségoyer a été pris par les scélérats qui + défendaient la Bastille, et, sans respect des lois de la + guerre, a été immédiatement fusillé"--_M. Thiers aux + Préfets, le 27 Mai._ + + THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE--FRIDAY, FORTY-EIGHT + HOSTAGES ARE SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO--SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE + TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS INVADED--THE PÈRE LACHAISE IS + TAKEN--SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN + THE MORNING--MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS + SURRENDERED. + + +The soldiers continuing their nocturnal surprises, got hold of the +deserted barricades of the Rue d'Aubervilliers and the Boulevard de la +Chapelle. On the side of the Bastille they occupied the barricade of the +Rue St. Antoine at the corner of the Rue Castex, the station of the +Lyons Railway, and the Mazas prison; in the third, all the abandoned +defences of the market and of the Square du Temple. They reached the +first houses of the Boulevard Voltaire, and established themselves at +the Magasins Réunis. + +In the darkness of the night a Versaillese officer was surprised by our +outposts of the Bastille and shot; "without respecting the laws of war," +said M. Thiers the next day. As though during the four days that he had +been mercilessly shooting thousands of prisoners, old men, women, and +children, M. Thiers obeyed any other law than that of the savages. + +The attack recommenced at daybreak. At La Villette the Versaillese, +crossing the Rue d'Aubervilliers, turned and occupied the abandoned +gasworks; in the centre, they got as far as the Cirque Napoleon; on the +right, in the twelfth arrondissement, they invaded the bastions nearest +the river without a struggle. One detachment went up the embankment of +the Vincennes Railway and occupied the station, while another took +possession of the Boulevard Mazas, the Avenue Lacuée, and penetrated +into the Faubourg St. Antoine. The Bastille was thus close pressed on +its right flank, while the troops of the Place Royale attacked it on the +left by the Boulevard Beaumarchais. + +The sun did not shine forth. This five days' cannonade had drawn on the +rainfall that usually accompanies great battles. The fusillade had lost +its sharp, quick voice, but rolled on in muffled tones. The men, +harassed, wet to the skin, hardly distinguished through the misty veil +the point whence the attack came. The shells of a Versaillese battery +established at the Orleans Railway station disturbed the entrance of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. At seven o'clock the presence of soldiers at the +top of the faubourg was announced. The Federals hurried thither with +their cannon. If they do not hold out, the Bastille will be turned. + +They did hold out. The Rue d'Aligre and the Avenue Lacuée vied with each +other in devotion. Intrenched in the houses, the Federals fell, but +neither yielded nor retreated; and, thanks to their self-sacrifice, the +Bastille for six hours still disputed its shattered barricades and +ruined houses. Each stone had its legend in this estuary of the +Revolution. Here encased in the wall is a bullet launched in 1789 +against the fortress. Leaning against the same wall the sons of the +combatants of June fought for the same pavement as their fathers. Here +the conservatives of 1848 gave vent to their rage; but what was their +fury compared with that of 1871? The house at the corner of the Rue de +la Roquette, the angle of the Rue de Charenton, disappeared like the +scenery of a theatre, and amidst these ruins, under these burning beams, +some men fired their cannon, twenty times raised up the red flag, as +often overthrown by the Versaillese balls. Powerless as it well knew to +triumph over an entire army, the old glorious place will at least +succumb honourably. + +How many were there at mid-day? Hundreds, since at night hundreds of +corpses lay around the chief barricade. In the Rue Crozatier they were +dead; they were dead too in the Rue d'Aligre, killed in the struggle or +after the combat. And how they died! In the Rue Crozatier an artillerist +of the army, gone over to the people on the 18th March, was surrounded. +"We are going to shoot you," cried the soldiers. He, shrugging his +shoulders, answered, "We can only die once!" Farther on an old man was +struggling; the officer by a refinement of cruelty wanted to shoot him +upon a heap of filth. "I fought bravely," said the old man; "I have the +right not to die in the mire." + +Indeed they died well everywhere. That same day Millière, arrested on +the left bank of the Seine, was taken to Cissey's staff. This +Imperialist general, ruined by the vilest debauchery, and who terminated +his Ministerial career by treachery,[194] had made of his headquarters +at the Luxembourg one of the slaughter-houses of the left bank. +Millière's rôle during the Commune had been one of mere conciliation, +and his polemic in the journals entirely one of doctrine, and of a most +elevated character; but the hatred of the officers for every Socialist, +the hatred of Jules Favre, lay in wait for him. The assassin, the +staff-captain Garcin,[195] has recounted his crime, head erect.[196] +Before history we must let him speak. + +"Millière was brought in when we were breakfasting with the general at +the restaurant De Tournon, near the Luxembourg. We heard a great noise, +and went out. I was told, 'It is Millière.' I took care that the crowd +did not take justice into its own hands. He did not come into the +Luxembourg; he was stopped at the gate. I addressed myself to him, and +said, 'You are Millière?' 'Yes, but you know that I am a deputy.' 'That +may be, but I think you have lost your character of deputy. Besides, +there is a deputy amongst us, M. de Quinsonnas, who will recognise you.' + +"I then said to Millière that the general's orders were that he was to +be shot. He said to me, 'Why?' + +"I answered him, 'I only know your name. I have read articles by you +that have revolted me' (probably the articles on Jules Favre). 'You are +a viper, that one crushes under one's feet. You detest society.' He +stopped, saying, with a significant air, 'Oh, yes! I indeed hate this +society.' 'Well, it will remove you from its bosom; you are going to be +shot.' 'This is summary justice, barbarity, cruelty.' 'And all the +cruelty you have committed, do you take that for nothing? At any rate, +since you say you are Millière, there is nothing else to be done.' + +"The general had ordered that he was to be shot at the Panthéon, on his +knees, to ask pardon of society for all the ill he had done. He refused +to be shot kneeling. I said to him, 'It is the order; you will be shot +on your knees, and not otherwise.' He played a little comedy, opening +his coat, and baring his breast before the firing party. I said to him, +'You are acting; you want them to say how you died; die quietly, that +will be the best.' 'I am free in my own interest and for the sake of my +Cause to do as I like.' 'So be it; kneel down.' Then he said to me, 'I +will only do so if you force me down by two men.' I had him forced on +his knees, and then his execution was proceeded with. He cried, 'Vive +l'humanité!' He was about to cry something else when he fell dead."[197] + +An officer ascended the steps, approached the corpse, and discharged his +chassepot into the left temple. Millière's head rebounded, and, falling +back, burst open, black with powder, seemed to look at the frontispiece +of the monument. + +"Vive l'humanité!" The word implies two causes. "I care as much for the +liberty of other people as for that of France," said a Federal to a +reactionist.[198] In 1871, as in 1793, Paris combats for all the +oppressed. + +The Bastille succumbed about two o'clock. La Villette still struggled +on. In the morning the barricade at the corner of the boulevard and of +the Rue de Flandre had been surrendered by its commander. The Federals +concentrated in the rear along the line of the canal, and barricaded the +Rue de Crimée. The Rotonde, destined to support the principal shock, was +reinforced by a barricade on the quay of the Loire. The 269th, which for +two days had withstood the enemy, recommenced the struggle behind the +new positions. This line from La Villette being of great extent, Ranvier +and Passedouet went to fetch reinforcements in the twentieth +arrondissement, where the remnants of all the battalions took refuge. + +They crowded round the Mairie, that distributed lodgings and orders for +food. Near the church the waggons and horses were noisily put up. The +headquarters and different services were established in the Rue Haxo at +the Cité Vincennes, a series of constructions intersected by gardens. + +The very numerous barricades in the inextricable streets of Ménilmontant +were almost all turned against the boulevard. The strategical route, +which on this point overlooks the Père Lachaise, the Buttes Chaumont, +and the exterior boulevard, was not even guarded. + +From the heights of the ramparts the Prussians were discernible in arms. +According to the terms of a convention previously concluded between +Versailles and the Prince of Saxony, the German army since Monday +invested Paris on the north and east. It had cut off the Railway of the +North, manned the canal line from St. Denis, posted sentinels from St. +Denis to Charenton, erected barricades on all the routes. From five +o'clock in the evening of Thursday 5,000 Bavarians marched down from +Fontenay, Nogent, and Charenton, forming an impenetrable cordon from the +Marne to Montreuil; and during the evening another corps of 5,000 men +occupied Vincennes, with eighty artillery pieces. At nine o'clock he +invested the fort and disarmed the Federals, who wanted to return to +Paris. He did still better--trapped the game for Versailles. Already +during the siege the Prussians had given an indirect support to the +Versaillese army; their cynical collusion with the French conservatives +showed itself undisguised during the eight days of May. Of all M. +Thiers' crimes, one of the most odious will certainly be his introducing +the conquerors of France into our civil discords, and begging their help +in order to crush Paris. + +Towards mid-day fire broke out in the west part of the docks of La +Villette, an immense warehouse of petroleum, essences, and combustible +matters, set alight by the shells from both sides. This conflagration +forced us to leave the barricades of the Rues de Flandre and Riquet. The +Versaillese, attempting to traverse the canal in boats, were stopped by +the barricades of the Rue de Crimée and the Rotonde. + +Vinoy continued to ascend the twelfth arrondissement after having left +the few thousand men necessary for the perquisitions and executions at +the Bastille. The barricade of the Rue de Reuilly, at the corner of the +Faubourg St. Antoine, held out a few hours against the soldiers who +cannonaded it from the Boulevard Mazas. At the same time the +Versaillese, marching along the Boulevard Mazas and the Rue Picpus, +moved towards the Place du Trône, which they tried to outflank by the +ramparts. The artillery prepared and covered their slightest movement. +Generally they charged the pieces at the corner of the roads they wanted +to reduce, advanced them, fired, and drew them back again under shelter. +The Federals could only reach this invisible enemy from the heights; but +it was impossible to centralise the artillery of the Commune, for each +barricade wanted to possess its gun without caring where it carried. + +There was no longer authority of any kind. At the headquarters a +pell-mell of bewildered officers. The march of the enemy was only known +by the arrival of the survivors of the battalions. Such was the +confusion, that in this place, mortal to traitors, there might be seen, +in a general's uniform, Du Bisson, turned out of La Villette. The few +members of the Council to be met with in the twentieth arrondissement +wandered about at hazard, absolutely ignored; but they had not foregone +deliberating. On the Friday there were twelve of them in the Rue Haxo, +when the Central Committee arrived and claimed the dictatorship. It was +given them, in spite of some who protested, Varlin being added to their +number. The Committee of Public Safety was no longer heard of. + +The only one of its members who played any part was Ranvier, splendidly +energetic in the combats. During these days he was the soul of La +Villette and Belleville, urging on the men, watching over everything. On +the 26th he issued a proclamation: "Citizens of the twentieth +arrondissement! if we succumb you know what fate is in store for you. To +arms! Be vigilant, above all in the night. I ask you to execute our +orders faithfully. Lend your support to the nineteenth arrondissement; +help it to repulse the enemy. There lies your safety. Do not wait for +Belleville itself to be attacked. Forward then. Vive la République!" + +But very few read or obeyed. The shells from Montmartre, which from the +day before crushed Belleville and Ménilmontant, the cries, the sight of +the wounded, dragging themselves from house to house in search of +succour, the too evident signs of the approaching end, precipitated the +ordinary phenomena of defeat. The people became fierce and suspicious. +Any individual without a uniform ran the risk of being shot if he had +not a well-known name to recommend him. The news that came from all +points of Paris augmented the anguish and despair. It was known that the +soldiers gave no quarter; that they despatched the wounded, killing even +doctors;[199] that every individual taken in a National Guard's uniform, +shod with regulation boots, or whose clothes showed traces of stripes +recently unstitched, was shot in the street or in the yard of his house; +that the combatants who surrendered, under the promise of having their +lives spared, were massacred; that thousands of men, women, children, +and aged people were taken to Versailles bareheaded, and often killed on +the way; that it sufficed to be related to a combatant, or to offer him +a refuge in order to share his fate; the numberless executions of +so-called petroleuses were recounted. + +About six o'clock forty-eight gendarmes, ecclesiastics, and civilians +marched up the Rue Haxo between a detachment of Federals. At first they +were supposed to be prisoners recently taken, and defiled in the midst +of perfect silence. But the rumour spread that they were the hostages of +La Roquette, and that they were being led to death. The crowd grew +larger, followed, apostrophised, but did not strike them. At half-past +six the cortège reached the Cité Vincennes; the gates closed upon them, +and the crowd dispersed in the neighbouring grounds. + +The escort tumultuously pushed the hostages against a kind of trench at +the foot of a wall. The chassepots were being levelled, when a member of +the Council said, "What are you doing? There is a powder-magazine here; +you will blow us up." He thus hoped to delay the execution. Others, +quite distracted, went from group to group, attempting to discuss, to +appease the wrath. They were repulsed, menaced, and their notoriety +hardly sufficed to save them from death. + +The chassepots went off on all sides; by degrees the hostages fell. +Outside the crowd applauded. And yet for two days the soldiers taken +prisoners passed through Belleville without exciting a murmur; but these +gendarmes, these spies, these priests, who for fully twenty years had +trampled upon Paris, represented the Empire, the bourgeoisie, the +massacres under their most hateful forms. + +That same morning Jecker, the accomplice of Morny, had been shot. The +Council had not known how to punish him; the justice of the people +alighted upon him. A platoon of four Federals went to fetch him at La +Roquette. He appeared to resign himself quietly, and even chatted on the +way. "You are mistaken," said he, "if you think I did a good piece of +business. Those people cheated me." He was executed in the open grounds +adjoining the Père Lachaise from the side of Charonne. + +During this day the troops did not execute any great movements. The +corps Douay and Clinchant were stationed on the Boulevard +Richard-Lenoir. The double barricade in the rear of Bataclan stopped the +invasion of the Boulevard Voltaire; a Versaillese general was killed in +the Rue St. Sébastian; the Place du Trône still held out by means of the +Philippe-Auguste barricade. The Rotonde and docks of La Villette also +prolonged their resistance. Towards the close of the day the +conflagration spread to the part of the docks nearest the Mairie. + +In the evening, the army hedged in the defence between the +fortifications and a curved line which from the slaughter-houses of La +Villette extended to the gate of Vincennes, passing by the St. Martin +Canal, the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and the Rue du Faubourg St. +Antoine--Ladmirault and Vinoy occupying the two extremities, Douay and +Clinchant the centre. + +The night of the Friday to Saturday was sombre and feverish in +Ménilmontant and Belleville, ravaged by the shells. At the turning of +each street the sentinels demanded the watchword (Bouchotte-Belleville), +and often even that did not suffice, and one had to prove being sent +upon an errand. Every chief of a barricade claimed the right to stop +your passage. The remainder of the battalions continued arriving in +disorder, and encumbered all the houses. The majority finding no +shelter, rested in the open air, amidst the shells, always saluted with +cries of "Vive la Commune!" + +In the Grande Rue de Belleville some National Guards carried coffins on +their crossed muskets, some men preceding them with torches, the drums +beating. These combatants, who amidst the shells silently interred their +comrades, appeared in touching grandeur. They were themselves at the +gates of death. + +In the night the barricades of the Rue d'Allemagne were abandoned. A +thousand men at the utmost had for two days kept in check Ladmirault's +25,000 soldiers. Almost all these brave men were sedentary guards and +children. + +The humid glimmer of the Saturday morning discovered a sinister +prospect. The fog was dense and penetrating, the soil steeped in +moisture. Clouds of white smoke rose slowly above the rain; it was the +fusillade. The Federals shivered under their drenched cloaks. + +Since daybreak barricades of the strategic route, the gates of Montreuil +and Bagnolet, were occupied by the troops, who without resistance +invaded Charonne. At seven o'clock they established themselves in the +Place du Trône, whose defences had been abandoned. At the entrance of +the Boulevard Voltaire the Versaillese erected a battery of six pieces +against the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. Henceforth certain of +victory, the officers wanted to triumph noisily. This barricade, against +which they fired during the whole day of the 27th, had but two pieces of +the most irregular projection. Many a Versaillese shell strayed to the +legs of the statue of Voltaire, who, with his sardonic smile, seemed to +remind his bourgeois descendants of the "beau tapage" he had promised +them. + +At La Villette the soldiers deviated from the line on all sides, passed +by the fortifications and attacked the Rues Puebla and De Crimée. Their +left, still engaged in the upper part of the tenth arrondissement, +endeavoured to gain possession of all its streets leading to the +Boulevard de la Villette. Their batteries of the Rue de Flandre, of the +ramparts, and the Rotonde united their fire to that of Montmartre, and +whelmed the Buttes Chaumont with shells. The barricade of the Rue Puebla +yielded towards ten o'clock. A sailor who had remained alone, hidden +behind the paving-stones, awaited the Versaillese, discharged his +revolver at them, and then, hatchet in hand, dashed into the midst of +their ranks. The enemy deployed in all the adjacent streets up to the +Rue Ménadier, steadily held by our tirailleurs. At the Place des Fêtes +two of our pieces enfiladed the Rue de Crimée and protected our right +flank. + +At eleven o'clock nine or ten members of the Council met in the Rue +Haxo. One of them, Jules Allix, whom his colleagues had been obliged to +shut up as mad during the Commune, came up radiant. According to him, +all was for the best; the quarters of the centre were dismantled; they +had only to descend thither. Others thought that by surrendering +themselves to the Prussians, who would deliver them up to Versailles, +they might put an end to the massacres. One or two members demonstrated +the absurdity of this hope, and that besides the Federals would allow no +one to leave Paris. They were not listened to. A solemn note was being +drawn up, when Ranvier, who wandered about in all corners picking up men +one by one for the defence of the Buttes Chaumont, broke in upon their +deliberations, exclaiming, "Why do you not go and fight instead of +discussing!" They dispersed in different directions, and this was the +last meeting of these men of everlasting deliberations. + +At this moment the Versaillese occupied the bastion 16. At mid-day the +rumour spread that the troops were issuing by the Rue de Paris and the +ramparts. A crowd of men and women, driven from their houses by the +shells, beset the gate of Romainville, asking with loud cries to be +allowed to flee into the neighbouring fields. At one o'clock the +drawbridge was lowered in order to give passage to some Freemasons who +had been to the German authorities to ask them whether they would allow +free passage to the fugitives. The crowd dashed out and dispersed in the +houses of the Village des Lilas. Some women and children attempting to +push on further and to cross the barricade thrown up in the middle of +the road, the sergeant of gendarmerie of Romainville threw himself upon +them, crying to the Prussians, "Fire! come, fire on this _canaille_!" A +Prussian soldier fired, wounding a woman. + +Meanwhile the drawbridge had been raised. About four o'clock Colonel +Parent, on horseback, and preceded by a trumpet, dared on his own +authority to go and ask the Prussian troops for permission to pass. +Useless degradation. The officer answered that he had no orders, and +that he would refer to St. Denis. + +The same day the member of the Council, Arnold, who still believed in an +American intervention, went to take a letter for Mr. Washburne to the +German outposts. He was conducted from one officer to another, received +rather rudely, and sent back with the promise that his letter would be +forwarded to the ambassador. + +Near two o'clock several Versaillese battalions, having swept the +strategic route, reached the Rue de Crimée by the Rue des Lilas and the +open grounds of the fortifications, but were stopped in the Rue de +Bellevue. From the Place du Marché three cannon joined their fire to +that of the Place des Fêtes in order to protect the Buttes Chaumont. +These pieces were the whole day served by only five artillerists, their +arms bare, without witnesses, needing neither chief nor orders. At five +o'clock the cannon of the Buttes were silent, having no more munitions, +and their gunners rejoined the skirmishers of the Rues Ménadier, +Fessart, and Des Annelets. + +At five o'clock Ferré brought up to the Rue Haxo the line soldiers of +the Prince Eugène Barracks, removed since Wednesday to the prison of La +Petite Roquette, which had just been evacuated, as also the Grande +Roquette. The crowd looked at them, not uttering a single threat, for +they felt no hatred to the soldiers, who belong, like themselves, to the +people. They were quartered in Belleville church. Their arrival caused a +fatal diversion. The people ran up to see them pass, and the Place des +Fêtes was dismantled. The Versaillese came up, occupied it, and the last +defenders of the Buttes fell back on the Faubourg du Temple and the Rue +de Paris. + +While our front was yielding we were attacked from the rear. Since four +o'clock in the afternoon the Versaillese had been laying siege to the +Père Lachaise, which enclosed no more than 200 Federals, resolute, but +without discipline or foresight. The officers had been unable to make +them embattle the walls. Five thousand Versaillese approached the +enceinte from all sides, while the artillery of the bastion furrowed the +interior. The pieces of the Commune had scarcely any munition since the +afternoon. At six o'clock the Versaillese, not daring, in spite of their +numbers, to escalade the enceinte, cannonaded the large gate of the +cemetery, which soon gave way, notwithstanding the barricade propping +it. Then began a desperate struggle. Sheltered behind the tombs, the +Federals disputed their refuge foot by foot; they closed in with the +enemy in frightful hand-to-hand scuffles; in the vaults they fought with +side-arms. The foes rolled and died in the same grave. The darkness that +set in early did not end the despair. + +On the Saturday evening there only remained to the Federals part of the +eleventh and twentieth arrondissements. The Versaillese camped in the +Place des Fêtes, Rue Fessart, Rue Pradier up to Rue Rebeval, where, as +on the boulevard, they were detained. The quadrilateral comprised +between the Rue de Faubourg du Temple, the Rue Folie Méricourt, the Rue +de la Roquette and the exterior boulevard was in part occupied by the +Federals. Douay and Clinchant awaited on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir +the moment when Vinoy and Ladmirault would have carried the heights, and +thus forced the Federals against the guns. + +What a night for the few combatants of the last hours! It rained in +torrents. The conflagration of La Villette lit up this gloom with its +blinding glare. The shells continued to pound Belleville; they even +reached as far as Bagnolet and wounded some Prussian soldiers. + +The wounded arrived in large numbers at the Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement. There were neither doctors, nor medicines, nor +mattresses, nor blankets, and the unhappy people expired without +succour. Some spies, surprised in the dress of National Guards, were +there and then shot in the court. The _Vengeurs de Flourens_ arrived, +headed by their captain, a fine, handsome young fellow, reeling in his +saddle. The cantinière, delirious, a handkerchief tied round her +bleeding brow, swore, called the men together with the cry of a wounded +lioness. From between the convulsive hands the guns went off at random. +The noise of the waggons, the threats, the lamentations, the fusillades, +the whizzing of the shells, mingled in a maddening tumult, and who in +those frightful hours did not feel his reason giving way? Every moment +brought with it a new disaster. One guard rushed up and said, "The +barricade Pradier is abandoned!;" another, "We want men in the Rue +Rebeval;" a third, "They are flying in the Rue des Près." To hear these +death-knells there were but a few members of the Council present, among +whom were Trinquet, Ferré, Varlin, and Ranvier. Desperate of their +powerlessness, broken down by these eight days, without sleep and +without hope, the strongest were lost in grief. + +From four o'clock Vinoy and Ladmirault launched their troops along the +ramparts on the defenceless strategic route, and soon effected a +junction at the Romainville gate. Towards five o'clock the troops +occupied the barricade of the Rue Rebeval in the Boulevard de la +Villette, and by the Rue Vincent and the Passage du Renard attacked the +barricades of the Rue de Paris from behind. The Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement was not taken till eight o'clock. The barricade of the +Rue de Paris at the corner of the boulevard was defended by the +commander of the 191st and five or six guards, who held out till their +munitions were exhausted. + +A column set out from the Boulevard Philippe-Auguste, penetrated into +the Roquette towards nine o'clock, and released the hostages who were +there. Masters of the Père Lachaise from the day before, the Versaillese +might at least from nine o'clock in the evening have penetrated into the +abandoned prison. This delay of twelve hours sufficiently shows their +contempt for the lives of the hostages. Four of the latter--among whom +was the Bishop Surat--who had made their escape in the afternoon of +Saturday, had been retaken at the neighbouring barricades and shot +before the Petite Roquette. + +At nine o'clock the resistance was reduced to the small square formed by +the Rues du Faubourg du Temple, Des Trois Bornes, Des Trois Couronnes, +and the Boulevard de Belleville. Two or three streets of the twentieth +arrondissement still struggled on, among others the Rue Ramponeau. A +small phalanx of fifty men, led by Varlin, Ferré, and Gambon, their red +scarfs round their waists, their chassepots slung across their +shoulders, marched down the Rue des Champs, and from the twentieth +arrondissement debouched on the boulevard. A gigantic Garibaldian +carried an immense red flag in front of them. They entered the eleventh +arrondissement. Varlin and his colleagues were going to defend the +barricade of the Rue du Faubourg du Temple and of the Rue Fontaine au +Roi. From the front it was inaccessible; the Versaillese, masters of the +St. Louis Hospital, succeeded in turning it by the Rues St. Maur and +Bichat. + +At ten o'clock the Federals had almost no cannon left, and two-thirds of +the army hemmed them in. What mattered it? In the Rue du Faubourg du +Temple, Rue Oberkampf, Rue St. Maur, Rue Parmentier, they still wanted +to fight. There were barricades not to be turned and houses without +exits. The Versaillese artillery cannonade them till the Federals had +used up their munitions. Their last cartridge spent, whelmed by shells, +they threw themselves upon the muskets bristling around them. + +By degrees the fusillade was lulled, all was silent. About ten o'clock +the last Federal cannon was discharged in the Rue de Paris, which the +Versaillese had taken. The piece, charged with double shot, with a +terrible crash exhaled the last sigh of the Commune of Paris. + +The last barricade of the days of May was in the Rue Ramponeau. For a +quarter of an hour a single Federal defended it. Thrice he broke the +staff of the Versaillese flag hoisted on the barricade of the Rue de +Paris. As a reward for his courage, this last soldier of the Commune +succeeded in escaping. + +At eleven o'clock all was over. The Place de la Concorde had held out +two days, the Butte aux Cailles two, La Villette three, the Boulevard +Voltaire two days and a half. Of the seventy-nine members of the +Council filling functions on the 21st of May, one, Delescluze, had died +on the barricades; two, J. Durand and R. Rigault, had been shot; two, +Brunel and Vermorel (who died some days after at Versailles),[200] were +wounded severely; three, Oudet, Protot, Frankel, slightly. The +Versaillese had lost few men. We had 3,000 killed or wounded. The losses +of the army in June, 1848, and the resistance of the insurgents had been +relatively more serious. But the insurgents of June had only to face +30,000 men; those of May combated against 130,000 soldiers. The struggle +of June lasted only three days; that of the Federals eight weeks. On the +eve of June the revolutionary army was intact; on the 21st May it was +decimated. The most valiant defenders had fallen at the advanced posts. +What might not these 15,000 men, uselessly sacrificed outside the town, +have done within Paris? What might not the brave men of Neuilly, +Asnières, Issy, Vanves, Cachan, have done at the Panthéon and +Montmartre? + +The occupation of the fort of Vincennes took place on Monday the 29th. +This fort, disarmed in conformity with the stipulations of the treaty of +peace, had been unable to take any part in the strife. Its garrison +consisted of 350 men and twenty-four officers, commanded by the +_chef-de-légion_ Faltot, a veteran of the wars of Poland and of +Garibaldi, one of the most active men on the 18th March. He was offered +a perfectly secure asylum, but answered that honour forbade his +deserting his companions in arms. + +On the Saturday a Versaillese staff colonel came to negotiate a +capitulation. Faltot demanded passports in blank, not for himself, but +for some of his officers of foreign nationality, and on the refusal of +the Versaillese, Faltot committed the fault of applying to the Germans. +But MacMahon, in prevision of a siege, had solicited the assistance of +the Prince of Saxony, and the German was on the look-out on behalf of +his brother officer.[201] During the negotiations General Vinoy had +managed to hold communication with the place, where a few disreputable +individuals offered to reduce the intractable Federals. Among the latter +was Merlet, garde-général of engineering and artillery, +ex-non-commissioned officer, able, energetic, and quite resolved to blow +up the place rather than surrender it. The powder-magazine contained +1,000 kilogrammes of powder and 400,000 cartridges. + +On Sunday, at eight o'clock in the morning, a shot sounded in Merlet's +chamber. His room was entered, and he was found lying on the ground, his +head pierced by the ball of a revolver. The disorder of the room +attested a struggle; and a captain of the 99th, released later on by the +Versaillese, B----, admitted that he had dispersed the elements of the +electric pile by means of which Merlet intended to spring the fort. + +On Monday towards mid-day the Versaillese colonel renewed the proposal +for a surrender. For twenty-four hours the struggle had been over in +Paris. The officers deliberated; it was agreed that the gates should be +opened, and at three o'clock the Versaillese entered. The garrison, +having laid down their arms, had drawn up at the end of the court. Nine +officers were incarcerated apart. + +In the night, in the fosses, a hundred yards from the spot where the +Duke of Enghien had fallen, these nine officers formed in a line before +a firing-party. One of them, Colonel Delorme, turned to the Versaillese +in command with the words, "Feel my pulse; see if I am afraid." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[194] Minister of War from 1871, he was in 1876, notwithstanding the +desperate efforts of MacMahon, expelled from the Ministry, partly +because of irregularities discovered in his budget, partly for having +let his mistress, a German, take the plan of one of the new forts round +Paris, which was transmitted to Berlin. + +[195] Since promoted to a higher grade. + +[196] _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 239. + +[197] See Appendix XX. + +[198] Heard and reported by the author of the book _Le Fond de la +Société sous la Commune_. The author wittily adds, "What the devil was +this imbecile solicitous about?" + +[199] Appendix XXI. + +[200] The Versaillese calumniators, pursuing him even to his last hour, +spread abroad that he had confessed to a Jesuit, and had disavowed his +writings "in presence of the gendarmes and nuns." + +[201] "Marshal MacMahon to General Vinoy, 29th May, 10.5 morning.--On +our propositions to enter the fort, Prince of Saxony has given the order +to enlarge the blockade, in order to leave the French authorities free +to act as they think fit. He has promised to preserve the +blockade."--_Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 430. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + "Nous sommes d'honnêtes gens; c'est par les lois ordinaires + que justice sera faite. Nous n'aurons recours qu'à la + loi."--_M. Thiers à l'Assemblée Nationale, 22 Mai 1871._ + + "Honest, honest Iago!"--_Shakespere._ + + THE VERSAILLESE FURY--THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES--THE PREVOTAL + COURTS--THE DEATH OF VARLIN--THE BURIALS. + + +Order reigned in Paris. Everywhere ruins, death, sinister crepitations. +The officers walked provokingly about clashing their sabres; the +non-commissioned officers imitated their arrogance. The soldiers +bivouacked in all the large roads. Some, stupefied by fatigue and +carnage, slept on the pavement; others prepared their soup by the side +of the corpses, singing the songs of their native homes. + +The tricolor flag hung from all the windows in order to prevent +house-searches. Guns, cartridge-boxes, uniforms, were piled up in the +gutters of the popular quarters. Before the doors sat women leaning +their heads upon their hands, looking fixedly before them, waiting for a +son or a husband who was never to return. + +In the rich quarters the joy knew no bounds. The runaways of the two +sieges, the demonstrators of the Place Vendôme, many emigrants of +Versailles, had again taken possession of the boulevards. Since the +Thursday this kid-glove populace followed the prisoners, acclaiming the +gendarmes who conducted the convoys,[202] applauding at the sight of +the blood-covered vans.[203] The civilians strove to outdo the military +in levity. Such a one, who had ventured no further than the Café du +Helder, recounted the taking of the Château d'Eau, bragged of having +shot his dozen prisoners. Elegant and joyous women, as in a pleasure +trip, betook themselves to the corpses, and, to enjoy the sight of the +valorous dead, with the ends of sunshades raised their last coverings. + +"Inhabitants of Paris," said MacMahon on the 28th at mid-day, "Paris is +delivered! To-day the struggle is over. Order, labour, security are +about to revive." + +"Paris delivered" was parcelled into four commands under the orders of +General Vinoy, Ladmirault, Cissey, Douay, and once more placed under the +régime of the state of siege raised by the Commune. There was no longer +any government at Paris than the army which massacred Paris. The +passers-by were constrained to demolish the barricades, and any sign of +impatience brought with it an arrest, any imprecation death. It was +placarded that any one in the possession of arms would immediately be +sent before a court-martial; that any house from which shots were fired +would be given over to summary execution. All public places were closed +at eleven o'clock. Henceforth officers in uniform alone could circulate +freely. Mounted patrols thronged the streets. Entrance into the town +became difficult, to leave it impossible. The tradespeople not being +allowed to go backwards and forwards, victuals were on the point of +failing. + +"The struggle over," the army transformed itself into a vast platoon of +executioners. On the Sunday more than 5,000 prisoners taken in the +neighbourhood of the Père Lachaise were led to the prison of La +Roquette. A chief of battalion standing at the entrance surveyed the +prisoners and said, "To the right," or "To the left." Those to the left +were to be shot. Their pockets emptied, they were drawn up along a wall +and then slaughtered. Opposite the wall two or three priests bending +over their breviaries mumbled the prayers for the dying. + +From the Sunday to the Monday morning in La Roquette alone more than +1,900 persons were thus murdered.[204] Blood flowed in large pools in +the gutters of the prison. The same slaughter took place at the Ecole +Militaire and the Parc Monceaux. + +These were the butcheries without phrases. At other places the prisoners +were conducted before the prevotal courts, with which Paris swarmed +since the Monday. These had not sprung up at hazard, and, as has been +believed in the midst of the fury of the struggle. It was proved before +the courts-martial that the number and seats of these prevotal courts, +with their respective jurisdictions, had been appointed at Versailles +before the entry of the troops.[205] One of the most celebrated was that +of the Châtelet Théâtre, where Colonel Vabre officiated. Thousands of +prisoners who were led there were first of all penned in upon the stage +and in the auditorium, under the guns of the soldiers placed in the +boxes; then, little by little, like sheep driven to the door of the +slaughter-house, from wing to wing they were pushed to the saloon, +where, round a large table, officers of the army and the honest National +Guard were seated,[206] their sabre between their legs, a cigar in their +mouth. The examination lasted a quarter of a minute. "Did you take arms? +Did you serve the Commune? Show your hands." If the resolute attitude of +a prisoner betrayed a combatant, if his face was unpleasant, without +asking for his name, his profession, without entering any note upon any +register, he was _classed_. "You?" was said to the next one, and so on +to the end of the file, without excepting the women, children, and old +men. When by a caprice a prisoner was spared, he was said to be +_ordinary_, and reserved for Versailles. No one was liberated. + +The _classed_ ones were at once delivered to the executioners, who led +them into the nearest garden or court. From the Châtelet, for instance, +they were taken to the Lebau Barracks.[207] There the doors were no +sooner closed than the gendarmes fired, without even grouping their +victims before a platoon. Some, only wounded, ran along by the walls, +the gendarmes chasing and shooting at them till they fell dead. Moreau +of the Central Committee perished in one of these gangs. Surprised on +the Thursday evening in the Rue de Rivoli, he was conducted to the +Châtelet, and shot the next day. Those condemned in the prevotal court +of the Luxembourg were conducted into the garden and placed against a +terrace. There were so many victims, that the soldiers, tired out, were +obliged to rest their guns actually against the sufferers. The wall of +the terrace was covered with brains; the executioners waded through +pools of blood. + +The massacre was thus carried on, methodically organised, at the Caserne +Dupleix, the Lycée Bonaparte, the Northern and Eastern Railway Stations, +the Jardin des Plantes, in many mairies and barracks, at the same time +as in the abattoirs. Large open vans came to fetch the corpses, and went +to empty them in the square or any open space in the neighbourhood. + +The victims died simply, without fanfaronade.[208] Many crossed their +arms before the muskets, and themselves commanded the fire. Women and +children followed their husbands and their fathers, crying to the +soldiers, "Shoot us with them!" And they were shot. Women, till then +strangers to the struggle, were seen to come down into the streets, +exasperated by these butcheries, strike the officers, and then throw +themselves against a wall waiting for death.[209] + +In June, 1848, Cavaignac had promised pardon, and he massacred. M. +Thiers had sworn by the law, and he gave the army carte-blanche. The +officers returned from Germany might now glut to their hearts' content +their wrath against that Paris which had insulted them by not +capitulating; the Bonapartists revenge on the Republicans the old +hatreds of the Empire; the boys just fresh from St. Cyr serve their +apprenticeship of insolence upon the _pékins_. A general (Cissey most +probably) gave the order to shoot M. Cernuschi, whose crime consisted in +having offered 100,000 francs for the anti-plebiscitary campaign of +1870.[210] Any individual of some popular notoriety was sure to die. Dr. +Tony Moilin, who had played no part during the Commune, but had been +implicated in several political trials during the Empire, was in a few +moments judged and condemned to death; "not," his judges condescended to +tell him, "that he had committed any act that merited death, but because +he was a chief of the Socialist party, one of those men of whom a +prudent and wise Government must rid itself when it finds a legitimate +occasion."[211] The Radicals of the Chamber, whose hatred of the Commune +had been most clearly demonstrated, did not dare to set foot in Paris +for fear of being included in the massacres. + +The army, having neither police nor precise information, killed at +random. Any passer-by calling a man by a revolutionary name caused him +to be shot by soldiers eager to get the premium. At Grenelle they shot a +pseudo-Billioray,[212] notwithstanding his despairing protests; at the +Place Vendôme they shot a pseudo-Brunel in the apartments of Madame +Fould. The _Gaulois_ published the recital by a military surgeon who +_knew_ Vallès, and was present at his execution;[213] an eye-witness +declared he had seen Lefrançais shot on the Thursday in the Rue de la +Banque. The real Billioray was tried in the month of August; Brunel, +Vallès, and Lefrançais succeeded in escaping from France. Members and +functionaries of the Commune were thus shot, and often several times +over, in the persons of individuals who resembled them more or less. + +Varlin, alas! was not to escape. On Sunday, the 28th May, he was +recognised in the Rue Lafayette, and led, or rather dragged, to the foot +of the Buttes Montmartre before the commanding general. The Versaillese +sent him to be shot in the Rue des Rosiers. For an hour, a mortal hour, +Varlin was dragged through the streets of Montmartre, his hands tied +behind his back, under a shower of blows and insults. His young, +thoughtful head, that had never harboured other thoughts than of +fraternity, slashed open by the sabres, was soon but one mass of blood, +of mangled flesh, the eye protruding from the orbit. On reaching the Rue +des Rosiers, he no longer walked; he was carried. They set him down to +shoot him. The wretches dismembered his corpse with blows of the +butt-ends of their muskets. + +The Mount of Martyrs has no more glorious one than Varlin. May he too be +enshrined in the great heart of the working-class! Varlin's whole life +was an example. He had quite alone, by the mere force of his will, +educated himself, giving to study the rare hours left him in the evening +after the workshop; learning not with the view to push into the +bourgeoisie, as many others, but to instruct and enfranchise the people. +He was the heart and soul of the workingmen's associations at the end of +the Empire. Indefatigable, modest, speaking little, always at the right +moment, and then enlightening a confused discussion with a word, he had +preserved that revolutionary instinct which is often blunted in educated +workmen. One of the first on the 18th March, labouring during the whole +Commune, he was at the barricades to the last. His death is all to the +honour of the workmen. It is to Varlin and to Delescluze that this +history should be dedicated, if there were room in the frontispiece for +any other name than that of Paris. + +The Versaillese journalists spat on his corpse; said that some hundreds +of thousands of francs had been found on him.[214] Returned to Paris +behind the army, they followed it like jackals. Those of the +demi-monde, above all, were mad with a sanguinary hysteria. The +coalition of the 21st March was re-made. All uttered one howl against +the vanquished workmen. Far from moderating the massacre, they +encouraged it, published the names, the hiding-places of those who were +to be killed, unflagging in inventions calculated to keep up the furious +terror of the bourgeoisie. After every fusillade they cried encore. + +I quote at hazard, and could quote pages: "We must make a Communard +hunt" (_Bien Public_). "Not one of the malefactors in whose hands Paris +has been for two months will be considered as a political man. They will +be treated like the brigands they are, like the most frightful monsters +ever seen in the history of humanity. Many journals speak of re-erecting +the scaffold destroyed by them, in order not even to do them the honour +of shooting them" (_Moniteur Universel_). "Come, honest people, an +effort to make an end of this democratic and international vermin" +(_Figaro_). "These men, who have killed for the sake of killing and +stealing, are taken, and we should answer, Mercy! These hideous women, +who stabbed the breast of dying officers, are taken, and we should cry, +Mercy!" (_Patrie_).[215] + +To encourage the hangmen, if that were necessary, the press threw them +crowns. + +"What an admirable attitude is that of our officers and soldiers!" said +the _Figaro_. "It is only to the French soldier that it is given to +recover so quickly and so well." "What an honour!" cried the _Journal +des Debats_. "Our army has avenged its disasters by an inestimable +victory." + +Thus the army wreaked on Paris revenge for its defeats. Paris was an +enemy like Prussia, and all the less to be spared that the army had its +prestige to reconquer. To complete the similitude, after the victory +there was a triumph. The Romans never adjudged it after civil struggles. +M. Thiers was not ashamed, under the eye of the foreigner, before still +smoking Paris, to parade his troops in a grand review. Who then will +dare to blame the Federals for having resisted the army of Versailles as +they would have the Prussians? + +And when did foreigners show such fury?[216] Death even seemed to whet +their rancour. On Sunday, the 28th, near the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement, about fifty prisoners had just been shot. Urged not by +an unworthy curiosity, but by the earnest desire to know the truth, we +went, at the risk of being recognised, as far as the corpses lying on +the pavement. A woman lay there, her skirts turned up; from her +ripped-up body protruded the entrails, which a marine-fusileer amused +himself by dividing with the end of his bayonet. The officers, a few +steps off, let him do this. The victors, in order to dishonor these +corpses, had placed inscriptions on their breasts, "assassin," "thief," +"drunkard," and stuck the necks of bottles into the mouths of some of +them. + +How to justify this savagery? The official reports only mention very few +deaths among the Versaillese--877 during the whole time of the +operations, from the 3rd April up to the 28th May.[217] The Versaillese +fury had then no excuse for these reprisals. When a handful of +exasperated men, to avenge thousands of their brothers, shoot +sixty-three of their most inveterate enemies[218] out of nearly 300 whom +they had in their hands, the hypocritical reaction veils its face and +protests in the name of justice. What, then, will this justice say when +those shall be judged who methodically, without any anxiety as to the +issue of the combat, and, above all, the battle over, shot 20,000 +persons, of whom three-fourths had not taken part in the fight? Still +some flashes of humanity were shown by the soldiers, and some were seen +coming back from the executions their heads bowed down; but the officers +never slackened for one second in their ferocity. Even after the Sunday +they still slaughtered the prisoners, shouted "Bravo!" at the +executions. The courage of the victims they called insolence.[219] Let +them be responsible before Paris, France, the new generation, for these +deeds of infamy. + +At last the smell of the carnage began to choke even the most frantic. +The pest, if not pity, was coming. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from +the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The _Avenir +Libéral_, singing the praises of MacMahon's proclamations, applied the +words of Flèchier: "He hides himself, but his glory finds him out." The +glory of the Turenne of 1871 betrayed him even up to the Seine.[220] In +certain streets the corpses encumbered the pathway, looking at the +passers-by from out of their dead eyes. In the Faubourg St. Antoine they +were to be seen everywhere in heaps, half white with chloride of lime. +At the Polytechnic School they occupied a space of 100 yards long and +three deep. At Passy, which was not one of the great centres of +execution, there were 1,100 near the Trocadéro. These, covered over by a +thin shroud of earth, also showed their ghastly profiles. "Who does not +recollect," said the _Temps_, "even though he had seen it but one +moment, the square, no, the charnel of the Tour St. Jacques? From the +midst of this moist soil, recently turned up by the spade, here and +there look out heads, arms, feet, and hands. The profiles of corpses, +dressed in the uniform of National Guards, were seen impressed against +the ground. It was hideous. A decayed, sickening odour arose from this +garden, and occasionally at some places it became fetid." The rain and +heat having precipitated the putrefaction, the swollen bodies +reappeared. The glory of MacMahon displayed itself too well. The +journals were taking fright. "These wretches," said one of them, "who +have done us so much harm during their lives, must not be allowed to do +so still after their death." And those that had instigated the massacre +cried "Enough!" + +"Let us not kill any more," said the _Paris Journal_ of the 2nd June, +"even the assassins, even the incendiaries. Let us not kill any more. It +is not their pardon we ask for, but a respite." "Enough executions, +enough blood, enough victims," said the _Nationale_ of the 1st June. And +the _Opinion Nationale_ of the same day: "A serious examination of the +accused is imperative. One would like to see only the really guilty +die." + +The executions abated, and the sweeping off began. Carriages of all +kinds, vans, omnibuses, came to pick up the corpses and traversed the +town. Since the great pests of London and Marseilles, such cart-loads of +human flesh had not been seen. These exhumations proved that a great +number of people had been buried alive. Imperfectly shot, and thrown +with the heaps of dead into the common grave, they had eaten earth, and +showed the contortions of their violent agony. Certain corpses were +taken up in pieces. It was necessary to shut them as soon as possible +into closed waggons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the +cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid +masses. + +The cemeteries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed +side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled +enormous ditches at the Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where +the people in pious remembrance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, +more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, +Bicêtre, &c., the trenches dug during the first siege were utilised. +"There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations," said _La +Liberté_ "an impure blood will water the soil of the labourer, +fecundating it. The deceased delegate at war will be able to pass a +review of his faithful followers at the hour of midnight; the watchword +will be _Incendiarism and assassination_." Women by the side of the +lugubrious trench endeavoured to recognise these remains. The police +waited that their grief should betray them, in order to arrest those +"females of insurgents." + +The burying of such a large number of corpses soon became too difficult, +and they were burnt in the casemates of the fortifications; but for want +of draught the combustion was incomplete, and the bodies were reduced to +a pulp. At the Buttes Chaumont the corpses, piled up in enormous heaps, +inundated with petroleum, were burnt in the open air. + +The wholesale massacres lasted up to the first days of June,[221] and +the summary executions up to the middle of that month. For a long time +mysterious dramas were enacted in the Bois de Boulogne.[222] Never will +the exact number of the victims of the Bloody Week be known. The chief +of military justice admitted 17,000 shot;[223] the municipal council of +Paris paid the expenses of burial of 17,000 corpses; but a great number +were killed out of Paris or burnt. There is no exaggeration in saying +20,000 at least. + +Many battlefields have numbered more dead, but these at least had fallen +in the fury of the combat. The century has not witnessed such a +slaughtering after the battle; there is nothing to equal it in the +history of our civil struggles. St. Bartholomew's Day, June, 1848, the +2nd December, would form but an episode of the massacres of May. Even +the great executioners of Rome and modern times pale before the Duke of +Magenta. The hecatombs of the Asiatic victors, the fêtes of Dahomey +alone could give some idea of this butchery of proletarians. + +Such was the repression "by the laws, with the laws." And during these +atrocities of incomparably worse than Bulgarian type, the bourgeoisie, +raising to heaven its bloody hands, undertook to incite the whole world +against this people, who, after two months of domination and the +massacre of thousands of their own, had shed the blood of sixty-three +prisoners. + +All social powers covered the death-rattle of the victims by their +applause. The priests, those great consecrators of assassination, +celebrated the victory in a solemn service, at which the entire Assembly +assisted. The reign of the _Gesu_ was about to commence. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[202] In the Boulevard des Italiens women kissed the boots of the +mounted officers who escorted the convoys. A journalist, Francisque +Sarcey, wrote: "With what serene joy the eye rested on the loyal faces +of those brave gendarmes, who marched with a sprightly step by the sides +of the hideous column, forming a martial and severe framework!" + +[203] Appendix XXII. + +[204] Appendix XXIII. + +[205] Appendix XXIV. + +[206] Later on all the names will be known. Let us cite from amongst a +hundred. At the Mairie of the fifth arrondissement, the colonel of the +National Guard, Galle; at the seventh, M. Gabriel Ossude and M. Blamont; +at the Collége Bonaparte, M. de Soulanges, chief of the 69th battalion; +at the Mairie of the ninth arrondissement, M. Charpentier; at L'Elysée, +M. de St. Geniez, chief of the 3rd battalion; at the Luxembourg, MM. +Gosselin, Parfait, Daniel; at the Mairie of the thirteenth +arrondissement, MM. D'Avril, chief of the 4th battalion, Lascol, chief +of the 17th Thierce; at the Châtelet, Vabre in a few hours achieved an +atrocious celebrity. + +[207] Appendix XXV. + +[208] Appendix XXVI. + +[209] Appendix XXVII. + +[210] Appendix XXVIII. + +[211] Appendix XXIX. + +[212] Appendix XXX. + +[213] Appendix XXXI. + +[214] The journal _L'Ariégeois_ has published the text of the report +addressed to the colonel of the 67th of the line by Lieutenant Sicre, a +native of the department of Ariège, who had taken part in the arrest of +Varlin, and commanded the firing-party. We extract the following +passage:--"Amongst the objects found on him were a pocket-book bearing +his name, a purse containing 284 francs 15 centimes, a penknife, a +silver watch, and a card of the man Tridon." + +[215] Some foreign journals uttered the same cry. The _Naval and +Military Gazette_ of the 27th May said, "We are deliberately of opinion +that hanging is too good a death for such villains to die, and if +medical science could be advanced by operating upon the living body of +the malefactors who have crucified their country, we at least should +find no fault with the experiment." + +[216] At a wineshop of the Place Voltaire we met some quite young +soldiers on the Sunday morning. They were marine-fusileers of the 1871 +class. Their complexion was sallow, their movements heavy, their eyes +dull. "And there are many dead?" said we. "Ah!" answered one of them in +a stupefied tone, "we have the order to make no prisoners; it is the +general who told us" (they could not tell us the name of their general). +"If they had not lighted these fires they would not have been served +thus; but as they set on fire, we must kill" (textual). Then he went on +talking to his comrade. "This morning there" (and he pointed to the +barricade of the Mairie), "one came up in a blouse. We led him off. 'You +are not going to shoot me?' said he. 'Oh, I should think not!' We made +him pass in front of us, and then, pan, pan; and didn't he kick about +funnily!" + +[217] Sixty-three officers killed and 430 wounded, 794 soldiers dead and +6024 wounded--in all, 877 dead and 6454 wounded. _Rapport du Maréchal +MacMahon._ + +[218] This is the exact number of the hostages executed: four at Ste. +Pélagie, six at the Roquette, forty-eight at the Rue Haxo, four at the +Petite Roquette, and the banker Jecker. + +[219] The Count de Mun said (_Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 276), +"When they were shot, they all died with a kind of insolence which +cannot be attributed to a moral sentiment" (the sentiment of the +executioner, Monsieur de Mun, no doubt), "and can only be attributed to +the resolution to come to an end by death rather than live by working." +It is true that MacMahon had said (p. 28), "They seemed to think they +were defending a sacred cause, the independence of Paris. In their +intentions some of them may have been of good faith." Who is more +odious, he who believes he is killing an "insolent," or he who knows +that he is killing a martyr? + +[220] "On the Seine may be seen a long trail of blood following the +course of the water and passing under the second arch from the side of +the Tuileries. This trail never stopped."--_La Liberté of the 31st May._ + +[221] Appendix XXXII. + +[222] Appendix XXXIII. + +[223] This is the figure given by General Appert in the _Enquête sur le +18 Mars_. MacMahon has said, "When men surrender their arms they must +not be shot; that was admitted. Unhappily, on certain points, the +instructions I had given were forgotten. I can, however, affirm that the +number of executions has been very restricted." Admire the logic of this +reasoning. No doubt a list has been kept of all, oblivious as to the +victims of the prevotal courts; the "loyal soldier" ignores them +completely. + +Some days after the battle the _Nationale_, a Liberal-conservative paper +said, "In official circles it is estimated that 20,000 is the number of +Federals killed, shot, or dead in consequence of wounds received during +the days of May. We should not have dared to give this figure, which +seems to us considerable, if we had not got this information from +officers who have declared that this estimate is very probably +correct." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + "La cause de la justice, de l'ordre, de l'humanité, de la + civilisation, a triomphé."--_M. Thiers à l'Assemblée + Nationale, 22 Mai 1871._ + + THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS--THE ORANGERIE--THE ARRESTS-- + SATORY--THE DENUNCIATORS--THE PRESS--THE LEFT INSULTS + THE VANQUISHED--DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. + + +Happy the dead! They had not to mount the Calvary of the prisoners. + +From the wholesale fusillades one may guess the number of arrests. It +was a furious razzia; men, women, children, Parisians, provincials, +foreigners, a crowd of people of all sexes and all ages, of all parties +and all conditions. All the lodgers of a house, all the inhabitants of a +street, were carried off in a body. A suspicion, a word, a doubtful +attitude were sufficient to cause one to be seized by the soldiers. From +the 21st to the 30th May they thus picked up 40,000 persons. + +These prisoners were formed into long chains, sometimes free, sometimes, +as in June, 1848, bound by cords so as to form only one body. Whoever +refused to walk on was pricked with the bayonet, and, if he resisted, +shot on the spot, sometimes attached to a horse's tail.[224] In front of +the churches of the rich quarters the captives were forced to kneel +down, bareheaded, amidst an infamous mob of lackeys, fashionables, and +prostitutes, crying, "Death! death! Do not go any further; shoot them +here!" At the Champs-Elysées they wanted to break the files to taste +blood. + +The prisoners were sent on to Versailles. Gallifet awaited them at La +Muette. In the town he escorted the chains, halting under the windows +of the aristocratic clubs in order to earn plaudits and hurrahs. At the +gates of Paris he levied his tithe, walked past the ranks, and, with his +look of a famished wolf, "You seem intelligent," said he to some one; +"step out of the ranks." "You have a watch," said he to another; "you +must have been a functionary of the Commune," and he placed him apart. +On the 26th, in one single convoy, he chose eighty-three men and three +women, made them draw up along the talus of the fortifications and had +them shot.[225] Then he said to their comrades, "My name is Gallifet. +Your journals in Paris had sullied me enough. I take my revenge." On +Sunday, the 28th, he said, "Let those who have white hairs step out from +the ranks." One hundred and eleven captives advanced. "You," continued +Gallifet, "you have seen June, 1848; you are more culpable than the +others," and he had their corpses thrown over into the fortifications. + +This purgation over, the convoys entered upon the route to Versailles, +pressed between two files of cavalry. It looked like the population of a +city dragged away by fierce hordes. Lads, grey-bearded men, soldiers, +dandies, all and every condition; the most delicate and the most rude +confounded in the same vortex. Many women, some with manacles on their +hands; such a one with her baby, who pressed its mother's neck with its +frightened little hands; another, her arm broken, her chemisette stained +with blood; another depressed, clinging to the arm of her more vigorous +neighbour; another in a statuesque attitude, defying pain and insults; +always that woman of the people, who, after having carried the bread to +the trenches and given consolation to the dying, hopeless-- + + "Découragée de mettre au jour des malheureux," + +longed for liberating death. + +Their attitude, which inspired foreign journals with admiration,[226] +exasperated the Versaillese ferocity. "In seeing the convoys of +insurgent women," said the _Figaro_, "one feels in spite of oneself a +kind of pity; but one is reassured by thinking that all the brothels of +the capital have been thrown open by the National Guards, who patronised +them, and that the majority of these ladies were inhabitants of these +establishments." + +Panting, covered with filth, idiotic with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, +burnt by the sun, the convoys dragged themselves along for hours in the +overheated dust of the roads, harassed by the cries, the blows from the +mounted chasseurs. The Prussians had not thus cruelly treated these +soldiers when, prisoners themselves some months before, they had been +led away from Sedan or Metz. The captives who fell were sometimes shot, +sometimes they were only thrown into the carts that followed. + +At the entry into Versailles the crowd awaited them, always the _élite_ +of French society, deputies, functionaries, priests, officers, women of +all sorts. The fury of the 4th April and the preceding convoys were as +much surpassed as the sea swells at the equinoctial tide. The Avenues de +Paris and De St. Cloud were lined by savages, who followed the convoys +with vociferations, blows, covered them with filth and broken pieces of +bottle. "One sees," said the Liberal-Conservative newspaper, the +_Siècle_, of the 30th May, "women, not prostitutes, but elegant ladies, +insult the prisoners on their passage, and even strike them with their +sunshades." Woe to whoever did not insult the vanquished! Woe to him who +allowed a movement of commiseration to escape him! He was at once +seized, led to the post,[227] or else simply forced into the convoy. +Frightful retrogradation of human nature, all the more hideous that it +contrasted with the elegance of the costume! Prussian officers came from +St. Denis once more to see what governing classes they had had to oppose +them. + +The first convoys were promenaded about as a spectacle in the streets of +Versailles; others were stationed for hours at the torrid Place d'Armes, +a few steps from the large trees, whose shade was refused them. The +prisoners were then distributed in four depots, the cellars of the +Grandes-Ecuries, the Orangerie of the castle, the docks of Satory, and +the manèges of the Ecole de St. Cyr. Into these damp, nauseous cellars, +where light and air only penetrated by some narrow openings, men, +children, of whom some were not more than ten years old, were crowded +without straw during the first days. When they did get some, it was soon +reduced to mere dung. No water to wash with; no means of changing their +rags, as the relations who brought linen were brutally sent back. Twice +a day, in a trough, they got a yellowish liquid, a porridge. The +gendarmes sold tobacco at exorbitant prices, and confiscated it in order +to sell it over again. There were no doctors. Gangrene attacked the +wounded; ophthalmia broke out; deliriousness became chronic. In the +night were heard the shrieks of the fever-stricken and the mad. +Opposite, the gendarmes remained impassive, their guns loaded. + +Even these horrors were outdone by the Fosse-aux-Lions, a vault without +air, absolutely dark, the antechamber of the tomb, under the large red +marble staircase of the terrace. Whoever was noted as dangerous, or +whoever had simply displeased the corporal, was thrown into it. The most +robust could only bear up against it a few days. On leaving it, giddy, +the mind a blank, dazzled by the broad daylight, they swooned. Happy he +who met the look of his wife. The wives of the captives pressed against +the outer rails of the Orangerie, striving to distinguish some one +amidst the dimly seen herd. They tore their hair, implored the +gendarmes, who thrust them back, struck them, called them infamous +names. + +The hell of open daylight was the docks of the plateau of Satory, a vast +parallelogram enclosed by walls. The soil is clayey, and the least rain +soaks it. The first arrivals were placed within the buildings, which +could contain about thirteen hundred persons, the others remained +outside, bareheaded, for their hats had been knocked off at Paris or at +Versailles. The gendarmes were on duty, being more reliable, more +hardened than the soldiers. + +On the Thursday evening at eight o'clock a convoy, composed chiefly of +women, arrived at the dock. "Many of us," one of them has reported to +me, the wife of a _chef-de-légion_, "had died on the way; we had had +nothing since morning. + +"It was still daylight. We saw a great multitude of prisoners. The women +were apart in a hut at the entrance. We joined them. + +"We were told that there was a pond, and, dying of thirst, we rushed +thither. The first who drank uttered a loud cry, vomited. 'Oh, the +wretches! they make us drink the blood of our own people.' For since +evening the wounded went there to bathe their wounds; but thirst +tormented us so cruelly, that some had the courage to rinse out their +mouths with this bloody water. + +"The hut was already full, and we were made to lie on the earth in +groups of about 200. An officer came and said to us, 'Vile creatures! +listen to the order I give. Gendarmes, the first who moves, fire on +these----!' + +"At ten o'clock we heard reports quite near. We jumped up. 'Lie down, +wretches!' cried the gendarmes, taking aim at us. It was some prisoners +being shot a few steps from us. We thought the balls would pass through +our heads. The gendarmes who had just been shooting came to relieve our +guardians. We remained the whole night watched by men heated with +carnage. They grumbled at those who writhed with terror and cold. 'Do +not be impatient; your turn is coming.' At daybreak we saw the dead. The +gendarmes said to each other, 'Oh! isn't this a jolly vintage?' + +"In the evening the prisoners heard a sound of spades and hammers in the +wall of the south. The fusillades, the menaces had maddened them. They +awaited death from all sides and in every shape; they thought that this +time they were going to be blown up. Holes opened and mitrailleuses +appeared, some of which were discharged."[228] + +On Friday evening a storm of several hours broke out above the camp. The +prisoners were forced, on pain of being shot, to lie down all night in +the mud. About twenty died of cold. + +The camp of Satory soon became the Longchamp of Versailles high life. +Captain Aubrey did the honors with the ladies, the deputies, the +literary men, showing them his subjects grovelling in the mud, devouring +a few biscuits, taking tumblers of water from the pond into which the +gendarmes stood on no ceremony in easing themselves. Some, going mad, +dashed their heads against the walls; others howled, tearing their +beards and hair. A fetid cloud arose from this living mass of rags and +horrors. "There are," said the _Indépendence Française_, "several +thousands of people poisoned with dirt and vermin spreading infection a +kilomètre around. Cannon are levelled at these wretches penned up like +wild beasts. The inhabitants of Paris are afraid of the epidemic +resulting from the burying of the insurgents killed in the town. Those +whom the _Officiel___ of Paris called the rurals are much more afraid of +the epidemic resulting from the presence of the live insurgents at +Satory." + +Those are the honest people of Versailles, who had just caused the +triumph of "the cause of justice, order, humanity, and civilisation." +How good and humane, despite the bombardment and the sufferings of the +siege, those _brigands_ of Paris had been, above all by the side of +these _honest people_! Who ever ill-treated a prisoner in the Paris of +the Commune? What woman perished or was insulted? What obscure corner of +the Parisian prisons had hidden a single one of the thousand tortures +which displayed themselves in broad daylight at Versailles? + +From the 24th May to the first days of June the convoys did not cease +flowing into those depths. The arrests went on in large hauls by day and +night. The sergents-de-ville accompanied the soldiers, and, under the +pretext of perquisitions, forced the locks, appropriating objects of +value. Several officers were in the sequel condemned for the +embezzlement of objects seized.[229] They arrested not only the persons +compromised in the late affairs, those who were denounced by their +uniforms, or documents found in the mairies and at the War Office, but +whoever was known for his republican opinions. They arrested, too, the +purveyors of the Commune, and even the musicians, who had never crossed +the ramparts. The ambulance attendants shared the same fate. And yet +during the siege a delegate of the Commune, having inspected the +ambulances of the press, had said to the personnel, "I am aware that +most of you are the friends of the Government of Versailles, but I hope +you may live long enough to recognise your mistake. I do not trouble +myself to know whether the lancets at the service of the wounded are +royalist or republican. I see that you do your task worthily. I thank +you for it. I shall report it to the Commune." + +Some poor wretches had taken refuge in the Catacombs. They were hunted +by torchlight. The police agents, assisted by dogs, fired at every +suspicious shadow. Battues were organised in the forests near Paris. The +police watched all the stations, all the ports of France. Passports had +to be renewed and viséd at Versailles. The masters of boats were under +supervision. On the 26th Jules Favre had solemnly asked the foreign +powers for the extradition of the fugitives, under the pretext that the +battle of the streets was not a political act. + +Extradition flourished at Paris. Fear closed all doors. No shelter was +there for the fugitives. Few friends were left--no comrades. Everywhere +pitiless refusals or denunciations. Doctors renewed the infamies of +1834, and delivered up the wounded.[230] Every cowardly instinct rose to +the surface, and Paris disclosed sloughs of infamy whose existence she +had not suspected even under the Empire. The honest people, masters of +the streets, had their rivals, their creditors, arrested as Communards, +and formed committees of inquiry in their arrondissements. The Commune +had rejected the denunciators; the police of order received them with +open arms. The denunciations rose to the fabulous height of +399,823,[231] of which a twentieth at most were signed. + +A very considerable part of these denunciations issued from the press. +For several weeks it did not cease stirring the rage and panic of the +bourgeoisie. M. Thiers, re-editing one of the absurdities of June, 1848, +in a bulletin spoke of "poisonous liquids collected in order to poison +the soldiers." All the inventions of that time were again taken up, +appropriated to the hour, and horribly amplified; chambers in the +sewers with wires all prepared, 8,000 petroleuses enrolled, houses +marked with a stamp for burning, pumps, injectors, eggs filled with +petroleum, poisoned balls, roasted gendarmes, hanged sailors, violated +women, prostitutes requisitioned, endless thefts--all was printed, and +the gulls believed all. Some journals had the speciality of false orders +for arson;[232] false autographs, of which the originals could never be +produced, but which were to be admitted as positive evidence by the +courts-martial and honest historians. When it fancied the fury of the +bourgeoisie was flagging, the press fanned it again, each journal +outbidding the other in villainy. "Paris, we know," said the _Bien +Public_, "asks for nothing better than to go to sleep again; though we +should trouble her, we will awaken her." And on the 8th June the +_Figaro_ still drew up plans of carnage.[233] The revolutionary writer +who will take the pains to collect in a volume extracts from the +reactionary press of May and June, 1871, from the Parliamentary +inquiries, the bourgeois pamphlets, and histories of the Commune--a +mixture as monstrous as that of the witches' cauldron--will do more for +the edification and the future justice of the people than a whole band +of mouthing agitators. + +There were, to French honour, some traits of generosity, and even +heroism, amidst this epidemic of cowardice. Vermorel, wounded, was +taken in by the wife of a concierge, who succeeded for a few hours in +passing him off for her son. The mother of a Versaillese soldier gave +several members of the Council of the Commune an asylum. A great number +of insurgents were saved by unknown people; and yet it was during the +first days a matter of death, afterwards of transportation, to shelter +the vanquished. The women once again showed their great heart. + +The average of arrests kept up in June and July to a hundred a day. At +Belleville, Ménilmontant, in the thirteenth arrondissement, in certain +streets, there were only old women left. The Versaillese, in their lying +returns, have admitted 38,568 prisoners,[234] amongst whom were 1,058 +women and 651 children, of whom forty-seven were thirteen years of age, +twenty-one twelve, four ten, and one seven,[235] as though they had by +some secret method counted the herds whom they fed at the troughs. The +number of those arrested very probably reached 50,000 men. + +The errors were numberless. Some women of that beau monde who went with +dilated nostrils to contemplate the corpses of the Federals were +included in the razzias, and led off to Satory, where, their clothes in +rags, devoured by vermin, they figured very well as the imaginary +petroleuses of their journals. + +Thousands of individuals were obliged to hide; thousands gained the +frontier. An idea of the general losses may be gathered from the fact +that at the complementary elections of July there were 100,000 less +electors than in February.[236] Parisian industry was crushed by it. +Most of the workmen who gave this branch of manufacture its artistic +cachet perished, were arrested, or emigrated in masses. In the month of +October the municipal council proved in an official report that certain +industries were obliged to refuse orders for want of hands. + +The savageness of the searches, the number of the arrests, joined to the +despair of the defeat, tore from this town--bled to the last drop of +blood--some supreme convulsions. At Belleville, at Montmartre, in the +thirteenth arrondissement, shots were fired from houses. At the Café du +Helder, in the Rue de Rennes, the Rue de la Paix, Place de la Madeleine, +soldiers and officers fell, struck by invisible hands; near the +Pépinière Barracks a general was shot at. The Versaillese journals +wondered, with naïve impudence, that popular fury was not calmed, and +could not understand "what reason, even the most futile, of hatred one +could have for soldiers who had the most inoffensive look in the world" +(_La Cloche_). + +The Left followed to the very end the line it had traced out for itself +on the 19th March. Having prevented the provinces from coming to the +rescue of Paris and voted its thanks to the army, it also joined its +maledictions to those of the rurals. Louis Blanc, who in 1877 was to +defend the red flag, wrote to the _Figaro_ to stigmatise the vanquished, +to bow down before their judges, and declare "the public indignation +legitimate."[237] This Extreme Left, which five years after grew +enthusiastic for the amnesty, would not hear the death-groans of the +20,000 shot, nor even, though but a hundred yards from them, the shrieks +from the Orangerie. In June, 1848, the sombre imprecation of Lammennais +fell upon the massacres, and Pierre Leroux defended the insurgents. The +great philosophers of the Rural Assembly, Catholic or Positivist, were +all one against the workingmen. Gambetta, delighted at being rid of the +Socialists, hurried back from St. Sébastien, and in a solemn speech at +Bordeaux declared that the Government which had been able to crush Paris +"had even by that proved itself legitimate." + +There were some men of courage in the provinces. The _Droits de l'Homme_ +of Montpellier, the _Emancipation_ of Toulouse, the _National du +Loiret_, and several advanced journals recounted the assassinations of +the conquerors. Most of these journals were prosecuted and suppressed. +Some movements took place; a commencement of riots at Pamiers (Ariège) +and at Voiron (Isère). At Lyons the army was confined in its barracks, +and the prefect, Valentin, had the town closed in order to arrest the +fugitives of Paris. There were arrests at Bordeaux. + +At Brussels Victor Hugo protested against the declaration of the Belgian +government, which promised to deliver up the fugitives. Louis Blanc and +Schoelcher wrote him a letter full of blame, and his house was stoned +by a fashionable mob. Bebel in the German Parliament and Whalley in the +House of Commons denounced the Versaillese fury. Garcia Lopez said from +the tribune of the Cortes, "We admire this great revolution, which no +one can appreciate justly to-day." + +The workingmen of foreign countries solemnised the obsequies of their +brothers of Paris. At London, Brussels, Zurich, Geneva, Leipzig, and +Berlin, monster meetings proclaimed themselves in accord with the +Commune, devoted the slaughterers to universal execration, and declared +accomplices of these crimes the Governments which had not made any +remonstrances. All the Socialist journals glorified the struggle of the +vanquished. The great voice of the International recounted their effort +in an eloquent address,[238] and confided their memory to the workmen of +the whole world. + +On the triumphal entry of Moltke at the head of the victorious Prussian +army into Berlin, the workmen received them with hurrahs for the +Commune, and at several places the people were charged by the cavalry. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[224] Appendix XXXIV. + +[225] This fact and the following one are not only attested by the +prisoners, but by the journals of order and the correspondents of the +conservative foreign newspapers speaking as eye-witnesses. Appendix +XXXV. + +[226] "I observed a slender figure walking alone, in the costume of the +National Guard, with long fair hair floating over the shoulders, a +bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold young face, that seemed to know +neither shame nor fear. When the spectators detected at a glance that +this seeming young National Guardsman was a woman, their indignation +found vent in strong language; but the only response of the victim was +to glare right and left with heightened colour and flashing eyes. If the +French nation were composed only of Frenchwomen, what a terrible nation +it would be!"--_The Times, 29th May, 1871._ + +[227] They treated in this manner M. Ratisbonne, he who in the _Debats_ +had just written, "What an inestimable victory!" + +[228] These facts are borne witness to by several conservative journals, +among others the _Siècle_. We cite this paper in preference to the +Figarist journals, which might be suspected of having amplified the +glory of the army. "The day before yesterday there has been (at Satory) +an attempt at revolt. The soldiers began by aiming at the most mutinous; +but as this procedure did not seem sufficiently expeditious, +mitrailleuses were advanced, which fired into the crowd. Order was +re-established, but at what a price!" (Versailles, 27th May). "Towards +four o'clock in the morning a new rising took place amongst the +prisoners of Satory. There were several volleys of mitrailleuses, and, +as you may suppose, the number of dead and wounded must have been rather +considerable." (Versailles, May 28). + +[229] Among others, one Thierce, lieutenant-colonel, who had presided at +the executions in the thirteenth arrondissement. + +[230] At the Beaujon Hospital there was a wounded Federal whom all the +staff wanted to save. Only one person refused, the doctor Delbeau, +head-surgeon and professor in the faculty of medicine. He sent up the +soldiers of the neighbouring post and had the poor fellow taken away. Be +it said to the honour of the students that they forced him some months +after to suspend his lectures. + +[231] The numbers of the registers where the denunciations were +inscribed enabled the proof of this statistic of infamy, published by +the spy journals of the time, to be ascertained. + +[232] One of these orders, which commanded Millière to set fire to the +left bank, was signed Billioray, who had fled on the 21st, and +Dombrowski, already dead at this time. + +[233] "GENERAL ENTERPRISE OF PARISIAN SWEEPING.--The repression must +equal the crime. These are the means by which this result will be +arrived at. The members of the Commune, the chiefs of the insurrection, +the members of the committees, courts-martial and revolutionary +tribunals, the foreign generals and officers, the deserters, the +assassins of Montmartre, La Roquette, and Mazas, the _pétroleurs_ and +the _petroleuses_, the ticket-of-leave men, are to be shot. Martial law +must be applied in all its rigour to the journalists who have placed the +torch and the chassepot in the hands of fanatic imbeciles. A part of +these measures have already been put into practice. Our soldiers have +simplified the work of the courts-martial of Versailles by shooting on +the spot; but it must not be overlooked that a great many culprits have +escaped chastisement."--_Le Figaro of the 8th June._ + +[234] Report of the General Appert, table i. pp. 215, 262. + +[235] Report of the Captain Guichard, _Enquête sur le 18 Mars_, vol. +iii. p. 313. + +[236] The _Journal des Débats_ estimated that "the losses by the party +of the insurrection in dead and prisoners reached the figure of 100,000 +individuals." + +[237] In the _Figaro_ of the 8th June--the same number which contained +the plan of massacre--might be read, "We have received the following +letter from M. Louis Blanc:-- + +"'To Monsieur Philippe Gille. + +"'SIR,--I read in an article signed by you that the honest Republican +party has the right to expect a protestation from me against the +abominations of which Paris has been the theatre and the victim. This +observation surprises me. + +"'What honest man could, without lacking self-respect, believe himself +obliged to warn the public that incendiarism, pillage, and assassination +horrify him? I esteem myself enough to judge that, on my part, a +declaration is perfectly useless. + +"'When, too, public indignation is so legitimate and so great, are you +aware, sir, that in the tribunals the silence of the assistants is +obligatory; so true is it that the duty of everybody is to remain silent +when the judge is about to speak. Receive, sir, the assurance of my +regard. + + LOUIS BLANC.'" + + +[238] The Civil War in France. Address of the Council of the +International Working-Men's Association. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "La conciliation, c'est l'ange qui plane après + l'orage."--_Dufaure à l'Assemblée Nationale, 26 Avril + 1871._ + + THE PONTOONS--THE FORTS--THE PRISONS--THE FIRST TRIALS. + + +The human lakes of Versailles and Satory were soon overflowing. From the +first days of June the prisoners were filed off to the seaports and +crowded into cattle-waggons, the awnings of which, hermetically closed, +let in no breath of air. In a corner was a heap of biscuits; but +themselves thrown upon this heap, the prisoners had soon reduced it to +mere crumbs. For twenty-four hours, and sometimes thirty-two hours, they +remained without anything to drink. They fought in this throng for a +little air, a little room. Some, maddened, flung themselves upon their +comrades.[239] One day at La Ferté-Bernard cries were uttered in a +waggon. The chief of the escort stopped the convoy; the +sergents-de-ville discharged their revolvers through the awning. Silence +ensued, and the rolling coffins set out again at full speed. + +From the month of June to the month of September 28,000 prisoners were +thus thrown into the harbours, the forts and the oceanic isles, from +Cherbourg to the Gironde. Twenty-five pontoons took in 20,000, the forts +and isles 8,087. + +On the pontoons tortures were inflicted by regulation. The traditions +of June and of December were religiously observed with the victims of +1871. The prisoners, penned in cages made of wooden planks and iron +bars, received only a dim light through the nailed down port-holes. +Ventilation there was none. From the first hours the exhalations were +unbearable. The sentinels walked up and down in this menagerie with the +order to fire at the slightest alarm. Cannon charged with grapeshot +overlooked the batteries. There were neither hammocks nor blankets, and +for all food some biscuits, bread, and haricots, but no wine or tobacco. +The inhabitants of Brest and Cherbourg having sent some provisions and +little luxuries, the officers sent them back. + +This cruelty relaxed somewhat after a time. The prisoners received a +hammock for every two, some shirts, some blouses, and now and then some +wine. They were allowed to wash, to come on to the deck to snatch a +little fresh air. The sailors showed some humanity, but the +marine-fusileers were always the same bandits as in the days of May, and +the crew was often obliged to tear the prisoners from them. + +The régime of the pontoons varied according to the officers. At Brest +the second officer, commander of the _Ville de Lyon_, forbade the +insulting of the prisoners; while the master-at-arms of the _Breslau_ +treated them like convicts. At Cherbourg one of the lieutenants of the +_Tage_, Clémenceau, was ferocious. The commander of the _Bayard_ turned +his vessel into a diminutive Orangerie. This ship had witnessed the most +abominable acts perhaps that have sullied the history of the French +navy. Absolute silence was the rule on board. As soon as any one spoke +in the cages, the sentry menaced and several times shot. For a +complaint, or mere forgetfulness of a rule, the prisoners were tied to +the bars of their cages by the ankles and wrists.[240] + +The dungeons on shore were as terrible as the pontoons. At Quélern as +many as forty prisoners were shut up in the same casemate. The lower +ones were deadly. The cesspools emptied into them, and in the morning +the fæcal matter covered the floor some two inches deep. By the side of +these were salubrious disengaged lodgments, but they would not remove +the prisoners thither. One day M. Jules Simon came, thought that his +former electors were looking but poorly, and decided that recourse must +be taken to severity. Elisée Reclus had opened a school, and tried to +raise out of their ignorance a hundred and fifty-one prisoners who could +neither read nor write. The Minister of Public Education had the classes +stopped, and had the small library, which the prisoners had got together +by making the greatest sacrifices, closed. + +The prisoners of the forts, like those of the pontoons, were fed on +biscuits and bacon; later on, soup and broth were added on Sundays; +knives and forks were forbidden; it cost several days' struggle to get +spoons. The profit of the sutler, which, according to the list of +charges, ought to be limited to a tenth, reached as much as five hundred +per cent. + +At the Fort Boyard men and women were packed into the same enclosure, +separated only by a screen. The women were forced to perform their +ablutions under the eyes of the sentinels. Sometimes their husbands were +in the neighbouring compartment. "We noticed," wrote a prisoner, "a +young and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who fainted every time she +was forced to undress."[241] + +According to much evidence which we have received, the most cruel prison +was that of St. Marcouf. The prisoners remained there for over six +months, deprived of air, light, and tobacco, forbidden to speak, having +for their only nourishment the crumbs of brown biscuits and rancid fat. +All were attacked with scurvy. + +This continual severity got the better of the most robust constitutions; +there were in consequence 2,000 sick in the hospitals. The official +reports admit 1,179 dead out of 33,665 civil prisoners. This figure is +evidently below the truth. During the first days at Versailles a certain +number of individuals were killed, and others died without being +counted. There were no statistics before the transfer to the pontoons. +There is no exaggeration in saying that 2,000 prisoners died while in +the hands of the Versaillese. A great number perished afterwards of +anæmia, and of maladies contracted during their captivity. + +Some idea of the tortures of the pontoons and the forts, far from the +surveillance of public opinion, may be gathered from those that were +openly displayed at Versailles,[242] under the eyes of the Government, +the Chamber, and the Radicals. Colonel Gaillard, chief of military +justice, had said to the soldiers who guarded the prisoners of the +Chantiers, "As soon as you see any one move, raising their arms, fire; +it is I who give you the order." + +At the Grenier d'Abondance of the Western Railway there were eight +hundred women. For weeks and weeks they slept on straw, were unable to +change their linen. At the slightest noise, a quarrel, the guards threw +themselves upon them, struck them, more especially on the breasts. +Charles Mercereau, a former Cent-Garde, the governor of this sink, had +those that displeased him tied down and then beat them with his cane. He +led about over his dominions the ladies of Versailles, covetous of +petroleuses, and before them said to his victims, "Come, hussies, cast +down your eyes." And indeed that was the least our Federal women could +do before these honest persons. + +Prostitutes, carried off in the razzias, and carefully kept there in +order to spy upon the other prisoners, publicly abandoned themselves to +the guardians. The protests of the women of the Commune were punished by +blows with cords. With a refinement of infamy, the Versaillese wished to +bow down these valiant women to the level of the others. All the +prisoners were subjected to inspection. + +Dignity and outraged nature revenged themselves by terrible crises. +"Where is my father? Where my husband? and my son? What! alone, quite +alone, and all these cowards against me! I, the mother, the laborious +wife, subjected to the whip, insult, and sullied by these unclean hands +for having defended liberty!" Many went mad. All passed through their +hours of madness. Those who were pregnant miscarried or brought forth +still-born children. + +The priests were no more wanting in the prisons than at the fusillades. +The chaplain of Richemont said to the prisoners, "I know that I am here +in a forest of Bondy,[243] but my duty," &c. On the day of St. Magdalene +the Bishop of Algiers, making a delicate allusion to the saint of the +day, said to them, "That they were all Magdalenes, but not repentant; +that Magdalene had neither burned nor assassinated;" and uttering other +evangelical amenities. + +The children were shut up in a part of the women's prison, and were just +as brutally treated. A corporal, the secretary of Mercereau, kicked open +the stomach of a boy; another received the bastinado, and lingered for a +long time at the infirmary. The son of Ranvier, twelve years old, was +cruelly beaten for refusing to betray the hiding-place of his father. + +All these unfortunate prisoners of the pontoons, the forts, and the +houses of correction were for several months devoured by vermin before +their cases were inquired into. The Versaillese Moloch held more victims +than he could digest. After the first days of June he disgorged 1,090 +persons reclaimed by the reactionists. But how to draw up indictments +against 36,000 prisoners? It was all very well for Dufaure to let loose +all the police agents of the Empire into the prisons; in the month of +August only 4,000 prisoners had been interrogated. + +Still it was necessary to satiate the rage of the bourgeoisie, which +wanted a sensational trial. A few celebrities who had escaped the +massacre had been taken, some members of the Council of the Commune, of +the Central Committee, Rossel, Rochefort, &c. M. Thiers and Dufaure got +up a grand performance. + +This trial was to be the model one, to serve as a type for the +jurisprudence of the courts-martial, for the prisoners were to be judged +by the same soldiers who had conquered them. The old procureur and his +president applied all their pettifogging cunning to lowering the debate. +They refused the character of political men to the accused, and reduced +the insurrection to an ordinary crime, thus securing to themselves the +right of cutting short effective defences, and the advantage of +condemnations to the bagnio and to death, which the hypocritical +bourgeoisie pretends to have abolished in political cases.[244] The +third court-martial was carefully selected. The commissary chosen was +Gaveau, a low energumen, who had shown signs of mental alienation, and +had struck the prisoners in the streets of Versailles; the president, +Merlin, a colonel of engineers, one of the capitulards of Bazaine's +army; the rest an assortment of trusty Bonapartists. Sedan and Metz were +going to judge Paris. + +The ceremony commenced on the 7th August, in a large hall containing two +thousand seats. Personages of rank reclined in the red velvet +arm-chairs; deputies occupied three hundred seats; the remainder +belonged to the bourgeois of note, to "honest" families, to the +aristocracy of prostitution, and to the howling press. These talking +journalists, these brilliant dresses, these smiling faces, these toyings +with fans, these gay bouquets, these opera-glasses pointed in all +directions, reminded one of the most elegant first-night performances. +The staff officers, in full uniform, smartly conducted the ladies to +their seats, not forgetting to make the indispensable bow. + +All this scum boiled over when the prisoners appeared. There were +seventeen: Ferré, Assi, Jourde, Paschal Grousset, Régère, Billioray, +Courbet, Urbain, Victor Clément, Trinquet, Champy, Rastoul, Verdure, +Decamps, Parent, members of the Council of the Commune; Ferrat and +Lullier, members of the Central Committee. + +Gaveau read the accusation act. This revolution was born of two plots, +that of the revolutionary party and that of the International; Paris had +risen on the 18th March, in answer to the appeal of a few scoundrels; +the Central Committee had ordered the execution of Lecomte and +Clément-Thomas; the manifestation of the Place Vendôme was an unarmed +manifestation; the head-surgeon of the army had been assassinated while +making a supreme appeal to conciliation; the Commune had committed +thefts of all kinds; the implements of the nuns of Picpus were +transformed into instruments of orthopedy; the explosion of the Rapp +magazines was the work of the Commune; desirous of kindling violent +hatred of the enemy in the hearts of the Federals, Ferré had presided at +the execution of the hostages of La Roquette, set fire to the Ministry +of Finance, as was proved by the facsimile of an order written in his +hand, "_Burn Finances!_" Each one of the members of the Council of the +Commune had to answer for facts relating to his particular functions, +and collectively for all the decrees issued. This indictment, worthy of +a low police agent, communicated beforehand to M. Thiers, indeed made of +the cause a simple affair of robbery and arson. + +It took up a whole sitting. The next day, Ferré, interrogated the first, +refused to answer, and laid his conclusions upon the table. "The +conclusions of the incendiary Ferré are of no moment!" cried Gaveau, and +the witnesses against him were called. Fourteen out of twenty-four +belonged to the police; the others were priests or Government employés. +An expert in handwriting, celebrated at the law-courts for his blunders, +affirmed that the order "_Burn Finances_" was certainly in Ferré's hand. +In vain the accused demanded that the signature of this order should be +compared with his, which figured very often in the jail register; that +at least the original should be produced, and not the facsimile. Gaveau +exclaimed indignantly, "Why, this is want of confidence!" + +Thus set to rights from the outset as to the plot and the character of +their judges, the accused might have declined every debate; they +committed the fault of accepting it. If even they had proudly +revindicated their political character! But it was not so; some even +denied it. Almost all, confining themselves to their personal defence, +abandoned the Revolution of the 18th March, whose mandate they had +solicited or accepted. Their preoccupation for their own safety betrayed +itself by sad defections. But from the very dock of the accused the +voice of the people thus denied arose avengingly. A workman of that +brave Parisian race, the first in labour, study, and combat, a member of +the Council of the Commune, intelligent and convinced, modest in the +Council, one of the foremost in the struggle, the shoemaker Trinquet, +revindicated the honour of having fulfilled his mandate to the end. "I +was," said he, "sent to the Commune by my co-citizens; I have paid with +my person; I have been to the barricades, and I regret not having died +there; I should not to-day assist at this sad spectacle of colleagues +who, after having taken their share in the action, will no longer bear +their part of the responsibility. I am an insurgent; I do not deny it." + +The examinations were drawn out with fastidious slowness during +seventeen sittings. Always the same public of soldiers, bourgeois, +courtesans, hissing the accused; the same witnesses, priests, police +agents, and functionaries; the same fury in the accusation, the same +cynicism in the tribunal, the same howling of the press. The massacres +had not glutted this. It yelled at the accused, demanded their death, +and every day dragged them through the mire of its reports.[245] +Foreign correspondents were revolted. The _Standard_, a great reviler of +the Commune, said, "Anything more scandalous than the tone of the +demi-monde press during this trial it is impossible to imagine." Some of +the accused having asked for the protection of the president, Merlin +took up the defence of the journals. + +Then came the prosecutor's address to the court. Gaveau, to remain true +to his instructions, was to demonstrate that Paris had fought for six +weeks in order to enable a few individuals to steal the remainder of the +public chests, to burn some houses, and to shoot a few gendarmes. This +epauletted limb of the law overthrew as a soldier all the arguments he +built up as a magistrate. "The Commune," he said, "had acted as a +Government," and five minutes after he refused the members of the +Council of the Commune the character of political men. Passing in review +the different accused, he said of Ferré, "I should be wasting my time +and yours by discussing the numerous charges weighing upon him;" of +Jourde, "The figures he has given you are quite imaginary. I shall not +trespass upon your time by discussing them." During the battle in the +streets Jourde had received the order of the Committee of Public Safety +to remit a thousand francs to every member of the Council. About thirty +only had received this sum. Gaveau said, "They divided millions amongst +each other;" and a man of his sort must have believed this. What +sovereign has ever abandoned power without carrying off millions? He +lengthily accused Grousset of having stolen paper in order to print his +journal; another of having lived with a mistress. A coarse _lansquenet_, +incapable of understanding that the more he lowered the men the greater +he made this Revolution, so vital despite all defections and +incapacities. + +The audience emphasised this accusation with frantic applause. At the +conclusion there were calls as in a theatre. Merlin gave Ferré's +advocate permission to speak, but Ferré declared he wished to defend +himself, and commenced reading:-- + +After the conclusion of the treaty of peace consequent upon the shameful +capitulation of Paris, the Republic was in danger, the men who had +succeeded the Empire fallen in the midst of mire and blood"---- + +_Merlin._ Fallen in the midst of mire and blood! Here I must stop you. +Was not your Government in the same situation? + +_Ferré._ "Clung to power, and, though overwhelmed by public contempt, +they prepared in the dark a coup-d'état; they persisted in refusing +Paris the election of her municipal council"---- + +_Gaveau._ This is not true. + +_Merlin._ What you are saying, Ferré, is false. Continue, but at the +third time I shall stop you. + +_Ferré._ "The honest and sincere journals were suppressed, the best +patriots condemned to death"---- + +_Gaveau._ The prisoner cannot go on reading this. I shall ask for the +application of the law. + +_Ferré._ "The Royalists were preparing for the partition of France. At +last, in the night of the 18th March, they believed themselves ready, +and attempted to disarm the National Guard, and the wholesale arrest of +Republicans"---- + +_Merlin._ Come, sit down. I allow your advocate to speak. + +The advocate of Ferré demanded that his client might be allowed to read +the last sentences of his declaration, and Merlin gave way. + +_Ferré._ "A member of the Commune, I am in the hands of its victors. +They want my head; they may take it. I will never save my life by +cowardice. Free I have lived, so I will die. I add but one word. Fortune +is capricious; I confide to the future the care of my memory and my +revenge." + +_Merlin._ The memory of an assassin! + +_Gaveau._ It is to the bagnio that such manifestoes should be sent. + +_Merlin._ All this does not answer to the acts for which you are here. + +_Ferré._ This means that I accept the fate that is in store for me. + +During this duel between Merlin and Ferré the hall had remained silent. +Ferocious hisses burst forth when Ferré concluded. The president was +obliged to raise the sitting, and the judges were going out when a +barrister demanded that notice should be taken for the defence that the +president had called Ferré "assassin." + +The hisses of the audience answered. The advocate indignantly turned to +the tribunal, to the seats of the press, to the public. Cries of rage +arose from all corners of the hall, drowning his voice for several +minutes. Merlin, who was radiant, at last obtained silence, and answered +cavalierly, "I acknowledge that I made use of the expression of which +the advocate spoke. The court takes notice of your conclusions." + +The day before, as a barrister remarked to him, "We are all answerable, +not to the public opinion of to-day, but to history, which will judge +us;" Merlin had cynically answered, "History! At that epoch we shall no +longer be here!" The French bourgeoisie had found its Jeffries. + +Early the next day the hall was crowded. The curiosity of the public, +the anxiety of the judges, were extreme. Gaveau, in order to accuse his +adversaries of all crimes at once, had for two days talked politics, +history, socialism. It would have sufficed to answer each one of his +arguments, in order to give the cause that political character which he +denied it, if one of the prisoners were at last to rouse up, and, less +careful of his person than of the Commune, follow up the accusation step +by step, oppose to the grotesque theories of conspiracy the eternal +provocation of the privileged classes; describe Paris offering herself +to the Government of National Defence, betrayed by it, then attacked by +Versailles, abandoned; the proletarians reorganising all the services of +this great city, and in a state of war, surrounded by treason, governing +for two months without police spies and without executions, remaining +poor in sight of the milliards of the bank; if he were to confront the +sixty-three hostages with the 20,000 assassinated, unveil the pontoons, +the jails, swarming with 40,000 unfortunate beings; take the world to +witness in the name of truth, of justice, of the future, and make of the +accused Commune the accuser. + +The president might have interrupted him, the cries of the public +drowned his revindication, the court after the first words declared him +outlawed. Such a man, reduced to silence, would, like Danton gagged, +find a gesture, a cry, which should pierce the walls and hurl his +anathema at the head of the tribunal. + +The vanquished missed this revenge. Instead of presenting a collective +defence or of maintaining a silence which would have saved their +dignity, the accused intrusted themselves to the barristers. Each one of +these gentlemen stretched a point to save his client even at the expense +of his brother lawyers. One barrister was also the _Figaro's_ and the +confidant of the Empress; another, one of the demonstrators of the Place +Vendôme, begged the court not to confound his cause with that of the +scoundrel's near him. There were scandalous pleadings. This debasement +disarmed neither the tribunal nor the public. Every moment Gaveau +bounded out of his arm-chair. "You are an insolent fellow," said he to a +lawyer. "If there is anything absurd here, it is you." The audience +applauded, ever ready to pounce upon the prisoners. On the 31st August +its fury rose to such a pitch that Merlin threatened to have the court +cleared. + +On the 2nd September the court feigned to deliberate the whole day. At +nine o'clock in the evening it returned to the sitting, and Merlin read +the judgment. Ferré and Lullier were condemned to death; Trinquet and +Urbain to hard labour for life; Assi, Billioray, Champy, Régère, +Grousset, Verdure, Ferrat to transportation in a fortress; Courbet to +six months' and Victor Clément to three months' imprisonment. Decamps +and Parent were acquitted. The audience retired much disappointed at +having got only two condemnations to death. + +As a fact, this judicial performance had proved nothing. Could the +Revolution of the 18th March be appreciated from the conduct of +secondary actors, and Delescluze, Varlin, Vermorel, Tridon, Moreau, and +many others, by the attitude of Lullier, Decamps, Victor Clément, or +Billioray? And even if the bearing of Ferré and Trinquet had not proved +that there had been men in the Council of the Commune, what then did the +defection of the majority show if not that this movement was the work of +all, not of a few great minds; that in this crisis the people only had +been great, they only revolutionary; that the Revolution was to be found +in the people, not in the Government of the Commune? + +The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, had displayed all its hideousness. The +audience, the tribunal, had been on the same level. Some witnesses had +manifestly perjured themselves. During the debates, in the lobbies, in +the cafés, all the ragamuffins who had endeavoured to dupe the Commune +impudently ascribed to themselves the success of the army. The _Figaro_, +having opened a subscription for Ducatel, had picked up 100,000 francs +and an order of the Légion d'Honneur for him. Allured by this success, +all the conspirators demanded their alms and their order. The partisans +of Beaufond-Lasnier, those of Charpentier-Domalain, fell out, recounted +their prowess, each and all swearing that he had betrayed better than +his rivals. + +While society was being avenged at Versailles, the Court of Assizes of +Paris avenged the honour of Jules Favre. Immediately after the Commune, +the Minister for Foreign Affairs had had M. Laluyé arrested, who was +guilty of having communicated to Millière the documents published in the +_Vengeur_. The honest Minister, not having succeeded in getting his +enemy shot as a Communard, summoned him before the assizes for libel. +Here the former member of the Government of National Defence, the former +Minister of Foreign Affairs, the deputy of Paris, publicly confessed +that he had committed forgeries, but he pleaded having done so to secure +his children a fortune. This touching avowal melted the _patres +familias_ of the jury, and Laluyé was condemned to imprisonment for one +year. Some months after he died at Ste. Pélagie. Jules Favre was +terribly lucky. In less than six months the fusillade and the dungeon +had delivered him of two redoubtable enemies.[246] + +While the third court-martial was quarrelling with the lawyers, the +fourth hurried through its business without phrases. On the 16th August, +almost immediately after its opening, it had already pronounced two +sentences of death. If the one court had its Jeffries, the other had its +Trestaillon in Colonel Boisdenemetz, a kind of wild boar, a drunkard, +seeing all red, a wit at times, and correspondent of the _Figaro_. On +the 4th September some women were brought before him, accused of setting +fire to the Légion d'Honneur. This was the trial of the petroleuses. The +eight thousand enrolled furies who had been announced by the journals of +order were reduced to the number of five. The cross-examination proved +that the so-called petroleuses were only admirably kind-hearted +ambulance nurses. One of them, Rétiffe, said, "I should have looked +after a soldier of Versailles as well as a National Guard." "Why," +another was asked, "did you remain when all the battalion ran away?" +"There were wounded and dying," answered she simply. The witnesses for +the prosecution themselves declared that they had not seen any of them +kindle fire; but their fate was decided beforehand. Between two sittings +Boisdenemetz cried in a café, "Death to all these trulls!" + +Three barristers out of five had deserted the bar. "Where are they?" +said the president. "They have asked to be allowed to absent themselves +to go to the country," answered the commissary. The court charged +soldiers with the defence of these poor women. One of them, the +Quartermaster Bordelais, made this fine speech: "I defer to the wisdom +of the tribunal." + +His client, Suétens, was condemned to death, as were also Rétiffe and +Marchais, "for having attempted to change the form of the Government;" +the two others to transportation and confinement. One of the condemned, +turning to the officer who read the sentence, cried to him in a +heart-rending voice, "And who will feed my child?" + +Thy child! See, he is here! + +Some days after, before this same Boisdenemetz, fifteen children of +Paris appeared; the eldest was sixteen years old, the youngest, so small +that he could hardly be seen in the dock of prisoners, was eleven. They +wore blue blouses and military képis. + +"Druet," said the soldier, "what did your father do?" + +"He was a mechanic." + +"Why did you not work like him?" + +"Because there was no work for me." + +"Bouverat, why did you join the _Pupilles de la Commune_?" + +"To get something to eat." + +"You have been arrested for vagrancy?" + +"Yes, twice; the second time for stealing a pair of stockings." + +"Cagnoncle, you were _Enfant de la Commune_?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Why did you leave your family?" + +"Because they had no bread." + +"Did you discharge many shots?" + +"About fifty." + +"Lescot, why did you leave your mother?" + +"Because she could not keep me." + +"How many children were there of you?" + +"Three." + +"You have been wounded?" + +"Yes, by a ball in the head." + +"Leberg, you have been with a master, and you were surprised taking the +cash-box. How much did you take?" + +"Ten sous." + +"Did not that money burn your hands?" + +And you, red-handed man! these words, do they not burn your lips? +Sinister fools! who do not understand that before these children, thrown +into the streets without education, without hope, through the necessity +you have made for them, the culprit is you, lace-bedecked soldier, you, +the public minister of a society in which children twelve years old, +capable and willing to work, are forced to steal in order to get a pair +of stockings, and have no other alternative than to fall beneath bullets +or die of hunger! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[239] These details are extracted from very numerous notes furnished not +only by the prisoners, among others by Elisée Reclus, but by persons +entire strangers to the Commune, municipal councillors of seaport towns, +foreign journalists, &c. + +[240] General Appert's report is not only silent with regard to these +ignominious proceedings, but lies with a placidity that is frightful. He +says, for instance, "The prisoners of the pontoons were treated like the +sailors, with this difference, that they did no work and got frequent +distributions of wine." Of the cages, the vermin, the blows, not a word. +In the same manner he recounts, in the style of a pretentious +quartermaster, the history of the Commune and of the last struggles. It +would be doing him too much honour to point out how his absurd +statements contradict each other. And yet it is from these official lies +that all bourgeois historians have till to-day compiled their histories. + +[241] Letter addressed to the _Liberté_ of Brussels. + +[242] Besides the 27,837 prisoners officially recognised at the +pontoons, 8472 others were admitted as being dispersed at Satory, +L'Orangerie, Les Chautiers, the houses of justice and correction of +Rouen-Clermont and St. Cyr. On the 15th of October there were still 3500 +in the prisons of Versailles. + +[243] The former resort of all sorts of criminals. + +[244] The great political hecatombs have taken place in France since the +decree of the Provisional Government of 1848. + +[245] Here is a sample, and not one of the most emphatic, "We must make +no mistake," said _La Liberté_; "we must, above all, not stand on +niceties; this is certainly a band of scoundrels, assassins, thieves, +and incendiaries whom we have before our eyes. To argue from their +situation of accused in order to exact for them the respect and benefit +of the law which supposes them innocent would be a want of faith. No, +no! a thousand times no! These are not ordinary accused; they were +taken, some in the very act, and the others have so surely signed their +culpability by authentic and solemn acts that it suffices to establish +their identity in order to cry with the full and sonorous voice of +conviction, 'Yes, yes! they are guilty!' + +"The detained witnesses are, for the most part, sinister bandits, with +atrocious faces, repulsive types, especially the youngest, and whom one +would not like to meet even in broad daylight at the corner of a wood." + +[246] Family and morality were triumphing along the whole line. Some +days after the fall of the Commune, the first president of the Court of +Cassation, the official go-between of the amours of Napoleon III., +solemnly reoccupied, before all the courts united, his seat, whence the +hypocritical prudery of the men of the 4th September had expelled him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + "A Versailles, tous les moyens ont été employés pour assurer + l'instruction la plus sérieuse, la plus attentive, la plus + complète de tous les procès qui ont été juges.... Je tiens + donc que les jugements qui ont été rendus ne sont pas + seulement en droit, d'après toutes nos lois, inattaquables, + mais que, pour la conscience la plus scrupuleuse, ils sont + des jugements qui ont dit la vérité.--('Très bien! très + bien!')"--_Le Garde des Sceaux Dufaure, Discours contre + l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + "Les conseils de guerre ont jugé, je l'admets, pour le + mieux."--_Allain-Targé, député Gambettiste, Séance du 19 + Mai 1876._ + + THE COURTS-MARTIAL--THE EXECUTIONS--BALANCE-SHEET OF THE + CONDEMNATIONS. + +Twenty-six courts-martial, twenty-six judicial mitrailleuses, were at +work at Versailles, Mont-Valérien, Paris, Vincennes, St. Cloud, Sèvres, +St. Germain, Rambouillet, as far as Chartres. In the composition of +these tribunals not only all semblance of justice, but even all military +rules had been despised. The Assembly had not even troubled itself to +define their prerogatives. And these officers, hot from the struggle, +and for whom every resistance, even the most legitimate, is a crime, had +been let loose upon their overwhelmed enemies without any other +jurisprudence than their fancy, without any other rein than their +humanity, without any other instruction than their commission. With such +janissaries and a penal code comprising everything in its elastic +obscurity, there was no need for exceptional laws in order to attaint +all Paris. Soon one saw the most extravagant theories invented and +propagated in these judicial dens. Thus, being at the place of the crime +constituted legal complicity; with these magistrates this was a dogma. + +Instead of removing the courts-martial into the ports, the prisoners +were forced to again undergo the painful journey from the sea to +Versailles. Some, like Elisée Reclus, had thus to pass through fourteen +prisons. From the pontoons they were conducted to the railway station on +foot, their hands manacled; but at Brest, when they passed through the +streets showing their chains, the passers-by uncovered before them. + +With the exception of a few prisoners of note, whose trials I shall +briefly recount, the bulk of the prisoners were thrust before the +tribunals after an examination which did not even always make sure of +their identity. Too poor to get a defender, these unfortunate people, +without guides, without witnesses for the defence--those whom they +called did not dare to come for fear of being arrested--only appeared +and disappeared before the tribunal. The accusation, the examination, +the sentence were shuffled through in a few minutes. "You fought at +Issy, at Neuilly? Sentenced to transportation." "What! for life? And my +wife, my children?" To another: "You served in the battalions of the +Commune?" "And who would have fed my family when the workshop and +factory were closed?" Again sentenced to transportation. "And you? +Guilty of an illegal arrest. To the bagnio." On the 14th October, in +less than two months, the first and second courts had pronounced more +than six hundred sentences. + +Would that I could recount the martyrology of the thousands who defiled +thus in sombre lines, National Guards, women, children, old men, +ambulance attendants, doctors, functionaries, of this decimated town! It +is you whom I should honour, you above all, you, the nameless, to whom I +should give the first place, as you took it in the work at the +barricades, where you obscurely did your duty. The true drama of the +courts-martial was not in those solemn sittings in which the accused, +the tribunal, the barristers prepared for public performance, but in +those halls which only saw the unhappy ones, ignored by the whole world, +face to face with a tribunal as inexorable as the chassepot. How many of +these humble defenders of the Commune held up their heads more proudly +than the chiefs, and whose heroism no one will tell! When the insolence, +the insults, the grotesque arguments of the conspicuous judges are +known, it may be guessed with what ignominy the unknown accused were +overwhelmed in the shade of these new prevotal courts. Who will avenge +these hecatombs of unknown men, executed in silence, like the last +combatants of the Père Lachaise in the darkness of the night? + +The journals have left no trace of their trials; but, in default of the +names of the victims, I can scatter those of some judges to the four +winds of history. + +Formerly, in the days of honour of the French army, in 1795, after +Quiberon, it was necessary to threaten the officers of the Republic with +death in order to form the courts-martial that were to judge the +Vendéens. And yet those vanquished had, under the cannon, with English +arms, attacked their country in the rear, while the coalesced Powers +struck her in front. In 1871 the accomplices of Bazaine solicited the +honour of judging the vanquished of that Paris which had been the +bulwark of national honour. Through long months 1,509 officers of this +degraded army, that has not an hour too much for its rehabilitation and +for study, 14 generals, 266 colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and 284 +commanders, were dubbed judges and commissaries. How select amongst this +pick of bestiality? When I mention a few presidents at hazard--Merlin, +Boisdenemetz, Jobey, Delaporte, Dulac, Barthel, Donnat, Aubert--I shall +be wronging a hundred others. + +Merlin and Boisdenemetz are known. Colonel Delaporte was of the Gallifet +species. Old, used up, valetudinarian, he only revived after a sentence +of death. It is he who pronounced the greatest number, aided by the +clerk of the court, Duplan, who prepared the sentences beforehand, and +afterwards committed the most impudent forgeries in the minutes. Jobey +had, it was said, lost a son in the struggle with the Commune, and now +he avenged himself. His small wrinkled eye watched for the anguish in +the face of the unfortunate he condemned. Every appeal to good sense was +to him an insult. + +"He would have been happy," said he, "to stew the lawyers together with +the culprits." + +And yet how few lawyers did their duty! Many had declared that one could +not decently assist such prisoners. Others wanted to be requisitioned. +With four or five exceptions,[247] these unworthy defenders banqueted +with the officers. Barristers and commissaries communicated to each +other their means of attack or defence; the officers announced the +verdicts beforehand. The advocate Riché boasted of having drawn up the +accusation act against Rossel. The advocates officially designated did +not answer the call. + +These ignorant judges, making a parade of violence, insulting the +prisoners, witnesses, and lawyers, were worthily seconded by the +commissaries. One of them, Grimal, sold to the demi-monde journals the +papers of the celebrated prisoners.[248] Gaveau, a savage simpleton, +without a shadow of talent, died some months after in a madhouse. +Bourboulon, eager for display, aimed at oratorical effects. Barthélemy, +a beer-drinker, fair and fat, made puns while asking for the heads of +the accused. Charrière, at fifty years of age still captain, a kind of +wild-cat, an imbecile, and a pretentious liar, said that he had "made a +vow of cruelty to Cæsar." Jouesne, notorious in the army for his +stupidity, made up for it by his stubborn animosity. Not much was needed +in such courts. The most implacable, on the whole, were the third, +fourth, and sixth courts, and the thirteenth at St. Cloud, which +publicly boasted of acquitting nobody. + +So much for the judges and the justice which the bourgeoisie gave those +proletarians they had not shot down. I should like to be able to follow +up step by step their swash-buckling jurisprudence, take the trials one +by one, show the laws violated, the most elementary rules of procedure +despised, the documents falsified, the evidence distorted, the prisoners +condemned to hard labour and to death without what would have been the +ghost of a proof with a serious jury; the cynicism of the prevotal +courts of the Restoration and of the Mixed Commissions of December +ingrafted on the brutality of the soldier who revenges his caste. Such a +work would require long technical labour.[249] I shall only indicate the +principal lines. Besides, are not these judgments already judged? + +In 1871 the Versaillese Government demanded of Switzerland the +extradition of the governor of the Ecole Militaire, in 1876 that of the +delegate Frankel from Hungary, both condemned to death for assassination +and incendiarism. They were at once arrested. Liberal Switzerland and +rural Hungary, considering the acts of the Commune as common crimes, +were ready to deliver up the prisoners if Versailles furnished the legal +proof required by treaties of extradition that they had committed the +acts for which they had been condemned. The Versaillese Government only +produced the sentences of the courts-martial, and could not add the +least "trace of proof or any precise evidence establishing +culpability."[250] The prisoners had to be released. + +On the 8th September Rossel appeared before the third court. His defence +consisted in saying that he had served the Commune in the hope that the +insurrection would recommence the war against the Prussians. Merlin +treated the prisoner with the greatest consideration, who in turn +testified the most profound respect for the army. But an example was +needed for romantic soldiers, and Rossel was condemned to death. + +On the 21st Rochefort was sentenced to transportation in a fortress. The +Bonapartists of the court especially had their eye on the author of the +_Lanterne_. Merlin had defended Pierre Bonaparte. Gaveau accused the +prisoner of having outraged the person of the Emperor. Trochu, whom +Rochefort had called as a witness for the defence, answered the man who +during the siege had for him sacrificed his popularity, by an insulting +letter. + +Revolutionary journalism had the honour of counting some victims in its +ranks. Young Maroteau, for two articles--two only--in the _Salut Public_ +was condemned to death; Alphonse Humbert, for three or four articles in +the _Père Duchesne_, to hard labour for life. + +Other journalists were condemned to transportation. What was their +crime? Having defended the Commune. Yet the Commune had contented itself +with suppressing the journals that defended Versailles. In point of +fact, the courts-martial were charged to exterminate the revolutionary +party. + +Fear of the future rendered them implacable. After the numberless +assassinations in the Rue des Rosiers, they too wanted to offer a +holocaust to the manes of Lecomte and Clément-Thomas. The real +executioners were not to be found. The explosion of fury which cost the +two generals their lives had been spontaneous, sudden as that which in +1789 killed Flesselles, Foulon, and Berthier. The actors of the drama +were legion, and with it all traces of them were lost. The military +judges selected the accused at random, as their colleagues had on the +Buttes Montmartre shot the first-comers. + +"Simon Mayer," said the report, "tried to the last moment to defend the +prisoners, and Kazdansky did his best to oppose the carrying out of the +threats of death. The crowd insulted him and tore off his gold lace." +Herpin-Lacroix had made desperate efforts; Lagrange, who had refused to +form the firing-party, felt so secure in his innocence that he had come +to give himself up to the judges of his own free will. The report made +the principal accused of him, along with Simon Mayer, Kazdansky, +Herpin-Lacroix, and a sergeant of the line, Verdagnier, who on the 18th +March had raised the butt-end of his gun. + +The trial was conducted by Colonel Aubert, a sneering melodramatic +bigot. Despite his efforts and those of the commissary, not the +slightest proof could be brought forward against the prisoners. Even the +officers of the army, companions of General Lecomte, gave evidence in +their favour. "Simon Mayer did all that was possible to save us," said +the Commander Poussargue. This officer had heard a voice cry, "Do not +kill even traitors without judgment; form a court-martial;" textually +the words of Herpin-Lacroix. Of all the accused, he only recognised +Mayer. Another officer gave similar evidence. Verdagnier proved that at +the time of the executions he had been at the huts of Courcelles. The +accusation denied all, but without being able to produce a single +witness. Ribemont proved that he had withstood the assailants in the +room of the Rue des Rosiers. Masselot had against him nothing but the +evidence of some hostile women, pretending that he had boasted of having +shot at the generals. Captain Beugnot, aide-de-camp of the Minister, and +present at the execution, affirmed, on the contrary, that the generals +had been surrounded by the soldiers; M. de Maillefu, that the front of +the platoon was composed of nine soldiers, whose regiments he named. + +There were not even false official witnesses, as in the trial of the +members of the Commune; and yet the accusation, far from letting them +escape its clutches, was most implacable with regard to these very men +who had risked their lives to save the generals. The commissary +threatened to arrest a witness who warmly gave evidence in favour of a +prisoner. After several sittings they discovered that they were judging +one individual for another. The president ordered the press to hush up +the incident. Each sitting, each new evidence, cleared the prisoners +and made a condemnation more impossible. Yet on the 18th November +Verdagnier, Mayer, Herpin-Lacroix, Masselot, Leblond, and Aldenhoff were +condemned to death; the others to penalties varying from hard labour to +imprisonment. One of those condemned to death, Leblond, was only fifteen +and a half years old. + +This satisfaction given the army, the courts, as good courtiers, avenged +the offences against M. Thiers. The functionary Fontaine, charged by the +Commune with the demolition of the hotel of him who had demolished +hundreds of houses, appeared before the fifth court-martial, which did +its utmost to make him appear a thief. Every one knew that M. Thiers' +furniture and silver plate had been sent to the Garde-Meuble, the +objects of art to the museums, the books to the public libraries, the +linen to the ambulances, and that after the entry of the troops the +little man had regained possession of most of these objects. Some having +perished in the conflagration of the Tuileries, the report accused +Fontaine of having abstracted them, although only two valueless medals +had been found in his house. To this accusation, from which he believed +himself secured by a long life of probity and honour, Fontaine could +only reply with tears. The Figarists laughed at it a good deal, and he +was condemned to twenty years' hard labor. + +On the 28th November the Assembly recommenced its fusillade. M. Thiers, +cleverly throwing upon the representatives the right of commuting the +penalties, had a Commission of Pardons named by the Chamber. It was +composed of fifteen members, purveyors of the Mixed Commission of 1852, +great proprietors, inveterate Royalists.[251] One of them, the Marquis +de Quinsonnas, had during the battle in the streets superintended the +executions at the Luxembourg. The president, Martel, was an old satyr, +who sold his pardons to pretty solicitresses. + +The first cases which they took up were those of Rossel and Ferré. The +Liberal press pleaded warmly for the young officer. In his restless +mind, without unsound political opinions, who had so cavalierly turned +his back upon the Commune, the bourgeoisie soon recognised one of her +prodigal children. He had besides made an _amende honorable_. The press +published his memoirs, in which he reviled the Commune and the Federals. +Day by day they recounted the life of the prisoner, his sublime +colloquies with a Protestant clergyman, his heart-rending interviews +with his family. Of Ferré not a word, except to say he was "hideous." +His mother had died mad; his brother was shut up as mad in the dungeons +of Versailles; his father was a prisoner in the citadel of Fouras; his +sister, a young girl of nineteen, silent, resigned, stoical, spent her +days and nights in order to earn the twenty francs that she every week +sent her brother. She had refused the aid of her friends, unwilling to +share with any one the honour of accomplishing her pious duty. Indeed, +one can imagine nothing more "hideous!" + +For twelve weeks death remained suspended above the heads of the +condemned. At last, on the 28th November, at six o'clock in the morning, +they were told that they must die. Ferré jumped out of bed without +showing the slightest emotion, declined the visit of the chaplain, wrote +to ask the military tribunals for the release of his father, and to his +sister that she should have him buried so that his friends would be able +to find him again. Rossel, rather surprised at first, afterwards +conversed with his clergyman. He wrote a letter demanding that his death +should not be avenged--a very useless precaution--and addressed a few +thanks to Jesus Christ. For comrade in death they had a sergeant of the +45th line, Bourgeois, who had gone over to the Commune, and who showed +the same calm as Ferré. Rossel was indignant when they put on the +handcuffs; Ferré and Bourgeois disdained to protest. + +The day was hardly dawning; it was bitterly cold. Before the Butte of +Satory 5,000 men under arms surrounded three white stakes, each one +guarded by twelve executioners. Colonel Merlin commanded, thus uniting +the three functions of conqueror, judge, and hangman. Some curious +lookers-on, officers and journalists, composed the whole public. + +At seven o'clock the carts of the condemned appeared; the drums beat a +salute, the trumpets sounded. The prisoners descended, escorted by +gendarmes. Rossel, on passing before a group of officers, saluted them. +The brave Bourgeois, looking on at the whole drama with an indifferent +air, leant against the middle stake. Ferré came last, dressed in black +and smoking a cigar, not a muscle of his face moving. With a firm and +even step he walked up and leant against the third stake. + +Rossel, attended by his lawyer and his clergyman, asked to be allowed to +command the fire. Merlin refused. Rossel wished to shake hands with him, +in order to do homage to his sentence. This was refused. During these +negotiations Ferré and Bourgeois remained motionless, silent. In order +to put a stop to Rossel's effusions an officer was obliged to tell him +that he was prolonging the torture of the two others. At last they +blindfolded him. Ferré pushed back the bandage, and, fixing his +eyeglass, looked the soldiers straight in the face. + +The sentence read, the adjutants lowered their sabres, the guns were +discharged. Rossel and Bourgeois fell back. Ferré remained standing; he +was only hit in the side. He was again fired at and fell. A soldier +placing his chassepot at his ear blew out his brains. + +On a gesture of Merlin a flourish of trumpets burst forth, and, +emulating the customs of the cannibals, the troops defiled in triumph +before the corpses. What cries of horror the bourgeoisie would have +uttered if before the executed hostages the Federals had paraded to the +sound of music! + +The bodies of Rossel and Ferré were claimed by their families; that of +Bourgeois disappeared in the common grave of the St. Louis Cemetery. The +people will not disassociate his memory from that of Ferré, for they +both died with the same courage for the cause they had served with the +same devotion. + +The Liberal press reserved its tears for Rossel. Some courageous +provincial papers did honour to all the victims, and devoted to the +hatred of France the Commission of Pardons--"the Commission of +Assassins," as a deputy, Ordinaire junior, said in the Assembly. +Prosecuted before juries, all these journals were acquitted. + +Two days after the execution of Satory, the Commission of Pardons +ordered Gaston Crémieux to be killed. Six months had elapsed since his +condemnation, and this long delay seemed to make the murder impossible. +But the rural Commission wanted to avenge his famous speech of Bordeaux. +On the 30th November, at seven o'clock in the morning, Gaston Crémieux +was led to the Prado, a large plain bordering the sea. He said to his +guardians, "I will show how a Republican should die." He was placed +against the same stake where a month before the soldier Paquis had been +shot for going over to the insurrection. + +Gaston Crémieux wished to have his eyes unbandaged and to command the +fire. They consented. Then addressing himself to the soldiers, "Aim at +the chest; do not touch my head. Fire! Vive la Répub...." The last word +was cut short by death. As at Satory, the dance of the soldiers round +the corpse followed. + +The death of this young enthusiast made a deep impression in the town. +Registers placed at the door of his house filled in a few hours with +thousands of signatures. The revolutionists of Marseilles will not +forget his children. + +The same day the sixth court avenged the death of Chaudey. This had been +ordered and superintended by Raoul Rigault alone. The men who formed the +platoon were abroad. Préau de Védel, the principal accused, then +imprisoned in Ste. Pélagie for a common offence, had only held the +lantern. But the jurisprudence of the officers attributed to simple +agents the same responsibility as to the chiefs. Préau de Védel was +condemned to death. + +On the 4th December, in the hall of the third court, a kind of phantom, +pale-faced and sympathetic, appeared. It was Lisbonne, who for six +months had dragged about his wounds of the Château d'Eau. The same +before the court-martial as during the Commune and at Buzenval, this +bravest of the brave gloried in having fought, and only denied the +accusations of pillage. Other judges would have been proud to spare such +an enemy; the Versaillese condemned him to death. + +Some days after, this same court-martial heard a woman's voice. "I will +not defend myself; I will not be defended," cried Louise Michel. "I +belong entirely to the social revolution, and I declare that I accept +the responsibility of all my acts. I accept it entirely and without +reserve. You accuse me of having participated in the execution of the +generals. To this I answer, yes. If I had been at Montmartre, when they +wished to fire on the people, I should not have hesitated to order fire +myself on those who gave such commands. As to the conflagrations of +Paris, yes, I did participate in them. I wanted to oppose a barrier of +flames to the invaders of Versailles. I have no accomplices; I acted on +my own account." + +The Commissary Dailly demanded the penalty of death. + +_Louise Michel._ What I ask of you, you who style yourselves a +court-martial, who proclaim yourselves my judges, who do not hide +yourselves like the Commission of Pardons, is the field of Satory, where +our brothers have already fallen. I must be cut off from society; you +have been told to do so. Well, the Commissary of the Republic is right. +Since it seems that every heart which beats for liberty has only right +to a little lead, I too demand my part. If you let me live, I shall not +cease to cry vengeance, and I shall denounce to the vengeance of my +brothers the assassins of the Commission of Pardons. + +_The President._ I cannot allow you to go on. + +_Louise Michel._ I have done. If you are not cowards, kill me. + +They had not the courage to kill her at one blow. She was condemned to +transportation to a fortress. + +Louise Michel did not stand alone in her courageous attitude. Many +others, amongst whom must be mentioned Lemel and Augustine Chiffon, +showed the Versaillese what terrible women these Parisians are, even +vanquished, even in chains. + +The affair of the executions of La Roquette came on at the beginning of +1872. There, as in the Clément-Thomas and Chaudey trials, they had none +of the real actors except Genton, who had carried the order. Almost all +the witnesses, former hostages, gave evidence with the rage natural to +people who have trembled. The accusation, refusing to believe in an +outburst of fury, had built up a ridiculous scaffolding of a +court-martial discussing and ordering the death of the prisoners. It +asserted that one of the accused had commanded the fire, and he was +about to be condemned, in spite of the solemn protests of Genton, when +the real chief of the firing-party, who had just been discovered dying +in a prison, was brought in. Genton was condemned to death. His advocate +had odiously slandered him, then fled, and the court refused to allow +him a second defender. + +The most important affair which followed was that of the Dominicans of +Arcueil. No execution had been less premeditated. These monks had fallen +in crossing the Avenue d'Italie, shot down by the men of the 101st. The +report accused Sérizier, who at that moment was not even in the Avenue. +The only witness called against him said, "I do not affirm anything +myself; I have heard it said." But we know what close bonds unite army +and clergy. Sérizier was condemned to death, as was also one of his +lieutenants, Bouin, against whom not a single witness could be brought +forward. The court took advantage of the occasion to pronounce sentences +of death against Wroblewski, who at that time had been at the +Butte-aux-Cailles, and against Frankel, who had been fighting at the +Bastille. + +On the 12th March the affair of the Rue Haxo came on before the sixth +court, still presided over by Delaporte. The executioners of the +hostages had been no more discoverable than those of the Rue des +Rosiers. The indictment fell back upon the director of the prison, +François, who for a long time had disputed the surrender of his +prisoners, and upon twenty-two persons denounced by gossip contradicted +at the trial. Not one of the witnesses recognised the accused. Delaporte +multiplied his menaces with such a cynicism that the Commissary Rustaud, +who had, however, given proofs of his animosity in the preceding trials, +could not refrain from exclaiming, "But do you want to condemn them +all?" He was the next day replaced by the idiot Charrière. In spite of +all this, the indictment frittered away from hour to hour before the +disavowals of the witnesses. Still not one of the prisoners escaped. +Seven were condemned to death, nine to hard labour, and the others to +transportation. + +The Commission of Pardons awaited, chassepot in hand, the prey given up to +them by the courts-martial. On the 22d of February, 1872, it shot three of +the so-called murderers of Clément-Thomas and Lecomte, even those whose +innocence had most clearly come out in the trial--Herpin-Lacroix, +Lagrange, and Verdagnier. Upright at the stake of the 28th November, they +cried "Vive la Commune!" and died, their faces radiant. On the 19th March +Préau de Védel was executed. On the 30th April it was Genton's turn. The +wounds which he had received in May had reopened, and he dragged himself +to the Butte on his crutches. Arrived at the stake, he threw them from +him, cried "Vive la Commune!" and fell under the fire. On the 25th May the +three stakes were again occupied by Sérizier, Bouin, and Boudin, the +latter condemned as chief of the platoon which in front of the Tuileries +had executed a Versaillese who attempted to prevent the erection of the +barricades of the Rue Richelieu. They said to the soldiers of the platoon, +"We are children of the people, and you are too. We shall show you that +the children of Paris know how to die." And they, also, fell, crying "Vive +la Commune!" + +These men who went to the grave so courageously, who with a gesture +defied the musket, who, dying, cried that their cause died not, these +ringing voices, these steadfast looks, disconcerted the soldiers +profoundly. The muskets trembled, and almost within point-blank range +they rarely killed at the first discharge. So at the next execution, the +6th July, the Commander Colin, who presided at these fusillades, ordered +the eyes of the victims bandaged. There were two of them--Baudoin, +accused of setting fire to the St. Eloi Church, and of killing an +individual who had fired at the Federals; and Rouilhac, an insurgent who +had shot at a bourgeois who was potting Federals. Both pushed back the +sergeants who came to blindfold them. Colin gave the order to tie them +to the stake. Three times Baudoin tore asunder the cords; Rouilhac +struggled desperately. The priest who came to assist the soldiers +received some blows in the chest. At last, overwhelmed, they cried, "We +die for the good cause." They were mangled by the balls. After the march +past, an officer of a psychological turn of mind, moving with the tip of +his boot the brains that trickled down, remarked to a colleague, "It is +with this that they thought." + +In June, 1872, all the celebrated cases being disposed of, military +justice avenged the death of a Federal, Captain Beaufort. There is but +one explanation for this strange fact, which is that Beaufort belonged +to the Versaillese. We have received important evidence on this +head.[252] At all events, if Delescluze or Varlin had been shot by the +Federals, Versailles would not have avenged their death. + +Three of those accused out of four were present, Deschamps, Denivelle, +and Madame Lachaise, the celebrated cantinière of the 66th. She had +followed Beaufort before the council held at the Boulevard Voltaire, +and, having heard explanations, had done her best to protect him. The +indictment none the less made of her the principal instigator of his +death. On the written evidence of a witness who was not to be found, and +who had never been confronted with her, the commissary accused Madame +Lachaise of having profaned Beaufort's corpse. At this abominable +accusation this noble woman burst into tears. She, as well as Denivelle +and Deschamps, were condemned to death. + +The obscene imagination of soldiers with Algerian habits taxed itself to +pollute the accused. Colonel Dulac, judging an intimate friend of +Rigault's, pretended that their friendship had been of an infamous +character. Despite the indignant protests of the prisoner, the wretched +officer persisted. + +The bourgeois press, far from stigmatising, applauded. Without truce, +without lassitude, since the opening of the courts-martial it +accompanied all the trials with the same chorus of imprecations and the +same slanders. Some persons having protested against these executions so +long after the battle, Francisque Sarcey wrote, "The axe ought to be +riveted to the hand of the executioner." + +Till then the Commission of Pardons had only killed three at a time. On +the 24th of July it slaughtered four--François, the director of La +Roquette, Aubry, Dalivoust, and De St. Omer, condemned for the affair of +the Rue Haxo. De St. Omer was more than suspected, and in the prison his +comrades kept aloof from him. Before the muskets they cried "Vive la +Commune!" He answered, "Down with it!" + +On the 18th September, Lolive (accused of having participated in the +execution of the Archbishop), Denivelle, and Deschamps were executed. +These last cried, "Long live the Universal and Social Republic! Down +with the cowards!" On the 22nd January, 1873, nineteen months after the +battle in the streets, the Commission of Pardons tied three more victims +to its stakes--Philippe, member of the Council of the Commune, guilty of +having energetically defended Bercy; Benot, who set fire to the +Tuileries; and Decamps, condemned for the conflagration of the Rue de +Lille, although they had not been able to bring forward any evidence +whatever against him. "I die innocent," cried he. "Down with Thiers!" +Philippe and Benot: "Long live the Social Republic! Vive la Commune!" +They fell, not having belied the courage of the soldiers of the +Revolution of the 18th March. + +This was the last execution at Satory. The blood of twenty-five victims +had reddened the stakes of the Commission of Pardons. In 1875 it had a +young soldier shot at Vincennes, accused of the death of the detective +Vizentini, thrown into the Seine by hundreds of hands at the +manifestation of the Bastille.[253] + +The movements of the provinces were judged by courts-martial or assize +courts, according to the department being or not being in a state of +siege. Everywhere the issue of the Parisian struggle had been waited +for. Immediately after the defeat of Paris the reaction ran riot. +Espivent's courts-martial initiated these trials. He had his Gaveau in +Commander Villeneuve, one of the bombarders of the 4th April, his +Merlin, and his Boisdenemetz in the colonels Thomassin and Douat. On the +12th June Gaston Crémieux, Etienne, Pélissier, Roux, Bouchet, and all +those who could be connected with the movement of the 23rd March +appeared before the soldiers. The pretentious blockheadedness of +Villeneuve served as type of the military prosecutor's addresses with +which France was inundated. Crémieux, Etienne, Pélissier, and Roux were +condemned to death. This was not enough for the jesuitical bourgeois +reaction. Espivent had declared through the Court of Cassation that the +department of the Bouches-du-Rhône was in a state of siege since the 9th +August, 1870, in virtue of a decree by the Empress, which had neither +been published in the bulletin of laws, nor been sanctioned by the +Senate, nor even promulgated. Provided with this arm, he persecuted all +marked out by the hand of the Congregation. The municipal councillor, +David Bosc, ex-delegate to the Commission, a millionaire shipowner, +accused of having stolen a silver watch from a police agent, was only +acquitted by a small majority of voices. The next day the +colonel-president was replaced by the lieutenant-colonel of the 4th +Chasseurs, Donnat, half-mad with absinthe-drinking. A workingman, aged +seventy-five, was condemned to ten years' hard labour and twenty years' +deprivation of civil and political rights for having on the 4th +September arrested for half an hour a police agent who had sent him to +Cayenne in 1852. A crazy old woman, purveyor of the Jesuits, arrested +for a few moments on the 4th September, accused the former commander of +the Civil Guard of her arrest. Her accusation was contradicted by +herself and quite overthrown by alibis and numberless proofs. The +ex-commander was condemned to five years' of prison and ten years' +privation of civil rights. One of the soldier-judges, coming out after +committing this crime, said, "One must have very profound political +convictions to condemn in similar affairs." With these cynical +collaborators Espivent could satisfy all his hatred. He asked the courts +of Versailles to deliver up to him the member of the Council of the +Commune, Amourox, delegate for a time at Marseilles. "I am prosecuting +him for tampering with soldiers," wrote Espivent, "a crime punished by +death; and I am persuaded that this punishment will be applied to him." + +The court-martial of Lyons was not very inferior. Forty-four persons +were prosecuted for the movement of the 22nd March, and thirty-two +condemned to penalties varying from transportation to imprisonment. The +insurrection of the 30th April furnished seventy prisoners, taken at +hazard at Lyons, as was the custom at Versailles. The mayor of the +Guillotière, Crestin, called as witness, did not recognise amongst them +any of those he had seen on that day in his mairie. Presidents of the +courts, the Colonels Marion and Rébillot. + +At Limoges, Dubois and Roubeyrol, democrats esteemed by the whole town, +were condemned in default to death, as the principal actors in the +movement of the 4th April; two were condemned to twenty years' +imprisonment for having boasted of knowing who had shot at Colonel +Billet. Another got ten years for having distributed munitions. + +The verdicts of the jury varied. That of the Basses-Pyrénées on the 8th +August acquitted Duportal and the four or five persons accused of the +movement of Toulouse. The same acquittal took place at Rhodez, where +Digeon and the accused of Narbonne appeared after a preliminary +imprisonment of eight months. A sympathetic public filled the hall and +the approaches of the tribunal and cheered the accused at their +departure. The energetic attitude of Digeon once more showed the strong +cast of his character. + +The jury of Riom condemned for the affairs of St. Etienne twenty-one +prisoners, among whom was Amouroux, who had only sent two delegates. A +young workingman, Caton, distinguished himself by his intelligence and +firmness. + +The jury of Orléans was severe upon the accused of Montargis, all of +whom they condemned to prison, and atrocious to those of Cosnes and +Newry-sur-Loire, where there had been no resistance. There were +twenty-three altogether, of whom three were women. Their whole crime had +been carrying about a red flag and crying "Vive Paris! Down with +Versailles!" Malardier, a former representative of the people, who only +arrived on the eve of the manifestation, and who had taken no part in +it, was condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment. None of the accused +was spared. The proprietors of the Loiret avenged the fright of their +fellow-proprietors of the Nièvre. + +The movements of Coulommiers, Nîmes, Dordives, and Voiron gave rise to +some convictions. + +In the month of June, 1872, the greater part of the work of repression +was done. Of the 36,309[254] prisoners, men, women, and children, +without counting the 5,000 military prisoners, to whom the Versaillese +have confessed, 1,179, said they, had died in their prisons; 22,326 had +been liberated after long winter months in the pontoons, the forts, and +the prisons; 10,488 brought before the courts-martial, who had +condemned 8,525 of them. The persecutions did not cease. On the advent +of MacMahon, the 24th May, 1873, there set in a recrudescence. On the +1st January, 1875, the general résumé of Versaillese justice gave 10,137 +condemnations pronounced in presence of the accused, and 3,313 in +default. The sentences passed were distributed thus:-- + + Condemnations to death 270 of whom 8 women. + Hard labour 410 " 29 " + Transportation in a fortress 3989 " 20 " + Simple transportation 3507 " 16 women and 1 + child. + Detention 1269 " 8 women. + Confinement 64 " 10 " + Hard labour at public works 29 + Imprisonment from three + months and upwards 432 + Imprisonment from three + months to one year 1622 " 50 women and 1 + child. + Imprisonment for more than + one year 1344 " 15 women and 4 + children. + Banishment 322 + Surveillance of the police 117 " 1 woman. + Fines 9 + Children under sixteen sent + to houses of correction 56 + -------- --- -- + Total 13,440 of whom 157 were women and + 62 children. + +This résumé contained neither the sentences pronounced by the +courts-martial beyond the jurisdiction of Versailles nor those of the +courts of assizes. We must therefore add 15 condemnations to death, 22 +to hard labour, 28 to transportation in a fortress, 29 to simple +transportation, 74 to detention, 13 to confinement, and a certain number +to imprisonment. The total figure of the condemned of Paris and the +provinces exceeds 13,700, among whom were 170 women and 62 children. + +Three-fourths of the 10,000 condemned while present--7,418 out of +10,137--were simple guards or non-commissioned officers, 1,942 subaltern +officers. There were only 225 superior officers, 29 members of the +Council of the Commune, 49 of the Central Committee. Despite their +savage jurisprudence, the inquiries, and the false witnesses, the +courts-martial had been unable to bring forward against nine-tenths of +the condemned--9,285--any other crime than the bearing of arms or the +exercise of public functions. Of the 766 condemned for so-called common +crimes, 276 were for simple arrests, 171 for the battle in the streets, +132 for crimes classed as "others" by the report, all evidently for acts +of war.[255] Notwithstanding the great number of ticket-of-leave men +designedly included in these prosecutions, nearly three-fourths of the +condemned--7,119--had no judiciary antecedents; 524 had incurred +condemnation for misdemeanor against public order (political or simple +police cases); 2,381 for crimes or misdemeanours, which the report took +care not to specify. Finally, this insurrection, provoked and conducted +by the foreigner according to the bourgeois press, furnished in all but +396 prisoners of foreign origin. + +This is the balance-sheet of 1874. The following years added new +condemnations. The number of the courts was reduced, but their +institution was maintained and the prosecutions are going on. Even now, +six years after the defeat, the arrests and convictions have not ceased. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[247] Let us cite Dupont de Bussac, and above all Léon Bigot, who +defended Maroteau, Lisbonne, and a great number of obscure prisoners. +For a year he gave them his time, his labour, his money, publishing +memoirs, exhausting himself in applications. He died in harness, +falling, struck by apoplexy, even at the bar. The friends of the Commune +will not forget this noble devotion. + +[248] He was condemned in 1876 to five years' imprisonment for +embezzlement. + +[249] In the law-schools is there no one to undertake it? What finer +cause to begin with for a young man? What noble occasion to efface the +great wrongs of the schools during the Commune, to bring nearer the +proletarian this part of our youth, which is drifting further from them +every day? + +[250] "To this demand of the communication of judicial evidence," said +the tribunal of Buda-Pesth in its judgment, "the French Government has +answered by purely and simply transmitting the sentence of the +court-martial. In this sentence there exists no trace of proof, nor any +precise evidence establishing culpability. Considering that this verdict +is totally destitute of evidence and legal proofs, and that it indicates +no means of procuring them, this tribunal exonerates Frankel from the +charges brought against him." + +[251] Here are their names, which truly belong to the history of the +people:--Martel, president; Piou, vice-president; the Count Octave de +Bastard, Félix Voisin, secretaries; Batbie, the Count de Maillé, the +Count Duchâtel, Peltereau-Villeneuve, François Sacaze, Tailhaud, the +Marquis de Quinsonnas, Bigot, Merveilleux-Duvignan, Paris, Corne. + +[252] Appendix XXXVII. + +[253] According to reactionary journals this agent had been first bound +to a board, an odious invention, which nothing that came out during the +trial could justify. Vizentini, seized in a spontaneous outburst of +fury, and thrown immediately into the Seine, might even have been saved, +if a board to which he clung had not in tipping over struck him on the +head. + +[254] Report of General Appert. + +[255] Thus the seizures made during the house-searches, in virtue of +regular mandates, were classed among the acts of theft with violence, +pillage, &c., as though these acts had had any personal motive. Now it +is necessary to point out that no one gave evidence of theft against the +prisoners before the courts-martial; no one could say that the +conflagrations had been taken advantage of for pillage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + "Les déportés sont plus heureux que nos soldats, car nos + soldats ont des factions à faire ... tandis que le déporté + vit au milieu des fleurs de son jardin."--_Discours de + l'Amiral Fourichon, Ministre de la Marine, contre + l'Amnistie, Séance du 17 Mai 1876._ + + "Ce sont surtout les républicains qui ne doivent pas vouloir + l'amnistie."--_Victor Lefranc, Séance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + NEW CALEDONIA--EXILE--BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS + VENGEANCE--THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY. + + +Two days' journey from France there is a colony eager for hands, rich +enough to enrich thousands of families. After every victory over +Parisian workmen the bourgeoisie has always preferred throwing its +victims to the antipodes to fecundating Algeria with them. The Republic +of 1848 had Nouka-Hiva; the Versaillese Assembly, New Caledonia. It is +to this rock, six thousand leagues from their native land, that it +decided to transport those condemned for life. "The Council of the +Government," said the reporter on the law, "gives the transported a +family and a home." The mitrailleuse was more honest. + +Those condemned to transportation were huddled together into four +depots, Fort Boyard, St. Martin de Ré, Oléron, and Quélern, where for +long months they languished between despair and hope, which never +abandon political victims. One day, when they believed themselves almost +forgotten, a brutal call resounded. To the surgery! A doctor looked at +them, questioned them, did not listen to their answers, and said, "Fit +for departure!"[256] And then farewell family, country, society, human +life, _en route_ for the sepulchre of the antipodes. And happy he who +was condemned to transportation only. He could for a last time press a +friendly hand, see tears in kindly eyes, give a last kiss. But the +galley-slave of the Commune will only see the taskmaster. At the call of +the whistle he must undress, be searched, then have the livery of the +voyage thrown him, and, without a farewell, ascend the floating bagnio. + +The transport ship was a moving pontoon. Large cages built on the +gun-deck shut in the prisoners. In the night these became centres of +infection. In the daytime, the uncaged people had but one-half hour to +come up on the deck and breathe a little fresh air. Around the cages the +jailers stood grumbling, punishing with the blackhole the slightest +infringement of the rules. Some unhappy beings made the whole voyage at +the bottom of the hold, sometimes almost naked, for having refused to +comply with a caprice. The women, like the men, were sent to the +blackhole; the nuns who watched them were worse than the jailers. For +five months they had to live in this promiscuous fashion in the cage, in +the filth of their neighbours, fed upon biscuits often musty, on bacon, +on almost salt water; now burnt by the tropics, now frozen by the cold +of the South, or by the spray dashing over the gun-deck. And what +spectres arrived! When the _Orne_ dropped anchor off Melbourne there +were 360 sick of scurvy out of 588 prisoners.[257] They inspired even +the rough colonials of Australia with pity. The inhabitants of Melbourne +came to succour them, collecting in a few hours 40,000 francs. The +commander of the _Orne_ refused to transmit the sum to the prisoners, +even in the shape of clothes, tools, and simple necessaries. + +The _Danaë_ was the first ship that set sail, on the 3rd May, 1872; the +_Guerrière_, _Garonne_, _Var_, _Sibylle_, _Orne_, _Calvados_, +_Virginie_, &c., followed. By the 1st July, 1875, 3,859 prisoners had +landed in New Caledonia.[258] + +This Caledonian sepulchre has three circles: the peninsula Ducos, not +far from Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, for those condemned to +transportation in a fortress--805 men and 6 women; the Ile des Pins, +thirty miles south-east of the principal island, for those condemned to +simple transportation--2,795 men and 13 women; and, quite in the +background, worse than death, the bagnio of the Ile Nou, for 240 +galley-slaves. + +The peninsula Ducos, a narrow neck of land commanded by cannon, with its +mouth guarded by soldiers, without a watercourse, without verdure, is +traversed by arid hills and swampy valleys. For all shelter the +condemned found a few dilapidated hovels; for all furniture, a saucepan +and a hammock. The Ile des Pins, a tableland, its centre perfectly +desolate, is bounded by fertile plains, but in the hands of the Marist +monks, who exploit the labour of the natives. Nothing was prepared for +the reception of the condemned. The first who arrived wandered about in +the woods; only very long after did they receive bad tents and hammocks. +The natives, incited by the missionaries, fled from them, or sold them +provisions at enormous prices. + +The administration was to have provided the indispensable clothing. None +of the prescribed rules was observed. The képis and boots were soon worn +out, and the immense majority of the condemned having no means whatever, +had to bear the sun and the rainy season bare-headed and bare-footed. +They had neither tobacco nor soap; there was no brandy to mix with the +brackish water. + +The prisoners did not lose heart at this beginning. Laborious, active, +with that universal aptitude of the Parisian workman, they felt +themselves equal to overcoming the first difficulties. The reporter on +the law had extolled the thousand revenues of New Caledonia--fisheries, +cattle-breeding, the working of mines--and represented this compulsory +emigration as the founding of a new French Empire in the Pacific. The +condemned hoped to make themselves a home in this far-off land. These +proletarians were free of the false dignity affected by the proscribed +bourgeois; far from refusing work, they sought for it. In the Ile des +Pins there were an hospital, an aqueduct, administrative warehouses to +be finished, a large road to be constructed; 2,000 condemned presented +themselves; 800 only were employed, and their wages never exceeded 85 +centimes a day. Some of those rebuffed by the Administration then +demanded concessions of territory; they were granted a few yards of +land,[259] and at exorbitant prices some seeds and tools. With the +greatest efforts they could hardly make the soil yield a few vegetables. +The others, who possessed nothing, applied to private industry, offering +their services to the tradespeople of Noumea. But the colony, stifled +by the military régime, hampered by bureaucratic officials, and of very +limited resources besides, could only furnish work to about 500 at the +most. Moreover, many of them who had undertaken farming were obliged to +give it up very soon and return to the Ile des Pins. + +This was the golden age of the transportation. Towards the middle of +1873 a despatch of the Minister of Marine reached Noumea. The +Versaillese Government suspended all administrative credits in support +of the state works. "If one admitted," said he, "the right to labour of +the convict, one would soon see the renewal of the scandalous example of +the national workshops of 1848." Perfectly logical this. Versailles owes +no means of labour to those it has deprived of their liberty to labour. +So the workshops were closed. The woods of the Ile des Pins offered +valuable supplies to the cabinetmakers, and some of the condemned +manufactured furniture much in request at Noumea. They were ordered to +discontinue. And on the 13th December the Minister of Marine dared to +pronounce from the tribune that the majority of the condemned refused +every kind of work.[260] + +At the very moment that the Administration thus curtailed the life of +the transported, it summoned their wives to the Ministry of Marine, +where the most charming picture of New Caledonia was exhibited to them. +They were to find there, on their arrival, a house, a piece of land, +seeds, and tools. Most of them, suspecting some snare, refused to set +out unless invited by their husbands. Sixty-nine, however, were +inveigled, and embarked on board the _Fénélon_, with women sent forth by +the Public Assistance Office as helpmates for the colonials. These +unfortunate wives of the convicts, on landing, found only the despair +and misery of their husbands. The Government refused to send them back +again. + +Thus there are thousands of men accustomed to work, to activity of mind, +penned up, idle and miserable, some in the narrow peninsula, others in +the Ile des Pins, without clothes, ill-fed, under orders executed by +brutes,[261] revolver in hand, hardly in connection with the world, save +for a few rare letters, and these are even delayed for three weeks at +Noumea. In the beginning endless reveries, then discouragement and +sombre despair; cases of madness occurred, at last death. The first one +set free was the teacher Verdure, member of the Council of the Commune. +The commissary of the court-martial had accused him of but one crime. +"He was a philanthropic Utopist." He wanted to open a school in the +peninsula; permission was refused him. Useless, far from his wife and +daughter, he languished and died. One morning in 1873 the jailers and +the priests saw in the winding pathway that leads to the cemetery a +coffin covered with flowers carried by some of the condemned. Behind +them walked 800 friends in a deep silence. "The coffin," one of them has +told us, "was lowered into the grave. A friend spoke a few words of +farewell; each one threw in his little red flower, cried, 'Vive la +République! Vive la Commune!' and all was over." In November, in the Ile +des Pins, Albert Grandier, one of the staff of the _Rappel_, died. His +heart had remained in France, with a sister whom he adored. Every day he +went to the sea-shore to wait for her; so he became mad. The +Administration refused to admit him into an asylum. He escaped from the +friends who guarded him, and one morning was found dead of cold in the +swamps, not far from the road that leads to the sea.[262] + +These at least have the consolation of suffering with their equals. But +the convicts chained in the sink of the scoundrels! "I know but one +bagnio," replied the republican Minister, Victor Lefranc, to a mother +begging for her son. And there is indeed but one bagnio, where heroes +like Trinquet and Lisbonne, men all compact of devotion and probity like +Fontaine, Roques, the mayor of Puteaux (so many names press forward that +I am ashamed to mention a few), journalists of high character like +Brissac and Humbert, some whose sole crime was to have carried out a +warrant of arrest, have been chained for five years to assassins and +thieves, enduring their insults, and bound at night to the same +camp-bed. The Versaillese want more than the body; they must attaint the +rebellious mind, surround it with an atmosphere of stench and vice, in +order to make it fail and founder. The "felons" of the Commune, +assimilated to criminals, subjected to the same labour, to the same rule +of the stick and whip, are beset by the special hatred of the jailers, +who incite the convicts against them. From time to time a letter +escapes, and even reaches us. Thus writes a member of the Council of the +Commune, a man of thirty-three, at one time in robust health:-- + + "ST. LOUIS. + + "... The work of the camp is considered the most severe. It + includes the digging up of stones, earthworks, &c. It is + only interrupted on the Sunday morning for the religious + service. For nourishment we have coffee without sugar at + five o'clock in the morning, 700 grammes of bread, and 100 + grammes of beans; in the evening a small piece of beef; and, + finally, 69 centilitres of wine a week. When I am able to + buy a quarter of a pound of bread, my health leaves less to + be desired. Already several of ours are no more. Many are + attacked with anæmia. Fifteen out of sixty in St. Louis are + at the hospital. All this would be nothing if there were not + that commingling with men of infamous passions. There are + fifty of us in one compartment. As to the employments, + shops, and offices, the Communards are excluded from these." + +Another writes: + + "ILE NOU, _15th February_. + + "I isolate myself as much as I can, but there are hours when + I must be in the bagnio on pain of death. There are hours + when I must defend my rations from the voracity of my + companions, when I must submit to the familiarity of a Mano + or of a Lathauer.[263] This is horrible, and I blush with + shame when I think that I have become almost insensible to + all this infamy. These wretches are cowards, and are not the + least of our tormentors. It is enough to drive one mad, and + I believe that many amongst us will become so. Berezowski, + this unfortunate man,[264] who has suffered so much for + eight years, is almost demented, and it is painful to look + upon him. It is terrible, and I dare not think of this. How + many months, years, are we still to pass in this bagnio? I + tremble at the thought. Despite all, believe that I shall + not allow myself to be crushed; my conscience is tranquil, + and I am strong. My health alone could betray me and be + vanquished, but of myself I am sure, and shall never + swerve." + +A third:-- + + "I have suffered much; the bagnio of Toulon, the chains, the + convicts' dress, and, what is still worse, the ignoble + contact of the criminals--all this I have had to bear with. + I have, it is true, one consolation for so much + suffering--my tranquil conscience, the love of my old + parents, and the esteem of men such as you.... How many + times have I been discouraged! What despair, what doubts + have seized me! I believed in mankind, and all my illusions + have been lost one by one; a great change has come over me, + and I have almost failed to resist so many disillusions." + +Yet another:-- + + "I do not deceive myself; these years are entirely lost for + me; not only is my health undermined, but I feel myself + getting lower every day. This life is really too hard to + bear, without books (save those of the Mame library), in + this filthy bagnio, exposed to all insults, to all blows; + shut up in grated caves; in the workshops treated as beasts; + insulted by our jailers and our comrades of the chain, we + must submit to it all without a murmur, the slightest + infringement entailing terrible punishments--the cell, + quarter ration of bread, irons, thumbscrews, the lash. It is + ignominious, and I shudder at the thought of it. Many of our + comrades are in double chains in the correction platoon, + subjected to the hardest labour, dying of hunger, driven on + with blows of a cane, often with revolver-shots, unable to + communicate with us, who cannot even pass them a mouthful of + bread. It is terrible, and I am afraid all this will not end + very soon. But protestations will be made; we shall not be + abandoned; it would be horrible if we were left here. I am + unable to work, so I am right in saying that these years are + completely lost, and this drives me to despair; yet I was + willing to learn; but what is to be done without books and + without a guide? We are almost without news. Still we know + that the Republic is affirming itself from day to day; our + hope is there, but I dare not believe it; we have had so + many deceptions." + +How many live to-day? It is not known. Maroteau left in March, 1875. The +Commission of Pardons had aggravated his sentence; commuted Satory to +the Ile Nou. At twenty-five years of age he died in the bagnio for two +articles, when the jackals of the Versaillese press, whose every line +has demanded and obtained carnage, sway our Paris. To the last moment +his courage did not forsake him. "It is not a great affair to die," said +he to the friends who surrounded his deathbed; "but I should have +preferred the stake of Satory to this filthy pallet. My friends, think +of me! What will become of my mother?" + +Hear this knell tolled by one of the convicts:-- + + "ILE NOU (LIMEKILN WORKS), _18th April_. + + "I cannot help saying that many friends are dying, and that + this month five have succumbed." + + "_15th May._ + + "Old Audant, one of the transported of the 2nd December, has + been for ever released from his chain. He was sickly, old + (fifty-nine), and our labour had overcome him. One day, + tired out, attacked by acute bronchitis, he was unable to + get up; still he was obliged to recommence his work. Two + days after he asked for the visit of the doctor. He got the + dungeon. Five days after he died in the hospital; and a few + days later on, another, Gobert, followed him to the tomb." + + "CANALA, _25th December_. + + "... Add to that the death of old and good friends. After + Maroteau, Morten, Mars, Lecolle, whom we buried a month + ago." + +They die, but none have faltered. The political convicts are men; they +succeed in remaining in the pitch without being defiled. It is the +general inspector Raboul who has allowed this avowal to escape him. What +is the Christian martyr's vaunted heroism of an hour in comparison with +these men, who each day, in the indefatigable, merciless clutches of the +jailers, maintain unbent their revolutionary faith and their dignity? + +And do we even know all their sufferings? Chance alone has raised a +corner of the veil. On the 19th March, 1874, Rochefort, Jourde, Paschal +Grousset, and three others, condemned to transportation, succeeded in +escaping on board an Australian ship.[265] They landed safely in +Australia, and the information they brought with them has thrown a +little light upon the den. It was then we learnt that the convicts of +the Commune had suffered additional tortures; that the torture of the +thumbscrews, which mutilated the hands, is still in use at the bagnio; +that four convicts had been shot in the Ile des Pins for a simple +assault, which would have been punished by a few months' imprisonment by +ordinary tribunals; that the severity and insults of the jailers seemed +intended to cause a rising, which would permit of all those condemned to +transportation being sent to the bagnio. The convicts had to pay dearly +for these revelations. The Versaillese Government immediately sent out +the Rear-Admiral Ribourt, and the torture-screw was turned more tightly +than ever. Those who had obtained permission to sojourn in the principal +island were again shut up in the peninsula Ducos or the Ile des Pins; +fishing was interdicted; every sealed letter confiscated; the right to +fetch wood in the forest for cooking food suppressed. The jailers +redoubled their brutality, fired at the convicts who went beyond bounds, +or who had not returned to their huts at the regulation hour. Some +merchants of Noumea, accused of having facilitated the escape of +Rochefort and his friends, were expelled from the isle. + +Ribourt had brought the dismissal of the governor, La Richerie, former +governor of Cayenne, who by dint of rapine had made a great fortune in +New Caledonia. Of course it was not for his dishonesty, but for the +escape of the 19th March that he was punished. The provisional +government was confided to Colonel Alleyron, who had become famous by +the massacres of May. Alleyron decreed that every prisoner was to give +the State half-a-day's labour, on pain of receiving only the strictly +indispensable food, 700 grammes of bread, 1 centilitre of oil, and 60 +grammes of dried vegetables. As the prisoners protested, he began by +applying the decree to fifty-seven persons, of whom four were women. + +For the women were subjected to the same rigorous treatment as the men, +and they had courageously revindicated the right of sharing the common +lot of all. Louise Michel and Lemel, whom they had wanted to separate +from their comrades, declared that they would kill themselves if the law +were violated. Insulted by the jailers, abused sometimes in the order +of the day of the commander of the peninsula, scarcely provided with +dresses, more than once they had been obliged to put on men's clothes. + +The arrival at the beginning of 1876 of the new governor, De Pritzbuer, +terminated the short but brilliant career of Alleyron. Pritzbuer, a +renegade of Protestantism turned arrant Jesuit, and sent to New +Caledonia through the Jesuitical tendencies of the Ministry, found ways +and means with his mawkish airs to even aggravate the misery of the +convicts. He was guided in this task by Colonel Charrière, general +director of the New Caledonian Penitentiary, who declared the criminals +of the bagnio much more honourable than the political convicts. +Pritzbuer renewed the order of his predecessor, adding that those of the +convicts who in one year should not have been able to create for +themselves sufficient resources would no longer receive full rations; +and, finally, that the Administration intended exonerating itself at the +end of a certain time of all expenses with regard to the convicts. An +agent was appointed to act as intermediary between them and the traders +of Noumea. But all the decrees in the world cannot extend the commerce +or industry of a country without natural resources. It had been said, +been proved a hundred times, that New Caledonia has no employment for +these thousands of men, who would prosper in a vital and flourishing +colony. Those few who could be employed have proved their intelligence, +and have carried off several medals or been honourably mentioned at the +exhibition of Noumea. The less favoured--hundreds of them--suffer under +the blow of the decree of 1875. In reality, the immense majority of +those condemned to transportation are now subjected to hard labour. The +regulations put into force since the escape of Rochefort have never been +mitigated. The wives, the mothers of the convicts, are only allowed to +communicate with them at rare intervals, and under the eye of the +jailers. More than one has been expelled from the colony. + +Despite so many efforts to break them, the honour of the majority of the +prisoners has not yielded; far more, it is an example to others. +Although the courts-martial have mixed up with the condemned of the +Commune a bad element, totally foreign to this revolution, common +misdemeanours are very rare. Their condemnation for political +misdemeanour, the contact with the best workmen, has even re-made the +conscience of many men with but sorry antecedents. The majority of the +condemned are punished only for infringements of the rules or for +attempts to escape; attempts almost always condemned to failure +beforehand. How fly without money and without confederates? There have +been but fifteen successful escapes. Towards the middle of March, 1875, +twenty prisoners of the Ile des Pins, amongst whom were the member of +the Council of the Commune, Rastoul, fled in a bark which they had +secretly constructed. Their fate has never been known, but a few days +after their flight the wreck of a craft was found amongst the reefs. In +November, 1876, Trinquet and some of his comrades managed to abscond in +a steamboat. They were pursued, overtaken. Two threw themselves into the +sea to escape their pursuers. One died; the other, Trinquet, was +restored to life and the bagnio. + + * * * * * + +Before such abysses of misery the exiles must not speak of their +sufferings, but they may say in a word that they have not sullied the +honour of the Cause. Thousands of workmen, with their families, thrown +helpless, without resources, into a strange country, speaking a foreign +language, employées, professors, still more forlorn, have succeeded by +dint of energy in gaining a livelihood. The workmen of the Commune of +Paris have won an honourable place in the workshops of foreign +countries. They have even, especially in Belgium, rendered prosperous +industries till then languishing; they have imparted to certain +manufactures the secret of Parisian taste. The proscription of the +Communards, like that of the Protestants formerly, has thrown across the +frontiers a part of the national wealth. The exiles of the so-called +liberal professions, often more unfortunate than the workmen, have not +shown less courage. Some fill posts of confidence; one perhaps condemned +to death as an incendiary or to hard labour for pillage, is a teacher in +a large college or examines the candidates for Government schools. +Despite the difficulty at the commencement, sickness, slackness of work, +not one exile has given way, and not a single condemnation before the +police court has occurred. Not a single woman has fallen. Yet it is the +women who bear the greater share of the common misery. Amongst these +thousands of exiles there have been discovered but two or three spies; +and there was only one, Landeck, to get up a journal of denunciations +more vile than the _Figaro_. Justice was soon done, for no proscription +has been more careful of its dignity. One ex-member of the Council of +the Commune had to defend himself before the refugees for having +received money from the deputies of the Extreme Left. Never was the +commemorative meeting of the 18th March better attended than that of +1876 during the debate on the amnesty, for one and all would have +blushed to hide their colours at such a moment. No doubt, like any other +proscription, that of 1871 has its groups and its animosities, but all +these opinions disappear behind the red flag escorting the coffin of a +comrade. No doubt there have been virulent manifestoes, which, however, +only affect their authors. Finally, these exiles have not forgotten +their brothers of New Caledonia, and they have opened a permanent +subscription for them, which has its centre in London. Poor help, no +doubt; but this mite from the exiles goes and says to the unfortunate +convict of the Commune, "Courage, brother! thy comrades do not forget +thee; they honour thee." It is the hand of the wounded held out to the +dying. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-five thousand men, women, and children killed during the battle +or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the +forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity; +thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; +seventy thousand women, children, and old men deprived of their natural +supporters or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand +victims at least;--that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance +for the solitary insurrection of the 18th March. + +What a lesson of revolutionary vigour given to the workingmen! The +governing classes shoot in the lump without taking the trouble to select +the hostages. Their vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor +victims appease it; they make of it an administrative function, +methodical and continuous. + +For four years the Rural Assembly allowed the courts-martial to work, +and the Liberal element, which so many elections had sent up in great +force, at once followed the track of the Rurals. One or two motions for +amnesty were burked by the previous question. In the month of January, +1876, when the Rural Assembly broke up, it had removed a few convicts +from one part of New Caledonia to another, shortened a few terms of +imprisonment, and given full pardon to six hundred persons, condemned to +the lightest penalties. The Caledonian reservoir remained intact. + +But at the general elections the people did not forget the vanquished. +In all the large towns _Amnesty_ was the watchword; it was inscribed at +the head of all the democratic programmes; at all the public meetings +the question was put to the candidates. The Radicals, tears in their +eyes and their hands on their fraternal hearts, pledged themselves to +ask for a free and complete amnesty; even the Liberals promised "to wipe +out the last traces of our civil discords," as the bourgeoisie is wont +to say when it condescends to have the paving-stones cleaned which +itself has reddened with blood. + +The elections of February, 1876, were Republican. The famous Gambettist +layers had come to the surface. A crowd of lawyers, Liberal landlords, +had carried away the provinces in the name of liberty, reforms, +appeasement. The Minister of the reaction, Buffet, was beaten along the +whole line, even in Rural corners. The Radical papers declared the +democratic Republic once for all founded; and one of these in its +enthusiasm cried, "May we be cursed if we do not close the era of +revolutions!" + +The hopes for amnesty became now a certainty. No doubt this was the boon +by which the reparative Chamber would signalise its joyous advent. A +convoy of convicts was about to set sail for New Caledonia. Victor Hugo +summoned the President, MacMahon, to adjourn the departure until the +discussion and the certainly favourable decision of the two Chambers. A +petition, hurriedly organised, in a few days had over a hundred thousand +signatures. Soon the question of the amnesty effaced all others, and the +Ministry insisted upon an immediate discussion. + +Five propositions had been laid on the table. One only demanded the full +and complete amnesty. The others excepted the crimes qualified as common +crimes, and amongst which were classed newspaper articles. The Chamber +appointed a commission to draw up a report. Seven commissioners out of +ten declared against all the propositions. + +The new layers were manifesting themselves. It was always this same +middle-class, bare of ideas and courage, hard to the people, timid +before Cæsar, pettifogging and jesuitical. The workmen already shot down +in June, 1848, by an Assembly of Republicans were to see in 1876 a +Republican Assembly rivet the chain forged by the Rurals. + +The motion for a full and complete amnesty was supported by those same +Radicals who had combated the Commune or abetted M. Thiers. They were +now the democratic lions of a Paris without a Socialist press, without +popular tribunes, without a history of the Commune, watched by the +courts-martial, always on the look-out for more victims, bereft of all +revolutionary electors. In this town which he had helped to bleed, there +were arrondissements which disputed the honour of electing Louis Blanc. +The deputy of Montmartre was the same man who, on the 18th March, had +congratulated Lecomte on the capture of the cannon, M. Clémenceau. + +He made a jejune, garbled, timid exposé of the immediate causes of the +18th March, but took good care not to touch upon the veritable causes. +Other Radicals, in order to make the vanquished more interesting, strove +to lower them. "You are absolutely mistaken as to the character of this +revolution," said M. Lockroy very grandly. "You see in it a social +revolution, where there has really been only a fit of hysterics and an +attack of fever." M. Floquet, nominated in the most revolutionary +arrondissement, the one in which Delescluze had fallen, called the +movement "detestable." M. Marcou wisely declared that the Commune was +"an anachronism." + +No one even in the Extreme Left dared courageously to tell the country +the truth. "Yes, they were right to cling to their arms, these +Parisians, who remembered June and December; yes, they were right to +maintain that the monarchists were plotting for a revolution; yes, they +were right to struggle to the death against the advent of the priest." +No one dared to speak of the massacres, to call the Government to +account for the bloodshed. They were even less outspoken than the +Enquête Parlementaire. It is evident from this weak and superficial +discussion that they only wanted to redeem their word given to their +electors. + +To advocates who stooped so low the answer was easy enough. As M. Thiers +and Jules Favre had done on the 21st March, 1871, the Minister Dufaure +pertinently set forth the true question at issue. "No, gentlemen," said +he, "this was not a communal movement; this was in its ideas, its +thoughts, and even in its acts, the most Radical revolution which has +ever been undertaken in the world." And the reporter of the Commission: +"There have been hours in our contemporary history when amnesty may have +been a necessity, but the insurrection of the 18th March cannot from any +point of view be compared with our civil wars. I see a formidable +insurrection, a criminal insurrection, an insurrection against all +society. No, nothing obliges us to give back to the condemned of the +Commune the rights of citizens." The immense majority applauded Dufaure, +singing the praises of the courts-martial, and not a Radical had the +courage to protest, to defy the Minister to produce a single document, a +single regular judgment. It would be easy to retort to this Extreme +Left: "Silence, pharisees, who allow the people to be massacred and then +come supplicating for them; mute or hostile during the battle, +grandiloquent after their defeat." Admiral Fourichon denied that the +convicts of the Commune are put on the same footing as the others; +denied their ill-treatment; said the convicts lived in a very garden of +flowers. Some intransigents having stated that "The torture has been +re-established," this delicious answer was vouchsafed them, "It is we +whom you put to the torture." + +On the 18th May, 1876, 396 noes against 50 ayes rejected the full and +complete amnesty. Gambetta did not vote. The next day they discussed one +proposition of amnesty, which excluded those condemned for acts +qualified as common crimes by the courts-martial. The Commission again +rejected this motion, saying that it must be left to the mercy of the +Government, which had promised a considerable number of pardons. The +Radicals discussed a little to save appearances. M. Floquet said, "It is +not on a question of generosity and mercy that we should ever doubt of +the intentions of the Government;" and the proposition was thrown over. + +Two days after, in the Senate, Victor Hugo asked for the amnesty in a +speech in which he drew a comparison between the defenders of the +Commune and the men of the 2nd December. His proposition was not even +discussed. + +Two months after, MacMahon completed this hypocritical comedy by writing +to the Minister-at-War, "Henceforth no more prosecutions are to take +place unless commanded by the unanimous sentiment of honest people." The +honest officers understood. The condemnations continued. Some persons +condemned by default, who had ventured to return to France on the +strength of the hopes of the first days, had been captured; the +sentences against them were confirmed. The organisers of workingmen's +groups were mercilessly struck when their connection with the Commune +could be established.[266] In November, 1876, the courts-martial +pronounced sentences of death.[267] + +This merciless tenacity alarmed public opinion to such an extent that +the Radicals were again obliged to bestir themselves a little. Towards +the end of 1876 they demanded that the Chamber should put a stop to the +prosecutions, or at least limit them. An illusory law was voted; the +Senate threw it out; our Liberals reckoned upon that. + +The mercy of MacMahon was on a par with the rest. The day after the +rejection of the motion for an amnesty, Dufaure had installed a +consulting Commission of Pardons, composed of functionaries and +reactionists carefully culled by himself. The penitentiary +establishments in France then contained 1,600 persons condemned for +participation in the Commune, and the number of the transports rose to +about 4,400. The new Commission continued the system of the former one, +commuted some penalties, granted pardons of a few weeks or a few months, +even liberated two or three condemned who were dead. A year after its +institution it had recalled from New Caledonia a hundred at the utmost +of the least interesting of the prisoners. + +Thus the Liberal Chamber continued the vengeance of the Rural Assembly; +thus the bourgeois Republic appeared to the workingmen as hostile to +their rights, more implacable perhaps than the Monarchists, justifying +the remark of one of M. Thiers' Ministers, "It is above all the +Republicans who must be adverse to the amnesty." Once again there was +justified the instinct of the people on the 18th March, when they +perceived in the conservative republic held out to them by M. Thiers an +anonymous oppression worse than the Imperialist yoke. + + * * * * * + +At the present time, six years after the massacres, near fifteen +thousand men, women, and children are maintained in New Caledonia or in +exile.[268] + +What hope remains? None. The bourgeoisie has been too much frightened. +The cries for amnesty, the blazoned-forth elections, will not disquiet +the conservative republicans or monarchists. All the apparent +concessions will only be so many snares. The most valiant, the most +devoted, will die in the bagnio, in the Peninsula Ducos, in the Ile des +Pins. + +It belongs to the workmen to do their duty so far as it is possible +to-day. + +The Irish, after the Fenian insurrection, opened hundreds of public +subscriptions for the benefit of the victims. Near £1,200 were devoted +to their defence before the tribunals. The three men hanged at +Manchester received on the morning of their death the formal promise +that their families should want for nothing. This promise was kept. The +parents of the one, the wife of the other, were provided for, the +children were educated, dowered. In Ireland alone the donations, for the +families exceeded £5,000. When the partial amnesty was granted, all +Irish people rushed forward to help the amnestied. The single journal, +the _Irishman_, in a few weeks received £1,000, for the most part in +penny and sixpenny subscriptions. In one single donation the Irish of +America sent them £4,000, and the poorest of the poor Irish, the +emigrants of New Zealand, over £240. And this was not the outburst of +one day. In 1874 the Political Prisoners' Family Fund still received +£425. The total of the subscriptions exceed £10,000. Finally, in 1876, a +few Fenians chartered a vessel and carried off some of their comrades +still retained in Australia. + +In France all the subscriptions for the families of the condemned of the +Commune have not exceeded £8,000. The Irish victims numbered only a few +hundreds; those of Versailles must be counted by thousands. + +Nothing has been done for the transported "convicts." The Greppos, Louis +Blancs & Co., who, without mandate, without any surveillance, have +arrogated to themselves the right of centralising the subscriptions, of +distributing them at pleasure, have thus formed themselves a retinue out +of the families of those whom they had betrayed. They have refused to +transmit anything to the convicts, that is to say, to the most +necessitous, who, six thousand leagues from France, pine away without +resources and with no possibility of work. + +Do you understand, workingmen, you who are free? You now know what the +whole situation is and what the men are. Remember the vanquished not for +a day, but at all hours. Women, you whose devotion sustains and elevates +their courage, let the agony of the prisoners haunt you like an +everlasting nightmare. Let all workshops every week put something aside +from their wages. Let the subscriptions no longer be sent to the +Versaillese committee, but made over to loyal hands. Let the Socialist +party attest its principles of international solidarity and its power by +saving those who have fallen for it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[256] "We all recollect one of our comrades, Corcelles, who had +contracted pulmonary phthisis of the gravest form. He could scarcely +keep himself on his legs when crawling before the Commission. To the +President's usual question he answered by a pitiful smile only, and +while one of the younger members of the Commission, moved probably to +pity at the sight of the walking corpse, bent himself towards the ear of +the old surgeon, doubtless with the view of begging a respite, the +latter retorted, loud enough to be heard by the patient and several +other prisoners, 'Bah! the sharks will want something to eat.' And the +sharks did have something to eat; less than three weeks after we were +out at sea our friend Corcelles was dead, and we committed his remains +to the last common reservoir." We must give the name of this friend of +sharks; his name is Dr. Chanal. "Out of the four thousand condemned who +passed in file before him, ten cases of exemption are not known. And +perhaps the motives which dictated this may be better judged when the +following facts are known. M. Edmond Adam, deputy of the Seine, having +come to the Ile de Ré in order to visit M. H. Rochefort, who was shut up +there, had a young woman present herself at his hotel, who proposed to +him, for the modest sum of 1000 francs, to procure from the +chief-surgeon a respite for his friend on his departure. She had but one +word to say, remarked she, and the old man was under her +orders."--_Account by two escaped prisoners from New Caledonia, Paschal +Grousset and Jourde, published by the Times, 27th June 1874._ + +[257] The Australian and English journals having revealed these +sufferings, the Versaillese Government answered in its journal: "The +news of the convict ship the _Orne_, transmitted through the English +press, is inexact in all points. Far from counting 420 cases of scurvy, +this vessel had hardly 360 cases." + +[258] Report of the Commission of Pardons, presented in January 1876, by +MM. Martel and F. Voisin. + +[259] In the Ile des Pins, 900 condemned received between them all 500 +hectares (about 100 acres). "We have been mistaken as to the resources +offered by the Ile des Pins," philosophically remarked the Minister of +Marine in 1876. "I said so three years ago," answered M. Georges Périn. + +[260] "Admiral Ribourt, in his Inquiry, declares that during the year +1873 the engineering department had paid the condemned in the peninsula +110,525 francs. We must then leave off saying that the convicts won't +work."--_Speech of M. Georges Périn in favour of an amnesty, Sitting of +the 17th May 1876._ + +[261] An overlooker of the first class had been condemned for an attempt +to murder; another, decorated with the cross of the Légion d'Honneur, +sentenced to seven years' hard labour for attempting to murder his wife. +Many of them were every day condemned for drunkenness. + +[262] Details taken from the very correct and by no means exaggerated +relation which Paschal Grousset and Jourde published in the _Times_ +after their escape. It has since been republished as a pamphlet. + +[263] Two notorious murderers. + +[264] The Pole condemned for having in Paris shot at the Czar. + +[265] One of them has given a complete account of their escape, together +with some interesting details on New Caledonia: "Un Voyage de +Circumnavigation," by A. Baillère. + +[266] On the 22nd December 1876, Baron, ex-delegate of the accountants +of Paris to the Workmen's Congress, was summoned before the third +court-martial, which accused him of having been one of the secretaries +of the delegation of war during the Commune. Baron was condemned to +transportation in a fortress. During the examination the president said, +"The Court will take notice that the accused still has the same +sentiments as those which animated him in 1871, for in 1876 we have seen +that he took part in the Workmen's Congress." + +[267] Appendix XXXVIII. + +[268] Even in the month of April 1877 another ship, having 506 condemned +to transportation, has been despatched from France to New Caledonia. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + +I.--(Page 29.) + +The Central Committee found in the bureau of the War-Office, and the +_Officiel_ of the Commune published on the 25th April, the following +letter from the supreme commander of the artillery of the army to +General Suzanne:-- + + "PARIS, _12th December 1870_. + +"My dear Suzanne--I have not found among the young auxiliaries your +protégé Hetzel, but only a M. Hessel. Is it he who is meant? "Tell me +frankly what you desire, and I will do it. I will attach him to my +staff, where he will be bored, having nothing to do, or else I will send +him to Mont Valérien, where he will run less risk than at Paris (this +for the parents), and where he will have the air of firing the cannons +into the air, according to Noël's method. + +"Unbutton--your mouth, of course.--Yours, + + GUIOD" + +The Noël mentioned at that time commanded Mont Valérien. + + +II.--(Page 83.) + +_The rôle of the Central Committee during the day of the 18th March._ + +"I would remind you that the members of the Committee had separated at +about half-past three in the morning of the 17th to the 18th. Before +raising the sitting it had been decided that the meeting of the +following day should take place at eleven o'clock in the evening, at a +school requisitioned for the purpose in the Rue Basfroi. + +"Despite the lateness of the hour, nothing had transpired as to the +movements which the Government had decided upon, and the Committee +having only just constituted itself for the examination of its powers +and the distribution of the commissions, had received no information +which might have led it to suppose the imminence of the peril. Its +military commission had not yet begun to work; it had taken possession +of the documents, notes, and minutes of the former one, and that was +all. + +"You know how Paris woke up on the morning of the 18th. The members of +the Committee heard of the events of the night through public rumours +and the official placards. For my own part, aroused at about eight +o'clock, I hurried on my clothes, and repaired to the Rue Basfroi, +crossing the Place de la Bastille, occupied by the Guard of Paris. I had +hardly entered the Rue de la Roquette when I saw that the people were +beginning to organise the defence. A barricade was being commenced at +the corner of the Rue Neuve de Lappe. A little higher up I was refused +passage, in spite of the declaration which I made of my quality of +member of the Central Committee. I was obliged to go up the Rue de +Charonne, the faubourg, and come back in the direction of the Rue St. +Bernard. No work was going on as yet in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, +but the excitement there was great. At last, towards half-past ten +o'clock, I reached the Rue Basfroi, which was barricaded at both +outlets, with the exception of an opening reserved for the cannon drawn +up in the open grounds of this street, which were taken away one by one +to the different barricades in course of erection. + +"I succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting into a schoolroom, +where some of my colleagues were gathered. Citizens Assi, Prudhomme, +Rousseau, Gouhier, Lavalette, Geresme, Bouit, and Fougeret were there. +Just as I entered, a staff sublieutenant, arrested in the Rue St. Maur, +was being led in. He was examined. Next a gendarme was brought, but the +only papers found in his possession were placards transmitted to one of +the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organised a sort of +prison in the courtyard. I also saw defiling about fifteen individuals, +military and civil, arrested by the people. In the meantime I learnt +that Bergeret had been sent to take the command of Montmartre, where he +had been named _chef-de-légion_ the day before. Varlin, who came +immediately after me, had set out again in order to organise the defence +of the Batignolles. Arnold also put in his appearance for a moment, and +then went to place himself at the head of his battalion. The Committee +had added Citizens Audoyneau, Ferrat and Billioray to its numbers. + +"At mid-day the course events would take was still waited for, and +nothing was decided upon. I begged some of my colleagues to leave X. to +his useless interrogations, and to come and to deliberate in another +room, the one we occupied having by degrees been invaded by persons +strangers to the Committee. As soon as we were installed, we asked for +some citizens willing to serve as our general staff, and to inform us as +to the situation in the different quarters. A great number presented +themselves. We sent them in all directions, to tell our colleagues to +hurry on as much as possible the construction of the barricades, to +muster the National Guard, to take the command of it, and to specify the +points whither we were to forward our communications. + +"Of our messengers only four returned. He whom we had sent to the +twentieth arrondissement informed us that the rallying point was in the +Rue de Paris and at Menilmontant, in front of the new mairie. Varlin had +great trouble in grouping the National Guards of the Batignolles. One +staff had mustered forces at the Place du Trône, and had repaired to the +Neuilly Barracks, but the soldiers had closed the gates, and assumed a +menacing attitude. Brunel, together with Lisbonne, was preparing to +threaten the barracks of the Château d'Eau. + +"Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being +waited for. Duval had established himself at the Panthéon, and waited. +Faltot sent us a note in these words: 'I have five or six battalions in +the Rue de Sèvres; what am I to do?' Pindy had taken possession of the +Mairie of the third arrondissement, and was mustering the battalions +devoted to the Committee. As soon as we had got this intelligence some +dispositions for the attack were taken. + +"While these resolutions were being discussed Lullier had come to place +himself at the disposal of the Committee. The Committee had given him no +formal order, and confined itself to telling him that all forces +available for the taking of the Hôtel-de-Ville were being mustered. + +"In order to assure the transmission of the orders, each one of the +members then present--others had come up, but I could not say +who--undertook to carry them to a designated point. So at three o'clock +the Committee broke up, leaving Assi and two other members as a +permanent sub-committee at the Rue Basfroi."--Extract from an account +addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee. + + +III.--(Page 160.) + +Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this +Revolution, M. Meline, general secretary of the Ministry of Justice, +written on the 30th March, to the president of the Council of the +Commune: + + "VILLE DE PARIS (_First Arrondissement, Mairie of the Louvre_). + +"Citizen President--I no longer possess sufficient physical strength +after prolonged fatigues to combat in the midst of our Assembly, which +is destined to discuss so many grave questions. I beg you then to accept +my resignation, and my sincere hopes that the Assembly may consolidate +the Republic.--Receive, Citizen President, the expression of my +fraternal sentiments, + + "JULES MELINE. + "_30th March 1871._" + + +IV.--(Page 207.) + +Here is a letter addressed to the Delegate at War:-- + +"Citizen--Excuse my addressing you these lines, and be so kind as to +take into consideration the request which I address to you. + +"I have three sons in the ranks of the National Guard--the eldest in the +197th battalion, the second in the 126th, and the third in the 97th. As +to myself, I am in the 177th. + +"However, there yet remains to me one son, who is the youngest. He will +soon be sixteen years old, and desires with all his heart to be enrolled +in no matter what battalion; for he has sworn to his brothers and to me +that he will take arms to sustain our young Republic against the hangmen +of Versailles. + +"We have all agreed, and we have sworn an oath to revenge him who should +fall under the fratricidal balls of our enemies. + +"Citizen, take then the last of my sons. I offer him with all my heart +to the Republican fatherland. Do with him as you wish, place him in a +battalion of your choice, and you will make me a thousand times +happy.--Accept, citizen, my fraternal salutation, + + AUGUSTE JOULON, + "_Guard of the 177th Battalion_. + + "18 AVENUE D'ITALIE, PARIS, + _12th May 1871_." + + +V.--(Page 209.) + +Instances of their courage abound in the journals of the time. One +quotation taken at hazard from _La Commune_ of the 12th April:-- + +"On Thursday, the 6th, at the moment when the 26th battalion of St. Ouen +defended the barricade of the cross-roads, a child, V. Thiebault, +fourteen years old, ran up amidst the balls in order to give the +defenders something to drink. The shells having forced the Federals to +fall back, they were about to sacrifice the victuals of the battalion, +when the child, in spite of the shells, sprang towards a barrel of wine, +which he staved in, crying, 'At any rate they shall not drink our wine.' +At the same instant, seizing the rifle of a Federal who had just fallen, +he charged it, took aim, and killed an officer of gendarmes. Then +perceiving a waggon with two horses harnessed to it, whose driver had +just been wounded, he mounted the horses and saved the waggon.--Eugène +Léon Vanvière, thirteen and a half years old, contrived to save the guns +at the outpost of the Porte-Maillot, in spite of his wound." + + +VI.--(Page 217.) + +The prefect of police, Valentin, sent the following circular to the +commissaries of the different railway stations:-- + + "VERSAILLES, _25th April 1871_. + +"The chief of the executive power has just decided that, dating from +to-day, all victualling trains and all supplies of provisions directed +to Paris shall be stopped. + +"I beg you to take all measures you may deem needful for the execution +of this decree at once. You are to examine with the most vigilant +attention all the railway trains, all the carriages destined for Paris, +and you will send back to the purveyors all the provisions you may +discover. + +"You will for this purpose concert with ... &c. + +"The delegate to the functions of prefect of police. + + "VALENTIN." + + +VII.--(Page 219.) + +"... Accompanied by Frankel and one of my brothers, I proceeded to the +General Post-Office, which was still occupied by the National Guards of +order. I was immediately received by M. Rampont, surrounded by the Board +of Administration. M. Rampont at first declared that he did not +recognise the authority of the Central Committee, which had appointed +me; but I think this was a merely formal precaution, for he began to +parley immediately. I told him that the Government of the 4th September, +which had named him, was also born of a revolutionary movement, and that +notwithstanding this he had accepted his post. During this discussion he +told us that he was a Mutualist-Socialist, a partisan of Proudhon's +ideas, and consequently hostile to Communistic ideas, which had just +triumphed with the Revolution of the 18th March. I answered that the +Revolution of the 18th March was not the triumph of a Socialist school, +but the prelude of a social transformation fettered by no particular +school, and that I myself belonged to the mutualist school. After a long +conversation, in which he declared himself ready to acknowledge the +authority of the Commune, which was to be named in two or three days, he +proposed to me to submit the following undertaking to the Central +Committee. Till the day when the Commune should have decided, he engaged +to remain at the head of the Post-Office; he accepted the control of two +delegates of the Committee. I communicated this proposal to Vaillant and +A. Arnaud (who had made over to me my nomination), in order that they +might inform the Committee. I waited in vain for an answer. + +"The Commune met. The second day, perhaps, I broached the question of +the Post-Office. It was to be comprised in the order of the day, but +always in the confused way which one finds in the order of these +debates, when, on the 30th March, a workman came to apprise Pindy that +the administration of the Post-Office was deserting. The Commune +immediately voted my nomination, and gave me the order to have the +office occupied. Chardon set out at the head of a battalion, accompanied +by Vermorel and myself. It was seven or eight o'clock in the evening. +The work was done, and only a small number of employés remained. Some +gave us a sympathetic welcome, others seemed indifferent. Chardon left a +guard, and I spent the night alone in the office. + +"The next day, at three o'clock in the morning, I walked through the +rooms and courts where the employés were arriving for the first +delivery. A manuscript placard, posted in all the rooms and courts, +ordered the employés to abandon their services, and repair to +Versailles, under pain of dismissal. I tore down these placards and +exhorted the men to remain true to their posts. There was at first some +indecision, then a few made up their minds to rally round me. + +"At eight o'clock other employés came; at nine o'clock still more. They +formed groups in the large court, talked, discussed, some beat a +retreat, and their example was about to be followed. + +"I had the doors closed, and militarily occupied by guards; and I went +from group to group, discussing, menacing. At last I gave the order to +each one to return to his respective bureau. Thereupon a precious +auxiliary came up, Citizen A----, an employé at the Post-Office, a +Socialist, for whom I had a letter from a friend. There was a momentary +hesitation. The father of a family, much respected, sure of an early +promotion, he was about to risk an advantageous place. But his +hesitation lasted only a few seconds. He promised me his assistance, and +he gave it me faithfully up to the last day. He brought me into relation +with Citizen B----, who soon became my second. Both of them furnished me +with information of the greatest utility concerning this department, of +which I did not know the most simple details. + +"All the chiefs of bureaux had abandoned their posts; so, too, had the +second head-clerks, save one, who immediately had himself put on the +sick-list. A---- and B---- got together some friends, head-clerks, who +for a long time had done all the work of the chiefs of the bureaux. +Citizen C---- was placed at the head of the postal service for Paris. + +"All the divisional bureaux, save two, had been closed and abandoned. +The stock had been carried off, the cash-box emptied, as was proved by +the minutes drawn up by a commissary of the Commune, with the assistance +of several well-known people of the quarter, amongst whom was M. Brelay, +since named deputy of Paris. Postage stamps were wanting. The carts had +set off for Versailles. + +"A., B., and some others of an indefatigable zeal, had the divisional +bureaux opened by locksmiths in the presence of the commissaries of the +quarter, and installed well-meaning citizens, whose apprenticeship they +superintended. But there was a stoppage of two days in the delivery of +letters, which gave rise to public grumbling, and I was obliged to +explain the facts in a placard. At the end of forty-eight hours A. and +B. had reorganised the collection and delivery of letters. + +"All the citizens whose services had been accepted as auxiliaries +received provisionally, till their capacities could be judged of, a +salary of five francs a day. + +"By chance we found some postage-stamps of ten centimes at the bottom of +a chest. Camélinat, appointed the director of the Mint, sent for the +plates and the stock, and forthwith began manufacturing stamps. + +"During the first days bundles of letters from Paris destined for the +provinces were taken in by the receiving officer of Sceaux, who no doubt +was without precise instructions; then the blockade was completed. The +sending of letters to the provinces became the object of a daily +struggle. Secret agents went to throw them into the boxes of the offices +for ten miles round. The letters of Paris for Paris alone were stamped +with date-marks. Those sent to the provinces by our smugglers only had +the postage-stamp, which did not permit of their being distinguished +from the others. When Versailles found out the manoeuvre, it changed +the dotting of the stamps. We were quits at Paris by sending off the +letters of importance without prepayment, and procuring stamps from the +bureaux of Versailles. + +"If the bureaux for the letters to be sent out of Paris could still +work, those for the collection of the letters from abroad were at a +stand-still. The letters from the provinces accumulated at Versailles. +Some men of business set up agencies, where, for a very high fee, the +letters which they went to fetch at Versailles might be obtained. These +people exploited the population, but we could not supersede them, and we +were obliged to shut our eyes. We contented ourselves with reducing the +profits somewhat, by deducting from each letter the postage of Paris for +Paris, without their being able on that account to raise the sum fixed +by their advertisements. + +"The efforts of Versailles to disorganise the reconstituted postal +services were several times baffled, thanks to the vigilance of our two +inspectors. However, we could not prevent the success of all their +attempts at subornation. + +"From the first days of April we instituted a council at the +post-office, composed of the delegate, his secretary, the general +secretary, all the heads of services, two inspectors, and two head +postmen. The postmen, _gardiens de bureaux_, and sorters had their wages +raised, very little, alas! for our receipts, considerably reduced, did +not allow us to be very liberal. + +"We decided upon the suppression, if not absolute, at least partial, of +the time for serving as supernumerary, which was reduced to the strictly +necessary time. The aptness of the workmen had henceforth to be proved +by tests and examinations, as also the quantity and quality of their +labour."--Extract from an account addressed to the author by Theisz. + + +VIII.--(Page 220.) + +The limits of this Appendix oblige me to make a résumé of the extremely +interesting accounts by Faillet and Louis Debock on the direct taxes and +the National Printing Office:-- + +"In the evening of the 24th March Faillet and Combault (of the +International) presented themselves at the administration of the direct +taxes. On the written declaration that he yielded to menaces, the +director handed them over the keys. Citizen X., who was thoroughly +acquainted with the administrative movement, placed himself very +promptly at their disposal. + +"The original register and other materials for the collection of taxes +had disappeared. It was decided that the taxes should be gathered +according to the list of 1869. The _personnel_ of the forty +collectorships, the valuers, the employés, to make up the list, had +fled. The collectors were replaced by forty citizens, some workingmen +belonging to the International, the others clerks of commercial houses +or government offices. Some of the old officials who had not withdrawn +were retained, but under the superintendence of a safe man. The presence +of Citizen X. decided a great number of employés to come and work under +the new directors. + +"The service of the direct taxes was composed--for the _interior_, of a +director, a general administrator, a general secretary, two +sub-secretaries, one chief of the bureaux of taxes and lists, a head +accountant, five other accountants, and two inspectors of the collecting +offices; for the _exterior_, of forty tax-gatherers, each one assisted +by two or three clerks, a bearer of summonses, and an agent with his +accountants at the bonded warehouse for wine. + +"Once or twice a week the director made a round in all the collector's +offices, which the inspectors visited every day. Each tax-gatherer +brought the cashier of the direction the receipts of the day before. The +cashier every evening laid the returns before the administration, and +made over to the Central Pay-Office of the Finance Department all that +was not needed for the general expenses of the service. + +"The service ceased on the Saturday evening, 25th May. A hundred clerks, +not thinking their whole duty to the Commune done, formed a corps of +scouts, whose post was established in the presbytery of the Temple des +Billettes." + +"On the 18th March, at five o'clock in the evening, Pindy and Louis +Debock presented themselves with a battalion at the National +Printing-Office, and established themselves there. The director Hauréau +came down, tried to negotiate, and then went up again to his apartments. +During the evening Debock went to ask him for the list of workmen. +Hauréau took advantage of the occasion to protest his republicanism, +said he was a former editor of the _National_, a friend of Marrast, +Arago, &c., and that the movement of the 18th March had no _raison +d'être_ whatever. A few days were allowed him for removing. + +"The whole _personnel_ was maintained, with the exception of the +director, the sub-director, the overseer, and the chief of the works, +Félix Derenémesnil, who was cordially detested for his brutality and +injustice. These spread abroad that the Central Committee had no money, +and that the workmen would not be paid. Debock answered by an order of +the day placarded in the workshops, guaranteeing the wages in the name +of the Central Committee. + +"At the end of March, on the injunction of Versailles, all the employés +and heads of the services, with very few exceptions, abandoned the +printing-office after having received their salaries. The new director +took advantage of this to have the new foremen of the workshops +appointed by the workmen themselves. The places of managers of the +printing-press were put up for competition. As the administration of the +Rue Pagevin threw obstacles into the way of placarding the decrees and +proclamations, Debock advised the workmen bill-stickers to associate +themselves. They did so; their wages increased by 25 per cent., and the +printing-office saved 200 francs a day. + +"The bulk of the salaries was greatly reduced; that of the lower clerks +and workmen increased. On the 18th March a fortnight's salary was due to +the workingmen and women, and a week's to the employés. The Commune +discharged these arrears. Versailles, victorious, refused to pay the few +days' wages due to the workmen. Yet the Versailles administration found +the stock intact and in perfect order. + +"The budget of monthly expenses before the 18th March rose to 120,000 +francs, of which 23,000 were absorbed by the salaries of the +functionaries, employés, &c. After this date the expenses did not reach +20,000 francs a week, the expenses of placarding included. + +"After the Commune the Union Républicaine announced in the journals that +it had saved the Archives and the National Printing-Office from the +flames. This was a lie, as proved by the order sent on the 24th May to +the Archives at the request of Debock. + + "_Order.--The Archives not to be burnt.--The Colonel + commanding the Hôtel-de-Ville, Pindy._ + +"As to the printing-office, it was occupied by Debock up to the invasion +of the quarter. In the night of the 24th he sent to ask the Committee of +Public Safety for the documents, papers, and articles necessary for the +composition of the _Journal Officiel_. The next day, having received no +answer, and the Versaillese pressing forward, he repaired to Belleville, +where the three proclamations or placards which appeared on the +following days were printed by his order." + + +IX.--(Page 241.) + +"Certainly the Communal principle must have been very strong in itself +to have held sixty days against such fools."--_Behind the Scenes at the +Commune_, _"Fraser's Magazine,"_ December, 1872. + +"To conquer was so easy and simple, that it needed the double dose of +vanity and ignorance with which the feeble brains of the majority of the +Commune were stuffed to baulk the people of its victory."--_The Paris +Commune of 1871, "Fraser's Magazine,"_ March, 1873. + +"He (Delescluze) had only once dared to attack me to my face, but it +resulted in so much discomfiture to himself, and he came out of the +affair so crestfallen, that for the future he confined himself to +plotting against us behind my back, while to my face he was as civil as +possible."--_Behind the Scenes at the Commune, "Fraser's Magazine,"_ +December, 1872. + + +X.--(Page 250.) + +At the trial of the members of the Commune, the advocate of Assi read a +letter which the prisoners in Germany had sent his client:-- + +"Citizen Assi--So you no longer think, with the Central Committee of the +crapulous, that we are tired of your farces and evolutions without an +aim and without limits.... Woe to you, sink of the people! All possible +reverses will accumulate upon you, and give you, as the whole result of +your acts deprived of common-sense and capacity, the hatred of the +prisoners confined in Germany, and the severe punishment which the +admired representatives of all France will mercilessly inflict upon you. +Once over the frontier, the last of the prisoners will go and plunge +into the heart of the guilty the poniard which is to give back security +to the legal government. Be prepared for the sentence which all the +prisoners in Germany have in store for you.... Death to the insurgents! +Death to the infernal Committee! Tremble, brigands! + +"Seen and approved by all the prisoners of Magdebourg, Erfurt, Coblentz, +Mayence, Berlin," &c. + +The signatures follow. + + +XI.--(Page 267.) + +One of Laroque's reports concluded thus: + +"I send you the names of the friends of order and of the agents who have +rendered the greatest service. Jules Masse, P. Verdier, Sigismond, +Galle, Tarjest, Honobede, Toussaint, Arthur Sellion, Jullia Francisque +Baltead, E. Philips, Salowhicht, Maniel, Dolsand (42d battalion), +Rollin, Verox (seminarist), D'Anthome, Sommé, Cremonaty, Tascher de la +Pagerie, Josephine Legros, Jupiter (police agent), the manager of the +Café de Suéde, the proprietor of the Café de Madrid, Lucia, Hermance, +Amélie, little Celestine of the Café des Princes, Camille and Laura +(Café Peters), Madame du Valdy (Faubourg St. Germain), Leynhass +(brewer). + + +XII.--(Page 268.) + +This is what had passed between the Committee of Public Safety and +Dombrowski:-- + +"The latter came to us one evening and informed us that through the +instrumentality of one of his officers (Hutzinger), Versailles had made +overtures to him, and asked him to appoint a rendezvous. He demanded of +us whether something could not be got out of this for the Commune. We +resolved to let him try the interview on condition that he should tell +us all that passed. That evening we charged somebody to follow and +arrest him if he yielded. From this time Dombrowski was closely +watched--it is thanks to this surveillance that he was not carried off +by the Versaillese who made use of a woman to allure him to the +neighbourhood of the Luxembourg--and I declare we learnt nothing that +was of a nature to weaken our confidence in him. + +"He came the next day, and told us that a million was offered him on +condition that he would betray one of the gates. He gave us the names of +those he had seen; amongst others, there was a confectioner of the Place +de la Bourse, the address of the suborners (8 Rue de la Michaudière) and +announced another rendezvous for the next day.... He explained to us how +he would entice a few thousand Versaillese into Paris to make them +prisoners. Pyat and I opposed this attempt. He did not insist, but +demanded that the next day 20,000 men and some howitzers should be +provided for him. He had decided on attracting the Versaillese troops by +a surprise within reach of the fortifications.... Of the 20,000 men, +3,000 or 4,000 only could be mustered, and instead of 500 artillerists, +there came only fifty."--_Extract from an account addressed to the +author by a member of the Committee of Public Safety._ + + +XIII.--(Page 274.) + +Here is an extract from the report addressed to the Municipal Council of +Toulouse by the delegates sent to Versailles to M. Thiers and the +deputies of the Extreme Left to inquire into the situation:-- + +"We went then for information to the members of the Extreme Left; Martin +Bernard, the companion and friend of Barbès, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, +&c. + +"M. Louis Blanc gave us the most precise information. It is useless, +said he to us, to again attempt conciliation; there is too much +animosity on both sides. Besides, with whom could one treat in Paris? +These different and hostile forces dispute for power. + +"First there is the _Commune_, the result of an election at which only a +small number of electors took part, composed chiefly of unknown men, of +doubtful capacities, and some times even of doubtful honour. + +"In the second place, a _Committee of Public Safety_ named by the +Commune, but soon coming to a violent rupture with it because it wanted +to direct dictatorially. + +"In the third place, the _Central Committee_, formed during the siege, +and principally composed of agents of the International, solely occupied +with cosmopolitan interests, and caring very little for Parisian or +French interests; it is this Central Committee which disposes of the +cannon and the munitions, in one word, of almost all the material +forces. + +"To all this must be added the Bonapartist and Prussian influences, +whose more or less apparent action it is easy to trace in all three +powers.[269] + +"The Parisian insurrection," continued M. Louis Blanc, "is legitimate in +its motives and in its first aim--the revindication of the municipal +franchise of Paris. But the intervention of the Central Committee and +the pretension manifested of governing all the other Communes of the +Republic, have quite altered its character. Finally, the insurrection in +the presence of the Prussian army, ready to enter Paris if the Commune +is victorious, is altogether condemnable, and must be condemned by every +true Republican. This is why the mayors of Paris, the Left of the +Assembly, and the Extreme Left, have not hesitated to protest against an +insurrection which the presence of the Prussian army and other +circumstances might render criminal. + +"M. Martin Bernard held the same language, and spoke almost in the same +terms. 'If Barbès still lived,' cried he, 'his heart would have been +rent, and he too would have condemned this fatal insurrection.' + +"All the other persons whom we have been able to see--MM. Henri Martin, +Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Humbert, Victor Lefranc, &c., have spoken to us +in the same way, and this unanimity could not but make a deep impression +upon us." + + +XIV.--(Page 290.) + +This is the textual copy of a report addressed to the Versaillese +general staff:-- + +"The _mot d'ordre_ has been tampered with on the 17th, 18th, and 19th. + +"We had that of Versailles (General Douai's corps). + +"There has been an explosion at the Rapp powder magazine, as I have +already reported to you. There were some dead, and many wounded. + +"A commissary of police of the Commission of Safety has made about forty +arrests. Those made on account of the explosion are estimated to be +about 125. + +"Sergeant Toussaint (3rd battery, 2nd squadron) has been arrested by the +Commune. It is said that this brave officer is shot. + +"The sick, according to our information, had been taken away either the +day before or on the morning of the day of the catastrophe to the Hôtel +des Invalides. The workwomen, and not the men, were sent home earlier +that day. + +"The official of the Audit Office of the Hospital du Gros-Caillou, M. +Bernard, has behaved very well. + +"I recommend to the good-will of M. le Ministre, MM. Janvier, Bertalon +(?), Mauduit, Morelli, and Sigismond, men enjoying an excellent +reputation. + +"They desire the cross or an important collectorship. + +"Signal services have been rendered by Madame Brosset, and by +Mademoiselle Gigaud. It is at the latter's house that I hid for eight +days when Rigault's people were searching for me. + +"This woman is very devoted; she lives in the Quartier du Gros Caillou, +Rue Dominique St. Germain. She is the daughter of an ex-officer. She +would be glad to have a tobacconist's shop."--_Report of Commander +Jerriait, Ex-Chief of Squadron._ + + +XV.--(Page 325.) + +This fact was categorically deposed to by M. E. Belgrand, Director of +the Service of Public Roads, before the Commission of Inquiry into the +18th March (vol. iii., p. 352-353). + +"The insurgents attempted nothing with the sewers. In short, I may +affirm that from the 18th March up to the entry of the troops into Paris +there was no attempt at all as to the sewers; that no chambers had been +established there; that no incendiary, or explosive matters had been +introduced, nor wires destined to set fire to mines or to incendiary +matters." + + +XVI.--(Page 329.) + +The _Bien Public_, M. Thiers' organ, directed by Vrignault, published in +its number of the 23rd June, 1871:-- + +"All Paris has preserved the souvenir of that terrible cannonade +directed from Montmartre during the last three days of the civil war +against the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, and the Père Lachaise. Here are +some very correct details of what was happening then at the summit of +the Butte, behind the batteries at No. 6 Rue des Rosiers. + +"There had been installed in this house, so sadly celebrated, a +provostship, presided over by a captain of Chasseurs. As the inhabitants +of the quarter rivalled each other in zeal in denouncing the insurgents, +the arrests were numerous. As the prisoners arrived they were +questioned. + +"They were forced to kneel down, bare-headed, in silence, before the +wall at the foot of which the unfortunate Generals Lecomte and +Clément-Thomas had been assassinated. They remained thus a few hours, +till others came to take their place. Soon, to lessen what might be +cruel in this _amende honorable_, the prisoners were allowed to sit down +in the shade, but always opposite the wall, the aspect of which prepared +them for death, and shortly after the principal culprits amongst them +were shot. + +"They were taken a few steps from there to the slope of the hill, at the +spot where during the siege a battery overlooked the St. Denis route. It +is there too that Varlin was conducted, whom they had great trouble in +protecting from the violence of the crowd. Varlin had confessed his +name, and made no efforts to escape the fate that awaited him; he died +game. + + V. B." + + +XVII.--(Page 338.) + +The day before, at five o'clock, at the moment when the baggage of the +War Office arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the Avenue Victoria, two +guards, carrying a chest, were assailed with a hatchet, by an individual +dressed in a blouse and wearing a cap. One of the Federals fell dead. +The assassin, immediately seized hold of, cried, 'You are done for! you +are done for! Give me back my hatchet and I shall recommence.' On this +madman the commissary of police of the Hôtel-de-Ville found papers and +the _livret_, proving that he had served in the _sergents-de-ville_. + +During the evening of Tuesday, an individual, wearing the uniform of an +officer of a free corps, came to ask for orders at the Hôtel-de-Ville. A +commandant of the same corps entered the hall and saw this officer, and +not recognising him, asked his name. The latter grew confused: 'But no, +you are not one of my men,' said the commandant. The individual was +arrested, and found to be the bearer of Versaillese instructions and +orders. + +Treason assumed all shapes. The same morning at Belleville, Place des +Fêtes, Ranvier and Frankel heard a drummer reading the Federal Guards +the order not to leave their arrondissements. Ranvier, interrogating the +drummer, learned that the order emanated from General du Bisson. + + +XVIII.--(Page 348.) + +"Colonel Gaillard, chief of the military prisons, interrogated by the +_Commission d'Enquête_ as to the objects of value found on the +insurgents, answered: 'I can give you no information on this head. There +were valuables which have not been sent to Versailles. A few days ago I +saw a minister of Denmark. He came to inquire what had become of a sum +of 100,000 francs seized on one of his compatriots who had been shot +near the Hôtel-de-Ville. His minister told me he had been unable to +obtain any information. Many things happened in Paris of which we know +nothing.'"--_Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Colonel Gaillard_, v. 2, p. 246. + + +XIX.--(Page 351.) + +Shall we ever know of all the spurious speculators, the commercial men +with no resources left, the men at the brink of bankruptcy, who made use +of the conflagrations in order to quit scores? How many cried 'Death!' +who had themselves just set the petroleum on fire. + +On the 10th March, 1877, the assize court of the Seine sentenced to ten +years' hard labour a ruined Bonapartist, Prieur de la Comble, found +guilty of having set fire to his house, with the object of getting a +heavy premium from the companies where he was insured. He had prepared +his crime with the greatest _sang froid_, painted the walls, saturated +the hangings with petroleum, made sure of nine different centres of +fire. His father, a former mayor of the first arrondissement, had +failed to the amount of 1,800,000 francs, and at the end of the Empire +there had been proceedings of bankruptcy instituted against him. Now, on +the 24th May, 1871, the house of the accused in the Rue du Louvre, that +of his father in the Rue de Rivoli, that of the assignee of the failure +in the Boulevard Sebastopol, were consumed, and owing to these triple +conflagrations the account-books and vouchers disappeared. This fact was +only mentioned before the assize court, and the president confined +himself to saying that it was odd. He took good care not to interrogate +Prieur; and one knows that the presidents of assize courts are not +usually chary of sifting the antecedents of the accused. + +The motive of this extraordinary reticence is that no blame was to be +thrown upon the army and the courts-martial, which had shot or condemned +some _petroleuses_ for the burning of these very houses set on fire by +Prieur de la Comble. + + +XX.--(Page 368.) + +"... A picket of soldiers debouched from the Rue de Vaugirard on our +left. They marched in two ranks. In the midst of them was Millière. + +"He was dressed exactly as I had seen him some months before at Bordeaux +on the tribune of the Assembly and in the Republican Circle--black +trousers, dark-blue overcoat, tight and buttoned up, a high black hat. + +"The picket stopped before the door of the Luxembourg. One of the +soldiers, who held his rifle by the end of the barrel, cried, 'It is I +who took him! it is I who am entitled to shoot him!' There were about a +hundred persons there of both sexes and of all ages. Many cried, 'Death +to him! shoot him!' + +"A National Guard, wearing a tricolor armlet, seized hold of Millière by +the wrist, led him into the corner on the right, and placed him against +the wall, then he retired.... Millière uncovered himself, placed his hat +on the pedestal of the column, crossed his arms on his breast, and calm +and cool looked at the troops. He waited. + +"Round us the soldiers were being questioned. 'Who is it?' one of them +was asked, and I heard him answer, 'It is Mayer.' + +"A priest came out of the Luxembourg; he wore a straight-cut cassock and +a high hat. Advancing towards Millière, he spoke a few words to him and +pointed to heaven. + +"Without ostentation, but with a very firm and calm attitude, Millière +appeared to thank him, and shook his head in sign of refusal. The priest +retired. + +"Two officers came out from the palace and addressed themselves to the +prisoner. One of them, whom the first seemed to guide, spoke to him for +a minute or two. We heard the sound of voices without understanding the +words exchanged, then I heard this command: 'To the Panthéon!' + +"The picket re-formed round Millière, who put on his hat, and the +cortège remounted the Rue de Vaugirard in the direction of the Panthéon. + +"We reached the rails at the same time as the picket. The door opened +and shut upon them. Placing my feet on the stone balustrade, I passed my +two arms round the top of the bars; my head overlooked them, for these +railings are low. By my side a soldier, the sentry of the interior, +answered some prostitutes who were questioning him; his elbow, leaning +against the rails, touched mine. + +"The picket of the troop had stopped and almost leant against the closed +door. Millière was led between the two columns of the centre. Arrived at +the spot where he was to die, and after having ascended the last step of +the stairs, he exchanged a few words with the officer. Searching in the +pocket of his overcoat, which he had just unbuttoned, he took out an +object, which I believed to be a letter, and handed it over to him, as +also a watch and a locket. The officer took them, then seized hold of +Millière and placed him in such a manner that he should be shot from +behind. The latter turned round with a brusque movement, and, his arms +crossed, faced the troop. This is the only movement of indignation or of +anger that I saw him make. + +"Some more words were exchanged; Millière seemed to be refusing to obey +an order. The officer came down. The instant after, a soldier seized him +who was to be shot by the shoulder and forced him to bend his knee upon +the flagstone. + +"Half the rifles of the platoon only were levelled at him; the others +remained in the arms of the soldiers. During this time, believing his +last moment come, Millière three times uttered the cry, 'Vive la +République!' + +"The officer approaching the picket of the troop, ordered the rifles, +which had been too hurriedly lowered, to be raised again, and then he +pointed out with his sword how the order to fire would be given. + +"'Vive le peuple! Vive l'humanité,' cried Millière. + +"The soldier on sentry, whose elbow touched my arm, answered the last +words by these: 'On va t'en foutre de l'humanité!' I had hardly heard +them when Millière fell as if thunderstricken. + +"A military man, whom I believe to have been a non-commissioned officer, +went up the steps, approached the corpse, lowered his rifle, and fired +point-blank near the left temple. The explosion was so violent that the +head of Millière bounded, and appeared as if twisted back. The rain for +three-quarters of an hour had beaten against his face; the cloud of +powder fixed itself there. + +"Lying on his side, his hands joined, his clothes open and thrown into +disorder by the fall, his head blackened, as if burst open, seeming to +look at the frontispiece of the monument, his corpse was something +terrible...."--_The death of Millière recounted by M. Louis Mie, +Conseiller-Général of the Dordogne, Municipal Counciller of Périgueux, +deputy of Bordeaux to the Chamber._ + + * * * * * + +Madame Millière having instituted judiciary proceedings against +Staff-Captain Garcin, the murderer of her husband, the trial was cut +short by the following letter:-- + + "VERSAILLES, _30th June 1873_. + +"Captain Garcin of the General Staff attached to the 2d corps, has +during the second siege of Paris only executed the orders given him by +his superiors. He can thus in no way be made responsible for deeds which +were the result of these orders. The responsibility rests exclusively +upon those who have given the orders. + + "The Minister at War, + "DE CISSEY." + + +XXI.--(Page 371.) + +To the number of the innocent victims of our civil discords we have the +sorrow to add the name of a young man, twenty-seven years old, M. +Faneau, a doctor of medicine. + +"Dr. Faneau had worked from the beginning of the war in the +International ambulances. During the whole siege of Paris he did not +cease tending the wounded with zealous devotion. + +"After the revolution of the 18th March he remained in Paris, and +resumed his service in the ambulances. + +"On the 25th May he was on duty at the Grand Seminaire de St. Sulpice, +where the Federals had established an ambulance. + +"When the army had taken possession of the cross-roads of the Croix +Rouge, it advanced as far as the Place. + +"A company of line soldiers came up to the door of the seminary, where +floated the flag of Geneva. + +"The officer who commanded asked to speak to the chief of the ambulance. +Dr. Faneau, who filled this function, presented himself. + +"'Are there any Federals here?' the officer asked him. + +"'I have only wounded,' answered M. Faneau, 'they are Federals, but they +have been in my ambulance for several days.' + +"At the moment when he was concluding these words, a shot was fired from +one of the windows of the first storey, and struck a soldier. + +"This shot was discharged by one of the wounded Federals, who had +dragged himself from his bed to the window.[270] + +"Immediately the officer, exasperated, threw himself upon Dr. Faneau, +crying to him, 'You lie, you have set a snare for us; you are the friend +of these rascals; you are going to be shot.' + +"Dr. Faneau understood that it would be in vain to attempt to justify +himself; also, he offered no resistance to the firing-party. + +"Some minutes after the unfortunate young man fell, struck by ten +bullets. + +"We knew Dr. Faneau, and we can affirm that, far from sympathising with +the members of the Commune, he deplored their fatal errors, and waited +with impatience for the re-establishment of order."--_Le Siècle._ + + +XXII.--(Page 383.) + +In the _National_ of the 29th May appeared the following:-- + + "PARIS, _28th May 1871_. + +"Sir,--Last Friday, at the time when corpses were being picked up in the +Boulevard St. Michel, some individuals of nineteen to twenty-five years +old, dressed as well-to-do people, were seated with gay women inside, +and at the doors of certain cafés of this boulevard, indulging with +these in scandalous merrymaking.--Accept, Monsieur le rédacteur, &c., + + "DUHAMEL. + 55 BOULEVARD D'ENFER." + +The facts mentioned above were repeated every day. + +The _Journal de Paris_, a Versaillese journal suppressed by the Commune, +wrote:-- + +"The manner in which the population of Paris manifested its satisfaction +yesterday was rather more than frivolous, and we fear it will grow worse +as time progresses. Paris has now a fête-day appearance, which is sadly +out of place; and unless we are to be called the Parisians of the +decline, this sort of thing must come to an end." Then he quoted the +passage from Tacitus: "Yet on the morrow of that horrible struggle, even +before it was completely over, Rome, degraded and corrupt, began once +more to wallow in the voluptuous slough which was destroying its body +and polluting its soul--_alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi balnea +popinaeque_--'here fights and wounds, there baths and restaurants.'" + + +XXIII.--(Page 384.) + +The Versaillese journals confessed to 1600 prisoners buried in the Père +Lachaise. The _Opinion Nationale_ of the 10th June said:-- + +"We do not wish to leave the Père Lachaise without saluting with a look +of Christian compassion these deep trenches, where lie entombed +pell-mell the insurgents taken under arms, and those who would not +surrender. + +"They have expiated their criminal folly by an act of summary justice. +May God pity and have mercy upon them! + +"Let us rectify, in passing, the exaggerated rumours which have been +spread on the subject of the executions at the Père Lachaise and in the +environs. + +"It appears from certain information--we might almost venture to say +official statements--that there have only been buried in that cemetery, +_shot_ or killed fighting, _sixteen hundred men in all_." + +But the following account of the executions of La Roquette has been +given me by an eye-witness, who barely escaped death:-- + +"I had returned to my house on the Saturday evening. Sunday morning, on +crossing the Boulevard du Prince Eugène, I was taken in a razzia. We +were conducted to La Roquette. A chief of battalion was standing at the +entrance. He surveyed us; then, with a nod of the head, said, 'To the +right,' or 'To the left.' I was sent to the left. 'Your affair is +settled,' the soldiers said to us; 'you are going to be shot, +_canailles!_' We were ordered to throw away our matches if we had any +about us, and then the signal was given to march on. + +"I was the last of the file, and by the side of the sergeant who +conducted us. He looked at me. 'Who are you?' he asked me. 'A professor. +I was taken this morning as I came out of my house.' No doubt my accent, +the elegance of my clothes, struck him, for he added, 'Have you any +papers?' 'Yes.' 'Come!' and he took me back before the chief of +battalion. 'Commander,' said he, 'there is a mistake. This young man +has his papers.' 'All right,' answered the officer, without looking at +me, 'to the right.' + +"The sergeant led me off. As we went along, he explained to me that the +prisoners taken to the left were shot. We had already got to a door on +the right, when a soldier ran after us: 'Sergeant, the commandant says +you are to take back this man to the left.' + +"Fatigue, despair at the defeat, the enervation caused by so much +anguish, deprived me of all strength to dispute my life. 'Well, shoot +me,' said I to the sergeant, 'for you it will be but a crime the more! +only return these papers to my family,' and I turned to the left. + +"I already perceived a long file of men drawn up against a wall, others +lying on the ground. Opposite them three priests read in their +breviaries the prayers of the dying. A few steps more and I was dead, +when suddenly I was seized hold of by the arm. It was my sergeant. He +took me back by force to the officer. 'Commandant,' said he, 'we cannot +shoot this man. He has his papers!' 'Let me see,' said the officer. I +handed over my pocket-book, which contained a card as employé at the +Ministry of Commerce during the first siege. 'To the right,' said the +commandant. + +"There were soon more than 3,000 prisoners on the right. All Sunday and +part of the night detonations resounded by the side of us. On Monday +morning a platoon came in. 'Fifty men,' said the sergeant. We thought we +were going to be shot by parties, and no one stirred. The soldiers took +the first fifty they came across. I was of the number. We were taken to +the famous left side. + +"On a space which seemed to us endless we saw heaps of corpses. 'Pick up +all this rubbish,' said the sergeants to us, 'and put them into these +carts.' We raised up these corpses covered with blood and mud. The +soldiers made frightful jokes; 'See what grimaces they cut,' and with +their heels crushed some face. It seemed to me that some were still +living. We told the soldiers so, but they answered, 'Come, come! get +on!' Certainly some died under the earth. We put 1,907 corpses into +these carts." + +The _Liberté_ of the 4th June said:-- + +"The governor of La Roquette during the Commune, and his acolytes, were +shot on the very scene of their exploits. + +"For the other National Guards arrested in this neighbourhood, and whose +number exceeded 4,000, a provisional court-martial was installed in the +Roquette itself. A commissary of police and police agents of safety were +charged with the first examination. Those appointed to be shot were +sent into the interior; they were killed from behind while they were +walking along, and their bodies were thrown on to the nearest heap. All +these monsters had the faces of bandits; the exceptions were to be +regretted." + + +XXIV.--(Page 384.) + +"At the time of the trial of the members of the Council of the Commune +before the third court-martial sitting at Versailles, a certain M. +Gabriel Ossude came to give evidence as witness against Jourde, in whose +arrest he was concerned, he said, in his quality of provost of the +seventh arrondissement, and as Colonel Merlin, president of the court, +seemed astonished that such a function should have devolved upon a +civilian, M. Ossude entered into very precise explanations, which I +remember perfectly. + +"He declared that towards the end of the Commune the prevotal courts had +been instituted by the Government of Versailles in view of the early +entry of the troops into Paris; that the number and the seats of the +exceptional tribunals had been arranged beforehand, as well as the +topographical limits of their jurisdictions; that he (M. Gabriel Ossude) +had received his nomination from the hands of M. Thiers, although he +held no rank in the army, but as captain of the seventeenth battalion of +the National Guard."--_Letter of Ulysse Parent, Rappel, March 19, 1877._ + + +XXV.--(Page 385.) + +"Near the Ecole Militaire the scene is at this moment very affecting; +prisoners are continually being led there, and their trial is +_terminated_ beforehand. It consists only in detonations."--_Siècle, +28th May._ + +"The courts-martial functioned in Paris with unheard-of activity at +several special points. At the Lobau Barracks, at the Ecole Militaire, +the fusillade is permanently heard. It is the settling of accounts with +those wretches who openly took part in the struggle."--_Liberté, 30th +May._ + +"Since morning (Sunday, 28th May) a strong cordon is being formed round +the theatre (Châtelet), where a court-martial is permanently +established. From time to time one sees a band of fifteen to twenty +individuals coming out, composed of National Guards, civilians, _women +and children fifteen to sixteen years old_. + +"These individuals are condemned to death. They march two and two, +escorted by a platoon of chasseurs, who lead and bring up the +procession. This cortège goes up the Quai de Gèvres and enters the +Republican Barracks in the Place Lobau. A minute after one hears from +within the fire of platoons and successive musketry discharges; it is +the sentence of the court-martial which has just been executed. + +"The detachment of chasseurs returns to the Châtelet to fetch other +prisoners. The crowd seems deeply impressed on hearing the noise of the +fusillades."--_Journal des Débats, 30th May, 1871._ + + +XXVI.--(Page 385.) + +A journal of the Belgian bourgeoisie, the _Etoile_, one of the most +violent against the Commune, allowed this avowal to escape it:-- + +"The majority have met death like the Arabs after battle, with +indifference, with contempt, without hatred, without anger, without +insult to their executioners. + +"All the soldiers who took part in these executions, and whom I have +questioned, have been unanimous in their accounts. + +"One of them said to me, 'We shot about forty of these _canailles_ at +Passy. They all died like soldiers. Some crossed their arms, and stood +head erect. Others opened their tunics and cried to us 'Fire! we are not +afraid of death.' + +"Not one of those whom we have shot trembled. I especially remember an +artillerist, who by himself did us more harm than a whole battalion. He +was alone serving a piece of cannon. During three-quarters of an hour he +peppered us with grape shot, and he killed and wounded not a few of my +comrades. At last he was overwhelmed. We had turned his barricade. + +"I still see him. He was a strongly-built man. He was bathed in +perspiration from the service he had done during three-quarters of an +hour. 'Your turn now,' said he to us. 'I have merited shooting, but I +shall die game.' + +"Another soldier of General Clinchant's corps told me how his company +had led to the ramparts eighty-four insurgents taken bearing arms. + +"They all placed themselves in a line, he said to me, as if they were +going to exercise. Not one faltered. One of them who had a handsome +face, wore trousers in fine cloth tucked into his boots, and a Zouave's +belt round his waist, said to us calmly, 'Try to aim at my chest; be +careful not to touch my head.' We all fired, but the poor fellow had +half of his head carried away." + +A functionary of Versailles made me the following recital:-- + +"During the day, Sunday, I made an excursion to Paris. I went by the +Théâtre du Châtelet towards the smoking ruins of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +when I was surrounded and carried along by the stream of a crowd which +was following a convoy of prisoners. + +"I found among them the same men whom I had seen in the battalions of +the siege of Paris. Almost all seemed to me to be working-men. + +"Their faces betrayed neither despair nor despondency nor emotion. They +walked on with a firm, resolute step, and they seemed to me so +indifferent to their fate that I thought they expected to be released. I +was entirely mistaken. These men had been taken in the morning at +Menilmontant, and knew whither they were being led. Arrived at the Lobau +Barracks, the cavalry officers who preceded the escort had a semi-circle +formed, and prevented the curious from advancing." + + +XXVII.--(Page 385.) + +One of the most ignoble barkers of Versailles, Francisque Sarcey, wrote +in the _Gaulois_ of the 13th June:-- + +"Men who are quite cool, of whose judgment and word I cannot doubt, have +spoken to me with an astonishment mingled with horror of the scenes they +had seen, seen with their own eyes, and which rendered me rather +meditative. + +"Young women, pretty of face, and dressed in silk dresses, came down +into the street, and a revolver in their hands, fired at random, and +then said with proud mien, elevated voice, eyes full of hatred, 'Shoot +me at once!' One of them, who had been taken in a house whence they had +fired from the windows, was about to be bound in order to be taken to +Versailles and judged there. + +"'Come,' said she, 'save me the trouble of the journey!' And placing +herself against a wall, her arms spread open, her breast bare, she +seemed to solicit--to provoke death. + +"All those who have been seen executed thus summarily by furious +soldiers have died, insults on their tongues, with a laugh of contempt, +like martyrs, who in sacrificing themselves accomplish a great duty." + + +XXVIII.--(Page 386.) + +At the time of an action entered against M. Raspail, _fils_, in 1876, +for his pamphlet in favour of an amnesty, the following letter, +addressed to him by M. Hervey de Saisy, senator, was read in court:-- + +"I cannot, for motives of discretion bearing on divers persons, repeat +in this letter the recital which I made you _vivâ voce_ on the occasion +of which you remind me. However, I wish to answer your courteous appeal +by repeating here the words which served as a reason for the iniquitous +order by which the life of M. Cernuschi was menaced, during the day on +which the troops took possession of the prison of Ste. Pélagie and the +Jardin des Plantes. + +"These are the words pronounced by the general of division who gave the +order of summary execution. Learning that Cernuschi had repaired to the +prison, at the door of which I saw his carriage, he said to some one, +whom I cannot mention, 'Ah! it is Cernuschi, the man of the 100,000 +francs of the plébiscite. Return to the prison, and let him be shot +within five minutes.' + +"Five minutes represented the time that would be required by the bearer +of the order in going to the prison from the Cèdre du Jussieu, whence +the general watched the phases of the combat. + +"At first I did not understand this strange phrase, but some moments +after I remembered that it was the expression of a political vengeance +which was about to be exercised against M. Cernuschi for having offered +100,000 francs for the propaganda which the Opposition was to make +during the final plébiscite of the Empire. + +"Profoundly indignant at what I had just heard, I was fortunate enough +to bring about a fortuitous incident to which the already condemned +victim owed his salvation. + +"Such are the details I am able to furnish you with. + + "HERVÉ DE SAISY." + + +XXIX.--(Page 386.) + +"Some journals of Paris," wrote the _Echo de la Dordogne_, on the 19th +June, 1871, "have repeated that Tony Moilin had been condemned and shot +for having been taken arms in hand on the 27th May. This report is +incorrect. + +"One single fact was Tony Moilin reproached with: that of having on the +18th March taken possession of the mairie of his arrondissement, and +having thus had a share in giving the signal for the insurrection. He +was shown a kind of dismissal given by him on that day to M. Hérisson, +the mayor whom he had replaced. No witness was heard. + +"Moilin admitted the fact; then he added that he had exercised the +function of mayor during hardly two days; that at the end of this time, +little in accord with the men of the Commune, he had voluntarily ceased +to appear at the mairie, where he had been immediately replaced. + +"The court-martial asked Moilin to account for his time and his acts +since the day of the entry of the army of Versailles into Paris. He +answered that, known for a long time, especially through the Blois trial +and by his writings, as one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, having +to answer for taking possession of the mairie of the eighth +arrondissement on the 18th March, fearing a too summary justice and the +fury of the first moments, he had sought and found shelter at a +friend's, and that, from the Monday morning till the Saturday night; ... +that on the Saturday evening, the 27th March, this friend had asked his +guest to leave his retreat, and that on leaving this inhospitable house, +discouraged, not seeking any longer to defend his liberty, nor even his +life, he had returned to his home, where, on the denunciation of his +porter and his neighbours, he had been almost directly afterwards +arrested and taken before the court-martial at the Luxembourg. + +"To this recital was confined the defence of Tony Moilin, who was +immediately condemned to death. The court-martial _condescended to tell +him that the fact of the mairie, the only one he could be reproached +with, had in itself not much importance, and did not merit death, but +that he was one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, dangerous through +his talents, his character, and his influence over the masses; one of +those men, in short, of whom a prudent and wise Government must rid +itself when it finds a legitimate occasion to do so_. + +"Tony Moilin could only be satisfied with the urbanity (_sic_) of the +members of the court. Without any difficulty a respite of twelve hours +was granted him in order that he might make his testament, write a few +words of farewell to his father, and finally give his name to the woman +who had, during the Blois trial and since, shown him the greatest +devotion. These duties fulfilled, on the 28th May, in the morning, Tony +Moilin was led into the garden a few steps from the palace and shot. His +body, which his widow claimed, the surrender of which had been at first +promised, was refused her." + + +XXX.--(Page 386.) + +This assassination also stands to the debit account of Garcin. Let us +again allow him to speak. + +"Billioray at first attempted to deny his identity. He wanted to rush +upon a soldier; he was a man of athletic strength.... He defended +himself, he foamed with rage. There was hardly time to interrogate him. +He began some tale about money, whose place of concealment he could +indicate. He spoke of 150,000 francs; then he interrupted himself, in +order to say to me, 'I see you are going to have me shot. It is useless +for me to say any more.' I said to him, 'You persist?' 'Yes.' He was +shot."--_Enquéte sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 234. + + +XXXI--(Page 386.) + +"The event took place on Thursday, 25th May, at a few minutes past six +in the evening, in the small Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. +Vallès was coming out of the Théâtre du Châtelet, led off by the +firing-party charged to shoot him. He wore a black coat, and light +trousers of a yellowish shade. He wore no hat; and his beard, which he +had shaved but lately, was very short, and already getting grey. + +"On entering the lane where the ominous sentence was to be carried out, +the sentiment of self-preservation gave him back the energy which seemed +to have abandoned him. He wanted to fly; but, held back by the soldiers, +he got into a horrible fury, crying 'Murder!' writhing, seizing his +executioners by the throat, biting them, offering, in one word, a +desperate resistance. + +"The soldiers were beginning to be embarrassed and a little moved at +this horrible struggle, when one of them passing behind gave him such a +furious blow in the loins with the butt-end of his gun that the +unfortunate man fell with a low groan. + +"No doubt the spinal column was broken. They then fired some shots with +their revolvers straight into his body, and pierced him with bayonet +thrusts. As he was still breathing, one of the executioners approached +and discharged his chassepot into his ear. Part of the skull burst open; +his body was abandoned in the gutter till some one came to pick it up. + +"It is then that the spectators of this scene approached, and despite +the wounds that disfigured him, were able to establish his +identity."--_Account by a Military Surgeon published in the Gaulois._ + + +XXXII.--(Page 392.) + +The _Radical_ of the 30th May, 1872, published the following letter from +an employé at St. Thomas d'Acquin, who during the Commune had rendered +the Versaillese the service of preventing the firing of the cannons of 8 +cm. breechloaders:-- + +"_To Monsieur le Comte Daru, President of the Committee of Inquiry into +the Insurrection of the 18th March, Versailles._ + +"Monsieur le President,--I have just read in a book, which is entitled +_Enquête Parlementaire sur l'Insurrection du 18 Mars_, under the head, +_Evidence of witnesses_, the following evidence by the Staff-Captain +Garcin:-- + +"'All those who were arrested under arms were shot during the first +moments, that is to say, during the combat. But when we were masters of +the left bank there were no more executions.' + +"In the report of Marshal MacMahon on the operations of the army of +Versailles against insurgent Paris, I find the following declaration:-- + +"'In the evening of the 25th May the whole left bank was in our power, +as also the bridges of the Seine.' + +"The evidence of Captain Garcin is unfortunately contrary to the truth. +Four days after the 25th May my son and fourteen other unhappy victims +were killed at the Dupleix Barracks, situated on the left bank, near the +Ecole Militaire. + +"On the 31st August I addressed the Minister of Justice a complaint on +this subject, of which I send you a correct copy. After having related +the facts with regard to my son, I demanded that the law should search +for and punish the culprits. + +"Up to the present time the law has remained deaf to my claims, +notwithstanding the publicity I have given this complaint, in order to +prove the disappearance of my child. + +"If it were true, as Captain Garcin declares, that orders had been given +by the general commander-in-chief of the troops of the left bank to put +an end to these executions after the evening of the 25th May; if again +it were true that Marshal MacMahon had by his despatch of the 28th May +given the order to suspend all executions, as the Colonel presiding over +the court-martial at the trial of the members of the Commune +declared--the officer of the gendarmerie, named Roncol, who ordered the +massacres at the Dupleix Barracks, and his accomplices should have been +prosecuted for having, in contempt of the orders of the chief of the +army, had unfortunate people killed who had taken no part in the +combat. + +"Thus, horrible fact, in the morning of the 29th May, while I was giving +up the cannon at St. Thomas d'Acquin, which my son and I had sworn on +our honour to preserve for the state, and for which we had risked our +lives, my son was being massacred at the end of a stable by those who +ought to have protected him. + +"In consequence of these facts, which I have just made public, I beg +Monsieur le Président to be so obliging as to have the evidence of +Captain Garcin rectified, which is on this point of the executions +entirely contrary to truth.--I have the honour, Monsieur le Président, +&c., + + (Signed) "G. LAUDET." + +"The correct copy of this was addressed in a registered letter of the +28th March, 1872, under the number 158, to M. le Comte Daru, who has +acknowledged the receipt of it. + + "G. LAUDET." + "PARIS, _23rd May 1872_." + + +XXXIII.--(Page 393.) + +"It is in the Bois de Boulogne that those condemned to death by the +court-martial will for the future be executed. Whenever the number of +the condemned shall exceed ten men the execution platoons will be +replaced by a mitrailleuse."--_Paris Journal, 9th June._ + +"All circulation is forbidden in the Bois de Boulogne. + +"One is forbidden to enter there, unless accompanied by a platoon of +soldiers, and still more forbidden to come out again."--_Paris Journal, +15th June._ + + +XXXIV.--(Page 395.) + +"One man, a swarthy, burly fellow, with a shock head of black hair, sat +down at the corner of the Rue de la Paix and declined to go any further, +shaking his fist at the people and grinding his teeth. After several +attempts at coercive measures, one of the soldiers lost all patience, +and drove his bayonet twice into his body, telling him to get up and +walk on like the rest. As might have been expected, this method was not +successful, and so he was seized and placed on a horse, from which he +speedily threw himself, and was then tied to its tail, and dragged along +the ground after the manner of Brunhilda. He soon became faint from loss +of blood, and having thus been reduced to a quiescent state, was bundled +into an ambulance waggon, and carried off amid the shouts and +execrations of the populace."--_Times, May 31st._ + +"Another prisoner, who had also refused to march, was dragged by the +hands and hair of the head along the road."--_Times, May 30th._ + +"Near the Parc Monceaux a husband and wife were seized, and ordered to +march forward towards the Place Vendôme, a distance of a mile and a +half. They were both of them invalids and unable to walk so far. The +woman sat down on the kerbstone, and declined to move a step in spite of +her husband's entreaties that she would try. She persisted in her +refusal, and they both knelt down together, begging the gendarmes who +accompanied them to shoot them at once if shot they were to be. Twenty +revolvers were fired, but they still breathed, and it was only at the +second discharge that they finally sank down dead. The gendarmes then +rode away, leaving the bodies as they had fallen."--_Times, May 29th._ + + +XXXV.--(Page 396.) + +The conservative paper, the _Tricolore_, said on the 31st May:-- + +"Sunday morning, the 24th, out of more than _two thousand_ Federals, one +hundred and eleven of them have been shot in the ditches of Passy, and +that under circumstances which show that the victory [the conclusion of +this nonsensical phrase must be given in the original] _était entrée +dans toute la maturité de la situation_. + +"'Let those who have white hairs step out from the ranks!' said General +Gallifet, who presided at the execution, and the number of grey-headed +Federals amounted to one hundred and eleven! + +"For these the aggravating circumstance was having been contemporaries +of June, 1848. + +"There is here a new _retro-syncopante_ theory which might take us a +long way back." + +The _Liberté_ of Brussels published the following declaration, signed by +eve-witnesses, of the facts which had occurred at La Muette on the 26th +May, 1871:-- + +"On the 26th of last May we formed part of the column of prisoners who +had left the Boulevard Malesherbes at eight o'clock in the morning in +the direction of Versailles. We stopped at the Château of La Muette, +where General Gallifet, after having dismounted from his horse, passed +into our ranks, and then making a choice, he pointed out to the troops +eighty-three men and three women. They were taken away along the talus +of the fortifications and shot before us. After this exploit the General +said to us: '_My name is Gallifet. Your journals in Paris have sullied +me enough. I take my revenge._' + +"Thence we were directed to Versailles, where during the journey we were +again obliged to assist at frightful executions of two women and three +men, who, falling down exhausted and being unable to keep up with the +column, were killed with bayonet-thrusts by the _sergents de ville_ +forming our escort." + +The names followed, with the professions and addresses of the signers, +to the number of eleven. + + * * * * * + +"The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich and was drawn up +four or five deep on the footway facing to the road. General the Marquis +de Gallifet and his staff, who had preceded us there, dismounted, and +commenced an inspection from the left of the line and near where I was. +Walking down slowly, and eyeing the ranks as if at an inspection, the +General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or +beckoning him out of the rear-ranks. In most cases, without further +parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of +the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed.... +They evidently knew too well that their last hour had come, and it was +fearfully interesting to see their different demeanours. One, already +wounded, his shirt soaked with blood, sat down in the road and howled +with anguish; ... others wept in silence; two soldiers, presumed +deserters, pale but collected, appealed to all the other prisoners as to +whether they had ever seen them amongst their ranks; some smiled +defiantly.... It was an awful thing to see one man thus picking out a +batch of his fellow-creatures to be put to a violent death in a few +minutes without further trial.... A few paces from where I stood, a +mounted officer pointed out to General Gallifet a man and woman for some +particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself +on her knees and with outstretched arms implored mercy, and protested +her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and +then, with most impassable face and unmoved demeanour, said: 'Madame, I +have visited every theatre in Paris; your acting will have no effect on +me' (ce n'est pas la peine de jouer la comédie).... I followed the +General closely down the line, still a prisoner, but honoured with a +special escort of two chasseurs-à-cheval, and endeavoured to arrive at +what guided him in his selections. The result of my observations was +that it was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, +dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one's neighbour. One individual +in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the +ills of this world to his having a broken nose on what might have been +otherwise an ordinary face, and being unable from his height to conceal +it. Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the +column resumed its marching, leaving them behind. In a few minutes +afterwards, a dropping fire in our rear commenced and continued for over +a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily convicted +wretches."--_The Daily News, June 8, 1871._ + +"Yesterday (Sunday, 28th), about one o'clock, General Gallifet appeared +at the head of a column of 6,000 prisoners.... Upon their haggard +countenances and in their downcast eyes there was no ray of hope to be +seen. They were evidently prepared for the worst fate, and dragged +listlessly along, as though it were not worth while to walk to +Versailles to be shot when an immediate execution might save them the +trouble. M. de Gallifet seemed to be of the same opinion, and a little +beyond the Arc-de-Triomphe he halted the column, selected eighty-two, +and had them shot there and then. A little after this a band of twenty +Pompiers were marched into the Parc Monceaux and executed."--_The Times, +May 31, 1871._ + + +XXXVI.--(Page 438.) + +Here is a copy of a letter addressed to the Versaillese general staff, +and probably still in its possession, and bearing the number 28 ibis:-- + +"_To the Chief of the General Staff._ + +"General--I have been mistaken for a M. de Beaufond, and this annoys me +all the more, that negligences committed by him are imputed to me. + +"I have certainly not wasted my time during this period of fifteen days. +I have organised quite a legion of combatants. Their order is to run +away on the approach of the troops, and thus to throw the ranks of the +Federals into disorder. + +"The means indicated by the Committee of A---- seems to be practicable. I +will make use of it. With only one hundred drunkards one can do many a +thing." + + +XXXVII.--(Page 444.) + +This, according to the, of course, very approximate report of General +Appert, is the contingent furnished by the different professions:--528 +jewellers, 124 pasteboard makers, 210 hatters, 328 carpenters, 1,065 +clerks, 1,491 shoemakers, 206 dressmakers, 172 gilders, 636 +cabinetmakers, 1,598 commercial employés, 98 instrument makers, 227 +tin-workers, 224 founders, 182 engravers, 179 watchmakers, 819 +compositors, 159 stained paper printers, 106 teachers, 2,901 day +labourers, 2,293 bricklayers, 1,659 joiners, 193 lace-makers, 863 +house-painters, 106 bookbinders, 283 sculptors, 2,664 locksmiths and +mechanicians, 681 tailors, 347 tanners, 157 moulders, 766 stone-cutters. + + +XXXVIII.--(Page 463.) + +Notably in the affair of the spy of the Hautes-Bruyères, for which +several persons had already been condemned. This spy--a young man of +twenty, and not a child, as the reactionists have stated--had attracted +the shells of the enemy to the Federal positions. Brought before a +court-martial, composed of La Cécilia, commander of the army corps, of +Johannard, delegate of the Commune, and of all the chiefs of battalions, +he admitted having taken the Versaillese the plan of the Federal +positions, and having received twenty francs as reward. He was +unanimously condemned to death. At the moment of the execution, +Johannard and Grandier, La Cécilia's aide-de-camp, explained to the +condemned man that he would be pardoned if he would reveal the name of +his accomplice, an inhabitant of Montrouge. He replied, "You are +brigands. _Je vous emm...._" This fact, odiously travestied, has +furnished Victor Hugo, very ill informed as to this civil war, with a +verse for his "Année Terrible," as unjust to Johannard as to Sérizier, +one of the men shot at Satory. The great poet owes himself a disclaimer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[269] Thiers and Jules Favre themselves have calumniated Paris less than +Louis Blanc. The first says in the _Enquéte sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. +15: "_It is not true, as has been asserted, that I had great +difficulties with the Prussian Government concerning the Commune, or +that it had any predilection for the latter._" Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. +49; "_I have seen nothing that could authorise me to accuse either the +Bonapartists or Prussia. General Trochu has been mistaken. I have seen +nothing that could authorise me to accuse the Bonapartists of having +fomented the 18th March. After the insurrection of the 18th March, I +spent my time in refusing the offers which were made me by the Prussians +to assist in the overthrow of the Commune._" + +[270] The _Siècle_, in search of attenuating circumstances for the army, +had invented this more than phantasmagorial incident. + + +THE END. + + + + + +---------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page xii CREUSOT changed to CREUZOT | + | Page xii ANSNIÈRES changed to ASNIÈRES | + | Page 10 wantel changed to wanted | + | Page 10 Strasburg changed to Strasbourg | + | Page 12 unheard-off changed to unheard-of | + | Page 13 phrenzy changed to frenzy | + | Page 16 Lafrançais changed to Lefrançais | + | Page 29 seing changed to seeing | + | Page 39 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 51 D'Aurelle's changed to D'Aurelles's | + | Page 75 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 78 posession changed to possession | + | Page 81 baracks changed to barracks | + | Page 81 Champs changed to Champ | + | Page 82 Brunei changed to Brunel | + | Page 85 Dou changed to Do | + | Page 85 obstain changed to abstain | + | Page 106 VEMDÔME changed to VENDÔME | + | Page 109 oppresion changed to oppression | + | Page 116 Arnand changed to Arnaud | + | Page 116 Beuit changed to Bouit | + | Page 134 Commisssion changed to Commission | + | Page 141 curassiers changed to cuirassiers | + | Page 147 motionles changed to motionless | + | Page 161 Thiesz changed to Theisz | + | Page 167 Molineaux changed to Moulineaux | + | Page 169 kepis changed to képis | + | Page 171 COMMUME changed to COMMUNE | + | Page 180 battailons changed to battalions | + | Page 181 seing changed to seeing | + | Page 190 ASNIERES changed to ASNIÈRES | + | Page 192 Slaav changed to Slav | + | Page 202 is changed to it | + | Page 204 Bourdeaux changed to Bordeaux | + | Page 213 Offiee changed to Office | + | Page 224 themelves changed to themselves | + | Page 244 aut changed to out | + | Page 246 Galiffet changed to Gallifet | + | Page 250 haid changed to said | + | Page 254 Aout changed to Août | + | Page 261 Gamlon changed to Gambon | + | Page 270 Afer changed to After | + | Page 277 Montargies changed to Montargiss | + | Page 280 Sebastien changed to Sébastien | + | Page 302 voll. changed to vol. | + | Page 309 batallion changed to battalion | + | Page 319 de changed to the | + | Page 323 Sarragossa changed to Saragossa | + | Page 329 Pigale changed to Pigalle | + | Page 330 carefuly changed to carefully | + | Page 333 Hausman changed to Hausmann | + | Page 332 run changed to ran | + | Page 397 und changed to and | + | Page 408 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 435 Verdagner changed to Verdagnier | + | Page 440 Boidenemetz changed to Boisdenemetz | + | Page 443 Quinsonnaz changed to Quinsonnas | + | Page 462 intransigeants changed to intransigents | + | Page 465 fvom changed to from | + | Page 465 Committe changed to Committee | + | Page 471 Meillot changed to Maillot | + | Page 485 Perigeux changed to Perigueux | + | Page 487 proclia changed to proelia | + | Page 487 cemetry changed to cemetery | + +---------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's History of the Commune of 1871, by P. 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+ font-weight: normal; + color: silver; background-color: inherit; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers in poems */ + + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's History of the Commune of 1871, by P. Lissagary + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Commune of 1871 + +Author: P. Lissagary + +Translator: Eleanor Marx-Aveling + +Release Date: May 6, 2011 [EBook #36043] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE OF 1871 *** + + + + +Produced by Odessa Paige Turner, Barbara Kosker and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public +domain material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>HISTORY<br /> +OF<br /> +THE COMMUNE OF 1871</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="png 002"> + <tr> + <td class="tdcltr" colspan="2"><span style="font-size: 150%;">THE REFORMERS' BOOKSHELF.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdclr" colspan="2"><i>Large crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. each.</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdclr" colspan="2">~~~~~~~~~~</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz" width="15%">1.</td> + <td class="tdlr" width="85%">THE ENGLISH PEASANT: His Past and Present. By + <span class="smcap">Richard Heath</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">2.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE LABOUR MOVEMENT. By <span class="smcap">L. T. Hobhouse, M.A.</span> + Preface by <span class="smcap">R. B. Haldane, M.P.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">3. & 4.</td> + <td class="tdlr">SIXTY YEARS OF AN AGITATOR'S LIFE: George Jacob Holyoake's Autobiography. + 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">5. & 6.</td> + <td class="tdlr">BAMFORD'S PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A RADICAL. Edited, and with an Introduction + by <span class="smcap">Henry Dunckley</span> ("Verax">. 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">7.</td> + <td class="tdlr">RICHARD COBDEN AND THE JUBILEE OF FREE TRADE. By <span class="smcap">P. + Leroy-Beaulieu</span>, <span class="smcap">Henry Dunckley</span> ("Verax"), Dr. + <span class="smcap">Theodor Barth</span>, the Right Hon. <span class="smcap">Leonard + Courtney, M.P.</span>, and the Right Hon. <span class="smcap">Charles Villiers, M.P.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">8. & 9.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY: Lectures on Political Economy and + its History, delivered at Oxford, 1887-1888. By Professor <span class="smcap">Thorold + Rogers</span>. Third edition. 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">10. & 11.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Professor + <span class="smcap">Thorold Rogers</span>. 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">12.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE GLADSTONE COLONY. By <span class="smcap">James Francis Hogan, M.P.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">13. & 14.</td> + <td class="tdlr">CHARLES BRADLAUGH: A Record of His Life and Work. By His Daughter, + <span class="smcap">Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner</span>. 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">15. & 16.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE INNER LIFE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Selected from the + Writings of <span class="smcap">William White</span>, with a Prefatory Note by his son, and + an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Justin McCarthy, M.P.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">17.</td> + <td class="tdlr">POLITICAL CRIME. By <span class="smcap">Louis Proal</span>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdllz">18. & 19.</td> + <td class="tdlr">THE LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. By <span class="smcap">John Morley</span>. 2 vols.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdclr" colspan="2">~~~~~~~~~~</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdclr" colspan="2" style="border-bottom: .5pt black solid;"><span class="smcap">London</span>: + T. FISHER UNWIN.</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>HISTORY</h1> +<h4>of</h4> +<h1>THE COMMUNE OF 1871</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>FROM THE FRENCH OF</h4> + +<h2>LISSAGARAY</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/deco.png" width="10%" alt="Publisher's Mark" /> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4> LONDON<br /> + T. FISHER UNWIN<br /> + 1902</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="80%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"> </td> + <td class="tdr" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">PROLOGUE.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh" width="90%">HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE</td> + <td class="tdrb" width="10%"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER 1.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS—THE BATTALIONS OF THE + NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR CANNON—THE PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS—THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONSTITUTES + ITSELF—M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS—THE MAYORS OF PARIS AND + DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC SERVICES, AND + HOLDS PARIS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY COMBINE AGAINST + PARIS—THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE VENDÔME, AND IS PUNISHED</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>CHAPTER VII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS + TO CAPITULATE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER X.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS—THE MAYORS + AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL—THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED + EVERYWHERE—FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED—THE VERSAILLESE MASSACRE SOME + PRISONERS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE—THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF THE + COUNCIL—NOMINATION OF CLUSERET—DECREE CONCERNING THE HOSTAGES—THE CENTRAL + COMMITTEE—THE BANK</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ASNIÈRES—ORGANISATION AND + DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>CHAPTER XVI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL—THE COMPLIMENETARY ELECTIONS OF THE 16TH + APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL—FIRST DISPUTES—THE GERMS OF DEFEAT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">OUR PARISIENNES—SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF NEUILLY—THE + ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE PUBLIC + SERVICES—FINANCE—WAR—POLICE—EXTERIOR—JUSTICE—EDUCATION—LABOR + AND EXCHANGE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE—THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE PART OF + ISSY—CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET—THE RIVALRIES—THE DEFENCE OF THE FORT + OF ISSY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">PARIS IS BOMBARDED—THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS—THE COUNCIL ELECTS + A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY—ROSSEL FLIES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES—THE EXTREME LEFT + BETRAYS PARIS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>CHAPTER XXIV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY—EVACUATION OF THE + FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF ISSY—THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY—THE + EXPLOSION IN THE AVENUE RAPP— FALL OF THE VENDÔME COLUMN</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY, AT THREE O'CLOCK IN THE + AFTERNOON—THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE DISSOLVES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">MONDAY 22ND—THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE EAST—PARIS + RISES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">TUESDAY 23RD—MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN—THE WHOLESALE MASSACRE—WE LOSE + GROUND—PARIS ON FIRE—THE LAST NIGHT OF THE HÔTEL-DE-VILLE</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">WEDNESDAY 24TH—THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE + HÔTEL-DE-VILLE—THE PANTHÉON IS TAKEN—THE VERSAILLESE SHOOT THE FEDERALS + BY HUNDREDS—THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX HOSTAGES—THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_339">339</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THURSDAY 25TH—THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE + TROOPS—DELESCLUZE DIES—THE BRASSARDIERS STIMULATE THE MASSACRE—THE MEMBERS + OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE MAIRIE OF THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_353">353</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>CHAPTER XXXI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE—FRIDAY, FORTH-EIGHT HOSTAGES ARE + SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO—SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS + INVADED—THE PÈRE LACHAISE IS TAKEN—SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT + ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING—MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS SURRENDERED</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_365">365</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXXII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE VERSAILLESE FURY—THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES—THE PREVOTAL COURTS—THE + DEATH OF VARLIN—THE BURIALS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXXIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS—THE ORANGERIE—THE + ARRESTS—SATORY—THE DENUNCIATORS—THE PRESS—THE LEFT INSULTS THE + VANQUISHED— DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXXIV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE PONTOONS—THE FORTS—THE PRISONS—THE FIRST TRIALS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_408">408</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXXV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">THE COURTS-MARTIAL—THE EXECUTIONS— BALANCE-SHEET OF THE + CONDEMNATIONS</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_424">424</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXXVI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">NEW CALEDONIA—EXILE—BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS VENGEANCE—THE + LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_445">445</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">~~~~~~~~~~</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlh">APPENDIX</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_467">467</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE.</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h2>PROLOGUE.</h2> + +<p class="cen">"Osons, ce mot renferme toute la politique de cette +heure."—<i>Rapport de St. Just à la Convention</i>.</p> + +<p class="cen">HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE.</p> +<br /> + +<p><i>August 9, 1870.</i>—In six days the Empire has lost three battles. Douai, +Frossart, MacMahon have allowed themselves to be isolated, surprised, +crashed. Alsace is lost, the Moselle laid bare. The dumbfoundered +Ministry has convoked the Chamber. Ollivier, in dread of a +demonstration, denounces if beforehand as "Prussian." But since eleven +in the morning an immense agitated crowd occupies the Place de la +Concorde, the quays, and surrounds the Corps Législatif.</p> + +<p>Paris is waiting for the <i>mot d'ordre</i> of the deputies of the Left. +Since the announcement of the defeats they have become the only moral +authority. Bourgeoisie, workingmen, all rally round them. The workshops +have turned their army into the streets, and at the head of the +different groups one sees men of tried energy.</p> + +<p>The Empire totters—it has now only to fall. The troops drawn up before +the Corps Législatif are greatly excited, ready to turn tail in spite of +the decorated and grumbling Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. The people cry, +"To the frontier." Officers answer aloud, "Our place is not here."</p> + +<p>In the Salle des Pas Perdus well-known Republicans, the men of the +clubs, who have forced their way in, roughly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>apostrophise the +Imperialist deputies, speak loudly of proclaiming the Republic. The +pale-faced Mamelukes steal behind the groups. M. Thiers arrives and +exclaims, "Well, then, make your republic!" When the President, +Schneider, passes to the chair, he is received with cries of +"Abdication!"</p> + +<p>The deputies of the Left are surrounded by delegates from without. "What +are you waiting for? We are ready. Only show yourselves under the +colonnades at the gates." The honourables seem confounded, stupefied. +"Are you numerous enough? Were it not better to put it off till +to-morrow?" There are indeed only 100,000 men ready. Some one arrives +and tells Gambetta, "There are several thousands of us at the Place +Bourbon." Another, the writer of this history, says, "Make sure of the +situation to-day, when it may still be saved. To-morrow, having become +desperate, it will be forced upon you." But these brains seem paralysed; +no word escapes these gaping mouths.</p> + +<p>The sitting opens. Jules Favre proposes to this base Chamber, the +abettor of our disasters, the humus of the Empire, to seize upon the +government. The Mamelukes rise up in dudgeon, and Jules Simon, hair on +end, returns to us in the Salle des Pas Perdus. "They threaten to shoot +us," he shrieks; "I descended into the midst of the hall and said, +'Well, shoot us.'" We exclaim, "Put an end to this." "Yes," says he, "we +must make an end of it,"—and he returns to the Chamber.</p> + +<p>And thus ended their "damnable faces." The Mamelukes, who know their +Left, recover their self-assurance, throw Ollivier overboard and form a +<i>coup-d'état</i> Ministry. Schneider precipitately breaks up the sitting in +order to get rid of the crowd. The people, feebly repulsed by the +soldiers, repair in masses to the bridges, follow those who leave the +Chamber, expecting every moment to hear the Republic proclaimed. M. +Jules Simon, out of reach of the bayonets, makes a heroic discourse, and +convokes the people to meet the next day at the Place de la Concorde. +The next day the police occupy all the approaches.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>Thus the Left abandoned to Napoleon III. our two last armies. One effort +would have sufficed to overthrow this pasteboard Empire.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The people +instinctively offered their help to render the nation unto herself. The +Left repulsed them, refused to save the country by a riot, and, +confining their efforts to a ridiculous motion, left to the Mamelukes +the care of saving France. The Turks in 1876 showed more intelligence +and elasticity.</p> + +<p>During three weeks it was the story of the Bas-Empire all over +again,—the fettered nation sinking into the abyss in the face of its +motionless governing classes. All Europe cried, "Beware!" They alone +heard not. The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might +ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies +have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them. +The Left exhausts itself in exclamations. On the 12th M. Gambetta cries, +"We must wage Republican war"—and sits down again. On the 13th Jules +Favre demands the creation of a Committee of Defence. It is refused. He +utters no syllable. On the 20th the Ministry announces that Bazaine has +forced three army corps into the quarries of Jaumont; the next day the +whole European press related, on the contrary, that Bazaine, three times +beaten, had been thrown back upon Metz by 200,000 Germans. And no deputy +rises to interpellate the liars! Since the 26th they have known +MacMahon's insane march upon Metz, exposing the last army of France, a +mob of 80,000 conscripts, and vanquished, to 200,000 victorious Germans. +M. Thiers, again restored to favour since the disasters, demonstrates in +the committees and in the lobbies that this march is the way to utter +ruin. The extreme Left says and bruits about that all is lost and of all +these responsible persons seeing the state ship tempest-tossed, not one +raises his hand to seize the helm.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>Since 1813 France had seen no such collapse of the governing classes. +The ineffable dastardliness of the Cent-jours pales before this superior +cowardice; for here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion. Thirteen months +later, at Versailles, I hear, amidst enthusiastic applause, the Empire +apostrophised, "Varus, give us back our legions." Who speaks, who +applauds thus? The same great bourgeoisie, which, for eighteen years +mute and bowed to the dust, offered their legions to Varus. The +bourgeoisie accepted the Second Empire from fear of Socialism, even as +their fathers had submitted to the first to make an end of the +Revolution. Napoleon I. rendered the bourgeoisie two services not +overpaid by his apotheosis. He gave them an iron centralisation and sent +to their graves 15,000 wretches still kindled by the flame of the +Revolution, who at any moment might have claimed the public lands +granted to them. But he left the same bourgeoisie saddled for all +masters. When they possessed themselves of the parliamentary government, +to which Mirabeau wished to raise them at one bound, they were incapable +of governing. Their mutiny of 1830, turned into a revolution by the +people, made the belly master. The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of +1790, had but one thought—to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the +bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat. The +fortune of his country is nothing to him, so that he fatten. To lead, to +compromise France, the parliamentary king has as free license as +Bonaparte. When by a new outburst of the people the bourgeoisie are +compelled to seize the helm after three years, spite of massacre and +proscription, it slips out of their palsied hands into those of the +first comer.</p> + +<p>From 1851 to 1869 they relapse into the same state as after the 18th +Brumaire. Their privileges safe, they allow Napoleon III. to plunder +France, make her the vassal of Rome, dishonour her in Mexico, ruin her +finances, vulgarise debauchery. All-powerful by their retainers and +their wealth, they do not risk a man, a dollar, for the sake of +protesting. In 1869 the pressure from without raises them to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>the verge +of power; a little strength of will and the government is theirs. They +have but the velleity of the eunuch. At the first sign of the impotent +master they kiss the rod that smote them on the 2nd December, making +room for the plebiscite which rebaptizes the Empire.</p> + +<p>Bismarck prepared the war, Napoleon III. wanted it, the great +bourgeoisie looked on. They might have stopped it by an earnest gesture. +M. Thiers contented himself with a grimace. He saw in this war our +certain ruin; he knew our terrible inferiority in everything; he could +have united the Left, the <i>tiers-parti</i>, the journalists, have made +palpable to them the folly of the attack, and, supported by this +strength of opinion, have said to the Tuileries, to Paris if needs be, +"War is impossible; we shall combat it as treason." He, anxious only to +clear himself, simply demanded the despatches instead of speaking the +true word, "You have no chance of success."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> And these great +bourgeois, who would not have risked the least part of their fortunes +without the most serious guarantees, staked 100,000 lives and the +milliards of France on the word of a Lebœuf and the equivocations of +a Grammont.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>And what then is the small middle-class doing meanwhile? This lean +class, which penetrates everything—industry, commerce, the +administration—mighty by encompassing the people, so vigorous, so ready +in the first days of our Hegira, will it not, as in 1792, rise for the +common weal? Alas! it has been spoilt under the hot corruption of the +Empire. For many years it has lived at random, isolating itself from the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>proletariat, whence it issued but yesterday, and whither the great +barons of Capital will hurl it back again to-morrow. No more of that +fraternity with the people, of that zeal for reform, which manifested +themselves from 1830 to 1848. With its bold initiative, its +revolutionary instinct, it loses also the consciousness of its force. +Instead of representing itself, as it might so well do, it goes about in +quest of representatives among the Liberals.</p> + +<p>The friend of the people who will write the history of Liberalism in +France will save us many a convulsion. Sincere Liberalism would be folly +in a country where the governing classes, refusing to concede anything, +constrain every honest man to become a revolutionist. But it was never +anything else than the Jesuitism of liberty, a trick of the bourgeoisie +to isolate the workmen. From Bailly to Jules Favre, the moderantists +have masked the manœuvres of despotism, buried our revolutions, +conducted the great massacres of proletarians. The old clear-sighted +Parisian sections hated them more than the down right reactionists. +Twice Imperial despotism rehabilitated them, and the small middle-class, +soon forgetting their true part, accepted as defenders those who +pretended to be vanquished like themselves. The men who had made +abortive the movement of 1848 and paved the way for the 2nd December +thus became during the darkness which followed it the acclaimed +vindicators of ravished liberty. At the first dawn they appeared what +they had ever been—— the enemies of the working-class. Under the +Empire the Left never condescended to concern itself with the interests +of the workmen. These Liberals never found for them a word, a +protestation, even such as the Chambers of 1830-1848 sometimes +witnessed. The young lawyers whom they had affiliated to themselves soon +revealed their designs, rallying to the Liberal Empire, some openly, +like Ollivier and Darimon, others with prudence, like Picard. For the +timid or ambitious they founded the "open Left," a bench of candidates +for public office; and in 1870 a number of Liberals indeed solicited +official functions. For the "intransigeants" there was the "closed +Left," where the irreconcilable dragons Gambetta, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>Crémieux, Arago, +Pelletan guarded the pure principles. The chiefs towered in the centre. +These two groups of augurs thus held every fraction of bourgeois +opposition—the timorous and the intrepid. After the plebiscite they +became the holy synod, the uncontested chiefs of the small middle-class, +more and more incapable of governing itself, and alarmed at the +Socialist movement, behind which they showed it the hand of the Emperor. +It gave them full powers, shut its eyes, and allowed itself to drift +gradually towards the parliamentary Empire, big with portfolios for its +patrons. The thunderbolt of the defeats galvanised it into life, but +only for a moment. At the bidding of the deputies to keep quiet, the +small middle-class, the mother of the 10th August, docilely bent its +head and let the foreigner plunge his sword into the very bosom of +France.</p> + +<p>Poor France! Who will save thee? The humble, the poor, those who for six +years contended for thee with the Empire.</p> + +<p>While the upper classes sell the nation for a few hours of rest, and the +Liberals seek to feather their nests under the Empire, a handful of men, +without arms, unprotected, rise up against the still all-powerful +despot. On the one hand, young men who form the bourgeoisie have gone +over to the people, faithful children of 1789, resolved to continue the +work of the Revolution; on the other hand, working-men unite for the +study and the conquest of the rights of labor. In vain the Empire +attempts to split their forces, to seduce the working-men. These see the +snare, hiss the professors of Cæsarian socialism, and from 1863, without +journals, without a tribune, affirm themselves as a class, to the great +scandal of the Liberal sycophants, maintaining that 1789 has equalized +all classes. In 1867 they descend into the streets, make a manifestation +at the tomb of Manin, and, despite the bludgeons of the sbirri, protest +against Mentana. At this appearance of a revolutionary socialist party +the Left gnashes its teeth. When some working-men, ignorant of their own +history, ask Jules Favre if the Liberal bourgeoisie will support them on +the day of their rising for the Republic, the leader of the Left +impudently answers, "Gentlemen workmen, you have made the Empire; it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>is +your business to unmake it." And Picard says, "Socialism does not exist, +or at any rate we will not treat with it."</p> + +<p>Thus set right for the future, the working-men continue the struggle +single-handed. Since the re-opening of the public meetings they fill the +halls, and, in spite of persecution and imprisonment, harass, undermine +the Empire, taking advantage of every accident to inflict a blow. On the +26th October 1869 they threaten to march on the Corps Législatif; in +November they insult the Tuileries by the election of Rochefort; in +December they goad the Government by the <i>Marseillaise</i>; in January, +1870, they go 200,000 strong to the funeral of Victor Noir, and, well +directed, would have swept away the throne.</p> + +<p>The Left, terrified at this multitude, which threatens to overwhelm +them, brands their leaders as desperadoes or as police agents. They, +however, keep to the fore, unmasking the Left, defying them to +discussion, keeping up at the same time a running fire on the Empire. +They form the vanguard against the plebiscite. At the war rumors they +are the first to make a stand. The old dregs of Chauvinism, stirred by +the Bonapartists, discharge their muddy waters. The Liberals remain +impassible or applaud; the workingmen stop the way. On the 15th July, at +the very same hour when Ollivier from the tribune invokes war with a +light heart, the revolutionary socialists crowd the boulevards crying, +"Vive la paix!" and singing the pacific refrain—</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;"> +<p class="noin">"Les peuples sont pour nous des frères<br /> +Et les tyrans des ennemis." +</p></div> + +<p>From the Château d'Eau to the Boulevard St. Denis they are applauded, +but are hissed in the Boulevards Bonne Nouvelle and Montmartre, and come +to blows with certain bands shouting for war.</p> + +<p>The next day they meet again at the Bastille, and parade the streets, +Ranvier, a painter on porcelain, well known in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Belleville, marching at +their head with a banner. In the Faubourg Montmartre the +sergents-de-ville charge them with drawn swords.</p> + +<p>Unable to influence the bourgeoisie, they turn to the working-men of +Germany, as they had done in 1869:—"Brothers, we protest against the +war, we who wish for peace, labour, and liberty. Brothers, do not listen +to the hirelings who seek to deceive you as to the real wishes of +France." Their noble appeal received its reward. In 1869 the students of +Berlin had answered the pacific address of the French students with +insults. The working-men of Berlin in 1870 spoke thus to the working-men +of France: "We too wish for peace, labour, and liberty. We know that on +both sides of the Rhine there are brothers with whom we are ready to die +for the Universal Republic." Great prophetic words! Let them be +inscribed on the first page of the Golden Book just opened by the +workmen.</p> + +<p>Thus towards the end of the Empire there was no life, no activity, save +in the ranks of the proletariat and the young men of the middle-class +who had joined them. They alone showed some political courage, and in +the midst of the general paralysis of the month of July 1870, they alone +found the energy to attempt at least the salvation of France.</p> + +<p>They lacked authority; they failed to carry with them the small +middle-class, for which they also combat, because of their utter want of +political experience. How could they have acquired it during eighty +years, when the ruling class not only withheld light from them, but even +the right to enlighten themselves? By an infernal Machiavelism they +forced them to grope their way in the dark, so that they might hand them +over the more easily to dreamers and sectarians. Under the Empire, when +the public meetings and journals reappeared, the political education of +the workmen had still to be effected. Many, abused by morbid minds, in +the belief that their affranchisement depended on a <i>coup-de-main</i>, gave +themselves up to whoever spoke of overthrowing the Empire. Others, +convinced that even the most thorough-going bourgeois were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>hostile to +Socialism, and only courted the people in furtherance of their ambitious +plans, wanted the workmen to constitute themselves into groups +independent of all tutelage. These different currents crossed each +other. The chaotic state of the party of action was laid bare in its +journal, the <i>Marseillaise</i>, a hot mish-mash of doctrinaires and +desperate writers united by hatred of the Empire, but without definite +views, and above all, without discipline. Much time was wanted to cool +down the first effervescence and get rid of the romantic rubbish which +twenty years of oppression and want of study had made fashionable. +However, the influence of the Socialists began to prevail, and no doubt +with time they would have classified their ideas, drawn up their +programme, eliminated the mere spouters, entered upon serious action. +Already, in 1869, working-men's societies, founded for mutual credit, +resistance and study, had united in a Federation, whose headquarters +were the Place de la Corderie du Temple. The International, setting +forth the most adequate idea of the revolutionary movement of our +century, under the guidance of Varlin, a bookbinder of rare +intelligence, of Duval, Theisz, Frankel, and a few devoted men, was +beginning to gain power in France. It also met at the Corderie, and +urged on the more slow and reserved workmen's societies. The public +meetings of 1870 no longer resembled the earlier ones; the people wanted +useful discussions. Men like Millière, Lefrançais, Vermorel, Longuet, +etc., seriously competed with the mere declaimers. But many years would +have been required for the development of the party of labour, hampered +by young bourgeois adventurers in search of a reputation, encumbered +with conspiracy-mongers and romantic visionaries, still ignorant of the +administrative and political mechanism of the bourgeois régime which +they attacked.</p> + +<p>Just before the war some discipline was attempted. Some tried to move +the deputies of the Left, and met them at Crémieux'. They found them +stupefied, more afraid of a <i>coup-d'état</i> than of the Prussian +victories. Crémieux, pressed to act, answered naïvely, "Let us wait for +a new disaster, as, for instance, the fall of Strasbourg."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>It was indeed necessary to wait, for without these shadows nothing could +be done. The small Parisian middle-class believed in the extreme Left, +as it had believed in our armies. Those who wished to do without them +failed. On the 14th the friends of Blanqui attempted to raise the +outlying districts, attacked the quarters of the firemen of La Villette, +and put the sergents-de-ville to flight. Masters of the field, they +traversed the boulevard up to Belleville, crying, "Vive la République! +Death to the Prussians!" No one joined them. The crowd looked on from +afar, astonished, motionless, rendered suspicious by the police agents, +who thus drew them off from the real enemy—the Empire. The Left +pretended to believe in the Prussian agent, to reassure the bourgeoisie, +and Gambetta demanded the immediate trial of the prisoners of La +Villette. The Minister Palikao had to remind him that certain forms must +be observed, even by military justice. The court-martial condemned ten +to death, although almost all the accused had had nothing to do with the +affray. Some true-hearted men, wishing to prevent these executions, went +to Michelet, who wrote a touching letter on their behalf. The Empire had +no time to carry out the sentences.</p> + +<p>Since the 25th MacMahon was leading his army into the snares laid by +Moltke. On the 29th, surprised and beaten at Beaumont l'Argonne, he knew +himself overreached, and yet pushed forward. Palikao had written to him +on the 27th: "If you abandon Bazaine we shall have the Revolution in +Paris." And to ward off the Revolution he exposed France. On the 30th he +threw his troops into the pit of Sedan; on the 1st September the army +was surrounded by 200,000 enemies, and 700 cannons crowned the heights. +The next day Napoleon III. delivered up his sword to the King of +Prussia. The telegraph announced it; all Europe knew it that same night. +The deputies, however, were silent; they remained so on the 3rd. On the +4th only, at midnight, after Paris had passed through a day of feverish +excitement, they made up their minds to speak. Jules Favre demanded the +abolition of the Empire and a Commission charged with the defence, but +took care not to touch the Chamber. During <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>the day some men of tried +energy had attempted to raise the boulevards, and in the evening an +anxious crowd pressed against the railings of the Corps Législatif, +crying: "Vive la République." Gambetta met them and said, "You are +wrong; we must remain united; make no revolution." Jules Favre, +surrounded on his leaving the Chamber, strove to calm the people.</p> + +<p>If Paris had been guided by the Left, France would have capitulated that +very hour more shamefully than Napoleon III. But on the morning of the +4th of September the people assemble, and amongst them National Guards +armed with their muskets. The astonished gendarmes give way to them. +Little by little the Corps Législatif is invaded. At ten o'clock +notwithstanding the desperate efforts of the Left, the crowd fills the +galleries. It is time. The Chamber, on the point of forming a Ministry, +try to seize the government. The Left support this combination with all +its might, waxing indignant at the mere mention of a Republic. When that +cry bursts forth from the galleries, Gambetta makes unheard-of efforts +and conjures the people to await the result of the deliberations of the +Chamber,—a result known beforehand. It is the project of M. Thiers: a +Government Commission named by the Assembly; peace demanded and accepted +at any price; after that disgrace, the parliamentary monarchy. Happily a +new crowd of invaders bursts its way through the doors, while the +occupants of the galleries glide into the hall. The people expel the +deputies. Gambetta, forced to the tribune, is obliged to announce the +abolition of the Empire. The crowd, wanting more than this, asks for the +Republic, and carries off the deputies to proclaim it at the +Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>This was already in the hands of the people. In the Salle du Trône were +some of those who for a month had attempted to rouse public opinion. +First on the ground, they might, with a little discipline, have +influenced the constitution of the government. The Left surprised them +haranguing, and, incited by an acclaiming multitude, Jules Favre took +the chair, which Millière gave up to him, saying, "At the present moment +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>there is but one matter at stake—the expulsion of the Prussians."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +Jules Favre, Jules Simon, Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Crémieux, Emmanuel +Arago, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Picard, uniting, +proclaimed themselves the Government, and read their own names to the +crowd, which answered by adding those of men like Delescluze, +Ledru-Rollin, Blanqui. They, however, declared they would accept no +colleagues but the deputies of Paris. The crowd applauded. This frenzy +of just-emancipated serfs made the Left masters. They were clever enough +to admit Rochefort.</p> + +<p>They next applied to General Trochu, named governor of Paris by +Napoleon. This general had become the idol of the Liberals because he +had sulked a little with the Empire.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> His whole military glory +consisted in a few pamphlets. The Left had seen much of him during the +last crisis. Having attained to power, it begged him to direct the +defence. He asked, firstly, a place for God in the new régime; secondly, +for himself the presidency of the council. He obtained everything. The +future will show what secret bond so quickly united the men of the Left +to the loyal Breton who had promised "to die on the steps of the +Tuileries in defence of the dynasty."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>Twelve individuals thus took possession of France. They invoked no other +title than their mandate as representatives of Paris, and declared +themselves legitimate by popular acclamation.</p> + +<p>In the evening the International and syndicates of the workmen sent +delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville. They had on the same day sent a new +address to the German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>workingmen. Their fraternal duty fulfilled, the +French workmen gave themselves up to the defence. Let the Government +organize it and they would stay by it. The most suspicious were taken +in. On the 7th, in the first number of his paper <i>La Patrie en Danger</i>, +Blanqui and his friends offered the Government their most energetic, +their absolute co-operation.</p> + +<p>All Paris abandoned itself to the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville, forgetting +their late defections, investing them with the grandeur of the danger. +To seize, to monopolize the government at such a moment, seemed a stroke +of audacity of which genius alone is capable. Paris, deprived for eighty +years of her municipal liberties, accepted as mayor the lachrymose +Etienne Arago. In the twenty arrondissements he named the mayors he +liked, and they again named the adjuncts agreeable to themselves. But +Arago announced early elections and spoke of reviving the great days of +1792. At this moment Jules Favre, proud as Danton, cried to Prussia, to +Europe, "We will cede neither an inch of our territories nor a stone of +our fortresses," and Paris rapturously applauded this dictatorship +announcing itself with words so heroic. On the 14th, when Trochu held +the review of the National Guard, 250,000 men stationed in the +boulevards, the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs-Elysées cheered +enthusiastically, and renewed a vow like that of their fathers on the +morning of Valmy.</p> + +<p>Yes, Paris gave herself up without reserve—incurable confidence—to +that same Left to which she had been forced to do violence in order to +make her revolution. Her outburst of will lasted but for an hour. The +Empire once overthrown, she re-abdicated. In vain did far-seeing +patriots try to keep her on the alert; in vain did Blanqui write, "Paris +is no more impregnable than we were invincible. Paris, mystified by a +braggart press, ignores the greatness of the peril; Paris abuses +confidence." Paris abandoned herself to her new masters, obstinately +shutting her eyes. And yet each day brought with it new ill omens. The +shadow of the siege <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>approached, and the Government of Defence, far from +removing the superfluous mouths, crowded the 200,000 inhabitants of the +suburbs into the town. The exterior works did not advance. Instead of +throwing all Paris into the work, and taking these descendants of the +levellers of the Champ-de-Mars out of the enceinte in troops of 100,000, +drums beating, banners flying, Trochu abandoned the earthworks to the +ordinary contractors. The heights of Châtillon, the key to our forts of +the south, had hardly been surveyed, when on the 19th the enemy +presented himself, sweeping from the plateau an affrighted troop of +zouaves and soldiers who did not wish to fight. The following day, that +Paris which the press had declared could not be invested, was surrounded +and cut off from France.</p> + +<p>This gross ignorance very soon alarmed the Revolutionists. They had +promised their support, but not blind faith. Since the 4th September, +wishing to centralise the forces of the party of action for the defence +and the maintenance of the Republic, they had invited the public +meetings in each arrondissement to name a Committee of Vigilance charged +to control the mayors and to delegate four members to a Central +Committee of the twenty arrondissements. This tumultuous mode of +election had resulted in a committee composed of working-men, employés, +authors, known in the revolutionary movements of the last years. This +committee had established itself in the hall of the Rue de la Corderie, +lent by the International and the Federation of the syndicates.</p> + +<p>These had almost suspended their work, the service of the National Guard +absorbing all their activity. Some of their members again met in the +Committee of Vigilance and in the Central Committee, which caused the +latter to be erroneously attributed to the International. On the 4th it +demanded by a manifesto the election of the municipalities, the police +to be placed in their hands, the election and control of all the +magistrates, absolute freedom of the press, public meeting and +association, the expropriation of all articles of primary necessity, +their distribution by allowance, the arming of all citizens, the sending +of commissioners to rouse the provinces. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>But Paris was then infected +with a fit of confidence. The bourgeois journals denounced the committee +as Prussian. The names of some of the signers were, however, well known +in the meetings and to the press: Ranvier, Millière, Longuet, Vallès, +Lefrançais, Mallon, etc. Their placards were torn down.</p> + +<p>On the 20th, after Jules Favre's application to Bismarck, the Committee +held a large meeting in the Alcazar and sent a deputation to the +Hôtel-de-Ville to demand war <i>à outrance</i> and the early election of the +Commune of Paris. Jules Ferry gave his word of honour that the +government would not treat at any price, and announced the municipal +elections for the end of the month. Two days after a decree postponed +them indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Thus this Government, which in seventeen days had prepared nothing, +which had allowed itself to be blocked up without even a struggle, +refused the advice of Paris, and more than ever arrogated to itself the +right of directing the defence. Did it then possess the secret of +victory? Trochu had just said, "The resistance is a heroic madness;" +Picard, "We shall defend ourselves for honour's sake, but all hope is +chimerical;" the elegant Crémieux, "The Prussians will enter Paris like +a knife goes into butter;"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> the chief of Trochu's staff, "We cannot +defend ourselves; we have decided not to defend ourselves;"<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and, +instead of honestly warning Paris, saying, "Capitulate at once or +conduct the combat yourselves," these men, who declared defence +impossible, claimed its undivided direction.</p> + +<p>What then is their aim? To negotiate. Since the first defeats they have +no other. The reverses which exalted our fathers only made the Left more +cowardly than the Imperialist deputies. On the 7th of August Jules +Favre, Jules Simon, and Pelletan had said to Schneider, "We cannot hold +out; we must come to terms as soon as possible."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> All the following +days the left had only one plan of policy—to urge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>the Chamber to +possess itself of the government in order to negotiate, hoping to get +into office afterwards. Hardly established, these defenders sent M. +Thiers all over Europe to beg for peace, and Jules Favre to run after +Bismarck to ask his conditions,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>—a step that revealed to the +Prussian with what tremblers he had to deal.</p> + +<p>When all Paris cried to them, "Defend us; drive back the enemy," they +applauded, accepted, but said to themselves, "You shall capitulate." +There is no more crying treason in history. The asinine confidence of +the immense majority no more diminishes the crime than the foolishness +of the dupe excuses the cheater. Did the men of the 4th September, yes +or no, betray the mandate they received? "Yes," will be the verdict of +the future.</p> + +<p>A tacit mandate, it is true, but so clear, so formal, that all Paris +started at the news of the proceedings at Ferrières. If the Defenders +had gone a step farther, they would have been swept away. They were +obliged to adjourn, to give way to what they termed the "madness of the +siege," to simulate a defence. In point of fact, they did not abandon +their idea for an hour, esteeming themselves the only men in Paris who +had not lost their heads.</p> + +<p>"There shall be fighting since those Parisians will have it so, but only +with the view to soften Bismarck." On his return from the review, this +scene of hopeful enthusiasm manifested by 250,000 armed men is said to +have affected Trochu, who announced that it would perhaps be possible to +hold the ramparts.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Such was the maximum of his enthusiasm: to hold +out—not to open the gates. As to drilling or organising these 250,000 +men, uniting them with the 240,000 mobiles, soldiers and marines +gathered together in Paris, and with all these forces forming a powerful +scourge to drive the enemy back to the Rhine, of this he never dreamt. +His colleagues thought of it as little, and only discussed with him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>the +more or less cavilling they might venture upon with the Prussian +invader.</p> + +<p>He was all for mild proceedings. His devoutness forbade him to shed +useless blood. Since, according to all military manuals, the great town +was to fall, he would make that fall as little sanguinary as possible. +Besides, the return of M. Thiers, who might at any moment bring back the +treaty, was waited for. Leaving the enemy to establish himself +tranquilly round Paris, Trochu organised a few skirmishes for the +lookers-on. One single serious engagement took place on the 30th at +Chevilly, when, after a success, we retreated, abandoning a battery for +want of reinforcements and teams. Public opinion still hoaxed by the +same men that had cried, "A Berlin," believed in a success. The +Revolutionists only were not taken in. The capitulation of Toul and of +Strasbourg was to them a solemn warning. Flourens, chief of the 63d +battalion, but who was the real commander of Belleville, could no longer +restrain himself. With the head and heart of a child, an ardent +imagination, guided only by his own impulse, Flourens conducted his +battalions to the Hôtel-de-Ville, demanded the <i>levée en masse</i>, +sorties, municipal elections, and the putting the town on short rations. +Trochu, who, to amuse him, had given him the title of major of the +rampart, made an elaborate discourse; the twelve apostles argued with +him, and wound up by showing him out. As delegates came from all sides +to demand that Paris should have a voice in her own defence, should name +a council, her Commune, the Government declared on the 7th that their +dignity forbade them to concede these behests. This insolence caused the +movement of the 8th October. The committee of the twenty arrondissements +protested in an energetic placard. Seven or eight hundred persons cried +"Vive la Commune" under the windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville. But the +multitude had not yet lost faith. A great number of battalions hastened +to the rescue; the Government passed them in review. Jules Favre opened +the flood-gates of his rhetoric and declared the election impossible +because—unanswerable reason!—everybody ought to be at the ramparts.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>The majority greedily swallowed the bait. On the 16th Trochu having +written to his crony Etienne Arago, "I shall pursue the plan I have +traced for myself to the end," the loungers announced a victory, and +took up the burden of their August song on Bazaine, "Let him alone; he +has his plan." The agitators looked like Prussians, for Trochu, as a +good Jesuit, had not failed to speak of "a small number of men whose +culpable views serve the projects of the enemy." Then Paris allowed +herself during the whole month of October to be rocked asleep to the +sound of expeditions commencing with success and always terminated by +retreats. On the 13th we took Bagneux, and a spirited attack would have +repossessed us of Châtillon: Trochu had no reserves. On the 21st a march +on the Malmaison revealed the weakness of the investment and spread +panic even to Versailles. Instead of pressing forward, General Ducrot +engaged only six thousand men, and the enemy repulsed him, taking two +cannons. The Government transformed these repulses into successful +reconnoitres, and coined money out of the despatches of Gambetta, who, +sent to the provinces on the 8th, announced imaginary armies, and +intoxicated Paris with the account of the brilliant defence of +Châteaudun.</p> + +<p>The mayors encouraged this pleasant confidence. They sat at the +Hôtel-de-Ville with their adjuncts, and this Assembly of sixty-four +members could have seen clearly what the Defence was if they had had the +least courage. But it was composed of those Liberals and Republicans of +whom the Left is the last expression. They knocked at the door of the +Government now and then, timidly interrogated it, and received only +vague assurances, in which they did not believe,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> but made every +effort to make Paris believe.</p> + +<p>But at the Corderie, in the clubs, in the paper of Blanqui, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>in the +<i>Réveil</i> of Delescluze, in the <i>Combat</i> of Félix Pyat, the plan of the +men of the Hôtel-de-Ville is exposed. What mean these partial sorties +which are never sustained? Why is the National Guard hardly armed, +unorganized, withheld from every military action? Why is the casting of +cannon not proceeded with? Six weeks of idle talk and inactivity cannot +leave the least doubt as to the incapacity or ill-will of the +Government. This same thought occupies all minds. Let the sceptics make +room for those that believe in the Defence; let Paris regain possession +of herself; let the Commune of 1792 be revived to again save the city +and France. Every day this resolution sinks more deeply into virile +minds. On the 27th the <i>Combat</i>, which preached the Commune in +high-flown phraseology whose musical rhythm struck the masses more than +the nervous dialectics of Blanqui, hurls a terrific thunderbolt. +"Bazaine is about to surrender Metz, to treat for peace in the name of +Napoleon III.; his aide-de-camp is at Versailles." The Hôtel-de-Ville +immediately contradicted this news, "as infamous as it is false. The +glorious soldier Bazaine has not ceased harassing the besieging army +with brilliant sorties." The Government called down upon the journalist +"the chastisement of public opinion." At this appeal the drones of Paris +buzzed, burnt the journal, and would have torn the journalist to pieces +if he had not decamped. The next day the <i>Combat</i> declared that they had +the statement from Rochefort, to whom Flourens had communicated it. +Other complications followed. On the 20th a surprise made us masters of +Bourget, a village in the northeast of Paris, and on the 29th the +general staff announced this success as a triumph. The whole day it left +our soldiers without food, without reinforcements, under the fire of the +Prussians, who, returning on the 30th 15,000 strong, recovered the +village from its 1,600 defenders. On the 31st of October, Paris on +awaking received the news of three disasters: the loss of Bourget, the +capitulation of Metz, together with the whole army of the "glorious +Bazaine," and the arrival of M. Thiers for the purpose of negotiating an +armistice.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>The men of the 4th September believed they were saved, that their goal +was reached. They had placarded the armistice side by side with the +capitulation, "good and bad news,"<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> convinced that Paris, despairing +of victory, would accept peace with open arms. Paris started up as with +an electric shock, at the same time rousing Marseilles, Toulouse, and +Saint-Etienne. There was such spontaneity of indignation, that from +eleven o'clock, in pouring rain, the masses came to the Hôtel-de-Ville +crying "No armistice." Notwithstanding the resistance of the mobiles who +defended the entrance, they invaded the vestibule. Arago and his +adjuncts hastened thither, swore that the Government was exhausting +itself in efforts to save us. The first crowd retired; a second followed +hard upon. At twelve o'clock Trochu appeared at the foot of the +staircase, thinking to extricate himself by a harangue; cries of "Down +with Trochu" answered him. Jules Simon relieved him, and, confident in +his rhetoric, even went to the square in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville and +expatiated upon the comforts of the armistice. The people cried "No +armistice." He only succeeded in backing out by asking the crowd to name +six delegates to accompany him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Trochu, Jules +Favre, Jules Ferry, and Picard received them. Trochu in Ciceronic +periods demonstrated the uselessness of Bourget, and pretended that he +had only just learnt the capitulation of Metz. A voice cried, "You are a +liar." A deputation from the Committee of the twenty arrondissements and +of the Committees of Vigilance had entered the hall a little while +before. Others, wishing to pump Trochu, invited him to continue his +speech. He recommenced, when a shot was fired in the square, putting an +end to the monologue and scaring away the orator. Calm being +re-established, Jules Favre supplied the place of the general, and took +up the thread of his discourse.</p> + +<p>While these scenes were going on in the Salle du Trône, the mayors, so +long the accomplices of Trochu, were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>deliberating in the hall of the +municipal council. To quell the riot, they proposed the election of +municipalities, the formation of battalions of the National Guard, and +their joining them to the army. The scapegoat Etienne Aragot was sent to +offer this salve to the Government. At two o'clock an immense crowd +inundated the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, crying, "Down with Trochu! Vive +la Commune!" and carrying banners with the inscription "No armistice." +They had several times come into collision with the mobiles. The +delegates who entered the Hôtel-de-Ville brought no answer. About three +o'clock, the crowd, growing impatient, rushed forward, breaking through +the mobiles, and forcing Félix Pyat, come to the Hôtel-de-Ville as a +sight-seer, into the Salle des Maires. He exclaimed, struggled, +protested that this was against all rules. The mayors supported him as +well as they could, and announced that they had demanded the election of +the municipalities, and that the decree in that sense was about to be +signed. The multitude, still pushing forward, goes up to the Salle du +Trône, cutting short the oration of Jules Favre, who had rejoined his +colleagues in the Government-room.</p> + +<p>While the people were thundering at the door, the Defenders voted the +proposition of the mayors—but in principle—not fixing the date for the +elections,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>—another jesuitical trick. Towards four o'clock the mass +penetrated into the room. Rochefort in vain promised the municipal +elections. They asked for the Commune! One of the delegates of the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements, getting upon the table, +proclaimed the abolition of the Government. A Commission was charged to +proceed with the elections within forty-eight hours. The names of +Dorian, the only Minister who had taken the defence to heart, of Louis +Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, Victor Hugo, Raspail, Delescluze, Félix Pyat, +Blanqui and Millière were received with acclamation.</p> + +<p>Had this Commission seized on authority, cleared the Hôtel-de-Ville, +posted up a proclamation convoking the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>electors with the briefest +delay, the day's work would have been beneficially concluded. But Dorian +refused. Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Ledru-Rollin, Raspail, Félix Pyat +remained silent or turned tail altogether. Flourens had time to come up. +He broke in upon the assembly with his tirailleurs of Belleville, got +upon the table round which were gathered the members of the Government, +and instead of a Commune proposed a Committee of Public Safety. Some +applauded, others protested, declaring the question was not to +substitute one kind of dictatorship for another. Flourens got the upper +hand, read the names, his own first, then those of Blanqui, Delescluze, +Millière, Ranvier, Félix Pyat, and Mottu. Interminable discussions +followed, the disorder became terrible. The men of the 4th September +felt they were saved, and smiled as they looked at the conquerors who +allowed victory to slip through their fingers.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth all became involved in an inextricable imbroglio. Every room +had its government, its orators. The confusion was such that about eight +o'clock reactionary National Guards could, under Flourens' nose, pick up +Trochu and Jules Ferry, while others carried off Blanqui when some +franc-tireurs tried to rescue him. In the cabinet of the mayor, Etienne +Arago and his adjuncts convoked the electors for the next day under the +presidency of Dorian and Schœlcher. Towards ten o'clock their placard +was posted up in Paris.</p> + +<p>The whole day Paris had looked on. "On the morning of the 31st October," +says Jules Ferry, "the Parisian population, from highest to lowest, was +absolutely hostile to us.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Everybody thought we deserved to be +dismissed." Not only did Trochu's battalions not stir, but one of the +best, led to the succour of the Government by General Tamisier, +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, raised the butt end of their +guns on arriving at the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. In the evening +everything changed when it became known that the members of the +Government were prisoners, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>above all who were their substitutes. +The measure seemed too strong. Such a one, who might have accepted +Ledru-Rollin or Victor Hugo, could not make up his mind to Flourens and +Blanqui.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> In vain the whole day drums had been beating to arms; in +the evening they proved effective. Battalions refractory in the morning +arrived at the Place Vendôme, most of them believing, it is true, that +the elections had been granted; an assemblage of officers at the Bourse +only consented to wait for the regular vote on the strength of Dorian +and Schœlcher's placard. Trochu and the deserters from the +Hôtel-de-Ville again found their faithful flock. The Hôtel-de-Ville, on +the other hand, was getting empty.</p> + +<p>Most of the battalions of the Commune, believing their cause victorious, +had returned to their quarters. In the edifice there remained hardly a +thousand unarmed men, the only troops being Flourens' unmanageable +tirailleurs, while he wandered up and down amidst this mob. Blanqui +signed and again signed. Delescluze tried to save some remnants from +this great movement. He saw Dorian, received the formal assurance that +the elections of the Commune would take place the next day, those of the +Provisional Government the day after; put these assurances upon record +in a note where the insurrectional committee declared itself willing to +wait for the elections, and had it signed by Millière, Flourens and +Blanqui. Millière and Dorian went to communicate this document to the +members of the Defence. Millière proposed to them to leave the +Hôtel-de-Ville together, while charging Dorian and Schœlcher to +proceed with the elections, but on the express condition that no +prosecutions were to take place. The members of the Defence +accepted,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and Millière was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>just saying to them, "Gentlemen, you are +free," when the National Guards asked for written engagements. The +prisoners became indignant that their word should be doubted, while +Millière and Flourens could not make the Guards understand that +signatures are illusory. During this mortal anarchy the battalions of +order grew larger, and Jules Ferry attacked the door opening on to the +Place Lobau. Delescluze and Dorian informed him of the arrangement which +they believed concluded, and induced him to wait. At three o'clock in +the morning chaos still reigned supreme. Trochu's drums were beating on +the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. A battalion of Breton mobiles debouched +in the midst of the Hôtel-de-Ville through the subterranean passage of +the Napoleon Barracks, surprised and disarmed many of the tirailleurs. +Jules Ferry invaded the Government-room. The indisciplinable mass +offered no resistance. Jules Favre and his colleagues were set free. As +the Bretons became menacing, General Tamisier reminded them of the +convention entered upon during the evening, and, as a pledge of mutual +oblivion, left the Hôtel-de-Ville between Blanqui and Flourens. Trochu +paraded the streets amidst the pompous pageantry of his battalions.</p> + +<p>Thus this day, which might have buoyed up the Defence, ended in smoke. +The desultoriness, the indiscipline of the patriots restored to the +Government its immaculate character of September. It took advantage of +it that very night to tear down the placards of Dorian and Schœlcher; +it accorded the municipal elections for the 5th, but in exchange +demanded a plebiscite, putting the question in the Imperialist style, +"Those who wish to maintain the Government will vote <i>aye</i>." In vain the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a manifesto; in vain the +<i>Réveil</i>, the <i>Patrie en Danger</i>, the <i>Combat</i>, enumerated the hundred +reasons which made it necessary to answer <i>No</i>. Six months after the +plebiscite which had made the war, the immense majority of Paris voted +the plebiscite that made the capitulation. Let Paris remember and accuse +herself. For fear of two or three men she opened fresh credit to this +Government which added <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>incapacity to insolence, and said to it, "I want +you," 322,000 times. The army, the mobiles, gave 237,000 ayes. There +were but 54,000 civilians and 9,000 soldiers to say boldly, <i>no</i>.</p> + +<p>How did it happen that those 60,000 men, so clear-sighted, prompt, and +energetic, could not manage to direct public opinion? Simply because +they were wanting in <i>cadres</i>, in method, in organizers. The fever of +the siege had been unable to discipline the revolutionary party, in such +dire confusion a few weeks before, nor had the patriarchs of 1848 tried +to do so. The Jacobins like Delescluze and Blanqui, instead of leading +the people, lived in an exclusive circle of friends. Félix Pyat, +vibrating between just ideas and literary epilepsy, only became +practical<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> when he had to save his own skin. The others, +Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Schœlcher, the hope of the Republicans +under the Empire, returned from exile shallow, pursy, rotten to the core +with vanity and selfishness, without courage or patriotism, disdaining +the Socialists. The dandies of Jacobinism, who called themselves +Radicals, Floquet, Clémenceau, Brinon, and other democratic politicians, +carefully kept aloof from the working-men. The old Montagnards +themselves formed a group of their own, and never came to the Committee +of the twenty arrondissements, which only wanted method and political +experience to become a power. So it was only a centre of emotions, not +of direction,—the Gravilliers section of 1870-71, daring, eloquent, +but, like its predecessor, treating of everything by manifestoes.</p> + +<p>There at least was life, a lamp, not always bright, but always burning. +What is the small middle-class contributing now? Where are their +Jacobins, even their Cordeliers? At the Corderie I see the proletariat +of the small middle-class, men of the pen and orators, but where is the +bulk of the army?</p> + +<p>All is silent. Save the faubourgs, Paris was a vast sick <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>chamber, where +no one dared to speak above his breath. This moral abdication is the +true psychological phenomenon of the siege, all the more extraordinary +that it co-existed with an admirable ardour for resistance. Men who +speak of going to seek death with their wives and children, who say, "We +will burn our houses rather than surrender them to the enemy,"<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> get +angry at any controversy as to the power intrusted to the men of the +Hôtel-de-Ville. If they dread the giddy-headed, the fanatics, or +compromising collaborators, why do they not take the direction of the +movement into their own hands? But they confine themselves to crying, +"No insurrection before the enemy! No fanatics!" as though capitulation +were better than an insurrection; as though the 10th of August 1792 and +31st May 1793 had not been insurrections before the enemy; as though +there were no medium between abdication and delirium. And you, citizens +of the old sections of 1792-93, who furnished ideas to the Convention +and the Commune, who dictated to them the means of safety, who directed +the clubs and fraternal societies, entertained in Paris a hundred +luminous centres, say, do you recognise your offspring in these gulls, +weaklings, jealous of the people, prostrate before the Left like +devotees before the host?</p> + +<p>On the 5th and 7th they renewed their plebiscitory vote, naming twelve +of the twenty mayors named by Arago, four amongst them, Dubail, +Vautrain, Tirard, and Desmarets, belonging to the pure reaction. The +greater part of the adjuncts were of the Liberal type. The faubourgs, +always at their post, elected Delescluze in the nineteenth +arrondissement and Ranvier, Millière, Lefrançais, and Flourens in the +twentieth. These latter could not take their seats. The Government, +violating the convention of Dorian and Tamisier, had issued warrants for +their arrest, and for that of about twenty other revolutionists.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +Thus, out of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>seventy-five effective members, mayors and adjuncts, there +were not ten revolutionists.</p> + +<p>These shadows of municipal councillors looked upon themselves as the +stewards of the Defence, forbade themselves any indiscreet question, +were on their best behaviour, feeding and administering Trochu's +patient. They allowed the insolent and incapable Ferry to be appointed +to the central mairie, and Clément-Thomas, the executioner of June 1848, +to be made commander-in-chief of the National Guard. For seventy days, +feeling the pulse of Paris growing from hour to hour more weak, they +never had the honesty, the courage to say to the Government, "Where are +you leading us?"</p> + +<p>Nothing was lost in the beginning of November. The army, the mobiles, +the marines numbered, according to the plebiscite, 246,000 men and 7,500 +officers: 125,000 National Guards capable of serving a campaign might +easily have been picked out in Paris, and 129,000 left for the defence +of the interior.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The necessary armaments might have been furnished +in a few weeks, the cannon especially, every one depriving himself of +bread in order to endow his battalion with five pieces, the traditional +pride of the Parisians. "Where find 9,000 artillerists?" said Trochu. +Why, in every Parisian mechanic there is the stuff of a gunner, as the +Commune has sufficiently proved. In everything else there was the same +superabundance. Paris swarmed with engineers, overseers, foremen, who +might have been drilled into officers. There lying wasted were all the +materials for a victorious army.</p> + +<p>The gouty martinets of the regular army saw here nothing but barbarism. +This Paris, for which Hoche, Marceau, Kleber would have been neither too +young, nor too faithful, nor too pure, had for generals the residue of +the Empire and Orleanism, Vinoy of December, Ducrot, Luzanne, Leflô, and +a fossil like Chabaud-Latour. In their pleasant intimacy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>they made much +fun of the defence.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Finding, however, that the joke was lasting a +little too long, the 31st October enraged them. They conceived an +implacable, rabid hatred to the National Guard, and up to the last hour +refused to utilise it.</p> + +<p>Instead of amalgamating the forces of Paris, of giving to all the same +<i>cadres</i>, the same uniforms, the same flag, the proud name of National +Guard, Trochu had maintained the three divisions: the army, mobiles, and +civilians. This was the natural consequence of his opinion of the +Defence. The army, incited by the staff, shared its hatred of Paris, who +imposed on it, it was said, useless fatigues. The mobiles of the +provinces, prompted by their officers, the cream of the country squires, +became also embittered. All, seeing the National Guard despised, +despised it, calling them, "<i>Les à outrance! Les trente sous!</i>" (Since +the siege the Parisians received thirty sous—1s. 2½d.—as +indemnity.) Collisions were to be feared every day.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>The 31st of October changed nothing in the real state of affairs. The +Government broke off the negotiations, which, notwithstanding their +victory, they could not have pursued without foundering, decreed the +creation of marching companies in the National Guard, and accelerated +the cannon-founding, but did not believe a whit the more in defence, +still steered towards peace. Riots formed the chief subject of their +preoccupation.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> It was not only from the "folly of the siege" that +they wished to save Paris, but above all from the revolutionists. In +this direction they were pushed on by the great bourgeoisie. Before the +4th September the latter had declared they "would not fight if the +working-class were armed, and if it had any chance of prevailing;"<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +and on the evening of the 4th September Jules Favre and Jules Simon had +gone to the Corps Législatif to reassure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>them, to explain to them that +the new tenants would not damage the house. But the irresistible force +of events had provided the proletariat with arms, and to make them +inefficient in their hands became now the supreme aim of the +bourgeoisie. For two months they had been biding their time, and the +plebiscite told them it had come. Trochu held Paris, and by the clergy +they held Trochu, all the closer that he believed himself to be amenable +only to his conscience. Strange conscience, full of trap-doors, with +more complications than those of a theatre. Since the 4th of September +the General had made it his duty to deceive Paris, saying, "I shall +surrender thee, but it is for thy good." After the 31st October he +believed his mission two-fold—saw in himself the archangel, the St. +Michael of threatened society. This marks the second period of the +defence. It may perhaps be traced to a cabinet in the Rue des Postes, +for the chiefs of the clergy saw more clearly than any one else the +danger of inuring the working-men to war. Their intrigues were full of +cunning. Violent reactionists would have spoilt all, precipitated Paris +into a revolution. They applied subtle tricks in their subterranean +work, watching Trochu's every movement, whetting his antipathy to the +National Guard, penetrating everywhere into the general staff, the +ambulances, even the mairies. Like the fisherman struggling with too big +a prey, they bewildered Paris, now apparently allowing her to swim in +her own element, than suddenly weakening her by the harpoon. On the 28th +November Trochu gave a first performance to a full-band accompaniment. +General Ducrot, who commanded, presented himself like a Leonidas: "I +take the oath before you, before the whole nation. I shall return to +Paris dead or victorious. You may see me fall; you will never see me +retreat." This proclamation exalted Paris. She fancied herself on the +eve of Jemmappes, when the Parisian volunteers scaled the +artillery-defended heights; for this time the National Guard was to take +part in the proceedings.</p> + +<p>We were to force an opening by the Marne in order to join the mythic +armies of the provinces, and cross the river <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>at Nogent. Ducrot's +engineer had taken his measures badly; the bridges were not in a fit +state. It was necessary to wait till the next day. The enemy, instead of +being surprised, was able to put himself on the defensive. On the 30th a +spirited assault made us masters of Champigny. The next day Ducrot +remained inactive, while the enemy, disgarnishing Versailles, +accumulated its forces upon Champigny. On the 2nd they recovered part of +the village. The whole day we fought severely. The former deputies of +the Left were represented on the field of battle by a letter to their +"very dear president." That evening we camped in our positions, but half +frozen, the "dear president" having ordered the blankets to be left in +Paris, and we had set out—a proof that the whole thing had been done in +mockery—without tents or ambulances. The following day Ducrot declared +we must retreat, and, "before Paris, before the whole nation," this +dishonoured braggart sounded the retreat. We had 8,000 dead or wounded +out of the 100,000 men who had been sent out, and of the 50,000 engaged.</p> + +<p>For twenty days Trochu rested on his laurels. Clément-Thomas took +advantage of this leisure time to disband and stigmatise the tirailleurs +of Belleville, who had, however, had many dead and wounded in their +ranks. On the mere report of the commanding general at Vincennes, he +also stigmatised the 200th battalion. Flourens was arrested. On the 20th +of December these rabid purgers of our own ranks consented to take a +little notice of the Prussians. The mobiles of the Seine were launched +without cannons against the walls of Stains and to the attack of +Bourget. The enemy received them with a crushing artillery. An advantage +obtained on the right of the Ville-Evrard was not followed up. The +soldiers returned in the greatest consternation, some of them crying, +"Vive la paix!" Each new enterprise betrayed Trochu's plan, enervated +the troops, but had no effect on the courage of the National Guards +engaged. During two days on the plateau D'Ouron they sustained the fire +of sixty pieces. When there was a goodly number of dead, Trochu +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>discovered that the position was of no importance, and evacuated.</p> + +<p>These repeated foils began to wear out the credulity of Paris. From hour +to hour the sting of hunger was increasing, and horse-flesh had become a +delicacy. Dogs, cats, and rats were eagerly devoured. The women waited +for hours in the cold and mud for a starvation allowance. For bread they +got black grout, that tortured the stomach. Children died on their +mothers' empty breasts. Wood was worth its weight in gold, and the poor +had only to warm them the despatches of Gambetta, always announcing +fantastic successes.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> At the end of December their privations began +to open the eyes of the people. Were they to give in, their arms intact?</p> + +<p>The mayors did not stir. Jules Favre gave them little weekly receptions, +where they gossiped about the cuisine of the siege.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Only one did his +duty—Delescluze. He had acquired great authority by his articles in the +<i>Réveil</i>, as free of partiality as they were severe. On the 30th +December he interpellated Jules Favre, said to his colleagues, "You are +responsible," demanded that the municipal council should be joined to +the Defence. His colleagues protested, more especially Dubail and +Vacherot. He returned to the charge on the 4th of January, laid down a +radical motion—the dismissal of Trochu and of Clément-Thomas, the +mobilisation of the National Guard, the institution of a council of +defence, the renewal of the Committee of War. No more attention was paid +him than before.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>The Committee of the twenty arrondissements supported Delescluze in +issuing a red placard on the 6th: "Has the Government which charged +itself with the national defence fulfilled its mission? No. By their +procrastination, their indecision, their inertion, those who govern us +have led us to the brink of the abyss. They have known neither how to +administer nor how to fight. We die of cold, almost of hunger. Sorties +without object, deadly struggles without results, repeated failures. The +Government has given the measure of its capacity; it is killing us. The +perpetuation of this régime means capitulation. The politics, the +strategies, the administration of the Empire continued by the men of the +4th September have been judged. Make way for the people! Make way for +the Commune!"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> This was outspoken and true. However incapable of +action the Committee may have been, its ideas were just and precise, and +to the end of the siege it remained the indefatigable, sagacious monitor +of Paris.</p> + +<p>The multitude who wanted illustrious names, paid no attention to these +placards. Some of those who had signed it were arrested. Trochu, +however, felt himself attainted, and the very same evening had posted on +all the walls, "The governor of Paris will never capitulate." And Paris +again applauded, four months after the 4th September. It was even +wondered at that, in spite of Trochu's declaration, Delescluze and his +adjuncts should tender their resignations.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, without obstinately shutting one's eyes it was impossible +not to see the precipice to which the Government was hurrying us on. The +Prussians bombarded our houses from the forts of Issy and of Vanves, and +on the 30th December, Trochu, having declared all further action +impossible, invoked the opinion of all his generals, and wound up by +proposing that he should be replaced. On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th January +the Defenders discussed the election of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Assembly which was to follow +the catastrophe.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> But for the irritation of the patriots, Paris would +have capitulated before the 15th.</p> + +<p>The faubourgs no longer called the men of the Government other than "the +band of Judas." The great democratic lamas, who had withdrawn after the +31st October, returned to the Commune, thus proving their own +helplessness and the common sense of the people. The Republican +Alliance, where Ledru-Rollin officiated before half-a-dozen +incense-bearers, the Republican Union, and other bourgeois chapels, went +so far as to very energetically demand a Parisian Assembly to organise +the defence. The Government felt it had no time to lose. If the +bourgeoisie joined the people, it would become impossible to capitulate +without a formidable <i>émeute</i>. The population which cheered under the +shells would not allow itself to be given up like a flock of sheep. It +was necessary to mortify it first, to cure it of its "infatuation," as +Jules Ferry said, to purge it of its fever. "The National Guard will +only be satisfied when 10,000 National Guards have fallen," they said at +the Government table. Urged on by Jules Favre and Picard on the one +hand, and on the other by the simple-minded Emmanuel Arago, +Garnier-Pages, and Pelletan, the quack Trochu consented to give a last +performance.</p> + +<p>It was gotten up as a farce<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> at the same time as the +capitulation.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> On the 19th the Council of Defence stated that a new +defeat would be the signal of the catastrophe. Trochu was willing to +accept the mayors as coadjutors on the question of capitulation and +revictualling. Jules Simon and Garnier-Pages were willing to surrender +Paris, and only make some reserve with regard to France. Garnier-Pages +proposed to name by special elections mandatories charged to capitulate. +Such was their vigil before the battle.</p> + +<p>On the 18th the din of trumpets and drums called Paris to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>arms and put +the Prussians on the alert. For this supreme effort Trochu had been able +to muster only 84,000 men, of whom nineteen regiments belonged to the +National Guard. He made them pass the night, which was cold and rainy, +in the mud of the fields of Mont-Valérien.</p> + +<p>The attack was directed against the defences that covered Versailles +from the side of La Bergerie. At ten o'clock, with the impulse of old +troops,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> the National Guards and the mobiles, who formed the majority +of the left wing and centre,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> had stormed the redoubt of Montretout, +the park of Buzenval, a part of St. Cloud, pushing forward as far as +Garches, occupying, in one word, all the posts designated. General +Ducrot, commanding the left wing, had arrived two hours behind time, and +though his army consisted chiefly of troops of the line, he did not +advance.</p> + +<p>We had conquered several commanding heights which the generals did not +arm. The Prussians were allowed to sweep these crests at their ease, and +at four o'clock sent forth assault columns. Ours gave way at first, +then, steadying themselves, checked the onward movement of the enemy. +Towards six o'clock, when the hostile fire diminished, Trochu ordered a +retreat. Yet there were 40,000 reserves between Mont-Valérien and +Buzenval. Out of 150 artillery pieces, thirty only had been employed. +But the generals, who during the whole day had hardly deigned to +communicate with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>National Guard, declared they could not hold out a +second night, and Trochu had Montretout and all the conquered positions +evacuated. Battalions returned weeping with rage. All understood that +the whole affair was a cruel mockery.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>Paris, which had gone to sleep victorious, awoke to the sound of +Trochu's alarm-bell. The General asked for an armistice of two days to +carry off the wounded and bury the dead. He said, "We want time, carts, +and many litters." The dead and wounded did not exceed 3000 men.</p> + +<p>This time Paris at last saw the abyss. Besides, the Defenders, +disdaining all further disguise, suddenly dropped the mask. Jules Favre +and Trochu summoned the mayors. Trochu declared that all was lost and +any further struggle impossible.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> The sinister news immediately +spread over the town.</p> + +<p>During four months' siege, patriotic Paris had foreseen, accepted all; +pestilence, assault, pillage, everything save capitulation. On this +point the 20th of January found Paris, notwithstanding her credulity, +her weakness, the same Paris as on the 20th September. Thus, when the +fatal word was uttered, the city seemed at first wonder-struck, as at +the sight of some crime monstrous, unnatural. The wounds of four months +opened again, crying for vengeance. Cold, starvation, bombardment, the +long nights in the trenches, the little children dying by thousands, +death scattered abroad in the sorties, and all to end in shame, to form +an escort for Bazaine, to become a second Metz. One fancied one could +hear the Prussian sneering. With some, stupor turned into rage. Those +who were longing for the surrender threw themselves into attitudes. The +white-livered mayors even affected to fly into a passion. On the evening +of the 21st they were again <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>received by Trochu. That same morning all +the generals had unanimously decided that another sortie was impossible. +Trochu very philosophically demonstrated to the mayors the absolute +necessity of making advances to the enemy, but declared he would have +nothing to do with it, insinuating that they should capitulate in his +stead. They cut wry faces, protested, still imagining they were not +responsible for this issue.</p> + +<p>After their departure the Defenders deliberated. Jules Favre asked +Trochu to tender his resignation. But he, the apostle, insisted upon +being dismissed by them, fancying thus to cheat history into the belief +that he had to the last resisted capitulation.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> The discussion was +growing warm when, at three o'clock in the morning, they were informed +of the rescue of Flourens and other political prisoners confined at +Mazas. A body of National Guards headed by an adjunct from the +eighteenth arrondissement had presented themselves an hour before in +front of the prison. The bewildered governor had let them have their +way. The Defenders, fearing a repetition of the 31st October, hurried on +their resolution replacing Trochu by Vinoy.</p> + +<p>He wanted to be implored. Jules Favre and Leflô had to show him the +people in arms, an insurrection imminent. At that very moment, the +morning of the 22nd, the prefect of police, declaring himself powerless, +had sent in his resignation. The men of the 4th September had fallen so +low as to bend their knees before those of the 2nd December. Vinoy +condescended to yield.</p> + +<p>His first act was to arm against Paris, to dismantle her lines before +the Prussians, to recall the troops of Suresne, Gentilly, Les Lilas, to +call out the cavalry and gendarmerie. A battalion of mobiles commanded +by Vabre, a colonel of the National Guard, fortified itself in the +Hôtel-de-Ville. Clément-Thomas issued a furious proclamation: "The +factions are joining the enemy." He adjured the "<i>entire</i> National +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Guard to rise in order to smite them." He had not called upon it to rise +against the Prussians.</p> + +<p>There were signs of anger afloat, but no symptoms of a serious +collision. Many revolutionists, well aware that all was at an end, would +not support a movement which, if successful, would have saved the men of +the Defence and forced the victors to capitulate in their stead. Others, +whose patriotism was not enlightened by reason, still warm from the +ardour of Buzenval, believed in a <i>sortie en masse</i>. We must at least, +said they, save our honor. The evening before, some meetings had voted +that an armed opposition should be offered to any attempt at +capitulation, and had given themselves a rendezvous before the +Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>At twelve o'clock the drums beat to arms at the Batignolles. At one +o'clock several armed groups appeared in the square of the +Hôtel-de-Ville; the crowd was gathering. A deputation, led by a member +of the Alliance, was received by G. Chaudey, adjunct to the mayor, for +the Government was seated at the Louvre since the 31st October. The +orator said the wrongs of Paris necessitated the nomination of the +Commune. Chaudey answered that the Commune was nonsense; that he always +had, and always would oppose it. Another and more eager deputation +arrived. Chaudey received it with insults. Meanwhile the excitement was +spreading to the crowd that filled the square. The 101st battalion +arrived from the left bank crying "Death to the traitors!" when the +207th of the Batignolles, who had marched down the boulevards, debouched +on the square through the Rue du Temple and drew up before the +Hôtel-de-Ville, whose doors and windows were closed. Others joined them. +Some shots were fired, the windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville were clouded +with smoke, and the crowd dispersed with a cry of terror. Sheltered by +lamp-posts and some heaps of sand, some National Guards sustained the +fire of the mobiles. Others fired from the houses in the Avenue +Victoria. The fusillade had been going on for half an hour when the +gendarmes appeared at the corner of the Avenue. The insurgents, almost +surrounded, made a retreat. About a dozen were arrested and taken to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>where Vinoy wanted to despatch them at once. Jules +Ferry recoiled, and had them sent before the regular court-martials. +Those who had got up the demonstration and the inoffensive crowd of +spectators had thirty killed or wounded, among others a man of great +energy, Commandant Sapia. The Hôtel-de-Ville had only one killed and two +wounded.</p> + +<p>The same evening the government closed all the clubs and issued numerous +warrants. Eighty-three persons, most of them innocent,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> were +arrested. This occasion was also taken advantage of to send Delescluze, +notwithstanding his sixty-five years, and an acute bronchitis which was +undermining his health, to rejoin the prisoners of the 31st October, +thrown pell-mell into a damp dungeon at Vincennes. The <i>Réveil</i> and the +<i>Combat</i> were suppressed.</p> + +<p>An indignant proclamation denounced the insurgents as "the partisans of +the foreigners," the only resource left the men of the 4th September in +this shameful crisis. In this only they were Jacobins. Who served the +enemy? The Government ever ready to negotiate, or the men ever offering +a desperate resistance? History will tell how at Metz an immense army, +with <i>cadres</i>, well-trained soldiers, allowed itself to be given over +without a single marshal, <i>chef-de-corps</i>, or a regiment rising to save +it from Bazaine;<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> whereas the revolutionists of Paris, without +leaders, without organization, before 240,000 soldiers and mobiles +gained over to peace, delayed the capitulation for months and revenged +it with their blood.</p> + +<p>The simulated indignation of traitors raised only a feeling of disgust. +Their very name, "Government of Defence," cried out against them. On the +very day of the affray they played their last farce. Jules Simon having +assembled the mayors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>and a dozen superior officers,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> offered the +supreme command to the military man who could propose a plan. This +Paris, which they had received exuberant with life, the men of the 4th +September, now that they had exhausted and bled her, proposed to abandon +to others. Not one of those present resented the infamous irony. They +confined themselves to refusing this hopeless legacy. This was exactly +the thing Jules Simon waited for. Some one muttered, "We must +capitulate." It was General Lecomte. The mayors understood why they had +been convoked, and a few of them squeezed out a tear.</p> + +<p>From this time forth Paris existed like the patient who is expecting +amputation. The forts still thundered, the dead and the wounded were +still brought in, but Jules Favre was known to be at Versailles. On the +27th at midnight the cannon were silenced. Bismarck and Jules Favre had +come to an <i>honourable</i> understanding.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Paris had surrendered.</p> + +<p>The next day the Government of the Defence published the basis of the +negotiations—a fortnight's armistice, the immediate convocation of an +Assembly, the occupation of the forts, the disarmament of all the +soldiers and mobiles with the exception of one division. The town +remained gloomy. These days of anguish had stunned Paris. Only a few +demonstrations were made. A battalion of the National Guard came before +the Hôtel-de-Ville crying "Down with the traitors!" In the evening, 400 +officers signed a pact of resistance, naming as their chief Brunel, an +ex-officer expelled from the army under the Empire for his republican +opinions, and resolved to march on the forts of the east, commanded by +Admiral Saisset, whom the press credited with the reputation of a +Beaurepaire. At midnight the call to arms and the alarm bell summoned +the tenth, thirteenth, and twentieth arrondissements. But the night was +icy cold, the National Guard too enervated for an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>act of despair. Two +or three battalions only came to the rendezvous. Brunel was arrested two +days after.</p> + +<p>On the 29th January the German flag was hoisted on our forts. All had +been signed the evening before. 400,000 men armed with muskets and +cannons capitulated before 200,000. The forts, the enceinte were +disarmed. Paris was to pay 200,000,000 francs in a fortnight. The +Government boasted of having preserved the arms of the National Guard, +but every one knew that to take these it would have been necessary to +storm Paris. In fine, not content with surrendering Paris, the +Government of the National Defence surrendered all France. The armistice +applied to all the armies of the provinces save Bourbaki's, the only one +that would have profited by it.</p> + +<p>On the following days there arrived some news from the provinces. It was +known that Bourbaki, pressed by the Prussians, had, after a comedy of +suicide, thrown his whole army into Switzerland. The aspect and the +weakness of the Delegation of the Defence in the provinces had just +begun to reveal themselves, when the <i>Mot d'Ordre</i>, founded by +Rochefort, who had abandoned the Government after the 31st October, +published a proclamation by Gambetta, stigmatizing a shameful peace, and +a whole litany of Radical decrees: ineligibility of all the great +functionaries and official deputies of the Empire; dissolution of the +<i>conseils-généraux</i>, revocation of some of the judges<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> who had formed +part of the mixed commission of the 2nd December. It was ignored that +during the whole war the Delegation had acted in contradiction to its +last decrees, which, coming from a fallen power, were a mere electoral +trick, and Gambetta's name was placed on most of the electoral lists.</p> + +<p>Some bourgeois papers supported Jules Favre and Picard, who had been +clever enough to make themselves looked upon as the out-and-outers of +the Government; none dared to go so far as to support Trochu, Simon and +Ferry. The variety of electoral lists set forth by the republican party +explained its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>impotence during the siege. The men of 1848 refused to +accept Blanqui, but admitted several members of the International in +order to usurp its name, and their list, a medley of Neo-Jacobins and +Socialists, entitled itself "the list of the Four Committees." The clubs +and the workingmen's groups drew up lists of a more outspoken character; +one bore the name of the German Socialist deputy, Liebknecht. The most +decided one was that of the Corderie.</p> + +<p>The International and the Federal Chamber of the workingmen's societies, +mute and disorganized during the siege, again taking up their programme, +said, "We must also have workingmen amongst those in power." They came +to an arrangement with the Committee of the twenty arrondissements, and +the three groups issued the same manifesto. "This," said they, "is the +list of the candidates presented in the name of a new world by the party +of the disinherited. France is about to reconstitute herself; workingmen +have the right to find and take their place in the new order of things. +The Socialist-revolutionary candidatures signify the denial of the right +to discuss the existence of the Republic; affirmation of the necessity +for the accession of workingmen to political power; overthrow of the +oligarchical Government and of industrial feudalism." Besides a few +names familiar to the public, Blanqui, Gambon, Garibaldi, Félix Pyat, +Ranvier, Tridon, Longuet, Lefrançais, Vallès, these Socialist candidates +were known only in the workingmen's centers—mechanics, shoemakers, +ironfounders, tailors, carpenters, cooks, cabinetmakers, carvers.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> +Their placards were but few in number. These disinherited could not +compete with bourgeois enterprise. Their day was to come a few weeks +later, when two-thirds of them were to be elected to the Commune. Now +those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>only received a mandate who were accepted by the middle-class +papers, five in all: Garibaldi, Gambon, Félix Pyat, Tolain, and Malon.</p> + +<p>The list of representatives of the 8th February was a harlequinade, +including every republican shade and every political crotchet. Louis +Blanc, who had played the part of a goody during the siege, and who was +supported by all the committees except that of the Corderie, headed the +procession with 216,000 votes, followed by Victor Hugo, Gambetta, and +Garibaldi; Delescluze obtained 154,000 votes. Then came a motley crowd +of Jacobin fossils, radicals, officers, mayors, journalists, and +inventors. One single member of the Government slipped in, Jules Favre, +although his private life had been exposed by Millière, who was also +elected.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> By a cruel injustice, the vigilant sentinel, the only +journalist who during the siege had always shown sagacity, Blanqui, +found only 52,000 votes, about the number of those who opposed the +plebiscite, while Félix Pyat received 145,000 for his piping in the +<i>Combat</i>.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>This confused incongruous ballot affirmed at least the republican idea. +Paris, trampled upon by the Empire and the Liberals, clung to the +Republic, who gave her promise for the future. But even before her vote +has been proclaimed she heard coming forth from the provincial ballot +boxes a savage cry of reaction. Before a single one of her +representatives had left the town, she saw on the way to Bordeaux a +troop of rustics, of <i>Pourceaugnacs</i>, of sombre clericals, spectres of +1815, 1830, 1848, high and low reactionists, who, mumbling and furious, +came by the grace of universal suffrage to take possession of France. +What signified this sinister masquerade? How had this subterranean +vegetation contrived to pierce and overgrow the summit of the country?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>It was necessary that Paris and the provinces should be crushed, that +the Prussian Shylock should drain our milliards and cut his pound of +flesh, that the state of siege should for four years weigh down upon +forty-two departments, that 100,000 Frenchmen should be cut off from +life or banished from their native soil, that the black brotherhood +should conduct their processions all over France, to bring about this +great conservative machination, which from the first hour to the last +explosion, the revolutionists of Paris and of the provinces had not +ceased to denounce to our treacherous or sluggish governors.</p> + +<p>In the provinces the field and the tactics were not the same. The +conspiracy, instead of being carried on within the Government, +circumvented it. During the whole month of September the reactionists +hid in their lurking-places. The Government of National Defence had only +forgotten one element of defence—the provinces, seventy-six +departments. Yet they were agitating, showed life; they alone held in +check the reaction. Lyons had even understood her duty earlier than +Paris; in the morning of the 4th September she proclaimed the Republic, +hoisted the red flag, named a Committee of Public Safety.—Marseilles +and Toulouse organized regional commissions.—The Defenders understood +nothing of this patriotic zeal, thought France disjointed, and delegated +to put it right again two Liberal relics very much tainted, Crémieux and +Glais-Bizoin, together with a former governor of Cayenne, the +Bonapartist Admiral Fourichon.</p> + +<p>They reached Tours on the 18th. The patriots hastened thither to meet +them. In the west and south, they had already organized Leagues to +marshal the departments against the enemy and supply the want of a +central impulse. They surrounded the delegates of Paris, asking them for +a <i>mot-d'ordre</i>, vigorous measures, the sending of commissioners, and +promised their absolute co-operation. The putridities answered, "We are +<i>entre nous</i>, let us speak frankly. Well, then, we have no longer any +army; all resistance is impossible. We only hold out for the sake of +making better conditions." We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>ourselves witnessed the scene.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> There +was but one cry of indignation: "What! is this your answer when +thousands of Frenchmen come to offer you their lives and fortunes?"</p> + +<p>On the 28th, the Lyonese broke out. Hardly four departments separated +them from the enemy, who might at any moment come to levy a contribution +on their city, and since the 4th September they had in vain demanded +arms. The municipality, elected on the 16th in place of the Committee of +Public Safety, passed its time in squabbling with the Prefect, +Challemel-Lacour, an arrogant Neo-Jacobin. On the 27th, instead of any +serious measures of defence, the council had reduced by fivepence the +pay of the workingmen employed in the fortifications, and appointed +Cluseret general <i>in partibus</i> of an army to be created.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> + +<p>The Republican committees of Les Brotteaux, of La Guillotière, of La +Croix-Rousse,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> and the Central Committee of the National Guard +decided to urge on the Hôtel-de-Ville, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>laid before it on the 28th +an energetic programme of defence. The workingmen of the fortifications, +led by Saigne, supported this step by a demonstration. They filled the +Place des Terreaux, and what with speeches, what with the excitement, +invaded the Hôtel-de-Ville. Saigne proposed the nomination of a +revolutionary commission, and perceiving Cluseret, named him commander +of the National Guard. Cluseret, much concerned for his future, only +appeared on the balcony to propound his plan and recommend calm. +However, the commission being constituted, he no longer dared to resist, +but set out in search of his troops. At the door, the mayor, Hénon, and +the prefect arrested him. They had penetrated into the Hôtel-de-Ville by +the Place de la Comédie. Saigne, springing upon the balcony, announced +the news to the crowd, which, throwing itself upon the Hôtel-de-Ville, +delivered the prospective general and in turn arrested the mayor and +prefect.</p> + +<p>The bourgeois battalions soon arrived at the Place des Terreaux; shortly +after those of La Croix-Rousse and of La Guillotière debouched. Great +misfortune might have resulted from the first shot. They parleyed. The +commission disappeared and the general swooned.</p> + +<p>This was a warning. Other symptoms manifested themselves in several +towns. The prefects even presided over Leagues and met each other. At +the commencement of October, the Admiral of Cayenne had only been able +to set on foot 30,000 men, and nothing came from Tours but a decree +convoking the election for the 16th.</p> + +<p>On the 9th, when Gambetta alighted from his balloon, all the patriots +started. The Conservatives, who had begun to creep out of their +recesses, quickly drew back again. The ardour and the energy of his +first proclamation carried people away. Gambetta held France absolutely; +he was all-powerful.</p> + +<p>He disposed of the immense resources of France, of the innumerable men; +of Bourges, Brest, L'Orient, Rochefort, Toulon for arsenals; workshops +like Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons; the seas +free; incomparably greater strength than that of 1793, which had to +fight at the same time the foreigner and internal rebellions. The +centers were kindling. The municipal councils made themselves felt, the +rural districts as yet showing no signs of resistance; the national +reserve intact. The burning metal needed only moulding.</p> + +<p>The début of the delegate was a serious blunder. He executed the decree +of Paris for the adjournment of the elections, which promised to be +republican and bellicose. Bismarck himself had told Jules Favre that he +did not want an Assembly, because this Assembly would be for war. +Energetic circulars, some measures against the intriguers, formal +instructions to the prefects, would have brightened and victoriously +brought out this patriotic fervor. An Assembly fortified by all the +republican aspirations, vigorously led, sitting in a populous town, +would have increased the national energy a hundredfold, brought to light +unhoped-for talents, and might have exacted everything from the country, +blood and gold. It would have proclaimed the Republic, and in case of +being obliged by reverses to negotiate, would have saved her from +foundering, prevented reaction. But Gambetta's instructions were formal. +"Elections at Paris would bring back days like June," said he. "We must +do without Paris," was our answer. All was useless. Besides, several +prefects, incapable of influencing their surroundings, predicted pacific +elections. Lacking the energy to grapple with the real difficulties of +the situation, Gambetta fancied he might shift them by the claptrap +expedient of his dictatorship.</p> + +<p>Did he bring a great political revolution? No. His whole programme was, +"To maintain order and liberty and push on the war."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Crémieux had +called the Bonapartists "republicans going astray." Gambetta believed, +or pretended to believe, in the patriotism of the reactionists. A few +pontifical zouaves who offered themselves, the abject submission of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Bonapartist generals, the wheedling of a few bishops,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> sufficed to +delude him. He continued the tactics of his predecessors to conciliate +everybody; he spared even the functionaries. In the department of +Finance and Public Instruction, he and his colleagues forbade the +dismissal of any official. The War Office for a long time remained under +the supreme direction of a Bonapartist, and always carried on an +underhand war against the defence. Gambetta maintained in some +prefectures the same employés who had drawn up the proscription lists of +the 2nd December, 1851. With the exception of a few justices of the +peace and a small number of magistrates, nothing was changed in the +political <i>personnel</i>, the whole subordinate administration remaining +intact.</p> + +<p>Was he wanting in authority? His colleagues of the council did not even +dare to raise their voices; the prefects knew only him; the generals put +on the manner of school-boys in his presence. Was a <i>personnel</i> wanting? +The Leagues contained solid elements; the small bourgeoisie and +proletariat might have given the <i>cadres</i>.</p> + +<p>Gambetta saw here only marplots, chaos, federalism, and roughly +dismissed their delegates. Each department possessed groups of known, +tried republicans, to whom the administration and the part of spurring +the Defence under the direction of commissioners might have been +intrusted. Gambetta refused almost everywhere to refer to them; the few +whom he appointed he knew how to fetter closely. He vested all power in +the prefects, most of them ruins of 1848, or his colleagues of the +Conférence Molé, nerveless, loquacious, timorous, anxious to have +themselves well spoken of, and many anxious to feather themselves a nest +in their department.</p> + +<p>The Defence in the provinces set out on these two crutches—the War +Office and the prefects. On this absurd plan of conciliation the +Government was conducted.</p> + +<p>Did the new delegate at least bring a powerful military <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>conception? "No +one in the Government, neither General Trochu nor General Leflô, no one +had suggested a military operation of any kind."<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Did he at least +possess that quick penetration which makes up for want of experience? +After twenty days in the provinces he comprehended the military +situation no better than he had done at Paris. The capitulation of Metz +drew from him indignant proclamations, but he understood no more than +his colleagues of the Hôtel-de-Ville that this was the very moment to +make a supreme effort.</p> + +<p>With the exception of three divisions (30,000 men) and the greater part +of their cavalry, the Germans had been obliged to employ for the +investment of Paris all their troops, and they had no reserve left them. +The three divisions at Orléans and Châteaudun were kept in check by our +forces of the Loire. The cavalry, while infesting a large extent of +territory in the west, north and east, could not hold out against +infantry. At the end of October, the army before Paris, strongly +fortified against the town, was not at all covered from the side of the +provinces. The appearance of 50,000 men, even of young troops, would +have forced the Prussians to raise the blockade.</p> + +<p>Moltke was far from disregarding the danger. He had decided in case of +need to raise the blockade, to sacrifice the park of artillery then +being formed at Villecoublay, to concentrate his army for action in the +open country, and only to re-establish the blockade after the victory, +that is to say, after the arrival of the army of Metz. "Everything was +ready for our decampment; we only had to team the horses," has been said +by an eye-witness, the Swiss Colonel D'Erlach. The official papers of +Berlin had already prepared public opinion for this event.</p> + +<p>The blockade of Paris raised, even momentarily, might have led, under +the pressure of Europe, to an honorable peace; this was almost certain. +Paris and France recovering their salutary buoyancy, the revictualling +of the great town, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>consequent prolongation of her resistance, +would have given the time necessary for the organization of the +provincial armies.</p> + +<p>At the end of October our army of the Loire was in progress of +formation, the 15th corps at Salbris, the 16th at Blois, already +numbering 80,000 men. If it had pushed between the Bavarians at Orléans +and the Prussians at Châteaudun; if—and this was an easy matter with +its numerical superiority—it beat the enemy one after another, the +route to Paris would have been thrown open, and the deliverance of Paris +almost sure.</p> + +<p>The Delegation of Tours did not see so far. It confined its efforts to +recovering Orléans, in order to establish there an entrenched camp; so +on the 26th General D'Aurelles de Paladines, named by Gambetta +commander-in-chief of the two corps, received the order to rescue the +town from the Bavarians. He was a senator, a bigoted, rabid reactionist, +at best fit only to be an officer of zouaves, fuming in his heart at the +defence. It was resolved to make the attack from Blois. Instead of +conducting the 15th corps on foot, which by Romorantin would have taken +forty-eight hours, the Delegation sent it by the Vierzon railway to +Tours, a journey which took five days and could not be hidden from the +enemy. Still, on the 28th, D'Aurelles established before Blois, disposed +of 40,000 men at least, and the next day he was to have left for +Orléans.</p> + +<p>On the 28th, at nine o'clock in the evening, the commander of the German +troops had him informed of the capitulation of Metz. D'Aurelles, jumping +at this pretext, telegraphed to Tours that he should adjourn his +movement.</p> + +<p>A general of some ability, of some good faith, would, on the contrary, +have precipitated everything. Since the German army before Metz, now +disengaged, would swoop down upon the centre of France, there was not a +day to lose to be beforehand with it. Every hour told. This was the +critical juncture of the war.</p> + +<p>The Delegation of Tours was as foolish as D'Aurelles. Instead of +dismissing him, it contented itself with moans, ordering him to +concentrate his forces. This concentration was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>terminated on the 3d +November.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> D'Aurelles then had 70,000 men established from Mer to +Marchenoir. He might have acted, for events seconded him. That very day +a whole brigade of Prussian cavalry had been obliged to abandon Mantes +and to retreat before bands of franc-tireurs; French forces were +observed to be marching from Courville in the direction of Chartres. +D'Aurelles did not stir, and the Delegation remained as paralyzed as he. +"M. le Ministre," wrote on the 4th November the Delegate at War, M. de +Freycinet,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> "for some days the army and myself do not know if the +Government wants peace or war. At this moment, when we are just +disposing ourselves to accomplish projects laboriously prepared, rumors +of an armistice disturb the minds of our generals, and I myself, I seek +to revive their spirits and push them on, I know not whether the next +day I shall not be disavowed by the Government." Gambetta the same day +answered: "I agree with you as to the detestable influence of the +political hesitations of the Government. From to-day we must decide on +our march forward;" and on the 7th D'Aurelles still remained motionless. +At last, on the 8th, he set out, and went about fifteen kilometers, and +in the evening again spoke of making a halt.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> All his forces together +exceeded 100,000 men. On the 9th he made up his mind to attack at +Coulmiers. The Bavarians immediately evacuated Orléans. Far from +pursuing them, D'Aurelles announced that he was going to fortify himself +before the town. The Delegation let him do as he liked, and gave him no +orders to pursue the enemy.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> Three days after the battle Gambetta +came to the headquarters and approved of D'Aurelles's plan. The +Bavarians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>during this respite had fallen back upon Toury, and two +divisions hurried from Metz by the railway arrived before Paris. Moltke +could at his ease direct the 17th Prussian division towards Toury, where +it arrived on the 12th. Three other corps of the army of Metz approached +the Seine by forced marches. The ignorance of the Delegation, the +obstruction of Trochu, the ill-will and blunders of D'Aurelles, +frustrated the only chances of raising the blockade of Paris.</p> + +<p>On the 19th, the army of Metz protected the blockade in the north and in +the south. Henceforth the Delegation had but one part to play—to +prepare armies for France, solid, capable of manœuvring, and finding +for this the necessary time, as in ancient times the Romans did, and in +our days the Americans. It preferred bolstering up vain appearances, +amusing public opinion with the din of arms, imagining that they could +thus puzzle the Prussians also. It threw upon them men raised but a few +days before, without instruction, without discipline, without +instruments of war, fatally destined to defeat. The prefects charged +with the organization of the mobiles, and those on the point of being +mobilized, were in continual strife with the generals, and lost +themselves in the details of the equipments. The generals, unable to +make anything of those ill-supplied contingents, only advanced on +compulsion.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> Gambetta on his arrival had said in his proclamation, +"We will make young chiefs," and the important commands were given to +the men of the Empire, worn out, ignorant, knowing nothing of patriotic +wars. To these young recruits, who should have been electrified by +stirring appeals, D'Aurelles preached the word of the Lord and the +interest of the service.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The accomplice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>of Bazaine, Bourbaki,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +on his return from England, received the command of the army of the +East. The weakness of the new Delegate encouraged the resistance of all +malcontents. Gambetta asked the officers whether they would accept +service under Garibaldi;<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> he not only allowed them to refuse, but +even released a curé who in the pulpit had set a price on the General's +head. He humbly explained to the royalist officers that the question at +issue was not to defend the Republic but the territory. He gave leave to +the pontifical zouaves to hoist the banner of the Sacred Heart. He +suffered Admiral Fourichon to contend for the disposal of the navy with +the Delegation.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> He indignantly rejected every project for an +enforced loan, and refused to sanction those voted in some departments. +He left the railway companies masters of the transport, in the hands of +reactionists, always ready to raise difficulties. From the end of +November, these boisterous and contradictory orders, these accumulations +of impracticable decrees, these powers given and taken back, clearly +proved that only a sham resistance was meant.</p> + +<p>The country obeyed, giving everything with passive blindness. The +contingents were raised without difficulty; there were no refractory +recruits in rural districts, although the gendarmerie were absent with +the army; the Leagues had given way on the first remonstrance. There was +only a movement on the 31st October. The Marseilles revolutionists, +indignant at the weakness of their Municipal Council, proclaimed the +Commune. Cluseret, who from Geneva had asked the "Prussian" Gambetta for +the command of an army corps, appeared at Marseilles, got himself named +general, again backed out and retired to Switzerland, his dignity +forbidding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>him to serve as a simple soldier. At Toulouse, the +population expelled the general. At Saint-Etienne the Commune existed +for an hour. But everywhere a word sufficed to replace the authority in +the hands of the Delegation; such was the apprehension of everybody of +creating the slightest embarrassment.</p> + +<p>This abnegation only served the reactionists. The Jesuits, who resumed +their intrigues, had been reinstated by Gambetta at Marseilles, whence +the indignation of the people had expelled them. The delegate cancelled +the suspension of papers that had published letters from Chambord and +D'Aumale. He protected the judges who had formed part of the mixed +commission, released the one who had decimated the department of the +Var, and dismissed the prefect of Toulouse for having suspended the +functions of another in the Haute-Garonne. The Bonapartists mustered +again.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> The prefect of Bordeaux, an ultra-moderate Liberal, asking +for the authorization to arrest some of their ringleaders, Gambetta +severely answered him, "These are practices of the Empire, not of the +Republic." Crémieux, too, said, "The Republic is the reign of law."</p> + +<p>Then the Conservative Vendée arose. Monarchists, clericals, capitalists, +waited for their time; cowering in their castles, all their strongholds +remained intact; seminaries, tribunals, general councils, which for a +long time the Delegation refused to dissolve <i>en masse</i>. They were +clever enough to figure here and there in the field of battle, in order +to preserve the appearance of patriotism. In a few weeks they had seen +through Gambetta and found out the Liberal behind the Tribune.</p> + +<p>Their campaign was sketched, conducted from the beginning, by the only +serious political tacticians whom France <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>possesses—by the Jesuits, +masters of the clergy. The arrival of M. Thiers provided the apparent +chief.</p> + +<p>The men of the 4th September had made him their ambassador. France, +almost without diplomatists since Talleyrand, has never possessed one +more easily gulled than this little man. He had gone naïvely to London, +to Petersburg, to Italy, whose inveterate enemy he had always been, +begging for vanquished France alliances which had been refused her when +yet intact. He was trifled with everywhere. He obtained but one +interview with Bismarck, and negotiated the armistice rejected by the +31st October. When he arrived at Tours in the first days of November, he +knew that peace was impossible, and that henceforth it must be war to +the knife. Instead of courageously making the best of it, of placing his +experience at the service of the Delegation, he had but one object, to +baffle the defence.</p> + +<p>It could not have had a more redoubtable enemy. The success of this man, +without ideas, without principles of government, without comprehension +of progress, without courage, would have been impossible everywhere, +save with the French bourgeoisie. But he has always been at hand when a +Liberal was wanted to shoot down the people, and he is a wonderful +artist in Parliamentary intrigue. No one has known like him how to +attack, to isolate a Government, to group prejudices, hatred, and +interests, to hide his intrigues behind a mask of patriotism and common +sense. The campaign of 1870-71 will certainly be his masterpiece. He had +made up his mind as to the lion's share due to the Prussians, and took +no more notice of them than if they had recrossed the Moselle. For him +the enemy was the defender. When our poor mobiles, without <i>cadres</i>, +without military training, succumbed to a temperature as fatal as that +of 1812, M. Thiers exulted at our disasters. His house had become the +headquarters for the Conservative notabilities. At Bordeaux especially +it seemed to be the true seat of the Government.</p> + +<p>Before the investment the reactionary press of Paris had organized a +provincial service, and from the outset cooled down the Delegation. +After the arrival of M. Thiers it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>carried on a regular war. It never +ceased harassing, accusing, pointing out the slightest shortcomings, +with a view not to instruct, but to slander, and to wind up by the +foregone conclusion: Fighting is madness, disobedience legitimate. From +the middle of December this watchword, faithfully followed by all the +papers of the party, spread over the rural districts.</p> + +<p>For the first time country squires found their way to the ear of the +peasant. This war was about to draw off all the men who were not in the +army or in the Garde Mobile, and camps were being prepared to receive +them. The prisons of Germany held 260,000 men; Paris, the Loire, the +army of the East, more than 350,000. Thirty thousand were dead, and +thousands filled the hospitals. Since the month of August France had +given at least 700,000 men. Where are they to stop? This cry was echoed +in every cottage: "It is the Republic that wants war! Paris is in the +hands of the <i>levellers</i>." What does the French peasant know of his +fatherland, and how many could say where Alsace lies? It is he above all +whom the bourgeoisie have in view when they resist compulsory education. +For eighty years all their efforts tended to transforming into coolies +the descendants of the volunteers of 1792.</p> + +<p>Before long a spirit of revolt infected the mobiles, almost everywhere +commanded by reactionists of mark. Here an equerry of the Emperor, there +rabid royalists led battalions. In the army of the Loire they muttered, +"We will not fight for M. Gambetta."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Officers of the mobilized +troops boasted of never having exposed the lives of their men.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of 1871 the provinces were undermined from end to end. +Some general councils that had been dissolved met publicly, declaring +that they considered themselves elected. The Delegation followed the +progress of this enemy, cursed M. Thiers in private, but took good care +not to arrest him. The revolutionists who came to tell it the lengths +things were going were curtly shown out. Gambetta, worn out, not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>believing in the defence, thought only of conciliating the men of +influence and rendering himself acceptable for the future.</p> + +<p>At the signal of the elections, the scenery, laboriously prepared, +appeared all of a piece, showing the Conservatives grouped, +supercilious, their lists ready. We were far now from the month of +October, when, in many departments, they had not dared to put forward +their candidates. The decrees on the ineligibility of the high +Bonapartist functionaries only affected shadows. The coalition, +disdaining the broken-down men of the Empire, had carefully formed a +<i>personnel</i> of pigtailed nobles, well-to-do farmers, captains of +industry, men likely to do the work bluntly. The clergy had skilfully +united on their lists the Legitimists and Orleanists, perhaps laid down +the basis for a fusion. The vote was carried like a plebiscite. The +republicans tried to speak of an honorable peace; the peasants would +only hear of peace at any price. The towns knew hardly how to make a +stand; at the utmost elected Liberals. Out of 750 members, the Assembly +counted 450 born monarchists. The apparent chief of the campaign, the +king of Liberals, M. Thiers, was returned in twenty-three departments.</p> + +<p>The conciliator <i>à outrance</i> could rival Trochu. The one had worried out +Paris, the other the Republic.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The prefect of police, Pietri, attests it: "It is certain +that on that day the revolution might have succeeded, for the crowd +which surrounded the Corps Législatif on the 9th August was composed of +elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th +September."—<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Let it be understood that I proceed, the words of our +adversaries in hand—parliamentary inquiries, memoirs, reports, +histories; that I do not attribute to them an act or a word which has +not been avowed by them, their documents, or their friends. When I say +M. Thiers <i>saw</i>, M. Thiers <i>knew</i>, it is that M. Thiers has said, <i>I +saw</i>, page 6, <i>I knew</i>, page 11, vol. i. of the <i>Enquête sur les Actes +du Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale</i>. It will be the same with all +the acts and words of all the official or adverse personages that I +quote.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See the evidence of the Marquis de Talhouet, reporter of +the Commission charged to verify the famous despatch which precipitated +the vote for war. <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. 121-124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Compte-rendu du 31 Octobre</i>, by Millière.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Which did not, however, prevent his accepting a secret +mission during the Crimean war. He was commissioned by Napoleon III. to +propose to the English to betray Turkey by limiting the war to the +defence of Constantinople.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Jules Brame, vol. i. p. 201.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. ii. p. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Ibid., p. 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Ibid., Jules Favre, vol. i. p. 330.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> In his official report, Jules Favre, to clear the +Government, did not neglect to assume the responsibility of this +mission, which he said he had undertaken without the knowledge of his +colleagues.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Garnier-Pages, vol. i. p. +445.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> "Constantly in relations with the anxious population, +which urgently asked what was going on, what the Government thought, +what it was doing, we were obliged to screen it; to say that it was +acting for the best; that it had given itself up entirely to the +defence; that the chiefs of the army were most devoted and working with +ardour.... We said this without knowing, without believing it. We knew +nothing."—<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Corbon, vol. i. p. 375.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Jules Ferry. He even calls +the armistice a "compensation."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. 432.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. 395. The +deposition of this imbecile, always equally naïve, is all the more +conclusive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> "We were able to unite 40,000 men by telling the National +Guards that Blanqui and Flourens occupied the Hôtel-de-Ville. These two +names did not fail to produce their usual effect."—<i>Enquête sur le 18 +Mars</i>, ed. Adam, vol. ii. p. 157. "If the name of Blanqui had not been +pronounced, the new elections announced by the placard of Dorian and +Schœlcher would have taken place the next day."—<i>Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre</i>, Jules Ferry, vol. i. p. 396-431.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See the affirmation of Dorian. <i>Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. 527-528.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> He offered a musket of honour to any one who would kill +the King of Prussia, and patronised a Greek-fire that was to roast the +German army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Even Félix Pyat was arrested. He managed to get out of +prison through a jest, writing to Emmanuel Arago: "What a pity that I +should be your prisoner; you might have been my advocate." He was set +free.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The Minister of War, Leflô, who naturally undervalues +everything, says, "This left us, while assuring the operations of the +siege against the Prussians, a disposable force of 230,000 to 240,000 +men."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Appendix I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Cresson, vol. ii. p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Jules Simon, <i>Souvenirs du 4 Septembre</i>. His textual +expressions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> After the disaster of Orleans, which cut in two our army, +he wrote: "The army of the Loire is far from being annihilated; it is +separated into two armies of equal force."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> They avoided drawing up minutes to prevent even the +appearance of being a municipality (<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Jules +Ferry, vol. i. p. 406). A dozen of these brave ones met with a few +adjuncts at the mairie of the third arrondissement. They confined their +whole efforts to seeking some one to replace Trochu. One of them, M. +Corbon, has said (<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. p. 613): "However +displeased they might have been at the manner affairs were conducted by +the Defence, they would not for the world overthrow or weaken the +Government."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> This placard was drawn up by Tridon and Vallès.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> "See," said they, "what a terrible responsibility we +should incur if we consented any longer to remain the passive +instruments of a policy condemned by the interests of France and of the +Republic."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> See the Minutes of the Government of the Defence, +evidently arranged for the best by M. Dréo, the son-in-law of +Garnier-Pages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Ducrot, vol. iii. p. xx.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See the Minutes of the Government of Defence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Who bears witness to the bravery of the National Guard? +Superior officers themselves. See in the <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, the +depositions of General Leflô, Vice-Admiral Pothuan, Colonel Lambert, and +Trochu, speaking from the tribune: "If I did not fear to appear +intrusive, I could show that up to the close of the day the +inexperienced National Guards took and retook with the energy of old +troops, under terrific fire, the heights that had been abandoned. It was +necessary to hold them at any price in order to effect the retreat of +the troops engaged in the centre. I had told them so, and they +sacrificed themselves without hesitation."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Vinoy's corps, which took Montretout, had five regiments +and one battalion of infantry, nineteen battalions of mobiles, five +regiments of National Guards. That of General Bellemare, which took +Buzenval, had five regiments of line, seventeen battalions of mobiles, +eight regiments of National Guards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> "We shall give the National Guard a little peppering +(<i>ecrabouiller un peu la garde nationale</i>) since they wish it," said a +colonel of infantry, much annoyed at this affair. <i>Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre</i>, Colonel Chaper, vol. ii. p. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> He told them by way of consolation that "from the evening +of the 4th September he had declared that it would be madness to attempt +sustaining a siege by the Prussian army."—<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, +Corbon, vol. iv. p. 889.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> He has pronounced these words of perfect Jesuitism: "To +yield to hunger is to die, not to capitulate."—<i>Jules Simon, Souvenirs +du 4 Septembre</i>, p. 299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Deposition of General Soumairs, <i>Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre</i>, vol. ii. p. 215.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> What disgrace! 175,000 men pretending that they had been +sold by a single one! In the Seven Years' War, in Westphalia, at Minden, +when General Morangies prepared to capitulate, 1500 men, roused by a +corporal, refused to surrender, forced their way, and rejoined the army +of the Count of Clermont.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Arnaud de l'Ariège, vol. ii. +p. 320-321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> "I return from Versailles. I have come to terms with M. de +Bismarck, and it has been agreed upon between us as a matter of honour +the firing should cease."—Order sent by Jules Favre on the 27th, seven +o'clock evening. Vinoy, <i>L'Armistice et la Commune</i>, p. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> The decree sacrificed fifteen and spared twenty-four.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>A. Arnaud</i>, <i>Avrial</i>, <i>Beslay</i>, <i>Blanqui</i>, <i>Demay</i>, +<i>Dereure</i>, Dupas, E. Dupont, <i>J. Durand</i>, <i>E. Duval</i>, <i>Eudes</i>, Flotte, +<i>Frankel</i>, <i>Gambon</i>, <i>Goupil</i>, Granger, Humbert, Jaclard, Jarnigon, +Lacambre, Lacord, <i>Langevin</i>, <i>Lefrançais</i>, Leverdays, <i>Longuet</i>, +Macdonnell, <i>Malon</i>, <i>Meillet</i>, Minet, <i>Oudet</i>, <i>Pindy</i>, <i>F. Pyat</i>, +<i>Ranvier</i>, Rey, Rouillier, <i>Serraillier</i>, <i>Theisz</i>, Tolain, <i>Tridon</i>, +<i>Vaillant</i>, <i>Vallès</i>, <i>Varlin</i>. The names of those who were elected +members of the Commune are in italics.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> In the <i>Vengeur</i>, which had taken the place of the +<i>Combat</i>, he proved, documents in hand, that for years Jules Favre had +been guilty of forgery, bigamy, and falsification of papers of +legitimation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> After the five returned, sixteen candidates of La Corderie +obtained from 65,000 votes to 22,000 votes; Tridon 65,707, Duval +22,499.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Which, besides, has been recounted by Marc Dufraisse in +the <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. iv. p. 428.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Cluseret, an ex-officer, decorated in 1848 for his +spirited conduct. "I unfortunately displayed too much energy in that +disastrous battle," he wrote in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i> of March 1878. +Attached to the Arabian Bureaux, he threw up his commission after the +Crimean war, and not being able to play a part in Europe, engaged in the +American civil war for a short time, then withdrew to New York, where he +campaigned with his pen. Misunderstood by the bourgeoisie of the two +worlds, he again took to politics, but from the opposite side; offered +himself to the Irish insurgents; landed in Ireland urging them to rise, +and one fine night abandoned them. The nascent International also saw +this powerful general come and offer his services. He did a good deal in +the way of pamphleteering; tried to impress upon the workmen that he was +the sword and buckler of Socialism. "We or nothing," said he to the sons +of the massacred of June. The Government of the 4th September having +also failed to appreciate his genius, he called Gambetta <i>Prussian</i>, and +got himself sent as delegate to Lyons by the Corderie, where Varlin, +whom he deceived for a long time, had introduced him. He offered the +Lyons council to organise an army of volunteers which was to operate on +the flank of the enemy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The working-men's quarters of Lyons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 560.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> The Jew Crémieux lived with the Ultramontane Archbishop +Guibert (since made Archbishop of Paris) in his episcopal palace at +Tours, dining every day at his table, and in return rendering him all +the little services asked for by the clergy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 561.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> D'Aurelles de Paladines, <i>La Première Armée de la Loire</i>, +p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> De Freycinet, <i>La Guerre en Province</i>, p. 86, 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Ibid., p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> On the 11th, the delegate telegraphed to D'Aurelles: "We +fully approve of the dispositions you had taken for your troops round +Orléans.... You will receive instructions. In the meantime redouble your +vigilance in prevision of a return to the offensive on the part of the +enemy."—<i>D'Aurelles de Paladines</i>, <i>La Première Armée de la Loire</i>, p. +120. Thus, far from speaking of attacking, the Delegation only thought +of the defensive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> "It was only when they could not help it that they made up +their minds to act," Gambetta has said in the <i>Enquête sur le 4 +Septembre</i>. The avowal is precious, coming from him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> It is most amusing to hear D'Aurelles chaffing Trochu +without perceiving that he is just as ridiculous. In his evidence +(<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. iii. p. 201) he says: "I did not +deposit either a plan or a testament at a lawyer's; I confined myself to +writing to the Bishop of Orléans: Monsignor, the army of the Loire +to-day sets out on its march to meet the army of General Ducrot. Pray, +Monsignor, for the salvation of France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> And what other name is merited by the general who +abandoned his post in the field to go and negotiate with the sovereign +whom France had expelled?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Rolland, vol. iii. p. 456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Ibid., Dalloz, vol. iv. p. 398.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> If General Boyer, who saw the letter, is to be believed, +the Delegation of Tours on the 24th October made officious advances to +the Empress, and then gave the order to the chargé-d'affaires at London +to go and thank her for the patriotism that she had shown in refusing to +treat with Bismarck, who trifled with her as well as with Bazaine. See +<i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. iv. p. 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, Admiral Jaureguiberry, vol. +iii. p. 297.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Le chef du pouvoir exécutif, pas plus que l'Assemblée +Nationale, s'appuyant l'un sur l'autre et se fortifiant +l'un par l'autre, n'avaient en aucune manière provoqué +l'insurrection parisienne."—<i>Discours de M. Dufaure contre +l'Amnistie</i>, <i>Séance du 18 Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS—THE BATTALIONS +OF THE NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR +CANNON—THE PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The invasion has brought back the "Chambre introuvable" of 1816. After +having dreamt of a regenerated France soaring towards the light, to feel +oneself hurled back half a century, under the yoke of the Jesuits of the +Congregation, of the brutal rurals! There were men who lost heart. Many +spoke of expatriating themselves. The thoughtless said, "The Chamber +will only last a day, since it has no mandate but to decide on peace and +war." Those, however, who had watched the progress of the conspiracy and +the leading part taken in it by the clergy, knew beforehand that these +men would not allow France to escape their clutches before they crushed +her.</p> + +<p>Men just escaped from famine-stricken but glowing Paris found on their +arrival at Bordeaux the Coblentz of the first emigration, but this time +invested with the power to glut rancors that had been accumulating for +forty years. Clericals and Conservatives were for the first time +allowed, without the interference of either emperor or king, to trample +to their hearts' content on Paris, the atheist, the revolutionist, who +had so often shaken off their yoke and baffled their schemes. At the +first sitting their choler burst out. At the farther end <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>of the hall, +sitting alone on his bench, shunned by all, an old man rose and asked to +address the Assembly. Under his cloak glared a red shirt. It was +Garibaldi. At the call of his name, he wished to answer, to say in a few +words that he resigned the mandate with which Paris had honored him. His +voice was drowned in howls. He remained standing, raising his hand, but +the insults redoubled. The chastisement, however, was at hand. "Rural +majority! disgrace of France!" cried from the gallery a young vibrating +voice, that of Gaston Crémieux, of Marseilles. The deputies rose +threatening. Hundreds of "Bravos" answered from the galleries, +overwhelming the rurals. After the sitting the crowd cheered Garibaldi +and hooted his insulters. The National Guard presented arms, despite the +rage of M. Thiers, who under the peristyle apostrophized the commanding +officer. The next day the people returned, forming lines in front of the +theatre, and forced the reactionist deputies to undergo their republican +cheers. But they knew their strength, and from the beginning of the +sittings opened their attack. One of the rurals, pointing to the +representatives of Paris, cried, "They are stained with the blood of +civil war!" And when one of these representatives cried, "Vive la +République!" the majority hooted him, saying, "You are only a fraction +of the country." On the next day the Chamber was surrounded by troops, +who kept off the republicans.</p> + +<p>At the same time the Conservative papers united in their hissings +against Paris, denying even her sufferings. The National Guard, they +said, had fled before the Prussians; its only exploits had been the 31st +October and 22nd January. These calumnies fructified in the provinces, +long since prepared to receive them. Such was their ignorance of the +siege, that they had named some of them several times—Trochu, Ducrot, +Ferry, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Emmanuel Arago—to whom Paris had +refused a single vote.</p> + +<p>It was the duty of the Parisian representatives to clear up this +darkness, to recount the siege, to denounce the men responsible for the +failure of the defence, to explain the significance of the Parisian +vote, to unfurl the flag of republican <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>France against the +clerico-monarchical coalition. They remained silent, contenting +themselves with puerile party meetings, from which Delescluze turned +away as heart-broken as from the Assembly of the Paris mayors. Our +Epimenides of 1848 answered with stereotyped humanitarian phrases the +clashing of arms of the enemy, who all the while affirmed his programme: +to patch up a peace, to bury the Republic, and for that purpose to +checkmate Paris. Thiers was named chief of the executive power with +general acclamation, and chose for his Ministers Jules Favre, Jules +Simon, Picard and Leflô, who might still pass muster with the provincial +republicans.</p> + +<p>These elections, these menaces, these insults to Garibaldi, to the Paris +representatives; Thiers, the incarnation of the Parliamentary monarchy, +first magistrate of the Republic, blow after blow was struck at Paris, a +feverish, hardly revictualled Paris, hungering still more for liberty +than bread. This then was the reward for five months of suffering and +endurance. These provinces, which Paris had invoked in vain during the +whole siege, dared now to brand her with cowardice, to throw her back +from Bismarck to Chambord. Well, then, Paris was resolved to defend +herself even against France. The new imminent danger, the hard +experience of the siege, had exalted her energy and endued the great +town with one collective soul.</p> + +<p>Already, towards the end of January, some republicans, and also some +bourgeois intriguers in search of a mandate, had tried to group the +National Guards with a view to the elections. A large meeting, presided +over by Courty, a merchant of the third arrondissement, had been held in +the Cirque. They had there drawn up a list, decided to meet again to +deliberate in case of double electoral returns, and had named a +committee charged to convoke all the companies regularly. This second +meeting was held on the 15th in the Vauxhall Douané Street. But who then +thought of the elections? One single thought prevailed: the union of all +Parisian forces against the triumphant rurals. The National Guard +represented all the manhood of Paris. The clear, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>simple, essentially +French idea of confederating the battalions had long been in every mind. +It was received with acclamation and resolved that the confederate +battalions should be grouped round a Central Committee.</p> + +<p>A commission during the same sitting was charged to elaborate the +statutes. Each arrondissement represented—eighteen out of twenty—named +a commissary. Who were these men? The agitators, the revolutionists of +La Corderie, the Socialists? No; there was not a known name amongst +them. All those elected were men of the middle classes, shopkeepers, +employés, strangers to the coteries, till now for the most part +strangers even to politics.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Courty, the president, was known only +since the meeting at the Cirque. From the first day the idea of the +federation appeared what it was—universal, not sectarian, and therefore +powerful. The next day, Clément-Thomas declared to the Government that +he could no longer be answerable for the National Guard, and sent in his +resignation. He was provisionally replaced by Vinoy.</p> + +<p>On the 24th, in the Vauxhall, before 2,000 delegates and guards, the +commission read the statutes it had drawn up, and pressed the delegates +to proceed immediately to the election of the Central Committee. The +Assembly was tempestuous, disquiet, little inclined for calm +deliberations. Each of the last eight days had brought with it more +insulting menaces from Bordeaux. They were going, it was said, to disarm +the battalions, suppress the thirty sous, the only resource of the +workingmen, and exact at once the owing house-rents and overdue +commercial bills. Besides, the armistice, prolonged for a week, was to +expire on the 26th, and the papers announced that the Prussians would +enter Paris on the 27th. For a week this nightmare had weighed on all +the patriots. The meeting, too, proceeded at once to consider <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>these +burning questions. Varlin proposed: The National Guard only recognizes +the chiefs elected by itself. Another: The National Guard protests +through the Central Committee against any attempt at disarmament, and +declares that in case of need it will offer armed resistance. Both +propositions were voted unanimously. And now, was Paris to submit to the +entry of the Prussians, to let them parade her boulevards? It could not +even be discussed. The whole assembly, springing up over-excited, raised +one cry of war. Some warnings of prudence are disdained. Yes, they would +oppose their arms to the entry of the Prussians. The proposition would +be submitted by the delegates to their respective companies. And +adjourning to the 3rd March, the meeting broke up its sitting and +marched <i>en masse</i> to the Bastille, carrying along with it a great +number of soldiers and mobiles.</p> + +<p>Since the morning, Paris, fearing the loss of her liberty, had gathered +round her revolutionary column, as she had before crowded round the +statue of Strasbourg when trembling for France. The battalions defiled, +headed by drums and flags, covering the rails and pedestal with crowns +of immortelles. From time to time a delegate ascended the plinth, and +from this tribune of bronze harangued the people, who answered with +cries of "Vive la République!" Suddenly a red flag was carried through +the crowd into the monument, reappearing soon after at the balustrade. A +formidable cry saluted it, followed by a long silence. A man, climbing +the cupola, had the daring to go and fix it in the hand of the statue of +Liberty surmounting the column. Thus, amidst the frantic cheering of the +people, for the first time since 1848, the flag of equality overshadowed +this spot, redder than its flag by the blood of a thousand martyrs.</p> + +<p>The following day the pilgrimages were continued, not only by National +Guards, but by the soldiers and mobiles. The army gave way to the +inspiration of Paris. The mobiles arrived preceded by their +quartermasters carrying large black crowns; the trumpeters, posted at +each corner of the pedestal, saluted them, and the crowd cheered them to +the echo. Women <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>dressed in black suspended a tricolor flag bearing the +inscription, "The republican women to the martyrs." When the pedestal +was covered, the crowns and flowers soon wound themselves entirely round +the bust, encircling it from top to bottom with yellow and black +flowers, red and tricolor oriflammes, symbols of mourning for the past +and hope in the future.</p> + +<p>On the 26th the manifestations became innumerable and irritated. A +police agent, surprised taking down the names of the battalions, was +seized and thrown into the Seine. Twenty-five battalions defiled, +sombre, a prey to a terrible anguish. The armistice was about to expire +and the <i>Journal Officiel</i> did not speak of a prorogation. The journals +announced the entry of the German army by the Champs-Elysées for the +next day. The Government was sending the troops to the left bank of the +Seine and clearing out the Palace de l'Industrie. They forgot only the +cannons of the National Guards accumulated at the Place Wagram and at +Passy. Already the carelessness of the capitulards had delivered 12,000 +more muskets to the Prussians than were stipulated for.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Who could +tell if the latter would not stretch out their hands to these fine +pieces, cast with the flesh and blood of the Parisians, marked with the +numbers of the battalions?<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Spontaneously all Paris rose. The +bourgeois battalions of Passy, in accord with the municipality,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> set +the example, drawing the pieces of the Ranelagh to the Parc +Monceaux.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Other battalions came to fetch their cannon in the Park +Wagram, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>wheeling them by the Rues St. Honoré and Rivoli to the Place +des Vosges, under the protection of the Bastille.</p> + +<p>During the day the troop sent by Vinoy to the Bastille had fraternized +with the people. In the evening, the rappel, the tocsin, the trumpets +had thrown thousands of armed men into the streets, who came to mass +themselves at the Bastille, the Château d'Eau, and the Rue de Rivoli. +The prison of St. Pélagie was forced and Brunel set free. At two o'clock +in the morning, forty thousand men remounted the Champs-Elysées and the +Avenue de la Grande Armée, silent, in good order, to encounter the +Prussians. They waited till daybreak. On their return, the battalions of +Montmartre seized all the cannon they found on their way, and took them +to the mairie of the eighteenth arrondissement and to the Boulevard +Ornano.</p> + +<p>To this feverish but chivalrous outburst Vinoy could only oppose an +order of the day stigmatizing it. And this Government, that insulted +Paris, asked her to immolate herself for France! A placard posted up on +the morning of the 27th announced the prolongation of the armistice, and +for the 1st of March the occupation of the Champs-Elysées by 30,000 +Germans.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock the commission charged to draw up the statutes for a +Central Committee held a sitting at the mairie of the third +arrondissement. Some of its members since the evening before, +considering themselves invested with powers by the situation, had tried +to organize a permanent sub-committee in this mairie; but not being +numerous enough, they had adjourned until the next day and consulted the +chiefs of the battalions. The sitting, presided over by Captain +Bergeret, was stormy. The delegates of the battalion of Montmartre, who +had established a committee of their own in the Rue des Rosiers, would +speak only of fighting, showed their <i>mandats impératifs</i>, and recalled +the resolution of the Vauxhall. It was almost unanimously resolved to +take up arms against the Prussians. The mayor, Bonvalet, rather uneasy +at having such guests, had the mairie surrounded, and, half <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>by +persuasion, half by force, succeeded in getting rid of them.</p> + +<p>During the whole day the faubourgs had armed and seized the munitions; +the rampart pieces were remounted on their carriages; the mobiles, +forgetting that they were prisoners of war, went to retake their arms. +In the evening one crowd inveigled the marines of La Pepinière Barracks, +and led them to the Bastille to fraternize with the people.</p> + +<p>A catastrophe was inevitable but for the courage of a few men who dared +to oppose this dangerous current. All the societies that met at the +Place de la Corderie, the Central Committee of the twenty +arrondissements, the International, and the Federation, looked with +reserve upon this Central Committee, composed of unknown men, who had +never taken part in the revolutionary campaigns. On leaving the mairie +of the third arrondissement, some delegates of battalions who belonged +to the sections of the International came to the Corderie to tell of the +sitting and the desperate resolution come to. Every exertion was made to +pacify them, and speakers were sent to the Vauxhall, where a large +meeting was being held; they succeeded in making themselves heard. Many +other citizens made great efforts to recall the people to reason. The +next morning, the 28th, the three groups of the Corderie published a +manifesto conjuring the workingmen to beware. "Every attack," said they, +"would serve to expose the people to the blows of the enemies of the +Revolution, who would drown all social vindications in a sea of blood." +Pressed on all sides, the Central Committee was obliged to yield, as it +announced in a proclamation signed by twenty-nine names. "Every +aggression would result in the immediate overthrow of the Republic. +Barricades will be established all round the quarters to be occupied by +the enemy, so he will parade in a camp shut out from our town." This was +the first official appearance of the Central Committee. The twenty-nine +unknown men<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> capable of thus pacifying the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>National Guard were +applauded even by the bourgeoisie, who did not seem to wonder at their +power.</p> + +<p>The Prussians entered Paris on the 1st March. This Paris which the +people had taken possession of was no longer the Paris of the nobles and +the great bourgeoisie of 1815. Black flags hung from the houses, but the +deserted streets, the closed shops, the dried-up fountains, the veiled +statues of the Place de la Concorde, the gas not lighted at night, still +more pregnantly announced a town in its agony. Prostitutes who ventured +into the quarters of the enemy were publicly whipped. A café in the +Champs-Elysées which had opened its doors to the victors was ransacked. +There was but one <i>grand seigneur</i> in the Faubourg St. Germain to offer +his house to the Prussians.</p> + +<p>Paris was still wincing under this affront, when a new avalanche of +insults poured down upon her from Bordeaux. Not only had the Assembly +not found a word or act to help her in this painful crisis, but its +papers, the <i>Journal Officiel</i> at their head, were indignant that she +should have thought of defending herself against the Prussians. A +proposition was being signed in the bureaux to fix the seat of the +Assembly outside of Paris. The projected law on overdue bills and +house-rents opened the prospect of numberless failures. Peace had been +accepted, hurriedly voted like an ordinary business. Alsace, the greater +part of Lorraine, 1,600,000 Frenchmen torn from their fatherland, five +milliards to pay, the forts to the east of Paris to be occupied till the +payment of the first 500,000,000 francs, and the departments of the East +till the entire payment; this was what Trochu, Favre, and the coalition +cost us, the price for which Bismarck permitted us the <i>Chambre +introuvable</i>. And to console Paris for so much disgrace, M. Thiers +appointed as General of the National Guard the incapable and brutal +commander of the first army of the Loire, D'Aurelles de Paladines. Two +senators, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Vinoy and D'Aurelles, two Bonapartists, at the head of +Republican Paris—this was too much. All Paris had the presentiment of a +<i>coup-d'état</i>.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>That evening there were large groups gathered in the boulevards. The +National Guards, refusing to acknowledge D'Aurelles as their commander, +proposed the appointment of Garibaldi. On the 3rd two hundred battalions +sent their delegates to Vauxhall. Matters began with the reading of the +statutes. The preamble declared the Republic "the only Government by law +and justice superior to universal suffrage, which is its offspring." +"The delegates," said Article 6, "must prevent every attempt whose +object would be the overthrow of the Republic." The Central Committee +was composed of three delegates for each arrondissement, elected by the +companies, battalions, legions and of the <i>chefs-de-légion</i>.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> While +awaiting the regular election, the meeting there and then named a +provisional executive committee. Varlin, Pindy, Jacques Durand, and some +other Socialists of the Corderie formed part of it, an understanding +having been come to between the Central Committee, or rather the +commission which had drawn up the statutes, and the three groups of the +Corderie. Varlin carried a unanimous vote on the immediate re-election +of the officers of the National Guard. Another motion was put: "That the +department of the Seine constitute itself an independent republic in +case of the Assembly attempting to decapitalize Paris,"—a motion +unsound in its conception, faultily drawn up, which seemed to isolate +Paris from the rest of France—an anti-revolutionist, anti-Parisian +idea, cruelly exploited against the Commune. Who then was to feed Paris +if not the provinces? Who was to save our peasants if not Paris? But +Paris had been confined to solitary life for six months; she alone to +the last moment had declared for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>continuation of the struggle at +any price, alone affirmed the Republic by a vote. Her abandonment, the +vote of the provinces, the rural majority, made so many men ready to die +for the universal republic fancy that the Republic might be shut up +within Paris.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> 3rd arrondissement, A. Genotal; 4th, Alavoine; 5th, Manet; +6th, V. Frontier; 7th, Badois; 8th, Morterol?; 9th, Mayer; 10th, Arnold; +11th, Piconel; 12th, Audoynaud; 13th, Soncial; 14th, Dacosta; 15th, +Masson; 16th, Pé; 17th, Weber; 18th, Trouillet; 19th, Lagarde; 20th, A. +Bonit. Courty remained president, Ramel secretary.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Vinoy, <i>L'Armistice et la Commune</i>, p. 128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> The reactionists have said that this fear was feigned; +that the cannon were safe from the Prussians. This is so false that the +general staff itself feared a surprise. See Mortemart, chef +d'état-major, <i>Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. ii. p. 844.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Colonel Lavigne, vol. ii. p. +467.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> "The first cannons were taken, carried away, on the news +of the entry of the Prussians. And these, gentlemen, believe me, were +carried off by citizens devoted to order, the National Guards of Passy +and Auteuil, and taken where? From the Ranelagh."—<i>Jules Ferry</i>, +<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol ii. p. 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> A. Alavoine, A. Bouit, Frontier, Boursier, David, Buisson, +Harond, Gritz, Tessier, Ramel, Badois, Arnold, Piconel, Audoynaud, +Masson, Weber, Lagarde, J. Laroque, J. Bergeret, Pouchain, Lavalette, +Fleury, Maljournal, Chouteau, Cadaze, Gastaud, Dutil, Matté, Mutin. Ten +only of those elected on the 15th figure in this document. Various +delegations, abstentions, and irregular adhesions had given nearly +twenty new names.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Roger du Nord, the chief of D'Aurelles' staff, "heard it +said in all the fractions of the National Guard, 'Why place a man of +such energy at the head of the National Guard if not to make a <i>coup +d'état</i>?'"—<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> The National Guards of each of the twenty arrondissements +were formed into a separate legion.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Cette république a été menacée par l'Assemblée, a-t-on dit, +Messieurs, quand l'insurrection a éclaté, l'Assemblée ne +s'était encore signalée au point de vue politique que par +deux actes: la nomination du chef du pouvoir exécutif et +l'acceptation d'un cabinet républicain."—<i>Discours de M. +Larcy, du Centre Gauche, contre l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 +Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS—THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE +CONSTITUTES ITSELF—M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>To the rural plebiscite the Parisian National Guard had answered by +their federation; to the threats of the monarchists, to the projects of +decapitalization, by the manifestation of the Bastille; to D'Aurelles' +appointment, by the resolutions of the 3rd March. What the perils of the +siege had not been able to effect the Assembly had brought about—the +union of the middle class with the proletariat. The immense majority of +Paris looked upon the growing army of the Republic without regret. On +the 3rd the Minister of the Interior, Picard, having denounced "the +anonymous Central Committee," and called upon "all good citizens to +stifle these culpable manifestations," no one stirred. Besides, the +accusation was ridiculous. The Committee showed itself in the open day, +sent its minutes to the papers, and had only made a manifestation to +save Paris from a catastrophe. It answered the next day: "The Committee +is not anonymous; it is the union of the representatives of free men +aspiring to the solidarity of all the members of the National Guard. Its +acts have always been signed. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>repels with contempt the calumnies +which accuse it of inciting to pillage and civil war." The signatures +followed.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>The chiefs of the coalition saw clearly which way events were drifting. +The republican army each day increased its arsenal of muskets, and +especially of cannon. There were now pieces of ordnance at ten different +places—at the Barrière d'Italie, at the Faubourg St. Antoine, at the +Buttes Montmartre. A red placard informed Paris of the formation of the +Central Committee of the federation of the National Guards, and invited +citizens to organize in each arrondissement committees of battalions and +councils of legions, and to appoint the delegates to the Central +Committee. The ensemble, the ardour of the movement seemed to bear +witness to the powerful organization of the Central Committee. A few +days more and the answer of the people would be complete if a blow were +not struck at once.</p> + +<p>What they misunderstood was the stout heart of the enemy. The victory of +the 22nd January blinded them. They believed in the stories of their +journals, in the cowardice of the National Guards, in the bragging of +Ducrot, who, in the bureaux of the Assembly swore eternal hatred to the +demagogues, but for whom, he said, he would have conquered.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> The +bullies of the reaction fancied they could swallow Paris at a mouthful.</p> + +<p>The operation was conducted with clerical skill, method, and discipline. +Legitimists and Orleanists, disagreeing as to the name of the monarch, +had accepted the compromise of Thiers, an equal share in the Government, +which was called "the pact of Bordeaux." Besides, against Paris there +could be no division.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>From the commencement of March the provincial papers held forth at the +same time, speaking of incendiarism and pillage in Paris. On the 4th +there was but one rumor in the bureaux of the Assembly—that an +insurrection had broken out; that the telegraphic communications were +cut off; that General Vinoy had retreated to the left bank of the Seine. +The Government, which propagated these rumors,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> despatched four +deputies, who were also mayors, to Paris. They arrived on the 5th, and +found Paris perfectly calm, even gay.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> The mayors and adjuncts, +assembled by the Minister of the Interior, attested to the tranquility +of the town. But Picard, no doubt in the conspiracy, said, "This +tranquility is only apparent. We must act." And the ultra-Conservative +Vautrain added, "We must take the bull by the horns and arrest the +Central Committee."</p> + +<p>The Right never ceased baiting the bull. Sneers, provocations, insults, +were showered upon Paris and her representatives. Some among them, +Rochefort, Tridon, Malon, and Ranc, when withdrawing after the vote +mutilating the country, were followed by cries of "Pleasant journey to +you." Victor Hugo defending Garibaldi was hooted. Delescluze demanding +the impeachment of the members of the National Defence was no better +listened to. Jules Simon declared that he would maintain the law against +association. On the 10th the breach was opened. A resolution was passed +that Paris should no longer be the capital, and that the Assembly should +sit at Versailles. This was calling forth the Commune, for Paris could +not remain at the same time without a Government and without a +municipality. The field of battle once found, despair was to supply it +with an army. The Government had already <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>decided to continue the pay of +the National Guards to those only who should ask for it. The Assembly +decreed that the bills due on the 13th November, 1870, should be made +payable on the 13th March, that is, in three days. The Minister Dufaure +obstinately refused any concession on this point. Notwithstanding the +urgent appeals of Millière, the Assembly refused to pass any protective +bill for the tenants whose house-rents had been due for six months. Two +or three hundred thousand workmen, shopkeepers, model makers, small +manufacturers working in their own lodgings, who had spent their little +stock of money and could not yet earn any more, all business being at a +stand-still, were thus thrown upon the tender mercies of the landlord, +of hunger and bankruptcy. From the 13th to the 17th of March 150,000 +bills were dishonored. Finally, the Right obliged M. Thiers to declare +from the tribune "that the Assembly could proceed to its deliberations +at Versailles without fearing the paving stones of an <i>émeute</i>," thus +constraining him to act at once, for the deputies were to meet again at +Versailles on the 20th.</p> + +<p>D'Aurelles commenced operations against the National Guard, declaring he +would submit it to rigorous discipline and purge it of its bad elements. +"My first duty," said his order of the day, "is to secure the respect +due to law and property,"—this eternal provocation on the part of the +bourgeoisie when lifted to supreme power by revolutionary events.</p> + +<p>The other senators also joined in. On the 7th Vinoy threw into the +streets with a pittance of eight shillings a head the twenty-one +thousand mobiles of the Seine. On the 11th, the day on which Paris +learnt her decapitalization and the ruinous decrees, Vinoy suppressed +six Republican journals, four of which, <i>Le Cri du Peuple</i>, <i>Le Mot +d'Ordre</i>, <i>Le Père Duchêne</i>, and <i>Le Vengeur</i>, had a circulation of +200,000. The same day the court-martial which judged the accused of the +31st October condemned several to death, among others Flourens and +Blanqui. Thus everybody was hit—bourgeois, republicans, revolutionists. +This Assembly of Bordeaux, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>deadly foe of Paris, a stranger to her +in sentiment, mind, and language, seemed a Government of foreigners. The +commercial quarters as well as the faubourgs rang with a general outcry +against it.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<p>From this time the last hesitation disappeared. The mayor of Montmartre, +Clémenceau, had been intriguing for several days to effect the surrender +of the cannon, and he had even found officers disposed to capitulate; +but the battalion protested, and on the 12th, when D'Aurelles sent his +teams, the guards refused to deliver the pieces. Picard, making an +attempt at firmness, sent for Courty, saying, "The members of the +Central Committee are risking their heads," and obtained a +quasi-promise. The Committee expelled Courty.</p> + +<p>It had since the 6th met at the hall of the Corderie. Although keeping +aloof from, and entirely independent of, the three other groups, the +reputation of the place was useful to it. It gave evidence of good +policy and baffled the intrigues of the <i>commandant</i>, Du Bisson, an +officer who had served abroad and been employed in undertakings of an +equivocal character, and who was trying to constitute a Central +Committee from above with the chiefs of the battalions. The Central +Committee sent three delegates to this group, where they met with lively +opposition. One chief of battalion, Barberet, showed himself +particularly restive; but another, Faltot, carried away the Assembly, +saying, "I am going over to the people." The fusion was concluded on the +10th, the day of the general meeting of the delegates. The Committee +presented its weekly report. It recounted the events of the last days, +the nomination of D'Aurelles, the menaces of Picard, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>remarking very +justly, "That which we are, events have made us: the reiterated attacks +of a press hostile to democracy have taught it, the menaces of the +Government have confirmed it; we are the inexorable barrier raised +against every attempt at the overthrow of the Republic." The delegates +were invited to push forward the elections of the Central Committee. An +appeal to the army was drawn up: "Soldiers, children of the people! Let +us unite to serve the Republic. Kings and emperors have done us harm +enough." The next day the soldiers lately arrived from the army of the +Loire gathered in front of these red placards, which bore the names and +addresses of all the members of the Committee.</p> + +<p>The Revolution, bereft of its journals, spoke now through placards, of +the greatest variety of color and opinion, posted on all the walls. +Flourens and Blanqui, condemned in contumacy, placarded their +protestations. Sub-committees were being formed in all the popular +arrondissements. That of the thirteenth arrondissement had for its chief +a young iron founder, Duval, a man of cold and commanding energy. The +sub-committee of the Rue des Rosiers surrounded their cannon by a ditch +and had them guarded day and night.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> All these committees quashed the +orders of D'Aurelles and were the true commanders of the National Guard.</p> + +<p>No doubt Paris was roused, ready to redeem her abdication during the +siege. This Paris, lean and oppressed by want, adjourned peace and +business, thinking only of the Republic. The provisional Central +Committee, without troubling itself about Vinoy, who had demanded the +arrest of all its members, presented itself on the 15th at the general +assembly of the Vauxhall. Two hundred and fifteen battalions were +represented, and acclaimed Garibaldi as commander-in-chief of the +National Guard. An orator, Lullier, led the Assembly astray. He was an +ex-naval officer, completely crack-brained, with a semblance of military +instruction, and when not heated by alcohol having intervals of lucidity +which might deceive any one. He was named commanding colonel of the +artillery. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Then came the names of those elected members of the Central +Committee, about thirty in all, for several arrondissements had not yet +voted. This was the regular Central Committee which was to be installed +at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Many of those elected had formed part of the +preceding commission. The others were all equally obscure, belonging to +the proletariat and small middle class, known only to their battalions.</p> + +<p>What mattered their obscurity? The Central Committee was not a +Government at the head of a party. It had no Utopia to initiate. A very +simple idea, fear of the monarchy, could alone have grouped together so +many battalions. The National Guard constituted itself an assurance +company against a <i>coup-d'état</i>; for if Thiers and his agents repeated +the word "Republic," their own party and the Assembly cried "Vive le +Roi!" The Central Committee was a sentinel, that was all.</p> + +<p>The storm was gathering; all was uncertain. The International convoked +the Socialist deputies to ask them what to do. But no attack was +planned, nor even suggested. The Central Committee formally declared +that the first shot would not be fired by the people, and that they +would only defend themselves in case of aggression.</p> + +<p>The aggressor, M. Thiers, arrived on the 15th. For a long time he had +foreseen that it would be necessary to engage in a terrible struggle +with Paris; but he intended acting at his own good time, to retake the +town when disposing of an army of forty thousand men, well picked, +carefully kept aloof from the Parisians. This plan has been revealed by +a general officer. At this moment Thiers had only the mere wreck of an +army.</p> + +<p>The 230,000 men disarmed by the capitulation, mostly mobiles or men +having finished their term of service, had been sent home in hot haste, +as they would only have swelled the Parisian army. Already some mobiles, +marines, and soldiers had laid the basis of a republican association +with the National Guards. There remained to Vinoy only the division +allowed him by the Prussians and 3,000 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>sergents-de-ville or gendarmes, +in all 15,000 men, rather ill-conditioned. Lefiô sent him a few thousand +men picked up in the armies of the Loire and of the North, but they +arrived slowly, almost without <i>cadres</i>, harassed, and disgusted at the +service. At Vinoy's very first review they were on the point of +mutinying. They left them straggling through Paris, abandoned, mixing +with the Parisians, who succored them, the women bringing them soups and +blankets to their huts, where they were freezing. In fact, on the 19th +the Government had only about 25,000 men, without cohesion and +discipline, two-thirds of them gained over to the faubourgs.</p> + +<p>How disarm 100,000 men with this mob? For, to carry off the cannon, it +was necessary to disarm the National Guard. The Parisians were no longer +novices in warfare. "Having taken our cannon," they said, "they will +make our muskets useless." The coalition would listen to nothing. Hardly +arrived, they urged M. Thiers to act, to lance the abscess at once. The +financiers—no doubt the same who had precipitated the war to give fresh +impulse to their jobbery<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>—said to him, "You will never be able to +carry out financial operations if you don't make an end of these +scoundrels."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> All these declared the taking of the cannon would be +mere child's play.</p> + +<p>They were indeed hardly watched, but because the National Guard knew +them to be in a safe place. It would suffice to pull up a few paving +stones to prevent their removal down the narrow steep streets of +Montmartre. On the first alarm all Paris would hasten to the rescue. +This had been seen on the 16th, when gendarmes presented themselves to +take from the Place des Vosges the cannon promised by Vautrain. The +National Guards arrived from all sides and unscrewed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>pieces, and +the shopkeepers of the Rue des Tournelles commenced unpaving the street.</p> + +<p>An attack was nonsensical, and it was this that determined Paris to +remain on the defensive. But M. Thiers saw nothing, neither the +disaffection of the middle classes nor the deep irritation of the +faubourgs. The little man, a dupe all his life, even of a MacMahon, +prompted by the approach of the 20th March, spurred on by Jules Favre +and Picard, who, since the failure of the 31st of October, believed the +revolutionists incapable of any serious action, and jealous to play the +part of a Bonaparte, threw himself head foremost into the venture. On +the 17th he held a council, and, without calculating his forces or those +of the enemy, without forewarning the mayors—(Picard had formally +promised them not to attempt to use force without consulting +them)—without listening to the chiefs of the bourgeois battalions,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> +this Government, too weak to arrest even the twenty-five members of the +Central Committee, gave the order to carry off two hundred and fifty +cannon<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> guarded by all Paris.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Arnold, J. Bergeret, Bouit, Castioni, Chauvière, Chouteau, +Courty, Dutil, Fleury, Frontier, H. Fortuné, Lacord, Lagarde, Lavalette, +Maljournal, Matté, Ostyn, Piconel, Pindy, Prudhomme, Varlin, H. Verlet, +Viard. Many of these names, those of the representatives elected on the +3rd, were new ones. On the other hand, many of those that had figured in +the placard of the 28th were missing, because only those signed who were +present at the sitting.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on +the 3rd "to save Paris from any demagogic attempts."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> The prefecture of Rennes placarded this despatch of the +Government: "A criminal insurrection is being organised in Paris. I send +forces which, joined to the honest National Guards of Paris and to the +other regular troops which are still stationed there, will suppress, I +hope, this odious attempt."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Jules Ferry, who had remained at Paris, telegraphed on the +5th to the Government: "Never has a Sunday been calmer, notwithstanding +sinister reports. The population is enjoying the sun and their +promenades as if nothing had happened. I no longer believe in the +danger."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> "The vote of the Assembly," wrote Jules Favre, "was +received at Paris with extreme disfavour; not only amongst the fanatics +and the agitators; all classes of the population showed themselves +almost unanimous. Every one saw in it an affront and a menace. It was +repeated everywhere that this was the first act of a monarchical +<i>coup-d'état</i>; that the Assembly was ready to name a king, and that, +knowing the unpopularity of its work, it sought to accomplish it far +from the eyes of those who might oppose it."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> This is the Committee which many took for the Central +Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Some Bourse speculators, in the belief that a campaign of +six weeks would give a fresh impulse to the speculations they were +living upon, said, "It is a disagreeable moment to pass through, some +50,000 men to be sacrificed, after which the horizon will clear and +commerce revive."—<i>M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre</i>, vol. i. p. +9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, M. Thiers, vol. ii. p. 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> In the evening D'Aurelles assembled forty of the most +reliable, and asked them if their battalions would march. They all said +their men were not to be counted upon. <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. +ii. p. 435, 456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> This is the number of pieces given by M. Thiers in the +<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nous avons donc fait ce que nous devions faire; rien n'a +provoqué l'insurrection de Paris."—<i>Discours de M. Dufaure +contre l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<p class="cen">THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH.</p> +<br /> + +<p>The execution was as foolish as the conception. On the 18th of March, at +three o'clock in the morning, several columns dispersed in various +directions to the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, the Faubourg du Temple, +the Bastille, the Hôtel-de-Ville, Place St. Michel, the Luxembourg, the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Invalides. General Susbielle marched +on Montmartre with two brigades about 6,000 men strong. All was silent +and deserted. The brigade Paturel took possession of the Moulin de la +Galette without striking a blow. The brigade Lecomte gained the Tower of +Solferino, only meeting with one sentinel, Turpin, who crossed bayonets +with them and was hewn down by the gendarmes. They then rushed to the +post of the Rue des Rosiers, stormed it, and threw the National Guards +into the caves of the Tower of Solferino. At six o'clock the surprise +was complete. M. Clémenceau hurried to the Buttes to congratulate +General Lecomte. Everywhere else the cannon were surprised in the same +way. The Government triumphed all along the line, and D'Aurelles sent +the papers a proclamation written in the conqueror's vein.</p> + +<p>There was only something wanted—teams to convey the spoil. Vinoy had +almost forgotten them. At eight o'clock they began to put some horses to +the pieces. Meanwhile the faubourgs were awaking and the early shops +opening. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Around the milkmaids and before the wineshops the people began +talking in a low voice; they pointed to the soldiers, the mitrailleuse +levelled at the streets, the walls covered with the still wet placard +signed by M. Thiers and his Ministers. They spoke of paralyzed commerce, +suspended orders, frightened capitals: "Inhabitants of Paris, in your +interest the Government has resolved to act. Let the good citizens +separate from the bad ones; let them aid public force; they will render +a service to the Republic herself," said MM. Pouyer-Quertier, De Larcy, +Dufaure and other Republicans. The conclusion is borrowed from the +phraseology of December: "The culpable shall be surrendered to justice. +Order, complete, immediate and unalterable, must be re-established." +They spoke of order;—blood was to be shed.</p> + +<p>As in our great days, the women were the first to act. Those of the 18th +March, hardened by the siege—they had had a double ration of +misery—did not wait for the men. They surrounded the mitrailleuses, +apostrophized the sergeant in command of the gun, saying, "This is +shameful; what are you doing there?" The soldiers did not answer. +Occasionally a non-commissioned officer spoke to them: "Come, my good +women, get out of the way." At the same time a handful of National +Guards, proceeding to the post of the Rue Doudeauville, there found two +drums that had not been smashed, and beat the <i>rappel</i>. At eight o'clock +they numbered 300 officers and guards, who ascended the Boulevard +Ornano. They met a platoon of soldiers of the 88th, and, crying, "Vive +la République!" enlisted them. The post of the Rue Dejean also joined +them, and the butt-end of their muskets raised, soldiers and guards +together marched up to the Rue Muller that leads to the Buttes +Montmartre, defended on this side by the men of the 88th. These, seeing +their comrades intermingling with the guards, signed to them to advance, +that they would let them pass. General Lecomte, catching sight of the +signs, had the men replaced by sergents-de-ville, and confined them in +the Tower of Solferino, adding, "You will get your deserts." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>The +sergents-de-ville discharged a few shots, to which the guards replied. +Suddenly a large number of National Guards, the butt-end of their +muskets up, women and children, debouched on the other flank by the Rue +des Rosiers. General Lecomte, surrounded, three times commanded fire. +His men stood still, their arms ordered. The crowd, advancing, +fraternized with them, and Lecomte and his officers were arrested.</p> + +<p>The soldiers whom he had just shut up in the tower wanted to shoot him, +but some National Guards having succeeded in disengaging him with great +difficulty—for the crowd took him for Vinoy—conducted him with his +officers to the Château-Rouge, where the staff of the battalions of the +National Guard was seated. There they asked him for an order to evacuate +the Buttes. He signed it without hesitation.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The order was +immediately communicated to the officers and soldiers of the Rue des +Rosiers. The gendarmes surrendered their chassepots, and even cried, +"Vive la République!" Three discharges from the cannon announced the +recapture of the Buttes.</p> + +<p>General Paturel, who wanted to carry away the cannon, surprised at the +Moulin de la Galette, came into collision with a living barricade in the +Rue Lepic. The people stopped the horses, cut the traces, dispersed the +artillerymen, and took back the cannon to their post. In the Place +Pigalle, General Susbielle gave the order to charge the crowd collected +in the Rue Houdon, but the chasseurs, intimidated, spurred back their +horses and were laughed at. A captain, dashing forward, sabre in hand, +wounded a guard, and fell, pierced with balls. The General fled. The +gendarmes, who commenced firing from behind the huts, were soon +dislodged, and the bulk of the soldiers went over to the people.</p> + +<p>At Belleville, the Buttes Chaumont, the Luxembourg, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>troops +fraternized everywhere with the crowds that had collected at the first +alarm.</p> + +<p>By eleven o'clock the people had vanquished the aggressors at all +points, preserved almost all their cannon, of which only ten had been +carried off, and seized thousands of chassepots. All their battalions +were now on foot, and the men of the faubourgs commenced unpaving the +streets.</p> + +<p>Since six o'clock in the morning D'Aurelles had had the rappel beaten in +the central quarters, but in vain. Battalions formerly noted for their +devotion to Trochu sent only twenty men to the rendezvous. All Paris, on +reading the placards, said, "This is the <i>coup-d'état</i>." At twelve +o'clock D'Aurelles and Picard sounded the alarm: "The Government call on +you to defend your homes, your families, your property. Some misguided +men, under the lead of some secret chiefs, turn against Paris the cannon +kept back from the Prussians." These reminiscences of June, 1848, this +accusation of indelicacy toward the Prussians, failing to rouse any one, +the whole Ministry came to the rescue: "An absurd rumor is being spread +that the Government is preparing a <i>coup-d'état</i>. It has wished and +wishes to make an end of an insurrectional Committee, whose members only +represent Communist doctrines." These alarms, repeatedly sounded, raised +in all 500 men.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p>The Government were at the Foreign Office, and, after the first +reverses, M. Thiers had given the order to fall back with all the troops +on the Champ-de-Mars. When he saw the desertion of the National Guards +of the Centre, he declared that it was necessary to evacuate Paris. +Several Ministers objected, wanted a few points to be guarded, the +Hôtel-de-Ville, its barracks occupied by the brigade Derroja, the Ecole +Militaire, and that they should take a position on the Trocadéro. The +little man, quite distracted, would only hear of extreme measures. +Leflô, who had almost been made a prisoner at the Bastille, vigorously +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>supported him. It was decided that the whole town should be evacuated, +even the forts on the south, restored by the Prussians a fortnight +before. Towards three o'clock the popular battalions of the Gros Caillou +marched past the Hôtel-de-Ville, headed by drums and trumpets. The +Council believed itself surrounded.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> M. Thiers escaped by a back +stair, and left for Versailles so out of his senses that at the bridge +of Sévres he gave the written order to evacuate Mont-Valérien.</p> + +<p>At the self-same hour when M. Thiers ran away, the revolutionary +battalions had not yet attempted any attack or occupied any official +posts.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> The aggression of the morning had surprised the Central +Committee, as it had all Paris. The evening before they had separated as +usual, giving themselves a rendezvous for the 18th, at eleven o'clock at +night, behind the Bastille, at the school in the Rue Basfroi; the Place +de la Corderie, actively watched by the police, no longer being safe. +Since the 15th new elections had added to their numbers, and they had +appointed a Committee of Defence. On the news of the attack, some ran to +the Rue Basfroi, others applied themselves to raising the battalions of +their quarters: Varlin at the Batignolles, Bergeret, recently named +chef-de-légion, at Montmartre, Duval at the Panthéon, Pindy in the third +arrondissement, Faltot in the Rue de Sévres. Ranvier and Brunel, without +belonging to the Committee, were agitating Belleville and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>tenth +arrondissement. At ten o'clock a dozen members met together, overwhelmed +with messages from all sides, and receiving from time to time some +prisoners. Positive intelligence only came in towards two o'clock. They +then drew up a kind of plan by which all the federalist battalions were +to converge upon the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then dispersed in all +directions to transmit orders.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> + +<p>The battalions were indeed on the alert, but did not march. The +revolutionary quarters, fearing a resumption of the attack, and ignoring +the plenitude of their victory, were strongly barricading themselves, +and remained where they were. Even Montmartre was only swarming with +guards in search of news, and disbanded soldiers for whom collections +were being made, as they had had nothing to eat since the morning. +Towards half-past three o'clock the Committee of Vigilance of the +eighteenth arrondissement, established in the Rue de Clignancourt, was +informed that General Lecomte was in great danger. A crowd, consisting +chiefly of soldiers, surrounded the Château-Rouge and demanded the +General. The members of the Committee of Vigilance, Ferré, Jaclard, and +Bergeret, immediately sent an order to the commander of the +Château-Rouge to guard the prisoner, who was to be put on his trial. +When the order arrived Lecomte had just left.</p> + +<p>He had long been asking to be taken before the Central Committee. The +chiefs of the post, much perturbed by the cries of the crowd, anxious to +get rid of their responsibility, and believing this Committee was +sitting in the Rue des Rosiers, decided to conduct the General and his +officers there. They arrived at about four o'clock, passing through a +terribly irritated crowd, yet no one raised a hand against them. The +General was closely guarded in a small front room on the ground floor. +There the scenes of the Château-Rouge recommenced. The exasperated +soldiers asked for his death. The officers of the National Guard made +desperate efforts to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>quiet them, crying, "Wait for the Committee." They +succeeded in posting sentinels and appeasing the commotion for a time.</p> + +<p>No member of the Committee had arrived when, at half-past four, +formidable cries filled the street, and hunted by a fierce multitude, a +man with a white beard was thrust against the wall of the house. It was +Clément-Thomas, the man of June, 1848, the insulter of the revolutionary +battalions. He had been recognized and arrested at the Chaussée des +Martyrs, where he was examining the barricades. Some officers of the +National Guard, a Garibaldian captain, Herpin-Lacroix, and some +franc-tireurs had tried to stop the deadly mass, repeating a thousand +times, "Wait for the Committee! Constitute a court-martial!" They were +jostled, and Clément-Thomas was again seized and hurled into the little +garden of the house. Twenty muskets levelled at him battered him down. +During this execution the soldiers broke the windows of the room where +General Lecomte was confined, threw themselves upon him, dragging him +towards the garden. This man, who in the morning had three times +commanded fire upon the people, wept, begged for pity, and spoke of his +family. He was forced against the wall and fell under the bullets.</p> + +<p>These reprisals over, the wrath of the mass subsided. They allowed the +officers of Lecomte's suite to be taken back to the Château-Rouge, and +at nightfall they were set at liberty.</p> + +<p>While these executions took place, the people, so long standing on the +defensive, had begun to move. Brunel surrounded the Prince Eugène +Barracks, held by the 120th of the line. The colonel, accompanied by +about a hundred officers, assuming lofty airs, Brunel had them all +locked up. Two thousand chassepots fell into the hands of the people. +Brunel continued his march by the Rue du Temple towards the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The Imprimerie Nationale was occupied at five o'clock. +At six the crowd attacked the doors of the Napoleon Barracks with +hatchets. A discharge was made, fired from the opening, and three +persons fell; but the soldiers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>made signs from the windows of the Rue +de Rivoli, crying, "It is the gendarmes who have fired. Vive la +République!" Soon after they opened the doors and allowed their arms to +be carried off.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> + +<p>At half-past seven the Hôtel-de-Ville was almost invested. The gendarmes +who occupied it fled by the subterranean passage of the Lobau Barracks. +About half-past eight Jules Ferry and Vabre, entirely abandoned by their +men, left without any order by the Government, also stole away. Shortly +after Brunel's column debouched on the place and took possession of the +Hôtel-de-Ville, where Ranvier arrived at the same time by the quays.</p> + +<p>The number of the battalions augmented incessantly. Brunel had given +order to raise barricades in the Rue de Rivoli, on the quays, manned all +the approaches, distributed the posts, and sent out strong patrols. One +of these, surrounding the mairie of the Louvre, where the mayors were +deliberating, almost succeeded in catching Ferry, who saved himself by +jumping out of a window. The mayors returned to the mairie of the Place +de la Bourse.</p> + +<p>They had already met there during the day together with many adjuncts, +much offended at the senseless governmental attack, waiting for +information and for ideas. Towards four o'clock they sent delegates to +the Government. M. Thiers had already made off. Picard politely showed +them out. D'Aurelles washed his hands of the whole affair, saying the +lawyers had done it. At night, however, it became necessary to take a +resolution. The federal battalions already surrounded the Hôtel-de-Ville +and occupied the Place Vendôme, whither Varlin, Bergeret, and Arnold had +conducted the battalions of Montmartre and the Batignolles. Vacherot, +Vautrain, and a few reactionists spoke of resisting at any price, as +though they had had an army to back them. Others, more sensible, sought +for some expedient. They thought they could calm down every thing by +naming as prefect of police Ed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>Adam, who had distinguished himself +against the insurgents of June, 1848, and as General of the National +Guards the giddy Proudhonist Langlois, a former Internationalist, who +had been for the movement of the 31st of October in the morning, against +it in the evening, and was named deputy, thanks to a scratch received +while gesticulating at Buzenval. The delegates went to propose this +brilliant solution to Jules Favre. He refused outright, saying, "We +cannot treat with assassins." This comedy was only played to justify the +evacuation of Paris, which he concealed from the mayors. During the +conference it was announced that Jules Ferry had abandoned the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The other Jules feigned surprise, and engaged the mayors +to call out the battalions of order for the purpose of replacing the +vanished army.</p> + +<p>They returned overwhelmed by this raillery, humbled at having been +altogether left in the dark about the intention of the Government. If +possessed of some political courage, they would have gone straight to +the Hôtel-de-Ville, instead of commencing to deliberate again in their +mairie. At last, at ten o'clock in the morning, Picard informed them +that they might bring out their Lafayette. They immediately sent +Langlois to the Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>Some of the members of the Central Committee had been there since ten +o'clock, generally very anxious and very hesitating. Not one of them had +dreamt that power would fall so heavily upon their shoulders. Many did +not want to sit at the Hôtel-de-Ville. They deliberated. At last it was +decided that they would only stay during the two or three days wanted +for the elections. Meanwhile it was necessary to ward off any attempt at +resistance. Lullier was present, buzzing around the Committee, in one of +his intervals of grave lucidity, promising to ward off all danger and +appealing to the vote of Vauxhall. He had played no part during the +whole day.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>The Committee committed the blunder of appointing him +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, while Brunel, who had rendered +such service since the morning, was already installed in the +Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock, Langlois, the competitor of Lullier, announced +himself. He was full of confidence in himself, and had already sent his +proclamation to the <i>Journal Officiel</i>. "Who are you?" the sentinels +asked him. "General of the National Guard," answered Langlois. Some +deputies of Paris, Lockroy, Cournet, &c., accompanied him. The Committee +consented to receive them. "Who has named you?" said they to Langlois. +"M. Thiers." They smiled at this aplomb of a madman. As he pleaded the +rights of the Assembly they put him to the test; "Do you recognise the +Central Committee?" "No." He decamped to run after his proclamation.</p> + +<p>The night was calm, fatally calm for liberty. By the gates of the south +Vinoy marched off his regiments, his artillery, and his baggage to +Versailles. The disbanded troops jogged along peevishly, insulting the +gendarmes.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> The staff, true to its traditions, had lost its head, and +left in Paris three regiments, six batteries, and all the gunboats, +which it would have sufficed to leave to the current of the river. The +slightest demonstration of the federals would have stopped this exodus. +Far from thinking of closing the gates, the new commander of the +National Guard—he boasted of it before the council of war—left open +all issues to the army.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> This order enjoining the troop to file off in the midst of +the National Guards was drawn up in pencil by a captain. Lecomte copied +it in ink without changing a word. The court-martial has denied this, in +order to glorify this general, who died so pusillanimously.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers; fourteen men per +battalion, says Jules Perry. <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> M. Thiers in the <i>Enquéte sur le 18 Mars</i> says, firstly, +"We let them defile," then, twenty lines farther, "We repulsed them." +Leflô has not concealed the fright the Council was in: "The moment +seemed critical to me. And I said, 'I think we are done for; we shall be +carried off;' and indeed the battalions had only to penetrate into the +palace and we were all taken to the last man. But the three battalions +marched off without saying anything."—Vol. ii. p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> The report of the <i>Enquéte sur le 18 Mars</i> said that "the +Committee did not hesitate on the afternoon of the 18th March to take +possession of all the administrations." This is if not a lie, intended +to palliate the stampede of M. Thiers,—one of the grossest proofs of +the ignorance of this report, which attributes the manifestation of the +24th of February to an order of the Central Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> See Appendix II., the details of the proceedings of the +Central Committee during this day, told by one of its members.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book <i>L'Armistice et +la Commune</i>: "The general assembled his men, and <i>sword in hand</i> he +bravely placed himself at the head of his troops."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Ten days after he recounted in a crazy letter written in +the Conciergerie that he had done everything; taken the Hôtel-de-Ville, +the Prefecture of Police, the Place Vendôme, the Tuileries, &c.; and +this letter is referred to as an authority by the report of the <i>Enquête +sur le 18 Mars</i>! For the future, I shall abstain from pointing out the +errors that abound in this report, which is an ignorant and malignant +résumé of the lies, inaccuracies, and animosity accumulated in this +<i>Inquiry</i>, from which all the vanquished, and even the smallest +adversaries, were excluded. Entirely insufficient as a historical +source, it may well serve to set forth the intelligence and morality of +the French bourgeoisie of the epoch.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Marreille, vol. ii. p. 200.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nos cœurs brisés font appel aux vôtres."—<i>Les Maires et +Adjoints de Paris et les Députés de la Seine à la Garde +Nationale et à tous les Citoyens.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS—THE MAYORS OF +PARIS AND DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Paris only became aware of her victory on the morning of the 19th of +March. What a change in the scene, even after all the scene-shifting in +the drama enacted during these last seven months! The red flag floated +above the Hôtel-de-Ville. With the early morning mists the army, the +Government, the Administration had evaporated. From the depths of the +Bastille, from the obscure Rue Basfroi, the Central Committee was lifted +to the summits of Paris in the sight of all the world. Thus on the 4th +September the Empire had vanished; thus the deputies of the Left had +picked up a derelict power.</p> + +<p>The Committee, to its great honour, had only one thought, to restore its +power to Paris. Had it been sectarian, hatching decrees, the movement +would have ended like that of the 31st October. Happily it was composed +of new-comers, without a past, and without political pretensions; men of +the small middle-class, as well as workmen, shopkeepers, commercial +clerks, mechanics, sculptors, architects, caring little for systems, +anxious above all to save the Republic. At this giddy height they had +but one idea to sustain them, that of securing to Paris her +municipality.</p> + +<p>Under the Empire this was one of the favourite schemes of the Left, by +which it had mainly won over the small <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>Parisian bourgeoisie, much +humiliated at the sight of Governmental nominees enthroned at the +Hôtel-de-Ville for full eighty years. Even the most pacific amongst them +were shocked, scandalised by the incessant increase of the budget, the +multiplied loans, and the financial swindling of Haussmann. And how they +applauded Picard, revindicating for the largest and most enlightened +city of France at least the rights enjoyed by the smallest village, or +when he defied the Pasha of the Seine to produce regular accounts! +Towards the end of the Empire, the idea of an elective municipal council +had taken root; it had to a certain extent been put into practice during +the siege, and now its total realisation could alone console Paris for +her decentralisation.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the popular masses, insensible to the bourgeois ideal +of a municipal council, were bent on the Commune. They had called for it +during the siege as an arm against the foreign enemy; they still called +for it as a lever for uprooting despotism and misery. What did they care +for a council, even elective, but without real liberties and fettered to +the state—without authority over the administration of schools and +hospitals, justice and police, and altogether unfit for grappling with +the social slavery of its fellow-citizens? What the people strove for +was a political form allowing them to work for the amelioration of their +condition. They had seen all the constitutions and all the +representative governments run counter to the will of the so-called +represented elector, and the state power, grown more and more despotic, +despoil the workmen even of the right to defend his labour, and this +power, which has ordained even the very air to be breathed, always +refusing to interfere in capitalist brigandage. After so many failures, +they were fully convinced that the actual governmental and legislative +régime was from its very nature unable to emancipate the workingman. +This emancipation they expected from the autonomous Commune, sovereign +within the limits compatible with the maintenance of the national unity. +The communal constitution was to substitute for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>representative +lording it over his elector the strictly responsible mandatory. The old +state power grafted upon the country, feeding upon its substance, +usurping supremacy on the foundation of divided and antagonistic +interests, organising for the benefit of the few, justice, finance, +army, and police, was to be superseded by a delegation of all the +autonomous communes.</p> + +<p>Thus the municipal question, appealing to the legitimate +susceptibilities of the one, to the bold aspirations of the other, +gathered all classes round the Central Committee.</p> + +<p>At half-past eight they held their first sitting in the same room where +Trochu had been enthroned. The president was a young man of about +thirty-two; Edward Moreau, a small commission agent. "He was not in +favour," he said, "of sitting at the Hôtel-de-Ville, but since they were +there, it was necessary to at once regularise their situation, tell +Paris what they wanted, proceed to the elections within the briefest +term possible, provide for the public services, and protect the town +from a surprise."</p> + +<p>Two of his colleagues immediately said, "We must first march on +Versailles, disperse the Assembly, and appeal to France to pronounce."</p> + +<p>Another, the author of the Vauxhall motion, said, "No. We have only the +mandate to secure the rights of Paris. If the provinces share our views, +let them imitate our example."</p> + +<p>Some wanted to consummate the revolution before referring to the +electors. Others opposed this vague suggestion. The Committee decided to +proceed at once to the elections, and charged Moreau to draw up an +appeal. While it was being signed, a member of the Committee arrived, +saying, "Citizens, we have just been told that most of the members of +the Government are still in Paris; an attempt at resistance is being +organised in the first and second arrondissements; the soldiers are +leaving for Versailles. We must take prompt measures to lay hands on the +Ministers, disperse the hostile battalions, and prevent the enemy from +leaving the town."</p> + +<p>In fact, Jules Favre and Picard had hardly left Paris. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>The clearing of +the Ministries was publicly going on; files of soldiers were still +marching off through the gates of the left bank. But the Committee +continued signing, neglecting this traditional precaution—the shutting +of the gates—and lost itself in the elections. It saw not—very few saw +as yet—that this was a death-struggle with the Assembly of Versailles.</p> + +<p>The Committee, distributing the work to be done, appointed the delegates +who were to take possession of the Ministries and direct the various +services. Some of these delegates were chosen outside the Committee, +from amongst those who were reputed men of action, or the +revolutionists. Some one having spoken of an increase of pay, his +colleagues indignantly answered, "We are not here to imitate the +Government of the Defence. We have lived till now on our pay; it will +still suffice." Arrangements were made for the permanent presence of +some members at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then they adjourned at one +o'clock.</p> + +<p>Outside the joyous clamor of the people enlivened the streets. A spring +sun smiled on the Parisians. This was their first day of consolation and +of hope for eight months. Before the barricades of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +at the Buttes Montmartre, in all the boulevards, lookers-on were +thronging. Who then spoke of civil war? Only the <i>Journal Officiel</i>. It +recounted the events in its own way. "The Government had exhausted every +means of conciliation," and in a despairing appeal to the National Guard +it said, "A committee taking the name of Central Committee has +assassinated in cold blood the Generals Clément-Thomas and Lecomte. Who +are the members of this Committee? Communists, Bonapartists, or +Prussians? Will you take upon yourselves the responsibility of these +assassinations?" These lamentations of runaways moved only a few +companies of the centre. Yet—a grave symptom this—the young bourgeois +of the Polytechnic School came to the mairie of the second +arrondissement, where the mayors had flocked, and the students of the +universities, till now the advanced guard of all our revolutions, +pronounced against the Committee.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>For this revolution was made by proletarians. Who were they? What did +they want? At two o'clock every one hurried to see the placards of the +Committee just issued from the Imprimerie Nationale. "Citizens, the +people of Paris, calm and impassible in their strength, have awaited +without fear, as without provocation, the shameless fools who want to +touch our Republic. Let Paris and France together lay the foundation of +a true Republic, the only Government which will for ever close the era +of revolutions. The people of Paris is convoked to make its elections." +And turning to the National Guard: "You have charged us to organise the +defence of Paris and of your rights. Our mandate has now expired. +Prepare, and at once make your communal elections. Meanwhile we shall, +in the name of the people, hold the Hôtel-de-Ville." Twenty names<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> +followed, which, save three or four, Assi, Lullier, and Varlin, were +only known through the placards of the last few days. Since the morning +of the 10th August, 1792, Paris has not seen in her Hôtel-de-Ville such +an advent of obscure men.</p> + +<p>And yet their placards were respected, their battalions circulated +freely. They took possession of the posts; at one o'clock the Ministries +of Finance and of the Interior; at two o'clock the Naval and War +Offices, the telegraph, the <i>Journal Officiel</i>, and Duval was installed +at the Prefecture de Police. And they had hit the mark. What indeed +could be said against this new-born power whose first word was its own +abdication?</p> + +<p>Everything around them bore a warlike aspect. Let us cross the half-open +barricades of the Rue de Rivoli. Twenty thousand men camped in the +square of the Hôtel-de-Ville; bread stuck on the end of their muskets. +Fifty ordnance pieces, cannon, and mitrailleuses drawn up along the +façade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>served as the <i>chevaux de frise</i> of the town hall. The court and +staircases encumbered with guards taking their meals, the large Salle du +Trône swarming with officers, guards, and civilians. In the hall on the +left, which was used by the staff, the noise subsided. The room by the +river-side, at the corner of the edifice, was the antechamber of the +Committee. About fifty men were writing there, bending over a long +table. There discipline and silence reigned. We were far from the +anarchists of the 31st October. From time to time the door, guarded by +two sentinels, opened to a member of the Committee who carried orders or +made inquiries.</p> + +<p>The sitting had recommenced. A member asked the Committee to protest +against the executions of Clément-Thomas and Lecomte, to which it was +entirely foreign. "Take care not to disavow the people," answered +another, "for fear they in turn should disavow you." A third said, "The +<i>Journal Officiel</i> declares the execution took place under our eyes. We +must stop these calumnies. The people and the bourgeoisie have joined +hands in this revolution. This union must be maintained. You want +everybody to take part in the elections." "Well, then," he was +apostrophised, "abandon the people in order to gain the bourgeoisie; the +people will withdraw, and you will see if it is with the bourgeois that +revolutions are made."<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>The Committee decided that a note should be inserted in the <i>Journal +Officiel</i> to re-establish the truth. Ed. Moreau proposed and read the +draft of a manifesto, which was adopted.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>The Committee were discussing the date and mode of the elections when it +was informed that a large meeting of the chiefs of battalions, the +mayors and deputies of the Seine was being held at the mairie of the +third arrondissement. M. Thiers, during the morning, had given over to +the union of the mayors the provisional administration of Paris, and +they were trying their authority on the National Guard. The Committee +was assured that they intended to convoke the electors.</p> + +<p>"If it is so," said several members, "we must come to an agreement with +them to make the situation regular." Others, remembering the siege, +simply wanted to have them arrested. One member said, "If we wish to +have France with us, we must not frighten her. Think what an effect the +arrest of the deputies and mayors would produce, and what, on the other +hand, the effect of their adhesion would be." Another, "It is important +to collect an imposing number of voters. All Paris will go to the +ballot-boxes if the representatives and mayors join us." "Say rather," +cried an impetuous colleague, "that you are not equal to your position; +that your only preoccupation is to disengage yourselves." They finally +decided to send Arnold to the mairie as delegate.</p> + +<p>He was badly enough received. The most radical adjuncts and deputies, +Socialists like Millière and Malon, flatly declared against the +Hôtel-de-Ville, appalled at the dangerous initiative of the people. Many +too said, "Who are these unknown men?" Even at the Corderie, +Internationalists and former members of the Committee of the twenty +arrondissements maintained a diffident attitude. However, the meeting +decided to send commissioners to the Hôtel-de-Ville, for, whether they +liked it or not, there was the power.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee had, in the meantime, fixed the elections for the +Wednesday, decreed the raising of the state of siege, the abolition of +the court-martials, and amnesty for all political crimes and offences. +It held a third sitting at eight o'clock to receive the commissioners. +These were the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>deputies Clémenceau, Millière, Tolain, Cournet, Malon, +and Lockroy, the mayors Bonvalet and Mottu, the adjuncts Murat, Jaclard, +and Léo Meillet.</p> + +<p>Clémenceau, half accomplice, half dupe of M. Thiers' <i>coup d'état</i>, in +his quality of mayor and deputy, was the spokesman. He was prolix and +pedantic. "The insurrection has been undertaken upon an illegitimate +motive; the cannon belong to the State. The Central Committee is without +a mandate and in no wise holds Paris. Numerous battalions were gathering +round the deputies and mayors. Soon the Committee will become ridiculous +and its decrees will be despised. Besides, Paris has no right to revolt +against France, and must absolutely acknowledge the authority of the +Assembly. The Committee has but one other way of getting out of the +difficulty—to submit to the union of the deputies and mayors, who are +resolved to obtain from the Assembly the satisfaction claimed by Paris."</p> + +<p>He was frequently interrupted during this speech. What! They dared speak +of an insurrection! Who had began the civil war, attacked first? What +had the National Guards done but answer a nocturnal aggression, taken +back cannon paid for by themselves? What had the Central Committee done +but follow the people and occupy the deserted Hôtel-de-Ville?</p> + +<p>A member of the Committee said, "The Central Committee has received a +regular, imperative mandate. This mandate forbids them to allow the +Government or the Assembly to touch their liberties or the Republic. Now +the Assembly has never ceased putting the existence of the Republic in +question. It has placed a dishonoured general at our head, decapitalised +Paris, tried to ruin her commerce. It has sneered at our sufferings, +denied the devotion, the courage, the abnegation Paris has shown during +the siege, hooted her best-loved representatives, Garibaldi and Victor +Hugo. The plot against the Republic is evident. The attempt was +commenced by gagging the press; they hoped to terminate it by the +disarmament of our battalions. Yes, our case was one of legitimate +defence. If we have bowed our heads under this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>new affront, there was +an end of the Republic. You have just spoken of the Assembly of France. +The mandate of the Assembly has expired. As to France, we had not the +pretension of dictating her laws—we have too often suffered under +hers—but we will not submit to her rural plebiscites. You see it; the +question is no longer to know which of our mandates is the most regular. +We say to you the revolution is made; but we are not usurpers. We wish +to call upon Paris to name her representatives. Will you aid us, and +proceed with us to consult the elections? We eagerly accept your +co-operation."</p> + +<p>As he spoke of autonomous communes and their federation, "Have a care," +said Millière; "if you unfurl this flag they will launch all France upon +Paris, and I foresee days fatal as those of June. The hour of the social +revolution has not yet struck. Progress is obtained by slower marches. +Descend from the heights where you have placed yourselves. Victorious +to-day, your insurrection may be vanquished to-morrow. Make as much of +it as you can, but do not hesitate to content yourselves with little. I +adjure you to leave the field open to the union of the mayors and +deputies; your confidence will be well placed."</p> + +<p>One of the Committee: "Since the social revolution has been spoken of, I +declare our mandate does not go so far." (Others of the Committee, "Yes! +Yes!" "No! No!") "You have spoken of a federation, of Paris as a free +town. Our duty is more simple. It is to proceed to the elections. The +people will afterwards decide on their action. As to yielding to the +deputies and mayors, this is impossible. They are unpopular and have no +authority in the Assembly. The elections will take place with or without +their concurrence. Will they help us? We will receive them with open +arms. If not, we shall do without them, and, if they attempt to obstruct +our way, we shall know how to reduce them to impotency."</p> + +<p>The delegates resisted. The discussion grew hot. "But, in fine," said +Clémenceau, "what are your pretensions? Do you confine your mandate to +asking the Assembly for a municipal council?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>Many of the Committee: "No! No!" "We want," said Varlin, "not only the +election of the municipal council, but real municipal liberties, the +suppression of the prefecture of police, the right of the National Guard +to name its chiefs and to reorganise itself, the proclamation of the +Republic as the legal Government, the pure and simple remittance of the +rents due, an equitable law on overdue bills, and the Parisian territory +interdicted the army."</p> + +<p>Malon: "I share your aspirations, but the situation is perilous. It is +clear that the Assembly will listen to nothing as long as the Committee +occupies the Hôtel-de-Ville. If, on the contrary, Paris intrusts herself +again to her legal representatives, I believe they could do more than +you."</p> + +<p>The discussion was protracted until half-past ten; the Committee +defending its right to proceed to the elections, the delegates their +pretension of superseding the Committee. They at last agreed that the +Committee should send four of its members to the second arrondissement. +Varlin, Moreau, Arnold, and Jourde were appointed.</p> + +<p>There they found the whole staff of Liberalism: deputies, mayors, and +adjuncts; Louis Blanc, Schœlcher, Carnot, Peyrat, Tirard, Floquet, +Desmarets, Vautrain, and Dubail, about sixty altogether. The cause of +the people there had a few partisans, sincere, but terribly dismayed by +the uncertain future. The mayor of the second arrondissement, Tirard, +presided, a Liberal, nervous, haughty, one of those who had helped to +paralyse Paris in the hands of Trochu. In his evidence before the Rural +Committee of Inquiry, he has mutilated, travestied this sitting, where +the Radico-Liberal bourgeoisie laid bare all its baseness. We shall now, +for the instruction of and in justice to the people, give the plain +truth.</p> + +<p>The delegates: "The Central Committee does not wish anything better than +to come to an agreement with the municipalities, if they will proceed +with the elections."</p> + +<p>Schœlcher, Tirard, Peyrat, Louis Blanc, all the Radicals and Liberals +in chorus: "The municipalities will not treat with the Central +Committee. There is only one authority—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>the union of the mayors +invested with the delegation by the Government."</p> + +<p>The delegates: "Let us not discuss the point. The Central Committee +exists. We have been named by the National Guard and we hold the +Hôtel-de-Ville. Will you proceed to make the elections?"</p> + +<p>"But what is your programme?"</p> + +<p>Varlin set it forth. He was attacked from all sides. The four delegates +had to face twenty assailants. The great argument of the Liberals was +that Paris could not convoke herself, but ought to wait for the +permission of the Assembly. A reminiscence this of the times of the +siege, when they fell prone before the Government of the Defence.</p> + +<p>The delegates affirmed, on the contrary: "The people has the right to +convoke itself. It is an undeniable right, which it has more than once +made use of in our history in moments of great peril, and at present we +are passing through such a crisis, since the Assembly of Versailles is +making for monarchy."</p> + +<p>Then recriminations followed: "You are now face to face with force," +said the delegates. "Beware of letting loose a civil war by your +resistance." "It is you who want a civil war," replied the Liberals. At +midnight Moreau and Arnold, quite disheartened, withdrew. Their +colleagues were about to follow, when some adjuncts entreated them to +stay. "We promise," said the mayors and deputies, "to make every effort +to obtain the municipal elections with the shortest delay." "Very well," +answered the delegates, "but we maintain our position; we want +guarantees." The deputies and mayors, growing obstinate, pretended that +Paris must surrender unconditionally. Jourde was about to retire, when +some of the adjuncts again detained him. For a moment they seemed to be +coming to an understanding. The Committee was to give up all the +administrative services to the mayors, and let them occupy one part of +the Hôtel-de-Ville; itself, however, was to continue sitting there, to +retain the exclusive direction of the National Guard, and to watch over +the security of the town. This agreement only required to be confirmed +by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>the issue of a common proclamation, but when the heading of the +latter came to be discussed, the contest grew more violent than before. +The delegates proposed, "The deputies, mayors, and adjuncts, in accord +with the Central Committee." These gentlemen, on the contrary, desired +to hide themselves behind a mask. For an hour Louis Blanc, Tirard, and +Schœlcher overwhelmed the delegates with indignities. Louis Blanc +cried to them, "You are insurgents against a most freely elected +Assembly.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> We, the regular mandatories, we cannot avow a transaction +with insurgents. We should be willing to prevent a civil war, but not to +appear as your auxiliaries in the eyes of France." Jourde answered the +mannikin that this transaction, in order to be accepted by the people of +Paris, must be publicly consented to, and, despairing of making anything +out of this meeting, withdrew.</p> + +<p>And amongst this <i>élite</i> of the Liberal Bourgeoisie, former exiles, +publicists, historians of our revolutions, not one indignant voice +protested, "Let us cease these cruel disputes, this barking at a +revolution. Woe to us if we do not recognise the force manifesting +itself through unknown men! The Jacobins of 1794 denied it, and they +perished; the Montagnards of 1848 abandoned it, and they perished; the +Left under the Empire, the Government of the National Defence, disdained +it, and our integrity as a nation has perished. Let us open our eyes, +our hearts; let us break out of the beaten track. No; we will not widen +the gulf that the days of June, 1848, and the Empire have placed between +us and the workmen. No; with the disasters of France in view, we shall +not allow her living forces still in reserve to be touched. The more +abnormal, monstrous our situation is, the more we are bound to find the +solution, even under the eye of the Prussian. You, the Central +Committee, who are the spokesmen of Paris, we, who are listened to by +Republican France, we will mark out a field for common action. You +supply <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>the force, the large aspirations, we the knowledge of realities +and their inexorable behests. We shall present to the Assembly this +charter free from all Utopian views, equally regardful of the rights of +the nation and of those of the capital. If the Assembly rejects it, we +shall be the first to make the elections, to ask for your suffrage. And +when France sees Paris raising her force counterpoised by prudence at +her Hôtel-de-Ville, vigorous new-comers allied with men of old repute, +the only possible bulwark against royalists and clericals, she will rise +as in the days of the Federation, and at her voice Versailles will have +to yield."</p> + +<p>But what was to be expected of men who had not even been able to pluck +up sufficient courage to wrench Paris from Trochu? Varlin single-handed +had to stand their combined attack. Exhausted, worn out—this contest +had lasted five hours—he at last gave way, but under protest. On +returning to the Hôtel-de-Ville, he recovered all his wonted energy, his +calm intelligence, and told the Committee he now saw the snare, and +advised it to reject the pretensions of the mayors and deputies.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Assi, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, C. Dupont, +Varlin, Boursier, Mortier, Gouhier, Lavalette, F. Jourde, Rousseau, C. +Lullier, Blanchet, J. Grollard, Barrond, H. Geresme, Fabre, Fougeret, +the members present at the morning sitting. The Committee decided later +on that its publications should bear the names of all its members.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> The minutes of the first Central Committee have +disappeared, but one of its most assiduous members has restored the +principal sittings from memory. It is from his notes, checked by several +of his colleagues, that we have taken these details. It is superfluous +to say that the minutes published by the <i>Paris Journal</i>, which have +been used by reactionist historians, are incomplete, inexact, drawn up +from hearsay, unintelligent indiscretions, and often from pure +imagination. Thus, for instance, they make all the sittings presided +over by Assi, attributing to him the principal part, because under the +Empire he was very incorrectly supposed to have directed the strike of +Creuzot. Assi never had any influence in the Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Textual. It is from the little man of Paris that the +little man of Versailles borrowed the phrase while he completed it.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Je croyais que les insurgés de Paris ne pourraient pas +conduire leur barque."—<i>Jules Favre, Enquête sur +18 Mars.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC +SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Thus no agreement had been come to, only one of the four delegates +having, from sheer weariness, given way to a certain extent. So on the +morning of the 20th, when the mayor Bonvalet and two adjuncts sent by +the mayors came to take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville, the members of +the Committee unanimously exclaimed, "We have not treated." But +Bonvalet, feigning to believe in a regular agreement, continued, "The +deputies are to-day going to ask for the municipal franchises. Their +negotiations cannot succeed if the administration of Paris is not given +up to the mayors. On pain of frustrating the efforts which will save +you, you must fulfil the engagements of your delegates."</p> + +<p>One of the Committee: "Our delegates received no mandate to enter into +such engagements for us. We do not ask to be saved."</p> + +<p>Another: "The weakness of the deputies and of the mayors is one of the +causes of the revolution. If the Committee abandons its position and +disarms, the Assembly will grant nothing."</p> + +<p>Another: "I have just come from the Corderie. The Committee of the +second arrondissement is holding a sitting, and it adjures the Central +Committee to remain at its post till the elections."</p> + +<p>Others were about to speak, when Bonvalet declared that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>he had come to +take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville, not to discuss, and walked off. +His superciliousness confirmed the worst suspicions. Those who the +evening before had been favourable to making terms said, "These men want +to betray us." Behind the mayors the Committee beheld the implacable +reaction. In any case, to ask them for the Hôtel-de-Ville was to ask +their lives, for the National Guards would have believed them traitors, +and punished them on the spot. In one word, compromise had become +impossible. The <i>Journal Officiel</i>, for the first time in the hands of +the people, and the placards had spoken.</p> + +<p>"The election of the municipal council will take place on Wednesday +next, 22nd March," decreed the Central Committee. And in a manifesto it +said, "The offspring of a Republic whose device bears the great word +Fraternity, the Central Committee pardons its traducers, but it would +convince the honest people who have believed their calumnies through +ignorance. It has not been secret, for its members have signed their +names to all its proclamations. It has not been unknown, for it was a +free expression of the suffrage of 215 battalions. It has not been the +fomenter of disorder, for the National Guard has committed no excess. +And yet provocations have not been wanting. The Government calumniated +Paris and set on the provinces against her, wished to impose on us a +general, attempted to disarm us, and said to Paris, 'Thou hast shown +thyself heroic, we are afraid of thee, hence we will tear from thee the +crown of the capital of France.' What has the Central Committee done in +answer to these attacks? It has founded the Federation, preached +moderation, generosity. One of the greatest causes of anger against us +is the obscurity of our names. Alas! many names were known, well known, +and this notoriety has been fatal to us. Notoriety is cheaply gained; +often hollow phrases or a little cowardice suffice; recent events have +proved this. Now that our object is attained, we say to the people, who +esteemed us enough to listen to the advice that has often clashed with +their impatience, 'Here is the mandate you intrusted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>to us.' There, +where our personal interest commences, our duty ends. Do your will. You +have freed yourselves. Obscure a few days ago, obscure we shall return +to your ranks, and show our governors that it is possible to descend the +steps of your Hôtel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of +receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands."<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> +By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel +the deputies and the mayors placarded a few dry and colourless lines, +where they promised to demand of the Assembly that same day the election +of all the chiefs of the National Guard and the establishment of a +municipal council.</p> + +<p>At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified +functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five +or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition +was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight—this was not +what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which +they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of +taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the +provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at +Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of +soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was +to place a few posts along the routes of Châtillon and Sèvres, and +protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses.</p> + +<p>The President, Grévy, who during the whole war had cowered in the +provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by +stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could +extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession +towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before +the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection, +without general views, and without a preamble to explain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>them. First a +bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then +another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. +Millière alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to +prolong them for six months.</p> + +<p>Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled +at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a +deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous +scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had +softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own +treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen +times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for +his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him +with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the +National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orléans two +generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who +took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without +endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them, +was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a +fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions. +"I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This +story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +<p>From the first sitting one could see what the struggle between +Versailles and Paris was to be. The monarchical conspirators, abandoning +their dream for a moment, hastened to do the most urgent work first: to +save themselves from the Revolution. They surrounded M. Thiers and +promised him their absolute support to crush Paris. Thus this Ministry, +that a truly National Assembly would have impeached, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>became, even +through its crime, all-powerful. Scarcely recovered from the fright of +their stampede, M. Thiers and his Ministers dared to play the +swaggerers. And indeed, would not the provinces hasten to their rescue, +as in June, 1848? And proletarians without political education, without +administration, without money, how could they be able "to steer their +bark"?</p> + +<p>In 1831 the proletarians, masters of Lyons, had failed in their attempt +at self-government, and how much greater was the difficulty for those of +Paris! All new powers had until then found the administrative machine in +working order, in readiness for the victor. On the 20th March the +Central Committee found it taken to pieces. At the signal from +Versailles the majority of functionaries had abandoned their posts. +Octrois, street inspection, lighting, markets, public charity, +telegraphs, all the respiratory and digestive apparatus of the town of +1,600,000 souls, everything had to be extemporised. Certain mayors had +carried off the seals, the registers, and the cash of their mairies. The +military intendance left without a farthing six thousand sick in the +hospitals and ambulances.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> M. Thiers had tried to disorganise even +the management of the cemeteries.</p> + +<p>Poor man! who never knew anything of our Paris, of her inexhaustible +strength, her marvellous elasticity. The Central Committee received +support from all sides. The committees of arrondissements furnished a +<i>personnel</i> to the mairies; some of the small middle-class lent their +experience, and the most important services were set to rights in no +time by men of common sense and energy, which soon proved superior to +routine. The employés who had remained at their posts in order to hand +over the funds to Versailles were soon discovered and obliged to flee.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee overcame a more menacing difficulty. Three hundred +thousand persons without work, without resources of any kind, were +waiting for the thirty sous upon which they had lived for the last seven +months. On the 19th, Varlin and Jourde, delegates to the finance +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>department, took possession of that Ministry. The coffers, according to +the statement of accounts handed over to them, contained 4,600,000 +francs; but the keys were at Versailles, and, in view of the movement +for conciliation then being carried on, the delegates did not dare to +force the locks. The next day they went to ask Rothschild to open them a +credit at the bank, and he sent word that the funds would be advanced. +The same day the Central Committee broached the question more forcibly, +and sent three delegates to the bank to request the necessary advances. +They were answered that a million was placed at the disposition of +Varlin and Jourde, who at six o'clock in the evening were received by +the governor, M. Rouland. "I expected your visit," he said. "On the +morning following a change of Government, the bank has always to find +the money for the new-comers. It is not my business to judge events; the +Bank of France has nothing to do with politics. You are a <i>de facto</i> +Government, and the bank gives you for to-day a million. Only be so kind +as to mention in your receipt that this sum has been requisitioned on +account of the town of Paris."<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> The delegates took away a million +francs in bank-notes. All the employés of the Ministry of Finance had +disappeared since the morning, but with the help of a few friends the +sum was rapidly divided among the paying officers. At ten o'clock the +delegates were able to tell the Central Committee that the pay was being +distributed in all the arrondissements.</p> + +<p>The bank acted prudently: the Central Committee firmly held Paris. The +mayors and deputies had not been able to unite more than three or four +hundred men, although <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>they had charged Admiral Saisset with the +organisation of the resistance. The Committee was so sure of its +strength that it had the barricades demolished. Everybody came to it, +the garrison of Vincennes spontaneously surrendering themselves with the +fort. Its victory was too complete, for it was perilous, obliging it to +disperse its troops in order to take possession of the abandoned forts +on the south. Lullier, intrusted with this mission, had the forts of +Ivry, Bicêtre, Montrouge, Vanves, and Issy occupied on the 19th and +20th. The last to which he sent the National Guard, Mont-Valérien, was +the key of Paris, and, at that time, of Versailles.</p> + +<p>For thirty-six hours the impregnable fortress had remained empty. On the +evening of the 18th, after the order of evacuation, it had to defend it +only twenty muskets and some chasseurs of Vincennes, interned there for +mutiny. The same evening they burst open the locks of the fortress and +returned to Paris.</p> + +<p>When the evacuation of Mont-Valérien became known at Versailles, +generals and deputies begged M. Thiers to have it reoccupied. He +obstinately refused, declaring this fort had no strategical value. +During the whole day of the 19th they still failed. At last Vinoy, in +his turn, urged by them, succeeded on the 20th, at one o'clock in the +morning, in wresting an order from M. Thiers. A column was immediately +despatched, and at mid-day a thousand soldiers occupied the fortress. +Not until evening, at eight o'clock, did the battalions of Ternes +present themselves; the governor easily got rid of their officers. +Lullier, on making his report to the Central Committee, said he had +occupied all the forts, and even named the battalion which, according to +him, was then in possession of Mont-Valérien.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> I need not justify the long quotations I shall make. The +French proletarian has never been allowed to speak in books of history; +at least he should do so in the recital of his own revolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> The two generals have testified to the extreme +consideration shown them in their prison. See the <i>Enquête sur le 18 +Mars</i>. Two days later, on Chanzy's simple promise not to serve against +Paris, the Central Committee set them free.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Dr. Danet, vol. ii. p. 531.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Of course the Radicals have seen in this a Bonapartist +manœuvre, have written and said from the tribune of the Assembly, +"The Bonapartist director of the Bank of France saved the Revolution; +without the million of the Monday the Central Committee would have +capitulated." Two facts answer this: From the 19th the Committee had in +the Ministry of Finance 4,600,000 francs; the municipal coffers +contained 1,200,000 francs, and on the 21st the Octroi had brought in +500,000 more.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"L'ideé de voir un massacre me remplissait de douleur."— +<i>Jules Favre, Enquête sur le 4 Septemre.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY +COMBINE AGAINST PARIS—THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE +VENDÔME, AND IS PUNISHED.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>On the 21st the situation stood out in bold relief.</p> + +<p>At Paris—the Central Committee, with it all the workmen and all the +generous and enlightened men of the small middle-class. The Committee +said, "We have but one object—the elections. Everybody is welcome to +co-operate with us, but we shall not leave the Hôtel-de-Ville before +they have been made."</p> + +<p>At Versailles—the Assembly;—all the monarchists, all the great +bourgeoisie, all the slaveholders. They yelled, "Paris is only a rebel, +the Central Committee a band of brigands."</p> + +<p>Between Versailles and Paris—a few Radical deputies, all the mayors, +many adjuncts. They comprised the Liberal bourgeois, that sacred herd +that makes all revolutions and allows all the empires to be made. +Despised by the Assembly, disdained by the people, they cried to the +Central Committee, "Usurpers!" and to the Assembly, "You will spoil +all."</p> + +<p>The day of the 21st is memorable, for on it all these voices made +themselves heard.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee: "Paris has in nowise the intention of separating +from France; far from it. For France she has borne with the Empire and +the Government of the National Defence, with all their treachery and +defections, certainly not to abandon her now, but only to say to her as +an elder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>sister: Sustain thyself as I have sustained myself; oppose +thyself to oppression as I have done."</p> + +<p>And the <i>Journal Officiel</i>, in the first of those articles where Moreau, +Longuet, and Rogeard commented upon the new revolution, said: "The +proletarians of the capital, amidst the failures and treasons of the +ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to +save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of +public affairs. Hardly possessed of the government, they have hastened +to convoke the people of Paris to the ballot-boxes. There is no example +in history of a provisional government so anxious to divest itself of +its mandate. In the presence of conduct so disinterested, one may well +ask how a press can be found unjust enough to pour out upon these +citizens slander, contumely, and insult? The workingmen, those who +produce everything and enjoy nothing, are they then for ever to be +exposed to outrage? The bourgeoisie, which has accomplished its +emancipation, does it not understand that now the time for the +emancipation of the proletariat is come? Why, then, does it persist in +refusing the proletariat its legitimate share?"</p> + +<p>It was the first Socialist note struck in the movement. Parisian +revolutions never remain purely political. The approach of the +foreigner, the abnegation of the workmen, had, on the 4th September, +silenced all social demands. Peace once concluded, the workmen in power, +their voice would naturally make itself heard. How just was this +complaint of the Central Committee! What an act of accusation the French +proletariat could draw up against its masters! And on the 18th March, +1871, could not the people, making greater their great words of 1848, +say, "We had placed eighty years of patience at the service of our +country"?</p> + +<p>The same day the Central Committee suspended the sale of objects pledged +in the pawnshops, prolonged the overdue bills for a month, and forbade +landlords to dismiss their tenants till further notice. In three lines +it did justice, beat Versailles, and gained Paris.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>On the other hand, the representatives and mayors told the people, "No +election; everything is for the best. We wanted the maintenance of the +National Guard; we shall have it. We wanted Paris to recover her +municipal liberty; we shall have it. Your requests have been brought +before the Assembly. The Assembly <i>has satisfied them</i> by a unanimous +vote, which guarantees the municipal elections. Awaiting these, the only +legal elections, we declare that we shall abstain from the elections +announced for to-morrow, and we protest against their illegality."</p> + +<p>Thrice-lying address! The Assembly had not said a word of the National +Guard; it had promised no municipal liberty, and several of the +signatures were supposititious.</p> + +<p>The bourgeois press followed suit. Since the 19th the Figarist papers, +supported by the police, the altar, and the alcove, the Liberal +gazettes, by which Trochu had prepared the capitulation of Paris, had +not ceased to fall foul of the federal battalions. They spoke of the +public coffers and private property being pillaged, of Prussian gold +streaming into the faubourgs, of documentary evidence hurtful to the +members of the Central Committee destroyed by them. The Republican +journals also discovered gold in the movement, but Bonapartist gold; and +the best of them, naïvely convinced that the Republic belonged to their +patrons, inveigled against the accession of the proletariat, saying, +"These people dishonour us." Emboldened by the mayors and deputies, they +all agreed to revolt; and on the 21st, in a collective declaration, +asked the electors to consider as null and void the illegal convocation +of the Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>Illegality! Thus the question was put by the Legitimists, twice imposed +on us by foreign bayonets; by the Orléanists, raised to power through +barricades; by the brigands of December; even by the exiles returned +home, thanks to an insurrection. What! When the bourgeois, who make all +laws, always act illegally, how are the workmen to proceed, against whom +all the laws are made?</p> + +<p>These attacks of the mayors and deputies and of the press screwed up the +courage of the Hectors of the reaction. For <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>two days this rabble of +runaways, who during the siege had infested the cafés of Brussels and +the Haymarket of London, gesticulated on the fashionable boulevards, +asking for order and <i>work</i>. On the 21st, at about ten o'clock, at the +Place de la Bourse, about a hundred of these strange workingmen marched +round the Stock Exchange, banners flying, and advancing along the +boulevards to the cries of "Vive l'Assemblée!" came to the Place +Vendôme, shouting before the general staff, "Down with the Committee!" +The commander of the Place, Bergeret, told them to send delegates. "No, +no!" cried they; "no delegates! You would assassinate them!" The +federals, losing patience, had the Place cleared. The riotous fops gave +themselves a rendezvous for the next day before the new Opera-House.</p> + +<p>At the same hour the Assembly made its demonstration. The draft of an +address to the people and the army, a tissue of lies and insults to +Paris, having just been read, and Millière having pointed out that it +contained some unfortunate expressions, was hooted. The demand of the +Left to at least conclude the address with the words "Vive la +République!" was frantically refused by an immense majority. Louis Blanc +and his group, entreating the Assembly to immediately examine their +project of municipal law and oppose a vote to the elections that the +Committee announced for the next day, M. Thiers answered, "Give us time +to study the question." "Time!" exclaimed M. Clémenceau, "we have none +to lose." Then M. Thiers gave those drones a lesson they richly +deserved: "What would be the use of concessions?" said he. "What +authority have you at Paris? Who would listen to you at the +Hôtel-de-Ville? Do you think that the adoption of a bill would disarm +the party of brigands, the party of assassins?" Then he charged Jules +Favre to expatiate on this theme for the special benefit of the +provinces. For an hour and a half that bitter follower of Guadet, +spinning round Paris his elaborate periods, limed her with his venom. No +doubt he again saw himself on the 31st October, when the people held him +in their power and pardoned him, a cruel remembrance for his rankling +spirit. He commenced by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>reading the declaration of the press, +"courageously written," said he, "under the knife of the assassins." He +spoke of Paris as in the power of "a handful of scoundrels, putting +above the right of the Assembly I know not what bloody and rapacious +ideal." Then, humbly supplicating monarchists and Catholics: "What they +want," cried he, "what they have realised, is an attempt at that baleful +doctrine which in philosophy may be called individualism and +materialism, and which in politics means the Republic placed above +universal suffrage." At this idiotic quibbling the Assembly burst into +roars of applause. "These new doctors," continued he, "have the +pretension of separating Paris from France. But let the insurgents know +this: if we left Paris, it was with the intention of returning in order +to combat them resolutely." (Bravo! bravo!) Then stirring the panic of +those rurals who every moment expected to see the federal battalions +coming down upon them: "If some of you fall into the hands of these men, +who have only usurped power for the sake of violence, assassination and +theft, the fate of the unfortunate victims of their ferocity would be +yours." And finally, garbling, improving with ferocious skill the +maladroitness of an article in the <i>Journal Officiel</i> on the execution +of the generals: "No more temporising. For three days I combated the +exigencies of the victor who wanted to disarm the National Guard. I ask +pardon for it of God and of man." Each new insult, each banderillo +thrust into the flesh of Paris, drew from the Assembly mad hurrahs. +Admiral Saisset stamped, emphasizing certain phrases of the speaker with +his hoarse interjections. Goaded by these wild cheers, Jules Favre +doubled his invective. Since the Gironde, since Isnard's curse, Paris +had not undergone such an imprecation. Even Langlois, unable to stand it +any longer, exclaimed, "Oh, it is outrageous, atrocious to speak thus!" +And when Jules Favre concluded, implacable, impassible, only foaming a +little at the mouth: "France will not be lowered to the bloody level of +the wretches who oppress the capital," the whole Assembly rose raving. +"Let us appeal to the provinces," shrieked the rurals. And Saisset: +"Yes, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>let us appeal to the provinces and march on Paris." In vain one +of the deputies of the Seine adjured the Assembly not to let them return +to Paris empty-handed. This great bourgeoisie, which had just +surrendered the honour, the fortune, and the territory of France to the +Prussian, trembled with rage at the mere thought of conceding anything +to Paris.</p> + +<p>After this horrible scene, the Radical deputies found nothing better to +do than to issue a lachrymose address inviting Paris to be patient. The +Central Committee was obliged to adjourn the elections till the 23rd, +for several mairies belonged to the enemy; but on the 22nd it warned the +papers that provocation to revolt would be severely repressed.</p> + +<p>The matadors of reaction, reanimated by Jules Favre's speech, took this +warning for an idle boast. On the 22nd at mid-day they assembled at the +Place du Nouvel Opera. At one o'clock they numbered a thousand dandies, +squireens, journalists, notorious familiars of the Empire, who marched +down the Rue de la Paix to the cry of "Vive l'ordre!" Their plan was, +under the cloak of a pacific demonstration, to force the Place Vendôme +and to expel the Federals from it; then, masters of the mairie of the +first arrondissement, of half of the second and of Passy, they would +have cut Paris in two and menaced the Hôtel-de-Ville. Admiral Saisset +followed them.</p> + +<p>Before the Rue Neuve St. Augustin these pacific demonstration-men +disarmed and ill-treated two detached sentries of the National Guard. +Seeing this, the Federals of the Place Vendôme seized their muskets and +hurried in marching order to the top of the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs. +They were but 200, the whole garrison of the place; the two cannon +levelled at the Rue de la Paix had no cartridges. The reactionists soon +encountered the first line with the cry, "Down with the Committee! Down +with the assassins!" waving a banner and their handkerchiefs, while some +of them stretched out their hands to seize the muskets. Bergeret, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>Maljournal, members of the Committee, in the first ranks, summoned the +rioters to retire. Furious cries of "Cowards! brigands!" drowned their +voices, and sword-canes were pointed at them. Bergeret made a sign to +the drummers. A dozen times the <i>sommations</i> were made and repeated. For +several minutes only the roll of the drums was heard, and between these +savage cries. The ranks in the rear of the manifestation pushed on those +in front and tried to break through the lines of the Federals. At last, +despairing no doubt of succeeding by mere bravado, the insurgents fired +their revolvers;<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> two guards were killed and seven wounded;<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> +Maljournal was struck in the thigh.</p> + +<p>The muskets of the guards went off, so to say, spontaneously. A volley +and a terrible cry, followed by silence more dismal. In a few seconds +the crowded Rue de la Paix was emptied. In the deserted road, strewn +with revolvers, sword-canes, and hats, lay about a dozen corpses. If the +Federals had only aimed at foes' hearts, there would have been 200 +killed, for in this compact mass no shot would have missed. The +insurgents had killed one of their own, the Vicomte de Molinat, fallen +in the front ranks, his face towards the place, a ball in the occiput. +On his body was found a poniard fixed by a small chain. A witty ball +struck in the rear the chief editor of the <i>Paris Journal</i>, the +Bonapartist De Pène, one of the basest revilers of the movement.</p> + +<p>The runaways traversed Paris shouting, "Murder!" The shops of the +boulevards were closed and the Place de la Bourse filled with rabid +groups. At four o'clock some of the reactionist companies appeared, +resolute, in good order, their muskets on their shoulders, and took +possession of the quarters of the Bourse.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock the event became known at Versailles. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>Assembly had +just rejected Louis Blanc's bill on the municipal council, and Picard +was reading another one refusing all justice to Paris, when the news +arrived. The Assembly precipitately raised the sitting; the Ministers +looked dumbfoundered.</p> + +<p>All their swaggering of the evening before had only been meant to +frighten Paris, to encourage the men of order, and provoke a +<i>coup-de-main</i>. The incident had occurred, but the Central Committee +triumphed. For the first time M. Thiers began to believe that this +Committee, able to repress a riot, might after all be a Government.</p> + +<p>The news in the evening was more reassuring. The fusillade seemed to +have roused the <i>men of order</i>. They were flocking to the Place de la +Bourse. A great many officers just returned from Germany came to offer +their help. The reactionary companies were establishing themselves +solidly in the mairie of the ninth arrondissement and reoccupying that +of the sixth, dislodging the Federals of the station of St. Lazare, +guarding all the approaches of the occupied quarters, and forcibly +arresting the passers-by. They formed a town within the town. The mayors +were constituting a permanent committee in the mairie of the second +arrondissement. Their resistance was now provided with an army.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> The aggression was so evident, that not one of the twenty +court-martials that searched into every detail of the revolution of the +18th March dared allude to the affair of the Place Vendôme.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Their names were published in the <i>Journal Officiel</i>.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND +CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS TO CAPITULATE.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The Central Committee was equal to the occasion. Its proclamations, its +Socialist articles in the <i>Officiel</i>, the truculence of the mayors and +deputies, had at last rallied round it all the revolutionary groups. It +had also added to its members some men better known to the masses.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> +By its order the Place Vendôme was provided with barricades; the +battalions of the Hôtel-de-Ville were reinforced; strong patrols +remounted the boulevards before the reactionary posts of the Rues +Vivienne and Drouot. Thanks to it, the night passed tranquilly.</p> + +<p>As the elections on the next day had become impossible, the Committee +declared they could only take place on the 26th, and said to Paris: "The +reaction, excited by your mayors and your deputies, has declared war on +us. We must accept the struggle and break this resistance." It announced +that it would summon before it all the journalists libelling the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>people. It sent a battalion of Belleville to reoccupy the mairie of the +sixth, and replaced by its delegates the mayors and adjuncts of the +third, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and eighteenth arrondissements, in +spite of their protestations. M. Clémenceau wrote that he yielded to +force, but would not himself resort to force. This was all the more +magnanimous that his whole force consisted of himself and his adjunct. +The Federals installed themselves at the Batignolles on the railway +lines, and stopped the trains, thus preventing the occupation of the St. +Lazare station. Lastly, the Committee proceeded energetically against +the Bourse.</p> + +<p>The reaction counted upon famine to make the Committee capitulate. The +million of the Monday was gone; a second one had been promised. On the +Thursday morning, Varlin and Jourde, going to fetch an instalment, +received only threats. They wrote to the governor: "To starve out the +people, such is the aim of a party that styles itself honest. Famine +disarms no one; it will only encourage devastation. We take up the glove +that has been flung down to us." And, without deigning to take any +notice of the swashers of the Bourse, the Committee sent two battalions +to the bank, which had to give in.</p> + +<p>At the same time the Committee neglected nothing in order to reassure +Paris. Numerous ticket-of-leave men had been let loose upon the town. +The Committee denounced them to the vigilance of the National Guard, and +posted upon the doors of the Hôtel-de-Ville, "Every individual taken in +the act of stealing will be shot." Picard's police had failed to put an +end to the gamblers who every night since the siege had encumbered the +streets; a single order of the Committee sufficed. The great scarecrow +of the reactionists was the Prussians, and Jules Favre had announced +their early intervention. The Committee published the despatches that +had passed between it and the commander of Compiègne, to this effect: +"The German troops will remain passive so long as Paris does not take a +hostile attitude." The Committee had answered with great dignity: "The +Revolution accomplished at Paris is of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>essentially municipal +character. We are not qualified to discuss the preliminaries of peace +voted by the Assembly." Paris was therefore without anxiety on that +head.</p> + +<p>The only disturbance proceeded from the mayors. Authorised by M. Thiers, +they appointed as chief of the National Guards Saisset, the madman of +the sitting of the 21st, giving him Langlois and Schœlcher as +coadjutors, and made every effort to attract National Guards to the +Place de la Bourse, where they distributed the pay due to the guards of +the invaded mairies. Many came only to get the pay, not to fight. Even +the chiefs began to be divided amongst themselves. The most rabid +certainly spoke of sweeping away everything before them. Those were +Vautrain, Dubail, Denormandie, Degouve-Denuncques, and Héligon, an +ex-workingman, an idle fellow, admitted into the bourgeois servants' +hall, and bumptious like other lackeys. But many others flagged and +thought of conciliation, especially since some of the deputies and +adjuncts—Millière, Malon, Dereure, and Jaclard—had withdrawn from the +union of the mayors, thus still further setting forth its frankly +reactionary character. Finally, some soft-headed mayors, still believing +that the Assembly needed only enlightenment, extemporised a melodramatic +scene.</p> + +<p>They arrived at Versailles on the 23rd, at the moment when the rurals, +again plucking up their courage, made an appeal to the provinces to +march on Paris. In most solemn attitude these mayors put in their +appearance before the tribune of the president, girdled with their +official scarfs. The Left applauded, crying "Vive la République!" The +Lamourettes returned the compliment. But the Right and the Centre cried +"Vive la France! Order! Order!" and with clenched hands they +apostrophised the deputies of the Left, who naïvely answered, "You +insult Paris!" to which the others replied, "You insult France!" and +they left the House. In the evening a deputy, who was also a mayor, +Arnaud De l'Ariège, read from the tribune the declaration that they had +brought, and wound up by saying, "We are on the eve of an awful civil +war. There is but one way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>to prevent it—that the election of the +commander-in-chief of the National Guard be fixed for the 28th, and that +of the municipal council for the 3rd of April." These propositions were +referred to the Committee.</p> + +<p>The mayors returned home indignant. A despatch of the evening before had +already disquieted Paris. M. Thiers announced to the provinces that the +Bonapartist Ministers, Rouher, Chevreau, and Boitelle, arrested by the +people of Boulogne, had been protected, and that Marshal Canrobert, one +of the accomplices of Bazaine, had offered his services to the +Government. The insult inflicted upon the mayors irritated the whole +middle-class, and called forth a sudden change in their Republican +journals. The attacks against the Central Committee relaxed. Even the +Moderates began to expect the worst from Versailles.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee took advantage of this change of opinion. Having +just been informed of the proclamation of the Commune at Lyons, it spoke +out all the more clearly in its manifesto of the 24th. "Some battalions, +misled by their reactionary chiefs, have thought it their duty to clog +our movements. Some mayors and deputies, forgetting their mandates, have +encouraged this resistance. We rely upon your courage for the +accomplishment of our mission. It is objected that the Assembly promises +us at some indefinite period the election of the municipal council and +that of our chiefs, and that consequently our resistance ought not to be +prolonged. We have been deceived too often to be entrapped again; the +left hand would take back what the right hand gives. See what the +Government has already done. In the Chamber, through the voice of Jules +Favre, it has challenged a terrible civil war, called on the provinces +to destroy Paris, and covered us with the most odious calumnies."</p> + +<p>Having spoken, the Committee now acted, and named three +generals—Brunel, Duval, and Eudes. It had to confine the drunkard +Lullier, who, assisted by a staff of traitors, had the evening before +allowed a whole regiment of the army encamped at the Luxembourg to leave +Paris with arms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>and baggage. Now, too, it was known that Mont-Valérien +was lost by his fault.</p> + +<p>The generals made a profession not to be misunderstood: "This is no +longer a time for Parliamentarism. We must act. Paris wishes to be free. +The great city will not permit public order to be disturbed with +impunity."</p> + +<p>A direct caution this addressed to the camp of the Bourse, which, +moreover, was visibly growing less. The desertions from it multiplied at +every sitting of the rurals. Women came to fetch their husbands. The +Bonapartist officers, overshooting the mark, irritated moderate +Republicans. The programme of the mayors—submission to +Versailles—discouraged the middle-class. The general staff of this +helter-skelter army had been foolishly established at the Grand Hôtel. +There sat the crazy trio—Saisset, Langlois, and Schœlcher—who, from +extreme confidence, had fallen into a state of utter dejection. The most +crack-brained of them, Saisset, took upon himself to announce by +placards that the Assembly had granted the complete recognition of the +municipal franchise, the election of all the officers of the National +Guard, including the general-in-chief, modifications of the law on the +overdue commercial bills, and a bill on rents favourable to the tenants. +This gigantic hoax only mystified Versailles.</p> + +<p>The Committee, pushing forward,<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> ordered Brunel to seize the mairies +of the first and second arrondissements. Brunel, with 600 men of +Belleville, two pieces of artillery, and accompanied by two delegates of +the Committee, Lisbonne and Protot, presented himself at three o'clock +at the mairie of the Louvre. The bourgeois companies assumed an air of +resistance. Brunel had his cannon advanced, when the passage was at once +opened to him. He declared to the adjuncts, Meline and Ad. Adam, that +the Committee would proceed with the elections as soon as possible. The +adjuncts, intimidated, sent to the mairie of the second arrondissement +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>to ask for the authorisation to treat. Dubail answered that they might +promise the elections for the 3rd April. Brunel insisted on appointing +the 30th March. The adjuncts acquiesced. The National Guards of the two +camps saluted this agreement with enthusiastic acclamations, and +mingling their ranks, marched to the mairie of the second +arrondissement. In the Rue Montmartre a few companies of the Bourse +army, trying to stop the way, were told, "Peace is made," and they let +them pass. At the mairie of the second arrondissement, Schœlcher, who +presided at the meeting of the mayors, Dubail, and Vautrain resisted, +refusing to ratify the convention, insisting on the date of the 3rd +April. But the great majority of their colleagues accepted that of the +30th, and the election of the commander-in-chief of the National Guard +for the 3rd April. Immense cheers hailed the good news, and the popular +battalions, saluted by the bourgeois battalions, defiled through the Rue +Vivienne and the boulevards, dragging along their cannon, mounted by +lads with green branches in their hands.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee could not accept this transaction. Twice it had +postponed the elections. A new adjournment would have given certain +mayors five days for plotting and playing into the hands of Versailles. +Besides, the Federal battalions, on foot since the 18th, were really +tired out. Ranvier and Arnold the same evening went to the mairie of the +second arrondissement to say that the Hôtel-de-Ville adhered to the date +of the 26th for the elections. The mayors and adjuncts, many of whom had +only the one purpose, as they have avowed since,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> of gaining time, +inveighed against a breach of faith. The delegates protested, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>for +Brunel had had no mandate but that of occupying the mairies. For several +hours everything was tried to talk over the delegates, but they held +their ground, and went away at two o'clock in the morning without any +conclusion being arrived at. After their departure the more intractable +discussed the chance of resistance. The irrepressible Dubail wrote a +call to arms, sent it to the printing-office, and spent the whole night +with his faithful Héligon in transmitting orders to the chiefs of +battalions and providing the mairie with mitrailleuses.</p> + +<p>While they were thus bent upon resistance the rurals thought themselves +betrayed. Every day they became more nervous, being deprived of their +creature-comforts, obliged to camp in the lobbies of the castle of +Versailles, exposed to all winds and to all panics. They felt weary of +the incessant interference of the mayors, and were thunderstruck by the +proclamation of Saisset. They fancied that M. Thiers was coquetting with +the <i>émeute</i>, that the <i>petit bourgeois</i>, as he hypocritically called +himself, wanted to cozen the monarchists, and, using Paris as his lever, +overthrow them. They spoke of removing him, and appointing as +commander-in-chief one of the D'Orléans, Joinville or D'Aumale. Their +plot might have come to a head at the evening sitting, when the +proposition of the mayors was to be read. M. Thiers was beforehand with +them, implored the Assembly to adjourn the discussion, adding that an +ill-considered word might cost torrents of blood. Grévy shuffled through +the sitting in ten minutes. But the rumour of a plot got abroad.</p> + +<p>Saturday was the last day of the crisis. Either the Central Committee or +the mayors had to disappear. The Committee on that very morning +placarded: "The transport of mitrailleuses to the mairie of the second +arrondissement compels us to maintain our resolution. The election will +take place on the 26th March." Paris, which had believed peace +concluded, and for the first time since five days had passed a quiet +night, was very angry at seeing the mayors recommence the wrangle. The +idea of the election had made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>its way in all ranks, and many papers +declared for it, even among those that had signed the protestation of +the 21st. No one could understand this quarrel about a date. One +irresistible current of fraternisation swayed the whole town. The ranks +of the two or three hundred soldiers of order who had remained faithful +to Dubail dwindled away from hour to hour, leaving Admiral Saisset alone +to make his proclamation in the desert of the Grand Hôtel. The mayors +had no longer an army when, at ten o'clock, Ranvier came to ask for +their final decision. Their dispute grew hot when some deputies of Paris +on their return from Versailles announced the news that the Duc d'Aumale +was proclaimed lieutenant-general. Several mayors and adjuncts then at +last understood that the Republic was at stake, and, convinced of their +impotence, capitulated. The draft of a placard was drawn up to be signed +by the mayors, deputies, and for the Central Committee by the two +delegates Ranvier and Arnold. The Committee wanted to sign <i>en masse</i>, +and slightly modified the text, saying, "The Central Committee, round +which the deputies of Paris, the mayors, and adjuncts have rallied, +convokes...." Thereupon some of the mayors, on the look-out for a +pretext, rose, crying, "This is not our convention; we said the +deputies, the mayors, the adjuncts, and the members of the Committee +...;" and, at the risk of rekindling the embers, placarded the protest. +Yet the Committee might well say, "Which have rallied?" since it had +yielded no point. However, Paris overruled the mischief-mongers. Admiral +Saisset had to disband the four men who remained to him. Tirard in a +placard advised the electors to vote; for M. Thiers that same morning +had given him the hint, "Do not continue a useless resistance. I am +reorganising the army. I hope that in a fortnight or three weeks we +shall have a sufficient force to relieve Paris."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> + +<p>Five deputies only signed the address for the election, MM. Lockroy, +Floquet, Clémenceau, Tolain, and Greppo; the rest of Louis Blanc's group +had kept aloof from Paris for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>several days. These weaklings, having all +their life sung the glories of the Revolution, when it rose up before +them ran away appalled, like the Arab fisher at the apparition of the +genie.</p> + +<p>With these mandarins of the tribune of history and of journalism, mute +and lifeless, contrast strangely the sons of the multitude, obscure, but +rich in will, faith, and eloquence. Their farewell address was worthy of +their advent: "Do not forget that the men who will serve you best are +those whom you will choose from amongst yourselves, living your life, +suffering the same ills. Beware of the ambitious as much as of the +upstarts. Beware also of mere talkers. Shun those whom fortune has +favoured, for only too rarely is he who possesses fortune prone to look +upon the workingman as a brother. Give your preference to those who do +not solicit your suffrages. True merit is modest, and it is for the +workingmen to know those who are worthy, not for these to present +themselves."</p> + +<p>They could indeed "come down the steps of the Hôtel-de-Ville head +erect," these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the +18th March. Named only to organise the National Guard, thrown at the +head of a revolution without precedent and without guides, they had been +able to resist the impatient, quell the riot, re-establish the public +services, victual Paris, baffle intrigues, take advantage of all the +blunders of Versailles and of the mayors, and, harassed on all sides, +every moment in danger of civil war, known how to negotiate, to act at +the right time and in the right place. They had embodied the tendency of +the movement, limited their programme to communal revindications, and +conducted the entire population to the ballot-box. They had inaugurated +a precise, vigorous, and fraternal language unknown to all bourgeois +powers.</p> + +<p>And yet they were obscure men, all with an incomplete education, some of +them fanatics. But the people thought with them. Paris was the brazier, +the Hôtel-de-Ville the flame. In the Hôtel-de-Ville, where illustrious +bourgeois have only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>accumulated folly upon defeat, these new-comers +found victory because they listened to Paris.</p> + +<p>May their services absolve them from two grave faults—allowing the +escape of the army and of the functionaries, and the retaking of +Mont-Valérien by Versailles. It has been said that on the 19th or 20th +they ought to have marched on Versailles. But on the first alarm these +would have fled to Fontainebleau, with the Administration and the Left, +everything that was wanted to govern and deceive the provinces. The +occupation of Versailles would only have displaced the enemy, and it +would not have been for long, as the popular battalions were too badly +provided, too badly commanded, to hold at the same time this open town +and Paris.</p> + +<p>At all events, the Central Committee left its successor all the means +necessary to disarm the enemy.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Here are the names of those who signed the proclamations +and notices of the Committee. We shall restore, as far as possible, +their correct orthography, often altered, even in the <i>Officiel</i>, to the +extent of giving fictitious names:—Andignoux, A. Arnaud, G. Arnold, A. +Assi, Babick, Barroud, Bergeret, Billioray, Bouit, Boursier, Blanchet, +Castioni, Chouteau, C. Dupont, Eudes, Fabre, Ferrat, Fleury, H. Fortuné, +Fougeret, Gaudier, Geresme, Gouhier, Grêlier, J. Grollard, Josselin, +Jourde, Lavalette, Lisbonne, Lullier, Maljournal, Ed. Moreau, Mortier, +Prudhomme, Ranvier, Rousseau, Varlin, Viard. Notwithstanding the +decision of the Committee, all its members did not always sign the +proclamations. Finally, some who took part in certain deliberations +never signed at all.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> This order had been given the evening before. The +treachery of Du Bisson, nominated chief of the staff by Lullier, had +prevented its execution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Tirard: "My whole preoccupation and that of my colleagues +had been to postpone the elections so as to reach the date of the 3rd +April"—<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. p. 340. Vautrain: "My +colleagues and I thus gained eight days more."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 379. J. +Favre: "For eight days we were the only barricade raised up between the +insurrection and the Government."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 385. Desmarets: "I +believed it necessary to remain exposed to danger in order to give the +Government of Versailles time for arming."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 412.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, Tirard, vol. ii. p. 342.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Une portion considérable de la population et de la garde +nationale de Paris sollicite le concours des départements pour +le rétablissement de l'ordre."—<i>Circulaire de M. Thiers aux +Préfets, le 27 Mars.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="cen">PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>This week ended with the triumph of Paris. Paris-Commune again resumed +her part as the capital of France, again became the national initiator. +For the tenth time since 1789 the workmen put France upon the right +track.</p> + +<p>The bayonets of Prussia had laid bare our country, such as eighty years +of bourgeois domination had left it—a Goliath at the mercy of his +driver.</p> + +<p>Paris broke the thousand fetters which bound France down to the ground, +like Gulliver a prey to ants; restored the circulation to her paralysed +limbs; said, "The life of the whole nation exists in each of her +smallest organisms; the unity of the hive, and not that of the barracks. +The organic cell of the French Republic is the municipality, the +commune."</p> + +<p>The Lazarus of the Empire and of the siege resuscitated, having torn the +napkin from his brow and shaken off the grave-clothes, was about to +begin a new existence with the regenerated Communes of France in his +train. This new life gave to all Paris a youthful aspect. Those who had +despaired a month before were now full of enthusiasm. Strangers +addressed each other and shook hands. For indeed we were not strangers, +but bound together by the same faith and the same aspirations.</p> + +<p>Sunday the 26th was a day of joy and sunshine. Paris breathed again, +happy like one just escaped from death <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>or great peril. At Versailles +the streets looked gloomy, gendarmes occupied the station, brutally +demanded passports, confiscated all the journals of Paris, and at the +slightest expression of sympathy for the town arrested you. At Paris +everybody could enter freely. The streets swarmed with people, the cafés +were noisy; the same lad cried out the <i>Paris Journal</i> and the +<i>Commune</i>; the attacks against the Hôtel-de-Ville, the protestation of a +few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the placards of +the Central Committee. The people were without anger because without +fear. The voting paper had replaced the chassepot.</p> + +<p>Picard's bill only gave Paris sixty municipal councillors, three for +each arrondissement, whatever might be its population. Thus the 150,000 +inhabitants of the eleventh arrondissement had the same number of +representatives as the 45,000 of the sixteenth. The Central Committee +had decreed that there was to be a councillor for every 20,000 +inhabitants, and for each fraction of 10,000; ninety in all. The +elections were to be conducted with the lists of February and in the +usual manner; only the Committee had expressed the wish that for the +future open voting should be considered the only mode worthy of +democratic principles. All the faubourgs obeyed, and gave an open vote. +The electors of the St. Antoine quarter formed in long columns, and, +headed by a red flag, their voting papers stuck in their hats, defiled +before the column of the Bastille, and in the same order marched to +their sections.</p> + +<p>The adhesion and convocation of the mayors dissipating all scruple, also +made the bourgeois quarters vote. The elections became legal since +plenipotentiaries of the Government had given their consent. Two hundred +and eighty-seven thousand men voted, relatively a far greater number +than in the elections of February; for since the opening of the gates +after the siege, a great part of the easy classes had rushed to the +provinces there to recruit their health.</p> + +<p>The elections were conducted in a way becoming a free people. At the +approach to the halls, no police, no intrigues. And yet M. Thiers dared +telegraph to the provinces: "The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>elections will take place to-day +without liberty and without moral authority." The liberty was so +absolute that in all Paris not one single protestation occurred.</p> + +<p>The moderate papers even commended the articles of the <i>Officiel</i>, in +which the delegate Longuet set forth the part of the future Communal +Assembly: "Above all, it must define its mandate, fix the boundaries of +its attributes. Its first work must be the discussion and the drawing up +of its charter. This done, it must consider the means of having that +statute of the municipal autonomy recognised and guaranteed by the +central power." The plainness, the prudence, the moderation which marked +all official acts was beginning to move the most obdurate. Only the +hatred of the Versaillese did not abate. That same day M. Thiers cried +from the tribune, "No, France will not let those wretches triumph who +would drown her in blood."</p> + +<p>The next day 200,000 "wretches" came to the Hôtel-de-Ville there to +instal their chosen representatives, the battalion drums beating, the +banners surmounted by the Phrygian cap and with red fringe round the +muskets; their ranks, swelled by soldiers of the line, artillerists, and +marines faithful to Paris, came down from all the streets to the Place +de Gréve like the thousand streams of a great river. In the middle of +the Hôtel-de-Ville, against the central door, a large platform was +raised. Above it towered the bust of the Republic, a red scarf slung +round it. Immense red streamers beat against the frontal and the belfry, +like tongues of fire announcing the good news to France. A hundred +battalions thronged the place, and piled their bayonets, lit up by the +sun, in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville. The other battalions that could not +get into the place lined the streets up to the Boulevard de Sebastopol +and to the quays. The banners were grouped in front of the platform, +some tricolour, all with red tassels, symbolising the advent of the +people. While the place was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played +the <i>Marseillaise</i> and the <i>Chant du Départ</i>, trumpets sounded the +charge, and the cannon of the old Commune thundered on the quay.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>Suddenly the noise subsided. The members of the Central Committee and of +the Commune, their red scarfs over their shoulders, appeared on the +platform. Ranvier said, "Citizens, my heart is too full of joy to make a +speech. Permit me only to thank the people of Paris for the great +example they have given the world." A member of the Committee announced +the names of those elected. The drums beat a salute, the bands and two +hundred thousand voices chimed in with the <i>Marseillaise</i>. Ranvier, in +an interval of silence, cried out, "In the name of the People the +Commune is proclaimed."</p> + +<p>A thousandfold echo answered, "Vive la Commune!" Caps were flung up on +the ends of bayonets, flags fluttered in the air. From the windows, on +the roofs, thousands of hands waved handkerchiefs. The quick reports of +the cannon, the bands, the drums, blended in one formidable vibration. +All hearts leaped with joy, all eyes filled with tears. Never since the +great Federation had Paris been thus moved.</p> + +<p>The filing off was very cleverly managed by Brunel, who, while having +the place evacuated on the one hand, brought in those battalions that +were without, all equally anxious to acclaim the Commune. Before the +bust of the Republic the flags were lowered, the officers saluted with +their sabres, the men raised their muskets. Not until seven o'clock did +the last procession pass by.</p> + +<p>The agents of M. Thiers returned in dismay to tell him, "It was really +the whole of Paris that took part in the manifestation." And the Central +Committee might well exclaim in its enthusiasm, "To-day Paris opened a +fresh page in the book of history, and there inscribed her powerful +name. Let the spies of Versailles, who are prowling around us, go and +tell their masters what the common movement of an entire population +means. Let these spies carry back to them the image of the magnificent +spectacle of a people recovering their sovereignty."</p> + +<p>This lightning would have made the blind to see. 287,000 voters, 200,000 +men with the same watchword. This was not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>a secret committee, a handful +of factious rioters and bandits, as had been said for ten days. Here was +an immense force at the service of a definite idea—Communal +independence, the intellectual life of France—an invaluable force in +this time of universal anæmia, a godsend as precious as the compass +saved from the wreck and saving the survivors. This was one of those +great historical turning-points when a people may be remoulded.</p> + +<p>Liberals, if it was in good faith that you called for decentralisation +under the Empire; Republicans, if you have understood June, 1848, and +December, 1851; Radicals, if you really want the self-government of the +people, listen to this new voice, avail yourselves of this marvellous +opportunity.</p> + +<p>But the Prussian! What does it matter? Why not forge arms under the eye +of the enemy? Bourgeois, was it not in sight of the foreigner that your +ancestor Etienne Marcel tried to remake France? And your Convention, did +not it first act in the very midst of the hurricane?</p> + +<p>What did they answer? Death to Paris!</p> + +<p>The red sun of civil discord melts veneer and all masks. There they are +side by side as in 1791, 1794, and 1848, Monarchists, Clericals, +Liberals, Radicals, all of them, their hands raised against the +people—one army in different uniforms. Their decentralisation is rural +and capitalist federalism; their self-government, the exploitation of +the budget by themselves, just as the whole political science of their +statesmen consists only in massacre and the state of siege.</p> + +<p>What bourgeoisie in the world after such immense disasters would not +with careful heed have tended such a reservoir of living force? They, +seeing this Paris capable of engendering a new world, her heart swelled +with the best blood of France, had but one thought—to bleed Paris.</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Toutes les parties de la France sont unies et ralliées +autour de l'Assemblée et du gouvernement."—<i>Circulaire de +M. Thiers à la Province, le 23 au soir.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<p class="cen">THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT.</p> +<br /> + +<p>What was the state of the provinces?</p> + +<p>For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon +lying despatches of M. Thiers,<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> then looked at the signatures to the +proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the +Left nor the democratic paragons, said, "Who are these unknown men?" The +Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the +siege of Paris—very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative +press—as their fathers had formerly said, "Pitt and Coburg," when +unable to comprehend popular movements, they cried, "These unknown men +can be nothing but Bonapartists." The people alone showed true instinct.</p> + +<p>The Paris Commune found its first echo at Lyons. This was a necessary +reverberation. Since the advent of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>Assembly the workmen found +themselves watched. The municipal councillors, weak men, some of them, +almost to reaction, had lowered the red flag under the pretext that "the +proud flag of resistance <i>à outrance</i> should not survive the humiliation +of France." The clumsy trick had not deceived the people, who, at the +Guillotière, mounted guard round their flag. The new prefect, Valentin, +an ex-officer as brutal as vulgar, a kind of Clément-Thomas, +sufficiently forewarned the people what sort of Republic was in store +for them.</p> + +<p>On the 19th, at the first news, Republicans were on the alert, nor did +they hide their sympathy for Paris. The next day Valentin issued a +provocative proclamation, seized the Parisian journals, and refused to +communicate any despatches. On the 21st, in the municipal council, some +of the members grew indignant, and one said, "Let us at least have the +courage to be the Commune of Lyons." On the 22nd, at mid-day, eight +hundred delegates of the National Guard assembled at the Palais de St. +Pierre. A motion was put proposing to choose between Paris and +Versailles. A citizen just arrived from Paris explained the movement +there, and many wanted the meeting to declare itself immediately for +Paris. The Assembly finally sent delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville to ask +for the extension of the municipal liberties, the appointment of the +mayor as chief of the National Guard, and his investiture with the +functions of prefect.</p> + +<p>The municipal council was just sitting. The mayor, Hénon, a +wooden-headed relic of 1848, opposed all resistance to Versailles. The +mayor of the Guillotière, Crestin, a known Republican, demanded that +they should at least protest. Others wanted the council to extend its +prerogatives. Hénon threatened to tender his resignation if they went on +like that, and proposed they should repair to the prefect, who was then +convoking the reactionary battalions.</p> + +<p>The delegates of the Palais St. Pierre arrived, and were roughly +received by Hénon. One deputation succeeded the other, always meeting +with the same rebuffs. However, during this time the battalions of +Brotteaux and La Guillotière were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>preparing, and at eight o'clock a +dense mass filled the Place des Terreaux in front of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +crying, "Vive la Commune! Down with Versailles!" The reactionary +battalions did not respond to the prefect's appeal.</p> + +<p>Part of the council had met again at nine o'clock, while the others, +together with Hénon, were still wrangling with the delegates. After an +answer from the mayor, which left them no hope of coming to an +understanding, the delegates invaded the council-chamber, and the crowd, +apprised of this, rushed into the Hôtel-de-Ville. The delegates, sitting +down round the council table, named Crestin mayor of Lyons. He refused, +and, summoned to give his reasons, declared that the direction of the +movement belonged to those who had initiated it. After a great uproar, +the National Guards acclaimed a Communal Commission, at the head of +which they placed five municipal councillors—Crestin, Durand, +Bouvatier, Perret and Velay. The delegates sent for Valentin, and asked +him if he were for Versailles. He answered that his proclamation could +leave no doubt on that head, whereupon he was put under arrest. Then +they decided on the proclamation of the Commune, the dissolution of the +municipal council, the dismissal of the prefect and of the general of +the National Guard, who was to be replaced by Ricciotti Garibaldi, noted +alike by his name and his services in the army of the Vosges. These +resolutions were announced to the people and hailed with cheers. The red +flag was again unfurled from the balcony.</p> + +<p>The next day, the 23rd March, early in the morning, the five councillors +named the evening before backed out, thus obliging the insurgents to +present themselves single-handed to Lyons and the neighboring towns. +"The Commune," they said, "must vindicate for Lyons the right to impose +and administer her own taxes, to have her own police, and to dispose of +her National Guard, which is to occupy all posts and forts." This rather +meagre programme was a little further expanded by the committees of the +National Guard and the Republican Alliance: "With the Commune, the taxes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>will be lightened, the public money will no longer be squandered, +social institutions demanded by the working-class will be founded. Much +misery and suffering will be alleviated pending the final disappearance +of that hideous social evil, pauperism." Insufficient proclamations +these, inconclusive, mute as to the danger of the Republic and the +clerical conspiracy, the only levers by which the small middle-class +might have been roused.</p> + +<p>So the Commission found itself isolated. It had taken the fort of +Charpennes, accumulated cartridges, disposed the cannons and +mitrailleuses round the Hôtel-de-Ville; but the popular battalions, +except two or three, had withdrawn without leaving a picket, and the +resistance was being organised. General Crouzat at the station picked up +all the soldiers, marines, and mobiles dispersed about Lyons. Hénon +named a general of the National Guard. The officers of the battalions of +order protested against the Commune, and placed themselves at the +disposition of the municipal council, which sat in the cabinet of the +mayor, close to the Commission.</p> + +<p>Forgetting it had dissolved the Council the evening before, it invited +the Council to hold their sitting in the ordinary council-room. They +arrived at four o'clock. The Commission gave up the place to them, +National Guards occupying that part of the room reserved to the public. +Had there been some vigour in this middle class, some foreboding of the +Conservative atrocities, the Republican councillors would have taken the +lead of this popular movement; but they were still, some of them, the +same mercantile aristocrats, chary of their gold and their persons +during the war of the national defence; the others, the same overweening +Radicals who had always striven for the subordination instead of the +emancipation of the working-class. While they were deliberating without +coming to any resolution, the assistants, growing impatient, uttered a +few exclamations shocking to their lordliness, and they brusquely raised +the sitting in order to go and draw up an address with Hénon.</p> + +<p>In the evening two delegates of the Central Committee of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>Paris arrived +at the club of the Rue Duguesclin. They were taken to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, where from the large balcony they harangued the mass, +who answered with cries of "Vive Paris! Vive la Commune!" and +Ricciotti's name was again acclaimed.</p> + +<p>But this was only a demonstration. The delegates were themselves too +inexperienced to keep alive and direct this movement. On the 24th there +remained on the Place de Terreaux but a few groups of idlers. The +<i>rappel</i> sounded in vain. The four important journals of Lyons, Radical, +Liberal and Clerical, "energetically repudiated all connivance with the +Parisian, Lyonese, and other insurrections;" and General Crouzat spread +the rumour that the Prussians, camping at Dijon, threatened to occupy +Lyons within twenty-four hours if order were not re-established. The +Commission, more and more deserted, again turned to the Council, which +now held its sitting at the Bourse, proposing to hand over the +administration to them. The Council refused to treat. "No," said the +mayor, "we will never accept the Commune." And as the mobiles from +Belfort were announced, the Council decided to give them a solemn +reception. This was a declaration of war.</p> + +<p>The parley had been going on the whole afternoon until late into the +evening. Little by little the Hôtel-de-Ville grew empty, and the members +of the Commission disappeared. At four o'clock in the morning the only +two who remained cancelled their powers,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> dismissed the sentries who +guarded the prefect, and left the Hôtel-de-Ville. The next day Lyons +found her Commune gone.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On the same evening, when dying out at Lyons, the revolutionary movement +burst forth at St. Etienne. Since the 31st October, when they had almost +succeeded in officially <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>proclaiming the Commune, the Socialists had not +ceased calling for it, despite the resistance, and even the threats, of +the municipal council.</p> + +<p>There were two Republican centres—the Committee of the National Guard, +spurred on by the revolutionary club of the Rue de la Vierge, and the +Republican Alliance at the head of the advanced Republicans. The +municipal council was, with one or two exceptions, composed of those +Radicals who know not how to resist the people without being crushed by +the reaction. The Committee and the Alliance agreed to ask for its +renewal.</p> + +<p>The 18th March was enthusiastically welcomed by the workmen. The Radical +organ, <i>L'Eclaireur</i>, said, without drawing any conclusion: "If the +Assembly prevails, the Republic is done for; if, on the other hand, the +deputies of Paris separate from the Central Committee, they must have a +good reason for it." The people went straight on. On the 23rd the Club +de la Vierge sent delegates to the Hôtel-de-Ville to ask for the +Commune. The mayor promised to submit the question to his colleagues. +The Alliance also came to demand the adjunction to the council of a +certain number of delegates.</p> + +<p>The next day, the 24th, the delegations returned. The Council tendered +their resignation, and declared they would only officiate till their +replacement by the electors, to be convoked with the briefest delay. +This was a defeat, for the same day the prefect <i>ad interim</i>, Morellet, +adjured the population not to proclaim the Commune, but to respect the +authority of the Assembly. At seven o'clock in the evening a company of +the National Guard relieved the sentinel to the cries of "Vive la +Commune!" The Central Committee invited the Alliance to join them in +taking possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville. The Radicals refused, saying +that the promise of the Council sufficed; that the movements of Paris +and Lyons were of a vague character, and that it was necessary to affirm +order and public tranquility.</p> + +<p>During these negotiations the people had assembled at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>Club de la +Vierge, accusing the first delegates of weakness, resolved to send +others, and to accompany them, so that they could not give way. At ten +o'clock two columns of 400 men each drew up before the rails that cover +the Hôtel-de-Ville. These had been closed by order of the new prefect, +M. De l'Espée, an autocrat of iron works, who had just then arrived, +eager to subdue the disturbers. But the people began pulling down the +rails, and it was necessary to let in their delegates. They found the +mayor and Morellet, asked for the Commune, and provisionally the +adjunction of a popular commission. The mayor refused, the former +prefect obstinately tried to demonstrate that the Commune was a Prussian +invention. Hopeless of convincing the delegates, he went to warn M. De +l'Espée—the prefecture being contiguous to the mairie—and both then +making off by the garden, succeeded in rejoining General Lavoye, the +commander of the garrison.</p> + +<p>At midnight the delegates, unable to obtain anything, declared that +nobody would be allowed to leave the Hôtel-de-Ville, and proceeding to +the rails, told the demonstrators to reflect. Some ran off in quest of +arms, others penetrated into the Salle des Prudhommes, where they held a +meeting. The night passed tumultuously. The delegates, who had just +learned the miscarriage of the movement at Lyons wavered. The people +threatened and were for beating the <i>rappel</i>. The mayor refused. At +last, at seven o'clock, he found an expedient, and promised to propose a +plebiscite on the establishment of the Commune. A delegate read this +declaration to the people, who at once withdrew from the Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>At the same moment M. De l'Espée conceived the brilliant idea of beating +the <i>rappel</i>, which the people had in vain asked for since midnight. He +picked up some National Guards of order, re-entered the now empty +Hôtel-de-Ville, and promulgated his victory. The municipal council +informing him of the morning's agreement, De l'Espée refused to fix the +date of the elections. Besides, said he, the general had promised him +the aid of the garrison.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>At eleven o'clock the prefect's call to arms had reassembled all the +popular battalions. Groups formed before the Hôtel-de-Ville, crying +"Vive la Commune!" De l'Espée sent for his troops, consisting of 250 +foot-soldiers and two squadrons of hussars, who came up sluggishly. The +multitude surrounded them; the Council protested; and the prefect had to +discharge his warriors, there remaining to face the crowd only a line of +firemen, and in the Hôtel-de-Ville two companies, of which but one was +favourable to the party of order.</p> + +<p>Towards mid-day a delegation summoned the Council to keep their promise. +The councillors present—only few in number—were not adverse to +accepting as coadjutors two delegates from each company, but De l'Espée +formally declared against any concession. At four o'clock a very +numerous delegation from the Committee presented itself. The prefect +spoke of retrenching himself and of strengthening the gates for defence; +but the firemen raised the butt end of their muskets, opened the +passage, and De l'Espée had to receive some of the delegates.</p> + +<p>The crowd outside waxed unruly, impatient at these useless parleys. At +half-past four the workmen from the manufactory of arms arrived, when a +shot was fired from one of the houses of the place, killing Lyonnet, a +workingman. A hundred shots answered; the drums beat, the trumpets +sounded the charge, and the battalions rushed into the Hôtel-de-Ville, +while others searched the house whence the attack was supposed to have +come.</p> + +<p>At the noise of the firing the prefect broke off the conference and +tried to escape as on the night before, mistook his way, was recognised +and seized, together with the deputy of the <i>procureur de la +République</i>, brought back with the latter into the large hall, and shown +from the balcony. The crowd hooted him, convinced that he had given the +order to fire upon the people. One of the reactionist guards, M. De +Ventavon, on his flight from the mairie, was taken for the murderer of +Lyonnet, and carried about on the litter on which the corpse had just +been transported to the hospital.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>The prefect and the procureur's deputy were left in the large hall in +the midst of exasperated men. Many accused De l'Espée of having provoked +the fusillade of the miners of Aubin under the Empire. He protested, +stating that he had been director of the mines of Archambault, not those +of Aubin. Little by little, the crowd, tired out, dispersed, and at +eight o'clock about forty guards only remained in the hall. The +prisoners took some food, when the president of the Commune, which was +constituting itself in a neighbouring room, seeing everything calm, also +withdrew. At nine o'clock the crowd returned, crying, "La Commune! La +Commune! Sign!" De l'Espée offered to sign his resignation, but added +that he did so under compulsion. The prisoners were in charge of two +men, Victoire and Fillon, the latter an old exile, quite distracted, who +turned now against the crowd, now against the prisoners. At ten o'clock, +being hard pressed by the throng of people, Fillon, as in a dream, faced +about, fired two shots from his revolver, killing his friend Victoire +and wounding a drummer. Instantaneously the muskets were levelled at +him, and Fillon and De l'Espée fell dead. The deputy, covered by the +corpse of Fillon, escaped the discharge. The next day he and M. De +Ventavon were set free.</p> + +<p>During the evening a Commission constituted itself, chosen from amongst +the officers of the National Guards and the habitual orators of the Club +de la Vierge. It had the station occupied, took possession of the +telegraph, seized the cartridges of the powder-magazine, and convoked +the electors for the 29th. "The Commune," it said, "does not mean +incendiarism, nor theft, nor pillage, as so many are pleased to give +out, but the conquest of the franchises and the independence ravished +from us by imperial and monarchical legislation; it is the true basis of +the Republic." This was the whole preamble. In this industrial hive, by +the side of the thousands of miners of La Ricamarie and Firminy, they +found not a word to say on the social question. The Commission only knew +how to beat the <i>rappel</i>, which, as at Lyons, was not responded to.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>The next day, Sunday, the town, calm and curious, read the proclamation +of the Commune, placarded side by side with the appeals of the general +and of the procureur. While this latter, as became a good Radical, spoke +of a Bonapartist plot, the general invited the Council to withdraw its +resignation. He went to the councillors, who had taken refuge in the +barracks, and said to them, "My soldiers won't fight, but I have a +thousand chassepots. If you will make use of them, forward!" The +councillors protested their unfitness for military exploits; but at the +same time, as at Lyons, refused to communicate with the Hôtel-de-Ville, +considering "that one can only treat with honest men."</p> + +<p>On the 27th the Alliance and <i>L'Eclaireur</i> altogether withdrew, and the +Commission gradually dwindled down. In the evening, the few faithful +still holding out received two young men, whom the delegates from the +Central Committee at Lyons had sent. They urged resistance; but the +Hôtel-de-Ville was being deserted, and on the morning of the 28th there +were only about a hundred left. At six o'clock General Lavoye presented +himself with the francs-tireurs of the Vosges and some troops come from +Montbrison. The National Guards, on his appeal to lay down their arms in +order to avoid bloodshed, consented to evacuate the mairie.</p> + +<p>Numerous arrests were made. The Conservatives overwhelmed the Commune +with the customary insults, and recounted that cannibals had been seen +amongst the murderers of the prefect.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> <i>L'Eclaireur</i> did not fail to +demonstrate that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>the movement was purely Bonapartist. The workingmen +felt themselves vanquished, and at the solemn funeral of M. De l'Espée +not loud but deep curses were uttered.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At Creuzot, also the proletarians were defeated. Yet the Socialists +administered the town from the 4th September, the mayor, Dumay, being a +former workman at the iron works. On the 25th, at the news from Lyons, +they spoke of proclaiming the Commune. At their review on the 26th the +National Guards cried "Vive la Commune!" and the crowd accompanied them +to the Place of the Mairie, held by the colonel of cuirassiers, +Gerhardt. He ordered the foot-soldiers to fire. They refused. He then +ordered the cavalry to charge; but the guards levelled their bayonets +and invaded the mairie. Dumay pronounced the abolition of the Versailles +Government, proclaimed the Commune, and the red flag was hoisted.</p> + +<p>But there, as everywhere else, the people did not move. The commander of +Creuzot came back the next day with a reinforcement, dispersed the +crowd, which was standing curious and passive in the square, and took +possession of the mairie.</p> + +<p>In four days all the revolutionary centres of the east, Lyons, St. +Etienne, and Creuzot, were lost to the Commune.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> He then and there inaugurated this incomparable lying +campaign, the progress of which we shall closely watch. On the 19th he +said, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated in good +order at Versailles." There were 23,000 men (the number given by himself +in the <i>Enquête</i>) totally disbanded. On the 20th: "The Government did +not want to enter into a bloody struggle, though provoked." By the 21st +the army had grown to 45,000 men: "The insurrection is disavowed by +everybody." On the 22nd: "From all sides the Government is offered +battalions of mobiles to support it against anarchy." On the 27th, while +the votes were being counted: "A considerable proportion of the +population and of the National Guard of Paris solicits the help of the +provinces to re-establish order."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> "Considering," said they in their declaration, "that the +Provisional Commune of Lyons, acclaimed by the National Guard, is no +longer feeling itself supported by them, the members of the Commune +declare themselves released from their engagements towards their +electors, and resign all powers they have received."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Certain infamous evidence must be quoted in full in order +to give a notion of the delirium tremens of the great bourgeoisie when +speaking of the Commune. Four months after these events the Prefect +Ducros, the inventor of the famous bridges of the Marne, deposed before +the <i>Commission d'Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>: "They did not respect his +corpse; they cut off his head. In the night, horrible to say, one of the +men who had participated in the assassination, and who has been put on +his trial, came to a café offering those present pieces of M. De +l'Espée's skull, and cracking under his teeth pieces of the same skull." +And Ducros dared to add: "The man had been arrested, put on his trial, +and acquitted." Horrible imaginings, which even the Radicals of St. +Etienne have stigmatised.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p class="cen">THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE.</p> +<br /> + +<p>Since the elections of the 8th February, the advent of the reactionists, +the nomination of M. Thiers, the patched-up and shameful peace, the +monarchy in prospect, the defiances and the defeats were as bitterly +resented by the valiant town of Marseilles as by Paris. There the news +of the 18th March fell upon a powder-magazine. Nevertheless, further +details were looked for, when the 22nd brought the famous despatch of +Rouher-Canrobert.</p> + +<p>The clubs, playing a great part in the ardent life of Marseilles, were +at once thronged. The prudent and methodical Radicals affected the club +of the National Guard; the popular elements met at the El Dorado. There +they applauded Gaston Crémieux, an elegant and effeminate speaker, now +and then happy at epigrammatic turns, as, for instance, at Bordeaux. +Gambetta owed him his election at Marseilles under the Empire. Crémieux +at once hurried to the club of the National Guard, denounced Versailles, +told them they could not allow the Republic to perish, but ought to act. +The club, though highly indignant at the despatch, cautioned him against +over-hastiness. The proclamations of the Central Committee, they said, +did not announce any clearly defined politics. Signed by unknown names, +they might well proceed from Bonapartists.</p> + +<p>This Jacobin argument was ridiculous at Marseilles, where the despatch +of M. Thiers had given the signal for the commotion. Who smacked of +Bonapartism—these unknown men rising against Versailles, or M. Thiers +patronising <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>Rouher and his Ministers, and boasting of Canrobert's +offer?</p> + +<p>After a speech of Bouchet, the deputy of the <i>procureur de la +République</i>, Gaston Crémieux reconsidering his first impulsive step, and +accompanied by the delegates of the club, repaired to the El Dorado. +There he read and made comments upon the <i>Officiel</i> of Paris, which he +had got from the prefect, and calmed the excitement. "The Government of +Versailles have raised their crutch against what they call the +insurrection of Paris; but it has broken in their hands, and their +attempt has brought forth the Commune. Let us swear that we are united +for the defence of the Government of Paris, the only one that we +recognise." They separated, ready for resistance, but resolved to bide +their time.</p> + +<p>Thus the excited population still checked itself when the prefect goaded +it by the most stupid of provocations. This Admiral Cosnier, a +distinguished naval officer, but politically a mere cipher, quite out of +his element in these surroundings, where he had only just arrived, was +the passive tool of the reaction, which since the 4th September had +already several times fallen out with the National Guard—the +<i>civiques</i>—who had proclaimed the Commune and expulsed the Jesuits. The +Rev. Father Tissier, though absent, was still its leader. The moderation +of the town it mistook for cowardice. Like M. Thiers on the 17th, it +believed itself strong enough to make a brilliant stroke.</p> + +<p>In the evening the Admiral held council with the mayor, Bories, an old +wreck of 1848, who had dabbled in all the clerico-liberal coalitions, +the <i>procureur de la République</i>, Guibert, a timid trimmer, and General +Espivent de la Villeboisnet, one of those cruel caricatures in which the +civil wars of South America abound. An obtuse Legitimist, a besotted +zealot, the Syllabus incarnate, a carpet knight and former member of the +Mixed Commissions of 1851, during the war he had been expelled from +Lille by the people, indignant alike at his utter incapacity and his +antecedents. He brought the council the <i>mot d'ordre</i> of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>the priests +and reactionists, and proposed convoking the National Guards to make an +armed manifestation in favour of Versailles. He would have asked for +more, no doubt, but the garrison was solely composed of waifs of the +army of the East and of a few disbanded artillerists. Cosnier, quite led +astray, approved of the manifestation, and gave orders to the mayor and +to the colonel of the National Guards to prepare for it.</p> + +<p>On the 23rd March, at seven o'clock in the morning, the call to arms +sounded. The ingenious idea of the prefect had spread over the town, and +the popular battalions made ready to do it honour. From ten o'clock they +arrived at the Cours du Chapitre, and the artillery of the National +Guard was drawn up along the St. Louis Cours. At twelve, francs-tireurs, +National Guards, soldiers of all arms mingling, gathered in the Belzunce +Cours. Soon all the battalions of the Belle-de-Mai and of Endourre<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> +mustered in full strength, while the battalions of order remained +invisible.</p> + +<p>The municipal council, taking fright, disavowed the manifestation and +placarded a Republican address. The club of the National Guard joined +the council and demanded the return of the Assembly to Paris and the +exclusion from public functions of all the accomplices of the Empire. +The deputy of the procureur Bouchet tendered his resignation.</p> + +<p>All this time the battalions were marching up and down crying "Vive +Paris!" Popular orators harangued them, and the club, apprehensive of an +imminent explosion, sent Gaston Crémieux, Bouchet, and Frayssinet, to +ask the prefect to break up the ranks and communicate the despatches +from Paris. The delegates were discussing with Cosnier, when a terrific +clamour rose from without. The prefecture was besieged.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock the battalions, on foot for six hours, had moved, headed +by their drums. Twelve or thirteen thousand men having debouched through +the Cannebière and the Rue St. Ferréol, drew up before the prefecture. +The delegates of the club tried to parley, when a shot was fired, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>and +the crowd, rushing into the prefecture, arrested the prefect, his two +secretaries, and General Ollivier. Gaston Crémieux appeared on the +balcony, spoke of the rights of Paris, and recommended the maintenance +of order. The crowd cheered, but still continued to enter and ask for +arms. G. Crémieux had two columns formed and sent them to the iron works +of Menpenti, whose guns were surrendered.</p> + +<p>During this tumult a Commission of six members was formed: G. Crémieux, +Job, Etienne, a street-porter, Maviel, a shoemaker, Gaillard, a +mechanic, and Allerini, who deliberated in the midst of the crowd. G. +Crémieux proposed setting at liberty the prisoners just made, but from +all sides they cried, "Keep them as sureties." The Admiral was conducted +into a neighbouring room, closely watched, and—strange mania of all +these popular movements—asked for his resignation. Cosnier, quite out +of his latitude, signed what he was asked for.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></p> + +<p>The Commission placarded that all the powers were concentrated in its +hands, and feeling the necessity of strengthening itself, invited the +municipal council and the club of the National Guard to send three +delegates each. The council named David Bosc, Desservy, and Sidore; the +club, Bouchet, Cartoux, and Fulgéras. The next day they made a moderate +proclamation: "Marseilles has wished to prevent the civil war provoked +by the circulars of Versailles. Marseilles will support a regularly +constituted Republican Government sitting in the capital. The +Departmental Commission, formed with the concourse of all Republican +groups, will watch over the Republic till a new authority emanating from +a regular Government sitting at Paris relieves it."</p> + +<p>The names of the municipal council and of the club reassured the +middle-class. The reactionists continued drawing in their horns, and the +army had evacuated the town during the night. Leaving the prefect in the +trap into which he had thrust him, the coward Espivent, on the +investment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>of the prefecture, went to hide himself at the mistress's of +a commander of the National Guard named Spir, on whom he afterwards +conferred the knighthood of the Legion of Honour for this service to +moral order. At midnight he sneaked off and rejoined the troops, who, +without hindrance from the people, lulled into security by its victory, +reached the village of Aubagne, about seventeen kilometres from +Marseilles.</p> + +<p>Thus Marseilles was entirely in the hands of the people. The victory was +even too complete for heads prone to exultation. That "city of the sun" +is not propitious to soft tints; its sky, its fields, its men all affect +crude colours. On the 24th the civil guards hoisted the red flag and +already deemed the Commission too lukewarm. Sidore, Desservy, and +Fulgéras, regardless of their duty, kept aloof from the prefecture; +Cartoux had gone to Paris for information, and so the whole burden +weighed upon Bosc and Bouchet, who, with Gaston Crémieux, strove to +regularise the movement. Having said that the red flag was inopportune, +the detention of the hostages useless, they soon became suspected and +menaced. On the evening of the 24th, Bouchet, quite discouraged, gave in +his resignation, but, on G. Crémieux' complaint to the club of the +National Guard, consented to resume his post.</p> + +<p>These disagreements were already bruited about the town, and on the 25th +the Commission was obliged to announce that "the most perfect accord +united it with the municipal council." But the latter on the same day +declared itself the only existing power, and called upon the National +Guard to rouse from apathy. Trimming between the reaction and the +people, it began that miserable play that was to end in ignominy.</p> + +<p>While the Liberals were imitating the Tirards and the deputies of the +extreme Left, to whom Dufaure referred in his despatches, Espivent in +every point copied General Thiers. He had rifled all the administrative +departments of Marseilles. The treasury office of the garrison had been +shuffled off to Aubagne. Fifteen hundred Garibaldians of the army of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>Vosges and soldiers who were rejoining their depots in Africa were +left without bread, without pay, without <i>feuilles-de-routes</i>, and would +have remained without refuge if Gaston Crémieux and Bouchet had not +caused a provisional quartermaster to be named by the council. Thanks to +the Commission, those who had shed their blood for France received bread +and shelter. Gaston Crémieux said to them in an address, "You will +remember when the time comes, the fraternal hand that we have held out +to you." He was a gentle enthusiast, who beheld the revolution under +rather a bucolic aspect.</p> + +<p>On the 26th the isolation of the Commission became more obvious. No one +armed against it, but no one joined it. Almost all the mayors of the +department refused to placard its proclamations, and at Arles a +manifestation in favor of the red flag miscarried. The fiery spirits at +the prefecture did nothing to explain the import of the flag which they +had unfurled, and, in the midst of this dull calm, in view of Marseilles +looking on curiously, it hung from the campanile of the prefecture +motionless and mute as an enigma.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The capital of the south-west also saw its insurrection die out. +Toulouse had vibrated at the thunder-burst of the 18th March. In the +Faubourg St. Cyprien there was an intelligent and valiant workingmen's +population that formed the very sinews of the National Guard, and had +since the 19th relieved the watch to the cries of "Vive Paris!" A few +revolutionists summoned the prefect, Duportal, to pronounce for or +against Paris. For a month the <i>Emancipation</i>, which he directed, had +made a campaign against the rurals, and he had even in a public meeting +emphasized his Republican views. But he was not the man to take the +initiative, and refused to break with Versailles. The clubs, however, +beset him, obliging the officers of the National Guard to take an oath +to defend the Republic, and asked for cartridges. M. Thiers, seeing that +Duportal would after all follow their lead, named as prefect De Kératry, +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>former prefect of police of the 4th September. He arrived on the +night of the 21st-22nd at the house of the general of the division, +Nansouty, and being told that the garrison consisted of only 600 +disbanded men, and that the whole National Guard would declare for +Duportal, he beat his retreat on Agen.</p> + +<p>On the 23rd the National Guard prepared a manifestation in order to take +possession of the arsenal, when Duportal and the mayor rushed off to the +Capitol, the Hôtel-de-Ville of Toulouse. The mayor declared that the +intended review was not to take place, and Duportal that he would tender +his resignation rather than pronounce for the movement. But the +generals, afraid of this outbreak of the faubourg, took refuge in the +arsenal. The mayor and the municipal council, understanding it would no +longer do to continue their Platonic rôle, fled in their turn, and hence +Duportal, left alone in his prefecture, shone forth as a great +revolutionist, and therefore all the more worthy of the sympathy of the +National Guard. He exerted himself to reassure the generals, went to the +arsenal, intimated there his firm resolution to maintain order in the +name of the Government of Versailles, the only one he recognised as +legitimate, and was so successful that they advised M. Thiers to keep +him in his post. Kératry, availing himself of his declaration, requested +his aid to take possession of the prefecture, and Duportal gave him a +rendezvous before the officers of the mobiles and of the National Guard, +convoked for the next day, the 24th. Kératry understood and remained at +Agen.</p> + +<p>The object of this meeting was to find the volunteers against Paris +asked for by the Assembly. Four officers of mobiles out of sixty offered +their services to Versailles. The officers of the National Guard did not +come to the prefecture, but, on the contrary, prepared at that same +moment a demonstration against Kératry. At one o'clock 2,000 men were +assembled in the Place du Capitole, and, their banner flying, repaired +to the prefecture, where Duportal received their officers. One of them +declared that, far from supporting the Assembly, they were ready to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>march against it, and that if M. Thiers did not make peace with Paris +they would proclaim the Commune. At this name cries burst forth from all +corners of the room, "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris!" The officers, +growing hot, decreed the arrest of Kératry, proclaimed the Commune, and +summoned Duportal to place himself at their head. He tried to back out, +and proposed to act only as the officious prompter of the chiefs of the +Commune; but the officers, inveighing against defection, induced him to +come out to the square of the prefecture, where he was acclaimed by the +National Guard, and they proceeded to the Capitol.</p> + +<p>Hardly arrived in the large hall, the leaders seemed much embarrassed. +They offered the presidency in turn to the mayor, to other municipal +councillors, who slunk away, and to Duportal, who got off by drawing up +a manifesto, which was read from the large balcony. "The Commune of +Toulouse," it said, "declares for the Republic one and indivisible, +adjures the deputies of Paris to be the intermediaries between the +Government and the great town, and summons M. Thiers to dissolve the +Assembly." The mass cheered this milk-and-water Commune, which believed +in the deputies of the Left and the oppression of M. Thiers by the rural +majority.</p> + +<p>In the evening some officers of the National Guard appointed an +Executive Commission, composed, with two or three exceptions, of mere +talkers; in this the principal leaders of the movement did not figure. +It contented itself with placarding the manifesto, and neglected the +smallest precautions, even that of occupying the railway station. The +generals, nevertheless, did not dare to stir from their arsenal, where +they were joined on the 26th by the first president of the court and the +procureur-general, who launched an address calling upon the population +to rally round them. The National Guard wanted to answer by storming the +arsenal, and already the faubourg flocked to the Capitol. But the +Commission preferred to negotiate, sent word to the arsenal that it +would dissolve if the Government appointed a Republican prefect in the +stead of Kératry and entirely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>abandoned Duportal, who, it is true, had +done nothing. The negotiations lasted all the evening, and the National +Guard, tired out, deceived by their chiefs, and fancying everything +settled, returned to their homes.</p> + +<p>Kératry, well informed of all these failures, arrived the next day at +the railway station with three squadrons of cavalry, proceeded to the +arsenal, broke off the negotiations, and gave the order to march. At one +o'clock the Versaillese army, 200 cavalry and 600 ill-assorted soldiers +strong, opened its campaign. One column occupied the St. Cyprien Bridge, +in order to separate the town from the faubourg, another proceeded to +the prefecture, and the third, with Nansouty, Kératry, and the +magistrates, marched on the Capitol.</p> + +<p>About 300 men filled the courts, the windows, and the terrace. The +Versaillese deployed their troops and placed six guns in line at about +sixty yards from the edifice, thus recklessly exposing their infantry +and artillerists to the muskets of the insurgents. The first president +of the court and the procureur-general advanced to parley, but obtained +nothing. Kératry made the <i>sommations</i>, his voice being drowned by +cries. A single blank-cartridge volley would have scared soldiers and +artillerists, who might besides have been harassed on both flanks. But +the leaders had fled from the Capitol. The courage of a few men might +still have brought about a fight, when the Republican Association +interposed, persuaded the guards to retreat, and saved Kératry. The +prefecture was taken just as easily, and that same evening Kératry +installed himself there. The members of the Executive Commission the +next day published a manifesto of such platitude as to secure them +impunity, and one of them got himself named mayor by Kératry.</p> + +<p>Thus the generous workingmen of Toulouse, who had risen to the cry of +"Vive Paris!" were left in the lurch by those who had raised the +insurrection. A disastrous check this for Paris, for the whole south +would have followed the example of Toulouse if victorious.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The man of thought and energy, wanting in all these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>movements, appeared +in the insurrection of Narbonne. The old city, Gallic in its enthusiasm, +Roman in its tenacity, is the true centre of democracy in the department +of Aude. Nowhere during the war had a more vigorous protest been entered +against the shortcomings of Gambetta. For this very reason the National +Guards of Narbonne had not yet received their muskets, when those of +Carcassonne had long since been armed. At the news of the 18th March, +Narbonne did not hesitate, but declared for Paris. To proclaim the +Commune, an exile of the Empire, a man of strong convictions and firm +character, Digeon, was at once applied to. Digeon, as modest as +resolute, offered the direction of the movement to his comrade in exile, +Marcou, the recognised chief of the democracy in the Aude, one of the +most ardent opponents of Gambetta during the war. Marcou, a crafty +lawyer, afraid of compromising himself, and dreading the energy of +Digeon in the chief town of the department, induced him to leave for +Narbonne. Digeon arrived there on the 23rd, and first thought of +converting the municipal council to the principles of the Commune. But +on the refusal of the mayor, Raynal, to summon the council, the people, +out of all patience, invaded the Hôtel-de-Ville on the evening of the +24th, and arming themselves with the muskets detained by the +municipality, installed Digeon and his friends. He appeared on the +balcony, proclaimed the Commune of Narbonne united to that of Paris, and +immediately proceeded to take measures of defence.</p> + +<p>The following day Raynal tried to rally the garrison, and some companies +formed before the Hôtel-de-Ville; but the people, especially the women, +worthy of their Parisian sisters, disarmed the soldiers. A captain and a +lieutenant were retained as hostages; the rest of the garrison went and +shut itself up in the St. Bernard Barracks. As Raynal still continued +stirring up resistance, the people arrested him on the 26th; and Digeon, +with the three hostages, at the head of a detachment of Federals, went +to take possession of the prefecture, placing pickets at the railway +station and telegraph office. To get arms he forced the arsenal, where, +despite their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>lieutenant, who commanded them to fire, the soldiers +surrendered their guns. The same day the delegates from the neighbouring +Communes arrived, and Digeon set to work to generalise the movement.</p> + +<p>He had clearly understood that the departmental insurrections would soon +founder if not well combined, and he wanted to hold out a helping hand +to the rising of Toulouse and of Marseilles. Béziers and Cette had +already promised him their support, and he was preparing to leave for +Béziers, when, on the 28th, two companies of Turcos arrived, soon +followed by other troops sent from Montpellier, Toulouse, and Perpignan. +From this moment Digeon was obliged to stand on the defensive. He had +barricades thrown up, reinforced the posts, ordering the Federals always +to await the attacks and to aim at the officers.</p> + +<p>We shall return to this subject later on. Paris now recalls us. The +other provincial movements were but momentary vibrations. On the 28th, +when Paris was still elated with victory, all the Communes of France +were already swept away save those of Marseilles and Narbonne.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> The popular quarters of Marseilles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> This abdication was revealed before the court-martial by +the advocate of one of the accused. Cosnier, fearing that it might be +interpreted as an act of cowardice, blew out his brains.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST +SITTINGS—THE MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The Place of the Hôtel-de-Ville was still astir when the newly elected +members of the Commune assembled in the municipal council-hall.</p> + +<p>The ballot had returned sixteen mayors, adjuncts, and Liberals of all +shades,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> a few Radicals,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and about sixty Revolutionists of all +sorts.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<p>How came these latter to be chosen? All must be told, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>and virile truth +at last substituted for the stale flattery of the old romantic school +styling itself "Revolutionary." There might be something more terrible +than the defeat: to misconstrue or to forget its causes.</p> + +<p>Responsibility weighs heavily enough upon the elected, but we must not +charge it all to one side—the electors also have their share of it.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee had told the people on Sunday, the 19th instant, +"Prepare for your communal elections." They thus had a whole week in +which to frame a mandate and select their mandatories. No doubt the +resistance of the mayors and the occupation of the military posts kept +away many of the revolutionary electors from their arrondissements, but +there still remained enough citizens to conduct the work of selection.</p> + +<p>Never had a mandate been more indispensable, for the question at issue +was to give Paris a communal constitution acceptable to all France. +Never did Paris stand in such need of enlightened and practical men, +capable at once of negotiating and of combating.</p> + +<p>Yet there was never less preparatory discussion. A few men only recalled +to prudence a people habitually so over-scrupulous in electoral matters, +and which had just made a revolution to get rid of their +representatives. The Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a +manifesto very pertinent in several points, and which might have served +as an outline; the two delegates at the Home Office tried, through an +article in the <i>Officiel</i>, to impress Paris with the importance of her +vote. Not a single assembly framed the general programme of Paris; only +two or three arrondissements gave some sort of mandate.</p> + +<p>Instead of voting for a programme, they voted for names. Those who had +demanded the Commune, made a mark at the Corderie or during the siege, +were elected without being asked for further explanations, some even +twice, like Flourens, in spite of the blunders of the 31st October. Only +seven or eight, and those not the best, of the obscure men of the +Central Committee were named, the latter, it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>true, having decided +not to present itself for election. The public meetings in many +arrondissements sent up the most violent talkers, romanticists sprung up +during the siege, and lacking all knowledge of practical life. Nowhere +were the candidates put to any test. In the ardour of the struggle they +took no thought for the morrow. One might have fancied that the object +in view was a simple manifestation, not the foundation of a new order of +things.</p> + +<p>Twenty-four workmen only were elected, and of these a third belonged +rather to the public meetings than to the International or the +workingmen's societies. The other delegates of the people were chosen +from the small middle-class and the so-called liberal professions, +accountants, publicists—there were as many as twelve of these—doctors +and lawyers. These, save a few really studious men, whether veterans or +new-comers, were as ignorant as the workmen of the political and +administrative mechanism of the bourgeoisie, albeit full of their own +personality. The safety of the Central Committee lay in this, that it +was unadorned with great men, each one provided with a formula of his +own. The Council of the Commune, on the contrary, abounded in chapels, +groups, semi-celebrities, and hence endless competition and rivalry.</p> + +<p>Thus the precipitation and heedlessness of the Revolutionary electors +sent up to the Hôtel-de-Ville a majority of men, most of them devoted, +but chosen without discernment, and, into the bargain, abandoned them to +their own inspirations, to their whims, without any determined mandate +to restrain and guide them in the struggle entered upon.</p> + +<p>Time and experience would no doubt have corrected this negligence, but +time was wanting. The people never holds sway but for an hour, and woe +to them if they are not then ready, armed <i>cap-à-pie</i>. The elections of +the 26th March were irreparable.</p> + +<p>Only about sixty of those elected were present at the first sitting. At +its opening, the Central Committee came to congratulate the Council. The +chairman by seniority, Beslay, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>a capitalist of a fraternising turn of +mind, made the opening speech. He very happily defined this young +revolution: "The enfranchisement of the Commune of Paris is the +enfranchisement of all the communes of the Republic. Your adversaries +have said that you have struck the Republic. It is as with the pile, to +be driven deeper into the earth. The Republic of 1793 was a soldier, who +wanted to centralise all the forces of the nation; the Republic of 1871 +is a workman, who above all wants liberty to fecundate peace. The +Commune will occupy itself with all that is local, the Department with +what is regional, the Government with what is national. Let us not +overstep this limit, and the country and the Government will be happy +and proud to applaud this revolution." This was the naïve illusion of an +old man, who, nevertheless, had had the experience of a long political +life. This programme, so moderate in its form, was nothing less than the +death-knell of the great bourgeoisie, as shown during this very sitting.</p> + +<p>There were already some jarring notes. The violent and the giddy-headed +launched out into random motions, and wanted the Commune to declare +itself omnipotent. Tirard, elected by his arrondissement, improved this +occasion to withdraw, stating that his mandate was purely municipal, +that he could not recognise the political character of the Commune, gave +in his resignation, and ironically bade farewell to the Council: "I +leave you my sincere good wishes; may you succeed in your task," &c.</p> + +<p>The insolence of this dishonest man, who for eight days had been busy in +fomenting civil war and now threw up the mandate solicited in his +address to the electors, evoked general indignation. The more impatient +wanted to have him arrested, others to declare his mandate forfeited. He +escaped scot-free because he had said at the Versailles tribune, "When +you enter the Hôtel-de-Ville, you are not sure to return from it."</p> + +<p>This incident no doubt induced the Council to vote the secrecy of their +sittings, their awkward pretext being that the Commune was not a +parliament. This decision produced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>a very bad effect, violating the +best traditions of the great Commune of 1792-93, as it gave the Council +the appearance of a conspiracy, and it was found necessary to quash it +two weeks after, when the newspapers abounded in fantastic reports, as a +natural consequence of the secret sittings. But the publicity never +consisted in anything but the insertion of curtailed reports in the +<i>Officiel</i>. The Council never admitted the public, whose presence would +have prevented many faults.</p> + +<p>The next day the Council subdivided itself into commissions charged with +the various services. A Military Commission, and others of Finance, +Justice, Public Safety, Labour and Exchange, Provisions, Foreign +Affairs, Public Services, and Education were named. The Executive +Commission was composed of Lefrançais, Duval, Félix Pyat, Bergeret, +Tridon, Eudes, and Vaillant, of whom Duval, Bergeret, and Eudes also +belonged to the Military Commission.</p> + +<p>It had just been voted that all decrees should be signed <i>The +Commune</i>—a vote too soon forgotten—when the delegates of the Central +Committee were announced. After waiting half an hour they were +introduced. "Citizens," said their spokesman, "the Central Committee +comes to hand over to you its revolutionary powers. We resume the +functions defined by our statutes."</p> + +<p>This was the moment for the Council to affirm its authority. The only +representative of the population, alone responsible, it should now have +absorbed all powers, not tolerating the co-existence of a Committee +which was sure always to remember the paramount position it had held and +strive to recover it. In the previous sitting, the Council had done +justice to the Central Committee in voting that they had deserved well +of Paris and the Republic, and now taking them at their word, ought to +have declared that the rôle of the Committee had come to an end. Instead +of an authoritative decision in this sense, recriminations were resorted +to.</p> + +<p>A member of the Council recalled the promise of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>Central Committee +to dissolve after the elections. Unless they aimed at power, there was +no necessity for the maintenance of their organisation. Varlin and +Beslay defended the existence of the Committee, which was combated by +Jourde and Rigault. The delegates, who would have yielded to a +peremptory word, held out against this weakness. "This is," they said, +"the Federation that has saved the Republic. The last word is not yet +said. To dissolve this organisation is to break your strength. The +Central Committee does not pretend to share in the government. It +remains the bond of union between you and the National Guard, the right +hand of the Revolution. We again become what we were, the great <i>conseil +de famille</i> of the National Guard."</p> + +<p>This simile made a marked impression. The debate was prolonged, and the +delegates of the Committee withdrew, no conclusion having been arrived +at.</p> + +<p>Thereupon, without preamble, like a Jack-in-the-box, Félix Pyat jumped +up and proposed the abolition of the conscription.</p> + +<p>On the 3rd March he had stolen away from the National Assembly, as he +had on the 31st October deserted the Hôtel-de-Ville, and, a few days +after, sneaked out of prison. On the 18th March he did not stir, while +Delescluze had joined the revolution from the first day. Félix Pyat +waited for the triumph, and on the eve of the elections came to sound +the timbrel before the Committee, "which teaches modesty to the proudest +name and inspires men of genius with a feeling of inferiority." Elected +by about 12,000 votes in the tenth arrondissement, he was now forward to +take his seat at the Hôtel-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>The hour awaited for twenty years had at last struck; he was about to +tread the boards. Amidst the crowd of dramatists, thaumaturgists, +romanticists, visionaries, and Jacobin relics, trailing since 1830 at +the heels of the social revolution, his business had been that of +appeals to regicide, to revolutionary chouannerie, of epistles, +allegories, toasts, invocations, evocations, pieces of rhetoric on the +events of the day, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>tinkering the old Montagnard wares, and doing them +up with a little humanitarian varnish. Under the Empire his rabid +manifestoes had been the joy of the police and of the Bonapartist +journals, excellent sops to throw to the people, who could not extract +from them a practical idea or a grain of sense. This intoxication was +more than half-feigned. The dishevelled madman of the stage behind the +scenes turned crafty, trickish, and wary to a degree. At bottom he was +only a splenetic sceptic, sincere only in his self-idolatry. He came to +the Commune his pockets crammed with decrees.</p> + +<p>When he read his motion, it was lustily cheered by the romanticists and +passed at once. Yet still in the morning the Council had intimated +nothing of the sort, but only stated in the proclamation in which they +presented themselves to Paris: "To-day the decision on house-rents, +to-morrow that on the overdue bills, the public services re-established +and simplified, and the National Guards reorganised, these are our first +acts." And now it abruptly encroached upon national affairs. Commune in +the morning, Constituent Assembly in the evening.</p> + +<p>If they wanted to change the revolution from a communal into a national +one, they ought to have said so, boldly set forth their whole programme, +and demonstrated to France the necessity of their attempt. But what +signified this decree, improvised at random, without a preliminary +declaration and without a sequel? This <i>quid pro quo</i> was not even taken +up. Under pretext of avoiding parliamentarism, the matters at issue were +hurried over.</p> + +<p>Then the Council decreed the general release of rents due between +October, 1870, and July, 1871. Versailles had offered only delays; this +was contrary to equity. The Council released rents for the good reason +that property ought to bear its share of the general sacrifices; but it +did not except a lot of industrials who had realised scandalous profits +during the siege. This was contrary to justice.</p> + +<p>Finally, they neglected to announce themselves to the provinces, already +so forsaken by the Central Committee. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>A commission had certainly been +charged to draw up an address, but its work had not pleased, and another +one had been named, so that what with one commission and another, the +programme of the Commune was kept in suspense for twenty-two days, and +the Council had allowed all the insurrections of the provinces to die +out without giving them any advice or ideas.</p> + +<p>These encroachments, this disorder, disturbed Paris with the thought +that the new power had neither very clear ideas nor consciousness of the +situation. The Liberal fraction of the Council took advantage of this +pretext to withdraw. If their convention of the 20th had been sincere, +if they had cared for the destinies of Paris, the mayor and adjuncts +elected would have courageously stood by their mandates. Like those of +the provinces, they deserted, but were still more culpable, since they +had not protested against their elections. Many had never been seen at +the Hôtel-de-Ville; others wrung their hands, lamenting, "Where are we +going?" Some shammed mortal illness: "You see I am at my last gasp." +Those who have been most abusive since, then sought for humble evasions. +Not one broke boldly.</p> + +<p>Their resignations,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> the double elections, left twenty-two seats +vacant on the 30th, when the Council verified the credentials. Faithful +to the best traditions of the French Republic, it admitted the Hungarian +Frankel, one of the most intelligent members of the International, +elected in the thirteenth arrondissement. Six candidates had not +received the eighth part of the votes required by the law of 1849; the +Council passed by this irregularity because the arrondissements of these +candidates, composed of reactionary quarters, were emptying themselves +from day to day.</p> + +<p>The men of order, twice chastised, continued migrating to Versailles, +which they stocked with a new store of rancour and rhodomontades. The +town had assumed a warlike aspect; all announced that the struggle was +near at hand. Already M. Thiers had cut off Paris from France. On the +eve of the April term, the 31st March, the director of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>general +post-office, Rampont, belying the word of honour he had given the +delegate of the Central Committee, Theisz, made off after having +disorganised the postal service, and M. Thiers suppressed all the goods +trains and kept back all correspondence destined for Paris.</p> + +<p>On the 1st April he officially announced war. "The Assembly," he +telegraphed to the prefects, "is sitting at Versailles, where the +organisation of one of the finest armies that France has ever possessed +is being completed. Good citizens may then take heart and hope for the +end of a struggle which will be sad but short." A cynical boast of that +same bourgeoisie which had refused to organise armies against the +Prussians. "One of the finest armies," was as yet only the rabble of the +18th March, strengthened by five or six regiments; about 35,000 men, +with 3,000 horses, and 5,000 gendarmes or sergents-de-ville, the only +corps that had any solidity.</p> + +<p>Paris would not believe in the existence even of this army. The popular +papers demanded a sortie, speaking of the journey to Versailles as a +promenade. The most impetuous was the <i>Vengeur</i>, in which Félix Pyat +furiously shook his cap and bells. He exhorted the Commune "to press +Versailles. Poor Versailles! it no longer remembers the 5th and 6th +October, 1789, when the women of the Commune alone sufficed to catch its +king." On the morning of Sunday the 2nd April the same member of the +Executive Commission announced to Paris: "Yesterday at Versailles the +soldiers, requested to vote by <i>aye</i> or <i>no</i> if they were to march on +Paris, answered No!"</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Ad. Adam, Meline, Rochard, Barré (1st arrondissement, +Louvre); Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Chéron (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat +(3rd, Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. +Ferry, Nast (9th, Opéra); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Passy).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lefévre (7th, +Palais-Bourbon); A. Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Opéra).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, C. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. +Arnould, Lefrançais, Clémence, E. Gérardin (4th, Hôtel-de-Ville); +Régère, Jourde, Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Panthéon); Beslay, +Varlin (6th, Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon); +Raoul Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elysées); Gambon, +Félix, Pyat, H. Fortuné, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (10th, Enclos St. +Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure +(11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Geresme, Theisz, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly); +Léo Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray, +Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Clément, J. Vallès, Langevin +(15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Clément, Ch. Gérardin, Chalain, Malon +(17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Clément, Ferré, +Vermorel, P. Grousset (18th, Montmartre); Oudet, Puget, Delescluze, J. +Miot, Ostyn, Flourens (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Bergeret, Ranvier, +Flourens, Blanqui (20th, Menilmontant). Blanqui had been arrested in the +South of France, where he had gone for the sake of his health.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> See Appendix III.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL—THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED +EVERYWHERE—FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED—THE VERSAILLESE +MASSACRE SOME PRISONERS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>That very day, the 2nd April, at one o'clock, without warning, without +summons, the Versaillese opened fire and threw their shells into Paris.</p> + +<p>For several days their cavalry had exchanged shots with our advanced +posts at Châtillon and Putteaux. We occupied Courbevoie, that commands +the route to Versailles, which made the rurals very anxious. On the 2nd, +at ten o'clock in the morning, three brigades of the best Versailles +troops, 10,000 strong, arrived at the cross-roads of Bergères. Six or +seven hundred cavalry of the brigade Gallifet supported this movement, +while we had only three federal battalions at Courbevoie, in all five or +six hundred men, defended by a half-finished barricade on the road of +St. Germain. Their watch, however, was well kept; their vedettes had +killed the head-surgeon of the Versaillese army, whom they had mistaken +for a colonel of gendarmerie.</p> + +<p>At mid-day the Versaillese, having cannonaded the barracks of Courbevoie +and the barricade, launched themselves to the assault. At the first +shots from our men they scampered off, abandoning on the road cannon and +officers. Vinoy was obliged to come himself and rally the runagates. +Meanwhile the 113th of the line outflanked Courbevoie on the right, and +the infantry of marines turned the left, marching through Putteaux. Too +inferior in number and fearing to be cut off from Paris, the Federals +evacuated Courbevoie, and, pursued by shells, fell back on the Avenue de +Neuilly, leaving twelve <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>dead and some prisoners. The gendarmes had +taken five, one of whom was a child of fifteen, beating them +unmercifully, and shot them at the foot of Mont-Valérien. This +expedition concluded, the army regained its cantonment.</p> + +<p>At the report of the cannon all Paris started. No one believed in an +attack, so completely did all, since the 28th, live in an atmosphere of +confidence. It was no doubt an anniversary, a misunderstanding at the +utmost. When the news, the ambulance-carriages, arrived; when the word +was spoken, "The siege is recommencing!" an explosion of horror shook +all the quarters. An affrighted hive, such was Paris. The barricades +were again thrown up, the call to arms beaten everywhere, and the cannon +drawn to the ramparts of the Porte-Maillot and of the Ternes. At three +o'clock 80,000 men were on their legs crying, "To Versailles!" The women +excited the battalions, and spoke of marching in the vanguard.</p> + +<p>The Executive Commission met and placarded a proclamation: "The royalist +conspirators have attacked; despite the moderation of our attitude, they +have attacked. Our duty is to defend the great city against these +culpable aggressions." In the Commission, the generals Duval, Bergeret, +and Eudes declared for an attack. "The enthusiasm," they said, "is +irresistible, unique. What can Versailles do against 100,000 men? We +must sally out." Their colleagues resisted, especially Félix Pyat, +confronted with his rant and vapourings of the morning. His poltroonery +stood him in the stead of a life-preserver. "One does not start," said +he, "at random, without cannon, without <i>cadres</i>, and without chiefs;" +and he demanded the return of the strength of the troops. Duval, who +since the 19th March had been strongly bent upon a sortie, violently +apostrophised him: "Why, then, for three days have you shouted, 'To +Versailles?'" The most energetic opponent of the sortie was Lefrançais. +Finally, the four civil members—that is, the majority—decided that the +generals should present a detailed statement as to their forces in men, +artillery, munitions, and transports. The same evening the Commission +named Cluseret <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>delegate at War jointly with Eudes, who, being a member +of the so-called party of action, owed this post only to the patronage +of his old cronies.</p> + +<p>In spite of the majority of the Commission, the generals set out. They +had, besides, received no formal order to the contrary. Félix Pyat had +even concluded by saying, "After all, if you think you are ready...." +They saw Flourens always ready for a <i>coup-de-main</i>, other colleagues +equally adventurous, and, on their own authority, certain of being +followed by the National Guard. They sent to the <i>chefs-de-légion</i> the +order to form columns. The battalions of the right bank were to +concentrate at the Place Vendôme and Place Wagram; those of the left +bank, at the Place d'Italie and Champ-de-Mars.</p> + +<p>These movements, without staff officers to guide them, were very badly +executed. Many men marched hither and thither, grew tired. Yet at +midnight there were still about 20,000 men on the right bank of the +Seine and about 17,000 on the left.</p> + +<p>From eight o'clock to midnight the Council was sitting. The inexorable +Félix Pyat, always pertinent, demanded the abolition of the budget of +public worship. The majority immediately satisfied him. He might just as +well have decreed the abolition of the Versaillese army. Of the sortie, +of the military preparations deafening Paris, no one breathed a word in +the Council—no one disputed the field with the generals.</p> + +<p>The plan of the latter, which they communicated to Cluseret, was to make +a strong demonstration in the direction of Rueil, while two columns were +to march on Versailles by Meudon and the plateau of Châtillon. Bergeret, +assisted by Flourens, was to operate on the right; Eudes and Duval were +to command the columns of the centre and the left. A simple idea, and +easy of execution with experienced officers and solid heads of columns. +But most of the battalions had been without chiefs since the 18th March, +the National Guards without <i>cadres</i>, and the generals who assumed the +responsibility of leading 40,000 men had never conducted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>a single +battalion into the field. They neglected even the most elementary +precautions, knew not how to collect artillery, ammunition-waggons, or +ambulances, forgot to make an order of the day, and left the men for +several hours without food in a penetrating fog. Every Federal chose the +chief he liked best. Many had no cartridges, and believed the sortie to +be a simple demonstration. The Executive Commission had just placarded a +despatch from the Place Vendôme, headquarters of the National Guard: +"Soldiers of the line are all coming to us, and declare that, save the +superior officers, no one wants to fight."</p> + +<p>At three o'clock in the morning Bergeret's column, about 10,000 men +strong and with only eight ordnance pieces, arrived at the bridge of +Neuilly. It was necessary to give the men, who had taken nothing since +the evening before, time to recover themselves. At dawn they moved in +the direction of Rueil. The battalions marched by sections in line in +the middle of the road, without scouts, and cheerfully climbed the +Plateau des Bergères, when suddenly a shell burst into their ranks, +followed by a second. Mont-Valérien had opened fire.</p> + +<p>A terrible panic broke the battalions, amidst thousandfold cries of +"Treason!" the whole National Guard believing that we occupied +Mont-Valérien. Many members of the Commune, of the Central Committee, at +the Place Vendôme, knew the contrary, and very foolishly concealed it, +living in the hope that the fortress would not fire. It possessed, it is +true, only two or three badly appointed guns, the range of which the +Guards might have escaped by one quick movement; but, surprised when in +a state of blind confidence, they fancied themselves betrayed, and fled +on all sides. Bergeret exhausted every means to stay them. A shell cut +in two the brother of the chief of his staff, an officer of the regular +army gone over to the Commune. The greater part of the Federals +dispersed in the fields and regained Paris. The 91st only and a few +others, 1,200 men in all, remained with Bergeret, and, dividing into +small groups, reached Rueil. Shortly after, Flourens arrived by the road +of Asnières, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>bringing hardly a thousand men.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> The rest had lagged +behind in Paris or on the way. Flourens, all the same, pressing forward, +arrived at the Malmaison, put Gallifet's chasseurs to flight, and the +Parisian vanguard pushed as far as Bougival.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese, surprised by this sortie, only drew up very late, +towards ten o'clock. Ten thousand men were launched against Bougival, +and the batteries placed on the hill of La Jonchère cannonaded Rueil. +Two brigades of cavalry on the right and that of Gallifet on the left +defended the wings. The Parisian vanguard—a mere handful of +men—offered a determined resistance, in order to give Bergeret time to +operate his retreat, which commenced towards one o'clock, on Neuilly, +where they fortified the bridge-head. Some valiant men, who had +obstinately held out in Rueil, with great difficulty gained the bridge +of Asnières, whither they were pursued by the cavalry, who took some +prisoners.</p> + +<p>Flourens was surprised at Rueil, and the house which he occupied with +some officers surrounded by gendarmes. While preparing to defend +himself, the officer of the detachment, Captain Desmarets, cleft his +head with so furious a blow of the sabre that the brains gushed out. The +body was thrown into a dust-cart and taken to Versailles, where the fine +ladies gathered to enjoy the spectacle. Thus ended the large-hearted +man, loved of the Revolution.</p> + +<p>At the extreme left Duval had passed the night with six or seven +thousand men on the plateau of Châtillon. Towards seven o'clock he +formed a column of picked men, advanced to Petit-Bicêtre, dispersed the +outpost of General du Barail, and sent an officer to reconnoitre +Villecoublay, that commanded the route. The officer announced that the +roads were free, and the Federals advanced without fear. When near the +hamlet firing commenced. The men deployed as skirmishers, and Duval, +uncovered, in the middle of the road, set them the example. They held +out for several hours. A few shells would have sufficed to dislodge the +enemy; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>Duval had no artillery. Even cartridges were already +wanting, and he had to send to Châtillon for more.</p> + +<p>The bulk of the Federals who occupied the redoubt, confounded in an +inextricable disorder, already believed themselves surrounded on all +sides. The messengers of Duval on their arrival begged, menaced, but +could not obtain either reinforcements or munitions. An officer even +ordered a retreat. The unfortunate Duval, totally abandoned, was +assailed by the Derroja brigade and the whole Pellé division, 8,000 men. +He retired with his troops to the plateau of Châtillon.</p> + +<p>Our efforts in the centre were not more fortunate. Ten thousand men had +left the Champ-de-Mars at three o'clock in the morning with Ranvier and +Avrial. General Eudes as his whole battle array had ordered the troops +to move on. At six o'clock the 61st reached the Moulineaux, defended by +gendarmes; these were soon forced to retreat to Meudon, strongly +occupied by a Versaillese brigade entrenched in the villas and provided +with mitrailleuses. The Federals had only eight pieces, while Paris +possessed hundreds, and each of these had only eight rounds. At six +o'clock, weary of shooting at walls, they retreated to Moulineaux. +Ranvier went in search of cannon, and mounted them in the fort of Issy, +thus preventing the Versaillese from taking the offensive.</p> + +<p>We were beaten at all points, and the Communalist papers shouted +"Victory!" Led astray by staffs which did not even know the names of the +generals, the Executive Commission announced the junction of Flourens +and Duval at Courbevoie. Félix Pyat, again become bellicose, six times +cried in his <i>Vengeur</i>, "To Versailles!"<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> Despite the runaways of +the morning, the popular enthusiasm did not flag. A battalion of 300 +women marched up the Champs-Elysées, the red flag at their head, +demanding to sally forth against the enemy. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>The journals of the evening +announced the arrival of Flourens at Versailles.</p> + +<p>At the ramparts the sad truth was discovered. Long files of guards +re-entered by all the gates, and at six o'clock the only army outside +Paris was the guards on the plateau de Châtillon. A few shells falling +in their midst completed the disorder. Some of the men threatened Duval, +who was making desperate efforts to keep them together. He remained, +surrounded only by a handful of men, but always equally resolute. The +whole night he, usually so taciturn, did not cease repeating, "I will +not retreat."</p> + +<p>The next day at eight o'clock the plateau and the neighbouring villages +were surrounded by the brigade Derroja and the division Pellé. +"Surrender and your lives will be spared," General Pellé had told them. +The Parisians surrendered. The Versaillese at once seized the soldiers +fighting in the ranks of the Federals and shot them. The prisoners, +between two lines of chasseurs, were sent on to Versailles, while their +officers, bare-headed, their <i>galons</i> torn off, were put at the head of +the convoy.</p> + +<p>At Petit-Bicêtre they met the general-in-chief, Vinoy. He commanded the +officers to be shot, but the chief of the escort reminding him of +General Pellé's promise, Vinoy said, "Is there a chief?" "Myself," said +Duval, darting from the ranks. Another advanced: "I am the chief of +Duval's staff." Then the commander of the volunteers of Montrouge placed +himself by their side. "You are awful scoundrels," said Vinoy; and, +turning to his officers, "Shoot them." Duval and his comrades disdained +to reply, cleared a ditch, and leant against a wall on which were +inscribed the words, "Duval, horticulturist." They undressed, and, +crying "Vive la Commune," died for it. A horseman tore off Duval's boots +and carried them about as a trophy,<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>and an editor of the <i>Figaro</i> +took possession of his blood-stained collar.</p> + +<p>Thus the army of order inaugurated the civil war by the massacre of the +prisoners. It had begun on the 2nd; on the 3rd, at Chatou, General +Gallifet had three Federals shot who were surprised in an inn taking +their meal, and then he published a ferocious proclamation: "War has +been declared by the bandits of Paris. They have assassinated my +soldiers. It is a merciless war which I declare against these assassins. +I had to make an example."</p> + +<p>The general who called the combatants of Paris "bandits" and these +assassinations "an example" was a scamp of high life, first ruined, then +kept by actresses. Famous for his brigandage in Mexico, he had in a few +years obtained a generalship of brigade by the charms of his wife, +prominent in the orgies of the Imperial court. Nothing is more edifying +in this civil war than the standard-bearers of the "honest people."</p> + +<p>Their band in full strength hastened to the Paris Avenue at Versailles +to receive the prisoners of Châtillon. The whole Parisian emigration, +functionaries, elegants, women of the world and of the streets, all came +with the rage of hyenas to strike the Federals with closed hands, with +canes and parasols, pushing off their képis and cloaks, crying, "Down +with the assassins! To the guillotine!" Amongst these "assassins" was +the geographer Elisée Reclus, taken with Duval. In order to give them +time to glut their fury, the escort made several halts before conducting +their prisoners to the barracks of the gendarmes. They were then thrown +into the docks of Satory, and thence carried to Brest in cattle-trucks.</p> + +<p>Picard wanted to associate all the honest people of the provinces in +this baiting. "Never," telegraphed this Falstaff of pustulous aspect, +"have baser countenances of a base demagogy met the afflicted gaze of +honest men."</p> + +<p>Already, the evening before, after the assassinations of Mont-Valérien +and of Chatou, M. Thiers had written to his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>prefects, "The moral effect +is excellent." Odious repetition of those words, "Order reigns in +Warsaw," and "The chassepot has done wonders." Ah! it is well known that +it was not the French bourgeoisie, but a daughter of the people who +spoke those great words, "I have never seen French blood shed without my +hair standing on end."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> MacMahon, with his <i>coup-d'œil</i> of Reischoffen and +Sedan, saw there 17,000 men. <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> "To Versailles, if we don't want again to resort to +balloons! To Versailles, if we don't want to fall back upon pigeons! To +Versailles, if we don't want to be reduced to bran bread," &c., &c.—<i>Le +Vengeur</i>, 3rd April.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> These details, related in part by the journals of the +time, have been completed by numerous comrades of Duval whom we have +questioned. In his mutilated, lying, naïvely cynical book, Vinoy dared +to say: "The insurgents threw down their arms an surrendered <i>at +discretion</i>: the man called Duval was <i>killed in the affray</i>."</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p class="cen">THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE.</p> +<br /> + +<p>The same sun that saw the scale turn against Paris looked also on the +defeat of the people of Marseilles.</p> + +<p>The paralytic Commission still continued to dose, when, on the 26th, +Espivent beat the réveille, placed the department in a state of siege, +and issued a proclamation <i>à la</i> Thiers. The municipal council began to +tremble, and on the 27th withdrew their delegates from the prefecture. +Gaston Crémieux and Bouchet were at once sent to the Mairie to announce +that the Commission was ready to withdraw before the council. The +council asked for time to consider.</p> + +<p>The evening was passing away, and the Commission searching for a +loophole by which to escape from a position become untenable, when +Bouchet proposed to telegraph to Versailles that they would resign their +powers into the hands of a Republican prefect. Poor issue of a great +movement! They knew what the Republican prefects of M. Thiers were. The +Commission, jaded, discouraged, let Bouchet draw up the telegram, when +Landeck, Amouroux, and May arrived, sent, they said, by Paris. They +spoke in the name of the great town. Bouchet wanted to verify their +powers and contested their validity, which were indeed more than +contestable, whereat the members of the Commission grew indignant. The +magic name of victorious Paris resuscitated the enthusiasm of the first +hours, and Bouchet left the place. At midnight the municipal council +decided to maintain its resolution, and communicated this to the club of +the National Guard, who immediately followed their example. At half-past +one in the morning the delegates of the club informed the Commission +that their powers were at an end. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>Liberal bourgeoisie, coward-like, +stole away, the Radicals backed out, and the people remained alone to +face the reaction.</p> + +<p>This was the second phase of the movement. The most exalted of the three +delegates, Landeck, became an authority paramount to the Commission. The +cold-blooded Republicans who heard him and knew of his past dealings +with the Imperialist police, suspected a Bonapartist under the grossly +ignorant bully. He was indeed but a juggler, meant for the itinerant +stage, of grotesque vanity, and shrinking from nothing, because ignorant +of everything. The situation waxed tragic with this mountebank for a +leader. G. Crémieux, unable to find another issue, was still for the +solution of the evening before. On the 28th he wrote to the municipal +council that the Commission was ready to retire, leaving them the +responsibility of events, and urged his colleagues to release the +hostages; this only rendered him the more suspected of moderatism. +Closely watched, threatened, he lost heart at these disputes, and that +same evening left the prefecture. His secession divested the Commission +of all authority. It succeeded in discovering his retreat, made an +appeal to his devotion to the cause, and led him back to the prefecture, +there to resume his strange part of a chief at once captive and +responsible.</p> + +<p>The municipal council did not answer G. Crémieux' letter and on the 29th +the Commission renewed its proposal. The council still remained silent. +In the evening 400 delegates of the National Guard, met at the museum, +decided to federate the battalions, and appointed a commission charged +to negotiate between the Hôtel-de-Ville and the prefecture. But these +delegates represented only the revolutionary element of the battalions, +and the Hôtel-de-Ville plunged more and more into a slough of despond.</p> + +<p>A war of proclamations now ensued between the two powers. On the 30th +the council answered the deliberations of the museum meeting by a +proclamation of the chiefs of the reactionary battalions. The Commission +launched a manifesto demanding the autonomy of the Commune and the +abolition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>of prefectures; immediately after, the council declared the +general secretary of the prefect the legal representative of the +Government, and invited him to retake his post. The secretary turned a +deaf ear and took refuge aboard <i>La Couronne</i>, many councillors also +betaking themselves to the frigate—gratuitous cowardice, since the most +notorious reactionists went to and fro without being in the least +interfered with. The energy of the Commission was mere show; it arrested +only two or three functionaries, the procureur Guibert, the deputy, and +for a short time the director of the customhouse, and the son of the +mayor. General Ollivier was set free as soon as it became known that he +had refused to form part of the Mixed Commissions of 1851. They even +were so facile as to leave a post close to the prefecture in the hands +of chasseurs forgotten by Espivent. The flight of the council, +therefore, appeared only the more shameful. The town continued to be +calm, gay, facetious. One day the advice-boat <i>Le Renard</i> coming to show +its cannon at the Cannebière, the crowd thronging on the quay hooted so +much that it was obliged to slip its cable and rejoin the frigate in the +new harbour.</p> + +<p>Therefore the Commission inferred this, that no one would dare to attack +them, and thus took no measures of defence. They might easily have armed +the heights of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, which commanded the town, and +enlisted a great number of Garibaldians, some officers of the last +campaign having offered to organise everything. The Commission thanked +them, said that the troops would not come, and that even if they did, +they would fraternise with the people. They contented themselves with +hoisting the black flag, addressing a proclamation to the soldiers, and +accumulating at the prefecture arms and cannon without projectiles of +corresponding calibre. Landeck, for his part, wanting to distinguish +himself, declared Espivent's grade forfeited, and in his place nominated +a former cavalry sergeant named Pelissier. "Until the assumption of his +functions," said the decree, "the troops will remain under the orders of +General Espivent." This gross farce dated from the 1st April. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>Before +the court-martial which tried him, Pelissier hit the mark. When asked, +"Of what armies were you general?" "I was general of the situation," was +his reply; and indeed he never did lead any troops. On the morning of +the 24th the workmen had returned to their work, for the National +Guards, save the guardians of the prefecture, were not paid. Men to +garrison the posts were found with difficulty, and at midnight the +prefecture had but a hundred defenders.</p> + +<p>A <i>coup-de-main</i> would have been easy, and some rich bourgeois wanted to +try it. The men were there and the manœuvres agreed upon. At midnight +the Commission was to be carried off and the prefecture taken possession +of, while Espivent was to march on the town so as to get there by +daybreak. An officer was despatched to Aubagne. The general refused +under the pretext of prudence, but his retinue revealed the true motive +of the refusal. "We," they told the messenger, "have stolen away from +Marseilles like thieves; we want to re-enter it as conquerors."</p> + +<p>Such a performance seemed rather difficult with the army of Aubagne, 600 +or 700 men, without <i>cadres</i> and without discipline. One single +regiment, the 6th Chasseurs, showed a more martial carriage. But +Espivent relied upon the sailors of <i>La Couronne</i>, the National Guards +of order, in continual relations with him, and above all, on the +well-known supineness of the Commission.</p> + +<p>The latter tried to strengthen itself by the adjunction of delegates +from the National Guard. They voted the dissolution of the municipal +council, and the Commission convoked the electors for the 3rd April. +This measure, if taken on the 24th March, might perhaps have settled +everything, but on the 2nd April it was only a stroke in the air.</p> + +<p>On the 3rd, at the news from Versailles, Espivent sent an order to the +chiefs of the reactionary battalions to hold themselves in readiness. In +the evening, at eleven o'clock, Garibaldian officers came to inform the +prefecture that the troops at Aubagne were moving. The Commission +recommenced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>its old refrain: "Let them come; we are ready to receive +them." At half-past one they decided to beat the retreat, and towards +four o'clock some men mustered at the prefecture. About a hundred +franc-tireurs established themselves at the station, where the +Commission had not even thought of placing a battery.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock Marseilles was on the alert. Some reactionary companies +appeared at the Place du Palais de Justice and in the Cours Bonaparte; +the sailors of <i>La Couronne</i> were drawn up before the Bourse; the first +shots were fired at the station.</p> + +<p>Espivent's troops presented themselves at three points—the station, the +Place Castellane, and La Plaine. The franc-tireurs, notwithstanding a +fine defence, were soon surrounded and obliged to retreat. The +Versaillese shot the Federalist stationmaster under the eyes of his son, +a child of sixteen, who threw himself at the feet of the officer, +offering his life for his father's. The second stationmaster, Funel, was +able to escape with only a broken arm. The columns of La Plaine and +L'Esplanade pushed their advanced posts as far as 300 yards from the +prefecture.</p> + +<p>The Commission, always in the clouds, sent an embassy to Espivent. G. +Crémieux and Pélissier set out, followed by an immense mass of men and +children, crying "Vive Paris!" At the outposts of the Place Castellane, +the seat of the staff, the chief of the 6th Chasseurs, Villeneuve, came +forward towards the delegates. "What are your intentions?" asked G. +Crémieux. "We want to re-establish order." "What! you would dare fire on +the people?" cried G. Crémieux, and commenced haranguing, when the +Versaillese threatened to order his chasseurs to march on. The delegates +then had themselves conducted to Espivent. He first spoke of putting +them under arrest, but then would allow them five minutes for the +evacuation of the prefecture. G. Crémieux on his return found the +chasseurs struggling with the crowd, who sought to disarm them. A new +current of people, preceded by a black flag, arrived, making a vigorous +push against the soldiers. A German officer of Espivent's staff arrested +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>Pelissier, but the Versaillese chiefs, seeing their men waver, ordered +a retreat.</p> + +<p>The mass applauded, believing they would disband. Two infantry corps had +already refused to march, and the Place de la Prefecture was filled with +groups certain of success. Suddenly, towards ten o'clock, the chasseurs +debouched by the Rues de Rome and De l'Armény. The people shouted and +surrounded them, when many raised the butt-end of their muskets. One +officer who, urging on his company, made them cross bayonets, fell, his +head pierced by a bullet. His men charged the Federals, who took refuge +and were taken prisoners in the prefecture, whither the chasseurs +followed. The volleys of the National Guards of order and the chasseurs +from the Cours Bonaparte and from the house of the Frères Ignorantins, +keeping up a running fire, were replied to by the Federals from the +windows of the prefecture.</p> + +<p>The fusillade had lasted two hours, and no reinforcement arrived in +support of the Federals. Inexpugnable in the prefecture, a solid square +building, they were none the less vanquished, having neither provisions +nor sufficient munition, and it would have sufficed to wait with arms +ordered till they had exhausted their cartridges. But the general of the +Sacré Cœur would not put up with such a half-triumph. This was his +first campaign; he wanted blood, and, above all, noise. Since eleven +o'clock he had had the prefecture bombarded from the top of +Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, a distance of about 500 yards. The Fort St. +Nicolas also opened its fire, but its shells, less far-seeing than those +of our Lady-de-la-Garde, dashed down upon the aristocratic houses of the +Cours Bonaparte, killing one of those heroic guards of order who fired +from behind the soldiers. At three o'clock the prefecture hoisted a flag +of truce. Espivent continued to fire. An envoy was sent to him, but he +insisted upon their surrender at discretion. At five o'clock more than +300 shells had traversed the edifice, wounding many Federals. Little by +little, the defenders, seeing that they were not supported, left the +place. The prefecture had long ceased firing when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>Espivent was still +bombarding it. The fright of this brute was so great that he continued +throwing shells till nightfall. At half past seven the sailors of <i>La +Couronne</i> and <i>Le Magnanime</i> courageously stormed the prefecture, void +of all its defenders.</p> + +<p>They found the hostages safe and sound, as were the chasseurs taken +prisoner in the morning. Yet the Jesuitic repression was atrocious. The +men of order arrested at hazard, and dragged their victims into the +lamp-stores of the station. There an officer scrutinised the prisoners, +made a sign to one or the other of them to step out, and blew out his +brains. The following days there were rumours of summary executions in +the barracks, the forts and the prisons. The number of dead the people +lost is unknown, but it exceeded 150, besides many wounded who concealed +themselves. The Versaillese had thirty killed and fifty wounded. More +than 900 persons were thrown into the casemates of the Château d'If and +of the Fort St. Nicolas. G. Crémieux was arrested at the porter's of the +Israelite Cemetery. He voluntarily discovered himself to those who +sought him, strong in his good faith, and still believing in the judges. +The brave Etienne was also taken. Landeck, of course, had made his exit +in good time.</p> + +<p>On the 5th Espivent entered triumphantly, acclaimed with savage frenzy +by the reactionists. But from the further ranks of the crowd cries and +hisses rose against the murderers. At the Place St. Ferréol a captain +was fired at, and the people stoned the windows of a house from which +the sailors had been cheered.</p> + +<p>Two days after the struggle, on its return from <i>La Couronne</i>, the +municipal council recovered its voice to strike the vanquished.</p> + +<p>The National Guard was disarmed, a fierce reaction raged, the Jesuits +again lorded it, and Espivent paraded about, receiving ovations to the +cries of "Vive Jésus! Vive le Sacré Cœur!" The club of the National +Guard was closed, Bouchet arrested, and the Radicals, insulted, +persecuted, once more saw what it costs to desert the people.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Narbonne, too, was subdued. On the 30th March the prefect and the +procureur-general issued a proclamation in which they spoke of "the +handful of factious men," presented themselves as upholders of the true +Republic, and telegraphed everywhere the failure of the provincial +movements. "Is this a reason," Digeon answered in a placard, "to lower +before force this red flag dyed in the blood of our martyrs? Let others +consent to live eternally oppressed." Whereupon he prepared for battle, +and barricaded the streets leading to the Hôtel-de-Ville. The women, +always to the fore, pulled up pavements and piled up furniture. The +authorities, afraid of a serious resistance, sent M. Marcou to his +friend Digeon. The Brutus of Carcassonne bestrode the Hôtel-de-Ville, +accompanied by two Republicans of Limoux, to offer in the name of the +procureur-general a full and complete amnesty to those who would +evacuate the edifice. They offered Digeon twenty-four hours to gain the +frontier. Digeon assembled his council, and all refused to fly. M. +Marcou hastened to inform the military authorities that they might now +act.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> General Zentz was at once sent to Narbonne.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock in the morning a detachment of Turcos reconnoitred the +barricades of the Rue du Pont. The Federals, anxious to fraternise, +cleared it, and were received with a volley, killing two men and +wounding three. On the 31st, at seven o'clock, Zentz in a proclamation +announced that the bombardment was about to recommence. Digeon at once +wrote to him, "I have the right to reply to such a savage menace in the +same style. I warn you that if you bombard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>the town, I shall have the +three prisoners who are in my power shot." Zentz for all answer arrested +the envoy, and had brandy distributed to the Turcos, the only troops who +would march. These brutes arrived at Narbonne eager to loot, and had +already pillaged three cafés. The fight was about to begin, when the +procureur-general again sent two envoys, offering amnesty to all those +who would evacuate the Hôtel-de-Ville before the opening of the fire, +but the execution of the hostages would be punished by the massacre of +all its occupants. Digeon wrote out these conditions under the dictation +of one of the envoys, read them to the Federals, and left every one free +to withdraw. At this moment the procureur-general presented himself with +the Turcos before the terrace of the garden. Digeon rushed thither. The +procureur harangued the multitude, and as he spoke of indulgence, Digeon +protested that an amnesty had just been promised. The procureur drowned +the discussion in a roll of drums, read the legal <i>sommation</i> in front +of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and asked for the hostages, whom the soldiers who +had deserted delivered over to him.</p> + +<p>All these parleys had profoundly enervated the defence. Besides, the +Hôtel-de-Ville could do nothing against a bombardment that would have +battered the town. Digeon had the edifice evacuated, and shut himself up +alone in the cabinet of the mayor, resolved to sell his life dearly; but +the people, in spite of his resistance, carried him off. The +Hôtel-de-Ville was empty when the Turcos arrived. They plundered in all +its corners, and officers were seen to deck themselves with stolen +valuables.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the formal promises of amnesty, numerous warrants of +arrest were issued. Digeon refused to fly, and wrote to the +procureur-general that he might arrest him. Such a man at Toulouse would +have saved the movement and raised the whole South.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Limoges had one glimpse of hope on the fatal day of the 4th April. That +revolutionary capital of the Centre could not look on the efforts of +Paris unmoved. On the 23rd March <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>the Société Populaire, centralised all +the democratic forces and passed a vote of thanks to the army of Paris +for its conduct on the 18th. When Versailles called for volunteers, the +Society enjoined the municipal council to prevent such an incitement to +civil war. The workingmen's societies despatched a delegate to Paris +soon after the proclamation of the Commune, there to inquire into its +principles, and to request the sending of a commissary to Limoges. The +members of the Commune replied that this was impossible for the present, +that they would consider it by and by; and never sent anybody. The +Société Populaire was thus obliged to act alone. It urged the municipal +council to hold a review of the National Guards, certain that it would +result in a demonstration against Versailles. The council composed, with +few exceptions, of timid men, tried to gain time, when the news of the +3rd April became known. On the morning of the 4th, on reading on the +walls the triumphant telegram from Versailles, the workmen revolted. A +detachment of five hundred soldiers was about to leave for Versailles; +the crowd followed them to the station, and the workmen urged them to +join the people. The soldiers, surrounded, much excited, fraternised, +surrendered their arms, many of which were taken to the Société +Populaire, and hidden there.</p> + +<p>The rappel was at once beaten. The colonel of cuirassiers, Billet, who, +accompanied by orderlies, rode through the town, was hemmed in by the +people, and constrained to cry, "Vive la République!" At five o'clock +the whole National Guard was in arms on the Place de la Mairie. The +officers met in the Hôtel-de-Ville, where a councillor proposed to +proclaim the Commune. The mayor objected, but the cry resounded on all +sides. Captain Coissac took upon himself to go to the station in order +to stop the train ready for the departure of the troops. The other +officers consulted their companies, which answered with one unanimous +cry, "Vive Paris! A bas Versailles!" Soon after, the battalions, filing +off before the Hôtel-de-Ville, preceded by two municipal councillors in +their official costume, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>went to ask the general for the release of the +soldiers arrested during the course of the day. The general gave the +order to set them free, and at the same time sent word to Colonel Billet +to prepare against the insurrection. From the Place Tourny the Federals +repaired to the prefecture, occupying it in spite of the resistance of +the Conservative National Guards, and commenced throwing up some +barricades. A few soldiers arriving from the Rue des Prisons, several +citizens adjured the officers not to commence a civil war. These +hesitated, retired, when Colonel Billet, at the head of about fifty +cuirassiers, debouched on the Place de l'Eglise St. Michel, and ordered +his men to advance and draw swords. They fired their pistols, the +Federals answered, and the colonel was mortally wounded. His horse +turning about, carried its rider as far as the Place St. Pierre, the +other horses following, and the Federals thus remained masters of the +field. But lacking organisation, they disbanded in the night and left +the prefecture. The next day the company that occupied the station +seeing themselves abandoned withdrew. The arrests began, and many were +obliged to hide.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus the revolts of the great towns died out one by one like the lateral +craters of an exhausted volcano. The revolutionists of the provinces +showed themselves everywhere completely disorganised, without any +faculty to wield power. Everywhere victorious at the outset, the workmen +had only known how to pronounce for Paris. But at least they showed some +vitality, generosity, and pride. Eighty years of bourgeois domination +had not been able to transform them into a nation of mercenaries; while +the Radicals, who either combated or held aloof from them, once more +attested the decrepitude, the egotism of the middle-class, always ready +to betray the workingmen to the "upper" classes.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> "The general commanding the department and the +procureur-general, aware that I had for thirty years been the friend of +the man who commanded the Commune at Narbonne, came to solicit my +intervention to induce him to submit. It was arranged that if I did not +succeed I should immediately send a telegram to General Robinet, in +order that the military authorities might act in consequence. At +midnight I sent the telegram.... You do not know me; it is thanks to my +personal influence that order was maintained at Carcassonne."—<i>Speech +of M. Marcou to the Assembly in answer to M. de Gavardie, Sitting of the +27th January 1874.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE—THE GREAT WEAKNESS +OF THE COUNCIL—NOMINATION OF CLUSERET—DECREE +CONCERNING THE HOSTAGES—THE CENTRAL +COMMITTEE—THE BANK.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>After an armistice of seventy days, Paris again took up the struggle for +France single-handed. It was no longer the territory only which she +strove for, but the very ground-work of the nation. Victorious, her +victory would not be sterile as those of the battlefield; regenerated, +the people would set to the great work of remaking the social edifice; +vanquished, all liberty would be quenched, the bourgeoisie turn its +whips into scorpions, and a generation glide into the grave.</p> + +<p>And Paris, so generous, so fraternal, did not shudder at the impending +civil war. She stood up for an idea that exalted her battalions. While +the bourgeois refuses to fight, saying, "I have a family," the workman +says, "I fight for my children."</p> + +<p>For the third time since the 18th March Paris had but one soul. The +official despatches, the hireling journalists established at Versailles, +pictured her as the pandemonium of all the black-legs of Europe, +recounted the thefts, the arrests <i>en masse</i>, the endless orgies, +detailed sums and names. According to them, honest women no longer dared +venture into the streets; 1,500,000 persons oppressed by 20,000 ruffians +were offering up ardent prayers for Versailles. But the traveller +running the risk of a visit to Paris, found the streets and boulevards +tranquil, presenting their usual aspect. The pillagers had only pillaged +the guillotine, solemnly burnt before the mairie of the eleventh +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>arrondissement. From all quarters the same murmur of execration rose +against the assassination of the prisoners and the ignoble scenes at +Versailles. The incoherence of the first acts of the Council was hardly +noticed while the ferocity of the Versaillese was the topic of the day. +Persons coming full of indignation against Paris, seeing this calm, this +union of hearts, these wounded men crying "Vive la Commune!" these +enthusiastic battalions; there Mont-Valérien vomiting death, here men +living as brothers, in a few hours caught the Parisian malady.</p> + +<p>This was a fever of faith, of blind devotion, and of hope—of hope above +all. What rebellion had been thus armed? It was no longer a handful of +desperate men fighting behind a few pavements, reduced to charging their +muskets with slugs or stones. The Commune of 1871, much better armed +than that of 1793, possessed at least 60,000 men, 200,000 muskets, 1,200 +cannon, five forts; an enceinte covered by Montmartre, Belleville, the +Panthéon overtowering the whole city, munitions enough to last for +years, and milliards at her bidding. What else is wanted to conquer? +Some revolutionary instinct. There was not a man at the Hôtel-de-Ville +who did not boast of possessing it.</p> + +<p>The sitting of the 3rd April during the battle was stormy. Many +inveighed against this mad sortie. Lefrançais, indignant at having been +deceived, withdrew from the Commission, which, called upon to explain, +threw all the blame upon the generals. The friends of the latter took up +their defence, demanded that news should be waited for. Soon the +disastrous tidings were brought, and they could not hesitate any longer. +For such a usurpation of authority there was but one atonement possible. +Flourens and Duval had made it voluntarily. The others ought to have +followed. Thus the dead would have been appeased, similar follies once +for all cut short, and the authority of the Commune brought home to the +most refractory.</p> + +<p>But the men at the Hôtel-de-Ville were not of such inflexibility. Many +had fought, plotted together under the Empire, lived in the same +prisons, identified the Revolution <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>with their friends. And besides, the +generals, were they alone guilty? So many battalions could not have +bestirred themselves all the night without the Council being informed +thereof. Though blind or deaf, they were none the less responsible. In +order to be just they ought to have decimated themselves. They felt +this, no doubt, and did not dare strike the generals.</p> + +<p>They might at least have dismissed them. They contented themselves with +replacing them on the Executive Commission, and notified this measure +most respectfully. "The Commune was desirous to leave them all liberty +in the conduct of the military operations; it was as far from wishing to +disoblige them as from wishing to weaken their authority." And yet their +heedlessness, their incapacity, had been mortal. Their ignorance only +saved them from the suspicion of having betrayed. This indulgence was +big with promises for the future.</p> + +<p>This future meant Cluseret. From the first days he had beset the Central +Committee, the Ministries, in quest of a generalship, his hands full of +war plans against the mayors. The Committee would have nothing to do +with him. He then clung to the Executive Commission, which on the 2nd +April, at seven o'clock in the evening, appointed him delegate at war, +with the order to enter upon his duties immediately.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> The rappel was +being beaten at that moment for the fatal sortie. Cluseret took good +care not to take possession of his post, allowed the generals to ruin +themselves, and on the 3rd appeared before the Council to denounce their +"<i>gaminerie</i>." It was this military pamphlet-monger, with no pledge but +his decoration, won against the Socialists of 1848, who had played the +marionette in three insurrections, whom the Socialists of 1871 charged +with the defence of their Revolution.</p> + +<p>The choice was execrable, the very idea of naming a delegate faulty. The +Council had just decided to keep on the defensive. To guard the lines, +regularise the services, provision and administer the battalions, the +best delegate would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>have been common sense. A commission, composed of a +few active and laborious men, would have offered all guarantees of +security.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the Council failed to point out what sort of defence they had +in view. The defence of the forts, of the redoubts, of the accessory +positions, required thousands of men, experienced officers, a war with +the mattock as well as the musket. The National Guard was not qualified +for such soldiership. Behind the ramparts, on the contrary, it became +invincible. It would have sufficed to blow up the forts of the south, to +fortify Montmartre, the Panthéon, and the Buttes-Chaumont, to strongly +arm the ramparts, to create a second, a third enceinte, to render Paris +inaccessible or untenable to the enemy. The Council did not indicate +either of these systems, but allowed its delegates to dabble with the +two, and finally annulled the one by the other.</p> + +<p>If they wished by the appointment of a delegate to concentrate the +military power, why not dissolve the Central Committee? The latter +acted, spoke more boldly and much better than the Council which had +excluded it from the Hôtel-de-Ville. The Committee had installed itself +in the Rue de l'Entrepôt, behind the Customs House, near its cradle. +Thence on the 5th April it launched a fine proclamation: "Workmen, do +not deceive yourselves about the import of the combat. It is the +engagement between parasitism and labour, exploitation and production. +If you are tired of vegetating in ignorance and wallowing in misery, if +you want your children to be men enjoying the benefit of their labour, +and not mere animals trained for the workshop and the battlefield, if +you do not want your daughters, whom you are unable to educate and +overlook as you yearn to do, to become instruments of pleasure in the +arms of the aristocracy of money, if you at last want the reign of +justice, workmen, be intelligent, rise!"</p> + +<p>The Committee certainly declared in another placard that it did not +pretend to any political power, but power in times of revolution of +itself belongs to those who define it. For eight days the Council had +not known how to interpret the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>Commune, and its whole baggage consisted +in two insignificant decrees. The Central Committee, on the contrary, +very distinctly set forth the character of this contest, that had become +a social one, pointed out behind the struggle for municipal liberties +that devouring sphinx the question of the proletariat.</p> + +<p>The Council might have profited by the lesson, endorsed if necessary +that manifesto, and then, referring to the protestations of the +Committee, obliged it to dissolve itself. This was all the more easy +that the Committee, much weakened by the elections, only existed thanks +to four or five members and its eloquent mouthpiece, Moreau. But the +Council contented itself with mildly protesting at the sitting of the +5th, and as usual letting things get along as best they could.</p> + +<p>It was already drifting from weakness to weakness; and yet, if ever it +believed in its own energy it was that day. The savagery of the +Versaillese, the assassination of the prisoners, of Flourens and Duval, +had excited the most calm. They had been there full of life three days +ago, these brave colleagues and friends. Their empty places seemed to +cry out for vengeance. Well, then, since Versailles waged a war of +cannibals, they would answer an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. +Besides, if the Council did not act, the people, it was said, would +perhaps revenge itself, and more terribly. They decreed that any one +accused of complicity with Versailles would be judged within forty-eight +hours, and if guilty, retained as a hostage. The execution by Versailles +of a defender of the Commune would be followed by that of a hostage—by +three said the decree, in equal or double number said the proclamation.</p> + +<p>These different readings betrayed the troubled state of their minds. The +Council alone believed in having frightened Versailles. The bourgeois +journals certainly shouted "Abomination!" and M. Thiers, who shot +without any decrees, denounced the ferocity of the Commune. At bottom +they all laughed in their sleeves. The reactionists of any mark had long +since fled; there only remained in Paris the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>small fry and a few +isolated men, whom, if needs be, Versailles was ready to sacrifice.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> +The members of the Council, in their childish impetuosity, had not seen +the real hostages staring them in the face—the bank, the civil +register, the domains and the suitors' fund. These were the tender +points by which to hold the bourgeoisie. Without risking a single man, +the Commune had only to stretch out its hand and bid Versailles +negotiate or commit suicide.</p> + +<p>The timid delegates of the 26th March were not the men to dare this. In +allowing the Versaillese army to file off, the Central Committee had +committed a heavy fault; that of the Council was incomparably more +damaging. All serious rebels have commenced by seizing upon the sinews +of the enemy—the treasury. The Council of the Commune was the only +revolutionary Government that refused to do so. While abolishing the +budget of public worship, which was at Versailles, they bent their knees +to the budget of the bourgeoisie, which was at their mercy.</p> + +<p>Then followed a scene of high comedy, if one could laugh at negligence +that has caused so much bloodshed. Since the 19th March the governors of +the bank lived like men condemned to death, every day expecting the +execution of their treasure. Of removing it to Versailles they could not +dream. It would have required sixty or eighty vans and an army corps. On +the 23rd, its governor, Rouland, could no longer stand it, and fled. The +sub-governor, De Plœuc, replaced him. From his first interview with +the delegates of the Hôtel-de-Ville he had seen through their timidity, +given battle, then seemed to soften, yielded little by little, and doled +out his money franc by franc. The bank, which Versailles believed almost +empty, contained: coin, 77 millions;<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>bank-notes, 166 millions; +bills discounted, 899 millions; securities for advances made, 120 +millions; bullion, 11 millions; jewels in deposit, 7 millions; public +effects and other titles in deposit, 900 millions; that is, 2 milliards +180 million francs: 800 millions in bank-notes only required the +signature of the cashier, a signature easily made. The Commune had then +three milliards in its hands, of which over a milliard realised, enough +to buy all the generals and functionaries of Versailles; as hostages, +90,000 depositors of titles, and the two milliards in circulation whose +guarantee lay in the boxes in the Rue de la Vrillière.</p> + +<p>On the 29th March old Beslay presented himself before the tabernacle. De +Plœuc had mustered his 430 clerks, armed with muskets without +cartridges. Beslay, led through the lines of these warriors, humbly +prayed the governor to be so kind as to supply the pay of the National +Guard. De Plœuc answered superciliously, spoke of defending himself. +"But," said Beslay, "if, to prevent the effusion of blood, the Commune +appointed a governor." "A governor! never!" said De Plœuc, who +understood his man; "but a delegate! If you were that delegate we might +come to an understanding." And, doing the pathetic, "Come, M. Beslay, +help me to save this. This is the fortune of your country; this is the +fortune of France."</p> + +<p>Beslay, deeply moved, hurried off to the Executive Commission, repeated +his lesson all the better that he believed it and prided himself on his +financial lore. "The bank," he said, "is the fortune of the country: +without it, no more industry, no more commerce. If you violate it, all +its notes will be so much waste-paper."<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> This trash circulated in +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Hôtel-de-Ville, and the Proudhonists of the Council, forgetting +that their master put the suppression of the bank at the head of his +revolutionary programme, backed old Beslay. At Versailles itself, the +capitalist stronghold had no more inveterate defenders than those of the +Hôtel-de-Ville. If some one had at least proposed, "Let us at least +occupy the bank," but the Executive Commission had not the nerve to do +this, and contented itself with commissioning Beslay. De Plœuc +received the good man with open arms, installed him in the nearest +cabinet, even persuading him to sleep at the bank, made him his hostage, +and once more breathed freely.</p> + +<p>Thus since the first week the Assembly of the Hôtel-de-Ville showed +itself weak towards the authors of the sortie, weak towards the Central +Committee, weak towards the bank, trifling in its decrees, in the choice +of its delegate to the War Office, without a military plan, without a +programme, without general views, and indulging in desultory +discussions. The Radicals who had remained in the Council saw whither it +was drifting, and, not inclined to play the martyrs, they sent in their +resignations.</p> + +<p>O Revolution! thou dost not await the well-timed day and hour. Thou +comest suddenly, blind and fatal as the avalanche. The true soldier of +the people accepts the combat wherever hazard may place him. Blunders, +defections, compromising companions do not dishearten him. Though +certain of defeat, he struggles still; his victory looms in the future.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Such is the text of the decree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, M. Thiers' secretary, answered +Barral de Montaut, who spoke of the possibility of a massacre in the +prisons: "The hostages! the hostages! But we can do nothing. What should +we do? So much the worse for them."—<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. +p. 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> M. Beslay, in his book <i>Mes Souvenirs</i>, Paris, 1873, +says: "The cash in hand was forty and some odd millions." These "some +odd" were no less than 203 millions. They presented the good man +fictitious statements, with which they gulled him. In his evidence and +the annexes (<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. iii. errata, p. 488), M. de +Plœuc has given the true statements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> These were all the reasons he could ever allege, even in +his book written in Switzerland, whither M. de Plœuc himself went to +deposit him after the fall of the Commune. Besides his life being saved, +he, later on, received a judicial ordinance to the effect that no +further judicial proceedings were to be taken against him.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ASNIÈRES—ORGANISATION AND +DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The rout of the 3rd April daunted the timorous but exalted the fervent. +Battalions inert until then rose; the armament of the forts no longer +lagged. Save Issy and Vanves, rather damaged, the forts were intact. All +Paris soon heard these fine cannon of seven, which Trochu had +disdained,<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> firing so lustily and with such correct aim, that on the +evening of the 4th the Versaillese were obliged to evacuate the plateau +of Châtillon. The trenches that protected the forts were manned. Les +Moulineaux, Clamart, Le Val-Fleury resounded with the fusillade. To the +right we reoccupied Courbevoie, and the bridge of Neuilly was +barricaded.</p> + +<p>Thence we continued to threaten Versailles. Vinoy received the order to +take Neuilly. On the morning of the 6th, Mont-Valérien, recently armed +with 24-pounders, opened fire on Courbevoie. After six hours of +bombardment the Federals evacuated the cross-roads and took up a +position behind the large barricade of the bridge of Neuilly. The +Versaillese cannonaded it while it was protected by the Porte-Maillot.</p> + +<p>This Porte-Maillot, which has become legendary, had only a few cannon +exposed to the fire from above of Mont-Valérien. For forty-eight days +the Commune found men to hold this untenable post. Their courage +electrified all. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>The crowd went to the Arc-de-Triomphe to see them, and +the boys hardly waited for the explosion to run after the fragments of +the shells.</p> + +<p>The Parisian intrepidity soon reappeared in the first skirmishes. The +bourgeois papers themselves regretted that so much ardour should not +have been spent on the Prussians. The panic of the 3rd April had +witnessed heroic deeds, and the Council, happily inspired, wanted to +give the defenders of the Commune a funeral worthy of them. It appealed +to the people. On the 6th, at two o'clock, an innumerable multitude +hurried up to the Beaujon Hospital, whither the dead had been +transported. Many, shot after the combat, bore on their arms the marks +left by cords. There were heart-rending scenes. Mothers and wives +bending over these bodies uttered cries of fury and vows of vengeance. +Three immense catafalques, each containing thirty-five coffins, covered +with black crape, adorned with red flags, drawn by eight horses each, +slowly rolled towards the great boulevards, preceded by trumpets and the +<i>Vengeurs de Paris</i>. Delescluze and five members of the Commune, with +their red scarfs on and bare-headed, walked as chief mourners. Behind +them followed the relations of the victims, the widows of to-day +supported by those of to-morrow. Thousands upon thousands, men, women, +and children, immortelles in their button-holes, silent, solemn, marched +to the sound of the muffled drums. At intervals subdued strains of music +burst forth like the spontaneous mutterings of sorrow too long +contained. On the great boulevards we numbered 200,000, and 100,000 pale +faces looked down upon us from the windows. The women sobbed, many +fainted. This Via Sacra of the Revolution, the scene of so many woes and +so many joys, has perhaps never witnessed such a communion of hearts. +Delescluze exclaimed in ecstasy, "What an admirable people! Will they +still say that we are a handful of malcontents?" At the Père la Chaise +he advanced to the common grave. Wrinkled, stooping, sustained only by +his indomitable faith, this dying man saluted the dead. "I will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>make +you no long speeches; these have already cost us too dear.... Justice +for the families of the victims; justice for the great town which, after +five months of siege, betrayed by its Government, still holds in its +hands the future of humanity.... Let us not weep for our brothers who +have fallen heroically, but let us swear to continue their work, and to +save Liberty, the Commune, the Republic!"</p> + +<p>The following day the Versaillese cannonaded the barricade and the +Avenue of Neuilly. The inhabitants, whom they had not the humanity to +forewarn, were obliged to take refuge in their cellars. Towards +half-past four the fire of the Versaillese ceased, and the Federals were +snatching a little rest, when the soldiers debouched en masse on the +bridge. The Federals, surprised, attempted to arrest their progress, +wounding one general and killing two, one of whom, Besson, was +responsible for the surprise of Beaumont l'Argonne during the march on +Sedan. But the soldiers in overwhelming force succeeded in pushing as +far as the old park of Neuilly.</p> + +<p>The loss of this outlet was all the more serious that Bergeret, in a +letter published in the <i>Officiel</i>, had answered for Neuilly. The +Executive Commission replaced him by the Pole Dombrowski, whom Garibaldi +had demanded for his general staff during the war in the Vosges. +Bergeret's staff protested, and their bickerings led to the arrest of +their chief by the Council, already grown suspicious. The National Guard +itself showed some distrust of the new general. The Commission had to +present him to Paris, and, misinformed, invented a legend in his favour. +Dombrowski was not long in making it good.</p> + +<p>The same day the Federals of Neuilly beheld a young man, small of +stature, in a modest uniform, slowly inspecting the vanguards in the +thick of the fire. It was Dombrowski. Instead of the explosive glowing +French bravery, the cool and, as it were, unconscious courage of the +Slav. In a few hours the new chief had conquered all his men. The able +officer soon revealed himself. On the 9th, during the night, with two +battalions from Montmartre, Dombrowski, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>accompanied by Vermorel, took +the Versaillese by surprise at Asnières, drove them off, seized their +cannon, and from the ironclad railway carriages cannonaded Courbevoie +and the bridge of Neuilly from the flank. At the same time his brother +stormed the castle of Bécon, that commands the road from Asnières to +Courbevoie. Vinoy having tried to retake this post on the night of the +12th-13th, his men were shamefully repulsed, and fled to Courbevoie as +fast as their legs would carry them.</p> + +<p>Paris was ignorant of this success, so defective was the service of the +general staff. This brilliant attack was the deed of one man, just as +the defence of the forts was the spontaneous work of the National Guard. +There was as yet no direction. Whoever cared to rush into some venture +did so; whoever wanted cannon or reinforcements went to ask for them at +the Place Vendôme, at the Central Committee, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, of +the generalissime Cluseret.</p> + +<p>The latter had made his début with a blunder, calling out only the +unmarried men from seventeen to thirty-five, thus depriving the Commune +of its most energetic defenders, the grey-headed men, the first and last +under fire in all our insurrections. Three days after, this decree had +to be revoked. On the 5th, in his report to the Council, this profound +strategist announced that the attack of Versailles masked a movement for +occupying the forts of the right bank, at that moment in the hands of +the Prussians. Like Trochu, he blamed the cannonades of the last few +days, for squandering, as he said, the munitions. And this when Paris +abounded in powder and shell; when her young troops should have been +amused and sustained by artillery; when the Versaillese of Châtillon, +incessantly pursued by our fire, were obliged to remove every night; +when an uninterrupted cannonade alone could save Neuilly.</p> + +<p>The Council was no wiser in its measures of defence. It decreed +compulsory service and the disarmament of the refractory; but the +perquisitions, made at random, without the assistance of the police, did +not procure a man or a hundred muskets the more. It voted life-pensions +to the widows, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>the parents of the Federals killed in combat, to +their children an annuity till the age of eighteen, and adopted the +orphans. Excellent measures these, raising the spirits of the +combatants, only they assumed the Commune victorious. Was it not better, +as in the cases of Duval and Dombrowski, to give at once a few thousand +francs to those having a right to them? In fact, these unfortunate +pensioners received but fifty francs from the Commune.</p> + +<p>These measures, incomplete, ill-managed, implied a want of study and of +reflection. The members came to the Council as to a public meeting, +without any preparation, there to proceed without any method. The +decrees of the day before were forgotten, questions only half solved. +The Council created councils of war and court-martials, and allowed the +Central Committee to regulate the procedure and the penalties; it +organised one-half of the medical service and Cluseret the other; it +suppressed the title of general, and the superior officers retained it, +the delegate at War conferring it on them. In the middle of a sitting, +Félix Pyat bounded from his chair to demand the abolition of the Vendôme +column, while Dombrowski was making desperate appeals for +reinforcements.</p> + +<p>He had hardly 2,500 men to hold Neuilly, Asnières, and the whole +peninsula of Gennevilliers, while the Versaillese were accumulating +their best troops against him. From the 14th to 17th April they +cannonaded the castle of Bécon, and on the morning of the 17th attacked +it with a brigade. The 250 Federals who occupied it held out for six +hours, and the survivors fell back upon Asnières, where panic entered +with them. Dombrowski, Okolowitz, and a few sturdy men hastened thither, +succeeded in re-establishing a little order and fortified the +bridge-head. Dombrowski asking for reinforcements, the War Office sent +him only a few companies. The following day our vanguard was surprised +by strong detachments, and the cannon of Courbevoie battered Asnières. +After a well-contested struggle, towards ten o'clock, several +battalions, worn out, abandoned the southern part of the village. In the +northern part the combat was desperate. Dombrowski, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>spite of +telegram after telegram received only 300 men. At five o'clock in the +evening the Versaillese made a great effort, and the Federals, +exhausted, fearing for their retreat, threw themselves upon the bridge +of boats, which they crossed in disorder.</p> + +<p>The reactionary journals made much ado about this retreat. Paris was +stirred by it. This fierce obstinacy of the combat began to open the +eyes of the optimists. Till then many persons believed it all some +dreadful misunderstanding and formed groups of conciliation. How many +thousands in Paris failed to understand the plan of M. Thiers and the +coalition till the day of the final massacre! On the 4th April some +manufacturers and tradesmen had created the <i>National Union of the +Syndical Chambers</i>, and taken for their programme, maintenance and +enfranchisement of the Republic, acknowledgment of the municipal +franchises of Paris. The same day, in the Quartier des Ecoles, +professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and students placarded a +manifesto demanding a democratic and laical Republic, an autonomous +Commune and the federation of the communes. An analogous group placarded +a letter to M. Thiers: "You believe in a riot, and you find yourself +brought face to face with precise and universal convictions. The immense +majority of Paris demands the Republic as a right superior to all +discussion. Paris has seen in the whole conduct of the Assembly the +premeditated design of re-establishing the monarchy." Some dignitaries +of the Freemason lodges appealed at once to Versailles and to the +Council: "Stop the effusion of such precious blood."</p> + +<p>Finally, a certain number of those mayors and adjuncts who had not +capitulated till the eleventh hour, like Floquet, Corbon, Bonvalet, &c., +pompously got up the <i>Republican Union League for the Rights of Paris</i>. +Now they asked for the recognition of the Republic, the right of Paris +to govern herself, and the custody of the town exclusively confided to +the National Guard; all that the Commune had wanted—all that they had +contented against from the 19th to the 25th of March.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>Other groups were forming. All agreed on two points—the consolidation +of the Republic and the recognition of the rights of Paris. Almost all +the Communal journals reproduced this programme, and the Republican +journals accepted it. The deputies of Paris were the last to speak, and +then only to fall foul of Paris. In that lachrymose and Jesuitical tone +with which he has travestied history,<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> in those long-winded +sentimental periods which serve to mask the aridity of his heart and the +pettiness of his mind, that king of gnomes, Louis Blanc, wrote in the +name of his colleagues: "Not one member of the majority has as yet +questioned the Republican principle.... As to those engaged in the +insurrection, we tell them that they ought to have shuddered at the +thought of aggravating, of prolonging the scourge of the foreign +occupation by adding thereto the scourge of civil discords."</p> + +<p>It is this that M. Thiers repeated word for word to the first +conciliators, the delegates of the <i>Union Syndicale</i>, who applied to him +on the 8th May: "Let the insurrection disarm; the Assembly cannot +disarm. But Paris wants the Republic. The Republic exists; by my honour, +so long as I am in power, it will not succumb. But Paris wants municipal +franchises. The Chamber is preparing a law for all communes; Paris will +get neither more nor less." The delegates read a project of compromise +which spoke of a general amnesty and a suspension of arms. M. Thiers let +them read on, did not formally contest a single article, and the +delegates returned to Paris convinced that they had discovered the basis +of an arrangement.</p> + +<p>They had hardly left when M. Thiers rushed off to the Assembly, which +had just endowed all communes with the right of electing their mayors. +M. Thiers ascended the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>tribune, demanding that this right should be +restricted to towns of less than 20,000 souls. They cried to him, "It is +already voted." He persisted, declaring that "in a republic the +Government must be all the better armed because order is the more +difficult to maintain;" threatened to hand in his resignation, and +forced the Assembly to annul its vote.</p> + +<p>On the 10th, the <i>League of the Rights of Paris</i> sounded the trumpet and +had a solemn declaration placarded: "Let the Government give up +assailing the facts accomplished on the 18th March. Let the general +re-election of the Commune be proceeded with.... If the Government of +Versailles remains deaf to these legitimate revindications, let it be +well understood that all Paris will rise to defend them."<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> The next +day the delegates of the League went to Versailles, and M. Thiers took +up his old refrain, "Let Paris disarm," and would hear neither of an +armistice nor of an amnesty. "Pardon shall be extended" said he, "to +those who will disarm, save to the assassins of Clément-Thomas and +Lecomte." This was to reserve himself the choice of a few thousands. In +short, he wanted to be replaced in his position of the 18th March with +victory into the bargain. The same day he said to the delegates of the +Masonic lodges, "Address yourselves to the Commune; what is wanted is +the submission of the insurgents, and not the resignation of legal +power." To facilitate this submission, the next day the <i>Officiel</i> of +Versailles compared Paris to the plain of Marathon infested by a band of +"brigands and assassins." On the 13th, a deputy, Brunet, having asked +whether the Government would or would not make peace with Paris, the +Assembly adjourned this interpellation for a month.</p> + +<p>The League, thus well whipped, went on the 14th to the Hôtel-de-Ville. +The Council, foreign to all these negotiations, left them entirely free, +and had only forbidden a meeting announced at the Bourse by +ill-disguised Tirards. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>contented itself with opposing to the League +its declaration of the 10th: "You have said that if Versailles remained +deaf all Paris would rise. Versailles has remained deaf; arise." And to +make Paris the judge, the Council loyally published in its <i>Officiel</i> +the report of the conciliators.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Out of 400 pieces cast by Paris during the siege, the +Government of the National Defence only accepted forty, on the pretence +that the others were imperfect.—Vinoy, <i>Siège de Paris</i>, p. 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Sometimes even to falsification. In his account of the +9th Thermidor, he makes Barrère say to Billaud-Varennes, "Do <i>not</i> +attack Robespierre;" and on the strength of this expatiates on the +greatness of his hero. Now, the report of Courtois that he quotes, +hoping, no doubt, that no one would examine the accuracy of the +statement, says, "Attack <i>only</i>," and not "Do <i>not</i> attack."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> It seems there was a split in the League. The Radicals, +Floquet, Corbon, &c., disapproved of this semi-commanding attitude, and +boasted of it later on before the Committee of Inquiry into the 18th +March; but during the Commune they made no public protest against this +address.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL—THE COMPLEMENTARY ELECTIONS OF +THE 16TH APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL—FIRST +DISPUTES—THE GERMS OF DEFEAT.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>For the second time the situation was distinctly marked out. If the +Council did not know how to define the Commune, was it not in the most +unmistakable manner, and before the eyes of all Paris, declared to mean +a camp of rebels by the fighting, the bombardment, the fury of the +Versaillese, and the rebuff of the conciliators? The complementary +elections of the 16th April—death, double election returns, and +resignations had given thirty-one vacant seats—revealed the effective +forces of the insurrection. The illusion of the 26th March had vanished; +the votes were now taken under fire. Also the journals of the Commune +and the delegates of the Syndical Chambers in vain summoned the electors +to the ballot-box. Out of 146,000 who had mustered in these +arrondissements at the election of the 26th March, there came now only +61,000. The arrondissements of the councillors who had deserted their +seats gave 16,000 instead of 51,000 votes.</p> + +<p>It was now or never the moment to explain their programme to France. The +Executive Commission had on the 6th, in an address to the provinces, +protested against the calumnies of Versailles, but had confined itself +to the statement that Paris fought for all France, and had not set forth +any programme. The Republican protestations of M. Thiers, the hostility +of the extreme Left, the desultory decrees, had completely led astray +the provinces. It was necessary to set them right at once. On the 19th, +a commission charged to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>draw up a programme presented its work, or +rather the work of another. Sad and characteristic symbol this; the +declaration of the Commune did not emanate from the Council, its twelve +publicists notwithstanding. Of the five members charged to draw up the +project, only Delescluze contributed some passages; the technical part +was the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Cri du Peuple</i> he had taken up and formulated as a law the whim +of <i>Paris a free town</i>, hatched in the first gush of passion of the +Vauxhall meetings. According to this legislator, Paris was to become a +Hanseatic town, crowning herself with all liberties, and from the height +of her proud fortress say to the enchained communes of France, "Imitate +me if you can; but mind, I shall do nothing for you but set an example." +This charming plan had turned the heads of several members of the +Council, and too many traces of it were visible in the declaration.</p> + +<p>"What does Paris demand?" it said. "The recognition of the Republic. +Absolute autonomy of the Commune extended to all localities of France. +The inherent rights of the Commune are: the vote of the communal budget; +the settlement and repartition of taxes; the direction of the local +services; the organisation of its magistracy, of its internal police, +and of education; the administration of communal goods; the choice and +permanent right of control over the communal magistrates and +functionaries; the absolute guarantee of individual liberty, of the +liberty of conscience and the liberty of labour; the organisation of +urban defence and of the National Guard; the Commune alone charged with +the surveillance and assurance of the free and just exercise of the +right of meeting and of publicity.... Paris wants nothing more ... on +condition of finding in the great central administration, the delegation +of the federated communes, the realisation and practical application of +the same principle."</p> + +<p>What were to be the powers of that central delegation, the reciprocal +obligations of the Communes? The declaration did not state these. +According to this text, every locality was to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>possess the right to shut +itself up within its autonomy. But what to expect of autonomy in Lower +Brittany, in nine-tenths of the French Communes, more than half of which +have not 600 inhabitants,<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> if even the Parisian declaration violated +the most elementary rights, charged the Commune with the surveillance of +the <i>just</i> exercise of the right of meeting and of publicity, forgetting +to mention the right of association? It is notorious, it has been proved +but too well. The rural autonomous communes would be a monster with a +thousand suckers attached to the flank of the Revolution.</p> + +<p>No! Thousands of mutes and blind are not fitted to conclude a social +pact. Weak, unorganised, bound by a thousand trammels, the people of the +country can only be saved by the towns, and the people of the towns +guided by Paris. The failure of all the provincial insurrections, even +of the large towns, had sufficiently testified this. When the +declaration said, "Unity such as has been imposed upon us until to-day +by the Empire, the monarchy and parliamentarism is only despotic, +unintelligent centralisation," it laid bare the cancer that devours +France; but when it added, "Political unity, as understood by Paris, is +the voluntary association of all local initiative," it showed that it +knew nothing whatever of the provinces.</p> + +<p>The declaration continued, in the style of an address, sometimes to the +point: "Paris works and suffers for all France, whose intellectual, +moral, administrative, and economical regeneration she prepares by her +combats and her sufferings.... The communal revolution, commenced by the +popular initiative of the 18th March, inaugurates a new era." But in all +this there was nothing definite. Why not, taking up the formula of the +28th March, "To the commune what is communal, to the nation what is +national," define the future commune, sufficiently extended to endow it +with political life, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>sufficiently limited to allow its citizens easily +to combine their social action, the commune of 15,000 to 20,000 souls, +the canton-commune, and clearly set forth its rights and those of +France? They did not even speak of federating the large towns for the +conquest of their common enfranchisement. Such as it was, this +programme, obscure, incomplete, impossible in many points, could not, +spite of some generous ideas, contribute much to the enlightenment of +the provinces.</p> + +<p>It was only a project. No doubt the Council was going to discuss it. It +was voted after the first reading. No debate, hardly an observation. +This assembly, which gave four days to the discussion on overdue +commercial bills, had not one sitting for the study of this declaration, +its programme in case of victory, its testament if it succumbed.</p> + +<p>To make things worse, a new malady infected the Council, the germs of +which, sown for some days, were brought to full maturity by the +complementary elections. The Romanticists gave rise to the Casuists, and +both came to loggerheads on the verification of the new mandates.</p> + +<p>On the 30th March the Council had validated six elections with a +relative majority. The reporter on the election of the 16th proposed +declaring all those candidates elected who had received an absolute +majority. The Casuists grew indignant. "This would be," said they, "the +worst blow that any Government had dealt universal suffrage." But it was +impossible to go on continually convoking the electors. Three of the +most devoted arrondissements had given no result; one of them, the +thirteenth, being deprived of its best men, then fighting at the +advanced posts. A new ballot would only set forth in bolder relief the +isolation of the Commune; and then, is the moment of the fight, when the +battalion is decimated, deprived of its chief, the opportune time for +insisting upon a regular promotion?</p> + +<p>The discussion was very warm, for in this outlawed Hôtel-de-Ville there +sat outrageous legality-mongers. Paris was to be strangled by their +saving principles. Already, in the name of holy autonomy, which forbade +intervention with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>autonomy of one's neighbour, the Executive +Commission had refused to arm the communes round Paris that asked to +march against Versailles. M. Thiers took no more efficient measure to +isolate Paris.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Twenty-six voices against thirteen voted the conclusions of the report. +Twenty elections only were declared valid,<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> which was illogical; one +with less than 1100 votes was admitted, another with 2500 rejected. All +the elections should have been declared valid, or none at all. Four of +the new delegates were journalists, six only workmen. Eleven sent by the +public meetings came to strengthen the Romanticists. Two whose elections +had been validated by the Council refused to sit because they had not +obtained the eighth part of the votes. The author of the admirable +<i>Propos de Labiénus</i>, Rogeard, allowed himself to be deceived by a false +scruple of legality—the only weakness of this generous man, who devoted +to the Commune his pure and brilliant eloquence. His resignation +deprived the Council of a man of common sense, but once more served to +unmask the apocalyptic Félix Pyat.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Since the 1st April, scenting the coming storm and professing the same +horror for blows as Panurge, Félix Pyat had attempted to leave Paris, +sent in his resignation as member of the Executive Commission to the +Council, and declared his presence at Versailles indispensable. The +Versaillese hussars making the sortie too perilous, he had condescended +to stay, but at the same time assuming two masks, one for the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the other for the public. In the Council, at the secret +sittings, he urged violent measures with the vivacity of a wild cat; in +the <i>Vengeur</i> he held forth pontifically, shaking his grey hairs, +saying, "To the ballot-box, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>not to Versailles!" In his own paper he had +two faces. Did he want the suppression of the journals, he signed "Le +Vengeur;" did he want to cajole, he signed Félix Pyat. The defeat of +Asnières struck him again with fear, and anew he looked out for a +loophole. The resignation of Rogeard opened it. Under the shelter of +this pure name Félix Pyat slipped in his resignation. "The Commune has +violated the law," wrote he. "I do not want to be an accomplice." And, +to debar himself from any return to the Council he involved the dignity +of the latter. If, said he, it persisted, he would be forced, to his +great regret, to send in his resignation "<i>before the victory</i>."</p> + +<p>He had counted on stealing away as from the Assembly of Bordeaux; but +his roguery disgusted the Council. The <i>Vengeur</i> had just blamed the +suppression of several reactionary papers demanded many and many a time +by Félix Pyat. Vermorel denounced this duplicity. One member: "It has +been said here that resignations would be considered as treason." +Another: "A man must not leave his post when that post is one of peril +and of honour." A third formally demanded the arrest of Félix Pyat. "I +regret," said another, "that it has not been distinctly laid down that +resignation can only be tendered to the electors themselves." And +Delescluze added, "Nobody has the right to withdraw for personal rancour +or because some measure does not chime in with his ideal. Do you then +believe that every one approves what is done here? Yes; there are +members who have remained, and who will remain till the end, +notwithstanding the insults hurled at us. For myself, I am decided to +remain at my post, and if we do not see victory, we shall not be the +last to fall on the ramparts or on the steps of the Hôtel-de-Ville."</p> + +<p>These manly words were received with prolonged cheers. No one's devotion +was more meritorious. The habits of Delescluze, grave and laborious, his +high aspirations, alienated him more than any other from many of his +colleagues, light-headed idlers, prone to personal bickerings. One day, +weary of this chaos, he wanted to resign. It sufficed to tell <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>him that +his withdrawal would be very prejudicial to the cause of the people to +persuade him to remain, and await, not victory—as well as Félix Pyat he +knew that impossible—but the death that fecundates the future.</p> + +<p>Félix Pyat, so lashed from all sides, not daring to snap at Delescluze, +turned round upon Vermorel, whom for all argument he called "spy;" and +as Vermorel was a member of the Commission of Public Safety, accused him +in the <i>Vengeur</i> of putting out of the way evidence accumulated against +him at the prefecture of police. This member of the leporide species +called Vermorel "<i>bombic</i>." Such was his mode of discussion. Under the +veil of literary refinement lurked the amenities of Billingsgate. In +1848, in the <i>Constituante</i>, he called Proudhon "<i>swine</i>;" and in 1871, +in the <i>Commune</i>, he called Tridon "<i>dunghill</i>." He was the only member +of this Assembly, where there were workmen of rude professions, who +introduced ribaldry into the discussions.</p> + +<p>Vermorel, replying in the <i>Cri du Peuple</i>, easily floored him. The +electors of Félix Pyat sent him three summations to remain at his post: +"You are a soldier; you must stay in the breach. It is we alone who have +the right to revoke you." Ferreted out by his mandatories, threatened +with arrest by the Council, this Greek chose the lesser danger, and +re-entered the Hôtel-de-Ville in mincing attitude.</p> + +<p>Versailles was jubilant at these miserable triflings. For the first time +the public became acquainted with the interior of the Council, its +infinitesimal coteries, made up of purely personal friendships or +antipathies. Whoever belonged to such a group got thorough support, +whatever his blunders. Far more; in order to be allowed to serve the +Commune, it was necessary to belong to such a confraternity. Many +sincerely devoted men offered themselves, tried democrats, intelligent +employés, deserters from the Government, even Republican officers. They +were overweeningly met by some incapable upstarts of yesterday, whose +devotion was not to outlast the 20th May. And yet the insufficiency of +the <i>personnel</i> and the want of talent each day became more +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>overwhelming. The members of the Council complained that nothing was +getting on. The Executive Commission did not know how to command, nor +its subordinate how to obey; the Council devolved power and retained it +at the same time, interfered every moment with the slightest details of +the service; conducted the government, the administration, and the +defence like the sortie of the 3rd April.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> Seventy-three communes have more than 20,000 inhabitants; +108 have from 10,000 to 20,000; 309 from 5000 to 10,000; 249 from 4000 +to 5000; and 581 from 3000 to 4000. There are then only 1320 communes +having more than 3000 inhabitants, 800 at most that possess any +political life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Vesinier, Cluseret, Pillot, Andrieu (1st arrondissement, +Louvre); Pothier, Serraillier, J. Durand, Johannard (2nd, Bourse); +Courbet, Rogeard (6th, Luxembourg); Sicard (7th, Palais-Bourbon); +Briosne (9th, Opéra); Philippe, Lonclas (12th, Reuilly); Longuet (16th, +Passy); Dupont (17th, Batignolles); Cluseret, Arnold (18th, Montmartre); +Menotti Garibaldi (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Viard, Trinquet (20th +Ménilmontant).</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">OUR PARISIENNES—SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF +NEUILLY—THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The glorious flame of Paris still hid these failings. One must have been +enkindled by it to describe it. Beside it the Communard journals, in +spite of their romanticism, show pale and dull. It is true the <i>mise en +scéne</i> was unpretending. In the streets, in the silent boulevards, a +battalion of a hundred men setting out for the battle or returning from +it; a woman who follows, a passer-by who applauds—that is all. But it +is the drama of the Revolution, simple and gigantic as a drama of +Æschylus.</p> + +<p>The commander in his <i>vareuse</i>, dusty, his silver lace singed, his men +greyheads or youths, the veterans of June 1848 and the pupils of March, +the son often marching by the side of the father.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> + +<p>This woman, who salutes or accompanies them, she is the true Parisienne. +The unclean androgyne, born in the mire of the Empire, the madonna of +the pornographers, the Dumas fils and the Feydeaux, has followed her +patrons to Versailles or works the Prussian mine at St. Denis. She, who +is now uppermost, is the Parisienne, strong, devoted, tragic, knowing +how to die as she loves. A helpmeet in labour, she will also be an +associate in the death-struggle. A formidable equality this to oppose to +the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is doubly strong—one heart and four +hands. On the 24th of March a Federal addressed these noble words to the +bourgeois battalions of the first arrondissement, making them drop +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>their arms: "Believe me, you cannot hold out; your wives are all in +tears, and ours do not weep."</p> + +<p>She does not keep back her husband.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> On the contrary, she urges him +to battle, carries him his linen and his soup, as she had before done to +his workshop. Many would not return, but took up arms. At the plateau de +Châtillon they were the last to stand the fire. The <i>cantinières</i>, +simply dressed as workwomen, not fancy costumes, fell by dozens. On the +3rd April, at Meudon, the Citoyenne Lachaise, <i>cantinière</i> of the 66th +battalion, remained the whole day in the field of battle, tending the +wounded, alone, without a doctor.</p> + +<p>If they return, it is to call to arms. Having formed a central committee +at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, they issued fiery +proclamations: "We must conquer or die. You who say, 'What matters the +triumph of our cause if I must lose those I love?' know that the only +means of saving those who are dear to you is to throw yourselves into +the struggle." Their committees multiplied. They offered themselves to +the Commune, demanding arms, posts of danger, and complaining of the +cowards who swerved from their duty.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> Madame André Léo, with her +eloquent pen, explained the meaning of the Commune, summoned the +delegate at the War Office to avail himself of the "holy fever that +burns in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>the hearts of the women." A young Russian lady, of noble +birth, educated, beautiful, rich, called Demitrieff, was the Théroigne +de Méricourt of this Revolution. The proletarian character of the +Commune was embodied in Louise Michel, a teacher in the seventeenth +arrondissement. Gentle and patient with the little children, who adored +her, in the cause of the people the mother became a lioness. She had +organised a corps of ambulance nurses, who tended the wounded even under +fire. There they suffered no rivals. They also went to the hospitals to +save their beloved comrades from the harsh nuns; and the eyes of the +dying brightened at the murmur of those gentle voices that spoke to them +of the Republic and of hope.</p> + +<p>In this contest of devotion the children fought with men and women. The +Versaillese, victorious, took 660 of them, and many perished in the +battle of the streets. Thousands served during the siege. They followed +the battalions to the trenches, in the forts, especially clinging to the +cannon. Some gunners of the Porte-Maillot were boys of from thirteen to +fourteen years old. Unsheltered, in the open country, they performed +exploits of mad heroism.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> + +<p>This Parisian flame radiated beyond the enceinte. The municipalities of +Sceaux and St. Denis united at Vincennes to protest against the +bombardment, revindicate the municipal franchises and the establishment +of the Republic. Its heat was even felt in the provinces.</p> + +<p>They began to believe Paris was impregnable, and laughed much at the +despatches of M. Thiers, saying on the 3rd April, "This day is decisive +of the fate of the insurrection;" on the 4th, "The insurgents have +to-day suffered a decisive defeat;" on the 7th, "This day is decisive;" +on the 11th, "Irresistible means are being prepared at Versailles;" on +the 12th, "We expect the decisive moment." And despite so many decisive +successes and irresistible means, the Versaillese army was all the while +baffled at our advanced posts. Its only decisive victories were against +the houses of the enceinte and the suburbs.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>The neighbourhood of the Porte-Maillot, the Avenue de la Grande Armée, +and the Ternes were continually lighting up with conflagrations. +Asnières and Levallois were filling with ruins, the inhabitants of +Neuilly starving in their cellars. The Versaillese threw against these +points alone 1500 shells a day; and yet M. Thiers wrote to his prefects, +"If a few cannon-shots are heard, it is not the act of the Government, +but of a few insurgents trying to make us believe they are fighting, +while they hardly dare show themselves."</p> + +<p>The Commune assisted the bombarded people of Paris, but could do nothing +for those of Neuilly, caught between two fires. A cry of pity went up +from the whole press. All the journals demanded an armistice for the +evacuation of Neuilly; the Freemasons and the <i>Ligue des Droits de +Paris</i> interposed. With much trouble, for the generals did not want an +armistice, the delegates got a suspension of arms for eight hours. The +Council appointed five of its members to receive the bombarded people; +the municipalities prepared them an asylum, and some of the women's +committees left Paris to assist them.</p> + +<p>On the 25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the cannon from the +Porte-Maillot to Asnières were silent. Thousands of Parisians went to +visit the ruins of the Avenue and the Porte-Maillot, a mortar of earth, +granite, and fragments of shells; stood still, deeply moved, before the +artillerists leaning on their famous pieces, and then dispersed all over +Neuilly. The little town, once so coquettish, displayed in the bright +rays of the sun its shattered houses. At the limits agreed upon were two +barriers, one of soldiers of the line, the other of Federals, separated +from each other by an interval of about twenty yards. The Versaillese, +chosen from amongst their most reliable troops, were watched by officers +with hangdog looks. The Parisians, good fellows, approached the +soldiers, speaking to them. The officers immediately ran up shouting +furiously. When a soldier gave a polite answer to two ladies, an officer +threw himself upon him, tore away his musket, and pointing the bayonet +at the Parisiennes, cried, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>"This is how one speaks to them." Some +persons having crossed the boundary marked out were taken prisoners. +Still five o'clock struck without any massacre having occurred. The +Avenue grew empty. Each Parisian on returning home carried his sack of +earth to the fortifications of the Porte-Maillot, which found themselves +re-established as if by magic.</p> + +<p>In the evening the Versaillese again opened fire. It had not ceased +against the forts of the south. That same day the enemy unmasked on this +side the batteries he had been constructing for a fortnight,—the first +part of the plan of General Thiers.</p> + +<p>He had on the 6th placed all the troops under the command of that +MacMahon, his stains of Sedan still upon him. The army at this time was +46,000 strong, for the most part the residuum of depots, incapable of +any serious action. To reinforce it and obtain soldiers, M. Thiers had +sent Jules Favre whining to Bismarck. The Prussians had set free 60,000 +prisoners on harsher conditions of peace, and authorised his gossip +Thiers to augment to 130,000 men the number of soldiers round Paris, +which, according to the preliminaries of peace, were not to have +exceeded 40,000 men. On the 25th April the Versaillese army comprised +five corps, two of them, those of Douai and Clinchant, composed of the +released prisoners from Germany and a reserve commanded by Vinoy, all in +all 110,000 men. It increased to 170,000 receiving rations, of whom +130,000 were combatants. M. Thiers displayed real ability in setting it +against Paris. The soldiers were well fed, well dressed, severely +overlooked; discipline was re-established. There occurred mysterious +disappearances of officers guilty of having given utterance to their +horror at this fratricidal war. Still this was not yet the army for an +attack, the men always scampering away before a steady resistance. +Despite official brag, the generals only counted upon the artillery, to +which they owed the successes of Courbevoie and of Asnières. Paris was +only to be overcome by fire.</p> + +<p>As during the first siege, Paris was literally hemmed in by bayonets, +but this time half-foreign, half-French. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>German army, forming a +semi-circle from the Marne to St. Denis, occupying the forts of the east +and of the north; the Versaillese army, closing the circle from St. +Denis to Villeneuve St. Georges, mistress only of Mont-Valérien. The +latter could then only attack the Commune by the west and south. The +Federals had then the five forts of Ivry, Bicêtre, Montrouge, Vanves, +and Issy to defend themselves, with the trenches and the advanced posts +that united them to each other, and the principal villages, Neuilly, +Asnières, and St. Ouen.</p> + +<p>The vulnerable point of the enceinte facing the Versaillese was on the +south-west, the salient of the Point du Jour, defended by the fort of +Issy. Sufficiently covered on the right by the park, the castle of Issy +and a trench uniting it to the Seine, commanded by our gunboats, this +fort was overtopped in front and on the left by the heights of Bellevue, +Meudon, and Châtillon. M. Thiers armed them with siege pieces which he +had sent from Toulon, Cherbourg, Douai, Lyons, and Besançon—293 +ordnance pieces—and their effect was such that from the first days the +fort of Issy was shaken. General Cissey, charged with the command of +these operations, immediately commenced manœuvring.</p> + +<p>To crush the fort of Issy and that of Vanves, which supported it, then +to force the Point du Jour, whence the troops could deploy into Paris, +such was M. Thiers' plan. The only object of the operations from St. +Ouen to Neuilly was to prevent our attack by Courbevoie.</p> + +<p>What forces and what plan did the Commune oppose?</p> + +<p>The returns stated about 96,000 men and 4000 officers for the active +National Guard; for the reserve, 100,000 men and 3500 officers.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> +Thirty-six free corps claimed to number 3450 men. All deductions made, +60,000 combatants might have been obtained had they known how to set +about it. But the weakness of the Council, the difficulty of supervision +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>repression, allowed the less brave and those who did not stand in +need of pay, to shirk all control. Many contrived to limit their +services to the interior of Paris. Thus for want of order the effective +forces remained very weak, and the line from St. Ouen to Ivry was never +held by more than 15,000 or 16,000 Federals.</p> + +<p>The cavalry existed only on paper. There were only 500 horses to drag +the guns or the waggons and to mount the officers and estafettes. The +engineer department remained in a rudimentary state, the finest decrees +notwithstanding. Of the 1200 cannon possessed by Paris, only 200 were +utilised. There were never more than 500 artillerists, while the returns +stated 2500.</p> + +<p>Dombrowski occupied the bridge of Asnières, Levallois, and Neuilly with +4000 or 5000 men at the utmost.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> To protect his positions he had at +Clichy and Asnières about thirty ordnance pieces and two ironclad +railway carriages, which from the 15th April to the 22nd May, even after +the entry of the Versaillese, did not cease running along the lines; at +Levallois, a dozen pieces. The ramparts of the north assisted him, and +the valiant Porte-Maillot covered him at Neuilly.</p> + +<p>On the left bank, from Issy to Ivry, in the forts, the villages, and the +trenches, there were 10,000 to 11,000 Federals. The fort of Issy +contained on an average 600 men and 50 pieces of 7 and 12 centimetres, +of which two-thirds were inactive. The bastions 72 and 73 relieved him a +little, aided by four ironclad locomotives established on the viaduct of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>Point du Jour. Underneath, the gunboats, re-armed, fired on +Breteuil, Sèvres, Brimborion, even daring to push as far as Châtillon, +and, unsheltered, cannonaded Meudon. A few hundred tirailleurs occupied +the park and the castle of Issy, the Moulineaux, Le Val, and the +trenches which united the fort of Issy to that of Vanves. This latter, +exposed like Issy, valiantly supported its efforts with a garrison of +500 men and about 20 cannon. The bastions of the enceinte supported it +very little.</p> + +<p>The fort of Montrouge, with 350 men and 10 to 15 ordnance pieces, had +only to support the fort of Vanves. That of Bicêtre, provided with 500 +men and 20 pieces, had to fire at objects hidden from its view. Three +considerable redoubts protected it—the Hautes Bruyères, with 500 men +and 20 pieces; the Moulin Saquet, with 700 men and about 14 pieces; and +Villejuif, with 300 men and a few howitzers. At the extreme left, the +fort of Ivry and its dependencies had 500 men and about 400 pieces. The +intermediate villages, Gentilly, Cachan, and Arcueil, were occupied by +2000 to 2500 Federals.</p> + +<p>The nominal command of the forts of the south, first confided to Eudes, +assisted by an ex-officer of Garibaldi, La Cécilia, on the 20th passed +into the hands of the Alsatian Wetzel, an officer of the army of the +Loire. From his headquarters of Issy he was to superintend the trenches +of Issy and of Vanves and the defence of the forts. In reality, their +commanders, who often changed, did just as they pleased.</p> + +<p>The command, from Issy to Arcueil was, towards the middle of April, +entrusted to General Wroblewski, one of the best officers of the Polish +insurrection, young, an adept in military science, brave, methodical, +and shrewd, turning everybody and everything to account; an excellent +chief for young troops.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>All these general officers never received but one order: "Defend +yourselves." As to a general plan, there never was one. Neither Cluseret +nor Rossel held councils of war.</p> + +<p>The men were also abandoned to themselves, being neither cared for nor +controlled. Scarcely any, if any, relieving of the troops under fire +ever took place. The whole strain fell upon the same men. Certain +battalions remained twenty, thirty days in the trenches, while others +were continually kept in reserve. If some men grew so inured to fire +that they refused to return home, others were discouraged, came to show +their clothes covered with vermin and asked for rest. The generals were +obliged to retain them, having no one to put in their places.</p> + +<p>This carelessness soon destroyed all discipline. The brave wanted to +rely only upon themselves, and the others slunk from the service. The +officers did the same, some leaving their posts to assist the fight at a +contiguous place, others returning to the town. The court-martial +sentenced a few of them very severely. The Council quashed the +sentences, and commuted one condemnation to death to three years' +imprisonment.</p> + +<p>As they recoiled from rigour, from regular war discipline, they ought to +have changed their method and their tactics. But the Council was now +even less capable of showing will of its own than on the first day. It +always lamented that things were at a stand-still, but did not know how +to set them going. On the 26th, the military commission, declaring that +decrees and orders remained a dead letter, charged the municipalities, +the Central Committee, and the <i>chefs-de-légions</i> with the +reorganisation of the National Guard. Not one of these mechanisms +functioned methodically; the Council had not even thought of organising +Paris by sections; the Central <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>Committee intrigued; the <i>chefs de +légions</i> were agitated; certain members of the Council and generals +dreamt of a military dictatorship. In the midst of this fatal wrestling, +the Council discussed during several sittings whether the pawn-tickets +to be given back gratuitously to their owners should amount to twenty or +thirty francs, and whether the <i>Officiel</i> should be sold for five +centimes.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of April, no observer of any perspicacity could fail to +see that the defence had become hopeless. In Paris, active and devoted +men exhausted their strength in enervating struggles with the bureaux, +the committees, the sub-committees, and the thousand pretentious rival +administrations, often losing a whole day in order to obtain possession +of a single cannon. At the ramparts, some artillerists riddled the line +of Versailles, and, asking for nothing but bread and iron, stood to +their pieces until torn away by shells. The forts, their casemates +staved in, their embrasures destroyed, lustily answered the fire from +the heights. Brave skirmishers, unprotected, surprised the line-soldiers +in their lurking-places. All this devotion and dazzling heroism were +spent in vain, like the steam of an engine escaping through hundreds of +issues.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Appendix IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> And what sublime faith in their naïveté! We heard in an +omnibus two women on their return from the trenches. The one wept; the +other said to her, "Do not distress yourself; our husbands will come +back. And then the Commune has promised to take care of us and of our +children. But no! it is impossible they should be killed in defending so +good a cause. Besides I would rather have my husband dead than in the +hands of the Versaillese."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> "My heart bleeds to see that only those ready to +volunteer engage in the combat. This is not, citizen delegate, a +denunciation; far from me such a thought; but I fear lest the weakness +of the members of the Commune should cause our great projects for the +future to miscarry." This heroic letter is taken from a book, <i>Le Fond +de la Société sous la Commune</i>, which contains documents found by the +army in different mairies and administrations. The work in general is an +odious caricature, of which the author himself, a Joseph Prudhomme, in +the shape of a bloodhound, is certainly the most ridiculous trait.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Appendix V.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Very approximate numbers. The return of the <i>Officiel</i> of +the 6th May is very incomplete. In general, these statements were +erroneous, fictitious, especially after the administration of Meyer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> The figures which I give have been carefully verified <i>de +visu</i>, first during the struggle, afterwards with generals, superior +officers, and functionaries of the War Office. General Appert has drawn +up merely fantastic returns. He has created imaginary brigades, +manufactured effective returns by counting as regular combatants all men +who, at any time, might have been told off for active service, and +constantly duplicated the items of his accounts. He has thus contrived +to give more than 20,000 men to Dombrowski, and as much as 50,000 to the +three commanders—quite ridiculous figures. His report swarms with +mistakes as to names and functions; he does not even know the names of +certain general commanders. It possesses no kind of historical value.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> A member of the Council discovered him, and presented him +at the War Office, where he explained his ideas: "But," it was remarked +to him, "this is word for word what Félix Pyat does not cease saying to +us." "A few days ago," answered Wroblewski, "I sent Félix Pyat a +memorandum." Rossel went to Pyat's bureau, and there found the +memorandum. For several days this trickster had been making capital of +the ideas of Wroblewski without the least allusion to their author, and +astounding the Commission by his common sense and technical knowledge.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE PUBLIC SERVICES—FINANCE—WAR—POLICE—EXTERIOR—JUSTICE +—EDUCATION—LABOUR AND EXCHANGE.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The insufficiency and the weakness of the Executive Commission became so +shocking, that on the 20th the Council decided to replace it by the +delegates of the nine commissions, amongst whom it had distributed its +different functions. These commissions were renewed the same day. In +general they were rather neglected; and how could one man attend to the +daily sittings of the Hôtel-de-Ville, to his commission and his mairie? +For the Council had charged its members with the administration of their +respective arrondissements; and the real work of the several commissions +weighed on the delegates who had presided over them from their origin, +and for the most part were not changed on the 20th April. They continued +to act, as heretofore, almost single-handed. Before proceeding with our +narrative we will look more narrowly into their doings.</p> + +<p>Two delegations required only good-will—those of the victualling +department and of the public or municipal services. The provisioning of +the town was carried on through the neutral zone, where M. Thiers, +however anxious to starve Paris,<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> could not prevent a regular supply +of food. All the foremen having remained at their posts, the municipal +services did not suffer. Four delegations—Finance, War, Public Safety, +Exterior—required special aptitude. The three others, Education, +Justice, Labour and Exchange, had to propound the philosophical +principles of this revolution. All the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>delegates save Frankel, a +workman, belonged to the small middle-class.</p> + +<p>The Commission of Finance centered in Jourde, who, with his +inexhaustible garrulity, had eclipsed the too modest Varlin. The task +imposed was to procure every morning 675,000 francs for the payment of +the services, to feed 250,000 persons, and find the sinews of war. +Besides the 4,658,000 francs in the coffers of the Treasury, 214 +millions in shares and other effects had been found in the Finance +Office; but Jourde could not or would not negotiate them, and to fill +his exchequer he had to lay hold of the revenues of all the +administrations—the telegraph and postal offices, the octrois, direct +contributions, custom house offices, markets, tobacco, registration and +stamps, municipal funds and the railway duties. The bank, little by +little, paid back the 9,400,000 francs due to the town, and even parted +with 7,290,000 francs on its own account. From the 20th March to the +30th April, twenty-six millions were thus scraped together. During the +same period the War Office alone absorbed over twenty. The Intendance +received 1,813,000 francs, all the municipalities together 1,446,000, +the Interior 103,000, Marine 29,000, Justice 5500, Commerce 50,000, +Education <i>one thousand</i> only, Exterior 112,000, Firemen 100,000, +National Library 80,000, Commission of Barricades 44,500, L'Imprimerie +Nationale 100,000, the Association of Tailors and Shoemakers 24,882. +These proportions remained almost the same from the 1st May to the fall +of the Commune. The expenses of the second period rose to about twenty +millions. The sum total of the expenses of the Commune was about +46,300,000 francs, of which 16,696,000 were supplied by the bank, and +the rest by the various services, the octrois yielding nearly twelve +millions.</p> + +<p>Most of these Services were under the superintendence of workmen or +former subordinate employés, and were all carried on with a fourth part +of their ordinary numerical strength. The director of the postal +department, Theisz, a chaser, found the Service quite disorganised, the +divisionary bureaux closed, the stamps hidden away or carried off, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>material, seals, the carts, &c., taken away, and the coffers empty. +Placards posted up in the hall and courts ordered the employés to +proceed to Versailles on pain of dismissal, but Theisz acted with +promptitude and energy. When the subordinate employés who had not been +forewarned came as usual to organise the mail service, he addressed +them, discussed with them, and had the doors shut. Little by little they +gave way. Some functionaries who were Socialists also lent their help, +and the direction of the various services was intrusted to the +head-clerks. The divisionary bureaux were opened, and in forty-eight +hours the collection and distribution of letters for Paris reorganised. +As to the letters destined for the provinces, clever agents threw them +into the offices of St. Denis and ten miles round, while for the +introduction of letters into Paris every latitude was given to private +initiative. A superior council was instituted, which raised the wages of +postmen, sorters, porters, caretakers of the bureaux, shortened the time +of service as supernumeraries, and decided that the ability of the +employés should be tested for the future by means of tests and +examinations.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p> + +<p>The Mint, directed by Camélinat, a bronze-mounter, one of the most +active members of the International, manufactured the postage stamps. At +the Mint, as at the general post-office, the Versaillese director and +principal employés had first parleyed, then made off. Camélinat, +supported by some friends, bravely took this place, had the works +continued, and every one contributing his professional experience, +improvements in the machinery as well as new methods were introduced. +The bank, which concealed its bullion, was obliged to furnish about +110,000 francs' worth, immediately coined into five-franc pieces. A new +coin-plate was engraved, and was about to be put into use, when the +Versaillese entered Paris.</p> + +<p>The department of Public Assistance also depended on that of the +Finances. A man of the greatest merit, Treilhard, an old exile of 1851, +reorganised this administration, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>he found entirely out of order. +Some doctors and agents of the service had abandoned the hospitals; the +director and the steward of the Petits-Ménages at Issy had fled, thus +reducing many of their pensioners to go out begging. Some employés +forced our wounded to wait before the doors of the hospital, while the +sisters of mercy tried to make them blush for their glorious wounds; but +Treilhard soon put all in order, and, for the second time since 1792, +the sick and the infirm found friends in their guardians and blessed the +Commune. This kind-hearted and intellectual man, who was assassinated by +a Versaillese officer on the 24th May at the Panthéon, has left a very +elaborate report on the suppression of bureaux of charity, which chain +the poor to the Government and to the clergy. He proposed having them +replaced by a bureau of assistance in each arrondissement, under the +direction of a communal committee.</p> + +<p>The Telegraph-office, Registration, and Domains, cleverly directed by +the honest Fontaine; the Service of the Contributions, entirely +re-established by Faillet and Combault; the National Printing Press, +which Debock reorganised and administered with remarkable +dexterity,<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> and the other departments connected with that of +Finance, ordinarily reserved to the great bourgeoisie, were managed with +skill and economy—the maximum of the salaries, 6000 francs, was never +reached—by workmen, subordinate employés; and this is not one of their +least crimes in the eyes of the Versaillese bourgeoisie.</p> + +<p>Compared with the Finance department, that of War was a region of +darkness and utter confusion. Officers and guards encumbered the offices +of the Ministry, some demanding munitions and victuals, others +complaining of not being relieved. They were sent back to the Place +Vendôme, maintained in the teeth of common sense, and directed by the +rather equivocal colonel, Henry Prudhomme. On the floor below, the +Central Committee, installed there by Cluseret, bustled, spent time and +breath in endless sittings, found fault with the delegate at war, amused +itself with creating new insignia, received <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>the malcontents of the +Ministry, asked returns from the general staff, claimed to give advice +on military operations. In its turn, the Committee of Artillery, founded +on the 18th March, wrangled about the disposal of the cannon with the +War Office. The latter had the pieces of the Champ-de-Mars and the +Committee those of Montmartre. Attempts at creating a central park of +artillery,<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> or even at learning the exact number of the ordnance +pieces, were made in vain. Pieces of long range remained to the last +moment lying along the ramparts, while the forts had only pieces of +seven and twelve centimetres to answer the huge cannon of Marine, and +often the munitions sent were not of corresponding calibre. The +commissariat, assailed by adventurers of all sorts, took their stores at +haphazard. The construction of the barricades, which were to form a +second and third enceinte, instituted on the 9th April, had been left to +a crotchety fellow, sowing works broadcast without method and against +the plans of his superiors. All the other Services were conducted in the +same style, without fixed principles, without limitation of their +respective provinces, the wheels of the machine not working within one +another. In this concert without a conductor, each instrumentalist +played what he liked, confusing his own score with his neighbour's.</p> + +<p>A firm and supple hand would soon have restored harmony. The Central +Committee, despite its assumption of lecturing the Commune, which it +said was "its daughter and must not be allowed to go astray," was now +only an assemblage of talkers devoid of all authority. It had, to a +great extent, been renewed since the establishment of the Commune, and +the much-contested elections to it—for many aspired to the title of +member—had given a majority of flighty, heedless men.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> In its +present state this Committee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>derived its whole importance from the +jealousy of the Council. The Committee of Artillery, monopolised by +brawlers, would have yielded at once to the slightest pressure. The +commissariat and the other services depended entirely upon the action of +the delegate at War.</p> + +<p>The phantom general, stretched on his sofa, hatched orders, circulars, +now melancholy, now commanding, and never stirred a finger to watch over +their execution. If some member of the Council came to rouse him, "What +are you doing? Such a place is in peril;" he answered loftily, "All my +precautions are taken; give my combinations time to be accomplished," +and turned over again. One day he bullied the Central Committee, which +left the Ministry to go and sulk in the Rue de l'Entrepôt; a week later +he went after the same Committee, reinstating it at the War Office. Vain +to shamelessness,<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> he showed sham letters from Todleben proposing +plans of defense, and spent his time in posing to correspondents of +foreign journals. With an affectation of pride, he never put on a +uniform, which, however, at that time was the true dress of the +proletarian. It took the Council almost a month to recognise that this +pithless braggart was only a disappointed officer of the standing army, +his airs of an innovator notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>Many hopes turned to the chief of his staff, Rossel, a young Radical, +twenty-eight years old, self-restrained, puritanic, who was sowing his +revolutionary wild oats. A captain of engineers in the army of Metz, he +had attempted to resist Bazaine, and escaped from the Prussians. +Gambetta had appointed him colonel of engineers at the camp of Nevers, +where he was still lingering on the 18th March. He was dazzled; saw in +Paris the future of France, and his own; threw up his commission and +hurried thither, where some friends placed him in the 17th Legion. He +was haughty, soon became unpopular, and was arrested on the 3rd April. +Two members of the Council, Malon and Ch. Gérardin, had him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>set free +and presented him to Cluseret, by whom he was accepted as chief of the +general staff. Rossel, fancying that the Central Committee was a power, +made up to it, seemed to ask it for advice, and sought out the men he +thought popular. His coldness, his technical vocabulary, his clearness +of speech, his get up as a great man, enchanted the bureaux, but those +who studied him more closely noticed his unsteady look, the infallible +sign of a perturbed spirit. By degrees the young revolutionary officer +became the fashion, and his consular bearing did not displease the +public, sickened at the flabbiness of Cluseret.</p> + +<p>Nothing, however, justified this infatuation. Chief of the general staff +since the 5th April, he allowed all the Services to shift for +themselves; the only one in some measure organised, the <i>Control of +General Information</i>, was the work of Moreau, who every morning +furnished the War Office and the Commune with detailed, and often very +picturesque, reports on the military operations and the moral condition +of Paris.</p> + +<p>This was about all the police the Commune had. The Commission of Public +Safety, which should have thrown light upon the most secret recesses, +emitted only a fitful glimmering.</p> + +<p>The Central Committee had appointed Raoul Rigault, a young man of +twenty-four, much mixed up in the revolutionary movement, as civil +delegate to the prefecture of police, but under the severe direction of +Duval. Rigault well kept in hand might have made a very good subaltern, +and so long as Duval lived he did not go wrong. The unpardonable fault +of the Council was to place him at the head of a service where the +slightest mistake was more dangerous than at the advanced posts. His +friends, who, with the exception of a small number, Ferré, Regnard, and +two or three others, were as young and as giddy-headed as himself, +discharged in a boyish way the most delicate functions. The Commission +of Public Safety, which ought to have superintended Rigault, only +followed his example. There, above all, did they live as boon +companions, apparently unaware of having assumed the guardianship of, +and the responsibility for, 100,000 lives.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>No wonder the mice were soon seen playing round the prefecture of +police. Papers suppressed in the morning were cried out in the evening +in the streets; the conspirators wormed themselves into all the services +without exciting the suspicion of Rigault or his companions. They never +discovered anything; it was always necessary to do it for them. They +made arrests like military marches in the daytime, with large +reinforcements of National Guards. After the decree on the hostages, +they had only managed to lay hands on four or five ecclesiastics of +mark, the Gallican Archbishop Darboy, an arrant Bonapartist; his +grand-vicar, Lagarde; the curate of the Madeleine; Deguerry, a kind of +De Morny in cassock; the Abbé Allard, the Bishop of Surat; and a few +Jesuits of nerve. Chance only delivered into their hands the president +of the Court of Appeal, Bonjean,<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> and Jecker, the famous inventor of +the expedition to Mexico.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> + +<p>This culpable heedlessness, which the people have paid for with their +blood, was the salvation of criminals. Some National Guards had brought +to light the mysteries of the Picpus convent, discovered three +unfortunate women shut up in grated cages, strange instruments,<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> +corselets of iron, straps, racks, which smacked strangely of the +Inquisition, a treatise on abortion, and two skulls still covered with +hair. One of the prisoners, the only one whose reason had not given way, +said that she had been in this cage for ten years. The police contented +itself with sending the nuns to St. Lazare.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> Some inhabitants of the +tenth arrondissement had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>discovered feminine skeletons in the caves of +the St. Laurent Church. The prefecture only made a show of inquiry that +ended in nothing.</p> + +<p>However, in the midst of all these faults, the humanitarian idea +revealed itself, so thoroughly sound was this popular revolution. The +chief of the Bureau of Public Safety, making an appeal to the public for +the victims of the war, said, "The Commune has sent bread to ninety-two +wives of those who are killing us. The widows belong to no party. The +Republic has bread for every misery and care for all the orphans." +Admirable words these, worthy of Châlier and of Chaumette. The +prefecture, overrun by denunciations, declared that it would take no +account of the anonymous ones. "The man," said the <i>Officiel</i>, "who does +not dare to sign a denunciation serves a personal rancour and not the +public interest." The hostages were allowed to obtain from without food, +linen, books, papers, to be visited by their friends, and to receive the +reporters of foreign journals. An offer was even made M. Thiers to +exchange the hostages of greatest mark, the Archbishop, Deguerry, +Bonjean, and Lagarde, for the single Blanqui. To conduct this +negotiation the Vicar-General was sent to Versailles, after having sworn +to the Archbishop and the delegate to return to his prison in case of +non-success. But M. Thiers thought that Blanqui would give a head to the +movement, while the Ultramontanes, eagerly covetous of the episcopal +seat of Paris, took good care not to save the Gallican Darboy, whose +death would be a double profit, leaving them a rich inheritance, and +giving them at small expense a martyr. M. Thiers refused, and Lagarde +remained at Versailles.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> The Council did not punish the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>Archbishop +for this want of faith, and a few days after set his sister at liberty. +Never even in the days of despair was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>privilege of women forgotten. +The culpable nuns of Picpus and the other religieuses conducted to St. +Lazare were confined in a special part of the building.</p> + +<p>The prefecture and the delegation of Justice also evinced their humanity +in ameliorating the service of the prisons. The Council in its turn, +striving to guarantee individual liberty, decreed that every arrest +should be immediately notified to the delegate of Justice, and that no +perquisition should be made without a regular warrant. National Guards, +misinformed, having arrested certain individuals reputed suspicious, the +Council declared in the <i>Officiel</i> that every arbitrary act would be +followed by a dismissal and immediate prosecution. A battalion looking +for arms at the gas company's thought itself authorised to seize the +cash-box; the Council at once had the sum returned. The commissary of +police who arrested Gustave Chaudey, arraigned for having commanded fire +on the 22nd January, had also seized the money of the prisoner; the +Council dismissed the commissary. To prevent all abuse of power, it +ordered an inquiry into the state of the prisoners and the motives of +their detention, authorising at the same time all its members to visit +the prisoners. Rigault thereupon sent in his resignation, which was +accepted, for he was beginning to weary everybody, and Delescluze had +been obliged to rebuke him. His pranks filled the columns of the +Versaillese journals, always on the look-out for scandals. They accused +this childish police of terrorising Paris, and represented the members +of the Council, who refused to endorse the condemnations of the +court-martial, as assassins. The Figarist historians have kept up this +legend. That vile bourgeoisie, which bent its head under the 30,000 +arrests of December, the <i>lettres de cachet</i> of the Empire, and +applauded the 50,000 arrests of May, still howls about the 800 or 900 +arrests made under the Commune. They never exceeded this figure in two +months of strife, and two-thirds of those arrested were only imprisoned +a few days, many only a few hours. But the provinces, only fed with news +by the Versaillese press, believed in its inventions, amplified in the +circulars of M. Thiers telegraphing to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>prefects: "The insurgents +are emptying the principal houses of Paris in order to put the furniture +to sale."</p> + +<p>To enlighten the provinces and provoke their intervention, such was the +rôle of the delegation of the Exterior, which, under an ill-chosen +title, was only second in importance to that of War. Since the 4th +April—(I shall afterwards recount these movements)—the departments had +been stirring. Save that of Marseilles, in part disarmed, the National +Guard everywhere had guns. In the centre, east, west and south, powerful +diversions might easily have been made, the stations occupied, and +thereby the reinforcements and artillery destined for Versailles +arrested.</p> + +<p>The delegation contented itself with sending some few emissaries, +without knowledge of the localities they were sent to, without tact and +without authority. It was even exploited by traitors, who pocketed its +money and handed over its instructions to Versailles. Well-known +Republicans, familiar with the habits of the provinces, offered their +services in vain. There, as elsewhere, it was necessary to be a +favourite. Finally, for the work of enlightening and rousing France to +insurrection, only a sum of 100,000 francs was allowed.</p> + +<p>The delegation put forth only a small number of manifestoes, one a true +and eloquent résumé of the Parisian revolution, and two addresses to the +peasants, one by Madame André Leo, simple, fervent, quite within the +reach of the peasantry: "Brother, you are being deceived. Our interests +are the same. What I ask for, you wish it too. The affranchisement which +I demand is yours.... What Paris after all wants is the land for the +peasant, the instrument for the workmen." This good seed was carried +away in free balloons, which, by a cleverly-contrived mechanism, from +time to time dropped the printed papers. How many were lost, fell among +thorns!</p> + +<p>This delegation, created only for the exterior, entirely forgot the rest +of the world. Throughout all Europe the working-classes eagerly awaited +news from Paris, were in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>their hearts fellow-combatants of the great +town, now become their capital, multiplied their meetings, processions, +and addresses. Their papers, poor for the most part, courageously +struggled against the calumnies of the bourgeois press. The duty of the +delegation was to hold out a hand to these priceless auxiliaries: it did +nothing. Some of these papers exhausted their last means in defense of +the Commune, which allowed its defenders to succumb for want of bread.</p> + +<p>The delegation, without experience, without resources, could not fight +against the astute cleverness of M. Thiers. It showed great zeal in +protecting foreigners, and sent the rich silver plate of the Ministry to +the Mint, but it did almost no real work.</p> + +<p>Now we come to the delegations of vital importance. Since, by the force +of events, the Commune had become the champion of the Revolution, it +ought to have proclaimed the aspirations of the century, and, if it was +to die, leave at least their testament on its tomb. It would have +sufficed to state lucidly the ensemble of institutions demanded for +forty years by the revolutionary party.</p> + +<p>The delegate of Justice, a lawyer, had only to make a summary of the +reforms long since demanded by all Socialists. It was the part of a +proletarian revolution to show the aristocracy of our judicial system +the despotic and antiquated doctrines of the Code Napoleon; the +sovereign people hardly ever judging themselves, but judged by a caste +issued from another authority than their own, the absurd hierarchy of +judges and tribunals, the <i>tabellionat</i>, the procureurs, 400,000 +notaries, solicitors, sheriffs' officers, registrars, bailiffs, +advocates and lawyers, draining national wealth to the amount of many +hundreds of millions. It was, above all, for a revolution made in the +name of the Commune to endow the Commune with a tribunal at which the +people, restored to their rights, should judge by jury all cases, civil +and commercial, misdemeanours as well as crimes; a final tribunal, +without any appeal but for informalities, to state how <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>solicitors, +registrars, sheriffs, may be rendered useless, and the notaries replaced +by simple registration officers. The delegate mostly limited himself to +appointing notaries, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs, provided with a +fixed salary,—very useless appointments in a time of war, and which, +besides, had the fault of consecrating the principle of the necessity +for such officers. Scarcely anything progressive came of it. It was +decreed that, in case of arrests, the minutes were to state the motives +and the names of the witnesses to be called, while the papers, valuables +and effects of the prisoners were to be deposited at the Suitors' Fund. +Another decree ordered the directors of lunatic asylums to send the +nominal and explanatory statement concerning their patients within four +days. If the Council had thrown some light on these institutions, which +veil so many crimes, humanity would have been its debtor. However, these +decrees were never executed.</p> + +<p>Did practical instinct make up for want of science on the part of the +delegation? Did it shed light upon the mysteries of the caves of Picpus, +the skeletons of St. Laurent? It seemed to take no notice of them, and +the reaction made merry at these supposed discoveries. The delegation +even missed the opportunity of winning over to the Commune, if only for +one day, all Republicans of France. Jecker was in their power. Rich, +brave, audacious, he had always lived certain of impunity, since +bourgeois legality inflicts no chastisement for crimes like the Mexican +expedition. The Revolution alone could smite him. Nothing was more easy +than to proceed against him. Jecker, pretending to have been the dupe of +the Empire, craved to make revelations. In a public court, before twelve +jurors chosen at hazard, in the face of the world, through him the +Mexican expedition might have been sifted, the intrigues of the clergy +unveiled, the pockets of the thieves turned out; it might have been +shown how the Empress, Miramon, and Morny had set the plot on foot, in +what cause and for what men France had lost seas of blood and hundreds +of millions. Afterwards the expiation might have been accomplished in +the open day, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>on the Place de la Concorde, in face of the Tuileries. +Poets, who rarely get shot, would perhaps have sighed, but the people, +the eternal victim, would have applauded, and said, "The Revolution +alone does justice." They neglected even to question Jecker.</p> + +<p>The delegation at the Education department was bound to write one of the +finest pages of the Commune, for, after go many years of study and +experiments this question should spring forth ready armed from a truly +revolutionary brain. The delegation has not left a memoir, a sketch, an +address, a line, to bear witness for it in the future. Yet the delegate +was a doctor, a student of the German universities. He contented himself +with suppressing the crucifixes in the schoolrooms and making an appeal +to all those who had studied the question of teaching. A commission was +charged to organise primary and professional instruction, whose work +consisted in announcing the opening of a school on the 6th May. Another +commission for the education of women was named on the day the +Versaillese entered Paris.</p> + +<p>The administrative action of the delegate was confined to impracticable +decrees and a few appointments. Two devoted and talented men, Elie +Reclus and B. Gastineau, were charged with the reorganisation of the +National Library. They forbade the lending of books, thus putting an end +to the scandalous practice by which a privileged few carved out a +private library from public collections. The federation of artists, +presided over by Courbet, elected member of the Council on the 16th +April, occupied itself with the re-opening and superintendence of the +museums.</p> + +<p>Nothing would be known of the ideas of this revolution on education were +it not for a few circulars of the municipalities. Many had reopened the +schools abandoned by the Congregationists and the municipal teachers, or +driven away the priests who had remained. The municipality of the +twentieth arrondissement clothed and fed the children; that of the +fourth said, "To teach children to love and respect their +fellow-creatures, to inspire them with a love of justice, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>to teach them +that they must instruct themselves in the interests of all, such are the +principles of morality on which for the future communal education will +be based." "The teachers of the schools and infant asylums," declared +the municipality of the seventeenth arrondissement, "will for the future +exclusively employ the experimental and scientific method, that which +always starts from facts, physical, moral, intellectual." But these +vague formulas could not make amends for the want of a complete +programme.</p> + +<p>Who, then, will speak for the people? The delegation of Labour and +Exchange. Exclusively composed of revolutionary Socialists, its purpose +was, "The study of all the reforms to be introduced into the public +services of the Commune or into the relations of the working men and +women with their employers; the revision of the commercial code and +customhouse duties; the transformation of all direct and indirect taxes, +the establishment of statistics of labour." It intended collecting from +the citizens themselves the materials for the decrees to be submitted to +the Commune.</p> + +<p>The delegate to this department, Leo Frankel, procured the assistance of +a commission of initiative composed of workingmen. Registers for offers +and demands of work were opened in all the arrondissements. At the +request of many journeymen bakers night-work was suppressed, a measure +of hygiene as much as of morality. The delegation prepared a project for +the suppression of pawnshops, a decree concerning stoppages of wages, +and supported the decree relative to workshops abandoned by their +runaway masters.</p> + +<p>Their plan gratuitously returned the pledged objects to the victims of +war and to the necessitous. Those who might refuse to confess this +latter title were to receive their pledges in exchange for a promise of +repayment in five years. The report terminated with these words: "It is +well understood that the suppression of the pawnshops is to be succeeded +by a social organisation giving serious guarantees of support to the +workmen thrown out of employment. The establishment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>of the Commune +necessitates institutions protecting the workmen from the exploitation +of capital."</p> + +<p>The decree that abolished stoppages of salaries and wages put an end to +one of the most crying iniquities of the capitalist régime, these fines +often being inflicted on the most futile pretext by the employer +himself, who is thus at once judge and plaintiff.</p> + +<p>The decree relative to the deserted workshops made restitution to the +mass, dispossessed since centuries, of the property of their own labour. +A commission of inquiry named by the Syndical Chambers was to draw up +the statistics and the inventory of the deserted workshops to be given +back into the hands of the workmen. Thus "the expropriators were in +their turn expropriated." The nineteenth century will not pass away +without having begun this revolution; every progress in machinery brings +it nearer. The more the exploitation of labour concentrates itself in a +few hands, the more the working multitude are massed together and +disciplined. Soon, conscious and united, the producing class will, like +the young France of 1789, have to confront but a handful of privileged +appropriators. The most inveterate revolutionary Socialist is the +monopolist.</p> + +<p>No doubt this decree contained voids and stood in need of an elaborate +explanation, especially on the subject of the co-operative societies to +which the workshops were to be handed over. It was no more than the +other applicable in this hour of strife, and required a number of +supplementary decrees; but it at least gave some idea of the claims of +the working-class, and had it nothing else on its credit side, by the +mere creation of the Commission of Labour and Exchange, the revolution +of the 18th March would have done more for the workmen than all the +bourgeois Assemblies of France since the 5th May, 1789.</p> + +<p>The delegation of Labour wanted to look carefully into the contracts of +the commissariat. It demonstrated that in the case of contracts +adjudicated to the lowest bidder, the running down of prices falls upon +wages and not on the profit of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>contractor. "And the Commune is +blind enough to lend itself to such manœuvres," said the report, "and +at this very moment, when the workingman dares death rather than submit +any longer to this exploitation." The delegate demanded that the +estimate of charges should specify the cost of labour, that the orders +should by preference be given to the workmen's corporations, and the +contracting prices fixed by arbitration between the commissariat, the +Syndical Chamber of the corporation, and the delegate of Labour.</p> + +<p>To overlook the financial administration of all the delegations, the +Council in the month of May instituted a superior commission charged to +audit their accounts. It decreed that functionaries or contractors +guilty of peculation or theft should be punished with death.</p> + +<p>In short, save the delegation of Labour, where they did work, the +fundamental delegations were unequal to their task. All committed the +same fault. During two months they had in their hands the archives of +the bourgeoisie since 1789. There was the Cour des Comptes (a judicial +board of accounts) to disclose the mysteries of official jobbery; the +Council of State, the dark deliberations of despotism; the Prefecture of +Police, the scandalous under-currents of social power; the Ministry of +Justice, the servility and crimes of the most oppressive of all classes. +In the Hôtel-de-Ville there lay deposited the still unexplored records +of the first Revolution, of those of 1815, 1830, 1848, and all +diplomatists of Europe dreaded the opening of the portfolios at the +Foreign Office. They might have laid bare before the eyes of the people +the intimate history of the Revolution, the Directory, the first Empire, +the monarchy of July, 1848, and of Napoleon III. They published only two +or three fascicles.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> The delegates slept by the side of these +treasures, heedless, as it seemed, of their value.</p> + +<p>The Radicals, seeing these lawyers, these doctors, these publicists, who +allowed Jecker to remain mute and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>Cour des Comptes closed, would +not believe in such ignorance, and still affect to unriddle the enigma +with the word "Bonapartism." A stupid accusation, given the lie by a +thousand proofs. For the honour even of the delegates the bitter truth +must be told. Their ignorance was not simulated, but only too real. To a +great extent it was the offspring of past oppression.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Appendix VI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Appendix VII., report by Theisz.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Appendix VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> There were five parks—the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, +the Ecole Militaire, Montmartre, Vincennes. In all, including the +artillery of the forts and that of the open country, the Commune had +more than 1100 cannon, howitzers, mortars, and mitrailleuses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> The second Central Committee was composed of forty +members, of whom twelve only had formed part of the first Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> "Do you know," said he to Delescluze, "that Versailles +has offered me a million?" "Be silent!" answered Delescluze, turning his +back upon him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> He was arrested on the 20th March in his private room in +the Palace of Justice, where he had given the procureur-general a +rendezvous.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> He was recognised as he asked for his passport at the +prefecture of police.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> The correspondent of the <i>Times</i> wrote in the number of +9th May: "The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopædic +instruments—a superficial falsehood. The mattress and straps struck me +as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French +midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its +adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of +brutal force which no disease at present known would justify."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> The nun who filled the post of superior, a big and bold +virago, answered Rigault in an easy-going manner. "Why have you shut up +these women?" "To do their families a service; they were mad. See +gentlemen, you are young men of good families; you'll understand that +sometimes one is glad to conceal the madness of one's relations." "But +do you not know the law?" "No, we obey our superiors." "Whose books are +these?" "We know nothing about them." Thus affecting simpleness, they +sold the simpletons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> This negotiation has in part been recounted in the +<i>Officiel</i> of the Commune. We add further details. Soon after his arrest +the Archbishop wrote to M. Thiers begging him to stop the execution of +the prisoners, on which the lives of the hostages depended. M. Thiers +did not answer. An old friend of Blanqui's, Flotte, went to the +President to propose an exchange, and said that the Archbishop might +incur peril. M. Thiers made a decided gesture: "What does it matter to +me?" Flotte again took up the negotiation through Darboy, who named +Deguerry as envoy to Versailles. The prefecture, unwilling to give up +such a hostage, the Vicar-General Lagarde took Deguerry's place. The +Archbishop furnished him with instructions, and on the 12th April Flotte +conducted Lagarde to the station and made him swear to return if he +failed in his mission. Lagarde swore, "Even if to be shot, I shall +return. Can you believe that I could for a single moment harbour the +thought of leaving Monseigneur alone here?" At the moment when the train +was about to start, Flotte insisted again, "Do not go if you have not +the intention of returning." The priest again renewed his oath. He went +off, and handed over a letter in which the Archbishop solicited the +exchange. M. Thiers, pretending to know nothing of this one, answered +the first, which a Communalist journal had just published. His answer is +one of his masterpieces of hypocrisy and falsehood: "The facts to which +you call my attention are absolutely false, and I am really surprised +that so enlightened a prelate as you, Monseigneur.... Our soldiers have +never shot prisoners nor sought to kill the wounded. That, in the heat +of the combat, they may have turned their arms against men who +assassinate their generals, is possible; but, the combat terminated, +they resume the natural generosity of the national character. I +therefore spurn, Monseigneur, the calumny that has been told you. I +affirm that our soldiers have never shot prisoners." On the 17th Flotte +received a letter in which Lagarde informed him that his presence was +still indispensable at Versailles. Flotte complained to the Archbishop, +who could not believe in this desertion. "It is impossible," said he, +"that M. Lagarde should remain at Versailles; he will come back; he has +sworn it to me myself," and he gave Flotte a note for Lagarde. The +latter answered that M. Thiers retained him. On the 23rd Darboy wrote to +him again: "On the reception of this letter, M. Lagarde is immediately +to retrace his steps to Paris and to re-enter Mazas. This delay +compromises us gravely, and may have the saddest results." Lagarde did +not answer any more. +</p><p class="noin"> +Blanqui, transported to the Fort du Taureau, was rigorously kept in +solitary confinement. His friends thought of delivering him, and a sum +of 50,000 francs was prepared for his release. But much more would have +been necessary, and, above all, adroit agents, for the least imprudence +would have cost the life of the prisoner. The affair was procrastinated, +and part of the funds were still in the coffers of the Committee of +Public Safety at the entry of the Versaillese.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Georges Duchêne began examining the commercial +transactions of the Government of National Defence, but he published +nothing.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE—THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE +FORT OF ISSY—CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>M. Thiers was fully acquainted with the failings of the Commune, but he +also knew the weakness of his army. Besides, he piqued himself upon +playing the soldier before the Prussians. In order to appease his +colleagues, eager for the assault on Paris, he received haughtily the +conciliators, who multiplied their advances and their lame combinations.</p> + +<p>Everybody intermeddled, from the good and visionary Considérant down to +the cynic Girardin, down to Saisset's ex-aide-de-camp Schœlcher, who +had replaced his plan of battle of the 24th March by a plan of +conciliation. These encounters became the common topics of raillery. +Since its pompous declaration, "All Paris will rise," the <i>Ligue des +Droits de Paris</i> had been altogether sunk out of sight. It was perfectly +understood that these Radicals were in search of some decent contrivance +to back out of the peril. At the end of April their sham movements +served only as a foil to set off the courageous conduct of the +Freemasons.</p> + +<p>On the 21st April the Freemasons, having gone to Versailles to ask for +the armistice, complained of the municipal law recently voted by the +Assembly. "What!" M. Thiers replied, "but this is the most liberal one +we have had in France for eighty years." "We beg your pardon, and how +about the communal institutions of 1791?" "Ah! you want to return to the +follies of our fathers?" "But, after all, are you then resolved to +sacrifice Paris?" "There will be some houses riddled, some persons +killed, but the law will be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>enforced." The Freemasons had this hideous +answer placarded in Paris.</p> + +<p>On the 26th they met at the Châtelet, and several proposed that they +should go and plant their banners on the ramparts. A thousand cheers +answered. M. Floquet, who, with an eye to the future, had sent in his +resignation as deputy, together with MM. Lockroy and Clémenceau, +protested against this co-operation of the small middle-class with the +people. His shrill voice was drowned in the enthusiastic cries in the +hall.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> On the motion of Ranvier, the Freemasons went up to the +Hôtel-de-Ville, preceded by their banner, where they were met by the +Council in the Court of Honour. "If at the outset," said their +spokesman, Thirifocq, "the Freemasons did not wish to act, it was +because they wanted to have certain proof that Versailles would not hear +of conciliation. They are ready to-day to plant their banner on the +rampart. If one single ball touches it, the Freemasons will march with +the same ardour as yourselves against the common enemy." This +declaration was loudly applauded. Jules Vallès, in the name of the +Commune, tendered his red scarf, which was twisted round the banner, and +a delegation of the Council accompanied the brethren to the Masonic +temple in the Rue Cadet.</p> + +<p>They came three days after to redeem their word. The announcement of +this intervention had given great hope to Paris. From early in the +morning an immense crowd encumbered the approaches to the Carrousel, the +rendezvous of all the lodges; and, despite a few reactionary Freemasons, +who had protested in a placard, at ten o'clock 10,000 brethren, +representing fifty-five lodges, had gathered in the Carrousel. Six +members of the Council led them to the Hôtel-de-Ville in the midst of +the crowd and a lane of battalions. A band, playing music of solemn and +ritual character, preceded the procession; then came superior officers, +the grand-masters, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>the members of the Council, and the brethren, with +their wide blue, green, white, red or black ribbon, according to their +grade, grouped around sixty-five banners that had never before been +displayed in public. The one carried at the head of the procession was +the white banner of Vincennes, bearing in red letters the fraternal and +revolutionary inscription, "<i>Love one another</i>." A lodge of women was +especially cheered.</p> + +<p>The banners and a numerous delegation were introduced into the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the members of the Council waiting to receive them on +the balcony of the staircase of honour. The banners were fixed along the +steps. These standards of peace by the side of the red flag, this small +middle-class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of +the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled, brightened up even the +most downcast. Félix Pyat indulged in a rhapsody of words and rhetorical +antitheses. Old Beslay was much more eloquent in a few words broken by +true tears. A brother solicited the honour of being the first to plant +on the rampart the banner of his lodge, <i>La Persévérance</i>, founded in +1790, in the era of the great federations. A member of the Council +presented the red flag: "Let it accompany your banners; let no hand +henceforth turn us against each other." And the orator of the +delegation, Thirifocq, pointing to the banner of Vincennes: "This will +be the first to be presented before the ranks of the enemy. We will say +to them, 'Soldiers of the mother country, fraternise with us, come and +embrace us.' If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war."</p> + +<p>When the delegates left the Hôtel-de-Ville, a free balloon, marked with +the three symbolical points, made an ascent, here and there dropping the +manifesto of the Freemasons. The immense procession having shown the +Bastille and the boulevards its mysterious banners, frantically +applauded, arrived about two o'clock at the cross-roads of the +Champs-Elysées. The shells of Mont-Valérien obliged them to take the +bye-streets on their way to the Arc-de-Triomphe. There a delegation of +all the venerables went to plant the banners <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>at the most dangerous +posts, from the Porte-Maillot to the Porte-Bineau. When the white flag +was hoisted on the outpost of the Porte-Maillot the Versaillese ceased +firing.</p> + +<p>The delegates of the Freemasons and some members of the Council, +appointed by their colleagues to accompany them, advanced, headed by +their banner, into the Avenue of Neuilly. At the bridge of Courbevoie, +before the Versaillese barricade, they found an officer who conducted +them to General Montaudon, himself a Freemason. The Parisians explained +the object of their manifestation, and asked for a truce. The general +proposed that they should send a deputation to Versailles. Three +delegates were chosen, and their companions returned to the town. In the +evening silence reigned from St. Ouen to Neuilly, Dombrowski having +taken upon himself to continue the truce. For the first time for +twenty-five days the sleep of Paris was not disturbed by the report of +cannon.</p> + +<p>The next day the delegates returned. M. Thiers had hardly deigned to +receive them, had shown himself impatient, irritated, decided to grant +nothing and to admit no more deputations. The Freemasons then resolved +to march to battle with their insignia.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon the <i>Alliance Républicaine des Départements</i> made an +act of adhesion to the Commune. Millière, who had quite joined the +movement without being able to gain the confidence of the +Hôtel-de-Ville, exerted himself to group the provincials residing at +Paris. Who does not know what the provinces contributed in blood and +sinew to the great town? Out of 35,000 prisoners of French origin +figuring in the official reports of Versailles, there were, according to +their own statement, only 9,000 born Parisians. Each departmental group +was to strain itself to enlighten its native place, to send circulars, +proclamations, delegates. On the 30th all the groups met in the Court of +the Louvre to vote an address to the departments, and all, about 15,000 +men, headed by Millière, went to the Hôtel-de-Ville "to renew their +adhesion to the patriotic work of the Commune of Paris."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>The procession was still passing when a sinister rumour spread: the fort +of Issy had been evacuated.</p> + +<p>Under cover of their batteries, the Versaillese, pushing forward, had on +the night of the 26th to the 27th surprised the Moulineaux, by which the +park of Issy may be reached. On the following day sixty pieces of +powerful calibre concentrated their shells on the fort, while others +occupied Vanves, Montrouge, the gunboats and the enceinte. Issy answered +valiantly, but our trenches, to which Wetzel ought to have attended, +were in bad condition. On the 29th the bombardment redoubled and the +projectiles ploughed the park. At eleven o'clock in the evening the +Versaillese ceased firing, and in the nocturnal stillness surprised the +Federals and occupied the trenches. On the 30th, at five o'clock in the +morning, the fort, which had received no warning of this incident, found +itself surrounded by a semi-circle of Versaillese. The commander, Mégy, +was disconcerted, sent for reinforcements, but received none. The +garrison grew alarmed, and these Federals, who had cheerfully withstood +a hailstorm of shells, took fright at a few skirmishers. Mégy held a +council, and the evacuation was decided upon. The cannon were +precipitately spiked—so badly that they were unnailed the same +evening—and the bulk of the garrison left. Some men with different +notions of duty made it a point of honour to stay at their post. In the +course of the day a Versaillese officer summoned them to surrender +within a quarter of an hour on pain of being shot. They did not even +answer.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock Cluseret and La Cécilia arrived at Issy with a few +companies picked up in haste. They deployed as skirmishers, drove the +Versaillese from the park, and at six o'clock the Federals reoccupied +the fort. At the entrance they found a child, Dufour, near a wheelbarrow +filled with cartridges and cartouches, ready to blow himself up, and, as +he believed, the vault with him. In the evening Vermorel and Trinquet +brought other reinforcements, and we reoccupied all our positions.</p> + +<p>At the first rumour of the evacuation, National Guards <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>had hurried to +the Hôtel-de-Ville interpellating the Executive Commission. It denied +having given any order to evacuate the fort, and promised to punish the +traitors if there were any. In the evening it arrested Cluseret on his +arrival from the fort of Issy. Strange rumours circulated about him, and +he quitted the Ministry without leaving the slightest trace of any +useful work whatever. As to the defence of the interior, all he had done +was to bury cannon at the Trocadéro, which, he said, were to breach +Mont-Valérien. At a later period, after the fall of the Commune, he +endeavoured to throw his whole incapacity upon his colleagues, treating +them in English reviews as vain and ignorant fools, imputing villanies +to a man like Delescluze, stating that his arrest had ruined everything, +and modestly calling himself the "incarnation of the people."<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> + +<p>This panic of Issy was the origin of the Committee of Public Safety. +Already on the 28th April, at the end of the sitting, Miot, one of the +best-bearded men of 1848, had risen to demand "without phrases" the +creation of a Committee of Public Safety, having authority over all the +Commissions. Being pressed to give his reasons, he majestically replied +that he believed the Committee necessary. There was only one opinion as +to the necessity of strengthening the central control and action, for +the second Executive Commission had shown itself as impotent as the +first, each delegate going his own way and decreeing on his own account. +But what signified this word Committee of Public Safety, this parody of +the past and scarecrow of boobies? It jarred with this proletarian +revolution, this Hôtel-de-Ville, whence the original Committee of Public +Safety had torn away Chaumette, Jacques Roux and the best friends of the +people. But the Romanticists of the Council had only a smattering of the +history of the Revolution, and this high-sounding title delighted them. +They would have there and then voted it but for the energy of some +colleagues, who insisted on a discussion. "Yes," said these latter, "we +want a vigorous Commission, but give us no revolutionary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>pasticcio. Let +the Commune be re-formed; let it cease to be a small talkative +parliament, quashing one day, just as it suits its caprices, what it +created the day before." And they proposed an Executive Committee. The +votes were equally divided.</p> + +<p>The affair of Issy turned the scale. On the 1st May 34 <i>Ayes</i> against 28 +<i>Noes</i> carried the title of Committee of Public Safety. On the whole of +the project 48 voted for and 23 against. Several had voted for the +Committee notwithstanding its title, with the only object of creating a +strong power. Many explained their votes. Some alleged they were obeying +the <i>mandat imperatif</i> of their electors. Some wanted "to make the +cowards and traitors tremble;" others simply declared, like Miot, that +"it was an indispensable measure." Félix Pyat, who had egged on Miot, +and violently supported the proposition in order to win back the esteem +of the ultras, gave this cogent reason: "Yes: considering that the words +<i>Salut Public</i> are absolutely of the same epoch as the words French +Republic and Commune of Paris." But Tridon: "No: because I dislike +useless and ridiculous cast-off old clothes." Vermorel: "No: they are +only words, and the people have too long taken up with words." Longuet: +"Not believing any more in words of salvation than in talismans and +amulets, I vote No." Seventeen collectively declared against the +institution of a Committee, which, they said, would create a +dictatorship, and others pleaded the same motive, which was puerile +enough. The Council remained so sovereign that eight days after it +overturned the Committee.</p> + +<p>Having protested by this vote, the opponents ought afterwards to have +made the best of the situation. Tridon had certainly said, "I see no men +to put in such a Committee;" all the more reason not to leave the place +to the Romanticists. Instead of coming to an understanding with those of +their colleagues who were desirous to concentrate the power and not +galvanise a corpse, the opponents folded their arms. "We can," they +said, "appoint no one to an institution considered by us as useless and +fatal.... We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>consider abstention as the only dignified, logical, and +politic attitude."</p> + +<p>The ballot, thus stigmatised beforehand, gave a power without authority; +there were only 37 votes. Ranvier, A. Arnaud, Leo Meillet, Ch. Gérardin, +Félix Pyat were named. The alarmists might comfort themselves. The only +one of real energy, the upright and warm-hearted Ranvier, was at the +mercy of his blind kindliness.</p> + +<p>The friends of the Commune, the brave soldiers of the trenches and of +the forts, then learnt that there was a minority at the Hôtel-de-Ville. +It put in its appearance at the very moment when Versailles unmasked its +batteries. This minority, which, with the exception of some ten members, +comprised the most enlightened and the most laborious members of the +Council, was never able to accommodate itself to the situation. These +men could never understand that the Commune was a barricade, not a +government. This was the general error, the superstitious belief in +their governmental longevity; hence, for instance, they delayed for +seven months the date for the total return of the pledges at the +pawnshops. There were perhaps as many dreamers in the minority as in the +majority. Some put forward their principles like the head of a Medusa, +and would have made no concessions even for the sake of victory. They +strained the reaction against the principle of authority to the verge of +suicide. "We," they said, "were for liberty under the Empire; in power +we will not deny it." Even in exile they have fancied that the Commune +perished through its authoritative tendencies. With a little diplomacy, +by yielding to circumstances and the weaknesses of their colleagues, +they might have detached from the majority all men of real value.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> +Tridon had come to them uninvited, but his was a superior mind; they +ought to have made advances to the others, opposing to the mere +braggarts precise ideas, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>and by true energy reduced the turbulent. They +remained unrelenting, dogged, and contented themselves with forcible +protests.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth divergences degenerated into hostilities. The council-room +was small, badly ventilated; the soon overheated atmosphere ruffled the +temper. The discussions grew bitter, and Félix Pyat turned them into +attacks. Delescluze never spoke but for union, concord. The other would +have preferred the Commune dead rather than saved by one of those he +bore a grudge to, and he hated whoever smiled at his craziness. He did +not mind discrediting the Council, aspersing its most devoted members, +so that he resented a trespass on his vanity. He could lie with perfect +effrontery, carve out some infamous calumny, slaver a colleague, then +suddenly, in emotional attitude, open his arms, exclaiming, "Let us +embrace." He now accused Vermorel of having sold his journal to the +Empire after having offered it to the Orléanists. He glided about in the +lobbies, the Commissions, a Barrère of the boards, now insinuating, now +foaming, now patriarchal. "The Commune! why it is my child! I have +watched over it for twenty years. I have nursed, I have rocked it." To +hear him, the 18th March was owing to him. He thus enlisted the naïve, +the light-headed sent to the Council by the public meetings, and, +despite his blank incapacity, shown by the man while a member of the +first executive, despite his attempts at fight, he picked up twenty-four +voices at the election of the Committee of Public Safety. The aspic +profited by it to hiss forth discord.</p> + +<p>Disunion within the Council was fatal, the mother of defeat. It +ceased—let the people know this as well as their faults—when they +thought of the people, when they rose above these miserable personal +quarrels. They followed the funeral of Pierre Leroux, who had defended +the insurgents of June, 1848; ordered the demolition of the Bréa church, +built in memory of a justly punished traitor; of the expiatory monument, +an affront to the Revolution; were not forgetful of the political +prisoners still at the Bagnio, and ennobled the Place d'Italie with the +name of Duval. All Socialist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>decrees passed unanimously; for though +they differed they were all Socialists. There was but one voice in the +Council to expel two of its members guilty of some former offence,<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> +and no one even in the thick of the peril dared to utter the word +capitulation.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Before the Commission of Inquiry at the Assembly he has +assumed the attitude of a Daniel in the lions' den. The meeting, +however, contented with hissing him, for Paris let these impotent drones +buzz as much as they liked without taking any notice of them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Appendix IX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> The minority formed a nucleus of twenty-two members: +Andrieu, Arnold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Clémence, V. Clément, +Courbet, Frankel, E. Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, +Ostyn, Pindy, Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Vallès, Varlin, Vermorel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Clément, who +under the Empire had offered his services to the police.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang">ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET—THE RIVALRIES—THE DEFENCE OF THE +FORT OF ISSY.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The last act of the second Executive Commission was to name Rossel +delegate at War. On the same evening (the 30th April) it sent for him. +He came at once, recited the history of famous sieges, and promised to +make Paris impregnable. No one asked him for a written plan, and there +and then, as on the stage, his nomination was signed. He forthwith wrote +to the Council, "I accept these difficult functions, but I want your +entire support in order not to succumb under the weight of these +circumstances."</p> + +<p>Rossel knew these circumstances through and through. For twenty-five +days chief of the general staff, he was the best-informed man in Paris +as to all her military resources. He was familiar with the members of +the Council, of the Central Committee, the officers, the effective +forces, the character of the troops he undertook to lead.</p> + +<p>At the outset he struck a wrong chord in his answer to the Versaillese +officer who had summoned the fort of Issy to surrender. "My dear +comrade, the first time you permit yourself to send us such an insolent +summons, I shall have your flag of truce shot. Your devoted comrade." +The cynical levity smacked of the condottiere. Certainly he who +threatened to shoot an innocent soldier, and bestowed his <i>dear</i>, his +<i>devoted comrade</i> upon a collaborator of Gallifet, was foreign to the +great heart of Paris and her civil war.</p> + +<p>No man understood Paris, the National Guard, less than Rossel. He +imagined that the <i>Père Duchesne</i> was the real mouthpiece of the +workmen. Hardly raised to the Ministry, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>he spoke of putting the +National Guard into barracks, of cannonading the runaways; he wanted to +dismember the legions and form them into regiments, with colonels named +by himself. The Central Committee, to which the <i>chefs-de-légion</i> +belonged, protested, and the battalions complained to the Council, which +sent for Rossel. He set forth his project in a professional way in +sober, precise words, so different from the Pyatical declamations, that +the Council believed it beheld a man and was charmed. Still his project +was the breaking-up of the National Guard, and the Council no more than +the Executive Commission got a general plan of defence from him. He +certainly demanded that the municipalities should be charged with +concentration of arms, the horses, and prosecution of the refractory, +but he made no condition <i>sine quâ non</i>.</p> + +<p>He sent in no report on the military situation. He gave orders for the +construction of a second enceinte of barricades, and of three citadels +at Montmartre, the Trocadéro, and the Panthéon, but never personally +concerned himself about their execution. He extended the command of +General Wroblewski over all troops and forts on the left bank, but three +days after restricted it again to bestow it upon La Cécilia, who had +none of the qualities necessary in a superior commander. He never gave +the generals any instructions for attack or defence. Despite certain +fits and starts, he had in reality so little energy that he named Eudes +commander of the second active reserve at the very moment when, against +formal orders, this latter left the fort of Issy, which he had commanded +since the reoccupation.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese had recommenced firing with perfect fury. The shells, +the bombs, battered the casemates, the grapeshot paved the trenches with +iron. In the night of the 1st-2nd, the Versaillese, always proceeding by +nocturnal surprises, attacked the station of Clamart, which was taken +almost without a struggle, and the castle of Issy, which they had to +conquer foot by foot. On the morning of the 2nd the fort again found +itself in the same situation as three days before. A part of the village +of Issy was even in the hands <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>of the soldiers. During the day the +francs-tireurs of Paris dislodged them at the point of the bayonet. +Eudes, who in vain demanded reinforcements, went to the War Office to +declare that he would not remain if Wetzel were not discharged. Wetzel +was replaced by La Cécilia, but Eudes did not return to the fort, and +left the command to the chief of his staff.</p> + +<p>Thus since the 3rd it was evident that everything would go on as under +Cluseret, and the Central Committee grew bolder. It had been thrown more +and more into the shade, for the Commission of War kept it at a +distance. Its sittings, more and more confused and void, were little +attended—by about ten members, sometimes even by less. The enterprise +of Rossel against the legions gave it back a little authority and +daring. On the 3rd, in accord with the <i>chefs-de-légion</i>, they resolved +to ask the Council for the direction and administration of the War +Office. Rossel got wind of the affair, and had one of its members +arrested; the others in great numbers, the <i>chefs-de-légion</i> with their +sabres at their sides, went up to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were +received by Félix Pyat, deeply moved by the odd conceit that they came +to lay hands on him. "Nothing is getting along at the War Office," said +they. "All the services are in disorder. The Central Committee offers +itself to direct them. The delegate will conduct the operations, the +Committee will see to the administration." Félix Pyat approved of the +idea and submitted it to the Council. The minority took umbrage at the +pretensions of the Committee, and even spoke of having them arrested. +The majority left the matter to the Committee of Public Safety, which +issued a decree admitting the co-operation of the Central Committee. +Rossel accepted the situation and announced it to the chiefs of corps. +The Commission of War continued, in spite of all this, to squabble with +the Committee.</p> + +<p>Our men paid dearly for these small cabinet revolutions. Tired out, +badly commanded, they were negligent of their watches, and thus exposed +to every surprise. The most terrible one took place in the night of the +3rd-4th May at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>redoubt of the Moulin Saquet, held by 500 men at +this moment. They were sleeping in their tents, when the Versaillese, +having seized the sentinels, entered the redoubt and butchered about +fifty Federals. The soldiers pierced the tents with their bayonets, +slashing the corpses, and then made off with five pieces and 200 +prisoners. The captain of the 55th was accused of having betrayed the +watchword. The truth is not known, as—incredible fact!—the Council +never inquired into the affair.</p> + +<p>M. Thiers announced this "elegant <i>coup-de-main</i>"<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> in a bantering +despatch to the effect that they had killed two hundred men; that "such +was the victory the Commune might announce in its bulletins." The +prisoners, taken to Versailles, were received by the elegant rabble who +killed time in the cafés of St. Germain, now become the headquarters of +high-life prostitution, or who went to the heights to see the shells +battering the walls and the Parisians. But what were these insipid +amusements by the side of a convoy of prisoners, whom they could beat, +spit upon, and revile, a thousand times renewing the agonies of Mathô?</p> + +<p>The simply bestial ferocity of the soldiers was much less horrible. +These poor wretches firmly believed that the Federals were thieves or +Prussians, and that they tortured their prisoners. There were some who, +taken to Paris, for a long time refused all nourishment in dread of +poison. The officers propagated these horrible stories; some even +believed them.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> The greater part, arriving from Germany in a state +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>of extreme irritation against Paris,<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> said publicly, "We shall give +these scoundrels no quarter," and they set the example of summary +executions. On the 25th April, at the Belle-Epine, near Ville-Juif, four +National Guards, surprised by mounted chasseurs, called upon to +surrender, laid down their arms. The soldiers were leading them when an +officer appeared, and, without further ado, discharged his revolver at +them. Two were killed; the two others, left for dead, were able to drag +themselves as far as the neighbouring trenches, where one of them +expired.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> The fourth was transported to the ambulance. Paris, +erstwhile besieged by the Prussians, was now tracked by tigers.</p> + +<p>These sinister forebodings of the lot reserved to the vanquished made +the Council indignant, but did not enlighten it. The disorder grew +greater with the danger. Rossel set nothing going. Pyat, whom he had +often silenced with a word, abhorred him, and never ceased undermining +his authority. "You see this man," said he to the Romanticists, "well, +he is a traitor—a Cæsarian! After the Trochu plan, the Rossel plan." On +the 8th May he had the direction of the military operations transferred +to Dombrowski, leaving only nominal functions to Rossel, who, apprised +of this that same evening, hurried to the Committee of Public Safety and +forced it to revoke the decree.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> On the 4th Félix Pyat sent orders +to General Wroblewski without informing Rossel. The next day Rossel +complained to the Council of the Committee of Public Safety of this +mischievous interference, which embroiled everything. "Under these +circumstances I cannot be responsible," said he, and demanded the +publicity of the sittings, as he had always been received in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>private +audience. Instead of forcing him to communicate his plan, they amused +themselves with making him pass a sort of Freemason examination. The +antediluvian Miot asked him what were his democratic antecedents. Rossel +extricated himself very cleverly. "I will not tell you that I have +studied the question of social reforms profoundly, but I abominate this +society which has just betrayed France in so dastardly a way. I do not +know what will be the new order of Socialism. I like it on trust, and it +will anyhow be better than the old one." Everybody put him the questions +he chose personally, and not through the medium of the president. He +answered them all with sangfroid and precision, disarming all their +scruples, and carried away cheers, but nothing more.</p> + +<p>Had he possessed the strong head he was credited with, he would long +since have fathomed the situation, understood that for this struggle +without precedent new tactics were wanted, found a field of battle for +these improvised soldiers, organised the internal defence, and awaited +Versailles from the heights of Montmartre, the Trocadéro, and +Mont-Valérien. But he dreamt of battles, was at bottom but a bookish +soldier, original only in speech and style. While always complaining of +want of discipline and of men, he allowed the best blood of Paris to be +shed in the sterile struggles without the town, in heroic challenges at +Neuilly, Vanves, and Issy.</p> + +<p>At Issy above all. It was no longer a fort, hardly a strong position, +but a medley of earth and rubble-work battered by shells. The staved-in +casemates opened a view upon the country, the powder magazines were laid +bare, half of bastion 3 was in the moat, one could drive up to the +breach in a carriage. Ten pieces at most answered the fire of sixty +Versaillese ordnance pieces, while the fusillade of the trenches aimed +at the embrasures killed almost all our artillerists. On the 3rd the +Versaillese renewed their summons to surrender; they were answered with +the word of Cambronne. The chief of the general staff left by Eudes had +also made off, but happily the fort remained in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>valiant hands of +the engineer Rist and of Julien, commander of the 14th battalion of the +eleventh arrondissement. It is to them and to the Federals who stood by +them that the honour of this prodigious defence belongs. Here are a few +notes from their military journal.</p> + +<p>"<i>4th May.</i>—We are receiving explosive balls that burst with the noise +of percussion-caps. The waggons do not come; food is scanty and the +shells of seven centimetres, our best pieces, will soon fail us. The +reinforcements promised every day do not appear. Two chiefs of +battalions have been to Rossel. He received them very badly, and said +that he had the right to shoot them for having abandoned their post. +They explained our situation. Rossel answered that a fort defends itself +with the bayonet and quoted the work of Carnot. Still he has promised +reinforcements. The Freemasons have planted their banner on our +ramparts. The Versaillese knocked it down in an instant. Our ambulances +are full; the prison and corridor that lead to it are crammed with +corpses. An ambulance omnibus arrives in the evening. We put in as many +of our wounded as possible. During its passage from the fort to Issy the +Versaillese pepper it with balls.</p> + +<p>"<i>5th.</i>—The fire of the enemy does not cease for a moment. Our +embrasures no longer exist; the pieces of the front still answer. At two +o'clock we receive ten waggons of shells of seven centimetres. Rossel +has come. He looked at the works of the Versaillese for a long time. The +<i>enfants-perdus</i> who serve the pieces of bastion 5 are losing many men; +they remain steadfast. There are now in the dungeons two yards deep of +corpses. All our trenches, riddled by artillery, have been evacuated. +The trench of the Versaillese is sixty yards from the counterscarp. They +push on more and more. The necessary precautions are taken in case of an +attack to-night. All the flank pieces are loaded with grapeshot. We have +two mitrailleuses above the <i>terre-plein</i> to sweep at once the moat and +the glacis.</p> + +<p>"<i>6th.</i>—The battery of Fleury regularly discharges its six <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>rounds on +us every five minutes. A cantinière has just been brought to the +ambulance, wounded in the left side of the groin. For four days past +three women have gone into the thickest of the fire to tend the wounded. +This one is dying and bids us remember her two little children. No more +food. We eat only horse-flesh. Evening: the rampart is untenable.</p> + +<p>"<i>7th.</i>—We are receiving as many as ten shells a minute. The ramparts +are totally uncovered. All the pieces, save two or three, are +dismounted. The Versaillese works almost touch us. There are thirty more +dead. We are about to be surrounded."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> <i>La Guerre des Communeux</i> by a superior officer of the +Versaillese army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> On the 12th May, at the barricade of Petit-Vanves, an +officer of engineers of the Lacretelle division, second corps, Captain +Rozhem, was taken prisoner. When brought before the commander of the +trenches, "I know what is in store for me," said he; "shoot me." The +commander shrugged his shoulders and took him to Delescluze. "Captain," +said the delegate, "promise that you will not fight against the Commune +and you are free." The officer promised, and, deeply moved, asked +Delescluze for permission to shake hands with him. This is one fact +among a hundred such. Is it necessary to add that from the 3rd April to +the 23rd May the Federals did not shoot <i>one single</i> prisoner, officer +or soldier?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Appendix X.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> This fact was established through the minute inquiry +which the Council charged three of its members to make. Two of these, +Gambon and Langevin, are by their characters above all suspicion. They +received the declaration of the wounded man and saw one of the bodies, +the two others not having been found.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> It never appeared in the <i>Officiel</i>, but was announced in +the <i>Vengeur</i>; for Félix Pyat abused his functions in order to give his +journal the first news of the official decisions. This time he was a +little too quick.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"La plus grande infamie dont l'histoire moderne ait garde la +souvenir, s'accomplit à cette heure, Paris est +bombardé."—Jules Favre, Jules Simon, E. Picard, Trochu, +Jules Ferry, E. Arago, Garnier-Pages, Pelletan. +<i>Proclamation du Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale à +propos du bombardement Prussien.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nous avons écrasé tout un quartier de Paris."—<i>M. Thiers à +l'Assemblée Nationale, Séance du 5 Août 1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">PARIS IS BOMBARDED—THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS—THE COUNCIL +ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY—ROSSEL FLIES.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>We must leave this heroic atmosphere to return to the quarrels of the +Council and of the Central Committee. Why did they not hold their +sittings at the Muette or under the eyes of the public?<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> The shells +of Montretout, which had just unmasked its powerful battery, the severe +attitude of the people, would no doubt have made them unite against the +common enemy. He had commenced to batter in breach.</p> + +<p>On the 8th May, in the morning, seventy marine pieces began to attack +the enceinte from the bastion 60 to the Point du Jour. The shells of +Clamart already reached the quay of Javelle, and the battery of Breteuil +covered the Grenelle quarter with projectiles. In a few hours half Passy +had become uninhabitable.</p> + +<p>M. Thiers accompanied his shells with a proclamation: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>"Parisians, the +Government will not bombard Paris, as the men of the Commune will not +fail to tell you. It will discharge its cannon.... It knows, it would +have understood, even if you had not said so on all sides, that as soon +as the soldiers cross the enceinte you will rally round the national +flag." And he invited the Parisians to open the gates to him. What was +the action of the Council in reply to this appeal to treason?</p> + +<p>On the 8th it entered upon a random discussion on the minutes of its +sittings<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> and the publicity of the latter, which one member of the +majority wanted to suppress altogether. The minority complained of the +Central Committee, which had encroached upon all services in spite of +the Commission of War; it had driven away Varlin from the commissariat, +entirely reorganised by him. They asked whether the Government called +itself Central Committee or Commune. Félix Pyat justified himself by +accusing Rossel. "It is not the fault of the Committee of Public Safety +if Rossel has neither the strength nor the intelligence to keep the +Central Committee within its functions." The friends of Rossel answered, +accusing Pyat of continually interfering even in purely military +questions. If the Moulin Saquet had been surprised, it was because +Wroblewski, who commanded on that side, received a formal order from +Félix Pyat to repair to Issy. "It is false," said Pyat; "I have never +given such an order." They let him thoroughly enmesh himself, and then +produced the order, written entirely in his own hand. He took hold of +it, turned it round, feigned astonishment, and was finally obliged to +confess.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> The discussion then reverted to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Central +Committee—were they to dissolve it, arrest its members, or surrender to +it the administration of the War Office? The Council, as usual, did not +dare to decide, and, after a confused debate, abode by the resolution of +the 3rd May—the Central Committee will be held subordinate to the +Military Commission.</p> + +<p>At this very moment strange scenes were enacted at the War Office. The +<i>chefs-de-légion</i>, who were stirring more and more against Rossel, had +that day resolved to ask him for the report of all the decisions he was +about to take with respect to the National Guard. Rossel knew of their +project. In the evening, when they arrived at the Ministry, they found +in its court an armed platoon, and beheld Rossel watching them from his +window. "You are audacious," said he; "do you know that this platoon is +here to shoot you?" They, without appearing to care much: "There is no +need of audacity; we simply come to speak to you of the organisation of +the National Guard." Rossel relaxed, went to the window, gave orders to +the platoon to re-enter. This burlesque demonstration did not miss its +effect. The <i>chefs-de-légion</i> disputed the project on the regiments +point by point, demonstrating its impossibility. Tired of arguing, +Rossel said to them, "I am fully aware that I have no forces, but I +affirm you have not either. You have, say you? Well, give me the proof. +To-morrow, at eleven o'clock, bring me 12,000 men to the Place de la +Concorde, and I will try to do something." He wanted to make an attempt +by the Clamart station. The <i>chefs-de-légion</i> engaged to find the men, +and spent the whole night in search of them.</p> + +<p>While these contests went on, the fort of Issy was being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>evacuated. +Since the morning it had been reduced to the last extremity. Any of its +defenders who approached the guns was a dead man. In the evening the +officers assembled, and came to the conclusion that they could no longer +hold out. Thereupon the men, driven away from all sides by the shells, +massed themselves under the entrance vault, when a shell from the Moulin +de Pierre fell in their midst, killing sixteen of them. Rist, Julien, +and several others, who were stubbornly bent upon holding these ruins, +were at last obliged to yield. About seven o'clock the evacuation began. +The commander, Lisbonne, one of the members of the first Central +Committee, a man of extraordinary courage, covered the retreat amidst a +shower of bullets.</p> + +<p>A few hours after, the Versaillese, crossing the Seine, established +themselves before Boulogne in front of the bastions of the Point du +Jour, and opened a trench three hundred yards from the enceinte. All +that night and the whole morning of the 9th the War Office and the +Committee of Public Safety knew nothing of the evacuation of the fort.</p> + +<p>On the 9th, at mid-day, the battalions asked for by Rossel were drawn up +along the Place de la Concorde. Rossel arrived on horseback, hardly +looked at the front lines, and then addressed the <i>chefs-de-légion</i>, +"There are not enough men here for me;" and at once turning about, rode +off to the War Office, where he was informed of the evacuation of the +fort of Issy. He seized his pen, wrote, "The tricolor flag floats from +the fort of Issy, abandoned yesterday evening by the garrison," and, +without apprising the Council or the Committee of Public Safety, gave +the order to placard ten thousand copies of these two lines, while six +thousand was the number usually printed.</p> + +<p>He next sent in his resignation: "Citizens, members of the Commune, I +feel myself incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a +command where every one deliberates and no one obeys. The Central +Committee of Artillery has deliberated and prescribed nothing. The +Commune has deliberated and resolved upon nothing. The Central +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Committee deliberates and has not yet known how to act. During this +delay the enemy has hemmed in the fort of Issy by imprudent attacks, for +which I would punish him if I had the smallest military force at my +disposal." He then recounted in his own fashion, and very inaccurately, +the evacuation of the fort, the review on the Place de la Concorde; said +that, instead of the 12,000 men promised, there were only 7,000,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> +and concluded: "Thus the nullity of the Committee of Artillery prevented +the organisation of the artillery; the hesitation of the Central +Committee stopped the administration; the paltry pre-occupations of the +<i>chefs-de-légion</i> paralysed the mobilisation of the troops. My +predecessor committed the fault of struggling against this absurd +situation. I retire, and have the honour to ask you for a cell at +Mazas."</p> + +<p>He thus thought to clear his military reputation; but point by point he +might have been categorically answered. Why did you accept this "absurd" +situation with which you were thoroughly conversant? Why did you make no +conditions on entering the Ministry on the 1st April, no condition to +the Council on the 2nd and 3rd May? Why did you send away at least 7,000 +men this morning, when you pretend not to have "the smallest military +force" at your disposal? Why did you know nothing for fifteen hours of +the evacuation of a fort whose straits it was your duty to watch from +hour to hour? Where is your second enceinte? Why has no work been done +at Montmartre and the Panthéon?</p> + +<p>Rossel might perhaps have addressed his reproaches to the Council, but +he committed an unpardonable fault in sending his letters to the +journals. Thus in less than two hours he had disheartened 8,000 +combatants, spread panic, stigmatised the brave men of Issy, denounced +the weakness of the defence to the enemy, and that at the very moment +when the Versaillese were rejoicing over the taking of Issy.</p> + +<p>There every one was merrymaking. M. Thiers and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>MacMahon harangued the +soldiers, who, singing, brought back the few pieces found in the fort. +The Assembly suspended its sittings and came into the marble court to +applaud these children of the people who thought themselves victors. M. +Thiers a month later said from the tribune, "When I see these sons of +our soil, strangers often to an education that elevates, die for you, +for us, I am profoundly touched." Touching emotion this of the hunter +before his pack. Remember this avowal and the sort of men for whom you +die, sons of the soil!</p> + +<p>And at the Hôtel-de-Ville they were still disputing! Rigault +recriminated. The majority of the Council had named him procureur of the +Commune in spite of his culpable levity at the Prefecture. The +discussion was growing angry when Delescluze entered hastily and +exclaimed, "You discuss when it has been placarded that the tricolor +flag floats from the fort of Issy. I make an appeal to you all. I had +hoped that France would be saved by Paris and Europe by France. The +Commune is pregnant with a power of revolutionary instinct capable of +saving the country. Cast aside to-day all your animosities. We must save +the country. The Committee of Public Safety has not answered our +expectations. It has been an obstacle instead of a stimulus. With what +is it occupying itself? With individual appointments instead of general +measures. A decree signed Meillet names this citizen himself governor of +the fort of Bicêtre. We had a man there, a soldier,<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> who was thought +too severe. It is desirable that all were as severe as he. Your +Committee of Public Safety is undone, crushed beneath the weight of the +memories attached to it. I say it must disappear."</p> + +<p>The Assembly, thus brought back to a sense of its duty, resolved into a +secret committee, thoroughly discussing the Committee of Public Safety. +What had it done for a week past? Installed the Central Committee at the +War Office, increased the disorder, sustained two disasters. Its members +lost themselves in details or else did amateur service. One <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>deserted +the Hôtel-de-Ville to go and shut himself up in a fort; if at least it +had been that of Issy or of Vanves! Félix Pyat passed the greater part +of his time in the office of the <i>Vengeur</i>, there venting his spleen in +long-winded articles. A member of the Committee of Public Safety +endeavoured to defend it by pleading the vagueness of its attributes. He +was answered that Article 3 of the decree gave the Committee full powers +over all the Commissions. Finally, after many hours, they decided to +renew the Committee at once; to appoint a civil delegate to the War +Office; to draw up a proclamation; to meet, save in cases of emergency, +only three times a week; to establish the new Committee permanently at +the Hôtel-de-Ville, while the other members of the Council were to stay +regularly in their respective arrondissements. Delescluze was named +Delegate at War.</p> + +<p>In the evening, at ten o'clock, there was a second meeting for the +nomination of the new Committee. The majority voted Félix Pyat, quite +exasperated at the attacks of the afternoon, to the chair. He opened the +sitting by demanding the arrest of Rossel. Cleverly grouping together +appearances which seemed proofs to the suspicious, he made Rossel the +scapegoat of the faults of the Committee, turning the anger of the +Council against him. For half an hour he disparaged the absent man, whom +he would not have dared attack to his face. "I told you, citizens, that +he was a traitor. You would not believe me. You are young; you did not, +like our paragons of the Convention, know how to mistrust military +power." This reminiscence ravished the Romanticists. They had but one +dream—to be Conventionnels. So difficult was it for this revolution of +proletarians to rid itself of bourgeois tinsel.</p> + +<p>The ire of Pyat was not wanted to convince the Assembly. Rossel's act +was culpable in the eyes of the least prejudiced. His arrest was decreed +unanimously, less two voices, and the Commission of War received the +order to carry it out.</p> + +<p>They next passed to the nomination of the Committee. The minority, a +little reassured by the election of Delescluze and Jourde, which seemed +to acknowledge the right of the Council <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>to appoint the delegates, +resolved to take part in the vote, and asked for a place in the list of +the majority. This was an excellent occasion to efface all differences, +to re-establish union against Versailles. But the perfidious promptings +of Félix Pyat had induced the Romanticists to look upon their colleagues +of the minority as veritable reactionists. After his speech the sitting +was suspended; little by little the members of the minority found +themselves alone in the council-hall. They looked for their colleagues +and surprised them in a neighbouring room deliberating apart. After a +violent altercation they all returned to the Council.</p> + +<p>A member of the minority demanded that they should put an end to these +shameful divisions. A Romanticist answered by asking for the arrest of +the factious minority, and the President, Pyat, was about to empty the +vials of his wrath, when Malon cried to him, "Silence! you are the evil +genius of this revolution. Do not continue to spread your venomous +suspicions, to stir up discords. It is your influence that is ruining +the Commune!" And Arnold, one of the founders of the Central Committee, +"It is still these fellows of 1848 who will undo the revolution."</p> + +<p>But it was too late now to engage in the struggle, and the minority was +to expiate its doctrinairism and maladroitness. The whole list of the +majority passed; Ranvier, Arnaud, Gambon, Delescluze, and Eudes. The +nomination of Delescluze to the War Office having left a vacancy, there +was after two days a second vote, and the minority proposed Varlin. The +majority, abusing their victory, committed the impropriety of preferring +Billioray, a most worthless member.</p> + +<p>The Council broke up at one o'clock in the morning. "Did not we do them? +and what do you think of the way I managed the business?" said Félix +Pyat to his friends on leaving the chair.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> This honest mandatory, +altogether absorbed in the work of "doing" his colleagues, had forgotten +to verify the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>capture of the fort of Issy. And that same evening, +twenty-six hours after the evacuation, the Hôtel-de-Ville placarded on +the door of the mairies, "It is false that the tricolor flag floats on +the fort of Issy. The Versaillese do not and shall not occupy it." This +contradiction was as good as Trochu's apropos of Metz.</p> + +<p>During these tempests at the Hôtel-de-Ville the Central Committee had +sent for Rossel, reproached him with the placard of the afternoon, and +the unusual number of copies printed. He defended himself acrimoniously. +"It was my duty. The greater the danger, the greater the duty to make it +known to the people." Yet he had done nothing of the kind on the +surprise of the Moulin-Saquet. After his departure the Committee +deliberated at length. Some one said, "We are lost if we get no +dictatorship." For some days this idea was uppermost in the Committee. +The latter voted quite seriously that there should be a dictator, and +that the dictator was to be Rossel. A deputation of five members gravely +went to fetch him; he came down to the Committee, pretended to reflect, +and finally said, "It is too late. I am no longer delegate. I have sent +in my resignation." Some waxing angry with him, he rebuked them and +left. In his cabinet he found the Commission of War, Delescluze, Tridon, +Avrial, Johannard, Varlin, and Arnold, who had just arrived.</p> + +<p>Delescluze explained their mission. Rossel listened very calmly; said +that though the decree was unjust, he submitted to it. He then described +the military situation, the rivalries of all kinds that had continually +clogged him, the weakness of the Council. "It has not known," said he, +"how to utilise the Central Committee, nor how to break it at the +opportune time. Our resources are quite sufficient, and I am ready, for +my own part, to assume all responsibility, but on the condition of being +supported by a strong and homogeneous power. I could not in the face of +history take upon myself the responsibility for certain necessary +repressions without the assent and support of the Commune." He spoke at +great length in that clear and nervous style <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>that twice in the Council +had won over his most decided adversaries. The Commission, much struck +by his arguments, withdrew to another room. Delescluze declared that he +could not make up his mind to arrest Rossel till the Council had heard +him. His colleagues were of the same opinion, and left the ex-delegate +under the guard of Avrial and Johannard, who the next morning conducted +him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Avrial stayed with Rossel in the questor's +office, while Johannard went to apprise the Council of their arrival.</p> + +<p>Some wanted Rossel to be heard; the greater number, distrustful of +themselves, were afraid lest his voice should again bring round the +Council, maintained that his hearing was contrary to equity, and cited +the example of Cluseret, who had been arrested without being heard, as +though one injustice could sanction another. The admission of Rossel was +refused.</p> + +<p>Ch. Gérardin, a member of the Council, repaired to the questor's office. +"What has the Commune decided?" said Avrial. "Nothing yet," answered Ch. +Gérardin, who nevertheless had just left the sitting, and seeing +Avrial's revolver on the table, he said to Rossel, "Your guardian +fulfils his duty conscientiously." "I do not suppose," answered Rossel +hurriedly, "that this precaution concerns me. Besides, Citizen Avrial, I +give you my word of honour as a soldier that I shall not seek to +escape."</p> + +<p>Avrial, very tired of his post as sentry, had already asked the Council +to relieve him. Receiving no answer, he thought he might leave his +prisoner under the guard of a member of the Committee of Public +Safety—for Ch. Gérardin had not yet been discharged from his +functions—and he proceeded to the Council. When he returned, Rossel and +Ch. Gérardin were gone. The ambitious young man had slunk like a weasel +out of this civil war into which he had heedlessly thrown himself.</p> + +<p>One may divine whether Pyat was sparing of adjectives against the +fugitive. The new Committee having just been informed of the discovery +of two conspiracies, launched a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>desperate proclamation: "Treason had +slipped into our ranks. The abandonment of the fort of Issy announced in +an impious placard by the wretch who surrendered it, was only the first +act of the drama. A monarchical insurrection in our midst coinciding +with the surrender of one of our gates was to follow. All the threads of +the dark plot are now in our hands. Most of the culprits are arrested. +Let all eyes be open, all arms ready to strike the traitors!"</p> + +<p>This was going off into melodrama when cold blood and precision were +wanted. And the Committee boasted strangely when it pretended to have +arrested "most of the culprits" and that it held "in its hands all the +threads of the dark plot."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be +admitted, and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the +decree was not executed, although in the Hôtel-de-Ville itself there was +the splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few +hours.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> The reports in the <i>Officiel</i>, confided to inexperienced +writers, who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the +printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret +committees, give but a very vague idea of these sittings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> "Committee of Public Safety, No. 98.—Paris, 3rd May +1871.—General Wroblewski,—Please repair immediately to the fort of +Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering, +artillery, &c. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Félix +Pyat, Ant. Arnaud. Enclosed is a despatch from the commander of the +fort." +</p><p class="noin"> +Before the public, ignorant of this despatch, Pyat kept up his lie. He +said in the <i>Vengeur</i>: "The only order given directly to the generals by +the Committee of Public Safety to defend Issy, which Rossel did not +defend, was addressed to General Wroblewski, intrusted with the forts of +the south. The Committee of Public Safety, in ordering him to watch over +Issy, did not displace him." In point of fact, not Wroblewski was +charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La Cécilia, who since +the reoccupation held the chief post on this side, and commanded Wetzel, +intrusted with the defence of the approaches of the fort.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> The <i>chefs-de-légion</i> have said 10,000. The truth lies +between the two.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian +General Bossack.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Heard and reported by Lefrançais, whose veracity is above +suspicion. <i>Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste par G. Lefrançais</i>, p. +294. Neuchâtel, 1870.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p class="cen">THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE.</p> +<br /> + +<p>The Commune had given rise to the various trades of the plot-monger, the +betrayer of gates, the conspiracy-broker. Vulgar sharpers, Jonathan +Wilds of the gutter, whom a shadow of police would have scared away, +they had no other strength than the weakness of the prefecture and the +carelessness of the delegations. The evidence relative to them is to a +certain extent still in the keeping of the Versaillese; but they have +themselves published a good deal, often borne witness against each +other, and what with private information, what with the opportunities +offered by our exile, we shall be able to penetrate into this realm of +blackguardism.</p> + +<p>From the end of March they levied contributions upon all the Ministries +of Versailles, offering for a few sous to surrender some of the gates of +Paris or to kidnap the members of the Council. By degrees they were more +or less classed. The colonel of the staff, Corbin, was charged with the +organisation of the faithful National Guards still at Paris. The +commander of a reactionary battalion, Charpentier, a former drill +officer of St. Cyr, offered him his services, was accepted, and +presented a few of his cronies, Durouchoux, Demay, and Gallimard. Their +instructions were to recruit clandestine battalions, who were to occupy +the strategic points of the town on the day when the general attack +would summons all the Federals to the ramparts. A naval officer, +Domalain, offered at that moment to surprise Montmartre, the +Hôtel-de-Ville, the Place Vendôme, and the commissariat, with a few +thousand volunteers, whom he professed to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>have at hand. He entered into +partnership with Charpentier.</p> + +<p>They bestirred themselves with might and main, grouped an astonishing +number of persons around official posts, and soon gave notice of 6,000 +men and 150 artillerists provided with spiking machines. All these brave +ones only waited for a signal. In the meanwhile, money was of course +wanted to keep up their zeal, and Charpentier and Domalain, through the +agency of Durouchoux, indeed drew several hundred thousand francs from +the Versaillese.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of April they found a redoubtable rival in Le Mère de +Beaufond, an ex-naval officer and governor of Cayenne <i>ad interim</i>. +Instead of drumming up for bourgeois recruits, an idea he declared +ridiculous, Beaufond proposed paralysing the resistance by means of +clever agents who should provoke defections and disorganise the +services. His plan, quite in accord with M. Thiers' notions, was +favourably looked upon at Versailles, which gave him full powers. He +took as helpmates two men of resolution, Laroque, a clerk at the bank, +and Lasnier, an ex-officer of Schœlcher's legion.</p> + +<p>Besides these, the Ministry had still other bloodhounds—the Alsatian +Aronshonne, colonel of a free corps during the war, cashiered by his +men, who at Tours had accused him of theft; Franzini, later on +extradited by England and condemned as a swindler; Barral de Montaut, +who boldly presented himself at the War Office, and, thanks to his +aplomb, got himself named chief of the seventh legion; the Abbé Cellini, +chaplain of one knows not what fleet, patronised by Jules Simon; last, +the noble-minded conspirators, the great generals disdained by the +revolution, Lullier, Du Bisson, Ganier d'Abin. These honest Republicans +could not allow the Commune to ruin the Republic. If they accepted money +from Versailles, it was only with a view to saving Paris and the +Republican party from the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville. They wanted to +overthrow the Commune, but betray it, oh! no, by no means!</p> + +<p>One Brière de St.-Lagier framed comprehensive reports on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>all these +knights, and M. Thiers' secretary, Troncin-Dumersan, condemned three +years after as swindler, travelled backwards and forwards between Paris +and Versailles, brought the money, superintended and held in his hand +all the threads of these multifarious conspiracies, the one being often +carried on behind the back of the other.</p> + +<p>Thence continual collisions. The ragamuffins mutually denounced each +other. Brière de St.-Lagier wrote: "I beg M. le Ministre of the Interior +to have M. Le Mère de Beaufond watched. I strongly suspect him of being +a Bonapartist. The money he has received has been used to a great extent +to pay his debts." By way of compensation another report said, "I +suspect MM. Domalain, Charpentier, and Brière de St.-Lagier. They often +meet at Peter's, and instead of occupying themselves with the great +cause of the deliverance, imitate Pantagruel. They pass for +Orleanists."<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> + +<p>The most venturesome of these enterprisers, Beaufond, managed to enter +into relations with the general staff of Colonel Henry Prodhomme, with +the Ecole Militaire, commanded by Vinot, and with the War Office, where +the chief of the artillery, Guyet, contrived to embroil the service of +the munitions. His agents, Lasnier and Laroque, worked upon a certain +Muley, who, having circumvented the Central Committee, got himself named +chief of the seventeenth legion, and to some extent disabled it. An +officer of artillery, Captain Piguier, placed at their disposal by the +Ministry, traced the plan of the barricades, and one of the band could +write on the 8th May, "No torpedoes are laid; the army may enter to the +flourish of trumpets." Now they had recourse to direct subornation; now +acting the part of fervent Communards, they knew how to draw out +information; while the imprudence of the functionaries singularly +facilitated their task. Staff officers, chiefs of services, fond of +assuming consequential airs, discussed the most delicate matters in the +cafés of the boulevards, full of spies.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> Cournet, who had succeeded +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>Rigault at the prefecture of police, despite the gravity of his +deportment, did not better the service of general safety. Lullier, twice +arrested, each time escaping, openly spoke in the cafés of sweeping away +the Commune. Troncin-Dumersan, known for twenty years as the police +agent of the Ministry of the Interior, freely promenaded on the +boulevards, passing his retainers in review. The contractors charged +with the fortification of Montmartre every day found new pretexts to +defer the opening of the works; the Bréa Church remained intact; the +undertaker of the demolition of the expiatory monument managed to put it +off till the entry of the troops. Hazard alone discovered the <i>brassard</i> +(armlet) plot, and the fidelity of Dombrowski disclosed that of Vaysset.</p> + +<p>This commercial agent had gone to Versailles to propose to the Ministry +an operation of revictualling. Shown out, he again turned up, but this +time with the offer to bribe Dombrowski. Under the patronage of Admiral +Saisset—more crazy than ever—he got up his enterprise in the shape of +a commercial society, found shareholders, twenty thousand francs for the +incidental expenses, and entered into communication with an aide-de-camp +of Dombrowski's named Hutzinger, afterwards employed by the Versaillese +police as spy amongst the exiles in London. Vaysset told him that +Versailles would give Dombrowski a million if the general surrendered +the gates under his command. Dombrowski at once apprised the Committee +of Public Safety, and proposed to allow one or two Versaillese army +corps to enter the town and then to crush them by battalions lying in +ambush. The Committee would not risk this venture, but ordered +Dombrowski to follow up the negotiation.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> Hutzinger accompanied +Vaysset to Versailles, saw Saisset, who offered to surrender himself as +hostage in guarantee of the execution of the promises made to +Dombrowski. The admiral was even, on a certain night, to repair secretly +to the Place Vendôme, and the Committee of Public Safety, forewarned, +was preparing to arrest him, when Barthélemy St. Hilaire dissuaded +Saisset from this new blunder.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>Then M. Thiers began to abandon the hope of taking the town by surprise. +This was his hobby of the first days of May. Upon the faith of a +bailiff, who promised to get the Dauphine gate surrendered by his friend +Laporte, chief of the sixteenth legion, M. Thiers had built up a whole +plan in spite of the repugnance of MacMahon and of the army, eager for a +triumphal entry.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> In the night of the 3d May the whole active army +and part of the reserve were set on foot, and General Thiers went to +sleep at Sévres. At midnight the troops were massed in the Bois de +Boulogne before the lower lake, their eyes fixed on the closed gates. +The latter were to be thrown open by a reactionary company which had +formed at Passy under the orders of Wéry, a lieutenant of the +thirty-eighth, acting as deputy of his former commander, Lavigne. But +the intelligent conspirators had forgotten to warn Lavigne, and the +company that was to relieve the Federals having had no order from their +superior, suspected an ambush, and refused the service. Thus the trusty +watch was not relieved. At dawn, after waiting in vain for several +hours, the troops returned to their cantonments. Two days after Laporte +was arrested and set free again, much too soon.</p> + +<p>Beaufond, taking up the bailiff's plan, guaranteed the surrender of the +gates of Auteuil and Dauphine for the night of the 12th to the 13th May. +M. Thiers, again caught, forwarded all the gear for an escalade, and +several detachments were directed towards the Point du Jour, while the +army held itself in readiness to follow. But at the last moment the +profound combinations of the conspirators were foiled,<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> and, as on +the 3rd, the army had to turn tail. This attempt was known to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>the +Committee of Public Safety, who had known nothing of the first one.</p> + +<p>Lasnier was arrested the next day. The Committee had just laid hands +upon the tricolor armlets which the National Guards of order were to +have worn on the entry of the army. The woman Legros, who made them, +neglected to pay the girls in her employ. One of them, believing that +the work was done on account of the Commune, went to ask for her wages +at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Inquiries made at the woman Legros' put them on +the traces of Beaufond and his accomplices. Beaufond and Laroque managed +to hide; Troncin-Dumersan packed off to Versailles. Charpentier thus +remained master of the field. Corbin urged him to organise his men by +tens and hundreds, and traced him out a whole plan by which to get +possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville immediately after the entry of the +troops. Charpentier, always imperturbable, diverted him day by day by +news of fresh conquests, spoke of 20,000 recruits, asked for dynamite to +blow up the houses,<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> and in true Pantagruelic style gobbled up the +considerable sums made over to him by Durouchoux.</p> + +<p>After all, the whole gang of conspirators did not succeed in +surrendering one single gate, but they lent considerable aid in +disorganising the services. Still great care should be taken in availing +oneself of their reports, often inflated with imaginary successes to +justify the disbursement of the hundreds of thousands of francs that +they pocketed.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> All the unpublished reports that I quote and on which I +rely have been copied from the originals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Appendix XI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Appendix XII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> "It was better to take possession of the town by main +force," said the apostolic Comte de Mun (<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. +ii. p. 277). "Thus right manifests itself in peremptory manner"—the +right of carnage, no doubt. "It was better that it should not be said +that we had got in by the back-door."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> It has been stated that a Polish officer of Dombrowski's +staff, killed afterwards during the street fight, was the agent in this +attempted treason. I have been unable, in spite of a minute search, to +discover the least proof of this imputation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> See a letter from Colonel Corbin, quoted in the <i>Histoire +des Conspirations sous la Commune</i>, a work by A. J. Dalsème, arranged in +the form of a novel, but containing some documents.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"C'est par le canon et par la politique que nous avons pris +Paris."—<i>M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 18 Mars.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES—THE EXTREME +LEFT BETRAYS PARIS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Who was the great conspirator against Paris? The Extreme Left.</p> + +<p>On the 19th March, what remained to M. Thiers wherewith to govern +France? He had neither an army, nor cannon, nor the large towns. These +possessed arms, and their workmen were on the alert. If that small +middle-class which makes the provinces endorse the revolutions of the +metropolis had followed the movement, imitated their kindred of Paris, +M. Thiers could not have opposed to them a single regiment. In order to +subsist, retain the provinces, and induce them to provide the soldiers +and the cannon that were to reduce Paris, what were the resources of the +chief of the bourgeoisie? A word and a handful of men. The word was +Republic; the men, the recognised chiefs of the Republican party.</p> + +<p>Though the dull rurals barked at the mere name of the Republic, and +refused to insert it in their proclamations, M. Thiers, more cunning, +mouthed it lustily, and distorting the votes of the Assembly,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> gave +it out as the watchword to his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>underlings.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> Since the first risings +all the provincial officials had the same refrain: "We defend the +Republic against the factions."<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> + +<p>This was certainly something; but the rural votes, the past of M. +Thiers, clashed with these Republican protestations. The former heroes +of the National Defence were no longer acceptable as securities even for +the provinces. M. Thiers was well aware of it, and invoked the purest of +the pure—the chevroned returned from exile. Their prestige was still +intact in the eyes of the provincial democrats. M. Thiers met them in +the lobbies, told them they held the fate of the Republic in their +hands, flattered their senile vanity, and inveigled them so +successfully, that, from the 23rd,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> they served him as +bottle-holders. When the small middle-class republicans of the provinces +beheld the profound Louis Blanc, the intelligent Schœlcher, and the +most famous grumblers of the radical vanguard fly to Versailles, and +insult the Central Committee, and, on the other hand, received neither +programme nor able emissaries from Paris, they turned away, and let the +flame enkindled by the workmen die out.</p> + +<p>The cannonading of the 3rd April roused them a little. On the 5th, the +municipal council of Lille, composed of Republican notabilities, spoke +of conciliation, and called upon M. Thiers to affirm the Republic. That +of Lyons drew up a like address; St. Omer sent delegates to Versailles; +Troyes declared that it was "heart and soul with the heroic citizens who +fought for their republican convictions." Mâcon summoned the Government +and the Assembly to put an end to this struggle by the recognition of +republican institutions. The Drôme, the Var, Vaucluse, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>the Ardèche, the +Loire, Savoy, the Hérault, the Gers, and the Eastern Pyrénées, twenty +departments, issued similar addresses. The workmen of Rouen declared +their adhesion to the Commune; the workmen of Havre, rebuffed by the +bourgeois Republicans, constituted an independent group. On the 16th +April, at Grenoble, 600 men, women, and children went to the station to +prevent the departure of the troops and munitions for Versailles. On the +18th, at Nîmes, the people, headed by a red flag, marched through the +town to the cry of "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris! Down with Versailles!" +On the 16th, 17th, 18th, there were disturbances at Bordeaux. Some +police agents were imprisoned, some officers ill-treated, the infantry +barracks pelted with stones, the people crying, "Vive Paris! Death to +the traitors!" The movement even spread to the agricultural classes. At +Saincoin in the Cher, at the Charité-sur-Loire, at Pouilly in the +Nièvre, the National Guards in arms carried about the red flag. Cosne +followed on the 18th, Fleury-sur-Loire on the 19th. The red flag was +permanently hoisted in the Ariège; at Foix they stopped the transport of +the cannon; at Varilhes they tried to run the munition trains off the +lines. At Périgueux, the workmen of the railway station seized the +mitrailleuses.</p> + +<p>On the 15th April five delegates from the municipal council of Lyons +presented themselves to M. Thiers. He protested his devotion to the +Republic, swore that the Assembly should not turn into a Constituent +Assembly. If he chose his functionaries outside the Republicans, it was +in order to treat all parties with consideration in the interest of the +Republic itself. He defended it against the men of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +its worst enemies, said he; the delegates might assure themselves of +this even in Paris, and he was quite ready to furnish them with +safe-conducts. Besides, if Lyons dared to stir, 30,000 men were ready to +quell it.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>This was his typical speech. All the deputations +received the same answer, given with such an air of bonhommie and such +complaisant familiarity as quite to overwhelm the provincials.</p> + +<p>From the presidency they proceeded to the luminaries of the Extreme +Left, Louis Blanc, Schœlcher, Adam, and other eminent democrats, who +endorsed M. Thiers' words. These gentlemen, if condescending to admit +that the cause of Paris was not altogether wrong, declared it ill-begun +and compromised by a criminal combat. When Paris once disarmed they +would see what could be done. Opportunism is not of yesterday's growth. +It was born<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> into the world on the 19th March, 1871, had Louis Blanc +& Co. for godfathers, and was baptized in the blood of 30,000 Parisians. +"With whom should they treat in Paris?" asked Louis Blanc. "Without +speaking of Bonapartist and Prussian intrigues, the people who were +there striving to seize the government were fanatics, fools, or +rogues."<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> And all the Radicals bridled up: "Should we not be at +Paris if Paris were in the right?" The majority <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>of the delegates, +lawyers, doctors, business men, brought up in veneration of these +shining lights, hearing besides the young men speaking like the +pontiffs, went back to the provinces, and as the Left preached to them, +preached in turn that it was necessary to abandon the Commune in order +to save the Republic. A few of them had visited Paris; but seeing the +divisions of the Hôtel-de-Ville, often received by men unable to +formulate their ideas, threatened by Félix Pyat in the <i>Vengeur</i>, they +came back convinced that nothing could emerge from this disorder. When +they again passed through Versailles the deputies of the Left triumphed. +"Well, what did we tell you?" Even Martin-Bernard gave his electors the +ass's kick.</p> + +<p>At Paris there were people who could not believe in such barefaced +treachery on the part of the Left, and still adjured them. "What are you +about at Versailles when Versailles is bombarding Paris?" said an +address of the end of April. "What figure can you cut in the midst of +these colleagues who assassinate your electors? If you persist in +remaining amongst the enemies of Paris, at least do not make yourselves +their accomplices by your silence. What! you allow M. Thiers to write to +the departments, '<i>The insurgents are emptying the principal houses of +Paris in order to put the furniture to sale</i>,' and you do not ascend the +tribune to protest! What! the whole Bonapartist and rural press may +inundate the departments with infamous articles, in which they affirm +that at Paris murder, violation, and theft reign supreme, and you are +silent! What! M. Thiers may assert that his gendarmes do not assassinate +the prisoners; you cannot ignore these atrocious executions, and you are +silent! Ascend the tribune; tell the departments the truth, which the +enemies of the Commune conceal from them. But our enemies, are they +yours also?"</p> + +<p>A useless appeal, which the cowardice of the Left knew how to elude. +Louis Blanc, in his Tartuffe style, exclaimed, "O civil war! hideous +struggle! The cannon thunder! People are killing each other and dying; +and those in the Assembly who would willingly give their life to see +this sanguinary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>problem pacifically resolved are condemned to the +torture of not being able to make an act, utter a cry, speak a word." +Since the birth of the French Assemblies so ignominious a Left had never +been seen. The spectacle of the prisoners smitten, reviled, spat upon, +was unable to draw a protest from these wretched Parisian deputies. One +only, Tolain, asked for an explanation on the assassination at the +Belle-Epine. Louis Blanc, Schœlcher, Greppo, Adam, Langlois, Brisson, +&c., the Gérontes and the Scapins, sanctimoniously contemplated their +bombarded electors, and, fully aware of the facile forgetfulness of +Paris, dreamt of their future re-election.</p> + +<p>Their calumnies succeeded in stifling the action but not the anguish of +the provinces. With heart and soul the workmen of France were with +Paris. The employés at the railway stations harangued the soldiers on +their passage, adjuring them to raise the butt-ends of their guns; the +official placards were torn during the night; the large centres sent +their addresses by the hundred; all the Republican papers demanded +peace, sought for some method of conciliation between Paris and +Versailles.</p> + +<p>Paris and Versailles! The agitation becoming chronic, M. Thiers launched +forth Dufaure, the Chapelier of the modern bourgeoisie, one of the most +odious executors of its dirty work. He enjoined his procureurs to +prosecute all the writers countenancing the Commune, "that dictatorship +usurped by foreigners and ticket-of-leave men, which signalises its +reign by burglary, breaking open private houses in the dead of night and +by force of arms," and to lay hands upon "the conciliators who entreat +the Assembly to hold out its noble hand to the blood-stained hand of its +enemies." Versailles thus hoped to strike terror at the moment of the +municipal elections, which took place on the 30th April.</p> + +<p>They were everywhere Republican. These provinces, which had risen +against Paris in June, 1848, and in the elections of 1849, did not send +a hundred volunteers in 1871, and would only fight the Assembly. At +Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme) the people occupied the Hôtel-de-Ville, hoisted the +red flag, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>seized the telegraphs. There occurred disturbances at +Souppe, Nemours, Château-Landau, in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. +At Dordives (Loiret) the Communards planted a poplar surmounted by the +red flag in front of the mairie. At Montargis they raised the red flag, +placarded the appeal of the Commune to the rural districts, and forced a +solicitor who had tried to tear down the placard to ask pardon on his +knees. At Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) a demonstration took place to the +cries of "Vive la République! Vive la Commune!"</p> + +<p>Lyons rose in insurrection. Since the 24th March the tricolor lorded it +here, save at the Guillotière,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> where the people maintained the red +one. The Council on its return to the Hôtel-de-Ville had demanded the +recognition of the rights of Paris, the election of a Constituent +Assembly, and named an officer of <i>francs-tireurs</i>, Bourras, commander +of the National Guard. While the Council multiplied its addresses and +its applications to M. Thiers, the National Guard was again stirring. It +presented a programme to the municipal council, which officially +rejected it. The rebuff met by the delegates sent to Versailles +increased the irritation. When the communal elections were announced for +the 30th April, the revolutionary element maintained that the municipal +law voted by the Assembly was null and void, because that Assembly had +not the rights of a constituent one. Two delegates from Paris summoned +the mayor, Hénon, to postpone the elections; and one of the actors in +the affray of the 28th September, Gaspard Blanc, reappeared on the +scene. The Radicals, always upon the scent of Bonapartism, have made +much ado about the presence of that personage. However, at that time he +was as yet but a madcap, and only in exile put on the Imperialist +livery. On the 27th, at the Brotteaux, in a large public meeting, +abstention from voting was decided upon. All the committees of the +Guillotière followed, and in a public sitting of the 29th resolved to +oppose the vote.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>On the 30th, the day of the elections, from six o'clock in the morning +the <i>rappel</i> was beaten at the Guillotière; armed citizens carried off +the ballot-boxes, and posted sentinels at the entrance of the hall. A +proclamation was placarded: "The city of Lyons can no longer look on +while her sister the heroic city of Paris is being strangled. The +Lyonnese revolutionists have with one accord named a Provisional +Commission. Its members are above all determined, rather than sustain +defeat, to make one heap of ruins of a town cowardly enough to allow the +assassination of Paris and the Republic." The Place de la Mairie was +thronged with an excited crowd; the mayor, Crestin, and his adjutant, +who attempted to interfere, were not listened to, and a Revolutionary +Commission installed itself in the Mairie.</p> + +<p>Bourras sent an order to the commanders of the Guillotière to unite +their battalions. They drew up towards two o'clock in the Des Brosses +court. A great number of guards disapproved the movement, yet no one was +willing to be the soldier of Versailles. The crowd surrounded them, and +finally broke the ranks; about a hundred, led by their captain, went to +the Mairie to hoist their red field-colours. The mayor was sent for, and +the Commission called upon him to join the movement; but he refused, as +he had done on the 22nd March. Suddenly the cannon thundered.</p> + +<p>Hénon and his council, as the month before, would have liked to +temporise; while Valentin and Crouzat dreamt of Espivent. At five +o'clock the 38th of the line debouched by the bridge of the Guillotière; +the crowd penetrated into the ranks of the soldiers, conjuring them not +to fire, and the officers were constrained to take back their men to the +barracks. During this time the Guillotière was fortifying itself. A +large barricade, extending from the store-houses of the Nouveau-Monde to +the angle of the Mairie, barred the Grande Rue; another was thrown up at +the entrance of the Rue des Trois Rois; a third on a level with the Rue +de Chabrol.</p> + +<p>At half-past six the 38th came out of their barracks, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>this time +watched by a battalion of chasseurs. Valentin, Crouzat, and the +procureur de la république marched at their head. In front of the mairie +the Riot Act was read; some shots answered it, wounding the prefect. The +cavalry swept the Des Brosses court and the Place de la Mairie, while +two pieces of cannon opened fire on the edifice. Its doors soon gave way +and the occupants abandoned it. The troops entered after having killed +the sentinel, intent upon mounting guard to the very last. It has been +said that five insurgents, taken by surprise in the interior of the +building, were killed by a Versaillese officer with shots from his +revolver.</p> + +<p>The struggle continued during part of the night in the neighbouring +streets, and the soldiers, deceived by the darkness, killed about a +hundred of their own men. The losses of the Communards were less great. +By three o'clock in the morning all was over.</p> + +<p>At the Croix-Rousse some citizens had invaded the mairie and scattered +the voting-papers; the check of the Guillotière cut short their +resistance.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese took advantage of this victory to disarm the battalions +of the Guillotière; but the population refused, rallying round the +victors. Some monarchists had been elected during the day, but everybody +considering the elections of the 30th null and void, they were obliged +to submit to a second ballot, and not one of them was re-elected. The +movement in favour of Paris continued.</p> + +<p>These newly-elected republican councillors might have effectively +counterbalanced the authority of Versailles; the advanced press +encouraged them. The <i>Tribune</i> of Bordeaux had the honour first to +propose a congress of all the towns of France, for the purpose of +terminating the civil war, assuring the municipal franchises, and +consolidating the Republic. The municipal council of Lyons issued an +identical programme, inviting all the municipalities to send delegates +to Lyons. On the 4th May the delegates of the councils of the principal +towns of the Hérault met at Montpellier. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span><i>Liberté</i> of the Hérault, +in a warm appeal reproduced by fifty journals, convoked the departmental +press to a congress. A common action was about to take the place of the +incoherent agitations of the last few weeks. If the provinces understood +their own strength, the time, their wants—if they found a group of men +equal to the occasion, Versailles, taken between Paris and the +departments, would have been obliged to capitulate to Republican France. +M. Thiers, with a vivid presentment of the danger, affected the attitude +of a strong Government, and energetically forbade the congresses. "The +Government would betray the Assembly, France, civilisation," said the +<i>Officiel</i> of the 8th May, "if it allowed the assizes of Communism and +of the rebellion to constitute themselves by the side of the regular +power issued from universal suffrage." Picard, speaking from the tribune +of the instigation of the congress, said, "Never was there a more +criminal attempt than theirs. Outside the Assembly there exists no +right." The procureurs-généraux and the prefects received the order to +prevent all meetings. Some members of the <i>Ligue des Droits de Paris</i> on +their way to Bordeaux were arrested.</p> + +<p>More was not needed to frighten the Radicals. The organisers of the +congress of Bordeaux held their peace; those of Lyons wrote a piteous +address to Versailles, to the effect that they had only intended +convoking an assembly of the notables. M. Thiers, having attained his +object, disdained to prosecute them, even allowed the delegates of +eighteen departments to draw up their grievances, and seriously declare +that they "made that one of the two combatants responsible who should +refuse their conditions." And yet they might feel proud. Their chief had +done less. Gambetta had retired to Spain, to St. Sébastien, and there, +mute, without a sign of sympathy for those who sacrificed themselves for +the Republic, he in a cynical <i>far niente</i> awaited the issue of the +civil war.</p> + +<p>Thus the small middle-class of the provinces missed a rare chance of +conquering their liberties, of again taking up their grand rôle of 1792. +It became obvious how much its blood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>and its intelligence had been +impoverished by a long political vassalage and the complete absence of +all municipal life. From the 19th March to the 5th April they had +forsaken the workmen, when by seconding their efforts they might have +saved and continued the Revolution. When at last they wanted to +pronounce, they found themselves alone, the toy and laughing-stock of +their enemies. Such is their history since Robespierre.</p> + +<p>So on the 10th May M. Thiers entirely mastered the situation. Making use +of all arms, of corruption as well as of patriotism, lying in his +telegrams, making his journals lie, by turns familiar and haughty in his +interviews with the deputations, putting forward now his gendarmes, now +the deputies of the Left, he had succeeded in baffling all attempts at +conciliation. He had just signed the peace of Frankfort, and, free on +this side, rid of the provinces, he remained alone face to face with +Paris.</p> + +<p>It was time. Five weeks of siege had exhausted the patience of the +rurals; the suspicions of the first days were reviving; they fancied +that the "petit bourgeois" was procrastinating in order to spare Paris. +The <i>Union des Syndicats</i> had just published a report of a new +interview, in which M. Thiers had seemed to relax. A deputy of the Right +rushed to the tribune accusing M. Thiers of putting off the entry into +Paris. He answered curtly, "The opening by our army of trenches only six +hundred yards from Paris does not signify that we do not want to enter +there." The following day, 12th May, the Right returned to the charge. +Was it true that M. Thiers had said to the mayor of Bordeaux, "If the +insurgents will cease hostilities the gates of Paris shall be flung wide +open during a week for all except the assassins of the generals?" Could +it be that the Government intended withdrawing some Parisians out of the +clutches of the Assembly? M. Thiers inveighed, whined. "You select the +day when I am exiled, on which my house is being pulled down. It is an +indignity. I am obliged to command terrible acts; I command them. I must +have a vote of confidence." At last, nettled out of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>patience, he +retorted upon the rural growls with a snarl. "I tell you that there are +among you imprudent men, who are in too great a hurry. They must have +another eight days. At the end of these eight days there will be no more +danger, and the task will be proportionate to their courage and to their +capacity."</p> + +<p>Eight days! Do you hear, members of the Commune?</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> On the 23rd, Picard telegraphed to the procureur-general +of Aix: "The Republic was, the day before yesterday, again affirmed in a +proclamation of the Assembly." The very proclamation which the Assembly +had refused to conclude by the cry "Vive la République!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> The same day—it was that of the Marseilles +insurrection—Dufaure telegraphed to the same procureur-general: "Read +the name République Française at the head of all the despatches I send +you."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> I have in my possession about twenty proclamations of +prefects or magistrates. They are all on this point identically the +same.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "A great speech of the President of the Council has been +applauded by the Extreme left." The speech of the 21st March against +Paris. Dufaure to the procureur-general at Aix, 23rd March.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> He confessed his trickery in a speech pronounced at +Bordeaux in 1875: "I was enabled with the remains of the defeated army +to unite a military force of 150,000 men, but if this force was +sufficient to tear Paris from the Commune, it could not have kept down +the large towns of France, keenly bent on the maintenance of the +Republic, and coming to ask me with distrust and irritation if it were +the monarchy that we combated for."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> I should say "resuscitated," if it were not doing these +eunuchs too much honour to compare them to Robespierre, who by their +side appears a hero. But how prevent one's thoughts from wandering to +the pontiff declaring inopportune the Republican outburst of June-July +1791; inopportune the cries of Paris famished by engrossers; inopportune +the people asking for a single article in their favour in the +Constitution of 1798; inopportune the commissaries, without whom France +would have been dismembered; inopportune the great movement against the +Church; inopportune the Socialists and Jacques Roux, whom he did to +death; inopportune the popular societies closed by him, and after the +disappearance of which Paris expired; inopportune Clootz, yearning to +rally round France all the revolutionary forces of the world; +inopportune Hébert, who, nevertheless, had helped him to stifle the +Socialists; inopportune, in fine, all that was not cut out after his own +amiable pattern up to the day when he was himself declared inopportune +by the great bourgeoisie, who found it as easy as opportune to swallow +him at a mouthful as soon as he had purged, bled, muzzled for them the +revolutionary lion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Appendix XIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> The workmen's quarter in Lyons.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC +SAFETY—EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE +OF ISSY—THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY—THE EXPLOSION IN +THE AVENUE RAPP—FALL OF THE VENDÔME COLUMN.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>At the advent of the new Committee on the 10th May our military +situation had not changed within the line from St. Ouen to Neuilly, +where both sides faced each other on the same level; but it was becoming +serious from La Muette. The powerful battery of Montretout, that of +Meudon, of Mont-Valérien, covered Passy with shells and greatly injured +the ramparts. The Versaillese trenches extended from Boulogne to the +Seine. Their skirmishers were pressing upon the village of Issy, and +occupied the trenches between the fort and that of Vanves, which they +tried to cut off from Montrouge. The negligence of the defence was still +the same. The ramparts from La Muette to the fort of Vanves were hardly +armed; our gunboats supported almost alone the fire of Meudon, Clamart, +and Val-Fleury.</p> + +<p>The first act of the new Committee was to order the demolition of M. +Thiers' house. This giddy act helped the bombarder to a palace, which +the Assembly voted him the day after. Then the Committee issued its +proclamation: "Treason had slipped into," &c.</p> + +<p>Delescluze issued one on his own account. He dragged himself along, +panting for breath, and might well say, "If I consulted only my strength +I should have declined this function. The situation is grave; but when I +contemplate the sublime future in store for our children, even though it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>should not be given us to reap what we have sown, I shall still +enthusiastically hail the revolution of the 18th March."</p> + +<p>On entering the Ministry, he found the Central Committee also +elaborating a proclamation. "The Central Committee declares that it is +its duty not to allow this revolution of the 18th March, which it had so +well begun, to succumb. It will unsparingly break down all resistance. +It is determined to make an end of all controversies, put down the +malignants, quell rivalry, ignorance, and incapacity." This was to speak +more authoritatively than the Council, and, above all, to flatter itself +strangely.</p> + +<p>From the first night it was necessary to repair a disaster. The fort of +Vanves, upon which all the fires formerly directed against Issy were now +concentrated, had become almost untenable, and its commander had +evacuated it. Wroblewski, informed of this, took the command from La +Cécilia, who had fallen ill, and in the night of the 10th to the 11th +hurried thither at the head of the 187th and the 105th battalions of the +celebrated 11th legion, which up to the last day did not cease to supply +the defence with men. At four o'clock in the morning Wroblewski appeared +before the glacis where the Versaillese were stationed, charged them at +the point of the bayonet, put them to flight, took some prisoners, and +recovered the fort. Once more our brave Federals showed what they could +do when properly commanded.</p> + +<p>During the day the Versaillese recommenced the bombardment. They +overwhelmed the convent Des Oiseaux and the whole village of Issy, whose +principal street was now one heap of ruins, with shells, grenades filled +with potassium picrate. On the night of the 12th to the 13th they +surprised the Lycée of Vanves, and on the 13th they attacked the +seminary of Issy. For five days Brunel exhausted himself in trying to +bring a little order into the defence of this village. Rossel had sent +for this brave member of the Council, whom the jealousy of coteries kept +at a distance, and said to him, "The situation of Issy is almost lost; +will you undertake its defence?" Brunel devoted himself, threw up +barricades, asked for artillery (there were only four pieces), and new +battalions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>to relieve the 2,000 men who had held out for forty-one +days.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> They only sent him two or three hundred men. He tried to make +something of these, and fortified the seminary, which the Federals, +under a hailstorm of shells, were unable to hold. Brunel organised a +second line of defence in the houses of the village, and in the evening +repaired to the War Office, where Delescluze wanted him to assist at the +Council of War.</p> + +<p>The first and only Council of War held under the Commune. Dombrowski, +Wroblewski, and La Cécilia were present. Dombrowski, very enthusiastic, +spoke of raising 100,000 men. Wroblewski, more practical, proposed to +concentrate all the efforts uselessly spent at Neuilly against the +trenches of the south. After a long debate no conclusion was come to. +When Brunel arrived the sitting was already raised; so he was obliged to +go and look for Delescluze at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and then he retraced +his steps to Issy. At the gate of Versailles he perceived his battalions +on the other side of the rampart. These, deaf to their chiefs, had +evacuated the village and wanted to re-enter the town. Brunel forbade +the lowering of the drawbridge, and tried to get out by the gates of +Vanves, where they refused to let him pass. He returned to the War +Office, explained the situation, asked for men, wandered about the whole +night looking for some, and at four o'clock in the morning set out with +150 Federals, but found the village entirely occupied by the +Versaillese. The officers of Issy were tried by court-martial. Brunel +gave evidence, and complained bitterly of the culpable carelessness +which had paralysed the defence. For answer he was arrested.</p> + +<p>He spoke but too truly. The disorder of the War Office rendered all +resistance chimerical. Delescluze had brought only his devotion. Of a +weak character despite his apparent rigidity, he was at the mercy of the +general staff, still directed by Prodhomme, who, surviving all his +chiefs, had succeeded in making himself thought indispensable. The +Central Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>mittee, emboldened by the timidity of the Council, intruded +everywhere, published decrees, ordered the payment of expenses without +submitting them to the control of the Military Commission. The members +of the Commission, men of intelligence, but belonging to the minority, +complained to the Committee of Public Safety, which replaced them by +Romanticists. The dispute went on all the same, and waxed so violent +that rumours of a rupture between the Council and the Central Committee +spread amongst the legions.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese, on their part, still pushed on. In the night of the +13th to the 14th the fort of Vanves, which now only fired occasional +volleys, was quite extinguished, and could no more be rekindled. The +garrison, cut off on all sides, retired by the quarries of Montrouge, +and the Versaillese occupied what remained of the fort. There was again +an ovation at Versailles.</p> + +<p>On the 16th May we had not a single man from the left bank to the Petit +Vanves, where about 2,000 Federals, under the command of La Cécilia and +Lisbonne, were encamped. We attempted to retake the village of Issy, but +were repulsed. Henceforth the enemy could continue his approaches and +arm the two bastions of the fort of Issy that faced the town. His fire, +counteracted for a moment by the ramparts, now showed a marked +superiority, and joined the batteries that crushed the sixteenth +arrondissement. This unfortunate quarter was now taken in enfilade from +the front and the flank by nearly a hundred ordnance pieces. It was +indeed time to think of the defence of the interior. Delescluze extended +the powers of the three generals to the quarters of the town contiguous +to their command; he disbanded the battalion of the barricades, which +had been of no utility whatever; he confided the works to the military +engineers, and made an appeal to the navvies. But all his decrees +remained so much waste paper or were crossed by others. When the +delegate offered the navvies 3 francs 50 centimes, the Committee of +Public Safety, in the same column of the <i>Officiel</i>, offered them 3 +francs 75 centimes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>The Committee of Public Safety contributed to the defence by a decree +obliging all the inhabitants of Paris to provide themselves with a civil +card, whose production might be requested by any National Guard—as +impracticable and unpractised a decree as that on the refractory +recruits. The Hôtel-de-Ville awed nobody; behind its big words impotence +made itself felt. On the 12th, some battalions having surrounded the +Bank and wanting to make a search, old Beslay prevented them doing so, +and the terrible dictators of the Committee of Public Safety disavowed +their own agent. The public chaffed—a terrible thing! A last blow, and +it was all over with the authority of the Commune; and this blow came +from the minority.</p> + +<p>The latter was exasperated at seeing its most capable members expelled +from the services—Vermorel from the Commission of Public Safety, +Longuet from the <i>Officiel</i>, Varlin from the Commissariat—and was +struck with dismay at the disorder of the War Office. It had the +unfortunate idea of denying its own responsibility, prepared a +manifesto, and brought it to the sitting of the 15th. The majority, +forewarned, with the exception of four or five members, kept away. The +minority had their absence verified, and instead of waiting for the next +sitting, sent the declaration to the papers. "The Commune," it said, +"has abdicated its power into the hands of a dictatorship, to which it +has given the name of Committee of Public Safety. The majority has +declared itself irresponsible by its vote. The minority, on the +contrary, affirms that the Commune owes it to the revolutionary movement +to accept all responsibilities. As to ourselves, we claim the right of +being alone answerable for our acts without screening ourselves behind a +supreme dictatorship. We withdraw to our arrondissements. Convinced that +the question of the war takes the lead of all other ones, we shall spend +the time left us by our municipal functions in the midst of our brothers +of the National Guard."</p> + +<p>A great fault this, and altogether inexcusable. The minority had not the +right to cry out about a dictatorship, having <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>voted, without making any +express reserve, for the second Committee. It had not the right to say +that the elected delegates of the people were encroaching upon its +sovereignty, for this concentration of power was quite accidental, +necessitated by the battle, and leaving the principle of the people's +sovereignty intact under ordinary circumstances. It would have been more +dignified to openly disavow the acts of the Committee, and then propose +something better themselves. It would have been logical, since "the +question of the war took the lead of all others," not to thus morally +weaken the defence by deserting the Hôtel-de-Ville. It was not with a +view to retain them in their arrondissements that the arrondissements +had sent delegates to the Council.</p> + +<p>Several members of the minority brought the question before public +meetings, which called on them to return to their posts. Those of the +fourth arrondissement gave an explanation in the Théâtre-Lyrique, in +which they said "that their guiding principle was that the Commune was +to be only the executive agent of the public will, manifesting itself +continually, and indicating day by day what was to be done to secure the +triumph of the revolution." No doubt that principle was correct, and the +revolution can only be made safe by the direct legislation of the +people. But was this a time to legislate when the cannon ruled supreme? +And in the midst of the fire, is the "executive agent" to expect that +the soldier who does battle for him will also bring him ideas?</p> + +<p>The Versaillese journals crowed over this manifesto. Many of those who +had signed it understood their mistake, and fifteen of them presented +themselves at the sitting of the 17th. The Council had never been so +numerous; the roll-call was answered by sixty-six members. The Council +was first taken up with a proposition prompted by a traitor. Barral de +Montaut, chief of the staff of the 7th legion, had just published that +the Versaillese of Vanves had shot an ambulancière of the Commune. +Urbain, urged by Montaut, who had managed to gain his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>friendship, asked +that, as reprisal, five hostages should be shot in the interior of +Paris, and five at the advanced posts. The Council passed to the order +of the day. Immediately after this incident, a member of the majority +interpellated those of the minority. He demonstrated without any +difficulty the futility of the reasons invoked in their manifesto, and, +growing warm, called his adversaries Girondists. "What! Girondists!" +answered Frankel; "one can see that you go to bed at night and get up in +the morning with the <i>Moniteur</i> of 1793, else you would know the +difference there is between us Socialist Revolutionists and the +Girondists." The discussion became heated. Vallès, who had signed the +manifesto, said, "I have declared that we must come to an understanding +with the majority; but they must also respect the minority, which is a +force;" and he demanded that all forces should be turned against the +enemy. Citizen Miot answered severely from the profound depths of his +beard. A member of the majority spoke of conciliation; immediately Félix +Pyat, to incense their ire, asked for the reading of the manifesto. In +vain Vaillant said, with sense and justice, "When our colleagues come +back to us disavowing their programme, we must not put it under their +eyes to engage them to persevere in their faults," and a conciliatory +order of the day was beaten by that of Miot, drawn up in terms offensive +to the minority.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a tremendous explosion interrupted the dispute. Billioray +rushed into the room with the news that the cartridge factory of the +Avenue Rapp had just blown up.</p> + +<p>The whole east of Paris was shaken. A pyramid of flame, of molten lead, +human remains, burning timber and bullets burst forth from the +Champ-de-Mars to an enormous height, and showered down upon the +environs. Four houses fell in; more than forty persons were wounded, and +the catastrophe would have been still more terrible if the firemen of +the Commune had not torn waggons of cartridges and barrels of gunpowder +from the midst of the flames. A maddened crowd gather, and believe in a +crime; a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>individuals were arrested, and an artillerist was taken to +the Ecole Militaire.</p> + +<p>Who was the culprit? Nobody knows. Neither the Council nor the procureur +of the Commune examined the affair. Yet the Committee of Public Safety +announced in a proclamation that it held four of the culprits, and +Delescluze that the case was to be sent before the court-martial. No +more was heard about it, although it was as much the duty as the +interest of the Council to throw light upon this affair. A serious +inquest would probably have revealed a crime. The women, who usually +left the factory at seven o'clock, had been on that day dismissed at six +o'clock. It has been seen that Charpentier asked Corbin for dynamite; it +might have been very useful to the conspirators to spread panic with one +stroke at the War Office, the Ecole Militaire, the artillery park and +the huts of the Champ-de-Mars, which were always occupied by a few +Federals.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Paris firmly believed in a plot. The reactionists said, +"This is the revenge for the Vendôme column."</p> + +<p>It had been pulled down the evening before with great ceremony. Its +demolition, the idea of which had become quite current during the first +siege,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> was decreed on the 12th April.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> This inspiration, +popular, humane, profound, showing that a war of classes was to +supersede the war of nations, aimed at the same time a blow at the +ephemeral triumph of the Prussian. The rather expensive preparations, +costing almost 15,000 francs, had been much protracted, owing to the +lukewarmness of the engineer and the continual efforts to suborn the +workmen. On the 16th May, at two o'clock, an immense crowd thronged all +the neighbouring streets, rather anxious as to the result of the +operation. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>The reactionists foretold all sorts of catastrophes; the +engineer, on the contrary, affirmed that there would be no shock; that +the column would break to pieces during its descent. He had sawn it +horizontally a little above the pedestal; a slanting groove was to +facilitate the fall backwards upon a vast bed of faggots, sand, and +dung, accumulated in the direction of the Rue de la Paix.</p> + +<p>A rope attached to the summit of the column was twisted round a capstan +fixed at the entrance of the street. The place was crowded with National +Guards; the windows, the roofs were filled with curious spectators. In +default of MM. Jules Simon and Ferry, erewhile warm partisans of the +operation, M. Glais-Bizoin felicitated the new prefect of police, Ferré, +who had just taken the place of Cournet, and confided to him that for +forty years it had been his ardent desire to see the expiatory monument +demolished. The bands played the "Marseillaise," the capstan turned +about, the pulley broke, and a man was wounded. Already rumours of +treason circulated among the crowd; but a second pulley was soon +supplied. At a quarter past five an officer appeared on the balustrade +for some time, waved a tricolor flag, then fixed it on the rails. At +half-past five the capstan again turned, and a few minutes after the +extremity of the column slowly displaced itself; the shaft little by +little gave way, then, suddenly reeling to and fro, broke and fell with +a low moan. The head of Bonaparte rolled on the ground, and his +parricidal arm lay detached from the trunk. An immense acclamation, as +that of a people freed from a yoke, burst forth. The ruins were climbed +upon and saluted by enthusiastic cries, and the red flag floated from +the purified pedestal, which on that day had become the altar of the +human race.</p> + +<p>The people wanted to divide among themselves the fragments of the +column, but were prevented by the inopportune interference of the +Council members present. A week afterwards, the Versaillese picked them +up. One of the first acts of the victorious bourgeoisie was to again +raise this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>enormous block, the symbol of their sovereignty. To lift up +Cæsar on his pedestal they needed a scaffolding of 30,000 corpses. Like +the mothers under the First Empire, may those of our days never look +upon this bronze without weeping.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> These were what General Appert calls the Brunel brigade. +7882 strong.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Appendix XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> During the first siege, the <i>Journal Officiel</i> of the +mairie of Paris had inserted a letter from Courbet demanding the +overthrow of the column.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Thus Courbet was not as yet a member of the Council. +Nevertheless he was considered as the principal author of the fall of +the column, and condemned in the costs of its re-erection.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p class="cen">PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH.</p> +<br /> + +<p>The Paris of the Commune has but three days more to live; let us engrave +upon our memory her luminous physiognomy.</p> + +<p>He who has breathed in thy life that fiery fever of contemporaneous +history, who has panted on thy boulevards and wept in thy faubourgs, who +has sung to the morns of thy revolutions and a few weeks after bathed +his hands in powder behind thy barricades, he who can hear from beneath +thy stones the voices of the martyrs of sublime ideas and read in every +one of thy streets a date of human progress, even he does less justice +to thy original grandeur than the stranger, though a Philistine, who +came to glance at thee during the days of the Commune. The attraction of +rebellious Paris was so strong that men hurried thither from America to +behold this spectacle unprecedented in the world's history—the greatest +town of the European continent in the hands of the proletarians. Even +the pusillanimous were drawn towards her.</p> + +<p>In the first days of May one of our friends arrived—one of the most +timid men of the timid provinces. His kith and kin had escorted him on +his departure, tears in their eyes, as though he were descending into +the infernal regions. He said to us, "What is true in all the rumours +bruited about?" "Well, come and search all the recesses of the den."</p> + +<p>We set out from the Bastille. Street-arabs cry Rochefort's <i>Mot +d'Ordre</i>, the <i>Père Duchêne</i>, Jules Vallès' <i>Cri du Peuple</i>, Félix +Pyat's <i>Vengeur</i>, <i>La Commune</i>, <i>L'Affranchi</i>, <i>Le Pilori des +Mouchards</i>. The <i>Officiel</i> is little asked for; the journalists of the +Council stifle it by their competition. The <i>Cri du Peuple</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>has a +circulation of 100,000. It is the earliest out; it rises with +chanticleer. If we have an article by Vallès this morning, we are in +luck; but in his stead, Pierre Denis, with his autonomy <i>à outrance</i>, +makes himself too often heard. Only buy the <i>Père Duchêne</i> once, though +its circulation is more than 60,000. Take Félix Pyat's article in the +<i>Vengeur</i> as a fine example of literary intoxication. The bourgeoisie +has no better helpmates than these vain and ignorant claptrap-mongers. +Here is the doctrinaire journal <i>La Commune</i>, in which Millière +sometimes writes, and in which Georges Duchêne takes the young men and +the old of the Hôtel-de-Ville to task with a severity which would better +fit another character than his. Do not forget the <i>Mot d'Ordre</i>, +whatever the romanticists may say. It was one of the first to support +the Revolution of the 18th March, and darted terrible arrows at the +Versaillese.</p> + +<p>In the kiosques are the caricatures. Thiers, Picard, and Jules Favre +figure as the Three Graces, clasping each other's paunches. This fine +fish, the <i>maquereau</i>, with the blue-green scales, who is making up a +bed with an imperial crown, is the Marquis de Gallifet. <i>L'Avenir</i>, the +mouthpiece of the <i>Ligue</i>. <i>Le Siècle</i>, become very hostile since the +arrest of Gustave Chaudey; and <i>La Vérité</i>, the Yankee Portalis's paper, +are piled up, melancholy and intact. Many reactionist papers have been +suppressed by the prefecture, but for all that are not dead; for a lad, +without any mystery about him, offers them to us.</p> + +<p>Read, search, find one appeal to murder, to pillage, a single cruel line +in all these Communard journals excited by the battle, and then compare +them with the Versaillese papers, demanding fusillades <i>en masse</i> as +soon as the troops shall have vanquished Paris.</p> + +<p>Let us follow those catafalques that are being taken up the Rue de la +Roquette, and enter with them into the Père Lachaise cemetery. All those +who die for Paris are entombed with obsequies in the great +resting-place. The Commune has claimed the honour of paying for their +funerals; its red flag blazes from the four corners of the hearse, +followed by some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>comrades of the battalion, while a few passers-by +always join the procession. This is a wife accompanying her dead +husband. A member of the Council follows the coffin; at the grave he +speaks not of regrets, but of hope, of vengeance. The widow presses her +children in her arms, and says to them, "Remember and cry with me, 'Vive +la République! Vive la Commune!'"<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p>On retracing our steps, we pass by the mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement. It is hung with black, the mourning of the last +Imperialist plébiscite, of which the people of Paris was innocent and +became the victim. We cross the Place de la Bastille, gay, animated by +the ginger-bread fair. Paris will yield nothing to the cannon; she has +even prolonged the annual fair for a week. The swings move to and fro, +the wheels-of-fortune turn, booth-keepers cry their sixpenny wares, the +mountebanks allure spectators, and promise half their receipts to the +wounded.</p> + +<p>We go down these great boulevards. A crowd pushes against the Napoleon +Circus, where 5,000 people are gathered, filling it from the area to the +ceiling. Small flags, each one bearing the name of a department, urge +the provincials to group themselves. This meeting has been called by +some merchants, who propose to the citizens of the departments to send +delegates to their respective deputies, in the belief that the latter +may be brought round and peace gained by explanations. A tall, thin man, +with a sad face, asks for permission to address the people, and gets +upon the platform. It is Millière, whom the crowd cheers. "Peace," said +he, "we all wish for it, citizens. But who, then, has commenced the war? +Who attacked Paris on the 18th March? M. Thiers. Who attacked her on the +2nd April? M. Thiers. Who has spoken of conciliation, multiplied +attempts at peace? Paris. Who has always repulsed them? M. Thiers. +Conciliation! M. Dufaure has said, 'Why, insurrection is less criminal.' +And that which neither the Freemasons, nor the leagues, nor the +addresses, nor the municipal councillors of the provinces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>could do, you +expect to get from a deputation chosen from amongst the Parisians! See, +without knowing it, you are enervating the defence. No, no more +deputations, but active correspondence with the provinces—there lies +salvation!" "This, then, is that energumen whom we are so frightened of +in the provinces!" exclaimed our friend. "Yes, and these thousands of +men of all conditions, who in common seek for peace, consult each other, +answer courteously, these are the demented people, the handful of +bandits who hold the capital."</p> + +<p>Before the Prince Eugène Barracks we notice the 1,500 soldiers who +remained in Paris on the 18th March, and whom the Commune entertains +without asking them for any service. At the top of the Boulevard Magenta +we visit the numerous skeletons of the St. Laurent Church, arranged in +the same order they were found in, without coffins or winding-sheets. +Are not interments in churches formally prohibited? Some, however, Notre +Dame des Victoires especially, abound in skeletons. Is it not the duty +of the Commune to expose these illegal proceedings, which are perhaps +crimes?</p> + +<p>On the boulevards, from Bonne-Nouvelle to the Opéra, we find the same +Paris loitering before the shops, sitting in front of the cafés. +Carriages are rare, for the second siege has cut short the provisions +for horses. By the Rue du 4 Septembre we reach the Stock Exchange, +surmounted by the red flag, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, where +readers are sitting round the long tables. Crossing the Palais-Royal, +whose arcades are always noisy, we come to the Museum of the Louvre; the +rooms, hung with their pictures, are open to the public. The Versaillese +journals none the less say the Commune is selling the national +collections to foreigners.</p> + +<p>We descend the Rue de Rivoli. On the right, in the Rue Castiglione, a +huge barricade obstructs the entrance of the Place Vendôme. The issue of +the Place de la Concorde is barred by the St. Florentin redoubt, +stretching to the Ministry of Marine on its right, and the garden of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>Tuileries on its left, with three rather badly directed embrasures +eight yards wide. An enormous ditch, laying bare all the arteries of +subterranean life, separates the place from the redoubt. The workmen are +giving it the finishing stroke, and cover the epaulments with gazon. +Many promenaders look on inquisitively, and more than one brow lowers. A +corridor skilfully constructed conducts us to the Place de la Concorde. +The proud profile of the Strasbourg statue stands out against the red +flags. The Communards, who are accused of ignoring France, have piously +replaced the faded crowns of the first siege by fresh spring flowers.</p> + +<p>We now enter the zone of battle. The avenue of the Champs-Elysées +unrolls its long-deserted line, cut by the dismal bursting of the shells +from Mont-Valérien and Courbevoie. These reach as far as the Palais de +l'Industrie, whose treasures the employés of the Commune courageously +protect. In the distance rises the mighty bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. +The sight-seers of the first days have disappeared, for the Place de +l'Etoile has become almost as deadly as the rampart. The shells break +off the bas-reliefs that M. Jules Simon had caused to be iron-clad +against the Prussians. The main arch is walled up to stop the +projectiles that enfiladed it. Behind this barricade they are getting +ready to mount some pieces on the platform, which is almost as high as +Mont-Valérien.</p> + +<p>By the Faubourg St. Honoré we pass along the Champs-Elysées. In the +right angle comprised between the Avenue de la Grande Armée, that of the +Ternes, the ramparts, and the Avenue Wagram there is not a house intact. +You see M. Thiers "does not bombard Paris, as the people of the Commune +will not fail to say." Some shreds of a placard hang from a +half-battered wall; it is M. Thiers' speech against King Bomba, which a +group of conciliators have been witty enough to reproduce. "You know, +gentlemen," said he to the bourgeois of 1848, "what is happening at +Palermo. You all have shaken with horror on hearing that during +forty-eight hours a large town has been bombarded. By whom? Was it by a +foreign enemy exercising the rights of war? No, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>gentlemen, it was by +its own Government. And why? Because that unfortunate town demanded its +rights. Well, then, for the demand of its rights it has got forty-eight +hours of bombardment!" Happy Palermo! Paris already has had forty days +of bombardment.</p> + +<p>We have some chance of getting to the Boulevard Péreire by the left side +of the Avenue des Ternes. From there to the Porte-Maillot every spot is +beset with danger. Watching for a momentary lull, we reach the gate, or +rather the heap of ruins that mark its place. The station no longer +exists, the tunnel is filled up, the ramparts are slipping into the +moats. And yet there are human salamanders who dare to move about amidst +these ruins. Facing the gate there are three pieces commanded by Captain +La Marseillaise; on the right, Captain Rouchat with five pieces; on the +left, Captain Martin with four. Monteret, who commands this post for the +last five weeks, lives with them in this atmosphere of shells. The +Mont-Valérien, Courbevoie, and Bécon have thrown more than eight hundred +of them. Twelve pieces are served by ten men, naked to the waist, their +body and arms blackened with powder, in a stream of perspiration, often +a match in each hand. The only survivor of the first set, the sailor +Bonaventure, has twenty times seen his comrades dashed to pieces. And +yet they hold out, and these pieces, continually dismounted, are +continually renewed; their artillerists only complain of the want of +munition, for the waggons no longer dare approach. The Versaillese have +very often attempted, and may attempt, surprises. Monteret watches day +and night, and he can without boasting write to the Committee of Public +Safety that so long as he is there the Versaillese will not enter by the +Porte-Maillot.</p> + +<p>Every step towards La Muette is a challenge to death. But our friend +must witness all the greatness of Paris. On the ramparts, near the gate +of La Muette, an officer is waving his képi toward the Bois de Boulogne; +the balls are whistling around him. It is Dombrowski, who is amusing +himself with inveighing against the Versaillese of the trenches. A +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>member of the Council who is with him succeeds in making him forego +this musketeer foolhardiness, and the general takes us to the castle, +where he has established one of his headquarters. All the rooms are +perforated by shells. Still he remains there, and makes his men remain. +It has been calculated that his aides-de-camp on an average lived eight +days. At this moment the watch of the Belvedere rushes in with appalled +countenance; a shell has traversed his post. "Stay there," says +Dombrowski to him; "if you are not destined to die there you have +nothing to fear." Such was his courage—all fatalism. He received no +reinforcements despite his despatches to the War Office; believed the +game lost, and said so but too often.</p> + +<p>This is my only reproach, for you do not expect me to apologise for the +Commune's having allowed foreigners to die for it. Is not this the +revolution of all proletarians? Is it not for the people to at last do +justice to that great Polish race which all French governments have +betrayed?</p> + +<p>Dombrowski accompanies us across Passy as far as the Seine, and shows us +the almost abandoned ramparts. The shells crush or mow down all the +approaches to the railway; the large viaduct is giving way at a hundred +places; the iron-clad locomotives have been overthrown. The Versaillese +battery of the Billancourt Isle fires point-blank at our gunboats, and +sinks one, <i>L'Estoc</i>, under our very eyes. A tug arrives in time, picks +up the crew, and ascends the Seine under the fire that follows it up to +the Jena Bridge.</p> + +<p>A clear sky, a bright sun, peaceful silence envelop this stream, this +wreck, these scattered shells. Death appears more cruel amidst the +serenity of nature. Let us go and salute our wounded at Passy. A member +of the Council, Lefrançais, is visiting the ambulance of Dr. Demarquay, +whom he questions as to the state of the wounded. "I do not share your +opinions," answers the doctor, "and I cannot desire the triumph of your +cause; but I have never seen wounded men preserve more calm and +sangfroid during operations. I attribute this courage to the energy of +their convictions." We then visit the beds; most of the sick anxiously +inquire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>when they will be able to resume their service. A young fellow +of eighteen, whose right hand had just been amputated, holds out the +other, exclaiming, "I have still this one for the service of the +Commune!" An officer, mortally wounded, is told that the Commune has +just handed over his pay to his wife and children. "I had no right to +it," answers he. "These, my friend, these are the brutish drunkards who, +according to Versailles, form the army of the Commune."</p> + +<p>We return by the Champ-de-Mars; its huts are badly manned. Other +<i>cadres</i>, a different discipline would be needed to retain the +battalions there. Before the Ecole, 1500 yards from the ramparts, and a +few steps from the War Office, a hundred ordnance pieces remain inert, +loaded with mud. Leaving on our right the War Office, that centre of +discord, let us enter the Corps Législatif, transformed into a workshop. +Fifteen hundred women are there, sewing the sand sacks that are to stop +up the breaches. A tall and handsome girl, Marthe, round her waist the +red scarf with silver fringe given her by her comrades, distributes the +work. The hours of labour are shortened by joyous songs. Every evening +the wages are paid, and the women receive the whole sum, eight centimes +a sack, while the former contractors hardly gave them two.</p> + +<p>We now proceed along the quays, lulled in imperturbable calm. The +Academy of Sciences holds its Monday sittings. It is not the workmen who +have said, "The Republic wants no savants." M. Delaunay is in the chair. +M. Elie de Beaumont looks through the correspondence, and reads a note +from his colleague, M. J. Bertrand, who has fled to St. Germain. We +shall find the report in the <i>Officiel</i> of the Commune.</p> + +<p>We must not leave the left bank without visiting the military prison. +Ask the soldiers if they have met with a single menace, a single insult +in Paris; if they are not treated as comrades, subjected to no +exceptional rules, set free when willing to help their Parisian +brothers.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile evening has set in. The theatres are opening. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>The Lyrique +gives a grand performance for the benefit of the wounded, and the +Opéra-Comique is preparing another. The Opéra promises us a special +performance for the following Monday, when we shall hear Gossec's +revolutionary hymn. The artists of the Gaieté, abandoned by their +manager, themselves direct their theatre. The Gymnase, Châtelet, +Théâtre-Français, Ambigu-Comique, Délassements, have large audiences +every night. Let us pass to more virile spectacles, such as Paris has +not witnessed since 1793.</p> + +<p>Ten churches open, and the Revolution mounts the pulpits. In the old +quarter of the Gravilliers, St. Nicholas des Champs is filling with the +powerful murmur of many voices. A few gas-burners hardly light up the +swarming crowd; and at the farther end, almost hidden by the shadow of +the vaults, hangs the figure of Christ draped in the popular oriflamme. +The only luminous centre is the reading-desk, facing the pulpit, hung +with red. The organ and the people chant the <i>Marseillaise</i>. The orator, +over-excited by these fantastic surroundings, launches forth into +ecstatic apostrophes, which the echo repeats like a menace. The people +discuss the events of the day, the means of defence; the members of the +Council are severely censured, and vigorous resolutions are voted to be +presented to the Hôtel-de-Ville the next day. Women sometimes ask to +speak; at the Batignolles they have a club of their own. No doubt, few +precise ideas come forth from these feverish meetings, but many find +there a provision of energy and of courage.</p> + +<p>It is only nine o'clock, and we may still be in time for the concert of +the Tuileries. At the entrance, citoyennes, accompanied by +commissioners, are making a collection for the widows and orphans of the +Commune. The immense rooms are animated by a decent and gay throng. For +the first time respectably-dressed women are seated on the forms of the +court. Three orchestras are playing in the galleries, but the soul of +the fête is in the Salle des Maréchaux, where Mademoiselle Agar recites +from "Les Châtiments" in that same place, where, ten months before, +Bonaparte and his band were enthroned. Mozart, Meyerbeer, Rossini, the +great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>works of art have driven away the musical obscenities of the +Empire. From the large central window the harmonious strains vibrate to +the garden; joyous lights shine like stars on the green-sward, dance +among the trees, and colour the playing fountains. Within the arbours +the people are laughing; but the noble Champs-Elysées, dark and +desolate, seem to protest against these popular masters, whom they have +never acknowledged. Versailles, too, protests by that conflagration of +which a wan reflex lights up the Arc de Triomphe, whose sombre mass +overtowers the civil war.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock, as the crowd is retiring, we hear a noise from the +side of the chapel. M. Schœlcher has just been arrested. He has been +taken to the prefecture, where, a few hours after, the procureur Rigault +sets him at liberty.</p> + +<p>The boulevards are thronged with the people coming from the theatres. At +the Café-Peters there is a scandalous gathering of staff-officers and +prostitutes. Suddenly a detachment of National Guards appears and leads +them off. We follow them to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where Ranvier, who is on +duty there, receives them. Short shrift is made: the women to St. +Lazare, the officers, with spades and mattocks, to the trenches.</p> + +<p>One o'clock in the morning. Paris sleeps tranquilly. Such, my friend, is +the Paris of the brigand. You have seen this Paris thinking, weeping, +combating, working, enthusiastic, fraternal, severe to vice. Her streets +free during the day, are they less safe in the silence of the night? +Since Paris has her own police crime has disappeared.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> Each one is +left to his instincts, and where do you see debauchery victorious? These +Federals, who might draw milliards, live on ridiculous pay compared with +their usual salaries. Do you at last recognise this Paris, seven times +shot down since 1789, and always ready to rise for the salvation of +France? Where is her programme, say you? Why, seek it before you, and +not at the faltering Hôtel-de-Ville. These smoking ramparts, these +explosions of heroism, these women, these men of all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>professions +united, all the workmen of the earth applauding our combat, all +monarchs, all the bourgeois coalesced against us, do they not speak +loudly enough our common thought, and that all of us are fighting for +equality, the enfranchisement of labour, the advent of a social society? +Woe to France if she does not comprehend! Leave at once; recount what +Paris is. If she dies, what life remains to you? Who, save Paris, will +have strength enough to continue the Revolution? Who save Paris will +stifle the clerical monster? Go, tell the Republican provinces, "These +proletarians fight for you too, who perhaps may be the exiles of +to-morrow." As to that class, the purveyor of empires, that fancies it +can govern by periodical butcheries, go and tell them, in accents loud +enough to drown their clamours, "The blood of the people will enrich the +revolutionary field. The idea of Paris will arise from her burning +entrails and become an inexorable firebrand with the sons of the +slaughtered."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Funeral of Lieutenant Châtelet, of the 61st.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> See the evidence of the chief of police, M. Claude, +<i>Énquête sur le 18 Mars</i>. vol. ii. p. 106.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"La porte de St. Cloud vient de s'abatre. Le général Douai +s'y est précipité."—<i>M. Thiers aux Préfets, le 21 Mai.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY. AT THREE +O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON—THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE +DISSOLVES.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The great attack approached; the Assembly drew up in battle-array. On +the 16th May it refused to recognise the Republic as the Government of +France, and voted public prayers by 417 voices out of 420. On the 17th +the army established its breach batteries against the gates of La +Muette, Auteuil, St. Cloud, Point du Jour, Issy. The batteries in the +rear continued to pound the enceinte of the Point du Jour and to +confound Passy. The pieces of the Château de Brécon ruined the +Montmartre cemetery, and reached as far as the Place St. Pierre. We had +five arrondissements under shell.</p> + +<p>On the 18th, in the evening, the Versaillese surprised the Federals of +Cachan by approaching them with the cry of "Vive la Commune!" However, +we succeeded in preventing their movement towards the Hautes-Bruyères. +The Dominican monks who from their convent gave signals to the enemy +were arrested and taken to the Fort de Bicêtre.</p> + +<p><i>19th.</i>—Despite the Versaillese approaches, our defence did not become +more vigorous. The bastions 72 and 73 threw a few occasional shells upon +the village and the fort of Issy. From the Point du Jour to the +Porte-Maillot we had only the cannon of the Dauphine gate to answer the +hundred Versaillese pieces and check their works in the Bois de +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>Boulogne. A few barricades at the Bineau and Asnières gates and the +Boulevard d'Italie, two redoubts at the Place de la Concorde and Rue +Castiglione, a moat in the Rue Royale and another at the Trocadéro; this +was all that the Council had done in seven weeks for the defence of the +interior. There were no works at the Mont-Parnasse Station, the +Panthéon, the Buttes Montmartre, where two or three pieces had been +fired off on the 14th, only to kill our own men at Laval's. At the +terrace of the Tuileries about twelve navvies sadly dug away at a +useless fosse. The Committee of Public Safety could not, they said, find +workmen, when they had 1,500 idlers at the Prince-Eugène Barracks, +100,000 sedentary guards, and millions of francs to hand. An iron will +and firm direction might still have saved everything; and we were now in +the period of coma, of immense lassitude. The competitions, quarrels, +and intrigues had relaxed all energy. The Council occupied itself with +details, with trifles. The Committee of Public Safety multiplied its +romantic proclamations, which moved nobody. The Central Committee +thought only of seizing upon a power it was unable to wield, and on the +19th announced itself administrator of the War Office. Its members had +made so sure of their sway, that one of them by a decree inserted in the +<i>Officiel</i> ordered all the inhabitants of Paris to "present themselves +at their homes within forty-eight hours," on pain of "having their +rent-titles on the grand livre burnt." This was the pendant of the civic +card.</p> + +<p>Our best battalions, decimated, abandoned to themselves, were but +wrecks. Since the beginning of April we had lost 4,000 men, killed or +wounded, and 3,500 prisoners. There now remained to us 2,000 men from +Asnières to Neuilly, 4,000 perhaps from La Muette to Petit-Vanves. The +battalions designated for the posts of Passy were not there, or stayed +in the houses far from the ramparts; many of their officers had +disappeared. At the bastions 36 to 70, precisely at the point of attack, +there were not twenty artillerists; the sentinels were absent.</p> + +<p>Was it treason? The conspirators boasted a few days after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>of having +dismantled these ramparts; but the terrible bombardment would suffice to +explain this dereliction. Still there was a culpable heedlessness. +Dombrowski, weary of struggling against the inertness of the War Office, +was discouraged, went too often to his quarters at the Place Vendôme, +while the Committee of Public Safety, informed of the abandonment of the +ramparts, contented itself with warning the War Office instead of +hurrying to the rescue and taking the situation in hand.</p> + +<p>On Saturday, the 20th May, the breach batteries were unmasked; 300 naval +guns and siege-pieces blending together their detonations announced the +beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>The same day De Beaufond, whom Lasnier's arrest had not discouraged, +sent his habitual emissary to warn the chief of the Versaillese general +staff that the gates of Montrouge, Vanves, Vaugirard, Point du Jour, and +Dauphine were entirely deserted. Orders for concentrating the troops +were immediately issued. On the 21st the Versaillese found themselves in +readiness, as on the 3rd and 12th, but this time success seemed certain; +the gate of St. Cloud was dashed to pieces.</p> + +<p>For several days some members of the Council had pointed out this breach +to the chief of the general staff, Henry Prodhomme. He answered à la +Cluseret that his measures were taken; that he was even going to throw +up a terrible iron-clad barricade before this gate; but he did not stir. +On the Sunday morning, Lefrançais, traversing the moat on the ruins of +the drawbridge, at about fifteen yards distance, ran up against the +Versaillese trenches. Struck by the imminence of the peril, he sent +Delescluze a note, which was lost.</p> + +<p>At half-past two, under the shade of the Tuileries, a monster concert +was being given for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the +Commune. Thousands of people had come; the bright spring dresses of the +women lit up the green alleys; people eagerly inhaled the fresh air sent +forth from the great trees. Two hundred yards off, on the Place de la +Concorde, the Versaillese shells burst, uttering their discordant note +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>amidst the joyous sounds of the bands and the invigorating breath of +spring.</p> + +<p>At the end of the concert a staff officer ascended the platform of the +conductor of the orchestra. "Citizens," said he, "M. Thiers promised to +enter Paris yesterday. M. Thiers has not entered; he will not enter. I +invite you to come here next Sunday, to the same place, to our second +concert for the benefit of the widows and orphans."</p> + +<p>At that very hour, at that very minute, almost within gunshot, the +vanguard of the Versaillese was making its entry into Paris.</p> + +<p>The expected signal had at last been given from the St. Cloud gate, but +did not come from the licensed conspirators. An amateur spy, Ducatel, +was crossing these quarters, when he saw everything, gates and ramparts, +quite deserted. He thereupon climbed the bastion 64, waving a white +handkerchief, and cried to the soldiers of the trenches, "You can enter; +there is no one here." A naval officer came forward, interrogated +Ducatel, crossed over the ruins of the drawbridge, and was able to +assure himself that the bastions and neighbouring houses were entirely +abandoned. Returning immediately to the trenches, the officer +telegraphed the news to the nearest generals. The breach batteries +ceased firing, and the soldiers of the trenches near penetrated by small +platoons into the enceinte. M. Thiers, MacMahon, and Admiral Pothuan, +who were just then at Mont-Valérien, telegraphed to Versailles to have +all the divisions put in motion.</p> + +<p>Dombrowski, absent from his headquarters of La Muette for several hours, +arrived at four o'clock. A commander met him, and informed him of the +entry of the Versaillese. Dombrowski let the officer terminate his +report, then, turning to one of his aides-de-camp, with that coolness +that he exaggerated in critical circumstances, said, "Send to the +Ministry of Marine for a battery of seven cannon; warn such and such +battalions. I shall take the command myself." He also addressed a +despatch to the Committee of Public Safety and the War Office, and sent +the battalion of volunteers to occupy the gate of Auteuil.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>At five o'clock, National Guards, without képis, without arms, uttered a +cry of alarm in the streets of Passy; some officers unsheathing their +swords tried to stop them; the Federals left their houses, some loading +their guns, others maintaining that it was a false alarm. The commander +of the volunteers picked up and led off as many men as he could get to +follow him.</p> + +<p>These volunteers were troops inured to fire. Near the railway station +they saw the red-coats, and received them with a volley. A Versaillese +officer on horseback, who hurried up trying to urge on his men with +drawn sabre, fell beneath our balls, and his soldiers retreated. The +Federals established themselves solidly on the viaduct and at the +opening of the Murat Boulevard, while, at the same time, the quay +abreast of the Jena Bridge was being barricaded.</p> + +<p>Dombrowski's despatch had reached the Committee of Public Safety. +Billioray, on duty at this moment, at once proceeded to the Council. The +Assembly was just putting Cluseret on his trial, and Vermorel was +speaking. The ex-delegate, seated on a chair, listened to the orator +with that vain nonchalance which the naïve took for talent. Billioray, +very pale, entered, and for a moment sat down; then, as Vermorel went +on, cried to him, "Conclude! conclude! I have to make a communication of +the greatest importance to the Assembly; I demand a secret sitting."</p> + +<p>Vermorel: "Let citizen Billioray speak."</p> + +<p>Billioray rose and read a paper that trembled slightly in his hand. +"Dombrowski to War and Committee of Public Safety. The Versaillese have +entered by the Porte de St. Cloud. I take measures to drive them back. +If you can send me reinforcements, I answer for everything."<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p> + +<p>There was first a silence of anguish, soon broken by interpellations. +"Some battalions have marched off," answered Billioray; "the Committee +of Public Safety watches."</p> + +<p>The discussion was again taken up, and naturally cut short. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>The Council +acquitted Cluseret; the ridiculous impeachment brought forward by Miot, +made up only of gossip, neglected the only incriminating fact—the +inactivity of Cluseret during his delegation. They then formed into +groups and commented on the despatch. The confidence of Dombrowski, the +assurance of Billioray, proved quite sufficient to the romanticists. +What with faith in the general, the solidity of the ramparts, the +immortality of the cause; what with the responsibility of the Committee +of Public Safety, the question at issue was slurred over; let every one +go about in search of information, and in case of need betake himself to +his own arrondissement.</p> + +<p>The time was wasted in small-talk; there were neither motion nor debate; +eight o'clock struck, and the president raised the sitting. The last +sitting of the Council! And there was no one to demand a permanent +committee; no one to call on his colleague to wait here for news, to +summon the Committee of Public Safety to the bar of the Council. There +was no one to insist that at this critical moment of uncertainty, when +perhaps it might be necessary to improvise a plan of defence at a +moment's notice or take a great resolution in case of disaster, the post +of the guardians of Paris was in the centre, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and +not in their respective arrondissements.</p> + +<p>Thus the Council of the Commune disappeared from history and the +Hôtel-de-Ville at the moment of supreme danger, when the Versaillese +penetrated into Paris.</p> + +<p>The same prostration reigned at the War Office, where they had received +the news at five o'clock. The Central Committee went to Delescluze, who +seemed very calm, and said, what many indeed believed, that the fight in +the streets would be favourable to the Commune. The commander of the +section of the Point du Jour having just come to report that nothing +serious had happened, the delegate accepted his statements without +corroboration. The chief of the general staff did not even think it +worth while to go and make a personal recognisance, and towards eight +o'clock he had this incredible despatch placarded: "The observatory of +the Arc de Triomphe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>denies the entry of the Versaillese; at least, it +sees nothing that looks like it. The commander (Renaud) of the section +has just left my cabinet, and declares that there has only been a panic, +and that the gate of Auteuil has not been forced; that if a few +Versaillese have entered, they have been repulsed. I have sent for +eleven battalions of reinforcements, by as many officers of the general +staff, who are not to leave them till they have led them to the posts +which they are to occupy."</p> + +<p>At the same hour M. Thiers telegraphed to his prefects, "The gate of St. +Cloud has fallen under the fire of our cannon. General Douai has dashed +into the town." A two-fold lie. The gate of St. Cloud had been wide open +for three days without the Versaillese daring to pass it, and General +Douai had crept in very modestly, man by man, introduced by treason.</p> + +<p>At night the Ministry seemed to wake up a little. Officers flocked +thither asking for orders. The general staff would not allow the tocsin +to be sounded, on the pretext that the population must not be alarmed. +Some members of the Council pored over the plan of Paris at last, +studying those strategical points that had been forgotten for six weeks. +When it was necessary at once to find an idea, a method, and give +precise instructions, the delegate shut himself in his cabinet in order +to frame a proclamation.</p> + +<p>While in the midst of Paris, confident in her trustees, a few men, +without soldiers, without information, prepared the first resistance, +the Versaillese continued to slip in through the breaches of the +ramparts. Wave on wave their flood grew silent, veiled by the dusk. By +degrees they massed themselves between the railway line and the +fortifications. At eight o'clock they were numerous enough to divide +into two columns, one of which, turning to the left, crowned the +bastions 66 and 67, while the other filed off to the right on the route +to Versailles. The first lodged itself in the centre of Passy, occupying +the St. Périne asylum, the church, and the place of Auteuil; the other, +having swept away the rudimentary barricade constructed on the quay at +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>top of the Rue Guillon, towards one o'clock in the morning, by the +Rue Raynouard, scaled the Trocadéro, neither fortified nor manned on +this side, and at once took possession of it.</p> + +<p>At the Hôtel-de-Ville the members of the Committee of Public Safety had +at last assembled. Billioray alone had vanished not to appear again. +They knew nothing of the number and position of the troops, but knew +that under the cover of night the enemy had entered Passy. Staff +officers sent to the Muette to reconnoitre came back with the most +reassuring news. Thereupon, at eleven o'clock, a member of the Council, +Assi, entered the Rue Beethoven, where the lights had been put out. Soon +his horse refused to advance; it had slipped down in large pools of +blood, and National Guards seemed to lie asleep along the walls. +Suddenly men sprang forward. They were the Versaillese waiting in +ambush; these sleepers were murdered Federals.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese were slaughtering within the walls of Paris, and Paris +knew it not. The night was clear, starlit, mild, fragrant; the theatres +were crowded, the boulevards sparkling with life and gaiety, the bright +cafés swarming with visitors, and the cannon were everywhere hushed—a +silence unknown for three weeks. If "the finest army that France ever +had" were to push straight on by the quays and boulevards, entirely free +of barricades, with one bound, without firing a shot, it would crush the +Commune of Paris.</p> + +<p>The volunteers held out on the railway line till midnight; then, +exhausted, left without any reinforcements, they fell back upon La +Muette. General Clinchant followed them, occupied the Auteuil gate, +passed by that of Passy, and marched on the headquarters of Dombrowski. +Fifty volunteers for some time still kept up a skirmish in the château, +but outflanked on the east, about to be closed in from the Trocadéro, at +half-past one in the morning they beat a retreat on the Champs-Elysées.</p> + +<p>On the left bank General Cissey had the whole evening massed his forces +at about 200 yards from the enceinte. At midnight his sappers crossed +the moat, scaled the ramparts, without even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>falling in with a sentinel, +and opened the gates of Sèvres and Versailles.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock in the morning the Versaillese inundated Paris through +the five gaping wounds of the gates of Passy, Auteuil, St. Cloud, +Sèvres, and Versailles. The greater part of the fifteenth arrondissement +was occupied, the Muette taken; taken all Passy and the heights of the +Trocadéro, taken too the powder-magazine of the Rue Beethoven, immense +catacombs running underneath the sixteenth arrondissement, crammed with +3,000 barrels of powder, millions of cartridges, thousands of shells. At +five o'clock the first Versaillese shell fell upon the Légion d'Honneur. +As on the morning of the 2nd December, Paris was asleep.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTE:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> The original of this document has been lost, but we have +been able to re-establish the text with the evidence of Dombrowski's +brother and of a great number of members of the Council present at this +sitting.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Les généraux qui ont conduit l'entree à Paris sont de grands +hommes de guerre."—<i>M. Thiers à l'Assemblée Nationale, 22 +Mai 1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">MONDAY 22ND—THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE +EAST—PARIS RISES.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>At two o'clock Dombrowski arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, pale, dejected, +his chest bruised with stones ploughed up by shot. He told the Committee +of Public Safety of the entry of the Versaillese, the surprise of Passy, +his useless efforts to rally the men. As he was pressed for news, as +they appeared astonished at such a rapid invasion, so little did the +Committee know of the military situation, Dombrowski, who misunderstood +them, exclaimed, "What! the Committee of Public Safety takes me for a +traitor! My life belongs to the Commune." His gesture, his voice, +testified to his bitter despair.</p> + +<p>The morn was warm and bright, as the day before. The call to arms, the +tocsin, set three or four thousand men on foot, who hurried towards the +Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the War Office; but hundreds of +others at that moment had abandoned their posts, left Passy, and emptied +the fifteenth arrondissement. The Federals of Petit-Vanves came back to +Paris at five o'clock, and seeing the Trocadéro occupied by the +Versaillese, refused to hold out. On the left bank, at the St. Clothilde +Square, some officers attempted to stay them, but were repulsed by the +guards. "It is now a war of barricades," said they; "every one to his +quarter." At the Légion d'Honneur they forced their way; the +proclamation of Delescluze had released them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>Thus began that fatal proclamation placarded on all the walls:—</p> + +<p>"Enough of militarism! No more staff-officers with their +gold-embroidered uniforms! Make way for the people, for the combatants +with naked arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck! The +people know nothing of learned manœuvres. But when they have a gun in +their hands, pavement under their feet, they fear not all the +strategists of the monarchical school!"</p> + +<p>When the Minister of War thus stigmatises all discipline, who will +henceforth obey? When he repudiates all method, who will listen to +reason? Thus we shall see hundreds of men refusing to quit the pavement +of their street, paying no heed to the neighboring quarter in agonies, +remaining motionless up to the last hour waiting for the army to come +and overwhelm them.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock in the morning the official retreat began. The chief of +the general staff, Henri Prodhomme, had the War Office precipitately +evacuated, without carrying off or destroying the papers. The next day +they fell into the hands of the Versaillese, and furnished the +courts-martial with thousands of victims.</p> + +<p>On leaving the Ministry, Delescluze met Brunel, who, set at liberty only +the evening before, had at once rallied his legion, and now came to +offer his services, for he was one of those men of convictions too +strong to be shaken by the most cruel injustice. Delescluze gave him the +order to defend the Place de la Concorde. Brunel repaired thither, and +disposed 150 tirailleurs, three pieces of 4 cm., one of 12, two of 7 on +the terrace of the Tuileries and by the bank of the river. He provided +the St. Florentin redoubt with a mitrailleuse and a piece of 4; that of +the Rue Royale, at the entrance of the Place de la Concorde, with two +pieces of 12.</p> + +<p>In front of Brunel, at the Place Beauvan, some men of the 8th legion +made vain efforts to stop the fugitives from Passy and Auteuil, and then +betook themselves to put the quarter in a fit state of defence. +Barricades were thrown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>up in the Faubourg St. Honoré as far as the +English Embassy, in the Rue de Suresne and Ville-Levêque; obstacles were +heaped up at the Place St. Augustin, the opening of the Boulevard +Haussmann, and in front of the Boulevard Malesherbes, when the +Versaillese presented themselves.</p> + +<p>Early in the morning they had begun their onward march. At half-past +five Douai, Clinchant, and Ladmirault, passing along the ramparts, +debouched on the Avenue de la Grande Armée. The artillerists of the +Porte-Maillot, turning round, beheld in their rear the Versaillese, +their neighbours for some ten hours. Not a sentinel had denounced them. +Monteret filed off his men by the Ternes; then, alone with a child, +charged one of the cannon of the Porte-Maillot, fired his last round at +the enemy, and succeeded in escaping by the Batignolles.</p> + +<p>The column Douai remounted the Avenue as far as the barricade in front +of the Arc de Triomphe, which they took without a struggle, the Federals +hardly having time to carry off the cannon that were to have surmounted +the Arc de Triomphe. The soldiers marched up the quay, and ventured on +the silent Place de la Concorde; suddenly the terrace of the Tuileries +lighted up; the Versaillese, received with a point-blank volley, fled as +far as the Palais de l'Industrie, leaving many dead.</p> + +<p>On the left the soldiers occupied the abandoned Elysée, and by the Rues +Morny and Abbatucci debouched on the Place St. Augustin, where the +barricades, hardly begun, could not resist, and towards half-past seven +the Versaillese installed themselves at the Pepinière Barracks. The +Federals formed a second line in the rear, closing the Boulevard +Malesherbes at the top of the Rue Boissy d'Anglas.</p> + +<p>On the left of Douai, Clinchant and Ladmirault continued their movement +along the ramparts. The important works at the gates of Bineau, +Courcelles, Asnières, and Clichy, directed against the fortifications, +became useless, and the Ternes were occupied without striking a blow. At +the same time one of the Clinchant divisions passed by the outer +ramparts. The Federal battalions on duty at Neuilly, Levallois-Perret, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>and St. Ouen were assailed with balls from the rear—(this was the +first intimation they got of the entry of the Versaillese)—and many +Federals were taken prisoners. Others succeeded in returning to Paris by +the gates of Bineau, Asnières, and Clichy, spreading panic and rumours +of treason in the seventeenth arrondissement.</p> + +<p>The rappel had been beaten all night in the Batignolles, and had called +out the sedentary guards and the youths. A battalion of engineers rushed +forward to encounter Clinchant's skirmishers, and began firing in front +of the Parc Monceaux and the Place Wagram, when the National Guards, +deceived by their red trousers, opened a deadly fire upon them. They +retreated and laid bare the Parc, which the Versaillese occupied, and +then pushed on to the Batignolles. There they were stopped by barricades +rising on all sides; on the left, from the Place Clichy to the Rue +Lévis; in the centre, in the Rues Lebouteux, La Condamine, and Des +Dames; on the right, La Fourche, the rival position of the Place Clichy, +had been fortified, and soon the Batignolles formed a serious outwork +for Montmartre, our principal fortress.</p> + +<p>The latter, for seventeen hours,<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> had looked silently on the entry +of the troops of Versailles. In the morning the columns of Douai and +Ladmirault, their artillery and their waggons, had met each other, and +become entangled on the Place du Trocadéro. A few shells from +Montmartre<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> would have changed this confusion into a rout, and the +least check met with by the troops on their entry would have been for +Paris a second 18th March; but the cannon of the Buttes remained mute.</p> + +<p>Monstrous negligence, which alone would suffice to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>condemn the Council, +the War Office, and the delegates of Montmartre. Eighty-five cannon and +about twenty mitrailleuses were lying there, dirty, pell-mell, and no +one during these eight weeks had even thought of cleaning them. +Projectiles of 7 cm. abounded, but there were no cartridges. At the +Moulin de la Galette three pieces of 24 cm. alone were supplied with +carriages, but there were neither parapets, blindages, nor even +platforms. At nine o'clock in the morning they had not yet fired; after +the first discharge the recoil overthrew the carriages, and much time +was required to set them up again. These three pieces themselves had +very little munition. Of fortifications or earthworks there were none; +merely a few barricades at the foot of the external boulevards had been +begun. At nine o'clock La Cécilia sent to Montmartre, and found the +defence in this disgraceful state. He immediately addressed despatches +to the Hôtel-de-Ville, conjuring the members of the Council to come +themselves, or at least to send reinforcements of men and munitions.</p> + +<p>A similar thing occurred at the same time on the left bank at the Ecole +Militaire. Face to face with its park of artillery, the Versaillese +since one o'clock in the morning were manœuvring on the Trocadéro +without a single cannon shot being fired at them. What, then, was the +governor of the Ecole about?</p> + +<p>At daybreak the Langourian brigade attacked the huts of the +Champ-de-Mars. The Federals defended themselves several hours, and were +only dislodged by the shells of the Trocadéro, which enkindled a +conflagration.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> They then fell back upon the Ecole, and for a long +time checking the effort of the troops, gave the seventeenth +arrondissement time to rise. The quay as far as the Légion d'Honneur, +the Rues de Lille, De l'Université, and the Boulevard St. Germain up to +the Rue Solferino were being barricaded. Half-a-dozen of the armlet +conspirators, led by Durouchoux <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>and Vrignault, were coming down the Rue +du Bac at great speed, when a member of the Council, Sicard, arrested +them before the Petit St. Thomas. A bullet struck Durouchoux; his +acolytes carried him away, and took advantage of the occasion not to +appear again. The Rue de Beaune, Verneuil, and St. Pères were put in a +state of defence, and a barricade was thrown up in the Rue de Sèvres at +the Abbaye-au-Bois.</p> + +<p>On the right Cissey's soldiers descended the Rue de Vaugirard without +hindrance as far as the Avenue du Maine; another column filed off along +the railway, and at half-past six reached the Mont-Parnasse station. +This position, of supreme importance, had been utterly neglected; about +twenty men defended it, and they were soon short of cartridges, and +obliged to retreat to the Rue de Rennes, where, under the fire of the +troops, they constructed a barricade at the top of the Rue du Vieux +Colombier. On his extreme right Cissey occupied the Vanves gate and +lined the whole railway of the west.</p> + +<p>Paris rose to the roar of the cannon and read the proclamation of +Delescluze. The shops were at once shut up again, the boulevards +remained empty, and Paris, the old insurgent, resumed her combative +physiognomy. Estafets dashed through the streets, and remainders of +battalions came to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where the Central Committee, the +Committee of Artillery, and all the military services were concentrated.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock twenty members of the Council had assembled. A miracle! +There was Félix Pyat, who had cried "To arms!" in his paper that very +morning. He had put on his patriarchal air. "Well, my friends, our last +hour has come. Oh, for myself what matters it! My hair is grey, my +career run out. What more glorious end could I hope for than that of the +barricade. But when I see around me so many in the prime of youth, I +tremble for the future of the Revolution!" Then he demanded that the +names of the members present should be entered, in order to mark out +distinctly those true to their duty. He signed his name, and, with tears +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>in his eyes, the old comedian trotted off to a hiding-place, surpassing +by his last cowardice all his former villainies.</p> + +<p>A sterile meeting this, spent in discussing the news of the day; no +impulsion given, no system of defence propounded. The Federals were left +to their own inspirations—left to look after themselves. During the +whole past night neither Dombrowski, nor the War Office, nor the +Hôtel-de-Ville had thought of the battalions outside the town. +Henceforth each corps had nothing to expect but from its own initiative, +from the resources it might be able to create and the intelligence of +its chiefs.</p> + +<p>In default of direction proclamations abounded.</p> + +<p>"Let good citizen rise! To the barricades! The enemy is within our +walls. No hesitation. Forward, for the Commune and for liberty. To +arms!"</p> + +<p>"Let Paris bristle up with barricades, and from behind these improvised +ramparts still hurl at her enemies her cry of war, of pride, of +defiance, but also of victory; for Paris with her barricades is +inexpugnable."</p> + +<p>Great words; nothing but words.</p> + +<p><i>Mid-day.</i>—General Cissey had turned the Ecole Militaire, and thereby +forced its last defenders. The soldiers invaded the Esplanade des +Invalides and entered the Rue Grenelle St. Germain, when L'Ecole +d'Etat-major exploded and put them to flight. Two of our cannon +enfiladed the Rue de l'Université; four gunboats, anchored under the +Pont-Royal, opened fire on the Trocadéro. In the centre, in the eighth +arrondissement, the Versaillese skirmished. At the Batignolles they did +not advance, but their shells harassed the Rue Lévis. We also lost many +men in the Rue Cardinet, where children were fighting furiously.</p> + +<p>Malon and Jaclard, who directed this part of the defence, had since +morning in vain applied to Montmartre for reinforcements; so towards one +o'clock they themselves went in search of them. Not one of the +staff-officers could give them the slightest information. The Federals +were wandering about the streets or chatting in small groups. Malon +wanted to take them back with him, but they refused, reserving +themselves, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>they said, for the defence of their own quarter. The cannon +of the Buttes were mute, being short of cartridges; the Hôtel-de-Ville +had sent only words.</p> + +<p>Still there were two generals on the heights, Cluseret and La Cécilia, +the ex-delegate melancholily airing his somnolent incapacity, while La +Cécilia, unknown in this quarter, at once found himself powerless.</p> + +<p><i>Two o'clock.</i>—The Hôtel-de-Ville had again assumed its grand aspect of +March. On the right the Committee of Public Safety and on the left the +War Office were overrun. The Central Committee was multiplying its +orders and exclaiming against the incapacity of the members of the +Council, though itself incapable of setting forth a single precise idea. +The Committee of Artillery, more beset than ever, could not yet make out +its cannon, did not know to whom to give them, and often refused pieces +for the most important positions.</p> + +<p>The delegates of the Congress of Lyons, conducted by MM. Jules Amigues +and J. Larroque, came to offer their intervention, but they had no +mandate, and did not even know whether M. Thiers would admit them. They +were received rather coldly. Besides, many at the Hôtel-de-Ville +believed in victory, and almost rejoiced at the entry of the +Versaillese; for indeed Paris seemed to be rising.</p> + +<p>The barricades increased quickly. That of the Rue de Rivoli, which was +to protect the Hôtel-de-Ville, was erected at the entrance of the St. +Jacques Square, at the corner of the Rue St. Denis. Fifty workmen did +the mason-work, while swarms of children brought wheelbarrows full of +earth from the square. This work, several yards deep, six yards high, +with fosses, embrasures, an outwork, as solid as the Florentin redoubt, +which had taken weeks to raise, was finished in a few hours—an example +this of what an intelligent effort at the right time might have done for +the defence of Paris. In the ninth arrondissement, the Rues Auber, De la +Chaussée d'Antin, De Châteaudun, the cross-roads of the Faubourg +Montmartre, Notre Dame de Lorette, De la Trinité, and the Rue des +Martyrs were being unpaved. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>The large approaches, La Chapelle, Buttes +Chaumont, Belleville, Ménilmontant, the Rue de la Roquette, the +Bastille, the Boulevards Voltaire and Richard Lenoir, the Place du +Château d'Eau, the large boulevards especially from the Porte St. Denis; +and on the left bank the whole length of the Boulevard St. Michel, the +Panthéon, the Rue St. Jacques, the Gobelins, and the principal avenues +of the thirteenth arrondissement were being barricaded. A great many of +these works of defence were never finished.</p> + +<p>While Paris was preparing for the last struggle, Versailles was wild +with joy. The Assembly had met at an early hour, and M. Thiers would not +leave to any of his Ministers the glory of announcing the first +butcheries in Paris. His appearance on the tribune was hailed by +ferocious cheers. "The cause of justice, order, humanity, and +civilisation has triumphed," screamed the little man. "The generals who +have conducted the entry into Paris are great men of war. The expiation +will be complete. It will take place in the name of the law, by the law, +with the law." The Chamber understanding this promise of carnage, rose +to a man, and by a unanimous vote, Right, Left, Centre, Clericals, +Republicans, Monarchists, swore that "the Versaillese army and the chief +of the executive power had merited well of the country."<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> + +<p>The sitting was at once raised, the deputies rushing off to the Lanterne +de Diogène, Châtillon, and Mont-Valérien, to all the heights whence they +could, as from an immense Colosseum, observe the butchery of Paris +without incurring the least danger. The population of idlers accompanied +them, and on this route of Versailles deputies, courtesans, women of the +world, journalists, functionaries stung by the same craving, sometimes +crammed into the same carriage, displayed before the Prussians and +France the spectacle of a saturnalia of the bourgeoisie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>After eight o'clock the army ceased to advance, save in the eighth +arrondissement, where the barricade before the English Embassy was +turned by the gardens. Our line of the Faubourg St. Germain resisted +from the Seine to the Mont-Parnasse Station, which we were cannonading.</p> + +<p>With nightfall the fusillade slackened, but the cannonade still went on. +A red light glared in the Tuileries; the Ministry of Finance was +burning. It had during the whole day received part of the Versaillese +shells, destined for the terrace of the Tuileries, and the papers piled +up in its upper storeys had taken fire. The firemen of the Commune had +at first extinguished this conflagration, interfering with the defence +of the St. Florentin redoubt, but it had soon lit up again, and become +unquenchable.</p> + +<p>Then began those nights of horror, where, amidst the roaring of the +cannon, by the glimmer of burning houses, men sought each other in pools +of blood. The Paris of the revolt had at length been roused. Her +battalions descended towards the Hôtel-de-Ville headed by bands and the +red flag. Small in number, a battalion perhaps two hundred strong, but +resolute, these Federals marched on in silence; there were seen also, +muskets on their shoulders, those men, devoted to the Social Revolution, +whom personal jealousy had kept at a distance. But in this hour none +thought of such recriminations. Because of the incapacity of the chiefs +ought the soldiers to desert their flag? The Paris of 1871 represented +against Versailles the Social Revolution and the new destinies of the +nation; one must be against or for her despite the faults committed. +Cowards only abstained. All the true revolutionists rose, even those who +had no illusions as to the issue of the struggle, eager to defy death in +the service of their immortal cause.</p> + +<p><i>Ten o'clock.</i>—We proceeded to the Hôtel-de-Ville. An irritated group +of Federals had just arrested Dombrowski. The general, without any +command since morning, had repaired with his officers to the outposts of +St. Ouen, and believing his rôle terminated, wanted in the night to ride +through the Prussian ranks and gain the frontier. A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>commander, who was +afterwards shot as a traitor, had incited his men against the general +under the pretext that he was betraying them. Led before the Committee +of Public Safety, Dombrowski indignantly exclaimed, "They say I have +betrayed!" The members of the Committee welcomed him affectionately, and +the incident had no further consequences.</p> + +<p>Messengers arrived at the War Office from all the points of the battle. +A great number of guards and officers issued orders and despatches in +the midst of a continual bustle. The inner courts were full of waggons +and carriages, the horses all ready harnessed; munitions were being +taken out or brought in, and not the least sign of discouragement, or +even of anxiety, was visible, but everywhere an almost gay activity.</p> + +<p>The streets and boulevards, with the exception of the invaded quarters, +had been lighted as usual. At the entrance of the Faubourg Montmartre +the light ceased abruptly, giving it the appearance of an enormous black +hole. This obscurity was guarded by Federal sentinels, uttering every +now and then their cry, "Passez au large!" Beyond this only a menacing +silence. These shadows moving about in the night seemed to assume +gigantic forms; one fancied oneself haunted by a sinister dream; the +bravest were appalled.</p> + +<p>There were nights more noisy, more glaring, more grandiose, when the +conflagrations and the cannonade enveloped Paris, but none of more +lugubrious impress. A night of meditation this, the vigil of battle. We +sought each other in the gloom, spoke low, giving and taking comfort. At +the cross-roads we consulted each other in order to examine our +positions, and then to work! Now for the spade and the pavements! Let +the earth be heaped up where the shells may flatten themselves against +it; let the mattresses thrown from the windows shelter the combatants. +Henceforth there is to be no more rest; let the stones cemented with +hate press against each other like the shoulders of men arrayed for the +battlefield. The enemy has taken us by surprise, defenceless. May he +to-morrow encounter a Saragossa or a Moscow!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>Every passer-by was requisitioned. "Come, citizen, lend a hand for the +Republic!" At the Bastille and in the interior boulevards one met crowds +of workers, some digging the earth, others carrying the paving-stones; +children using spades and mattocks as big as themselves. The women +encouraged the men; the delicate hand of the young girl raised the heavy +pickaxe that fell with a sharp sound, emitting fiery sparks. It took an +hour to seriously break through the soil. What matter! they will spend +their night at it. On the Tuesday evening, at the intersection of the +Square St. Jacques and the Boulevard Sebastopol, many <i>dames de la +halle</i> worked for a long time, filling earth sacks and wicker +baskets.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> + +<p>And these were no longer the traditional redoubts two storeys high. Save +four or five in the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue de Rivoli, the barricades +of May consisted of a few paving-stones hardly a man's height; behind +these sometimes a cannon or a mitrailleuse; and in the midst, wedged in +by two paving-stones, the red flag, the colour of vengeance. Behind +these shreds of ramparts thirty men held regiments in check.</p> + +<p>If this general effort had been directed by the least thought of +combination, if Montmartre and the Panthéon had crossed their fires, the +Versaillese army would have melted away in Paris; but the Federals, +without directions, without military knowledge, saw no further than just +their own quarter, or even their own streets; so that instead of 200 +strategical solidary barricades, easy to defend with 7,000 or 8,000 men, +hundreds were scattered about which it was impossible to arm +sufficiently. The general mistake was a belief that they would be +attacked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>from the front; while the Versaillese, thanks to their +numbers, everywhere executed flank movements.</p> + +<p>In the evening the Versaillese line extended from the station of the +Batignolles to the extremity of the Railway of the West on the left +bank, passing by the St. Lazare Station, the Pépinière Barracks, the +English Embassy, the Palais de l'Industrie, the Corps Législatif, the +Rue de Bourgogne, the Boulevard des Invalides, and the Mont-Parnasse +Station. To face the invader there were but embryo barricades. If with +one effort he were to break through this line still so weak, he would +surprise the centre quite disarmed. But these 130,000 men did not dare +to. Soldiers and chiefs were afraid of Paris. They fancied the streets +would open, the houses fall upon them; as witness the fable of the +torpedoes, of the mines under the sewers, invented later on to justify +their indecision.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> On the Monday evening, masters of several +arrondissements, they still trembled, fearful of some terrible surprise. +They needed all the tranquility of the night to recover from their +conquest, and convince themselves that the Committee of Defence, despite +their boasting, had neither foreseen nor prepared anything.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> "Seventeen hours were required to get in 130,000 men and +our numerous artillery."—<i>M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 18 Mars.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> "From this unexpected obstruction there resulted a +confusion that lasted till after the passage of the troops, and might +have had serious consequences. If the insurgents had then opened fire +upon the Trocadéro, from the batteries of Montmartre, their shells would +have harassed us a great deal. But the cannon of Montmartre still kept +silent. It was only a little after nine o'clock that they commenced +firing; the passage was then already cleared."—<i>Vinoy, La Commune</i>, p. +130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> The first conflagration of the days of May, and the +Versaillese have admitted that they themselves kindled it.—<i>Vinoy, +L'Armistice et la Commune</i>, p. 809.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> No deputy protested either on this day or after, or +declared he had abstained from voting, neither those of the extreme Left +nor those of the extreme Right. They are then, all of them equally +answerable for this vote.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> "At the Place Blanche," wrote G. Maroteau in the <i>Salut +Public</i> of the next day, "there was a barricade perfectly constructed +and defended by a battalion of women, about 120. At the moment when I +arrived, a dark form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It +was a young girl with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her +hand, a cartridge-box by her side. 'Stand, citizen! no one passes here!' +I stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed +me to go to the foot of the barricade."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Appendix XV.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">TUESDAY 23RD—MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN—THE WHOLESALE +MASSACRES—WE LOSE GROUND—PARIS ON FIRE—THE LAST NIGHT OF +THE HÔTEL-DE-VILLE.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The defenders of the barricades slept on their paving-stones. The +hostile outposts were on the watch. At the Batignolles the Versaillese +reconnaissance carried off a sentinel. The Federal cried out with all +his might, "Vive la Commune!" and his comrades, thus warned, were able +to put themselves on their guard. He was shot there and then. In like +manner fell D'Assas and Barra.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock La Cécilia, accompanied by the members of the Council, +Lefrançais, Vermorel, and Johannard, and the journalists Alphonse +Humbert and G. Maroteau, brought up a reinforcement of 100 men to the +Batignolles. To Malon's reproaches for having left the quarter without +succour the whole day, the General answered, "I am not obeyed."</p> + +<p><i>Three o'clock.</i>—To the barricades! The Commune is not dead! The fresh +morning air bathes the fatigued faces and revives hope. The enemy's +cannonade along the whole line salutes the break of day. The +artillerists of the Commune, from Mont-Parnasse to the Buttes +Montmartre, which seem awaking, answered as well as they could.</p> + +<p>Ladmirault, almost motionless the day before, now launched his men along +the fortifications, taking all the gates from Neuilly to St. Ouen in the +rear. On his right, Clinchant attacked by the same movement all the +barricades of the Batignolles. The Rue Cardinet yielded first, then the +Rues Noblet, Truffaut, La Condamine, and the lower Avenue of Clichy. +Suddenly the gate of St. Ouen opened, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>Versaillese poured into +Paris; it was the Montaudon division, which since evening had been +operating in the exterior. The Prussians had surrendered the neutral +zone, and so, with the help of Bismarck, Clinchant and Ladmirault were +able to take the Buttes by the two flanks.</p> + +<p>Nearly surrounded in the mairie of the seventeenth arrondissement, Malon +ordered the retreat on Montmartre, whither a detachment of twenty-five +women, come to offer their services under the conduct of the citoyennes +Dimitrieff and Louise Michel, were also sent.</p> + +<p>Clinchant, pursuing his route, was arrested by the barricade of the +Place Clichy. To reduce these badly disposed paving-stones, behind which +hardly fifty men were fighting, required the combined effort of the +Versaillese of the Rue de St. Pétersbourg and their tirailleurs of the +Collége Chaptal. The Federals, having no more shells, charged with +stones and bitumen; their powder exhausted, they fell back upon the Rue +des Carrières, and Ladmirault, master of the St. Ouen Avenue, turned +their barricade by the Montmartre Cemetery. About twenty guards refused +to surrender, and were at once shot by the Versaillese.</p> + +<p>In the rear, the quarter Des Epinettes still held out for a time; at +last all resistance ceased, and about nine o'clock the entire +Batignolles belonged to the army.</p> + +<p>The Hôtel-de-Ville knew nothing yet of the progress of the troops when +Vermorel rushed thither in search of munitions for Montmartre. As he was +setting out at the head of the waggons he met Ferré, and, with the smile +familiar to him, said, "Well, Ferré, the members of the minority fight." +"The members of the majority will do their duty," answered Ferré. +Generous emulation of these men, who were both devoted to the people, +and who were to die so nobly.</p> + +<p>Vermorel could not take his waggons as far as Montmartre, the +Versaillese already investing the heights. Masters of the Batignolles, +they had but to stretch out their hand to seize upon Montmartre. The +Buttes seemed dead; panic had during the night hurried on its underhand +work; the battalions, one after the other, had grown smaller, vanished. +Individuals <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>seen later on in the ranks of the army had stirred +defections, spread false news, and every moment arrested civil and +military chiefs, under the pretext that they were betraying. Only about +a hundred men lined the north side of the hill; a few barricades had +been commenced in the night, but without spirit; the women alone had +shown any ardour.</p> + +<p>Cluseret had, according to his usual habit, gone off in a vapour. +Despite his despatches and the promises of the Hôtel-de-Ville, La +Cécilia had received neither reinforcements nor munitions. At nine +o'clock, no longer hearing the cannon of the Buttes, he hurried up, and +found the cannoniers gone. The runaways from the Batignolles arriving at +ten o'clock only brought in panic. The Versaillese might have presented +themselves; there were not 200 combatants there to receive them.</p> + +<p>MacMahon, however, only dared attempt the assault with his best troops, +so redoubtable was this position, so great the renown of Montmartre. Two +entire army corps assailed it by the Rues Lepic, Mercadet, and the +Chaussée Clignancourt. From time to time some shots were fired from a +few houses; forthwith frightened columns came to a stand-still and began +regular sieges. These 20,000 men, who completely surrounded Montmartre, +helped by the artillery established on the terre-plein of the enceinte, +took three hours to climb these positions, defended without method by a +few dozen tirailleurs.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock the cemetery was taken, and shortly after the troops +reached the Château-Rouge. In the environs there were some fusillades, +but the few obstinate men who still fought were soon killed, or withdrew +discouraged at their isolation. The Versaillese, scrambling up to the +Buttes by all the acclivities that lead to them, at mid-day installed +themselves at the Moulin de la Galette, descended by the Place St. +Pierre to the mairie, and occupied the whole of the eighteenth +arrondissement without any resistance.</p> + +<p>Thus without a battle, without an assault, without even a protestation +of despair, was this impregnable fortress <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>abandoned, from which a few +hundred resolute men might have kept the whole Versaillese army in +check, and constrained the Assembly to come to terms.</p> + +<p>Hardly arrived at Montmartre, the Versaillese staff offered a holocaust +to the manes of Lecomte and Clément-Thomas. Forty-two men, three women, +and four children were conducted to No. 6 in the Rue des Rosiers and +forced to kneel bare-headed before the wall, at the foot of which the +generals had been executed on the 18th March; then they were killed. A +woman, who held her child in her arms, refused to kneel down, and cried +to her companions, "Show these wretches that you know how to die +upright."</p> + +<p>On the following day these massacres continued. Each batch of prisoners +halted some time before this wall, marked with bullets, and were then +despatched on the slope of the Buttes that overlooks the St. Denis +route.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> + +<p>The Batignolles and Montmartre witnessed the first wholesale massacres. +Every individual wearing a uniform or regulation boots was shot, as a +matter of course, without questions put, without explanations given. +Thus the Versaillese had been assassinating since the morning in the +Square des Batignolles, Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, and at the gate of +Clichy. The Parc Monceaux was their principal slaughter-house in the +seventeenth arrondissement. At Montmartre the centres of massacre were +the Buttes, the Elysée, of which every step was strewn with corpses, and +the exterior boulevards.</p> + +<p>A few steps from Montmartre the catastrophe was not known. At the Place +Blanche the women's barricade held out for several hours against +Clinchant's soldiers; they then retreated towards the Pigalle barricade, +which fell at about two o'clock. Its chief was led before a Versaillese +chief of battalion. "Who are you?" asked the officer. "Lévêque, mason, +member of the Central Committee." The Versaillese discharged his +revolver in his face; the soldiers finished him.</p> + +<p>On the other bank of the Seine our resistance was more successful. The +Versaillese had been able since morning to occupy the Babylone Barracks +and L'Abbaye-au-Bois, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>Varlin stopped them at the cross-roads of the +Croix-Rouge. This cross-road will remain celebrated in the defence of +Paris. All the streets that open into it had been powerfully barricaded, +and this stronghold was only abandoned when fire and shells had reduced +it to a heap of ruins. On the banks of the river, the Rues de +l'Université, St. Dominique, St. Germain, and De Grenelle, the 67th, +135th, 138th, and 147th battalions, supported by the <i>enfants perdus</i> +and <i>les tirailleurs</i>, resisted obstinately. In the Rue de Rennes and on +the contiguous boulevards the Versaillese exhausted their strength. In +the Rue Vavin, where Lisbonne conducted the defence, the resistance was +prodigious; for two days this advanced sentinel kept back the invasion +from the Luxembourg.</p> + +<p>We were less secure on our extreme left. The Versaillese had early in +the day invested the Mont-Parnasse Cemetery, which we held with a +handful of men. Near the restaurant Richefeu, the Federals, allowing the +enemy to approach, unmasked their mitrailleuses; but in vain, for the +Versaillese were numerous enough to surround the few defenders of the +cemetery on all sides, and soon stormed it. From there, passing by the +ramparts of the fourteenth arrondissement, they arrived at the Place St. +Pierre. The fortifications of the Avenue d'Italie and of the Route de +Châtillon, long since carefully prepared, but always against the +ramparts, were taken in the rear by the Chaussée du Maine, and the whole +defence of the cross-roads of the Quatre-Chemins was concentrated round +the church. From the top of the steeple about a dozen Federals of +Montrouge supported the barricade that barred two-thirds of the Chaussée +du Maine, held by thirty men for several hours. At last, their +cartridges exhausted, the tricolor flag was hoisted at the mairie, at +the same hour that it floated above the Buttes Montmartre. Henceforth +the route to the Place d'Enfer was open, and the Versaillese arrived +there after having undergone the fire from the Observatoire, where some +Federals had made a stand.</p> + +<p>Behind these lines thus forced other defences were thrown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>up, thanks to +the care of Wroblewski. The day before, the general, receiving the order +to evacuate the forts, had answered, "Is it treachery or a +misunderstanding? I will not evacuate." Montmartre taken, the general +went to Delescluze, urging him to transfer the defence to the left bank. +The Seine, the forts, the Panthéon, the Bièvre, formed, in his opinion, +a safe citadel, with the open fields for a retreat; a very just +conception this with regular troops, but one cannot at will displace the +heart of an insurrection, and the Federals were more and more bent on +remaining in their own quarters.</p> + +<p>Wroblewski returned to his headquarters, assembled the commanders of the +forts, prescribed all the dispositions to be taken for their defence, +and came back to resume the command of the left bank, given him by +earlier decrees. But on sending orders to the Panthéon, he was answered +that Lisbonne commanded there. Wroblewski, undeterred, placed the +section left to him in a state of defence. He installed a battery of +eight pieces and two batteries of four on the Butte-aux-Cailles, a +dominant position between the Panthéon and the forts; he fortified the +Boulevards d'Italie, De l'Hôpital, and De la Gare. His headquarters were +established at the Mairie des Gobelins, and his reserve at the Place +d'Italie, Place Jeanne d'Arc, and at Bercy.</p> + +<p>At the other extremities of Paris the fourteenth and twentieth +arrondissements also prepared their defence. The brave Passedouet had +replaced Du Bisson, who still dared to present himself as +<i>chef-de-légion</i> of La Villette. They barricaded the Grande Rue de la +Chapelle behind the Strasbourg Railway, the Rues d'Aubervilliers, De +Flandre, and the canal, so as to form five lines of defence, protected +on the flank by the boulevards and the fortifications. Cannon were +placed in the Rue Riquet at the gasworks, while rampart pieces were +carried by the men on to the Buttes Chaumont and others to the Rue de +Puebla. A battery of six was mounted on the height of the Père Lachaise, +covering Paris with its rumbling reports.</p> + +<p>A mute and desolate Paris. As on the day before, the shops <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>remained +closed, and the streets, bleached by the sun, looked empty and menacing. +Estafets riding at full speed, pieces of artillery shifted from their +places, combatants on the march, alone broke this solitude. Cries of +"Open the shutters!" "Draw up the blinds!" alone interrupted this +silence. Two journals, <i>Le Tribun du Peuple</i> and <i>Le Salut Public</i>, were +published, notwithstanding the Versaillese shells that were falling into +the printing-office of the Rue Aboukir.</p> + +<p>A few men at the Hôtel-de-Ville did their best to attend to details. One +decree authorised the chiefs of barricades to requisition the necessary +implements and victuals; another condemned every house from which +Federals were shot at to be burned. In the afternoon the Committee of +Public Safety issued an appeal to the soldiers:—</p> + +<p>"The people of Paris will never believe that you could raise your arms +against them. When they face you your hands will recoil from an act that +would be a veritable fratricide.</p> + +<p>"Like us, you too are proletarians. That which you did on the 18th March +you will do again. Come to us, brothers, come to us; our arms are open +to receive you."</p> + +<p>The Central Committee at the same time placarded a similar appeal—a +puerile but generous illusion; and on this point the people of Paris +entirely agreed with their mandatories. In spite of the frenzy of the +Assembly, the fusillade of the wounded, the treatment inflicted upon the +prisoners for six weeks, the workingmen did not admit that children of +the people could rend the entrails of that Paris who combated for them.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock M. Bonvalet and other members of the <i>Ligue des Droits +de Paris</i> presented themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville, where some members +of the Council and of the Committee of Public Safety received them. They +bewailed this struggle, proposed to interfere, as they had so +successfully done during the siege, and to carry to M. Thiers the +expression of their sorrow; further, they placed themselves at the +disposition of the Hôtel-de-Ville. "Well, then," they were answered, +"shoulder a gun and go to the barricades!" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>Before this direct appeal +the League fell back upon the Central Committee, which had the weakness +to listen to them.</p> + +<p>There was no question of negotiating in the midst of the battle. The +Versaillese, following up their success at Montmartre, were at this +moment pushing towards the Boulevard Ornano and the Northern Railway +station. At two o'clock the barricades of the Chaussée Clignancourt were +abandoned, and in the Rue Myrrha, by the side of Vermorel, Dombrowski +fell mortally wounded. In the morning Delescluze had told him to try his +best in the neighbourhood of Montmartre; and, without hope, without +soldiers, suspected since the entry of the Versaillese, all Dombrowski +could do was to die. He expired two hours afterwards at the Lariboisière +Hospital. His body was taken to the Hôtel-de-Ville, the men of the +barricades presenting arms as he was carried by. His glorious death had +disarmed suspicion.</p> + +<p>Clinchant, thenceforth free on his left, proceeded to the ninth +arrondissement. A column marched down the Rues Fontaine, St. Georges, +and Notre Dame de Lorette, and made a halt at the cross-roads; while +another cannonaded the Rollin Collége before penetrating into the Rue +Trudaine, where it was held in check until the evening.</p> + +<p>More in the centre, at the Boulevard Haussmann, Douai pressed close upon +the barricade of the Printemps shop, and with gunshots dislodged the +Federals who occupied the Trinité Church. Five pieces established under +the porch of the church were then directed at the very important +barricade that barred the Chaussée d'Antin at the entrance of the +boulevard. A detachment penetrated into the Rues Châteaudun and +Lafayette, but at the cross-roads of the Faubourg Montmartre a +barricade, a yard high at the utmost, defended by twenty-five men, +arrested them until night.</p> + +<p>Douai's right was still powerless against the Rue Royale. There for two +days Brunel sustained a struggle only equalled by that of the +Butte-aux-Cailles, of the Bastille, and the Château d'Eau. His main +barricade, transversely crossing the street, was overlooked by the +neighbouring houses, from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>which the Versaillese decimated the Federals; +and Brunel, impressed with the importance of the post confided to him, +ordered these murderous houses to be burned down. A Federal obeying him +was struck by a ball in the eye, and came back dying to Brunel's side, +saying, "I am paying with my life for the order you have given me. Vive +la Commune!" All the houses comprised between No. 13 and the Faubourg +St. Honoré were caught in the flames, and the Versaillese, appalled, ran +away, some passing over to the Federals. One of them put on the Parisian +uniform and became Brunel's orderly.</p> + +<p>On the right the Boulevard Malesherbes, on the left the terrace of the +Tuileries, which Bergeret occupied since the day before, seconded +Brunel's efforts. The Boulevard Malesherbes, furrowed by shells, was +like a field ploughed up by gigantic shares. The fire of eighty pieces +of artillery at the Quay d'Orsay, Passy, the Champ-de-Mars, the Barrière +de l'Etoile converged on the terrace of the Tuileries and the barricade +St. Florentine. About a dozen Federal pieces bore up against this +shower. The Place de la Concorde, taken between these cross-fires, was +strewn with fragments of fountains and lamp-posts. The statue of Lille +was beheaded, that of Strasbourg pitted by the grapeshot.</p> + +<p>On the left bank the Versaillese made their way from house to house. The +inhabitants of the quarter lent their assistance, and from behind their +closed blinds fired on the Federals, who, indignant, forced and set fire +to the treacherous houses. The Versaillese shells had already begun the +conflagration, and the rest of the quarter was soon in flames. The +troops continued to gain ground, occupied the Ministry of War, the +telegraph office, and reached the Bellechasse Barracks and the Rue de +l'Université. The barricades of the quay and the Rue du Bac were +battered down by the shells; the Federal battalions, which for two days +had held out at the Légion d'Honneur, had no longer any retreat but the +quays. At five o'clock they evacuated this unclean place after having +set it on fire.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock the barricade of the Chaussée d'Antin was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>lost to us; +the enemy advancing by the side streets had occupied the Nouvel Opéra, +entirely dismantled, and from the top of the roofs the marine-fusileers +commanded the barricade. Instead of imitating them, of also occupying +the houses, the Federals, there as everywhere else, obstinately kept +behind the barricade.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock the barricade of the Rue Neuve des Capucines, at the +entrance of the Boulevard, gave way under the fire of the pieces of 4 +cm. established in the Rue Caumartin. The Versaillese approached the +Place Vendôme.</p> + +<p>At all points the army had made decided progress. The Versaillese line, +starting from the Northern Railway station, following the Rues +Rochechouart, Cadet, Drouot, whose mairie was taken, the Boulevard des +Italiens, stretched to the Place Vendôme and the Place de la Concorde, +passed along the Rue du Bac, the Abbaye-au-Bois, and the Boulevard +d'Enfer, ending at the bastion 81. The Place de la Concorde and the Rue +Royale, surrounded on their flanks, stood out like a promontory in the +midst of a tempest. Ladmirault faced La Villette; on his right Clinchant +occupied the ninth arrondissement; Douai presented himself at the Place +Vendôme; Vinoy supported Cissy operating on the left bank. At this hour +hardly one-half of Paris was still held by the Federals.</p> + +<p>The rest was given over to massacre. They were still fighting at one end +of a street when the conquered part was already being sacked. Woe to him +who possessed arms or a uniform! Woe to him who betrayed dismay! Woe to +him who was denounced by a political or personal enemy! He was dragged +away. Each corps had its regular executioner, the provost; but to speed +the business there were supplementary provosts in the streets. The +victims were led there—shot. The blind fury of the soldiers encouraged +by the men of order served their hatred and liquidated their debts. +Theft followed massacre. The shops of the tradesmen who had supplied the +Commune, or whom their rival shopkeepers accused, were given over to +pillage; the soldiers smashed their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>furniture and carried off the +objects of value. Jewels, wine, liqueurs, provisions, linen, perfumery, +disappeared into their knapsacks.</p> + +<p>When M. Thiers was apprised of the fall of Montmartre, he believed the +battle over, and telegraphed to the prefects. For six weeks he had not +ceased to announce that, the ramparts taken, the insurgents would fly; +but Paris, contrary to the habits of the men of Sedan and Metz and of +the National Defence, contested street by street, house by house, and +rather than surrender, burned them.</p> + +<p>A blinding glare arose at nightfall. The Tuileries were burning, so also +the Légion d'Honneur, the Conseil d'Etat, and the Cour des Comptes. +Formidable detonations were heard from the palace of the kings, whose +walls were falling, its vast cupolas giving way. Flames, now slow, now +rapid as darts, flashed from a hundred windows; the red tide of the +Seine reflected the monuments, thus redoubling the conflagration. Fanned +by an eastern wind, the blazing flames rose up against Versailles, and +cried to the conqueror of Paris that he will no longer find his place +there, and that these monarchical monuments will not again shelter a +monarchy. The Rue du Bac, the Rue du Lille, La Croix-Rouge, dashed +luminous columns into the air; the Rue Royale to St. Sulplice seemed a +wall of fire divided by the Seine. Eddies of smoke clouded all the west +of Paris, and the spiral flames shooting forth from these furnaces +emitted showers of sparks that fell upon the neighbouring quarters.</p> + +<p><i>Eleven o'clock.</i>—We go to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Sentinels on far +advanced posts made it secure against any surprise; at long intervals a +gaslight flickered in the obscurity; at several barricades there were +torches, and even bivouac fires. That of the St. Jacques Square, +opposite the Boulevard Sebastopol, made of large trees, whose branches +swung to and fro in the wind, muttered and fluttered in the redoubtable +gloom.</p> + +<p>The façade of the Hôtel-de-Ville was reddened by distant flames; the +statues, which the reflection seemed to move, stirred in their niches. +The interior courts were filled with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>crowds and tumult. Artillery +ammunition waggons, carts, omnibuses, crammed with munitions, rolled off +with a great noise under the vaults. The fêtes of Baron Haussmann awoke +no such sonorous echoes. Life and death, agony and laughter, jostled +each other on these staircases, on every storey, illumined by the same +dazzling light of the gas.</p> + +<p>The lower lobbies were encumbered by National Guards rolled up in their +blankets. The wounded lay groaning on their reddened mattresses; blood +was trickling from the litters placed along the walls. A commander was +brought in who no longer presented a human aspect; a ball had passed +through his cheek, carried away the lips, broken the teeth. Incapable of +articulating a sound, this brave fellow still waved a red flag, and +summoned those who were resting to replace him in the combat.</p> + +<p>In the notorious chamber of Valentine Haussmann the corpse of Dombrowski +was laid out upon a bed of blue satin. A single taper threw its lurid +light on the heroic soldier. His face, white as snow, was calm, the nose +fine, the mouth delicate, the small fair beard standing out pointed. Two +aides-de-camp seated in the darkened corners watched silently, another +hurriedly sketched the last traits of his general.</p> + +<p>The double marble staircase was filled with people coming and going, +whom the sentinels could hardly keep away from the delegate's cabinet. +Delescluze signed orders, mute and wan as a spectre. The anguish of +those later days had absorbed his last vital powers; his voice was only +a death-rattle; the eye and the heart alone lived still in this moribund +athlete.</p> + +<p>Two or three officers calmly prepared the orders, stamped and sent the +despatches; many officers and guards surrounded the table. No speeches, +a little conversation, among the various groups. If hope had waned, +resolution had not grown less.</p> + +<p>Who are these officers who have laid aside their uniforms, these members +of the Council, these functionaries who have shaved their beards? What +are they doing here amongst these brave men? Ranvier, meeting two of his +colleagues thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>disguised, who during the siege had been among the most +beplumed, apostrophised them, threatening to shoot them if they did not +at once return to their arrondissements.</p> + +<p>A great example would not have been useless. From hour to hour all +discipline foundered. At that same moment the Central Committee, which +believed itself invested with power by the abdication of the Council, +launched a manifesto, in which it made conditions: "Dissolution of the +Assembly and of the Commune; the army to leave Paris; the Government to +be provisionally confided to the delegates of the large towns, who will +have a Constituent Assembly elected; mutual amnesty." The ultimatum of a +conqueror. This dream was placarded on a few walls, and threw new +disorder into the resistance.</p> + +<p>From time to time some greater clamour arose from the square. A spy was +shot against the barricade of the Victoria Avenue. Some were audacious +enough to penetrate into the most intimate councils.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> That evening, +at the Hôtel-de-Ville, Bergeret had received the verbal authorisation to +fire the Tuileries, when an individual pretending to be sent by him +asked for this order in writing. He was still speaking when Bergeret +returned. "Who sent you?" said he to the personage. "Bergeret." "When +did you see him?" "Just here, a moment ago."</p> + +<p>During this evening, Raoul Rigault, taking orders from himself only, and +without consulting any of his colleagues, repaired to the prison of Ste. +Pélagie, and signified to Chaudey that he was to die. Chaudey protested, +said he was a Republican, and swore that he had not given the order to +fire on the 22nd January. However, he had been at that time the only +authority in the Hôtel-de-Ville. His protestations were of no avail +against Rigault's resolution. Led into the exercise-ground of Ste. +Pélagie, Chaudey was shot, as were also three gendarmes taken prisoners +on the 18th March. During the first siege he had said to some partisans +of the Commune, "The strongest will shoot the others." He died perhaps +for those words.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Appendix XVI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> Appendix XVII.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nos vaillants soldats se conduisent de manière à inspirer la +plus haute estime, la plus grande admiration à +l'étranger."—<i>Discours de M. Thiers, à l'Assemblée +Nationale le 24 Mai 1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">WEDNESDAY 24TH—THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE +HÔTEL-DE-VILLE—THE PANTHÉON IS TAKEN—THE VERSAILLESE +SHOOT THE FEDERALS BY HUNDREDS—THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX +HOSTAGES—THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The defenders of the barricades, already without reinforcements and +munitions, were now left even without food, and altogether thrown on the +resources of the neighbourhood. Many, quite worn out, went in search of +some nourishment; their comrades, not seeing them return, grew +desperate, while the chiefs of the barricades strained themselves to +keep them back.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock Brunel received the order to evacuate the Rue Royale. He +went to the Tuileries to tell Bergeret that he could still hold out, but +at midnight the Committee of Public Safety again sent him a formal order +to retreat. Forced to abandon the post he had so well defended for two +days, the brave commander first removed his wounded and then his cannon +by the Rue St. Florentin. The Federals followed; when at the top of the +Rue Castiglione, they were assailed by shots.</p> + +<p>It was the Versaillese, who, masters of the Rue de la Paix and the Rue +Neuve des Capucines, had invaded the Place Vendôme, entirely deserted, +and by the Hôtel-du-Rhin turned the barricade of the Rue Castiglione. +Brunel's Federals, abandoning the Rue de Rivoli, forced the rails of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>garden, went up the quays, and regained the Hôtel-de-Ville. The enemy +did not dare to pursue them, and only at daybreak occupied the Ministry +of Marine, long since abandoned.</p> + +<p>The rest of the night the cannon were silent. The Hôtel-de-Ville had +lost its animation. The Federals slept in the square; in the bureaux the +members of the committees and the officers snatched a few moments of +repose. At three o'clock a staff officer arrived from Notre Dame, +occupied by a detachment of Federals. He came to tell the Committee of +Public Safety that the Hôtel-Dieu harboured eight hundred sick, who +might suffer from the proximity of the struggle, and the Committee +commanded the evacuation of the cathedral in order to save these +unfortunate people.</p> + +<p>And now the sun rose, eclipsing the glare of the conflagrations; the day +dawned radiant, but with no ray of hope for the Commune. Paris had no +longer a right wing; her centre was broken; to assume the offensive was +impossible. The prolongation of her resistance could now only serve to +bear witness to her faith.</p> + +<p>Early in the morning the Versaillese moved on all points. They pushed +towards the Louvre, the Palais-Royal, the Bank, the Comptoir d'Escompte, +the Montholon Square, the Boulevard Ornano, and the line of the Northern +Railway. From four o'clock they cannonaded the Palais-Royal, round which +desperate battles were being fought. By seven o'clock they were at the +Bank and at the Bourse; thence they descended to St. Eustache, where +they met an obstinate resistance. Many children fought with the men; and +when the Federals were outflanked and massacred, these children had the +honour not to be excepted.</p> + +<p>On the left bank the troops with difficulty marched up the quays and all +that part of the sixth arrondissement bordering upon the Seine. In the +centre, the barricade of the Croix-Rouge had been evacuated during the +night, like that of the Rue de Rennes, which thirty men had held for two +days. The Versaillese were then able to enter the Rues d'Assas and +Notre-dame-des-Champs. On the extreme <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>right they reached the Val de +Grace, and advanced against the Panthéon.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock about fifteen members of the Council assembled at the +Hôtel-de-Ville and decided to evacuate it. Two only protested. The third +arrondissement, intersected by narrow and well-barricaded streets, +sheltered the flank of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which defied every attack +from the front and by the quays. Under such conditions of defence to +fall back was to fly, to strip the Commune of the little prestige still +remaining to it; but no more than the days before were they able to +collect two sound ideas. They feared everything, because ignorant of +everything. Already the commander of the Palais Royal had received the +order to evacuate that edifice, after having set it on fire. He had +protested, and declared he could still hold out, but the order was +repeated. Such was the state of bewilderment, that a member proposed a +retreat on Belleville. They might as well abandon the Château d'Eau and +the Bastille at once. As usual, the time was spent in small-talk. The +governor of the Hôtel-de-Ville went backwards and forwards impatient.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the flames burst forth from the summit of the belfry; an hour +after the Hôtel-de-Ville was but one glow. The old edifice, witness of +so many perjuries, where the people have so often installed powers that +have afterwards shot them down, now cracked and fell with its true +master. With the noise of the crumbling pavilions, of the toppling +vaults and chimneys, of the dull detonations and the loud explosions, +mingled the sharp reports of the cannon from the large barricade St. +Jacques, that swept the Rue de Rivoli.</p> + +<p>The War Office and all the services moved off to the mairie of the +eleventh arrondissement. Delescluze had protested against the desertion +of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and predicted that this retreat would discourage +many combatants.</p> + +<p>The next day they left the Imprimerie Nationale, where the <i>Officiel</i> of +the Commune appeared on the 24th for the last time. Like an <i>Officiel</i> +that respects itself, it was a day behind time; it contained the +proclamations of the day before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>and a few details of the battle, but +not beyond the Tuesday morning.</p> + +<p>This flight from the Hôtel-de-Ville, cutting the defence in two, +increased the difficulty of the communications. The staff officers who +had not disappeared reached the new headquarters with great trouble; +they were stopped at every barricade and constrained to carry +paving-stones. On producing their despatches pleading urgency, they were +answered, "To-day there are no more epaulettes." The anger they had +inspired for a long time broke out this very morning. In the Rue +Sedaine, near the Place Voltaire, a young officer of the general staff, +the Count de Beaufort, was recognised by the guards of the 166th +battalion, whom he had threatened some days before at the War Office. +Arrested for having tried to violate the orders of the post, Beaufort, +losing his temper, had flung out a menace to purge the battalion. Now, +the day before, near the Madeleine, the battalion had lost sixty men, +and believed in a revenge on the part of Beaufort. This officer was +arrested and conducted before a court-martial, which installed itself in +a shop of the Boulevard Voltaire. Beaufort produced such certificates +that the accusation was abandoned. Nevertheless, the judges decided that +he was to serve in the battalion as a simple guard. Some of those +present objected and named him captain. He came out triumphant. The +crowd, ignorant of his explanation, grumbled on seeing him free. A guard +rushed at him, and Beaufort was imprudent enough to draw out his +revolver. He was immediately seized and thrown back into the shop. The +chief of the general staff did not dare to come to the rescue of his +officer. Delescluze hurried up, asked for a respite, said that Beaufort +should be judged; but the crowd would hear of nothing, and it was +necessary to yield in order to prevent a terrible affray. Beaufort, +conducted to the open space situated behind the mairie, was shot.</p> + +<p>Close by this outburst of fury, at the Père Lachaise, Dombrowski was +receiving the last honours. His corpse had been transported thither in +the night, and during the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>passage to the Bastille a touching scene had +taken place. The Federals of these barricades had stopped the cortège +and placed the corpse at the foot of the July column; some men, torches +in their hands, formed into a circle, and all the Federals, one after +the other, came to place a last kiss on the brow of the general, while +the drums beat a salute. The body, enveloped in a red flag, was then put +into the coffin. Vermorel, the general's brother, his aides-de-camp, and +about 200 guards were standing up bareheaded. "There is he," cried +Vermorel, "who was accused of treachery! One of the first, he has given +his life for the Commune. And we, what are we doing here instead of +imitating him?" He went on stigmatising cowardice and panics. His +speech, usually intricate, now flowed from him, heated by passion, like +molten metal. "Let us swear to leave here only to seek death!" This was +his last word; he was to keep it. The cannon a few steps off had at +intervals covered his voice; few of the men present but shed tears.</p> + +<p>Happy those who may have such funerals! Happy those buried during the +battle saluted by their cannon, wept over by their friends.</p> + +<p>At that same moment the Versaillese agent who had flattered himself he +could corrupt Dombrowski was being shot. Towards mid-day the +Versaillese, vigorously pushing their attack on the left bank, had +stormed the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Institute, the Mint, which its +director, Camélinat, left only at the last minute. On the point of being +shut up in the Ile Notre Dame, Ferré had given the order to evacuate the +Prefecture of Police and to destroy it. The 450 prisoners arrested for +slight offences were, however, first set at liberty; one only, Vaysset, +was retained and shot on the Pont-Neuf before the statue of Henry IV. +Just before his death he uttered these strange words, "You will answer +for my death to the Comte de Fabrice."<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p> + +<p>The Versaillese, neglecting the Prefecture, entered the Rue Tarranes and +the contiguous streets. They were held in check for two hours at the +barricade of the Place de l'Abbaye, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>which the inhabitants of the +quarter helped to outflank. Eighteen Federals were shot. More to the +right the troops penetrated into the Place St. Sulpice, where they +occupied the mairie of the sixth arrondissement; thence they entered the +Rue St. Sulpice on one side, and on the other penetrated by the Rue de +Vaugirard into the garden of the Luxembourg. After two days of struggle +the brave Federals of the Rue Vavin fell back, and on their retreat blew +up the powder-magazine of the Luxembourg garden. The commotion for a +moment suspended the combat. The Palace of the Luxembourg was not +defended. Some soldiers crossed the garden, broke down the rails facing +the Rue Soufflot, traversed the boulevard, and surprised the first +barricade in that street.</p> + +<p>Three barricades were raised before the Panthéon; the first at the +entrance of the Rue Soufflot—it had just been taken; the second in the +centre; the third extending from the mairie of the fifth arrondissement +to the Ecole de Droit. Varlin and Lisbonne, hardly escaped from the +Croix-Rouge, had hastened up again to face the enemy. Unfortunately the +Federals would listen to no chief, remained on the defensive, and, +instead of attacking the handful of soldiers exposed at the entrance of +the Rue Soufflot, gave the reinforcements time to arrive.</p> + +<p>The bulk of the Versaillese reached the Boulevard St. Michel by the Rues +Racine and De l'Ecole de Médecine, which women had defended. The St. +Michel Bridge ceased firing for want of munitions, so that the soldiers +were able to pass over the boulevard in a body, and got as far as the +Place Maubert, while at the same time on the right they remounted the +Rue Mouffetard. At four o'clock the height Ste. Geneviève, well-nigh +abandoned, was invaded by all its slopes and its few defenders +dispersed. Thus the Panthéon, like Montmartre, fell almost without a +struggle. As at Montmartre, too, the massacres commenced immediately. +Forty prisoners were shot one after the other in the Rue St. Jacques, +under the eyes and by the orders of a colonel.</p> + +<p>Rigault was killed in this neighbourhood. The soldiers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>seeing a Federal +officer knocking at the door of a house in the Rue Gay-Lussac fired +without hitting him. The door opened and Rigault went in. The soldiers +followed at full speed, rushed into the house, seized the landlord, who +proved his identity, and hastened to deliver up Rigault. The soldiers +were dragging him to the Luxembourg, when, in the Rue Royal-Collard, a +Versaillese staff colonel met the escort, and asked the name of the +prisoner. Rigault bravely answered, "Vive la Commune! Down with +assassins!" He was immediately thrown against a wall and shot. May this +courageous end be counted to him!</p> + +<p>When the fall of the Panthéon, so valiantly defended in June, 1848, +became known in the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, they at once +cried out against traitors; but what then had the Council and the +Committee of Public Safety done for the defence of this capital post? At +the mairie, as at the Hôtel-de-Ville, they were deliberating.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock the members of the Council, of the Central Committee, +superior officers, and the chiefs of the services were assembled in the +library. Delescluze spoke first, amidst a profound silence, for the +least whisper would have covered his dying voice. He said all was not +lost; that they must make a great effort, and hold out to the last. +Cheers interrupted him. He called upon each one to state his opinion. "I +propose," said he, "that the members of the Commune, engirded with their +scarfs, shall make a review of all the battalions that can be assembled +on the Boulevard Voltaire. We shall then at their head proceed to the +points to be conquered."</p> + +<p>The idea appeared grand, and transported those present. Never since the +sitting when he had said that certain delegates of the people would know +how to die at their post, had Delescluze so profoundly moved all hearts. +The distant fusillade, the cannon of the Père Lachaise, the confused +clamours of the battalions surrounding the mairie, blended with, and at +times drowned his voice. Behold, in the midst of this defeat, this old +man upright, his eyes luminous, his right hand raised defying despair, +these armed men fresh from the battle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>suspending their breath to listen +to this voice which seemed to ascend from the tomb. There was no scene +more solemn in the thousand tragedies of that day.</p> + +<p>There was a superabundance of most vigorous resolutions. Open on the +table lay a large case of dynamite; an imprudent gesture might explode +the Mairie. They spoke of cutting off the bridges, of upheaving the +sewers. What was the use of this tall talking? Very different munitions +were needed now. Where is the engineer-in-chief who had said that at his +bidding an abyss would open and swallow up the enemy? He is gone. Gone +too the chief of the general staff. Since the execution of Beaufort, he +has felt an ill wind blowing for his epaulettes. More motions were made, +and motions will still be made to the end. The Central Committee +condescended to declare that it would subordinate itself to the +Committee of Public Safety. It seemed settled at last that the chief of +the 11th legion was to group all the Federals who had taken refuge in +the eleventh arrondissement; perhaps he might succeed in forming the +columns of which Delescluze had spoken.</p> + +<p>The Delegate at War then visited the defences. Solid preparations were +being made at the Bastille. In the Rue St. Antoine, at the entrance of +the place, a barricade provided with three pieces of artillery was being +finished; another at the entrance of the faubourg covered the Rues de +Charenton and De la Rouqette; but here, as everywhere else, the flanks +were not guarded. Cartridges, shells, were piled up along the houses, +exposed to all projectiles. The approaches to the eleventh +arrondissement were hastily armed, and at the intersection of the +Boulevards Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir a barricade was being thrown up +with casks, pavements, and large bales of paper. This work, inaccessible +from the front, was also to be turned. Before it, at the entrance of the +Boulevards Voltaire, Place du Château d'Eau, a wall of pavement two +yards high was raised. Behind this mortal rampart, assisted by two +pieces of cannon, the Federals for twenty-four hours stopped all the +Versaillese columns debouching on the Place du Château <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>d'Eau. On the +right, the bottom of the Rues Oberkampf, D'Angoulême, of the Faubourg du +Temple, the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi, and the Avenue des Amandiers were +already on the defensive. Higher up, in the tenth arrondissement, +Brunel, arrived that same morning from the Rue Royale, was again to the +fore, like Lisbonne, like Varlin, eager for new perils. A large +barricade cut off the intersection of the Boulevards Magenta and +Strasbourg; the Rue du Château d'Eau was barred, and the works of the +Porte St. Martin and St. Denis, at which they had worked day and night, +were filling with combatants.</p> + +<p>Towards ten o'clock the Versaillese had been able to gain possession of +the Northern Railway station by turning the Rue Stephenson and the +barricades of the Rue de Dunkerque; but the Strasbourg Railway, the +second line of defence of La Villette, withstood their shock, and our +artillery harassed them greatly. On the Buttes Chaumont, Ranvier, who +directed the defence of these quarters, had established three howitzers +of 12 cm., two pieces of 7 near the Temple de la Sybille, and two pieces +of 7 on the lower hill, while five cannon enfiladed the Rue Puebla and +protected the Rotonde. At the Carrières d'Amérique there were two +batteries of three pieces; the pieces of the Père Lachaise fired +incessantly at the invaded quarters, seconded by cannon of large calibre +at the bastion 24.</p> + +<p>The ninth arrondissement filled with fusillades. We lost much ground in +the Faubourg Poissonnière. Despite their success in the Halles, the +Versaillese were not able to get into the third arrondissement, +sheltered by the long arm of the Boulevard Sébastopol, and we commanded +the Rue Turbigo by the Prince Eugène Barracks. The second +arrondissement, almost totally occupied, still held out on the banks of +the Seine; from the Pont-Neuf the barricades of the Avenue Victoria and +Quai de Gèvres resisted till night. Our gunboats having been abandoned, +the enemy seized and re-armed them.</p> + +<p>The only success of our defence was at the Butte aux Cailles, where, +under the impulsion of Wroblewski, it changed into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>the offensive. +During the night the Versaillese had examined our positions, and at +daybreak they mounted to the assault. The Federals did not wait for +them, and rushed forward to meet them. Four times the Versaillese were +repulsed, four times they returned; four times they retreated, and the +soldiers, discouraged, no longer obeyed their officers.</p> + +<p>Thus La Villette and the Butte aux Cailles, the two extremities of our +defence, kept their ground; but what gaps all along the line! Of Paris, +all theirs on Sunday, the Federals now only possessed the eleventh, +twelfth, nineteenth, and twentieth arrondissements, and a part only of +the third, fifth, and thirteenth.</p> + +<p>On that day the massacres took that furious flight which in a few hours +left St. Bartholomew's Day far behind. Till then only the Federals or +the people denounced had been killed; now the soldiers knew neither +friend nor foe. When the Versaillese fixed his eye upon you, you must +die; when he searched a house, nothing escaped him. "These are no longer +soldiers accomplishing a duty," said a conservative journal, <i>La +France</i>. And indeed these were hyenas, thirsting for blood and pillage. +In some places it sufficed to have a watch to be shot. The corpses were +searched,<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> and the correspondents of foreign newspapers called those +thefts the last perquisition. And the same day M. Thiers had the +effrontery to tell the Assembly: "Our valiant soldiers conduct +themselves in such a manner as to inspire foreign countries with the +highest esteem and admiration."</p> + +<p>Then, too, was invented that legend of the petroleuses, which, born of +fear and propagated by the press, cost hundreds of unfortunate women +their lives. The rumour was spread that furies were throwing burning +petroleum into the cellars. Every woman badly dressed, or carrying a +milk-can, a pail, an empty bottle, was pointed out as a petroleuse, her +clothes torn to tatters, she was pushed against the nearest wall, and +killed with revolver-shots. The monstrously idiotical side of the legend +is that the petroleuses were supposed to operate in the quarters +occupied by the army.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>The fugitives from the invaded quarters brought the news of these +massacres to the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. There, within +smaller compass and more menacing, reigned the same confusion as at the +Hôtel-de-Ville. The narrow courts were full of waggons, cartridges, and +powder; every step of the principal staircase was occupied by women +sewing sacks for the barricades. In the Salle des Mariages, whither +Ferré had removed the office of Public Safety, the delegate, assisted by +two secretaries, gave orders, signed free passes, questioned the people +brought to him with the greatest calm, and pronounced his decisions in a +polite, soft, and low voice. Farther on, in the rooms occupied by the +War Office, some officers and chiefs of services received and expedited +despatches; some of them, as at the Hôtel-de-Ville, doing their duty +with perfect sangfroid. At this hour certain men revealed extraordinary +strength of character, especially among the secondary actors of the +movement. They felt that all was lost, that they were about to die, +perhaps even at the hands of their own people, for the fever of +suspicion had reached its utmost degree of paroxysm; yet they remained +in the furnace, their hearts calm, their minds lucid. Never had a +Government, with the exception of that of the National Defence, more +resources, more intelligence, more heroism at its disposal than the +Council of the Commune; never was there one so inferior to its electors.</p> + +<p>At half-past seven a great noise was heard before the prison of La +Roquette, where the day before the three hundred hostages, detained +until then at Mazas, had been transported. Amidst a crowd of guards, +exasperated at the massacres, stood a delegate of the Public Safety +Commission, who said, "Since they shoot our men, six hostages shall be +executed. Who will form the platoon?" "I! I!" was cried from all sides. +One advanced and said, "I avenge my father;" another, "I avenge my +brother." "As for me," said a guard, "they have shot my wife." Each one +brought forward his right to vengeance. Thirty men were chosen and +entered the prison.</p> + +<p>The delegate looked over the jail register, pointed out the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>Archbishop +Darboy, the President Bonjean, the banker Jecker, the Jesuits Allard, +Clerc, and Ducoudray; at the last moment Jecker was replaced by the Curé +Deguerry.</p> + +<p>They were taken to the exercise-ground. Darboy stammered out, "I am not +the enemy of the Commune. I have done all I could. I have written twice +to Versailles." He recovered a little when he saw death was inevitable. +Bonjean could not keep on his legs. "Who condemns us?" said he. "The +justice of the people." "Oh, this is not the right one," replied the +president. One of the priests threw himself against the sentry-box and +uncovered his breast. They were led further on, and, turning a corner, +met the firing-party. Some men apostrophised them; the delegate at once +ordered silence. The hostages placed themselves against the wall, and +the officer of the platoon said to them, "It is not we whom you must +accuse of your death, but the Versaillese, who are shooting the +prisoners." He then gave the signal and the guns were fired. The +hostages fell back in one line, at an equal distance from each other. +Darboy alone remained standing, wounded in the head, one hand raised. A +second volley laid him by the side of the others.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a></p> + +<p>The blind justice of revolutions punishes in the first-comers the +accumulated crimes of their caste.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock the Versaillese closed in upon the barricade of the +Porte St. Martin. Their shells had long since set the theatre on fire, +and the Federals, pressed by this conflagration, were obliged to fall +back.</p> + +<p>That night the Versaillese bivouacked in front of the Strasbourg +Railway, the Rue St. Denis, the Hôtel-de-Ville (occupied towards nine +o'clock by Vinoy's troops), the Ecole Polytechnique, the Madelonnettes, +and the Monsouris Park. They presented a kind of fan, of which the fixed +point was formed by the Pont-au-Change, the right side by the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>thirteenth arrondissement, the left by the streets of the Faubourg St. +Martin and the Rue de Flandre, the arc by the fortifications. The fan +was about to close at Belleville, which formed the centre.</p> + +<p>Paris continued to burn furiously. The Porte St. Martin, the St. +Eustache Church, the Rue Royale, the Rue de Rivoli, the Tuileries, the +Palais-Royal, the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Théâtre-Lyrique, the left bank +from the Légion d'Honneur up to the Palais de Justice and the Prefecture +de Police, stood out bright red in the darkness of night. The caprices +of the fire displayed a blazing architecture of arches, cupolas, +spectral edifices. Great volumes of smoke, clouds of sparks flying into +the air, attested formidable explosions; every minute stars lit up and +died out again in the horizon. These were the cannon of the fort of +Bicêtre, of the Père Lachaise, and the Buttes Chaumont, which fired on +the invaded quarters. The Versaillese batteries answered from the +Panthéon, the Trocadéro, and Montmartre. Now the reports followed each +other at regular intervals; now there was a continuous thunder along the +whole line. They aimed at random, blindly, madly. The shells often +exploded in the midst of their career; the whole town was enveloped in a +whirl of flame and smoke.</p> + +<p>What men this handful of combatants, who, without chiefs, without hope, +without retreat, disputed their last pavements as though they implied +victory! The hypocritical reaction has charged them with the crime of +incendiarism, as if in war fire were not a legitimate arm; as if the +Versaillese shells had not set fire to at least as many edifices as +those of the Federals; as if the private speculation of certain men of +order had not its share in the ruins.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> And that same bourgeois who +spoke of "burning everything"<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> before the Prussians, calls this +people scoundrels because they preferred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>to bury themselves in the +ruins rather than abandon their faith, their property, their families, +to a coalition of despots a thousand times more cruel and more lasting +than the foreigner.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock two officers entered Delescluze's room and informed +him of the execution of the hostages. He listened to the recital without +ceasing to write, and then only asked, "How did they die?" When the +officers were gone, Delescluze turned to the friend who was working with +him, and, hiding his face in his hands, "What a war!" cried he, "what a +war!" But he knew revolutions too well to lose himself in bootless +reflections, and, mastering his emotion, he exclaimed, "We shall know +how to die!"</p> + +<p>During the whole night despatches succeeded each other without +intermission, all demanding cannon and men under the threat of +abandoning such or such a position. But where to find cannon? And men +began to be as rare as the bronze.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> One of the commanders of the German troops.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> Appendix XVIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> At half-past eight o'clock in the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement the delegate Genton made this recital, which we heard, +and reproduce verbatim.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> Appendix XIX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> "Burn everything! I have heard these words from the most +wise, the most virtuous men."—<i>Jules Favre, Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, +vol. ii. p. 42. "Rather Moscow than Sedan," wrote during the first siege +one of these wise and virtuous men—M. Jules Simon.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THURSDAY 25TH—THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF +THE TROOPS—DELESCLUZE DIES—THE BRASSARDIERS<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> +STIMULATE THE MASSACRE—THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE +THE MAIRIE OF THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>A few thousand men could not indefinitely hold a line of battle several +miles long. When night had set in, many Federals abandoned their +barricades in order to snatch a little rest. The Versaillese, who were +on the look-out, took possession of their defences, and the glimmering +of dawn saw the tricolor where on the eve had floated the red flag.</p> + +<p>In the darkness the Federals evacuated the greater part of the tenth +arrondissement, whose artillery pieces were transported to the Château +d'Eau. Brunel and the brave <i>pupilles de la Commune</i> still stood their +ground in the Rue Magnan and on the Quay Jemappes, the troops holding +the top of the Boulevard Magenta.</p> + +<p>On the left bank, the Versaillese erected batteries at the Place +d'Enfer, the Luxembourg, and the bastion 81. More than fifty cannon and +mitrailleuses were levelled at the Butte aux Cailles; for, despairing of +taking it by assault, Cissey wished to crush it with his artillery. +Wroblewski, on his side, did not remain inactive. Besides the 175th and +176th battalions, he had under his command the legendary 101st, which +was to the troops of the Commune what the 32nd brigade had been to the +army of Italy. Since the 3rd April the 101st had not rested. Day and +night, their guns hot, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>they had roamed about the trenches, the +villages, the fields; the Versaillese of Neuilly, of Asnières, ten times +fled before them. They had taken three cannon from them, which, like +faithful mastiffs, followed them everywhere. All citizens of the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Mouffetard quarter, undisciplined, +undisciplinable, wild, rough, their clothes and flag torn, obeying only +one order, that to march forward, mutineering when inactive, when hardly +out of fire rendering it necessary to plunge them into it again. +Sérizier commanded, or rather accompanied them; for indeed their rage +was their only commander. While at the front they attempted surprises, +seized outposts, kept the soldiers in alarm. Wroblewski, uncovered on +his right since the taking of the Panthéon, secured his communications +with the Seine by a barricade on the Bridge of Austerlitz, and furnished +the Place Jeanne d'Arc with cannon, in order to check the troops who +might venture along the railway station.</p> + +<p>That day M. Thiers dared to telegraph to the provinces that Marshal +MacMahon had just, for the last time, summoned the Federals to +surrender. This was an odious lie added to so many others. Like +Cavaignac in 1848, M. Thiers, on the contrary, wanted to prolong the +battle. He knew that his shells were setting Paris on fire, that the +massacre of the prisoners, of the wounded, would fatally entail that of +the hostages. But what cared he for the fate of a few priests and a few +gendarmes? What cared the bourgeoisie if it triumphed amidst ruins—if +on these ruins it could write, "Paris waged war with the privileged; +Paris is no more!"</p> + +<p>The Hôtel-de-Ville and the Panthéon in the power of the troops, their +whole efforts concentrated upon the Château d'Eau, the Bastille, and the +Butte aux Cailles. At four o'clock Clinchant resumed his march towards +the Château d'Eau. One column, setting out from the Rue Paradis, went up +the Rues du Château d'Eau and De Bondy; another advanced against the +barricade of the Boulevards Magenta and Strasbourg; while a third from +the Rue des Jeuneurs pushed on between the boulevards and the Rue +Turbigo. The corps Douay on the right supported this movement, and +endeavoured to remount <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>the third arrondissement by the Rues Charlot and +De Saintonge. Vinoy advanced towards the Bastille by the small streets +that abut upon the Rue St. Antoine, the quays of the right and of the +left banks. Cissey, with more modest strategy, cannonaded the Butte aux +Cailles, before which his men had so often turned tail.</p> + +<p>Painful scenes were enacted in the forts. Wroblewski, whose left wing +was covered by them, relied for their preservation upon the energy of +the member of the Council who had assumed the functions of delegate. The +evening before the commander of Montrouge had abandoned that fort and +had retreated to Bicêtre with his garrison. The fort of Bicêtre did not +hold out much longer. The battalions declared that they wanted to return +to the town in order to defend their quarters, and the delegate, in +spite of his threats, was unable to retain them; so, after having spiked +their guns, the whole garrison returned to Paris. The Versaillese +occupied the two evacuated forts, and there at once erected batteries +against the fort of Ivry and the Butte aux Cailles.</p> + +<p>The general attack on the Butte did not begin till mid-day. The +Versaillese followed the ramparts as far as the Avenue d'Italie and the +Route de Choisy, with the view of making sure of the Place d'Italie, +which they attacked from the side of the Gobelins. The Avenues d'Italie +and De Choisy were defended by powerful barricades which they could not +dream of forcing; but that of the Boulevard St. Marcel, protected on one +side by the conflagration of the Gobelins, could be turned by the +numerous gardens intersecting this quarter, and the Versaillese +succeeded in doing this. They first took possession of the Rue des +Cordillières St. Marcel, where twenty Federals who refused to surrender +were massacred, and then entered the gardens. For three hours a long and +obstinate fusillade enveloped the Butte aux Cailles, battered down by +the Versaillese cannon, six times as numerous as Wroblewski's.</p> + +<p>The garrison of Ivry arrived towards one o'clock. On leaving the fort +they had set fire to a mine which sprung two bastions. Soon after the +Versaillese penetrated into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>abandoned fort, and then there was no +struggle, as M. Thiers tried to make it appear in one of those bulletins +in which he very cleverly intermingled truth and falsehood.</p> + +<p>Towards ten o'clock on the right bank the Versaillese reached the +barricade of the Faubourg St. Denis, near the St. Lazare prison, +outflanked and shot seventeen Federals.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> Thence they went to occupy +the St. Laurent barricade at the junction of the Boulevard Sébastopol, +erected batteries against the Château d'Eau, and by the Rue des +Récollets gained the Quay Valmy. On the night, their debouching on the +Boulevard St. Martin was retarded by the Rue de Lanery, against which +they fired from the Ambigu-Comique Théatre. In the third arrondissement +they were stopped in the Rue Meslay, Rue Nazareth, Rue du Vert-Bois, Rue +Charlot, Rue de Saintonge. The second arrondissement, invaded from all +sides, was still disputing its Rue Montorgueuil Nearer the Seine, Vinoy +succeeded in entering the Grenier d'Abondance by circuitous streets, and +in order to dislodge him the Federals set fire to this building, which +overlooks the Bastille.</p> + +<p><i>Three o'clock.</i>—The Versaillese invaded the thirteenth arrondissement +more and more. Their shells falling upon the prison of the Avenue +d'Italie, the Federals evacuated it, at the same time taking out the +prisoners, amongst whom were the Dominicans of Arcueil, who had been +brought back to Paris with the garrison of Bicêtre. The sight of these +men, doubly odious, exasperated the combatants, whose guns, so to say, +spontaneously went off, and a dozen of the apostles of the Inquisition +fell under the bullets at the moment they were running away by the +Avenue. All the other prisoners were respected.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>Since the morning Wroblewski had received the order to fall back upon +the eleventh arrondissement. He persisted in holding out, and had +shifted the centre of his resistance a little further to the rear, to +the Place Jeanne d'Arc. But the Versaillese, masters of the Avenue des +Gobelins, made their junction with the columns of the Avenues d'Italie +and Choisy in the thirteenth arrondissement. One of their detachments +continuing to file along the rampart, reached the embankment of the +Orleans Railway, and the red-coats were already showing themselves on +the Boulevard St. Marcel. Wroblewski, almost hemmed in on all sides, was +at last forced to consent to a retreat. Moreover, the subaltern chiefs +had, like their general, received the order to fall back; and so, +protected by the fire of the Austerlitz Bridge, the able defender of the +Butte aux Cailles passed the Seine in good order with his cannon and a +thousand men. A certain number of Federals, who obstinately remained +behind in the thirteenth arrondissement, were surrounded and taken +prisoners.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese did not dare to disturb Wroblewski's retreat, although +they held part of the Boulevard St. Marcel, the Orleans Station, and +their gunboats were ascending the Seine. The latter were delayed for a +moment at the entrance of the St. Martin's Canal, but putting on full +steam, they overcame the obstacle, and in the evening lent assistance in +the attack on the eleventh arrondissement.</p> + +<p>The whole left bank now belonged to the enemy; the Bastille and the +Château d'Eau became the centre of the combat.</p> + +<p>In the Boulevard Voltaire might now be seen all the true-hearted men who +had not perished, or whose presence was not indispensable in their +quarters. One of the most active was Vermorel, who during the whole +struggle showed a courage composed at once of fire and coolness. On +horseback, his red scarf tied round him, he rode from barricade to +barricade, encouraging the men, fetching and bringing reinforcements. At +the Mairie another meeting was held towards twelve o'clock. Twenty-two +members of the Council were present; about ten <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>more were defending +their arrondissements, the others had disappeared. Arnold explained that +the evening before, the secretary of Mr. Washburne, the ambassador of +the United States, had come to offer the mediation of the Germans. The +Commune, he said, had now only to send commissaries to Vincennes in +order to regulate the conditions of an armistice. The secretary, +introduced to the meeting, renewed this declaration, and the discussion +began. Delescluze showed great reluctance to accept this plan. What +motive induced the foreigner to intervene? To put an end to the +conflagration and preserve their guarantee, he was answered. But their +guarantee was the Versaillese Government, whose triumph was no longer +doubtful at this moment. Others gravely asserted that the inveterate +defence of Paris had inspired the Prussian with admiration. No one asked +whether this insensate proposition did not hide some snare; if the +pretended secretary were not a simple spy. They clung like drowning men +to this last chance of salvation. Arnold even set forth the basis of an +armistice similar to that of the Central Committee. Four of the members +present, and amongst them Delescluze, were charged to accompany the +American secretary to Vincennes.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock they reached the gate of Vincennes, but the commissary +of police refused to let them pass. They showed their scarfs, their +cards of members of the Council. The commissary insisted upon a +safe-conduct from the Commission of Public Safety. While the discussion +was going on some Federals came up. "Where are you going?" said they. +"To Vincennes." "Why?" "On a mission." A painful controversy ensued. The +Federals thought the members of the Council wanted to abscond, and they +were even about to ill-use them, when some one recognised Delescluze. +His name saved the others; but the commissary still insisted upon a +safe-conduct.</p> + +<p>One of the delegates run off to the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement to procure it, but, even on Ferré's order, the guards +refused to lower the drawbridge. Delescluze addressed them, said that +the common weal of all was at stake; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>prayers and threats proved +alike unable to overcome the idea of a defection. Delescluze came back +shivering all over. For one moment he had been suspected of cowardice; +this was to him a death-blow.</p> + +<p>Before the mairie he found a crowd shouting at some flags, surmounted by +eagles, which had just, they said, been taken from the Versaillese. +Wounded were being brought from the Bastille. Mademoiselle Dimitrieff, +wounded herself, supported Frankel, wounded at the barricade of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. Wroblewski just arriving from the Butte aux +Cailles, Delescluze offered him the command-in-chief. "Have you a few +thousand resolute men?" asked Wroblewski. "A few hundred at most," +answered the delegate. Wroblewski could not accept any responsibility of +command under such unequal conditions, and continued to fight as a +simple soldier. He was the only general of the Commune who had showed +the qualities of a chef-de-corps. He always asked to have those +battalions sent him which everybody else declined, undertaking to +utilise them.</p> + +<p>The attack was coming nearer and nearer the Château d'Eau. This place, +constructed with the object of checking the faubourgs, and opening into +eight large avenues, had not been really fortified. The Versaillese, +masters of the Folies-Dramatiques Théatre and of the Rue du Château +d'Eau, attacked it by turning the Prince Eugène Barracks. House by house +they tore the Rue Magnan from the <i>pupilles de la Commune</i>. Brunel, +after facing the enemy for four days, fell wounded in the thigh. The +<i>pupilles</i> carried him away on a litter across the Place du Château +d'Eau amidst a shower of bullets.</p> + +<p>From the Rue Magnan the Versaillese soon reached the barracks, and the +Federals, too few in number to defend this vast monument, had to +evacuate it.</p> + +<p>The fall of this position uncovered the Rue Turbigo, thus enabling the +Versaillese to occupy the whole upper part of the third arrondissement, +and to surround the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. After a rather +long struggle the Federals abandoned the barricade of the Conservatoire, +leaving behind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>them a loaded mitrailleuse. A woman also remained. As +soon as the soldiers were within range she discharged the mitrailleuse +at them.</p> + +<p>The barricades of the Boulevards Voltaire and Dejazet's Théâtre had +henceforth to sustain the whole fire of the Prince Eugène Barracks, the +Boulevard Magenta, the Boulevard St. Martin, the Rue du Temple, and the +Rue Turbigo. Behind their fragile shelter the Federals gallantly +received this avalanche. How many men have been called heroes who never +showed a hundredth part of this simple courage, without any stage +effects, without a history, which shone forth during these days in a +thousand places in Paris! At the Château d'Eau a young girl of nineteen, +rosy and charming, with black, curling hair, dressed as a marine +fusileer, fought desperately a whole day. At the same place a lieutenant +was killed in front of the barricade; a child of fifteen, Dauteuille, +went to pick up the képi of the dead man in the thick of the bullets, +and brought it back amidst the cheers of his companions.</p> + +<p>For in the battle of the streets, as in the open field, the children +proved themselves as brave as the men. At a barricade of the Faubourg du +Temple the most indefatigable gunner was a child. The barricade taken, +all its defenders were shot, and the child's turn also came. He asked +for three minutes' respite; "so that he could take his mother, who lived +opposite, his silver watch, <i>in order that she might at least not lose +everything</i>." The officer, involuntarily moved, let him go, not thinking +to see him again; but three minutes after the child cried, "Here I am!" +jumped on to the pavement, and nimbly leant against the wall near the +corpses of his comrades. Paris will never die as long as she brings +forth such people.</p> + +<p>The Place du Château d'Eau was ravaged as by a cyclone. The walls +crumbled beneath the shells and bombs; enormous blocks were thrown up; +the lions of the fountains perforated or overthrown, the basin +surmounting it shattered. Fire burst out from twenty houses. The trees +were leafless, and their broken branches hung like limbs all but parted +from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>main body. The gardens, turned up, sent forth clouds of dust. +The invisible hand of death alighted upon each stone.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to seven, near the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, +we saw Delescluze, Jourde, and about a hundred Federals marching in the +direction of the Château d'Eau. Delescluze wore his ordinary dress, +black hat, coat, and trousers, his red scarf, little conspicuous as was +his wont, tied round his waist. Without arms, he lent on a cane. +Apprehensive of some panic at the Château d'Eau, we followed the +delegate. Some of us stopped at the St. Ambroise Church to get arms. We +then met a merchant from Alsace, who, exasperated at those who had +betrayed his country, had been fighting for five days, and had just been +severely wounded; farther on, Lisbonne, who, like Brunel, having too +often defied death, had at last fallen at the Château d'Eau; he was +being brought back almost dead; and finally, Vermorel, wounded by the +side of Lisbonne, whom Theisz and Jaclard were carrying off on a litter, +leaving behind him large drops of blood. We thus remained a little +behind Delescluze. At about eighty yards from the barricade the guards +who accompanied him kept back, for the projectiles obscured the entrance +of the boulevard.</p> + +<p>Delescluze still walked forward. Behold the scene; we have witnessed it; +let it be engraved in the annals of history. The sun was setting. The +old exile, unmindful whether he was followed, still advanced at the same +pace, the only living being on the road. Arrived at the barricade, he +bent off to the left and mounted upon the paving-stones. For the last +time his austere face, framed in his white beard, appeared to us turned +towards death. Suddenly Delescluze disappeared. He had fallen as if +thunderstricken on the Place du Château d'Eau.</p> + +<p>Some men tried to raise him. Three out of four fell dead. The only thing +to be thought of now was the barricade, the rallying of its few +defenders. A member of the Council, Johannard, almost in the middle of +the boulevard, raising his gun, and weeping with rage, cried to those +who hesitated, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>"No! you are not worthy of defending the Commune!" Night +set in. We returned heart-broken, leaving, abandoned to the outrages of +an adversary without respect for death, the body of our friend.</p> + +<p>He had forewarned no one, not even his most intimate friends. Silent, +having for confidant only his severe conscience, Delescluze walked to +the barricade as the old Montagnards went to the scaffold. An eventful +life had exhausted his strength; he had but a breath left, and he gave +it. The Versaillese have stolen his body, but his memory will remain +enshrined in the heart of the people as long as France shall be the +mother-country of the Revolution. He lived only for Justice. That was +his talent, his science, the pole-star of his life. He proclaimed her, +confessed her, through thirty years of exile, prisons, insult, +disdaining the persecutions that crushed him. A Jacobin, he fell with +the men of the people to defend her. It was his recompense to die for +her, his hands free, in the open daylight, at his own time, not +afflicted by the sight of the executioner.</p> + +<p>Compare the conduct of the Minister of War of the Commune with the +cowardice of the Bonapartist Minister and generals escaping death by +surrendering their swords.</p> + +<p>The whole evening the Versaillese attacked the entrance of the Boulevard +Voltaire, protected by the conflagration of the two corner houses. On +the side of the Bastille they did not get beyond the Place Royale, but +they were breaking into the twelfth arrondissement. Under the shelter of +the wall of the quay, they had in the course of the day penetrated +beneath the Austerlitz Bridge; in the evening, protected by their +gunboats and the batteries of the Jardin des Plantes, they pushed as far +as Mazas.</p> + +<p>Our right wing held out better. The Versaillese had not been able to +proceed further than the Eastern Railway line. From afar they attacked +the Rue d'Aubervilliers, aided by the fire of the Rotonde. Ranvier +vigorously cannonaded Montmartre, when a despatch from the Committee of +Public <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>Safety informed him that the red flag was floating from the +Moulin de la Galette. Ranvier, unable to believe this, refused to cease +firing.</p> + +<p>In the evening the Versaillese formed in front of the Federals a broken +line, commencing from the Eastern Railway, passing the Château d'Eau and +the Bastille, and ending at the Lyons Railway. There remained to the +Commune but two arrondissements intact, the nineteenth and twentieth, +and about half of the eleventh and twelfth.</p> + +<p>The Paris of Versailles no longer presented a civilised aspect. Fear, +hate, and fiendish brutishness smothered all feelings of humanity. It +was a universal "furious madness," said the Siècle of the 26th. "One no +longer distinguishes the just from the unjust, the innocent from the +guilty. The life of citizens weighs no more than a hair. For a cry, for +a word, one is arrested, shot." The ventilators of the cellars were +blocked up by order of the army, which wanted to give credit to the +legend of the petroleuses. The National Guards of order crept out from +their lurking-places, proud of their armlets, offering their services to +the officers, ransacking the houses, revindicating the honour of +presiding at the fusillades. In the tenth arrondissement the former +mayor, Dubail, assisted by the commander of the 109th battalion, led the +soldiers to hunt those who had formerly been under his administration. +Thanks to the <i>brassardiers</i>, the tide of prisoners swelled so that it +became necessary to centralise the carnage. The victims were pushed into +the mairies, the barracks, the public edifices, where prevotal courts +were organised, and shot in troops. When the fusillade proved +insufficient the mitrailleuse mowed them down. All did not die at once, +and in the night there arose from these bleeding heaps ghastly cries of +agony.</p> + +<p>The shades of night brought back the spectacle of the conflagrations. +Where the rays of the sun had only shown sombre clouds, pyramids of fire +now appeared. The Grenier d'Abondance illuminated the Seine far beyond +the fortifications. The column of the Bastille, entirely perforated by +the shells, which had set its covering of crowns and flags on fire, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>blazed like a gigantic torch. The Boulevard Voltaire was burning on the +side of the Château d'Eau.</p> + +<p>The death of Delescluze had been so simple and so rapid, that even at +the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement it was doubted. Towards +midnight some members of the Council agreed to evacuate the Mairie. +What! always fly before powder and shot! Is the Bastille taken? Does not +the Boulevard Voltaire still hold out? The whole strategy of the +Committee of Public Safety, its whole plan of battle, was to retreat. At +two o'clock in the morning, when a member of the Commune was wanted to +support the barricade of the Château d'Eau, only Gambon was found, +asleep in a corner. An officer awoke him and begged his pardon. The +worthy Republican answered, "It is as well it should be I as another; I +have lived," and he departed. But the balls already swept the Boulevard +Voltaire up to the St. Ambroise Church. The barricade was deserted.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Armlet conspirators.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Summoned several times to surrender, the Federals +answered, "Vive la Commune!" They were thrown against the wall of the +prison and fell with the same cry, one of them still clasping the red +flag of the barricade. Before such faith the Versaillese officer felt a +little ashamed. He turned to the people who had hurried up from the +neighbouring houses, and several times repeated by way of excuse, "It is +their fault! Why did they not surrender!" As though all Federals were +not regularly and mercilessly massacred by them.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Le commandant Ségoyer a été pris par les scélérats qui +défendaient la Bastille, et, sans respect des lois de la +guerre, a été immédiatement fusillé"—<i>M. Thiers aux +Préfets, le 27 Mai.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE—FRIDAY, FORTY-EIGHT +HOSTAGES ARE SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO—SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE +TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS INVADED—THE PÈRE LACHAISE IS +TAKEN—SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN +THE MORNING—MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS +SURRENDERED.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The soldiers continuing their nocturnal surprises, got hold of the +deserted barricades of the Rue d'Aubervilliers and the Boulevard de la +Chapelle. On the side of the Bastille they occupied the barricade of the +Rue St. Antoine at the corner of the Rue Castex, the station of the +Lyons Railway, and the Mazas prison; in the third, all the abandoned +defences of the market and of the Square du Temple. They reached the +first houses of the Boulevard Voltaire, and established themselves at +the Magasins Réunis.</p> + +<p>In the darkness of the night a Versaillese officer was surprised by our +outposts of the Bastille and shot; "without respecting the laws of war," +said M. Thiers the next day. As though during the four days that he had +been mercilessly shooting thousands of prisoners, old men, women, and +children, M. Thiers obeyed any other law than that of the savages.</p> + +<p>The attack recommenced at daybreak. At La Villette the Versaillese, +crossing the Rue d'Aubervilliers, turned and occupied the abandoned +gasworks; in the centre, they got as far as the Cirque Napoleon; on the +right, in the twelfth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>arrondissement, they invaded the bastions nearest +the river without a struggle. One detachment went up the embankment of +the Vincennes Railway and occupied the station, while another took +possession of the Boulevard Mazas, the Avenue Lacuée, and penetrated +into the Faubourg St. Antoine. The Bastille was thus close pressed on +its right flank, while the troops of the Place Royale attacked it on the +left by the Boulevard Beaumarchais.</p> + +<p>The sun did not shine forth. This five days' cannonade had drawn on the +rainfall that usually accompanies great battles. The fusillade had lost +its sharp, quick voice, but rolled on in muffled tones. The men, +harassed, wet to the skin, hardly distinguished through the misty veil +the point whence the attack came. The shells of a Versaillese battery +established at the Orleans Railway station disturbed the entrance of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. At seven o'clock the presence of soldiers at the +top of the faubourg was announced. The Federals hurried thither with +their cannon. If they do not hold out, the Bastille will be turned.</p> + +<p>They did hold out. The Rue d'Aligre and the Avenue Lacuée vied with each +other in devotion. Intrenched in the houses, the Federals fell, but +neither yielded nor retreated; and, thanks to their self-sacrifice, the +Bastille for six hours still disputed its shattered barricades and +ruined houses. Each stone had its legend in this estuary of the +Revolution. Here encased in the wall is a bullet launched in 1789 +against the fortress. Leaning against the same wall the sons of the +combatants of June fought for the same pavement as their fathers. Here +the conservatives of 1848 gave vent to their rage; but what was their +fury compared with that of 1871? The house at the corner of the Rue de +la Roquette, the angle of the Rue de Charenton, disappeared like the +scenery of a theatre, and amidst these ruins, under these burning beams, +some men fired their cannon, twenty times raised up the red flag, as +often overthrown by the Versaillese balls. Powerless as it well knew to +triumph over an entire army, the old glorious place will at least +succumb honourably.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>How many were there at mid-day? Hundreds, since at night hundreds of +corpses lay around the chief barricade. In the Rue Crozatier they were +dead; they were dead too in the Rue d'Aligre, killed in the struggle or +after the combat. And how they died! In the Rue Crozatier an artillerist +of the army, gone over to the people on the 18th March, was surrounded. +"We are going to shoot you," cried the soldiers. He, shrugging his +shoulders, answered, "We can only die once!" Farther on an old man was +struggling; the officer by a refinement of cruelty wanted to shoot him +upon a heap of filth. "I fought bravely," said the old man; "I have the +right not to die in the mire."</p> + +<p>Indeed they died well everywhere. That same day Millière, arrested on +the left bank of the Seine, was taken to Cissey's staff. This +Imperialist general, ruined by the vilest debauchery, and who terminated +his Ministerial career by treachery,<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> had made of his headquarters +at the Luxembourg one of the slaughter-houses of the left bank. +Millière's rôle during the Commune had been one of mere conciliation, +and his polemic in the journals entirely one of doctrine, and of a most +elevated character; but the hatred of the officers for every Socialist, +the hatred of Jules Favre, lay in wait for him. The assassin, the +staff-captain Garcin,<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> has recounted his crime, head erect.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> +Before history we must let him speak.</p> + +<p>"Millière was brought in when we were breakfasting with the general at +the restaurant De Tournon, near the Luxembourg. We heard a great noise, +and went out. I was told, 'It is Millière.' I took care that the crowd +did not take justice into its own hands. He did not come into the +Luxembourg; he was stopped at the gate. I addressed myself to him, and +said, 'You are Millière?' 'Yes, but you know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>that I am a deputy.' 'That +may be, but I think you have lost your character of deputy. Besides, +there is a deputy amongst us, M. de Quinsonnas, who will recognise you.'</p> + +<p>"I then said to Millière that the general's orders were that he was to +be shot. He said to me, 'Why?'</p> + +<p>"I answered him, 'I only know your name. I have read articles by you +that have revolted me' (probably the articles on Jules Favre). 'You are +a viper, that one crushes under one's feet. You detest society.' He +stopped, saying, with a significant air, 'Oh, yes! I indeed hate this +society.' 'Well, it will remove you from its bosom; you are going to be +shot.' 'This is summary justice, barbarity, cruelty.' 'And all the +cruelty you have committed, do you take that for nothing? At any rate, +since you say you are Millière, there is nothing else to be done.'</p> + +<p>"The general had ordered that he was to be shot at the Panthéon, on his +knees, to ask pardon of society for all the ill he had done. He refused +to be shot kneeling. I said to him, 'It is the order; you will be shot +on your knees, and not otherwise.' He played a little comedy, opening +his coat, and baring his breast before the firing party. I said to him, +'You are acting; you want them to say how you died; die quietly, that +will be the best.' 'I am free in my own interest and for the sake of my +Cause to do as I like.' 'So be it; kneel down.' Then he said to me, 'I +will only do so if you force me down by two men.' I had him forced on +his knees, and then his execution was proceeded with. He cried, 'Vive +l'humanité!' He was about to cry something else when he fell dead."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> + +<p>An officer ascended the steps, approached the corpse, and discharged his +chassepot into the left temple. Millière's head rebounded, and, falling +back, burst open, black with powder, seemed to look at the frontispiece +of the monument.</p> + +<p>"Vive l'humanité!" The word implies two causes. "I care as much for the +liberty of other people as for that of France," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>said a Federal to a +reactionist.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> In 1871, as in 1793, Paris combats for all the +oppressed.</p> + +<p>The Bastille succumbed about two o'clock. La Villette still struggled +on. In the morning the barricade at the corner of the boulevard and of +the Rue de Flandre had been surrendered by its commander. The Federals +concentrated in the rear along the line of the canal, and barricaded the +Rue de Crimée. The Rotonde, destined to support the principal shock, was +reinforced by a barricade on the quay of the Loire. The 269th, which for +two days had withstood the enemy, recommenced the struggle behind the +new positions. This line from La Villette being of great extent, Ranvier +and Passedouet went to fetch reinforcements in the twentieth +arrondissement, where the remnants of all the battalions took refuge.</p> + +<p>They crowded round the Mairie, that distributed lodgings and orders for +food. Near the church the waggons and horses were noisily put up. The +headquarters and different services were established in the Rue Haxo at +the Cité Vincennes, a series of constructions intersected by gardens.</p> + +<p>The very numerous barricades in the inextricable streets of Ménilmontant +were almost all turned against the boulevard. The strategical route, +which on this point overlooks the Père Lachaise, the Buttes Chaumont, +and the exterior boulevard, was not even guarded.</p> + +<p>From the heights of the ramparts the Prussians were discernible in arms. +According to the terms of a convention previously concluded between +Versailles and the Prince of Saxony, the German army since Monday +invested Paris on the north and east. It had cut off the Railway of the +North, manned the canal line from St. Denis, posted sentinels from St. +Denis to Charenton, erected barricades on all the routes. From five +o'clock in the evening of Thursday 5,000 Bavarians marched down from +Fontenay, Nogent, and Charenton, forming an impenetrable cordon from the +Marne <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>to Montreuil; and during the evening another corps of 5,000 men +occupied Vincennes, with eighty artillery pieces. At nine o'clock he +invested the fort and disarmed the Federals, who wanted to return to +Paris. He did still better—trapped the game for Versailles. Already +during the siege the Prussians had given an indirect support to the +Versaillese army; their cynical collusion with the French conservatives +showed itself undisguised during the eight days of May. Of all M. +Thiers' crimes, one of the most odious will certainly be his introducing +the conquerors of France into our civil discords, and begging their help +in order to crush Paris.</p> + +<p>Towards mid-day fire broke out in the west part of the docks of La +Villette, an immense warehouse of petroleum, essences, and combustible +matters, set alight by the shells from both sides. This conflagration +forced us to leave the barricades of the Rues de Flandre and Riquet. The +Versaillese, attempting to traverse the canal in boats, were stopped by +the barricades of the Rue de Crimée and the Rotonde.</p> + +<p>Vinoy continued to ascend the twelfth arrondissement after having left +the few thousand men necessary for the perquisitions and executions at +the Bastille. The barricade of the Rue de Reuilly, at the corner of the +Faubourg St. Antoine, held out a few hours against the soldiers who +cannonaded it from the Boulevard Mazas. At the same time the +Versaillese, marching along the Boulevard Mazas and the Rue Picpus, +moved towards the Place du Trône, which they tried to outflank by the +ramparts. The artillery prepared and covered their slightest movement. +Generally they charged the pieces at the corner of the roads they wanted +to reduce, advanced them, fired, and drew them back again under shelter. +The Federals could only reach this invisible enemy from the heights; but +it was impossible to centralise the artillery of the Commune, for each +barricade wanted to possess its gun without caring where it carried.</p> + +<p>There was no longer authority of any kind. At the headquarters a +pell-mell of bewildered officers. The march of the enemy was only known +by the arrival of the survivors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>of the battalions. Such was the +confusion, that in this place, mortal to traitors, there might be seen, +in a general's uniform, Du Bisson, turned out of La Villette. The few +members of the Council to be met with in the twentieth arrondissement +wandered about at hazard, absolutely ignored; but they had not foregone +deliberating. On the Friday there were twelve of them in the Rue Haxo, +when the Central Committee arrived and claimed the dictatorship. It was +given them, in spite of some who protested, Varlin being added to their +number. The Committee of Public Safety was no longer heard of.</p> + +<p>The only one of its members who played any part was Ranvier, splendidly +energetic in the combats. During these days he was the soul of La +Villette and Belleville, urging on the men, watching over everything. On +the 26th he issued a proclamation: "Citizens of the twentieth +arrondissement! if we succumb you know what fate is in store for you. To +arms! Be vigilant, above all in the night. I ask you to execute our +orders faithfully. Lend your support to the nineteenth arrondissement; +help it to repulse the enemy. There lies your safety. Do not wait for +Belleville itself to be attacked. Forward then. Vive la République!"</p> + +<p>But very few read or obeyed. The shells from Montmartre, which from the +day before crushed Belleville and Ménilmontant, the cries, the sight of +the wounded, dragging themselves from house to house in search of +succour, the too evident signs of the approaching end, precipitated the +ordinary phenomena of defeat. The people became fierce and suspicious. +Any individual without a uniform ran the risk of being shot if he had +not a well-known name to recommend him. The news that came from all +points of Paris augmented the anguish and despair. It was known that the +soldiers gave no quarter; that they despatched the wounded, killing even +doctors;<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> that every individual taken in a National Guard's uniform, +shod with regulation boots, or whose clothes showed traces of stripes +recently unstitched, was shot in the street or in the yard of his house; +that the combatants who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>surrendered, under the promise of having their +lives spared, were massacred; that thousands of men, women, children, +and aged people were taken to Versailles bareheaded, and often killed on +the way; that it sufficed to be related to a combatant, or to offer him +a refuge in order to share his fate; the numberless executions of +so-called petroleuses were recounted.</p> + +<p>About six o'clock forty-eight gendarmes, ecclesiastics, and civilians +marched up the Rue Haxo between a detachment of Federals. At first they +were supposed to be prisoners recently taken, and defiled in the midst +of perfect silence. But the rumour spread that they were the hostages of +La Roquette, and that they were being led to death. The crowd grew +larger, followed, apostrophised, but did not strike them. At half-past +six the cortège reached the Cité Vincennes; the gates closed upon them, +and the crowd dispersed in the neighbouring grounds.</p> + +<p>The escort tumultuously pushed the hostages against a kind of trench at +the foot of a wall. The chassepots were being levelled, when a member of +the Council said, "What are you doing? There is a powder-magazine here; +you will blow us up." He thus hoped to delay the execution. Others, +quite distracted, went from group to group, attempting to discuss, to +appease the wrath. They were repulsed, menaced, and their notoriety +hardly sufficed to save them from death.</p> + +<p>The chassepots went off on all sides; by degrees the hostages fell. +Outside the crowd applauded. And yet for two days the soldiers taken +prisoners passed through Belleville without exciting a murmur; but these +gendarmes, these spies, these priests, who for fully twenty years had +trampled upon Paris, represented the Empire, the bourgeoisie, the +massacres under their most hateful forms.</p> + +<p>That same morning Jecker, the accomplice of Morny, had been shot. The +Council had not known how to punish him; the justice of the people +alighted upon him. A platoon of four Federals went to fetch him at La +Roquette. He appeared to resign himself quietly, and even chatted on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>way. "You are mistaken," said he, "if you think I did a good piece of +business. Those people cheated me." He was executed in the open grounds +adjoining the Père Lachaise from the side of Charonne.</p> + +<p>During this day the troops did not execute any great movements. The +corps Douay and Clinchant were stationed on the Boulevard +Richard-Lenoir. The double barricade in the rear of Bataclan stopped the +invasion of the Boulevard Voltaire; a Versaillese general was killed in +the Rue St. Sébastian; the Place du Trône still held out by means of the +Philippe-Auguste barricade. The Rotonde and docks of La Villette also +prolonged their resistance. Towards the close of the day the +conflagration spread to the part of the docks nearest the Mairie.</p> + +<p>In the evening, the army hedged in the defence between the +fortifications and a curved line which from the slaughter-houses of La +Villette extended to the gate of Vincennes, passing by the St. Martin +Canal, the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and the Rue du Faubourg St. +Antoine—Ladmirault and Vinoy occupying the two extremities, Douay and +Clinchant the centre.</p> + +<p>The night of the Friday to Saturday was sombre and feverish in +Ménilmontant and Belleville, ravaged by the shells. At the turning of +each street the sentinels demanded the watchword (Bouchotte-Belleville), +and often even that did not suffice, and one had to prove being sent +upon an errand. Every chief of a barricade claimed the right to stop +your passage. The remainder of the battalions continued arriving in +disorder, and encumbered all the houses. The majority finding no +shelter, rested in the open air, amidst the shells, always saluted with +cries of "Vive la Commune!"</p> + +<p>In the Grande Rue de Belleville some National Guards carried coffins on +their crossed muskets, some men preceding them with torches, the drums +beating. These combatants, who amidst the shells silently interred their +comrades, appeared in touching grandeur. They were themselves at the +gates of death.</p> + +<p>In the night the barricades of the Rue d'Allemagne were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>abandoned. A +thousand men at the utmost had for two days kept in check Ladmirault's +25,000 soldiers. Almost all these brave men were sedentary guards and +children.</p> + +<p>The humid glimmer of the Saturday morning discovered a sinister +prospect. The fog was dense and penetrating, the soil steeped in +moisture. Clouds of white smoke rose slowly above the rain; it was the +fusillade. The Federals shivered under their drenched cloaks.</p> + +<p>Since daybreak barricades of the strategic route, the gates of Montreuil +and Bagnolet, were occupied by the troops, who without resistance +invaded Charonne. At seven o'clock they established themselves in the +Place du Trône, whose defences had been abandoned. At the entrance of +the Boulevard Voltaire the Versaillese erected a battery of six pieces +against the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. Henceforth certain of +victory, the officers wanted to triumph noisily. This barricade, against +which they fired during the whole day of the 27th, had but two pieces of +the most irregular projection. Many a Versaillese shell strayed to the +legs of the statue of Voltaire, who, with his sardonic smile, seemed to +remind his bourgeois descendants of the "beau tapage" he had promised +them.</p> + +<p>At La Villette the soldiers deviated from the line on all sides, passed +by the fortifications and attacked the Rues Puebla and De Crimée. Their +left, still engaged in the upper part of the tenth arrondissement, +endeavoured to gain possession of all its streets leading to the +Boulevard de la Villette. Their batteries of the Rue de Flandre, of the +ramparts, and the Rotonde united their fire to that of Montmartre, and +whelmed the Buttes Chaumont with shells. The barricade of the Rue Puebla +yielded towards ten o'clock. A sailor who had remained alone, hidden +behind the paving-stones, awaited the Versaillese, discharged his +revolver at them, and then, hatchet in hand, dashed into the midst of +their ranks. The enemy deployed in all the adjacent streets up to the +Rue Ménadier, steadily held by our tirailleurs. At the Place des Fêtes +two of our pieces enfiladed the Rue de Crimée and protected our right +flank.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>At eleven o'clock nine or ten members of the Council met in the Rue +Haxo. One of them, Jules Allix, whom his colleagues had been obliged to +shut up as mad during the Commune, came up radiant. According to him, +all was for the best; the quarters of the centre were dismantled; they +had only to descend thither. Others thought that by surrendering +themselves to the Prussians, who would deliver them up to Versailles, +they might put an end to the massacres. One or two members demonstrated +the absurdity of this hope, and that besides the Federals would allow no +one to leave Paris. They were not listened to. A solemn note was being +drawn up, when Ranvier, who wandered about in all corners picking up men +one by one for the defence of the Buttes Chaumont, broke in upon their +deliberations, exclaiming, "Why do you not go and fight instead of +discussing!" They dispersed in different directions, and this was the +last meeting of these men of everlasting deliberations.</p> + +<p>At this moment the Versaillese occupied the bastion 16. At mid-day the +rumour spread that the troops were issuing by the Rue de Paris and the +ramparts. A crowd of men and women, driven from their houses by the +shells, beset the gate of Romainville, asking with loud cries to be +allowed to flee into the neighbouring fields. At one o'clock the +drawbridge was lowered in order to give passage to some Freemasons who +had been to the German authorities to ask them whether they would allow +free passage to the fugitives. The crowd dashed out and dispersed in the +houses of the Village des Lilas. Some women and children attempting to +push on further and to cross the barricade thrown up in the middle of +the road, the sergeant of gendarmerie of Romainville threw himself upon +them, crying to the Prussians, "Fire! come, fire on this <i>canaille</i>!" A +Prussian soldier fired, wounding a woman.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the drawbridge had been raised. About four o'clock Colonel +Parent, on horseback, and preceded by a trumpet, dared on his own +authority to go and ask the Prussian troops for permission to pass. +Useless degradation. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>officer answered that he had no orders, and +that he would refer to St. Denis.</p> + +<p>The same day the member of the Council, Arnold, who still believed in an +American intervention, went to take a letter for Mr. Washburne to the +German outposts. He was conducted from one officer to another, received +rather rudely, and sent back with the promise that his letter would be +forwarded to the ambassador.</p> + +<p>Near two o'clock several Versaillese battalions, having swept the +strategic route, reached the Rue de Crimée by the Rue des Lilas and the +open grounds of the fortifications, but were stopped in the Rue de +Bellevue. From the Place du Marché three cannon joined their fire to +that of the Place des Fêtes in order to protect the Buttes Chaumont. +These pieces were the whole day served by only five artillerists, their +arms bare, without witnesses, needing neither chief nor orders. At five +o'clock the cannon of the Buttes were silent, having no more munitions, +and their gunners rejoined the skirmishers of the Rues Ménadier, +Fessart, and Des Annelets.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock Ferré brought up to the Rue Haxo the line soldiers of +the Prince Eugène Barracks, removed since Wednesday to the prison of La +Petite Roquette, which had just been evacuated, as also the Grande +Roquette. The crowd looked at them, not uttering a single threat, for +they felt no hatred to the soldiers, who belong, like themselves, to the +people. They were quartered in Belleville church. Their arrival caused a +fatal diversion. The people ran up to see them pass, and the Place des +Fêtes was dismantled. The Versaillese came up, occupied it, and the last +defenders of the Buttes fell back on the Faubourg du Temple and the Rue +de Paris.</p> + +<p>While our front was yielding we were attacked from the rear. Since four +o'clock in the afternoon the Versaillese had been laying siege to the +Père Lachaise, which enclosed no more than 200 Federals, resolute, but +without discipline or foresight. The officers had been unable to make +them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>embattle the walls. Five thousand Versaillese approached the +enceinte from all sides, while the artillery of the bastion furrowed the +interior. The pieces of the Commune had scarcely any munition since the +afternoon. At six o'clock the Versaillese, not daring, in spite of their +numbers, to escalade the enceinte, cannonaded the large gate of the +cemetery, which soon gave way, notwithstanding the barricade propping +it. Then began a desperate struggle. Sheltered behind the tombs, the +Federals disputed their refuge foot by foot; they closed in with the +enemy in frightful hand-to-hand scuffles; in the vaults they fought with +side-arms. The foes rolled and died in the same grave. The darkness that +set in early did not end the despair.</p> + +<p>On the Saturday evening there only remained to the Federals part of the +eleventh and twentieth arrondissements. The Versaillese camped in the +Place des Fêtes, Rue Fessart, Rue Pradier up to Rue Rebeval, where, as +on the boulevard, they were detained. The quadrilateral comprised +between the Rue de Faubourg du Temple, the Rue Folie Méricourt, the Rue +de la Roquette and the exterior boulevard was in part occupied by the +Federals. Douay and Clinchant awaited on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir +the moment when Vinoy and Ladmirault would have carried the heights, and +thus forced the Federals against the guns.</p> + +<p>What a night for the few combatants of the last hours! It rained in +torrents. The conflagration of La Villette lit up this gloom with its +blinding glare. The shells continued to pound Belleville; they even +reached as far as Bagnolet and wounded some Prussian soldiers.</p> + +<p>The wounded arrived in large numbers at the Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement. There were neither doctors, nor medicines, nor +mattresses, nor blankets, and the unhappy people expired without +succour. Some spies, surprised in the dress of National Guards, were +there and then shot in the court. The <i>Vengeurs de Flourens</i> arrived, +headed by their captain, a fine, handsome young fellow, reeling in his +saddle. The cantinière, delirious, a handkerchief tied round her +bleeding brow, swore, called the men together with the cry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>of a wounded +lioness. From between the convulsive hands the guns went off at random. +The noise of the waggons, the threats, the lamentations, the fusillades, +the whizzing of the shells, mingled in a maddening tumult, and who in +those frightful hours did not feel his reason giving way? Every moment +brought with it a new disaster. One guard rushed up and said, "The +barricade Pradier is abandoned!;" another, "We want men in the Rue +Rebeval;" a third, "They are flying in the Rue des Près." To hear these +death-knells there were but a few members of the Council present, among +whom were Trinquet, Ferré, Varlin, and Ranvier. Desperate of their +powerlessness, broken down by these eight days, without sleep and +without hope, the strongest were lost in grief.</p> + +<p>From four o'clock Vinoy and Ladmirault launched their troops along the +ramparts on the defenceless strategic route, and soon effected a +junction at the Romainville gate. Towards five o'clock the troops +occupied the barricade of the Rue Rebeval in the Boulevard de la +Villette, and by the Rue Vincent and the Passage du Renard attacked the +barricades of the Rue de Paris from behind. The Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement was not taken till eight o'clock. The barricade of the +Rue de Paris at the corner of the boulevard was defended by the +commander of the 191st and five or six guards, who held out till their +munitions were exhausted.</p> + +<p>A column set out from the Boulevard Philippe-Auguste, penetrated into +the Roquette towards nine o'clock, and released the hostages who were +there. Masters of the Père Lachaise from the day before, the Versaillese +might at least from nine o'clock in the evening have penetrated into the +abandoned prison. This delay of twelve hours sufficiently shows their +contempt for the lives of the hostages. Four of the latter—among whom +was the Bishop Surat—who had made their escape in the afternoon of +Saturday, had been retaken at the neighbouring barricades and shot +before the Petite Roquette.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock the resistance was reduced to the small square formed by +the Rues du Faubourg du Temple, Des <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>Trois Bornes, Des Trois Couronnes, +and the Boulevard de Belleville. Two or three streets of the twentieth +arrondissement still struggled on, among others the Rue Ramponeau. A +small phalanx of fifty men, led by Varlin, Ferré, and Gambon, their red +scarfs round their waists, their chassepots slung across their +shoulders, marched down the Rue des Champs, and from the twentieth +arrondissement debouched on the boulevard. A gigantic Garibaldian +carried an immense red flag in front of them. They entered the eleventh +arrondissement. Varlin and his colleagues were going to defend the +barricade of the Rue du Faubourg du Temple and of the Rue Fontaine au +Roi. From the front it was inaccessible; the Versaillese, masters of the +St. Louis Hospital, succeeded in turning it by the Rues St. Maur and +Bichat.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock the Federals had almost no cannon left, and two-thirds of +the army hemmed them in. What mattered it? In the Rue du Faubourg du +Temple, Rue Oberkampf, Rue St. Maur, Rue Parmentier, they still wanted +to fight. There were barricades not to be turned and houses without +exits. The Versaillese artillery cannonade them till the Federals had +used up their munitions. Their last cartridge spent, whelmed by shells, +they threw themselves upon the muskets bristling around them.</p> + +<p>By degrees the fusillade was lulled, all was silent. About ten o'clock +the last Federal cannon was discharged in the Rue de Paris, which the +Versaillese had taken. The piece, charged with double shot, with a +terrible crash exhaled the last sigh of the Commune of Paris.</p> + +<p>The last barricade of the days of May was in the Rue Ramponeau. For a +quarter of an hour a single Federal defended it. Thrice he broke the +staff of the Versaillese flag hoisted on the barricade of the Rue de +Paris. As a reward for his courage, this last soldier of the Commune +succeeded in escaping.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock all was over. The Place de la Concorde had held out +two days, the Butte aux Cailles two, La Villette three, the Boulevard +Voltaire two days and a half. Of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>seventy-nine members of the +Council filling functions on the 21st of May, one, Delescluze, had died +on the barricades; two, J. Durand and R. Rigault, had been shot; two, +Brunel and Vermorel (who died some days after at Versailles),<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> were +wounded severely; three, Oudet, Protot, Frankel, slightly. The +Versaillese had lost few men. We had 3,000 killed or wounded. The losses +of the army in June, 1848, and the resistance of the insurgents had been +relatively more serious. But the insurgents of June had only to face +30,000 men; those of May combated against 130,000 soldiers. The struggle +of June lasted only three days; that of the Federals eight weeks. On the +eve of June the revolutionary army was intact; on the 21st May it was +decimated. The most valiant defenders had fallen at the advanced posts. +What might not these 15,000 men, uselessly sacrificed outside the town, +have done within Paris? What might not the brave men of Neuilly, +Asnières, Issy, Vanves, Cachan, have done at the Panthéon and +Montmartre?</p> + +<p>The occupation of the fort of Vincennes took place on Monday the 29th. +This fort, disarmed in conformity with the stipulations of the treaty of +peace, had been unable to take any part in the strife. Its garrison +consisted of 350 men and twenty-four officers, commanded by the +<i>chef-de-légion</i> Faltot, a veteran of the wars of Poland and of +Garibaldi, one of the most active men on the 18th March. He was offered +a perfectly secure asylum, but answered that honour forbade his +deserting his companions in arms.</p> + +<p>On the Saturday a Versaillese staff colonel came to negotiate a +capitulation. Faltot demanded passports in blank, not for himself, but +for some of his officers of foreign nationality, and on the refusal of +the Versaillese, Faltot committed the fault of applying to the Germans. +But MacMahon, in prevision of a siege, had solicited the assistance of +the Prince of Saxony, and the German was on the look-out on behalf of +his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>brother officer.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> During the negotiations General Vinoy had +managed to hold communication with the place, where a few disreputable +individuals offered to reduce the intractable Federals. Among the latter +was Merlet, garde-général of engineering and artillery, +ex-non-commissioned officer, able, energetic, and quite resolved to blow +up the place rather than surrender it. The powder-magazine contained +1,000 kilogrammes of powder and 400,000 cartridges.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, at eight o'clock in the morning, a shot sounded in Merlet's +chamber. His room was entered, and he was found lying on the ground, his +head pierced by the ball of a revolver. The disorder of the room +attested a struggle; and a captain of the 99th, released later on by the +Versaillese, B——, admitted that he had dispersed the elements of the +electric pile by means of which Merlet intended to spring the fort.</p> + +<p>On Monday towards mid-day the Versaillese colonel renewed the proposal +for a surrender. For twenty-four hours the struggle had been over in +Paris. The officers deliberated; it was agreed that the gates should be +opened, and at three o'clock the Versaillese entered. The garrison, +having laid down their arms, had drawn up at the end of the court. Nine +officers were incarcerated apart.</p> + +<p>In the night, in the fosses, a hundred yards from the spot where the +Duke of Enghien had fallen, these nine officers formed in a line before +a firing-party. One of them, Colonel Delorme, turned to the Versaillese +in command with the words, "Feel my pulse; see if I am afraid."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Minister of War from 1871, he was in 1876, +notwithstanding the desperate efforts of MacMahon, expelled from the +Ministry, partly because of irregularities discovered in his budget, +partly for having let his mistress, a German, take the plan of one of +the new forts round Paris, which was transmitted to Berlin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Since promoted to a higher grade.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. p. 239.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> See Appendix XX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> Heard and reported by the author of the book <i>Le Fond de +la Société sous la Commune</i>. The author wittily adds, "What the devil +was this imbecile solicitous about?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Appendix XXI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> The Versaillese calumniators, pursuing him even to his +last hour, spread abroad that he had confessed to a Jesuit, and had +disavowed his writings "in presence of the gendarmes and nuns."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> "Marshal MacMahon to General Vinoy, 29th May, 10.5 +morning.—On our propositions to enter the fort, Prince of Saxony has +given the order to enlarge the blockade, in order to leave the French +authorities free to act as they think fit. He has promised to preserve +the blockade."—<i>Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune</i>, p. 430.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nous sommes d'honnêtes gens; c'est par les lois ordinaires +que justice sera faite. Nous n'aurons recours qu'à la +loi."—<i>M. Thiers à l'Assemblée Nationale, 22 Mai 1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<p class="cen">"Honest, honest Iago!"—<i>Shakespere.</i></p> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE VERSAILLESE FURY—THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES—THE PREVOTAL +COURTS—THE DEATH OF VARLIN—THE BURIALS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Order reigned in Paris. Everywhere ruins, death, sinister crepitations. +The officers walked provokingly about clashing their sabres; the +non-commissioned officers imitated their arrogance. The soldiers +bivouacked in all the large roads. Some, stupefied by fatigue and +carnage, slept on the pavement; others prepared their soup by the side +of the corpses, singing the songs of their native homes.</p> + +<p>The tricolor flag hung from all the windows in order to prevent +house-searches. Guns, cartridge-boxes, uniforms, were piled up in the +gutters of the popular quarters. Before the doors sat women leaning +their heads upon their hands, looking fixedly before them, waiting for a +son or a husband who was never to return.</p> + +<p>In the rich quarters the joy knew no bounds. The runaways of the two +sieges, the demonstrators of the Place Vendôme, many emigrants of +Versailles, had again taken possession of the boulevards. Since the +Thursday this kid-glove populace followed the prisoners, acclaiming the +gendarmes who conducted the convoys,<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> applauding at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>sight of +the blood-covered vans.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> The civilians strove to outdo the military +in levity. Such a one, who had ventured no further than the Café du +Helder, recounted the taking of the Château d'Eau, bragged of having +shot his dozen prisoners. Elegant and joyous women, as in a pleasure +trip, betook themselves to the corpses, and, to enjoy the sight of the +valorous dead, with the ends of sunshades raised their last coverings.</p> + +<p>"Inhabitants of Paris," said MacMahon on the 28th at mid-day, "Paris is +delivered! To-day the struggle is over. Order, labour, security are +about to revive."</p> + +<p>"Paris delivered" was parcelled into four commands under the orders of +General Vinoy, Ladmirault, Cissey, Douay, and once more placed under the +régime of the state of siege raised by the Commune. There was no longer +any government at Paris than the army which massacred Paris. The +passers-by were constrained to demolish the barricades, and any sign of +impatience brought with it an arrest, any imprecation death. It was +placarded that any one in the possession of arms would immediately be +sent before a court-martial; that any house from which shots were fired +would be given over to summary execution. All public places were closed +at eleven o'clock. Henceforth officers in uniform alone could circulate +freely. Mounted patrols thronged the streets. Entrance into the town +became difficult, to leave it impossible. The tradespeople not being +allowed to go backwards and forwards, victuals were on the point of +failing.</p> + +<p>"The struggle over," the army transformed itself into a vast platoon of +executioners. On the Sunday more than 5,000 prisoners taken in the +neighbourhood of the Père Lachaise were led to the prison of La +Roquette. A chief of battalion standing at the entrance surveyed the +prisoners and said, "To the right," or "To the left." Those to the left +were to be shot. Their pockets emptied, they were drawn up along a wall +and then slaughtered. Opposite the wall two or three priests bending +over their breviaries mumbled the prayers for the dying.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>From the Sunday to the Monday morning in La Roquette alone more than +1,900 persons were thus murdered.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Blood flowed in large pools in +the gutters of the prison. The same slaughter took place at the Ecole +Militaire and the Parc Monceaux.</p> + +<p>These were the butcheries without phrases. At other places the prisoners +were conducted before the prevotal courts, with which Paris swarmed +since the Monday. These had not sprung up at hazard, and, as has been +believed in the midst of the fury of the struggle. It was proved before +the courts-martial that the number and seats of these prevotal courts, +with their respective jurisdictions, had been appointed at Versailles +before the entry of the troops.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> One of the most celebrated was that +of the Châtelet Théâtre, where Colonel Vabre officiated. Thousands of +prisoners who were led there were first of all penned in upon the stage +and in the auditorium, under the guns of the soldiers placed in the +boxes; then, little by little, like sheep driven to the door of the +slaughter-house, from wing to wing they were pushed to the saloon, +where, round a large table, officers of the army and the honest National +Guard were seated,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> their sabre between their legs, a cigar in their +mouth. The examination lasted a quarter of a minute. "Did you take arms? +Did you serve the Commune? Show your hands." If the resolute attitude of +a prisoner betrayed a combatant, if his face was unpleasant, without +asking for his name, his profession, without entering any note upon any +register, he was <i>classed</i>. "You?" was said to the next one, and so on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>to the end of the file, without excepting the women, children, and old +men. When by a caprice a prisoner was spared, he was said to be +<i>ordinary</i>, and reserved for Versailles. No one was liberated.</p> + +<p>The <i>classed</i> ones were at once delivered to the executioners, who led +them into the nearest garden or court. From the Châtelet, for instance, +they were taken to the Lebau Barracks.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> There the doors were no +sooner closed than the gendarmes fired, without even grouping their +victims before a platoon. Some, only wounded, ran along by the walls, +the gendarmes chasing and shooting at them till they fell dead. Moreau +of the Central Committee perished in one of these gangs. Surprised on +the Thursday evening in the Rue de Rivoli, he was conducted to the +Châtelet, and shot the next day. Those condemned in the prevotal court +of the Luxembourg were conducted into the garden and placed against a +terrace. There were so many victims, that the soldiers, tired out, were +obliged to rest their guns actually against the sufferers. The wall of +the terrace was covered with brains; the executioners waded through +pools of blood.</p> + +<p>The massacre was thus carried on, methodically organised, at the Caserne +Dupleix, the Lycée Bonaparte, the Northern and Eastern Railway Stations, +the Jardin des Plantes, in many mairies and barracks, at the same time +as in the abattoirs. Large open vans came to fetch the corpses, and went +to empty them in the square or any open space in the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>The victims died simply, without fanfaronade.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Many crossed their +arms before the muskets, and themselves commanded the fire. Women and +children followed their husbands and their fathers, crying to the +soldiers, "Shoot us with them!" And they were shot. Women, till then +strangers to the struggle, were seen to come down into the streets, +exasperated by these butcheries, strike the officers, and then throw +themselves against a wall waiting for death.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> + +<p>In June, 1848, Cavaignac had promised pardon, and he massacred. M. +Thiers had sworn by the law, and he gave <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>the army carte-blanche. The +officers returned from Germany might now glut to their hearts' content +their wrath against that Paris which had insulted them by not +capitulating; the Bonapartists revenge on the Republicans the old +hatreds of the Empire; the boys just fresh from St. Cyr serve their +apprenticeship of insolence upon the <i>pékins</i>. A general (Cissey most +probably) gave the order to shoot M. Cernuschi, whose crime consisted in +having offered 100,000 francs for the anti-plebiscitary campaign of +1870.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> Any individual of some popular notoriety was sure to die. Dr. +Tony Moilin, who had played no part during the Commune, but had been +implicated in several political trials during the Empire, was in a few +moments judged and condemned to death; "not," his judges condescended to +tell him, "that he had committed any act that merited death, but because +he was a chief of the Socialist party, one of those men of whom a +prudent and wise Government must rid itself when it finds a legitimate +occasion."<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> The Radicals of the Chamber, whose hatred of the Commune +had been most clearly demonstrated, did not dare to set foot in Paris +for fear of being included in the massacres.</p> + +<p>The army, having neither police nor precise information, killed at +random. Any passer-by calling a man by a revolutionary name caused him +to be shot by soldiers eager to get the premium. At Grenelle they shot a +pseudo-Billioray,<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> notwithstanding his despairing protests; at the +Place Vendôme they shot a pseudo-Brunel in the apartments of Madame +Fould. The <i>Gaulois</i> published the recital by a military surgeon who +<i>knew</i> Vallès, and was present at his execution;<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> an eye-witness +declared he had seen Lefrançais shot on the Thursday in the Rue de la +Banque. The real Billioray was tried in the month of August; Brunel, +Vallès, and Lefrançais succeeded in escaping from France. Members and +functionaries of the Commune were thus shot, and often several times +over, in the persons of individuals who resembled them more or less.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>Varlin, alas! was not to escape. On Sunday, the 28th May, he was +recognised in the Rue Lafayette, and led, or rather dragged, to the foot +of the Buttes Montmartre before the commanding general. The Versaillese +sent him to be shot in the Rue des Rosiers. For an hour, a mortal hour, +Varlin was dragged through the streets of Montmartre, his hands tied +behind his back, under a shower of blows and insults. His young, +thoughtful head, that had never harboured other thoughts than of +fraternity, slashed open by the sabres, was soon but one mass of blood, +of mangled flesh, the eye protruding from the orbit. On reaching the Rue +des Rosiers, he no longer walked; he was carried. They set him down to +shoot him. The wretches dismembered his corpse with blows of the +butt-ends of their muskets.</p> + +<p>The Mount of Martyrs has no more glorious one than Varlin. May he too be +enshrined in the great heart of the working-class! Varlin's whole life +was an example. He had quite alone, by the mere force of his will, +educated himself, giving to study the rare hours left him in the evening +after the workshop; learning not with the view to push into the +bourgeoisie, as many others, but to instruct and enfranchise the people. +He was the heart and soul of the workingmen's associations at the end of +the Empire. Indefatigable, modest, speaking little, always at the right +moment, and then enlightening a confused discussion with a word, he had +preserved that revolutionary instinct which is often blunted in educated +workmen. One of the first on the 18th March, labouring during the whole +Commune, he was at the barricades to the last. His death is all to the +honour of the workmen. It is to Varlin and to Delescluze that this +history should be dedicated, if there were room in the frontispiece for +any other name than that of Paris.</p> + +<p>The Versaillese journalists spat on his corpse; said that some hundreds +of thousands of francs had been found on him.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> Returned to Paris +behind the army, they followed it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>like jackals. Those of the +demi-monde, above all, were mad with a sanguinary hysteria. The +coalition of the 21st March was re-made. All uttered one howl against +the vanquished workmen. Far from moderating the massacre, they +encouraged it, published the names, the hiding-places of those who were +to be killed, unflagging in inventions calculated to keep up the furious +terror of the bourgeoisie. After every fusillade they cried encore.</p> + +<p>I quote at hazard, and could quote pages: "We must make a Communard +hunt" (<i>Bien Public</i>). "Not one of the malefactors in whose hands Paris +has been for two months will be considered as a political man. They will +be treated like the brigands they are, like the most frightful monsters +ever seen in the history of humanity. Many journals speak of re-erecting +the scaffold destroyed by them, in order not even to do them the honour +of shooting them" (<i>Moniteur Universel</i>). "Come, honest people, an +effort to make an end of this democratic and international vermin" +(<i>Figaro</i>). "These men, who have killed for the sake of killing and +stealing, are taken, and we should answer, Mercy! These hideous women, +who stabbed the breast of dying officers, are taken, and we should cry, +Mercy!" (<i>Patrie</i>).<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p> + +<p>To encourage the hangmen, if that were necessary, the press threw them +crowns.</p> + +<p>"What an admirable attitude is that of our officers and soldiers!" said +the <i>Figaro</i>. "It is only to the French soldier that it is given to +recover so quickly and so well." "What an honour!" cried the <i>Journal +des Debats</i>. "Our army has avenged its disasters by an inestimable +victory."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>Thus the army wreaked on Paris revenge for its defeats. Paris was an +enemy like Prussia, and all the less to be spared that the army had its +prestige to reconquer. To complete the similitude, after the victory +there was a triumph. The Romans never adjudged it after civil struggles. +M. Thiers was not ashamed, under the eye of the foreigner, before still +smoking Paris, to parade his troops in a grand review. Who then will +dare to blame the Federals for having resisted the army of Versailles as +they would have the Prussians?</p> + +<p>And when did foreigners show such fury?<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> Death even seemed to whet +their rancour. On Sunday, the 28th, near the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement, about fifty prisoners had just been shot. Urged not by +an unworthy curiosity, but by the earnest desire to know the truth, we +went, at the risk of being recognised, as far as the corpses lying on +the pavement. A woman lay there, her skirts turned up; from her +ripped-up body protruded the entrails, which a marine-fusileer amused +himself by dividing with the end of his bayonet. The officers, a few +steps off, let him do this. The victors, in order to dishonor these +corpses, had placed inscriptions on their breasts, "assassin," "thief," +"drunkard," and stuck the necks of bottles into the mouths of some of +them.</p> + +<p>How to justify this savagery? The official reports only mention very few +deaths among the Versaillese—877 during the whole time of the +operations, from the 3rd April up to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>the 28th May.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> The Versaillese +fury had then no excuse for these reprisals. When a handful of +exasperated men, to avenge thousands of their brothers, shoot +sixty-three of their most inveterate enemies<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> out of nearly 300 whom +they had in their hands, the hypocritical reaction veils its face and +protests in the name of justice. What, then, will this justice say when +those shall be judged who methodically, without any anxiety as to the +issue of the combat, and, above all, the battle over, shot 20,000 +persons, of whom three-fourths had not taken part in the fight? Still +some flashes of humanity were shown by the soldiers, and some were seen +coming back from the executions their heads bowed down; but the officers +never slackened for one second in their ferocity. Even after the Sunday +they still slaughtered the prisoners, shouted "Bravo!" at the +executions. The courage of the victims they called insolence.<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> Let +them be responsible before Paris, France, the new generation, for these +deeds of infamy.</p> + +<p>At last the smell of the carnage began to choke even the most frantic. +The pest, if not pity, was coming. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from +the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The <i>Avenir +Libéral</i>, singing the praises of MacMahon's proclamations, applied the +words of Flèchier: "He hides himself, but his glory finds him out." The +glory <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>of the Turenne of 1871 betrayed him even up to the Seine.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> In +certain streets the corpses encumbered the pathway, looking at the +passers-by from out of their dead eyes. In the Faubourg St. Antoine they +were to be seen everywhere in heaps, half white with chloride of lime. +At the Polytechnic School they occupied a space of 100 yards long and +three deep. At Passy, which was not one of the great centres of +execution, there were 1,100 near the Trocadéro. These, covered over by a +thin shroud of earth, also showed their ghastly profiles. "Who does not +recollect," said the <i>Temps</i>, "even though he had seen it but one +moment, the square, no, the charnel of the Tour St. Jacques? From the +midst of this moist soil, recently turned up by the spade, here and +there look out heads, arms, feet, and hands. The profiles of corpses, +dressed in the uniform of National Guards, were seen impressed against +the ground. It was hideous. A decayed, sickening odour arose from this +garden, and occasionally at some places it became fetid." The rain and +heat having precipitated the putrefaction, the swollen bodies +reappeared. The glory of MacMahon displayed itself too well. The +journals were taking fright. "These wretches," said one of them, "who +have done us so much harm during their lives, must not be allowed to do +so still after their death." And those that had instigated the massacre +cried "Enough!"</p> + +<p>"Let us not kill any more," said the <i>Paris Journal</i> of the 2nd June, +"even the assassins, even the incendiaries. Let us not kill any more. It +is not their pardon we ask for, but a respite." "Enough executions, +enough blood, enough victims," said the <i>Nationale</i> of the 1st June. And +the <i>Opinion Nationale</i> of the same day: "A serious examination of the +accused is imperative. One would like to see only the really guilty +die."</p> + +<p>The executions abated, and the sweeping off began. Carriages of all +kinds, vans, omnibuses, came to pick up the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>corpses and traversed the +town. Since the great pests of London and Marseilles, such cart-loads of +human flesh had not been seen. These exhumations proved that a great +number of people had been buried alive. Imperfectly shot, and thrown +with the heaps of dead into the common grave, they had eaten earth, and +showed the contortions of their violent agony. Certain corpses were +taken up in pieces. It was necessary to shut them as soon as possible +into closed waggons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the +cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid +masses.</p> + +<p>The cemeteries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed +side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled +enormous ditches at the Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where +the people in pious remembrance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, +more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, +Bicêtre, &c., the trenches dug during the first siege were utilised. +"There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations," said <i>La +Liberté</i> "an impure blood will water the soil of the labourer, +fecundating it. The deceased delegate at war will be able to pass a +review of his faithful followers at the hour of midnight; the watchword +will be <i>Incendiarism and assassination</i>." Women by the side of the +lugubrious trench endeavoured to recognise these remains. The police +waited that their grief should betray them, in order to arrest those +"females of insurgents."</p> + +<p>The burying of such a large number of corpses soon became too difficult, +and they were burnt in the casemates of the fortifications; but for want +of draught the combustion was incomplete, and the bodies were reduced to +a pulp. At the Buttes Chaumont the corpses, piled up in enormous heaps, +inundated with petroleum, were burnt in the open air.</p> + +<p>The wholesale massacres lasted up to the first days of June,<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> and +the summary executions up to the middle of that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>month. For a long time +mysterious dramas were enacted in the Bois de Boulogne.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> Never will +the exact number of the victims of the Bloody Week be known. The chief +of military justice admitted 17,000 shot;<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> the municipal council of +Paris paid the expenses of burial of 17,000 corpses; but a great number +were killed out of Paris or burnt. There is no exaggeration in saying +20,000 at least.</p> + +<p>Many battlefields have numbered more dead, but these at least had fallen +in the fury of the combat. The century has not witnessed such a +slaughtering after the battle; there is nothing to equal it in the +history of our civil struggles. St. Bartholomew's Day, June, 1848, the +2nd December, would form but an episode of the massacres of May. Even +the great executioners of Rome and modern times pale before the Duke of +Magenta. The hecatombs of the Asiatic victors, the fêtes of Dahomey +alone could give some idea of this butchery of proletarians.</p> + +<p>Such was the repression "by the laws, with the laws." And during these +atrocities of incomparably worse than Bulgarian type, the bourgeoisie, +raising to heaven its bloody hands, undertook to incite the whole world +against this people, who, after two months of domination and the +massacre of thousands of their own, had shed the blood of sixty-three +prisoners.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>All social powers covered the death-rattle of the victims by their +applause. The priests, those great consecrators of assassination, +celebrated the victory in a solemn service, at which the entire Assembly +assisted. The reign of the <i>Gesu</i> was about to commence.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> In the Boulevard des Italiens women kissed the boots of +the mounted officers who escorted the convoys. A journalist, Francisque +Sarcey, wrote: "With what serene joy the eye rested on the loyal faces +of those brave gendarmes, who marched with a sprightly step by the sides +of the hideous column, forming a martial and severe framework!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Appendix XXII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Appendix XXIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> Appendix XXIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> Later on all the names will be known. Let us cite from +amongst a hundred. At the Mairie of the fifth arrondissement, the +colonel of the National Guard, Galle; at the seventh, M. Gabriel Ossude +and M. Blamont; at the Collége Bonaparte, M. de Soulanges, chief of the +69th battalion; at the Mairie of the ninth arrondissement, M. +Charpentier; at L'Elysée, M. de St. Geniez, chief of the 3rd battalion; +at the Luxembourg, MM. Gosselin, Parfait, Daniel; at the Mairie of the +thirteenth arrondissement, MM. D'Avril, chief of the 4th battalion, +Lascol, chief of the 17th Thierce; at the Châtelet, Vabre in a few hours +achieved an atrocious celebrity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Appendix XXV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Appendix XXVI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Appendix XXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Appendix XXVIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Appendix XXIX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Appendix XXX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> Appendix XXXI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> The journal <i>L'Ariégeois</i> has published the text of the +report addressed to the colonel of the 67th of the line by Lieutenant +Sicre, a native of the department of Ariège, who had taken part in the +arrest of Varlin, and commanded the firing-party. We extract the +following passage:—"Amongst the objects found on him were a pocket-book +bearing his name, a purse containing 284 francs 15 centimes, a penknife, +a silver watch, and a card of the man Tridon."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Some foreign journals uttered the same cry. The <i>Naval +and Military Gazette</i> of the 27th May said, "We are deliberately of +opinion that hanging is too good a death for such villains to die, and +if medical science could be advanced by operating upon the living body +of the malefactors who have crucified their country, we at least should +find no fault with the experiment."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> At a wineshop of the Place Voltaire we met some quite +young soldiers on the Sunday morning. They were marine-fusileers of the +1871 class. Their complexion was sallow, their movements heavy, their +eyes dull. "And there are many dead?" said we. "Ah!" answered one of +them in a stupefied tone, "we have the order to make no prisoners; it is +the general who told us" (they could not tell us the name of their +general). "If they had not lighted these fires they would not have been +served thus; but as they set on fire, we must kill" (textual). Then he +went on talking to his comrade. "This morning there" (and he pointed to +the barricade of the Mairie), "one came up in a blouse. We led him off. +'You are not going to shoot me?' said he. 'Oh, I should think not!' We +made him pass in front of us, and then, pan, pan; and didn't he kick +about funnily!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Sixty-three officers killed and 430 wounded, 794 soldiers +dead and 6024 wounded—in all, 877 dead and 6454 wounded. <i>Rapport du +Maréchal MacMahon.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> This is the exact number of the hostages executed: four +at Ste. Pélagie, six at the Roquette, forty-eight at the Rue Haxo, four +at the Petite Roquette, and the banker Jecker.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> The Count de Mun said (<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. +p. 276), "When they were shot, they all died with a kind of insolence +which cannot be attributed to a moral sentiment" (the sentiment of the +executioner, Monsieur de Mun, no doubt), "and can only be attributed to +the resolution to come to an end by death rather than live by working." +It is true that MacMahon had said (p. 28), "They seemed to think they +were defending a sacred cause, the independence of Paris. In their +intentions some of them may have been of good faith." Who is more +odious, he who believes he is killing an "insolent," or he who knows +that he is killing a martyr?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> "On the Seine may be seen a long trail of blood following +the course of the water and passing under the second arch from the side +of the Tuileries. This trail never stopped."—<i>La Liberté of the 31st +May.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Appendix XXXII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Appendix XXXIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> This is the figure given by General Appert in the +<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>. MacMahon has said, "When men surrender their +arms they must not be shot; that was admitted. Unhappily, on certain +points, the instructions I had given were forgotten. I can, however, +affirm that the number of executions has been very restricted." Admire +the logic of this reasoning. No doubt a list has been kept of all, +oblivious as to the victims of the prevotal courts; the "loyal soldier" +ignores them completely. +</p><p class="noin"> +Some days after the battle the <i>Nationale</i>, a Liberal-conservative paper +said, "In official circles it is estimated that 20,000 is the number of +Federals killed, shot, or dead in consequence of wounds received during +the days of May. We should not have dared to give this figure, which +seems to us considerable, if we had not got this information from +officers who have declared that this estimate is very probably +correct."</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"La cause de la justice, de l'ordre, de l'humanité, de la +civilisation, a triomphé."—<i>M. Thiers à l'Assemblée +Nationale, 22 Mai 1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS—THE ORANGERIE—THE +ARRESTS—SATORY—THE DENUNCIATORS—THE PRESS—THE LEFT +INSULTS THE VANQUISHED—DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN +COUNTRIES.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Happy the dead! They had not to mount the Calvary of the prisoners.</p> + +<p>From the wholesale fusillades one may guess the number of arrests. It +was a furious razzia; men, women, children, Parisians, provincials, +foreigners, a crowd of people of all sexes and all ages, of all parties +and all conditions. All the lodgers of a house, all the inhabitants of a +street, were carried off in a body. A suspicion, a word, a doubtful +attitude were sufficient to cause one to be seized by the soldiers. From +the 21st to the 30th May they thus picked up 40,000 persons.</p> + +<p>These prisoners were formed into long chains, sometimes free, sometimes, +as in June, 1848, bound by cords so as to form only one body. Whoever +refused to walk on was pricked with the bayonet, and, if he resisted, +shot on the spot, sometimes attached to a horse's tail.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> In front of +the churches of the rich quarters the captives were forced to kneel +down, bareheaded, amidst an infamous mob of lackeys, fashionables, and +prostitutes, crying, "Death! death! Do not go any further; shoot them +here!" At the Champs-Elysées they wanted to break the files to taste +blood.</p> + +<p>The prisoners were sent on to Versailles. Gallifet awaited them at La +Muette. In the town he escorted the chains, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>halting under the windows +of the aristocratic clubs in order to earn plaudits and hurrahs. At the +gates of Paris he levied his tithe, walked past the ranks, and, with his +look of a famished wolf, "You seem intelligent," said he to some one; +"step out of the ranks." "You have a watch," said he to another; "you +must have been a functionary of the Commune," and he placed him apart. +On the 26th, in one single convoy, he chose eighty-three men and three +women, made them draw up along the talus of the fortifications and had +them shot.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> Then he said to their comrades, "My name is Gallifet. +Your journals in Paris had sullied me enough. I take my revenge." On +Sunday, the 28th, he said, "Let those who have white hairs step out from +the ranks." One hundred and eleven captives advanced. "You," continued +Gallifet, "you have seen June, 1848; you are more culpable than the +others," and he had their corpses thrown over into the fortifications.</p> + +<p>This purgation over, the convoys entered upon the route to Versailles, +pressed between two files of cavalry. It looked like the population of a +city dragged away by fierce hordes. Lads, grey-bearded men, soldiers, +dandies, all and every condition; the most delicate and the most rude +confounded in the same vortex. Many women, some with manacles on their +hands; such a one with her baby, who pressed its mother's neck with its +frightened little hands; another, her arm broken, her chemisette stained +with blood; another depressed, clinging to the arm of her more vigorous +neighbour; another in a statuesque attitude, defying pain and insults; +always that woman of the people, who, after having carried the bread to +the trenches and given consolation to the dying, hopeless—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Découragée de mettre au jour des malheureux,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>longed for liberating death.</p> + +<p>Their attitude, which inspired foreign journals with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>admiration,<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> +exasperated the Versaillese ferocity. "In seeing the convoys of +insurgent women," said the <i>Figaro</i>, "one feels in spite of oneself a +kind of pity; but one is reassured by thinking that all the brothels of +the capital have been thrown open by the National Guards, who patronised +them, and that the majority of these ladies were inhabitants of these +establishments."</p> + +<p>Panting, covered with filth, idiotic with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, +burnt by the sun, the convoys dragged themselves along for hours in the +overheated dust of the roads, harassed by the cries, the blows from the +mounted chasseurs. The Prussians had not thus cruelly treated these +soldiers when, prisoners themselves some months before, they had been +led away from Sedan or Metz. The captives who fell were sometimes shot, +sometimes they were only thrown into the carts that followed.</p> + +<p>At the entry into Versailles the crowd awaited them, always the <i>élite</i> +of French society, deputies, functionaries, priests, officers, women of +all sorts. The fury of the 4th April and the preceding convoys were as +much surpassed as the sea swells at the equinoctial tide. The Avenues de +Paris and De St. Cloud were lined by savages, who followed the convoys +with vociferations, blows, covered them with filth and broken pieces of +bottle. "One sees," said the Liberal-Conservative newspaper, the +<i>Siècle</i>, of the 30th May, "women, not prostitutes, but elegant ladies, +insult the prisoners on their passage, and even strike them with their +sunshades." Woe to whoever did not insult the vanquished! Woe to him who +allowed a movement of commiseration to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>escape him! He was at once +seized, led to the post,<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> or else simply forced into the convoy. +Frightful retrogradation of human nature, all the more hideous that it +contrasted with the elegance of the costume! Prussian officers came from +St. Denis once more to see what governing classes they had had to oppose +them.</p> + +<p>The first convoys were promenaded about as a spectacle in the streets of +Versailles; others were stationed for hours at the torrid Place d'Armes, +a few steps from the large trees, whose shade was refused them. The +prisoners were then distributed in four depots, the cellars of the +Grandes-Ecuries, the Orangerie of the castle, the docks of Satory, and +the manèges of the Ecole de St. Cyr. Into these damp, nauseous cellars, +where light and air only penetrated by some narrow openings, men, +children, of whom some were not more than ten years old, were crowded +without straw during the first days. When they did get some, it was soon +reduced to mere dung. No water to wash with; no means of changing their +rags, as the relations who brought linen were brutally sent back. Twice +a day, in a trough, they got a yellowish liquid, a porridge. The +gendarmes sold tobacco at exorbitant prices, and confiscated it in order +to sell it over again. There were no doctors. Gangrene attacked the +wounded; ophthalmia broke out; deliriousness became chronic. In the +night were heard the shrieks of the fever-stricken and the mad. +Opposite, the gendarmes remained impassive, their guns loaded.</p> + +<p>Even these horrors were outdone by the Fosse-aux-Lions, a vault without +air, absolutely dark, the antechamber of the tomb, under the large red +marble staircase of the terrace. Whoever was noted as dangerous, or +whoever had simply displeased the corporal, was thrown into it. The most +robust could only bear up against it a few days. On leaving it, giddy, +the mind a blank, dazzled by the broad daylight, they swooned. Happy he +who met the look of his wife. The wives of the captives pressed against +the outer rails of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>Orangerie, striving to distinguish some one +amidst the dimly seen herd. They tore their hair, implored the +gendarmes, who thrust them back, struck them, called them infamous +names.</p> + +<p>The hell of open daylight was the docks of the plateau of Satory, a vast +parallelogram enclosed by walls. The soil is clayey, and the least rain +soaks it. The first arrivals were placed within the buildings, which +could contain about thirteen hundred persons, the others remained +outside, bareheaded, for their hats had been knocked off at Paris or at +Versailles. The gendarmes were on duty, being more reliable, more +hardened than the soldiers.</p> + +<p>On the Thursday evening at eight o'clock a convoy, composed chiefly of +women, arrived at the dock. "Many of us," one of them has reported to +me, the wife of a <i>chef-de-légion</i>, "had died on the way; we had had +nothing since morning.</p> + +<p>"It was still daylight. We saw a great multitude of prisoners. The women +were apart in a hut at the entrance. We joined them.</p> + +<p>"We were told that there was a pond, and, dying of thirst, we rushed +thither. The first who drank uttered a loud cry, vomited. 'Oh, the +wretches! they make us drink the blood of our own people.' For since +evening the wounded went there to bathe their wounds; but thirst +tormented us so cruelly, that some had the courage to rinse out their +mouths with this bloody water.</p> + +<p>"The hut was already full, and we were made to lie on the earth in +groups of about 200. An officer came and said to us, 'Vile creatures! +listen to the order I give. Gendarmes, the first who moves, fire on +these——!'</p> + +<p>"At ten o'clock we heard reports quite near. We jumped up. 'Lie down, +wretches!' cried the gendarmes, taking aim at us. It was some prisoners +being shot a few steps from us. We thought the balls would pass through +our heads. The gendarmes who had just been shooting came to relieve our +guardians. We remained the whole night watched by men heated with +carnage. They grumbled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>at those who writhed with terror and cold. 'Do +not be impatient; your turn is coming.' At daybreak we saw the dead. The +gendarmes said to each other, 'Oh! isn't this a jolly vintage?'</p> + +<p>"In the evening the prisoners heard a sound of spades and hammers in the +wall of the south. The fusillades, the menaces had maddened them. They +awaited death from all sides and in every shape; they thought that this +time they were going to be blown up. Holes opened and mitrailleuses +appeared, some of which were discharged."<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p> + +<p>On Friday evening a storm of several hours broke out above the camp. The +prisoners were forced, on pain of being shot, to lie down all night in +the mud. About twenty died of cold.</p> + +<p>The camp of Satory soon became the Longchamp of Versailles high life. +Captain Aubrey did the honors with the ladies, the deputies, the +literary men, showing them his subjects grovelling in the mud, devouring +a few biscuits, taking tumblers of water from the pond into which the +gendarmes stood on no ceremony in easing themselves. Some, going mad, +dashed their heads against the walls; others howled, tearing their +beards and hair. A fetid cloud arose from this living mass of rags and +horrors. "There are," said the <i>Indépendence Française</i>, "several +thousands of people poisoned with dirt and vermin spreading infection a +kilomètre around. Cannon are levelled at these wretches penned up like +wild beasts. The inhabitants of Paris are afraid of the epidemic +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>resulting +from the burying of the insurgents killed in the town. Those +whom the <i>Officiel</i> of Paris called the rurals are much more afraid of +the epidemic resulting from the presence of the live insurgents at +Satory."</p> + +<p>Those are the honest people of Versailles, who had just caused the +triumph of "the cause of justice, order, humanity, and civilisation." +How good and humane, despite the bombardment and the sufferings of the +siege, those <i>brigands</i> of Paris had been, above all by the side of +these <i>honest people</i>! Who ever ill-treated a prisoner in the Paris of +the Commune? What woman perished or was insulted? What obscure corner of +the Parisian prisons had hidden a single one of the thousand tortures +which displayed themselves in broad daylight at Versailles?</p> + +<p>From the 24th May to the first days of June the convoys did not cease +flowing into those depths. The arrests went on in large hauls by day and +night. The sergents-de-ville accompanied the soldiers, and, under the +pretext of perquisitions, forced the locks, appropriating objects of +value. Several officers were in the sequel condemned for the +embezzlement of objects seized.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> They arrested not only the persons +compromised in the late affairs, those who were denounced by their +uniforms, or documents found in the mairies and at the War Office, but +whoever was known for his republican opinions. They arrested, too, the +purveyors of the Commune, and even the musicians, who had never crossed +the ramparts. The ambulance attendants shared the same fate. And yet +during the siege a delegate of the Commune, having inspected the +ambulances of the press, had said to the personnel, "I am aware that +most of you are the friends of the Government of Versailles, but I hope +you may live long enough to recognise your mistake. I do not trouble +myself to know whether the lancets at the service of the wounded are +royalist or republican. I see that you do your task worthily. I thank +you for it. I shall report it to the Commune."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>Some poor wretches had taken refuge in the Catacombs. They were hunted +by torchlight. The police agents, assisted by dogs, fired at every +suspicious shadow. Battues were organised in the forests near Paris. The +police watched all the stations, all the ports of France. Passports had +to be renewed and viséd at Versailles. The masters of boats were under +supervision. On the 26th Jules Favre had solemnly asked the foreign +powers for the extradition of the fugitives, under the pretext that the +battle of the streets was not a political act.</p> + +<p>Extradition flourished at Paris. Fear closed all doors. No shelter was +there for the fugitives. Few friends were left—no comrades. Everywhere +pitiless refusals or denunciations. Doctors renewed the infamies of +1834, and delivered up the wounded.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> Every cowardly instinct rose to +the surface, and Paris disclosed sloughs of infamy whose existence she +had not suspected even under the Empire. The honest people, masters of +the streets, had their rivals, their creditors, arrested as Communards, +and formed committees of inquiry in their arrondissements. The Commune +had rejected the denunciators; the police of order received them with +open arms. The denunciations rose to the fabulous height of +399,823,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> of which a twentieth at most were signed.</p> + +<p>A very considerable part of these denunciations issued from the press. +For several weeks it did not cease stirring the rage and panic of the +bourgeoisie. M. Thiers, re-editing one of the absurdities of June, 1848, +in a bulletin spoke of "poisonous liquids collected in order to poison +the soldiers." All the inventions of that time were again taken up, +appropriated to the hour, and horribly amplified; chambers in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>the +sewers with wires all prepared, 8,000 petroleuses enrolled, houses +marked with a stamp for burning, pumps, injectors, eggs filled with +petroleum, poisoned balls, roasted gendarmes, hanged sailors, violated +women, prostitutes requisitioned, endless thefts—all was printed, and +the gulls believed all. Some journals had the speciality of false orders +for arson;<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> false autographs, of which the originals could never be +produced, but which were to be admitted as positive evidence by the +courts-martial and honest historians. When it fancied the fury of the +bourgeoisie was flagging, the press fanned it again, each journal +outbidding the other in villainy. "Paris, we know," said the <i>Bien +Public</i>, "asks for nothing better than to go to sleep again; though we +should trouble her, we will awaken her." And on the 8th June the +<i>Figaro</i> still drew up plans of carnage.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> The revolutionary writer +who will take the pains to collect in a volume extracts from the +reactionary press of May and June, 1871, from the Parliamentary +inquiries, the bourgeois pamphlets, and histories of the Commune—a +mixture as monstrous as that of the witches' cauldron—will do more for +the edification and the future justice of the people than a whole band +of mouthing agitators.</p> + +<p>There were, to French honour, some traits of generosity, and even +heroism, amidst this epidemic of cowardice. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>Vermorel, wounded, was +taken in by the wife of a concierge, who succeeded for a few hours in +passing him off for her son. The mother of a Versaillese soldier gave +several members of the Council of the Commune an asylum. A great number +of insurgents were saved by unknown people; and yet it was during the +first days a matter of death, afterwards of transportation, to shelter +the vanquished. The women once again showed their great heart.</p> + +<p>The average of arrests kept up in June and July to a hundred a day. At +Belleville, Ménilmontant, in the thirteenth arrondissement, in certain +streets, there were only old women left. The Versaillese, in their lying +returns, have admitted 38,568 prisoners,<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> amongst whom were 1,058 +women and 651 children, of whom forty-seven were thirteen years of age, +twenty-one twelve, four ten, and one seven,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> as though they had by +some secret method counted the herds whom they fed at the troughs. The +number of those arrested very probably reached 50,000 men.</p> + +<p>The errors were numberless. Some women of that beau monde who went with +dilated nostrils to contemplate the corpses of the Federals were +included in the razzias, and led off to Satory, where, their clothes in +rags, devoured by vermin, they figured very well as the imaginary +petroleuses of their journals.</p> + +<p>Thousands of individuals were obliged to hide; thousands gained the +frontier. An idea of the general losses may be gathered from the fact +that at the complementary elections of July there were 100,000 less +electors than in February.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> Parisian industry was crushed by it. +Most of the workmen who gave this branch of manufacture its artistic +cachet perished, were arrested, or emigrated in masses. In the month of +October the municipal council proved in an official report <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>that certain +industries were obliged to refuse orders for want of hands.</p> + +<p>The savageness of the searches, the number of the arrests, joined to the +despair of the defeat, tore from this town—bled to the last drop of +blood—some supreme convulsions. At Belleville, at Montmartre, in the +thirteenth arrondissement, shots were fired from houses. At the Café du +Helder, in the Rue de Rennes, the Rue de la Paix, Place de la Madeleine, +soldiers and officers fell, struck by invisible hands; near the +Pépinière Barracks a general was shot at. The Versaillese journals +wondered, with naïve impudence, that popular fury was not calmed, and +could not understand "what reason, even the most futile, of hatred one +could have for soldiers who had the most inoffensive look in the world" +(<i>La Cloche</i>).</p> + +<p>The Left followed to the very end the line it had traced out for itself +on the 19th March. Having prevented the provinces from coming to the +rescue of Paris and voted its thanks to the army, it also joined its +maledictions to those of the rurals. Louis Blanc, who in 1877 was to +defend the red flag, wrote to the <i>Figaro</i> to stigmatise the vanquished, +to bow down before their judges, and declare "the public indignation +legitimate."<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> This Extreme Left, which five <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>years after grew +enthusiastic for the amnesty, would not hear the death-groans of the +20,000 shot, nor even, though but a hundred yards from them, the shrieks +from the Orangerie. In June, 1848, the sombre imprecation of Lammennais +fell upon the massacres, and Pierre Leroux defended the insurgents. The +great philosophers of the Rural Assembly, Catholic or Positivist, were +all one against the workingmen. Gambetta, delighted at being rid of the +Socialists, hurried back from St. Sébastien, and in a solemn speech at +Bordeaux declared that the Government which had been able to crush Paris +"had even by that proved itself legitimate."</p> + +<p>There were some men of courage in the provinces. The <i>Droits de l'Homme</i> +of Montpellier, the <i>Emancipation</i> of Toulouse, the <i>National du +Loiret</i>, and several advanced journals recounted the assassinations of +the conquerors. Most of these journals were prosecuted and suppressed. +Some movements took place; a commencement of riots at Pamiers (Ariège) +and at Voiron (Isère). At Lyons the army was confined in its barracks, +and the prefect, Valentin, had the town closed in order to arrest the +fugitives of Paris. There were arrests at Bordeaux.</p> + +<p>At Brussels Victor Hugo protested against the declaration of the Belgian +government, which promised to deliver up the fugitives. Louis Blanc and +Schœlcher wrote him a letter full of blame, and his house was stoned +by a fashionable mob. Bebel in the German Parliament and Whalley in the +House of Commons denounced the Versaillese fury. Garcia Lopez said from +the tribune of the Cortes, "We admire this great revolution, which no +one can appreciate justly to-day."</p> + +<p>The workingmen of foreign countries solemnised the obsequies of their +brothers of Paris. At London, Brussels, Zurich, Geneva, Leipzig, and +Berlin, monster meetings proclaimed themselves in accord with the +Commune, devoted the slaughterers to universal execration, and declared +accomplices of these crimes the Governments which had not made any +remonstrances. All the Socialist journals glorified the struggle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>of the +vanquished. The great voice of the International recounted their effort +in an eloquent address,<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> and confided their memory to the workmen of +the whole world.</p> + +<p>On the triumphal entry of Moltke at the head of the victorious Prussian +army into Berlin, the workmen received them with hurrahs for the +Commune, and at several places the people were charged by the cavalry.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Appendix XXXIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> This fact and the following one are not only attested by +the prisoners, but by the journals of order and the correspondents of +the conservative foreign newspapers speaking as eye-witnesses. Appendix +XXXV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> "I observed a slender figure walking alone, in the +costume of the National Guard, with long fair hair floating over the +shoulders, a bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold young face, that +seemed to know neither shame nor fear. When the spectators detected at a +glance that this seeming young National Guardsman was a woman, their +indignation found vent in strong language; but the only response of the +victim was to glare right and left with heightened colour and flashing +eyes. If the French nation were composed only of Frenchwomen, what a +terrible nation it would be!"—<i>The Times, 29th May, 1871.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> They treated in this manner M. Ratisbonne, he who in the +<i>Debats</i> had just written, "What an inestimable victory!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> These facts are borne witness to by several conservative +journals, among others the <i>Siècle</i>. We cite this paper in preference to +the Figarist journals, which might be suspected of having amplified the +glory of the army. "The day before yesterday there has been (at Satory) +an attempt at revolt. The soldiers began by aiming at the most mutinous; +but as this procedure did not seem sufficiently expeditious, +mitrailleuses were advanced, which fired into the crowd. Order was +re-established, but at what a price!" (Versailles, 27th May). "Towards +four o'clock in the morning a new rising took place amongst the +prisoners of Satory. There were several volleys of mitrailleuses, and, +as you may suppose, the number of dead and wounded must have been rather +considerable." (Versailles, May 28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Among others, one Thierce, lieutenant-colonel, who had +presided at the executions in the thirteenth arrondissement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> At the Beaujon Hospital there was a wounded Federal whom +all the staff wanted to save. Only one person refused, the doctor +Delbeau, head-surgeon and professor in the faculty of medicine. He sent +up the soldiers of the neighbouring post and had the poor fellow taken +away. Be it said to the honour of the students that they forced him some +months after to suspend his lectures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> The numbers of the registers where the denunciations were +inscribed enabled the proof of this statistic of infamy, published by +the spy journals of the time, to be ascertained.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> One of these orders, which commanded Millière to set fire +to the left bank, was signed Billioray, who had fled on the 21st, and +Dombrowski, already dead at this time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> "<span class="smcap">General Enterprise of Parisian Sweeping.</span>—The +repression must equal the crime. These are the means by which this +result will be arrived at. The members of the Commune, the chiefs of the +insurrection, the members of the committees, courts-martial and +revolutionary tribunals, the foreign generals and officers, the +deserters, the assassins of Montmartre, La Roquette, and Mazas, the +<i>pétroleurs</i> and the <i>petroleuses</i>, the ticket-of-leave men, are to be +shot. Martial law must be applied in all its rigour to the journalists +who have placed the torch and the chassepot in the hands of fanatic +imbeciles. A part of these measures have already been put into practice. +Our soldiers have simplified the work of the courts-martial of +Versailles by shooting on the spot; but it must not be overlooked that a +great many culprits have escaped chastisement."—<i>Le Figaro of the 8th +June.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> Report of the General Appert, table i. pp. 215, 262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Report of the Captain Guichard, <i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars</i>, +vol. iii. p. 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> The <i>Journal des Débats</i> estimated that "the losses by +the party of the insurrection in dead and prisoners reached the figure +of 100,000 individuals."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> In the <i>Figaro</i> of the 8th June—the same number which +contained the plan of massacre—might be read, "We have received the +following letter from M. Louis Blanc:— +</p><p class="noin"> +"'To Monsieur Philippe Gille. +</p><p class="noin"> +"'<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I read in an article signed by you that the honest +Republican party has the right to expect a protestation from me against +the abominations of which Paris has been the theatre and the victim. +This observation surprises me. +</p><p class="noin"> +"'What honest man could, without lacking self-respect, believe himself +obliged to warn the public that incendiarism, pillage, and assassination +horrify him? I esteem myself enough to judge that, on my part, a +declaration is perfectly useless. +</p><p class="noin"> +"'When, too, public indignation is so legitimate and so great, are you +aware, sir, that in the tribunals the silence of the assistants is +obligatory; so true is it that the duty of everybody is to remain silent +when the judge is about to speak. Receive, sir, the assurance of my +regard. +</p><p class="noin"> +<span class="smcap">"'Louis Blanc.</span>'" +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> The Civil War in France. Address of the Council of the +International Working-Men's Association.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"La conciliation, c'est l'ange qui plane après +l'orage."—<i>Dufaure à l'Assemblée Nationale, 26 Avril +1871.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<p class="cen">THE PONTOONS—THE FORTS—THE PRISONS—THE FIRST TRIALS.</p> +<br /> + +<p>The human lakes of Versailles and Satory were soon overflowing. From the +first days of June the prisoners were filed off to the seaports and +crowded into cattle-waggons, the awnings of which, hermetically closed, +let in no breath of air. In a corner was a heap of biscuits; but +themselves thrown upon this heap, the prisoners had soon reduced it to +mere crumbs. For twenty-four hours, and sometimes thirty-two hours, they +remained without anything to drink. They fought in this throng for a +little air, a little room. Some, maddened, flung themselves upon their +comrades.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> One day at La Ferté-Bernard cries were uttered in a +waggon. The chief of the escort stopped the convoy; the +sergents-de-ville discharged their revolvers through the awning. Silence +ensued, and the rolling coffins set out again at full speed.</p> + +<p>From the month of June to the month of September 28,000 prisoners were +thus thrown into the harbours, the forts and the oceanic isles, from +Cherbourg to the Gironde. Twenty-five pontoons took in 20,000, the forts +and isles 8,087.</p> + +<p>On the pontoons tortures were inflicted by regulation. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>traditions +of June and of December were religiously observed with the victims of +1871. The prisoners, penned in cages made of wooden planks and iron +bars, received only a dim light through the nailed down port-holes. +Ventilation there was none. From the first hours the exhalations were +unbearable. The sentinels walked up and down in this menagerie with the +order to fire at the slightest alarm. Cannon charged with grapeshot +overlooked the batteries. There were neither hammocks nor blankets, and +for all food some biscuits, bread, and haricots, but no wine or tobacco. +The inhabitants of Brest and Cherbourg having sent some provisions and +little luxuries, the officers sent them back.</p> + +<p>This cruelty relaxed somewhat after a time. The prisoners received a +hammock for every two, some shirts, some blouses, and now and then some +wine. They were allowed to wash, to come on to the deck to snatch a +little fresh air. The sailors showed some humanity, but the +marine-fusileers were always the same bandits as in the days of May, and +the crew was often obliged to tear the prisoners from them.</p> + +<p>The régime of the pontoons varied according to the officers. At Brest +the second officer, commander of the <i>Ville de Lyon</i>, forbade the +insulting of the prisoners; while the master-at-arms of the <i>Breslau</i> +treated them like convicts. At Cherbourg one of the lieutenants of the +<i>Tage</i>, Clémenceau, was ferocious. The commander of the <i>Bayard</i> turned +his vessel into a diminutive Orangerie. This ship had witnessed the most +abominable acts perhaps that have sullied the history of the French +navy. Absolute silence was the rule on board. As soon as any one spoke +in the cages, the sentry menaced and several times shot. For a +complaint, or mere forgetfulness of a rule, the prisoners were tied to +the bars of their cages by the ankles and wrists.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>The dungeons on shore were as terrible as the pontoons. At Quélern as +many as forty prisoners were shut up in the same casemate. The lower +ones were deadly. The cesspools emptied into them, and in the morning +the fæcal matter covered the floor some two inches deep. By the side of +these were salubrious disengaged lodgments, but they would not remove +the prisoners thither. One day M. Jules Simon came, thought that his +former electors were looking but poorly, and decided that recourse must +be taken to severity. Elisée Reclus had opened a school, and tried to +raise out of their ignorance a hundred and fifty-one prisoners who could +neither read nor write. The Minister of Public Education had the classes +stopped, and had the small library, which the prisoners had got together +by making the greatest sacrifices, closed.</p> + +<p>The prisoners of the forts, like those of the pontoons, were fed on +biscuits and bacon; later on, soup and broth were added on Sundays; +knives and forks were forbidden; it cost several days' struggle to get +spoons. The profit of the sutler, which, according to the list of +charges, ought to be limited to a tenth, reached as much as five hundred +per cent.</p> + +<p>At the Fort Boyard men and women were packed into the same enclosure, +separated only by a screen. The women were forced to perform their +ablutions under the eyes of the sentinels. Sometimes their husbands were +in the neighbouring compartment. "We noticed," wrote a prisoner, "a +young and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who fainted every time she +was forced to undress."<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p> + +<p>According to much evidence which we have received, the most cruel prison +was that of St. Marcouf. The prisoners remained there for over six +months, deprived of air, light, and tobacco, forbidden to speak, having +for their only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>nourishment the crumbs of brown biscuits and rancid fat. +All were attacked with scurvy.</p> + +<p>This continual severity got the better of the most robust constitutions; +there were in consequence 2,000 sick in the hospitals. The official +reports admit 1,179 dead out of 33,665 civil prisoners. This figure is +evidently below the truth. During the first days at Versailles a certain +number of individuals were killed, and others died without being +counted. There were no statistics before the transfer to the pontoons. +There is no exaggeration in saying that 2,000 prisoners died while in +the hands of the Versaillese. A great number perished afterwards of +anæmia, and of maladies contracted during their captivity.</p> + +<p>Some idea of the tortures of the pontoons and the forts, far from the +surveillance of public opinion, may be gathered from those that were +openly displayed at Versailles,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> under the eyes of the Government, +the Chamber, and the Radicals. Colonel Gaillard, chief of military +justice, had said to the soldiers who guarded the prisoners of the +Chantiers, "As soon as you see any one move, raising their arms, fire; +it is I who give you the order."</p> + +<p>At the Grenier d'Abondance of the Western Railway there were eight +hundred women. For weeks and weeks they slept on straw, were unable to +change their linen. At the slightest noise, a quarrel, the guards threw +themselves upon them, struck them, more especially on the breasts. +Charles Mercereau, a former Cent-Garde, the governor of this sink, had +those that displeased him tied down and then beat them with his cane. He +led about over his dominions the ladies of Versailles, covetous of +petroleuses, and before them said to his victims, "Come, hussies, cast +down your eyes." And indeed that was the least our Federal women could +do before these honest persons.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>Prostitutes, carried off in the razzias, and carefully kept there in +order to spy upon the other prisoners, publicly abandoned themselves to +the guardians. The protests of the women of the Commune were punished by +blows with cords. With a refinement of infamy, the Versaillese wished to +bow down these valiant women to the level of the others. All the +prisoners were subjected to inspection.</p> + +<p>Dignity and outraged nature revenged themselves by terrible crises. +"Where is my father? Where my husband? and my son? What! alone, quite +alone, and all these cowards against me! I, the mother, the laborious +wife, subjected to the whip, insult, and sullied by these unclean hands +for having defended liberty!" Many went mad. All passed through their +hours of madness. Those who were pregnant miscarried or brought forth +still-born children.</p> + +<p>The priests were no more wanting in the prisons than at the fusillades. +The chaplain of Richemont said to the prisoners, "I know that I am here +in a forest of Bondy,<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> but my duty," &c. On the day of St. Magdalene +the Bishop of Algiers, making a delicate allusion to the saint of the +day, said to them, "That they were all Magdalenes, but not repentant; +that Magdalene had neither burned nor assassinated;" and uttering other +evangelical amenities.</p> + +<p>The children were shut up in a part of the women's prison, and were just +as brutally treated. A corporal, the secretary of Mercereau, kicked open +the stomach of a boy; another received the bastinado, and lingered for a +long time at the infirmary. The son of Ranvier, twelve years old, was +cruelly beaten for refusing to betray the hiding-place of his father.</p> + +<p>All these unfortunate prisoners of the pontoons, the forts, and the +houses of correction were for several months devoured by vermin before +their cases were inquired into. The Versaillese Moloch held more victims +than he could digest. After the first days of June he disgorged 1,090 +persons reclaimed by the reactionists. But how to draw up indictments +against 36,000 prisoners? It was all very well for Dufaure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>to let loose +all the police agents of the Empire into the prisons; in the month of +August only 4,000 prisoners had been interrogated.</p> + +<p>Still it was necessary to satiate the rage of the bourgeoisie, which +wanted a sensational trial. A few celebrities who had escaped the +massacre had been taken, some members of the Council of the Commune, of +the Central Committee, Rossel, Rochefort, &c. M. Thiers and Dufaure got +up a grand performance.</p> + +<p>This trial was to be the model one, to serve as a type for the +jurisprudence of the courts-martial, for the prisoners were to be judged +by the same soldiers who had conquered them. The old procureur and his +president applied all their pettifogging cunning to lowering the debate. +They refused the character of political men to the accused, and reduced +the insurrection to an ordinary crime, thus securing to themselves the +right of cutting short effective defences, and the advantage of +condemnations to the bagnio and to death, which the hypocritical +bourgeoisie pretends to have abolished in political cases.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> The +third court-martial was carefully selected. The commissary chosen was +Gaveau, a low energumen, who had shown signs of mental alienation, and +had struck the prisoners in the streets of Versailles; the president, +Merlin, a colonel of engineers, one of the capitulards of Bazaine's +army; the rest an assortment of trusty Bonapartists. Sedan and Metz were +going to judge Paris.</p> + +<p>The ceremony commenced on the 7th August, in a large hall containing two +thousand seats. Personages of rank reclined in the red velvet +arm-chairs; deputies occupied three hundred seats; the remainder +belonged to the bourgeois of note, to "honest" families, to the +aristocracy of prostitution, and to the howling press. These talking +journalists, these brilliant dresses, these smiling faces, these toyings +with fans, these gay bouquets, these opera-glasses pointed in all +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>directions, reminded one of the most elegant first-night performances. +The staff officers, in full uniform, smartly conducted the ladies to +their seats, not forgetting to make the indispensable bow.</p> + +<p>All this scum boiled over when the prisoners appeared. There were +seventeen: Ferré, Assi, Jourde, Paschal Grousset, Régère, Billioray, +Courbet, Urbain, Victor Clément, Trinquet, Champy, Rastoul, Verdure, +Decamps, Parent, members of the Council of the Commune; Ferrat and +Lullier, members of the Central Committee.</p> + +<p>Gaveau read the accusation act. This revolution was born of two plots, +that of the revolutionary party and that of the International; Paris had +risen on the 18th March, in answer to the appeal of a few scoundrels; +the Central Committee had ordered the execution of Lecomte and +Clément-Thomas; the manifestation of the Place Vendôme was an unarmed +manifestation; the head-surgeon of the army had been assassinated while +making a supreme appeal to conciliation; the Commune had committed +thefts of all kinds; the implements of the nuns of Picpus were +transformed into instruments of orthopedy; the explosion of the Rapp +magazines was the work of the Commune; desirous of kindling violent +hatred of the enemy in the hearts of the Federals, Ferré had presided at +the execution of the hostages of La Roquette, set fire to the Ministry +of Finance, as was proved by the facsimile of an order written in his +hand, "<i>Burn Finances!</i>" Each one of the members of the Council of the +Commune had to answer for facts relating to his particular functions, +and collectively for all the decrees issued. This indictment, worthy of +a low police agent, communicated beforehand to M. Thiers, indeed made of +the cause a simple affair of robbery and arson.</p> + +<p>It took up a whole sitting. The next day, Ferré, interrogated the first, +refused to answer, and laid his conclusions upon the table. "The +conclusions of the incendiary Ferré are of no moment!" cried Gaveau, and +the witnesses against him were called. Fourteen out of twenty-four +belonged to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>the police; the others were priests or Government employés. +An expert in handwriting, celebrated at the law-courts for his blunders, +affirmed that the order "<i>Burn Finances</i>" was certainly in Ferré's hand. +In vain the accused demanded that the signature of this order should be +compared with his, which figured very often in the jail register; that +at least the original should be produced, and not the facsimile. Gaveau +exclaimed indignantly, "Why, this is want of confidence!"</p> + +<p>Thus set to rights from the outset as to the plot and the character of +their judges, the accused might have declined every debate; they +committed the fault of accepting it. If even they had proudly +revindicated their political character! But it was not so; some even +denied it. Almost all, confining themselves to their personal defence, +abandoned the Revolution of the 18th March, whose mandate they had +solicited or accepted. Their preoccupation for their own safety betrayed +itself by sad defections. But from the very dock of the accused the +voice of the people thus denied arose avengingly. A workman of that +brave Parisian race, the first in labour, study, and combat, a member of +the Council of the Commune, intelligent and convinced, modest in the +Council, one of the foremost in the struggle, the shoemaker Trinquet, +revindicated the honour of having fulfilled his mandate to the end. "I +was," said he, "sent to the Commune by my co-citizens; I have paid with +my person; I have been to the barricades, and I regret not having died +there; I should not to-day assist at this sad spectacle of colleagues +who, after having taken their share in the action, will no longer bear +their part of the responsibility. I am an insurgent; I do not deny it."</p> + +<p>The examinations were drawn out with fastidious slowness during +seventeen sittings. Always the same public of soldiers, bourgeois, +courtesans, hissing the accused; the same witnesses, priests, police +agents, and functionaries; the same fury in the accusation, the same +cynicism in the tribunal, the same howling of the press. The massacres +had not glutted this. It yelled at the accused, demanded their death, +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>every day dragged them through the mire of its reports.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> +Foreign correspondents were revolted. The <i>Standard</i>, a great reviler of +the Commune, said, "Anything more scandalous than the tone of the +demi-monde press during this trial it is impossible to imagine." Some of +the accused having asked for the protection of the president, Merlin +took up the defence of the journals.</p> + +<p>Then came the prosecutor's address to the court. Gaveau, to remain true +to his instructions, was to demonstrate that Paris had fought for six +weeks in order to enable a few individuals to steal the remainder of the +public chests, to burn some houses, and to shoot a few gendarmes. This +epauletted limb of the law overthrew as a soldier all the arguments he +built up as a magistrate. "The Commune," he said, "had acted as a +Government," and five minutes after he refused the members of the +Council of the Commune the character of political men. Passing in review +the different accused, he said of Ferré, "I should be wasting my time +and yours by discussing the numerous charges weighing upon him;" of +Jourde, "The figures he has given you are quite imaginary. I shall not +trespass upon your time by discussing them." During the battle in the +streets Jourde had received the order of the Committee of Public Safety +to remit a thousand francs to every member of the Council. About thirty +only had received this sum. Gaveau said, "They divided millions amongst +each other;" and a man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>of his sort must have believed this. What +sovereign has ever abandoned power without carrying off millions? He +lengthily accused Grousset of having stolen paper in order to print his +journal; another of having lived with a mistress. A coarse <i>lansquenet</i>, +incapable of understanding that the more he lowered the men the greater +he made this Revolution, so vital despite all defections and +incapacities.</p> + +<p>The audience emphasised this accusation with frantic applause. At the +conclusion there were calls as in a theatre. Merlin gave Ferré's +advocate permission to speak, but Ferré declared he wished to defend +himself, and commenced reading:—</p> + +<p>After the conclusion of the treaty of peace consequent upon the shameful +capitulation of Paris, the Republic was in danger, the men who had +succeeded the Empire fallen in the midst of mire and blood"——</p> + +<p><i>Merlin.</i> Fallen in the midst of mire and blood! Here I must stop you. +Was not your Government in the same situation?</p> + +<p><i>Ferré.</i> "Clung to power, and, though overwhelmed by public contempt, +they prepared in the dark a coup-d'état; they persisted in refusing +Paris the election of her municipal council"——</p> + +<p><i>Gaveau.</i> This is not true.</p> + +<p><i>Merlin.</i> What you are saying, Ferré, is false. Continue, but at the +third time I shall stop you.</p> + +<p><i>Ferré.</i> "The honest and sincere journals were suppressed, the best +patriots condemned to death"——</p> + +<p><i>Gaveau.</i> The prisoner cannot go on reading this. I shall ask for the +application of the law.</p> + +<p><i>Ferré.</i> "The Royalists were preparing for the partition of France. At +last, in the night of the 18th March, they believed themselves ready, +and attempted to disarm the National Guard, and the wholesale arrest of +Republicans"——</p> + +<p><i>Merlin.</i> Come, sit down. I allow your advocate to speak.</p> + +<p>The advocate of Ferré demanded that his client might be allowed to read +the last sentences of his declaration, and Merlin gave way.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span><i>Ferré.</i> "A member of the Commune, I am in the hands of its victors. +They want my head; they may take it. I will never save my life by +cowardice. Free I have lived, so I will die. I add but one word. Fortune +is capricious; I confide to the future the care of my memory and my +revenge."</p> + +<p><i>Merlin.</i> The memory of an assassin!</p> + +<p><i>Gaveau.</i> It is to the bagnio that such manifestoes should be sent.</p> + +<p><i>Merlin.</i> All this does not answer to the acts for which you are here.</p> + +<p><i>Ferré.</i> This means that I accept the fate that is in store for me.</p> + +<p>During this duel between Merlin and Ferré the hall had remained silent. +Ferocious hisses burst forth when Ferré concluded. The president was +obliged to raise the sitting, and the judges were going out when a +barrister demanded that notice should be taken for the defence that the +president had called Ferré "assassin."</p> + +<p>The hisses of the audience answered. The advocate indignantly turned to +the tribunal, to the seats of the press, to the public. Cries of rage +arose from all corners of the hall, drowning his voice for several +minutes. Merlin, who was radiant, at last obtained silence, and answered +cavalierly, "I acknowledge that I made use of the expression of which +the advocate spoke. The court takes notice of your conclusions."</p> + +<p>The day before, as a barrister remarked to him, "We are all answerable, +not to the public opinion of to-day, but to history, which will judge +us;" Merlin had cynically answered, "History! At that epoch we shall no +longer be here!" The French bourgeoisie had found its Jeffries.</p> + +<p>Early the next day the hall was crowded. The curiosity of the public, +the anxiety of the judges, were extreme. Gaveau, in order to accuse his +adversaries of all crimes at once, had for two days talked politics, +history, socialism. It would have sufficed to answer each one of his +arguments, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>in order to give the cause that political character which he +denied it, if one of the prisoners were at last to rouse up, and, less +careful of his person than of the Commune, follow up the accusation step +by step, oppose to the grotesque theories of conspiracy the eternal +provocation of the privileged classes; describe Paris offering herself +to the Government of National Defence, betrayed by it, then attacked by +Versailles, abandoned; the proletarians reorganising all the services of +this great city, and in a state of war, surrounded by treason, governing +for two months without police spies and without executions, remaining +poor in sight of the milliards of the bank; if he were to confront the +sixty-three hostages with the 20,000 assassinated, unveil the pontoons, +the jails, swarming with 40,000 unfortunate beings; take the world to +witness in the name of truth, of justice, of the future, and make of the +accused Commune the accuser.</p> + +<p>The president might have interrupted him, the cries of the public +drowned his revindication, the court after the first words declared him +outlawed. Such a man, reduced to silence, would, like Danton gagged, +find a gesture, a cry, which should pierce the walls and hurl his +anathema at the head of the tribunal.</p> + +<p>The vanquished missed this revenge. Instead of presenting a collective +defence or of maintaining a silence which would have saved their +dignity, the accused intrusted themselves to the barristers. Each one of +these gentlemen stretched a point to save his client even at the expense +of his brother lawyers. One barrister was also the <i>Figaro's</i> and the +confidant of the Empress; another, one of the demonstrators of the Place +Vendôme, begged the court not to confound his cause with that of the +scoundrel's near him. There were scandalous pleadings. This debasement +disarmed neither the tribunal nor the public. Every moment Gaveau +bounded out of his arm-chair. "You are an insolent fellow," said he to a +lawyer. "If there is anything absurd here, it is you." The audience +applauded, ever ready to pounce upon the prisoners. On the 31st August +its fury <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>rose to such a pitch that Merlin threatened to have the court +cleared.</p> + +<p>On the 2nd September the court feigned to deliberate the whole day. At +nine o'clock in the evening it returned to the sitting, and Merlin read +the judgment. Ferré and Lullier were condemned to death; Trinquet and +Urbain to hard labour for life; Assi, Billioray, Champy, Régère, +Grousset, Verdure, Ferrat to transportation in a fortress; Courbet to +six months' and Victor Clément to three months' imprisonment. Decamps +and Parent were acquitted. The audience retired much disappointed at +having got only two condemnations to death.</p> + +<p>As a fact, this judicial performance had proved nothing. Could the +Revolution of the 18th March be appreciated from the conduct of +secondary actors, and Delescluze, Varlin, Vermorel, Tridon, Moreau, and +many others, by the attitude of Lullier, Decamps, Victor Clément, or +Billioray? And even if the bearing of Ferré and Trinquet had not proved +that there had been men in the Council of the Commune, what then did the +defection of the majority show if not that this movement was the work of +all, not of a few great minds; that in this crisis the people only had +been great, they only revolutionary; that the Revolution was to be found +in the people, not in the Government of the Commune?</p> + +<p>The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, had displayed all its hideousness. The +audience, the tribunal, had been on the same level. Some witnesses had +manifestly perjured themselves. During the debates, in the lobbies, in +the cafés, all the ragamuffins who had endeavoured to dupe the Commune +impudently ascribed to themselves the success of the army. The <i>Figaro</i>, +having opened a subscription for Ducatel, had picked up 100,000 francs +and an order of the Légion d'Honneur for him. Allured by this success, +all the conspirators demanded their alms and their order. The partisans +of Beaufond-Lasnier, those of Charpentier-Domalain, fell out, recounted +their prowess, each and all swearing that he had betrayed better than +his rivals.</p> + +<p>While society was being avenged at Versailles, the Court <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>of Assizes of +Paris avenged the honour of Jules Favre. Immediately after the Commune, +the Minister for Foreign Affairs had had M. Laluyé arrested, who was +guilty of having communicated to Millière the documents published in the +<i>Vengeur</i>. The honest Minister, not having succeeded in getting his +enemy shot as a Communard, summoned him before the assizes for libel. +Here the former member of the Government of National Defence, the former +Minister of Foreign Affairs, the deputy of Paris, publicly confessed +that he had committed forgeries, but he pleaded having done so to secure +his children a fortune. This touching avowal melted the <i>patres +familias</i> of the jury, and Laluyé was condemned to imprisonment for one +year. Some months after he died at Ste. Pélagie. Jules Favre was +terribly lucky. In less than six months the fusillade and the dungeon +had delivered him of two redoubtable enemies.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p> + +<p>While the third court-martial was quarrelling with the lawyers, the +fourth hurried through its business without phrases. On the 16th August, +almost immediately after its opening, it had already pronounced two +sentences of death. If the one court had its Jeffries, the other had its +Trestaillon in Colonel Boisdenemetz, a kind of wild boar, a drunkard, +seeing all red, a wit at times, and correspondent of the <i>Figaro</i>. On +the 4th September some women were brought before him, accused of setting +fire to the Légion d'Honneur. This was the trial of the petroleuses. The +eight thousand enrolled furies who had been announced by the journals of +order were reduced to the number of five. The cross-examination proved +that the so-called petroleuses were only admirably kind-hearted +ambulance nurses. One of them, Rétiffe, said, "I should have looked +after a soldier of Versailles as well as a National Guard." "Why," +another was asked, "did you remain when all the battalion ran away?" +"There were wounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>and dying," answered she simply. The witnesses for +the prosecution themselves declared that they had not seen any of them +kindle fire; but their fate was decided beforehand. Between two sittings +Boisdenemetz cried in a café, "Death to all these trulls!"</p> + +<p>Three barristers out of five had deserted the bar. "Where are they?" +said the president. "They have asked to be allowed to absent themselves +to go to the country," answered the commissary. The court charged +soldiers with the defence of these poor women. One of them, the +Quartermaster Bordelais, made this fine speech: "I defer to the wisdom +of the tribunal."</p> + +<p>His client, Suétens, was condemned to death, as were also Rétiffe and +Marchais, "for having attempted to change the form of the Government;" +the two others to transportation and confinement. One of the condemned, +turning to the officer who read the sentence, cried to him in a +heart-rending voice, "And who will feed my child?"</p> + +<p>Thy child! See, he is here!</p> + +<p>Some days after, before this same Boisdenemetz, fifteen children of +Paris appeared; the eldest was sixteen years old, the youngest, so small +that he could hardly be seen in the dock of prisoners, was eleven. They +wore blue blouses and military képis.</p> + +<p>"Druet," said the soldier, "what did your father do?"</p> + +<p>"He was a mechanic."</p> + +<p>"Why did you not work like him?"</p> + +<p>"Because there was no work for me."</p> + +<p>"Bouverat, why did you join the <i>Pupilles de la Commune</i>?"</p> + +<p>"To get something to eat."</p> + +<p>"You have been arrested for vagrancy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, twice; the second time for stealing a pair of stockings."</p> + +<p>"Cagnoncle, you were <i>Enfant de la Commune</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave your family?"</p> + +<p>"Because they had no bread."</p> + +<p>"Did you discharge many shots?"</p> + +<p>"About fifty."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>"Lescot, why did you leave your mother?"</p> + +<p>"Because she could not keep me."</p> + +<p>"How many children were there of you?"</p> + +<p>"Three."</p> + +<p>"You have been wounded?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, by a ball in the head."</p> + +<p>"Leberg, you have been with a master, and you were surprised taking the +cash-box. How much did you take?"</p> + +<p>"Ten sous."</p> + +<p>"Did not that money burn your hands?"</p> + +<p>And you, red-handed man! these words, do they not burn your lips? +Sinister fools! who do not understand that before these children, thrown +into the streets without education, without hope, through the necessity +you have made for them, the culprit is you, lace-bedecked soldier, you, +the public minister of a society in which children twelve years old, +capable and willing to work, are forced to steal in order to get a pair +of stockings, and have no other alternative than to fall beneath bullets +or die of hunger!</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> These details are extracted from very numerous notes +furnished not only by the prisoners, among others by Elisée Reclus, but +by persons entire strangers to the Commune, municipal councillors of +seaport towns, foreign journalists, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> General Appert's report is not only silent with regard to +these ignominious proceedings, but lies with a placidity that is +frightful. He says, for instance, "The prisoners of the pontoons were +treated like the sailors, with this difference, that they did no work +and got frequent distributions of wine." Of the cages, the vermin, the +blows, not a word. In the same manner he recounts, in the style of a +pretentious quartermaster, the history of the Commune and of the last +struggles. It would be doing him too much honour to point out how his +absurd statements contradict each other. And yet it is from these +official lies that all bourgeois historians have till to-day compiled +their histories.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> Letter addressed to the <i>Liberté</i> of Brussels.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> Besides the 27,837 prisoners officially recognised at the +pontoons, 8472 others were admitted as being dispersed at Satory, +L'Orangerie, Les Chautiers, the houses of justice and correction of +Rouen-Clermont and St. Cyr. On the 15th of October there were still 3500 +in the prisons of Versailles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> The former resort of all sorts of criminals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> The great political hecatombs have taken place in France +since the decree of the Provisional Government of 1848.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> Here is a sample, and not one of the most emphatic, "We +must make no mistake," said <i>La Liberté</i>; "we must, above all, not stand +on niceties; this is certainly a band of scoundrels, assassins, thieves, +and incendiaries whom we have before our eyes. To argue from their +situation of accused in order to exact for them the respect and benefit +of the law which supposes them innocent would be a want of faith. No, +no! a thousand times no! These are not ordinary accused; they were +taken, some in the very act, and the others have so surely signed their +culpability by authentic and solemn acts that it suffices to establish +their identity in order to cry with the full and sonorous voice of +conviction, 'Yes, yes! they are guilty!' +</p><p class="noin"> +"The detained witnesses are, for the most part, sinister bandits, with +atrocious faces, repulsive types, especially the youngest, and whom one +would not like to meet even in broad daylight at the corner of a wood."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Family and morality were triumphing along the whole line. +Some days after the fall of the Commune, the first president of the +Court of Cassation, the official go-between of the amours of Napoleon +III., solemnly reoccupied, before all the courts united, his seat, +whence the hypocritical prudery of the men of the 4th September had +expelled him.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"A Versailles, tous les moyens ont été employés pour assurer +l'instruction la plus sérieuse, la plus attentive, la plus +complète de tous les procès qui ont été juges.... Je tiens +donc que les jugements qui ont été rendus ne sont pas +seulement en droit, d'après toutes nos lois, inattaquables, +mais que, pour la conscience la plus scrupuleuse, ils sont +des jugements qui ont dit la vérité.—('Très bien! très +bien!')"—<i>Le Garde des Sceaux Dufaure, Discours contre +l'Amnistie, Séance du 18 Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Les conseils de guerre ont jugé, je l'admets, pour le +mieux."—<i>Allain-Targé, député Gambettiste, Séance du 19 +Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">THE COURTS-MARTIAL—THE EXECUTIONS—BALANCE-SHEET OF THE +CONDEMNATIONS.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Twenty-six courts-martial, twenty-six judicial mitrailleuses, were at +work at Versailles, Mont-Valérien, Paris, Vincennes, St. Cloud, Sèvres, +St. Germain, Rambouillet, as far as Chartres. In the composition of +these tribunals not only all semblance of justice, but even all military +rules had been despised. The Assembly had not even troubled itself to +define their prerogatives. And these officers, hot from the struggle, +and for whom every resistance, even the most legitimate, is a crime, had +been let loose upon their overwhelmed enemies without any other +jurisprudence than their fancy, without any other rein than their +humanity, without any other instruction than their commission. With such +janissaries and a penal code comprising everything in its elastic +obscurity, there was no need for exceptional laws in order to attaint +all Paris. Soon one saw the most extravagant theories invented and +propagated in these judicial dens. Thus, being at the place of the crime +constituted legal complicity; with these magistrates this was a dogma.</p> + +<p>Instead of removing the courts-martial into the ports, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>prisoners +were forced to again undergo the painful journey from the sea to +Versailles. Some, like Elisée Reclus, had thus to pass through fourteen +prisons. From the pontoons they were conducted to the railway station on +foot, their hands manacled; but at Brest, when they passed through the +streets showing their chains, the passers-by uncovered before them.</p> + +<p>With the exception of a few prisoners of note, whose trials I shall +briefly recount, the bulk of the prisoners were thrust before the +tribunals after an examination which did not even always make sure of +their identity. Too poor to get a defender, these unfortunate people, +without guides, without witnesses for the defence—those whom they +called did not dare to come for fear of being arrested—only appeared +and disappeared before the tribunal. The accusation, the examination, +the sentence were shuffled through in a few minutes. "You fought at +Issy, at Neuilly? Sentenced to transportation." "What! for life? And my +wife, my children?" To another: "You served in the battalions of the +Commune?" "And who would have fed my family when the workshop and +factory were closed?" Again sentenced to transportation. "And you? +Guilty of an illegal arrest. To the bagnio." On the 14th October, in +less than two months, the first and second courts had pronounced more +than six hundred sentences.</p> + +<p>Would that I could recount the martyrology of the thousands who defiled +thus in sombre lines, National Guards, women, children, old men, +ambulance attendants, doctors, functionaries, of this decimated town! It +is you whom I should honour, you above all, you, the nameless, to whom I +should give the first place, as you took it in the work at the +barricades, where you obscurely did your duty. The true drama of the +courts-martial was not in those solemn sittings in which the accused, +the tribunal, the barristers prepared for public performance, but in +those halls which only saw the unhappy ones, ignored by the whole world, +face to face with a tribunal as inexorable as the chassepot. How many of +these humble defenders of the Commune held up their heads <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>more proudly +than the chiefs, and whose heroism no one will tell! When the insolence, +the insults, the grotesque arguments of the conspicuous judges are +known, it may be guessed with what ignominy the unknown accused were +overwhelmed in the shade of these new prevotal courts. Who will avenge +these hecatombs of unknown men, executed in silence, like the last +combatants of the Père Lachaise in the darkness of the night?</p> + +<p>The journals have left no trace of their trials; but, in default of the +names of the victims, I can scatter those of some judges to the four +winds of history.</p> + +<p>Formerly, in the days of honour of the French army, in 1795, after +Quiberon, it was necessary to threaten the officers of the Republic with +death in order to form the courts-martial that were to judge the +Vendéens. And yet those vanquished had, under the cannon, with English +arms, attacked their country in the rear, while the coalesced Powers +struck her in front. In 1871 the accomplices of Bazaine solicited the +honour of judging the vanquished of that Paris which had been the +bulwark of national honour. Through long months 1,509 officers of this +degraded army, that has not an hour too much for its rehabilitation and +for study, 14 generals, 266 colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and 284 +commanders, were dubbed judges and commissaries. How select amongst this +pick of bestiality? When I mention a few presidents at hazard—Merlin, +Boisdenemetz, Jobey, Delaporte, Dulac, Barthel, Donnat, Aubert—I shall +be wronging a hundred others.</p> + +<p>Merlin and Boisdenemetz are known. Colonel Delaporte was of the Gallifet +species. Old, used up, valetudinarian, he only revived after a sentence +of death. It is he who pronounced the greatest number, aided by the +clerk of the court, Duplan, who prepared the sentences beforehand, and +afterwards committed the most impudent forgeries in the minutes. Jobey +had, it was said, lost a son in the struggle with the Commune, and now +he avenged himself. His small wrinkled eye watched for the anguish in +the face of the unfortunate he condemned. Every appeal to good sense was +to him an insult.</p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> + +<p>"He would have been happy," said he, "to stew the lawyers together with +the culprits."</p> + +<p>And yet how few lawyers did their duty! Many had declared that one could +not decently assist such prisoners. Others wanted to be requisitioned. +With four or five exceptions,<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> these unworthy defenders banqueted +with the officers. Barristers and commissaries communicated to each +other their means of attack or defence; the officers announced the +verdicts beforehand. The advocate Riché boasted of having drawn up the +accusation act against Rossel. The advocates officially designated did +not answer the call.</p> + +<p>These ignorant judges, making a parade of violence, insulting the +prisoners, witnesses, and lawyers, were worthily seconded by the +commissaries. One of them, Grimal, sold to the demi-monde journals the +papers of the celebrated prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> Gaveau, a savage simpleton, +without a shadow of talent, died some months after in a madhouse. +Bourboulon, eager for display, aimed at oratorical effects. Barthélemy, +a beer-drinker, fair and fat, made puns while asking for the heads of +the accused. Charrière, at fifty years of age still captain, a kind of +wild-cat, an imbecile, and a pretentious liar, said that he had "made a +vow of cruelty to Cæsar." Jouesne, notorious in the army for his +stupidity, made up for it by his stubborn animosity. Not much was needed +in such courts. The most implacable, on the whole, were the third, +fourth, and sixth courts, and the thirteenth at St. Cloud, which +publicly boasted of acquitting nobody.</p> + +<p>So much for the judges and the justice which the bourgeoisie gave those +proletarians they had not shot down. I should like to be able to follow +up step by step their swash-buckling <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>jurisprudence, take the trials one +by one, show the laws violated, the most elementary rules of procedure +despised, the documents falsified, the evidence distorted, the prisoners +condemned to hard labour and to death without what would have been the +ghost of a proof with a serious jury; the cynicism of the prevotal +courts of the Restoration and of the Mixed Commissions of December +ingrafted on the brutality of the soldier who revenges his caste. Such a +work would require long technical labour.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> I shall only indicate the +principal lines. Besides, are not these judgments already judged?</p> + +<p>In 1871 the Versaillese Government demanded of Switzerland the +extradition of the governor of the Ecole Militaire, in 1876 that of the +delegate Frankel from Hungary, both condemned to death for assassination +and incendiarism. They were at once arrested. Liberal Switzerland and +rural Hungary, considering the acts of the Commune as common crimes, +were ready to deliver up the prisoners if Versailles furnished the legal +proof required by treaties of extradition that they had committed the +acts for which they had been condemned. The Versaillese Government only +produced the sentences of the courts-martial, and could not add the +least "trace of proof or any precise evidence establishing +culpability."<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> The prisoners had to be released.</p> + +<p>On the 8th September Rossel appeared before the third court. His defence +consisted in saying that he had served the Commune in the hope that the +insurrection would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>recommence the war against the Prussians. Merlin +treated the prisoner with the greatest consideration, who in turn +testified the most profound respect for the army. But an example was +needed for romantic soldiers, and Rossel was condemned to death.</p> + +<p>On the 21st Rochefort was sentenced to transportation in a fortress. The +Bonapartists of the court especially had their eye on the author of the +<i>Lanterne</i>. Merlin had defended Pierre Bonaparte. Gaveau accused the +prisoner of having outraged the person of the Emperor. Trochu, whom +Rochefort had called as a witness for the defence, answered the man who +during the siege had for him sacrificed his popularity, by an insulting +letter.</p> + +<p>Revolutionary journalism had the honour of counting some victims in its +ranks. Young Maroteau, for two articles—two only—in the <i>Salut Public</i> +was condemned to death; Alphonse Humbert, for three or four articles in +the <i>Père Duchesne</i>, to hard labour for life.</p> + +<p>Other journalists were condemned to transportation. What was their +crime? Having defended the Commune. Yet the Commune had contented itself +with suppressing the journals that defended Versailles. In point of +fact, the courts-martial were charged to exterminate the revolutionary +party.</p> + +<p>Fear of the future rendered them implacable. After the numberless +assassinations in the Rue des Rosiers, they too wanted to offer a +holocaust to the manes of Lecomte and Clément-Thomas. The real +executioners were not to be found. The explosion of fury which cost the +two generals their lives had been spontaneous, sudden as that which in +1789 killed Flesselles, Foulon, and Berthier. The actors of the drama +were legion, and with it all traces of them were lost. The military +judges selected the accused at random, as their colleagues had on the +Buttes Montmartre shot the first-comers.</p> + +<p>"Simon Mayer," said the report, "tried to the last moment to defend the +prisoners, and Kazdansky did his best to oppose the carrying out of the +threats of death. The crowd insulted him and tore off his gold lace." +Herpin-Lacroix <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>had made desperate efforts; Lagrange, who had refused to +form the firing-party, felt so secure in his innocence that he had come +to give himself up to the judges of his own free will. The report made +the principal accused of him, along with Simon Mayer, Kazdansky, +Herpin-Lacroix, and a sergeant of the line, Verdagnier, who on the 18th +March had raised the butt-end of his gun.</p> + +<p>The trial was conducted by Colonel Aubert, a sneering melodramatic +bigot. Despite his efforts and those of the commissary, not the +slightest proof could be brought forward against the prisoners. Even the +officers of the army, companions of General Lecomte, gave evidence in +their favour. "Simon Mayer did all that was possible to save us," said +the Commander Poussargue. This officer had heard a voice cry, "Do not +kill even traitors without judgment; form a court-martial;" textually +the words of Herpin-Lacroix. Of all the accused, he only recognised +Mayer. Another officer gave similar evidence. Verdagnier proved that at +the time of the executions he had been at the huts of Courcelles. The +accusation denied all, but without being able to produce a single +witness. Ribemont proved that he had withstood the assailants in the +room of the Rue des Rosiers. Masselot had against him nothing but the +evidence of some hostile women, pretending that he had boasted of having +shot at the generals. Captain Beugnot, aide-de-camp of the Minister, and +present at the execution, affirmed, on the contrary, that the generals +had been surrounded by the soldiers; M. de Maillefu, that the front of +the platoon was composed of nine soldiers, whose regiments he named.</p> + +<p>There were not even false official witnesses, as in the trial of the +members of the Commune; and yet the accusation, far from letting them +escape its clutches, was most implacable with regard to these very men +who had risked their lives to save the generals. The commissary +threatened to arrest a witness who warmly gave evidence in favour of a +prisoner. After several sittings they discovered that they were judging +one individual for another. The president ordered the press to hush up +the incident. Each sitting, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>each new evidence, cleared the prisoners +and made a condemnation more impossible. Yet on the 18th November +Verdagnier, Mayer, Herpin-Lacroix, Masselot, Leblond, and Aldenhoff were +condemned to death; the others to penalties varying from hard labour to +imprisonment. One of those condemned to death, Leblond, was only fifteen +and a half years old.</p> + +<p>This satisfaction given the army, the courts, as good courtiers, avenged +the offences against M. Thiers. The functionary Fontaine, charged by the +Commune with the demolition of the hotel of him who had demolished +hundreds of houses, appeared before the fifth court-martial, which did +its utmost to make him appear a thief. Every one knew that M. Thiers' +furniture and silver plate had been sent to the Garde-Meuble, the +objects of art to the museums, the books to the public libraries, the +linen to the ambulances, and that after the entry of the troops the +little man had regained possession of most of these objects. Some having +perished in the conflagration of the Tuileries, the report accused +Fontaine of having abstracted them, although only two valueless medals +had been found in his house. To this accusation, from which he believed +himself secured by a long life of probity and honour, Fontaine could +only reply with tears. The Figarists laughed at it a good deal, and he +was condemned to twenty years' hard labor.</p> + +<p>On the 28th November the Assembly recommenced its fusillade. M. Thiers, +cleverly throwing upon the representatives the right of commuting the +penalties, had a Commission of Pardons named by the Chamber. It was +composed of fifteen members, purveyors of the Mixed Commission of 1852, +great proprietors, inveterate Royalists.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> One of them, the Marquis +de Quinsonnas, had during the battle in the streets superintended the +executions at the Luxembourg. The president, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>Martel, was an old satyr, +who sold his pardons to pretty solicitresses.</p> + +<p>The first cases which they took up were those of Rossel and Ferré. The +Liberal press pleaded warmly for the young officer. In his restless +mind, without unsound political opinions, who had so cavalierly turned +his back upon the Commune, the bourgeoisie soon recognised one of her +prodigal children. He had besides made an <i>amende honorable</i>. The press +published his memoirs, in which he reviled the Commune and the Federals. +Day by day they recounted the life of the prisoner, his sublime +colloquies with a Protestant clergyman, his heart-rending interviews +with his family. Of Ferré not a word, except to say he was "hideous." +His mother had died mad; his brother was shut up as mad in the dungeons +of Versailles; his father was a prisoner in the citadel of Fouras; his +sister, a young girl of nineteen, silent, resigned, stoical, spent her +days and nights in order to earn the twenty francs that she every week +sent her brother. She had refused the aid of her friends, unwilling to +share with any one the honour of accomplishing her pious duty. Indeed, +one can imagine nothing more "hideous!"</p> + +<p>For twelve weeks death remained suspended above the heads of the +condemned. At last, on the 28th November, at six o'clock in the morning, +they were told that they must die. Ferré jumped out of bed without +showing the slightest emotion, declined the visit of the chaplain, wrote +to ask the military tribunals for the release of his father, and to his +sister that she should have him buried so that his friends would be able +to find him again. Rossel, rather surprised at first, afterwards +conversed with his clergyman. He wrote a letter demanding that his death +should not be avenged—a very useless precaution—and addressed a few +thanks to Jesus Christ. For comrade in death they had a sergeant of the +45th line, Bourgeois, who had gone over to the Commune, and who showed +the same calm as Ferré. Rossel was indignant when they put on the +handcuffs; Ferré and Bourgeois disdained to protest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>The day was hardly dawning; it was bitterly cold. Before the Butte of +Satory 5,000 men under arms surrounded three white stakes, each one +guarded by twelve executioners. Colonel Merlin commanded, thus uniting +the three functions of conqueror, judge, and hangman. Some curious +lookers-on, officers and journalists, composed the whole public.</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock the carts of the condemned appeared; the drums beat a +salute, the trumpets sounded. The prisoners descended, escorted by +gendarmes. Rossel, on passing before a group of officers, saluted them. +The brave Bourgeois, looking on at the whole drama with an indifferent +air, leant against the middle stake. Ferré came last, dressed in black +and smoking a cigar, not a muscle of his face moving. With a firm and +even step he walked up and leant against the third stake.</p> + +<p>Rossel, attended by his lawyer and his clergyman, asked to be allowed to +command the fire. Merlin refused. Rossel wished to shake hands with him, +in order to do homage to his sentence. This was refused. During these +negotiations Ferré and Bourgeois remained motionless, silent. In order +to put a stop to Rossel's effusions an officer was obliged to tell him +that he was prolonging the torture of the two others. At last they +blindfolded him. Ferré pushed back the bandage, and, fixing his +eyeglass, looked the soldiers straight in the face.</p> + +<p>The sentence read, the adjutants lowered their sabres, the guns were +discharged. Rossel and Bourgeois fell back. Ferré remained standing; he +was only hit in the side. He was again fired at and fell. A soldier +placing his chassepot at his ear blew out his brains.</p> + +<p>On a gesture of Merlin a flourish of trumpets burst forth, and, +emulating the customs of the cannibals, the troops defiled in triumph +before the corpses. What cries of horror the bourgeoisie would have +uttered if before the executed hostages the Federals had paraded to the +sound of music!</p> + +<p>The bodies of Rossel and Ferré were claimed by their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>families; that of +Bourgeois disappeared in the common grave of the St. Louis Cemetery. The +people will not disassociate his memory from that of Ferré, for they +both died with the same courage for the cause they had served with the +same devotion.</p> + +<p>The Liberal press reserved its tears for Rossel. Some courageous +provincial papers did honour to all the victims, and devoted to the +hatred of France the Commission of Pardons—"the Commission of +Assassins," as a deputy, Ordinaire junior, said in the Assembly. +Prosecuted before juries, all these journals were acquitted.</p> + +<p>Two days after the execution of Satory, the Commission of Pardons +ordered Gaston Crémieux to be killed. Six months had elapsed since his +condemnation, and this long delay seemed to make the murder impossible. +But the rural Commission wanted to avenge his famous speech of Bordeaux. +On the 30th November, at seven o'clock in the morning, Gaston Crémieux +was led to the Prado, a large plain bordering the sea. He said to his +guardians, "I will show how a Republican should die." He was placed +against the same stake where a month before the soldier Paquis had been +shot for going over to the insurrection.</p> + +<p>Gaston Crémieux wished to have his eyes unbandaged and to command the +fire. They consented. Then addressing himself to the soldiers, "Aim at +the chest; do not touch my head. Fire! Vive la Répub...." The last word +was cut short by death. As at Satory, the dance of the soldiers round +the corpse followed.</p> + +<p>The death of this young enthusiast made a deep impression in the town. +Registers placed at the door of his house filled in a few hours with +thousands of signatures. The revolutionists of Marseilles will not +forget his children.</p> + +<p>The same day the sixth court avenged the death of Chaudey. This had been +ordered and superintended by Raoul Rigault alone. The men who formed the +platoon were abroad. Préau de Védel, the principal accused, then +imprisoned in Ste. Pélagie for a common offence, had only held the +lantern. But the jurisprudence of the officers attributed to simple +agents <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>the same responsibility as to the chiefs. Préau de Védel was +condemned to death.</p> + +<p>On the 4th December, in the hall of the third court, a kind of phantom, +pale-faced and sympathetic, appeared. It was Lisbonne, who for six +months had dragged about his wounds of the Château d'Eau. The same +before the court-martial as during the Commune and at Buzenval, this +bravest of the brave gloried in having fought, and only denied the +accusations of pillage. Other judges would have been proud to spare such +an enemy; the Versaillese condemned him to death.</p> + +<p>Some days after, this same court-martial heard a woman's voice. "I will +not defend myself; I will not be defended," cried Louise Michel. "I +belong entirely to the social revolution, and I declare that I accept +the responsibility of all my acts. I accept it entirely and without +reserve. You accuse me of having participated in the execution of the +generals. To this I answer, yes. If I had been at Montmartre, when they +wished to fire on the people, I should not have hesitated to order fire +myself on those who gave such commands. As to the conflagrations of +Paris, yes, I did participate in them. I wanted to oppose a barrier of +flames to the invaders of Versailles. I have no accomplices; I acted on +my own account."</p> + +<p>The Commissary Dailly demanded the penalty of death.</p> + +<p><i>Louise Michel.</i> What I ask of you, you who style yourselves a +court-martial, who proclaim yourselves my judges, who do not hide +yourselves like the Commission of Pardons, is the field of Satory, where +our brothers have already fallen. I must be cut off from society; you +have been told to do so. Well, the Commissary of the Republic is right. +Since it seems that every heart which beats for liberty has only right +to a little lead, I too demand my part. If you let me live, I shall not +cease to cry vengeance, and I shall denounce to the vengeance of my +brothers the assassins of the Commission of Pardons.</p> + +<p><i>The President.</i> I cannot allow you to go on.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span><i>Louise Michel.</i> I have done. If you are not cowards, kill me.</p> + +<p>They had not the courage to kill her at one blow. She was condemned to +transportation to a fortress.</p> + +<p>Louise Michel did not stand alone in her courageous attitude. Many +others, amongst whom must be mentioned Lemel and Augustine Chiffon, +showed the Versaillese what terrible women these Parisians are, even +vanquished, even in chains.</p> + +<p>The affair of the executions of La Roquette came on at the beginning of +1872. There, as in the Clément-Thomas and Chaudey trials, they had none +of the real actors except Genton, who had carried the order. Almost all +the witnesses, former hostages, gave evidence with the rage natural to +people who have trembled. The accusation, refusing to believe in an +outburst of fury, had built up a ridiculous scaffolding of a +court-martial discussing and ordering the death of the prisoners. It +asserted that one of the accused had commanded the fire, and he was +about to be condemned, in spite of the solemn protests of Genton, when +the real chief of the firing-party, who had just been discovered dying +in a prison, was brought in. Genton was condemned to death. His advocate +had odiously slandered him, then fled, and the court refused to allow +him a second defender.</p> + +<p>The most important affair which followed was that of the Dominicans of +Arcueil. No execution had been less premeditated. These monks had fallen +in crossing the Avenue d'Italie, shot down by the men of the 101st. The +report accused Sérizier, who at that moment was not even in the Avenue. +The only witness called against him said, "I do not affirm anything +myself; I have heard it said." But we know what close bonds unite army +and clergy. Sérizier was condemned to death, as was also one of his +lieutenants, Bouin, against whom not a single witness could be brought +forward. The court took advantage of the occasion to pronounce sentences +of death against Wroblewski, who at that time had been at the +Butte-aux-Cailles, and against Frankel, who had been fighting at the +Bastille.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>On the 12th March the affair of the Rue Haxo came on before the sixth +court, still presided over by Delaporte. The executioners of the +hostages had been no more discoverable than those of the Rue des +Rosiers. The indictment fell back upon the director of the prison, +François, who for a long time had disputed the surrender of his +prisoners, and upon twenty-two persons denounced by gossip contradicted +at the trial. Not one of the witnesses recognised the accused. Delaporte +multiplied his menaces with such a cynicism that the Commissary Rustaud, +who had, however, given proofs of his animosity in the preceding trials, +could not refrain from exclaiming, "But do you want to condemn them +all?" He was the next day replaced by the idiot Charrière. In spite of +all this, the indictment frittered away from hour to hour before the +disavowals of the witnesses. Still not one of the prisoners escaped. +Seven were condemned to death, nine to hard labour, and the others to +transportation.</p> + +<p>The Commission of Pardons awaited, chassepot in hand, the prey given up +to them by the courts-martial. On the 22d of February, 1872, it shot +three of the so-called murderers of Clément-Thomas and Lecomte, even +those whose innocence had most clearly come out in the +trial—Herpin-Lacroix, Lagrange, and Verdagnier. Upright at the stake of +the 28th November, they cried "Vive la Commune!" and died, their faces +radiant. On the 19th March Préau de Védel was executed. On the 30th +April it was Genton's turn. The wounds which he had received in May had +reopened, and he dragged himself to the Butte on his crutches. Arrived +at the stake, he threw them from him, cried "Vive la Commune!" and fell +under the fire. On the 25th May the three stakes were again occupied by +Sérizier, Bouin, and Boudin, the latter condemned as chief of the +platoon which in front of the Tuileries had executed a Versaillese who +attempted to prevent the erection of the barricades of the Rue +Richelieu. They said to the soldiers of the platoon, "We are children of +the people, and you are too. We shall show you that the children of +Paris know how to die." And they, also, fell, crying "Vive la Commune!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>These men who went to the grave so courageously, who with a gesture +defied the musket, who, dying, cried that their cause died not, these +ringing voices, these steadfast looks, disconcerted the soldiers +profoundly. The muskets trembled, and almost within point-blank range +they rarely killed at the first discharge. So at the next execution, the +6th July, the Commander Colin, who presided at these fusillades, ordered +the eyes of the victims bandaged. There were two of them—Baudoin, +accused of setting fire to the St. Eloi Church, and of killing an +individual who had fired at the Federals; and Rouilhac, an insurgent who +had shot at a bourgeois who was potting Federals. Both pushed back the +sergeants who came to blindfold them. Colin gave the order to tie them +to the stake. Three times Baudoin tore asunder the cords; Rouilhac +struggled desperately. The priest who came to assist the soldiers +received some blows in the chest. At last, overwhelmed, they cried, "We +die for the good cause." They were mangled by the balls. After the march +past, an officer of a psychological turn of mind, moving with the tip of +his boot the brains that trickled down, remarked to a colleague, "It is +with this that they thought."</p> + +<p>In June, 1872, all the celebrated cases being disposed of, military +justice avenged the death of a Federal, Captain Beaufort. There is but +one explanation for this strange fact, which is that Beaufort belonged +to the Versaillese. We have received important evidence on this +head.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> At all events, if Delescluze or Varlin had been shot by the +Federals, Versailles would not have avenged their death.</p> + +<p>Three of those accused out of four were present, Deschamps, Denivelle, +and Madame Lachaise, the celebrated cantinière of the 66th. She had +followed Beaufort before the council held at the Boulevard Voltaire, +and, having heard explanations, had done her best to protect him. The +indictment none the less made of her the principal instigator of his +death. On the written evidence of a witness who was not to be found, and +who had never been confronted with her, the commissary accused Madame +Lachaise of having profaned Beaufort's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>corpse. At this abominable +accusation this noble woman burst into tears. She, as well as Denivelle +and Deschamps, were condemned to death.</p> + +<p>The obscene imagination of soldiers with Algerian habits taxed itself to +pollute the accused. Colonel Dulac, judging an intimate friend of +Rigault's, pretended that their friendship had been of an infamous +character. Despite the indignant protests of the prisoner, the wretched +officer persisted.</p> + +<p>The bourgeois press, far from stigmatising, applauded. Without truce, +without lassitude, since the opening of the courts-martial it +accompanied all the trials with the same chorus of imprecations and the +same slanders. Some persons having protested against these executions so +long after the battle, Francisque Sarcey wrote, "The axe ought to be +riveted to the hand of the executioner."</p> + +<p>Till then the Commission of Pardons had only killed three at a time. On +the 24th of July it slaughtered four—François, the director of La +Roquette, Aubry, Dalivoust, and De St. Omer, condemned for the affair of +the Rue Haxo. De St. Omer was more than suspected, and in the prison his +comrades kept aloof from him. Before the muskets they cried "Vive la +Commune!" He answered, "Down with it!"</p> + +<p>On the 18th September, Lolive (accused of having participated in the +execution of the Archbishop), Denivelle, and Deschamps were executed. +These last cried, "Long live the Universal and Social Republic! Down +with the cowards!" On the 22nd January, 1873, nineteen months after the +battle in the streets, the Commission of Pardons tied three more victims +to its stakes—Philippe, member of the Council of the Commune, guilty of +having energetically defended Bercy; Benot, who set fire to the +Tuileries; and Decamps, condemned for the conflagration of the Rue de +Lille, although they had not been able to bring forward any evidence +whatever against him. "I die innocent," cried he. "Down with Thiers!" +Philippe and Benot: "Long live the Social Republic! Vive la Commune!" +They fell, not having belied the courage of the soldiers of the +Revolution of the 18th March.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>This was the last execution at Satory. The blood of twenty-five victims +had reddened the stakes of the Commission of Pardons. In 1875 it had a +young soldier shot at Vincennes, accused of the death of the detective +Vizentini, thrown into the Seine by hundreds of hands at the +manifestation of the Bastille.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></p> + +<p>The movements of the provinces were judged by courts-martial or assize +courts, according to the department being or not being in a state of +siege. Everywhere the issue of the Parisian struggle had been waited +for. Immediately after the defeat of Paris the reaction ran riot. +Espivent's courts-martial initiated these trials. He had his Gaveau in +Commander Villeneuve, one of the bombarders of the 4th April, his +Merlin, and his Boisdenemetz in the colonels Thomassin and Douat. On the +12th June Gaston Crémieux, Etienne, Pélissier, Roux, Bouchet, and all +those who could be connected with the movement of the 23rd March +appeared before the soldiers. The pretentious blockheadedness of +Villeneuve served as type of the military prosecutor's addresses with +which France was inundated. Crémieux, Etienne, Pélissier, and Roux were +condemned to death. This was not enough for the jesuitical bourgeois +reaction. Espivent had declared through the Court of Cassation that the +department of the Bouches-du-Rhône was in a state of siege since the 9th +August, 1870, in virtue of a decree by the Empress, which had neither +been published in the bulletin of laws, nor been sanctioned by the +Senate, nor even promulgated. Provided with this arm, he persecuted all +marked out by the hand of the Congregation. The municipal councillor, +David Bosc, ex-delegate to the Commission, a millionaire shipowner, +accused of having stolen a silver watch from a police agent, was only +acquitted by a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>small majority of voices. The next day the +colonel-president was replaced by the lieutenant-colonel of the 4th +Chasseurs, Donnat, half-mad with absinthe-drinking. A workingman, aged +seventy-five, was condemned to ten years' hard labour and twenty years' +deprivation of civil and political rights for having on the 4th +September arrested for half an hour a police agent who had sent him to +Cayenne in 1852. A crazy old woman, purveyor of the Jesuits, arrested +for a few moments on the 4th September, accused the former commander of +the Civil Guard of her arrest. Her accusation was contradicted by +herself and quite overthrown by alibis and numberless proofs. The +ex-commander was condemned to five years' of prison and ten years' +privation of civil rights. One of the soldier-judges, coming out after +committing this crime, said, "One must have very profound political +convictions to condemn in similar affairs." With these cynical +collaborators Espivent could satisfy all his hatred. He asked the courts +of Versailles to deliver up to him the member of the Council of the +Commune, Amourox, delegate for a time at Marseilles. "I am prosecuting +him for tampering with soldiers," wrote Espivent, "a crime punished by +death; and I am persuaded that this punishment will be applied to him."</p> + +<p>The court-martial of Lyons was not very inferior. Forty-four persons +were prosecuted for the movement of the 22nd March, and thirty-two +condemned to penalties varying from transportation to imprisonment. The +insurrection of the 30th April furnished seventy prisoners, taken at +hazard at Lyons, as was the custom at Versailles. The mayor of the +Guillotière, Crestin, called as witness, did not recognise amongst them +any of those he had seen on that day in his mairie. Presidents of the +courts, the Colonels Marion and Rébillot.</p> + +<p>At Limoges, Dubois and Roubeyrol, democrats esteemed by the whole town, +were condemned in default to death, as the principal actors in the +movement of the 4th April; two were condemned to twenty years' +imprisonment for having boasted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>of knowing who had shot at Colonel +Billet. Another got ten years for having distributed munitions.</p> + +<p>The verdicts of the jury varied. That of the Basses-Pyrénées on the 8th +August acquitted Duportal and the four or five persons accused of the +movement of Toulouse. The same acquittal took place at Rhodez, where +Digeon and the accused of Narbonne appeared after a preliminary +imprisonment of eight months. A sympathetic public filled the hall and +the approaches of the tribunal and cheered the accused at their +departure. The energetic attitude of Digeon once more showed the strong +cast of his character.</p> + +<p>The jury of Riom condemned for the affairs of St. Etienne twenty-one +prisoners, among whom was Amouroux, who had only sent two delegates. A +young workingman, Caton, distinguished himself by his intelligence and +firmness.</p> + +<p>The jury of Orléans was severe upon the accused of Montargis, all of +whom they condemned to prison, and atrocious to those of Cosnes and +Newry-sur-Loire, where there had been no resistance. There were +twenty-three altogether, of whom three were women. Their whole crime had +been carrying about a red flag and crying "Vive Paris! Down with +Versailles!" Malardier, a former representative of the people, who only +arrived on the eve of the manifestation, and who had taken no part in +it, was condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment. None of the accused +was spared. The proprietors of the Loiret avenged the fright of their +fellow-proprietors of the Nièvre.</p> + +<p>The movements of Coulommiers, Nîmes, Dordives, and Voiron gave rise to +some convictions.</p> + +<p>In the month of June, 1872, the greater part of the work of repression +was done. Of the 36,309<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> prisoners, men, women, and children, +without counting the 5,000 military prisoners, to whom the Versaillese +have confessed, 1,179, said they, had died in their prisons; 22,326 had +been liberated after long winter months in the pontoons, the forts, and +the prisons; 10,488 brought before the courts-martial, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>who had +condemned 8,525 of them. The persecutions did not cease. On the advent +of MacMahon, the 24th May, 1873, there set in a recrudescence. On the +1st January, 1875, the general résumé of Versaillese justice gave 10,137 +condemnations pronounced in presence of the accused, and 3,313 in +default. The sentences passed were distributed thus:—</p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="90%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="png 452"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" width="41%">Condemnations to death</td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%">270 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%">8 were women</td> + <td class="tdr" width="19%">and 1 child </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Hard labor</td> + <td class="tdr">410 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">29 were women</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Transportation in a fortress</td> + <td class="tdr">3,989 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">20 were women</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Simple transportation</td> + <td class="tdr">3,507 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">16 were women</td> + <td class="tdr">and 1 child </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Detention</td> + <td class="tdr">1,269 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">8 were women</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Confinement</td> + <td class="tdr">64 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">10 were women</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Hard labour at public works</td> + <td class="tdr">29 </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Imprisonment from three months and upwards</td> + <td class="tdrt">432 </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Imprisonment from three months to one year</td> + <td class="tdrt">1,622 of whom</td> + <td class="tdrt">50 were women</td> + <td class="tdrt">and 1 child </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Imprisonment for more than one year</td> + <td class="tdr">1,344 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">15 were women</td> + <td class="tdr">and 4 children </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Banishment</td> + <td class="tdr">322 </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Surveillance of the police</td> + <td class="tdr">117 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">1 was a woman</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Fines</td> + <td class="tdr">9 </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">Children under sixteen sent to houses of correction</td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdrt">56 </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"> Total</td> + <td class="tdr">13,440 of whom</td> + <td class="tdr">157 were women</td> + <td class="tdr">and 62 children </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>This résumé contained neither the sentences pronounced by the +courts-martial beyond the jurisdiction of Versailles nor those of the +courts of assizes. We must therefore add 15 condemnations to death, 22 +to hard labour, 28 to transportation in a fortress, 29 to simple +transportation, 74 to detention, 13 to confinement, and a certain number +to imprisonment. The total figure of the condemned of Paris and the +provinces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>exceeds 13,700, among whom were 170 women and 62 children.</p> + +<p>Three-fourths of the 10,000 condemned while present—7,418 out of +10,137—were simple guards or non-commissioned officers, 1,942 subaltern +officers. There were only 225 superior officers, 29 members of the +Council of the Commune, 49 of the Central Committee. Despite their +savage jurisprudence, the inquiries, and the false witnesses, the +courts-martial had been unable to bring forward against nine-tenths of +the condemned—9,285—any other crime than the bearing of arms or the +exercise of public functions. Of the 766 condemned for so-called common +crimes, 276 were for simple arrests, 171 for the battle in the streets, +132 for crimes classed as "others" by the report, all evidently for acts +of war.<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> Notwithstanding the great number of ticket-of-leave men +designedly included in these prosecutions, nearly three-fourths of the +condemned—7,119—had no judiciary antecedents; 524 had incurred +condemnation for misdemeanor against public order (political or simple +police cases); 2,381 for crimes or misdemeanours, which the report took +care not to specify. Finally, this insurrection, provoked and conducted +by the foreigner according to the bourgeois press, furnished in all but +396 prisoners of foreign origin.</p> + +<p>This is the balance-sheet of 1874. The following years added new +condemnations. The number of the courts was reduced, but their +institution was maintained and the prosecutions are going on. Even now, +six years after the defeat, the arrests and convictions have not ceased.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Let us cite Dupont de Bussac, and above all Léon Bigot, +who defended Maroteau, Lisbonne, and a great number of obscure +prisoners. For a year he gave them his time, his labour, his money, +publishing memoirs, exhausting himself in applications. He died in +harness, falling, struck by apoplexy, even at the bar. The friends of +the Commune will not forget this noble devotion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> He was condemned in 1876 to five years' imprisonment for +embezzlement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> In the law-schools is there no one to undertake it? What +finer cause to begin with for a young man? What noble occasion to efface +the great wrongs of the schools during the Commune, to bring nearer the +proletarian this part of our youth, which is drifting further from them +every day?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> "To this demand of the communication of judicial +evidence," said the tribunal of Buda-Pesth in its judgment, "the French +Government has answered by purely and simply transmitting the sentence +of the court-martial. In this sentence there exists no trace of proof, +nor any precise evidence establishing culpability. Considering that this +verdict is totally destitute of evidence and legal proofs, and that it +indicates no means of procuring them, this tribunal exonerates Frankel +from the charges brought against him."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Here are their names, which truly belong to the history +of the people:—Martel, president; Piou, vice-president; the Count +Octave de Bastard, Félix Voisin, secretaries; Batbie, the Count de +Maillé, the Count Duchâtel, Peltereau-Villeneuve, François Sacaze, +Tailhaud, the Marquis de Quinsonnas, Bigot, Merveilleux-Duvignan, Paris, +Corne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Appendix XXXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> According to reactionary journals this agent had been +first bound to a board, an odious invention, which nothing that came out +during the trial could justify. Vizentini, seized in a spontaneous +outburst of fury, and thrown immediately into the Seine, might even have +been saved, if a board to which he clung had not in tipping over struck +him on the head.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Report of General Appert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Thus the seizures made during the house-searches, in +virtue of regular mandates, were classed among the acts of theft with +violence, pillage, &c., as though these acts had had any personal +motive. Now it is necessary to point out that no one gave evidence of +theft against the prisoners before the courts-martial; no one could say +that the conflagrations had been taken advantage of for pillage.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Les déportés sont plus heureux que nos soldats, car nos +soldats ont des factions à faire ... tandis que le déporté +vit au milieu des fleurs de son jardin."—<i>Discours de +l'Amiral Fourichon, Ministre de la Marine, contre +l'Amnistie, Séance du 17 Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">"Ce sont surtout les républicains qui ne doivent pas vouloir +l'amnistie."—<i>Victor Lefranc, Séance du 18 Mai 1876.</i></p></div> +<br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang" style="margin-left: 2em;">NEW CALEDONIA—EXILE—BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS +VENGEANCE —THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>Two days' journey from France there is a colony eager for hands, rich +enough to enrich thousands of families. After every victory over +Parisian workmen the bourgeoisie has always preferred throwing its +victims to the antipodes to fecundating Algeria with them. The Republic +of 1848 had Nouka-Hiva; the Versaillese Assembly, New Caledonia. It is +to this rock, six thousand leagues from their native land, that it +decided to transport those condemned for life. "The Council of the +Government," said the reporter on the law, "gives the transported a +family and a home." The mitrailleuse was more honest.</p> + +<p>Those condemned to transportation were huddled together into four +depots, Fort Boyard, St. Martin de Ré, Oléron, and Quélern, where for +long months they languished between despair and hope, which never +abandon political victims. One day, when they believed themselves almost +forgotten, a brutal call resounded. To the surgery! A doctor looked at +them, questioned them, did not listen to their answers, and said, "Fit +for departure!"<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> And then farewell family, country, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span>society, human +life, <i>en route</i> for the sepulchre of the antipodes. And happy he who +was condemned to transportation only. He could for a last time press a +friendly hand, see tears in kindly eyes, give a last kiss. But the +galley-slave of the Commune will only see the taskmaster. At the call of +the whistle he must undress, be searched, then have the livery of the +voyage thrown him, and, without a farewell, ascend the floating bagnio.</p> + +<p>The transport ship was a moving pontoon. Large cages built on the +gun-deck shut in the prisoners. In the night these became centres of +infection. In the daytime, the uncaged people had but one-half hour to +come up on the deck and breathe a little fresh air. Around the cages the +jailers stood grumbling, punishing with the blackhole the slightest +infringement of the rules. Some unhappy beings made the whole voyage at +the bottom of the hold, sometimes almost naked, for having refused to +comply with a caprice. The women, like the men, were sent to the +blackhole; the nuns who watched them were worse than the jailers. For +five months they had to live in this promiscuous fashion in the cage, in +the filth of their neighbours, fed upon biscuits <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>often musty, on bacon, +on almost salt water; now burnt by the tropics, now frozen by the cold +of the South, or by the spray dashing over the gun-deck. And what +spectres arrived! When the <i>Orne</i> dropped anchor off Melbourne there +were 360 sick of scurvy out of 588 prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> They inspired even +the rough colonials of Australia with pity. The inhabitants of Melbourne +came to succour them, collecting in a few hours 40,000 francs. The +commander of the <i>Orne</i> refused to transmit the sum to the prisoners, +even in the shape of clothes, tools, and simple necessaries.</p> + +<p>The <i>Danaë</i> was the first ship that set sail, on the 3rd May, 1872; the +<i>Guerrière</i>, <i>Garonne</i>, <i>Var</i>, <i>Sibylle</i>, <i>Orne</i>, <i>Calvados</i>, +<i>Virginie</i>, &c., followed. By the 1st July, 1875, 3,859 prisoners had +landed in New Caledonia.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p> + +<p>This Caledonian sepulchre has three circles: the peninsula Ducos, not +far from Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, for those condemned to +transportation in a fortress—805 men and 6 women; the Ile des Pins, +thirty miles south-east of the principal island, for those condemned to +simple transportation—2,795 men and 13 women; and, quite in the +background, worse than death, the bagnio of the Ile Nou, for 240 +galley-slaves.</p> + +<p>The peninsula Ducos, a narrow neck of land commanded by cannon, with its +mouth guarded by soldiers, without a watercourse, without verdure, is +traversed by arid hills and swampy valleys. For all shelter the +condemned found a few dilapidated hovels; for all furniture, a saucepan +and a hammock. The Ile des Pins, a tableland, its centre perfectly +desolate, is bounded by fertile plains, but in the hands of the Marist +monks, who exploit the labour of the natives. Nothing was prepared for +the reception of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>condemned. The first who arrived wandered about in +the woods; only very long after did they receive bad tents and hammocks. +The natives, incited by the missionaries, fled from them, or sold them +provisions at enormous prices.</p> + +<p>The administration was to have provided the indispensable clothing. None +of the prescribed rules was observed. The képis and boots were soon worn +out, and the immense majority of the condemned having no means whatever, +had to bear the sun and the rainy season bare-headed and bare-footed. +They had neither tobacco nor soap; there was no brandy to mix with the +brackish water.</p> + +<p>The prisoners did not lose heart at this beginning. Laborious, active, +with that universal aptitude of the Parisian workman, they felt +themselves equal to overcoming the first difficulties. The reporter on +the law had extolled the thousand revenues of New Caledonia—fisheries, +cattle-breeding, the working of mines—and represented this compulsory +emigration as the founding of a new French Empire in the Pacific. The +condemned hoped to make themselves a home in this far-off land. These +proletarians were free of the false dignity affected by the proscribed +bourgeois; far from refusing work, they sought for it. In the Ile des +Pins there were an hospital, an aqueduct, administrative warehouses to +be finished, a large road to be constructed; 2,000 condemned presented +themselves; 800 only were employed, and their wages never exceeded 85 +centimes a day. Some of those rebuffed by the Administration then +demanded concessions of territory; they were granted a few yards of +land,<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> and at exorbitant prices some seeds and tools. With the +greatest efforts they could hardly make the soil yield a few vegetables. +The others, who possessed nothing, applied to private industry, offering +their services to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>tradespeople of Noumea. But the colony, stifled +by the military régime, hampered by bureaucratic officials, and of very +limited resources besides, could only furnish work to about 500 at the +most. Moreover, many of them who had undertaken farming were obliged to +give it up very soon and return to the Ile des Pins.</p> + +<p>This was the golden age of the transportation. Towards the middle of +1873 a despatch of the Minister of Marine reached Noumea. The +Versaillese Government suspended all administrative credits in support +of the state works. "If one admitted," said he, "the right to labour of +the convict, one would soon see the renewal of the scandalous example of +the national workshops of 1848." Perfectly logical this. Versailles owes +no means of labour to those it has deprived of their liberty to labour. +So the workshops were closed. The woods of the Ile des Pins offered +valuable supplies to the cabinetmakers, and some of the condemned +manufactured furniture much in request at Noumea. They were ordered to +discontinue. And on the 13th December the Minister of Marine dared to +pronounce from the tribune that the majority of the condemned refused +every kind of work.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p> + +<p>At the very moment that the Administration thus curtailed the life of +the transported, it summoned their wives to the Ministry of Marine, +where the most charming picture of New Caledonia was exhibited to them. +They were to find there, on their arrival, a house, a piece of land, +seeds, and tools. Most of them, suspecting some snare, refused to set +out unless invited by their husbands. Sixty-nine, however, were +inveigled, and embarked on board the <i>Fénélon</i>, with women sent forth by +the Public Assistance Office as helpmates for the colonials. These +unfortunate wives of the convicts, on landing, found only the despair +and misery of their husbands. The Government refused to send them back +again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>Thus there are thousands of men accustomed to work, to activity of mind, +penned up, idle and miserable, some in the narrow peninsula, others in +the Ile des Pins, without clothes, ill-fed, under orders executed by +brutes,<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> revolver in hand, hardly in connection with the world, save +for a few rare letters, and these are even delayed for three weeks at +Noumea. In the beginning endless reveries, then discouragement and +sombre despair; cases of madness occurred, at last death. The first one +set free was the teacher Verdure, member of the Council of the Commune. +The commissary of the court-martial had accused him of but one crime. +"He was a philanthropic Utopist." He wanted to open a school in the +peninsula; permission was refused him. Useless, far from his wife and +daughter, he languished and died. One morning in 1873 the jailers and +the priests saw in the winding pathway that leads to the cemetery a +coffin covered with flowers carried by some of the condemned. Behind +them walked 800 friends in a deep silence. "The coffin," one of them has +told us, "was lowered into the grave. A friend spoke a few words of +farewell; each one threw in his little red flower, cried, 'Vive la +République! Vive la Commune!' and all was over." In November, in the Ile +des Pins, Albert Grandier, one of the staff of the <i>Rappel</i>, died. His +heart had remained in France, with a sister whom he adored. Every day he +went to the sea-shore to wait for her; so he became mad. The +Administration refused to admit him into an asylum. He escaped from the +friends who guarded him, and one morning was found dead of cold in the +swamps, not far from the road that leads to the sea.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a></p> + +<p>These at least have the consolation of suffering with their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>equals. But +the convicts chained in the sink of the scoundrels! "I know but one +bagnio," replied the republican Minister, Victor Lefranc, to a mother +begging for her son. And there is indeed but one bagnio, where heroes +like Trinquet and Lisbonne, men all compact of devotion and probity like +Fontaine, Roques, the mayor of Puteaux (so many names press forward that +I am ashamed to mention a few), journalists of high character like +Brissac and Humbert, some whose sole crime was to have carried out a +warrant of arrest, have been chained for five years to assassins and +thieves, enduring their insults, and bound at night to the same +camp-bed. The Versaillese want more than the body; they must attaint the +rebellious mind, surround it with an atmosphere of stench and vice, in +order to make it fail and founder. The "felons" of the Commune, +assimilated to criminals, subjected to the same labour, to the same rule +of the stick and whip, are beset by the special hatred of the jailers, +who incite the convicts against them. From time to time a letter +escapes, and even reaches us. Thus writes a member of the Council of the +Commune, a man of thirty-three, at one time in robust health:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">St. Louis.</span></p> + +<p>" ... The work of the camp is considered the most severe. It +includes the digging up of stones, earthworks, &c. It is +only interrupted on the Sunday morning for the religious +service. For nourishment we have coffee without sugar at +five o'clock in the morning, 700 grammes of bread, and 100 +grammes of beans; in the evening a small piece of beef; and, +finally, 69 centilitres of wine a week. When I am able to +buy a quarter of a pound of bread, my health leaves less to +be desired. Already several of ours are no more. Many are +attacked with anæmia. Fifteen out of sixty in St. Louis are +at the hospital. All this would be nothing if there were not +that commingling with men of infamous passions. There are +fifty of us in one compartment. As to the employments, +shops, and offices, the Communards are excluded from these."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>Another writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Ile Nou</span>, <i>15th February</i>.</p> + +<p>"I isolate myself as much as I can, but there are hours when +I must be in the bagnio on pain of death. There are hours +when I must defend my rations from the voracity of my +companions, when I must submit to the familiarity of a Mano +or of a Lathauer.<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> This is horrible, and I blush with +shame when I think that I have become almost insensible to +all this infamy. These wretches are cowards, and are not the +least of our tormentors. It is enough to drive one mad, and +I believe that many amongst us will become so. Berezowski, +this unfortunate man,<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> who has suffered so much for +eight years, is almost demented, and it is painful to look +upon him. It is terrible, and I dare not think of this. How +many months, years, are we still to pass in this bagnio? I +tremble at the thought. Despite all, believe that I shall +not allow myself to be crushed; my conscience is tranquil, +and I am strong. My health alone could betray me and be +vanquished, but of myself I am sure, and shall never +swerve."</p></div> + +<p>A third:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have suffered much; the bagnio of Toulon, the chains, the +convicts' dress, and, what is still worse, the ignoble +contact of the criminals—all this I have had to bear with. +I have, it is true, one consolation for so much +suffering—my tranquil conscience, the love of my old +parents, and the esteem of men such as you.... How many +times have I been discouraged! What despair, what doubts +have seized me! I believed in mankind, and all my illusions +have been lost one by one; a great change has come over me, +and I have almost failed to resist so many disillusions."</p></div> + +<p>Yet another:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I do not deceive myself; these years are entirely lost for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>me; not only is my health undermined, but I feel myself +getting lower every day. This life is really too hard to +bear, without books (save those of the Mame library), in +this filthy bagnio, exposed to all insults, to all blows; +shut up in grated caves; in the workshops treated as beasts; +insulted by our jailers and our comrades of the chain, we +must submit to it all without a murmur, the slightest +infringement entailing terrible punishments—the cell, +quarter ration of bread, irons, thumbscrews, the lash. It is +ignominious, and I shudder at the thought of it. Many of our +comrades are in double chains in the correction platoon, +subjected to the hardest labour, dying of hunger, driven on +with blows of a cane, often with revolver-shots, unable to +communicate with us, who cannot even pass them a mouthful of +bread. It is terrible, and I am afraid all this will not end +very soon. But protestations will be made; we shall not be +abandoned; it would be horrible if we were left here. I am +unable to work, so I am right in saying that these years are +completely lost, and this drives me to despair; yet I was +willing to learn; but what is to be done without books and +without a guide? We are almost without news. Still we know +that the Republic is affirming itself from day to day; our +hope is there, but I dare not believe it; we have had so +many deceptions."</p></div> + +<p>How many live to-day? It is not known. Maroteau left in March, 1875. The +Commission of Pardons had aggravated his sentence; commuted Satory to +the Ile Nou. At twenty-five years of age he died in the bagnio for two +articles, when the jackals of the Versaillese press, whose every line +has demanded and obtained carnage, sway our Paris. To the last moment +his courage did not forsake him. "It is not a great affair to die," said +he to the friends who surrounded his deathbed; "but I should have +preferred the stake of Satory to this filthy pallet. My friends, think +of me! What will become of my mother?"</p> + +<p>Hear this knell tolled by one of the convicts:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Ile Nou (Limekiln Works)</span>, <i>18th April</i>.</p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> + +<p>"I cannot help saying that many friends are dying, and that +this month five have succumbed."</p> + + +<p class="right">"<i>15th May.</i></p> + +<p>"Old Audant, one of the transported of the 2nd December, has +been for ever released from his chain. He was sickly, old +(fifty-nine), and our labour had overcome him. One day, +tired out, attacked by acute bronchitis, he was unable to +get up; still he was obliged to recommence his work. Two +days after he asked for the visit of the doctor. He got the +dungeon. Five days after he died in the hospital; and a few +days later on, another, Gobert, followed him to the tomb."</p> + + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Canala</span>, <i>25th December</i>.</p> + +<p>" ... Add to that the death of old and good friends. After +Maroteau, Morten, Mars, Lecolle, whom we buried a month +ago."</p></div> + +<p>They die, but none have faltered. The political convicts are men; they +succeed in remaining in the pitch without being defiled. It is the +general inspector Raboul who has allowed this avowal to escape him. What +is the Christian martyr's vaunted heroism of an hour in comparison with +these men, who each day, in the indefatigable, merciless clutches of the +jailers, maintain unbent their revolutionary faith and their dignity?</p> + +<p>And do we even know all their sufferings? Chance alone has raised a +corner of the veil. On the 19th March, 1874, Rochefort, Jourde, Paschal +Grousset, and three others, condemned to transportation, succeeded in +escaping on board an Australian ship.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> They landed safely in +Australia, and the information they brought with them has thrown a +little light upon the den. It was then we learnt that the convicts of +the Commune had suffered additional tortures; that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>torture of the +thumbscrews, which mutilated the hands, is still in use at the bagnio; +that four convicts had been shot in the Ile des Pins for a simple +assault, which would have been punished by a few months' imprisonment by +ordinary tribunals; that the severity and insults of the jailers seemed +intended to cause a rising, which would permit of all those condemned to +transportation being sent to the bagnio. The convicts had to pay dearly +for these revelations. The Versaillese Government immediately sent out +the Rear-Admiral Ribourt, and the torture-screw was turned more tightly +than ever. Those who had obtained permission to sojourn in the principal +island were again shut up in the peninsula Ducos or the Ile des Pins; +fishing was interdicted; every sealed letter confiscated; the right to +fetch wood in the forest for cooking food suppressed. The jailers +redoubled their brutality, fired at the convicts who went beyond bounds, +or who had not returned to their huts at the regulation hour. Some +merchants of Noumea, accused of having facilitated the escape of +Rochefort and his friends, were expelled from the isle.</p> + +<p>Ribourt had brought the dismissal of the governor, La Richerie, former +governor of Cayenne, who by dint of rapine had made a great fortune in +New Caledonia. Of course it was not for his dishonesty, but for the +escape of the 19th March that he was punished. The provisional +government was confided to Colonel Alleyron, who had become famous by +the massacres of May. Alleyron decreed that every prisoner was to give +the State half-a-day's labour, on pain of receiving only the strictly +indispensable food, 700 grammes of bread, 1 centilitre of oil, and 60 +grammes of dried vegetables. As the prisoners protested, he began by +applying the decree to fifty-seven persons, of whom four were women.</p> + +<p>For the women were subjected to the same rigorous treatment as the men, +and they had courageously revindicated the right of sharing the common +lot of all. Louise Michel and Lemel, whom they had wanted to separate +from their comrades, declared that they would kill themselves if the law +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>violated. Insulted by the jailers, abused sometimes in the order +of the day of the commander of the peninsula, scarcely provided with +dresses, more than once they had been obliged to put on men's clothes.</p> + +<p>The arrival at the beginning of 1876 of the new governor, De Pritzbuer, +terminated the short but brilliant career of Alleyron. Pritzbuer, a +renegade of Protestantism turned arrant Jesuit, and sent to New +Caledonia through the Jesuitical tendencies of the Ministry, found ways +and means with his mawkish airs to even aggravate the misery of the +convicts. He was guided in this task by Colonel Charrière, general +director of the New Caledonian Penitentiary, who declared the criminals +of the bagnio much more honourable than the political convicts. +Pritzbuer renewed the order of his predecessor, adding that those of the +convicts who in one year should not have been able to create for +themselves sufficient resources would no longer receive full rations; +and, finally, that the Administration intended exonerating itself at the +end of a certain time of all expenses with regard to the convicts. An +agent was appointed to act as intermediary between them and the traders +of Noumea. But all the decrees in the world cannot extend the commerce +or industry of a country without natural resources. It had been said, +been proved a hundred times, that New Caledonia has no employment for +these thousands of men, who would prosper in a vital and flourishing +colony. Those few who could be employed have proved their intelligence, +and have carried off several medals or been honourably mentioned at the +exhibition of Noumea. The less favoured—hundreds of them—suffer under +the blow of the decree of 1875. In reality, the immense majority of +those condemned to transportation are now subjected to hard labour. The +regulations put into force since the escape of Rochefort have never been +mitigated. The wives, the mothers of the convicts, are only allowed to +communicate with them at rare intervals, and under the eye of the +jailers. More than one has been expelled from the colony.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>Despite so many efforts to break them, the honour of the majority of the +prisoners has not yielded; far more, it is an example to others. +Although the courts-martial have mixed up with the condemned of the +Commune a bad element, totally foreign to this revolution, common +misdemeanours are very rare. Their condemnation for political +misdemeanour, the contact with the best workmen, has even re-made the +conscience of many men with but sorry antecedents. The majority of the +condemned are punished only for infringements of the rules or for +attempts to escape; attempts almost always condemned to failure +beforehand. How fly without money and without confederates? There have +been but fifteen successful escapes. Towards the middle of March, 1875, +twenty prisoners of the Ile des Pins, amongst whom were the member of +the Council of the Commune, Rastoul, fled in a bark which they had +secretly constructed. Their fate has never been known, but a few days +after their flight the wreck of a craft was found amongst the reefs. In +November, 1876, Trinquet and some of his comrades managed to abscond in +a steamboat. They were pursued, overtaken. Two threw themselves into the +sea to escape their pursuers. One died; the other, Trinquet, was +restored to life and the bagnio.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Before such abysses of misery the exiles must not speak of their +sufferings, but they may say in a word that they have not sullied the +honour of the Cause. Thousands of workmen, with their families, thrown +helpless, without resources, into a strange country, speaking a foreign +language, employées, professors, still more forlorn, have succeeded by +dint of energy in gaining a livelihood. The workmen of the Commune of +Paris have won an honourable place in the workshops of foreign +countries. They have even, especially in Belgium, rendered prosperous +industries till then languishing; they have imparted to certain +manufactures the secret of Parisian taste. The proscription of the +Communards, like that of the Protestants formerly, has thrown across the +frontiers a part of the national wealth. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span>The exiles of the so-called +liberal professions, often more unfortunate than the workmen, have not +shown less courage. Some fill posts of confidence; one perhaps condemned +to death as an incendiary or to hard labour for pillage, is a teacher in +a large college or examines the candidates for Government schools. +Despite the difficulty at the commencement, sickness, slackness of work, +not one exile has given way, and not a single condemnation before the +police court has occurred. Not a single woman has fallen. Yet it is the +women who bear the greater share of the common misery. Amongst these +thousands of exiles there have been discovered but two or three spies; +and there was only one, Landeck, to get up a journal of denunciations +more vile than the <i>Figaro</i>. Justice was soon done, for no proscription +has been more careful of its dignity. One ex-member of the Council of +the Commune had to defend himself before the refugees for having +received money from the deputies of the Extreme Left. Never was the +commemorative meeting of the 18th March better attended than that of +1876 during the debate on the amnesty, for one and all would have +blushed to hide their colours at such a moment. No doubt, like any other +proscription, that of 1871 has its groups and its animosities, but all +these opinions disappear behind the red flag escorting the coffin of a +comrade. No doubt there have been virulent manifestoes, which, however, +only affect their authors. Finally, these exiles have not forgotten +their brothers of New Caledonia, and they have opened a permanent +subscription for them, which has its centre in London. Poor help, no +doubt; but this mite from the exiles goes and says to the unfortunate +convict of the Commune, "Courage, brother! thy comrades do not forget +thee; they honour thee." It is the hand of the wounded held out to the +dying.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Twenty-five thousand men, women, and children killed during the battle +or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the +forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity; +thirteen thousand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; +seventy thousand women, children, and old men deprived of their natural +supporters or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand +victims at least;—that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance +for the solitary insurrection of the 18th March.</p> + +<p>What a lesson of revolutionary vigour given to the workingmen! The +governing classes shoot in the lump without taking the trouble to select +the hostages. Their vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor +victims appease it; they make of it an administrative function, +methodical and continuous.</p> + +<p>For four years the Rural Assembly allowed the courts-martial to work, +and the Liberal element, which so many elections had sent up in great +force, at once followed the track of the Rurals. One or two motions for +amnesty were burked by the previous question. In the month of January, +1876, when the Rural Assembly broke up, it had removed a few convicts +from one part of New Caledonia to another, shortened a few terms of +imprisonment, and given full pardon to six hundred persons, condemned to +the lightest penalties. The Caledonian reservoir remained intact.</p> + +<p>But at the general elections the people did not forget the vanquished. +In all the large towns <i>Amnesty</i> was the watchword; it was inscribed at +the head of all the democratic programmes; at all the public meetings +the question was put to the candidates. The Radicals, tears in their +eyes and their hands on their fraternal hearts, pledged themselves to +ask for a free and complete amnesty; even the Liberals promised "to wipe +out the last traces of our civil discords," as the bourgeoisie is wont +to say when it condescends to have the paving-stones cleaned which +itself has reddened with blood.</p> + +<p>The elections of February, 1876, were Republican. The famous Gambettist +layers had come to the surface. A crowd of lawyers, Liberal landlords, +had carried away the provinces in the name of liberty, reforms, +appeasement. The Minister <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>of the reaction, Buffet, was beaten along the +whole line, even in Rural corners. The Radical papers declared the +democratic Republic once for all founded; and one of these in its +enthusiasm cried, "May we be cursed if we do not close the era of +revolutions!"</p> + +<p>The hopes for amnesty became now a certainty. No doubt this was the boon +by which the reparative Chamber would signalise its joyous advent. A +convoy of convicts was about to set sail for New Caledonia. Victor Hugo +summoned the President, MacMahon, to adjourn the departure until the +discussion and the certainly favourable decision of the two Chambers. A +petition, hurriedly organised, in a few days had over a hundred thousand +signatures. Soon the question of the amnesty effaced all others, and the +Ministry insisted upon an immediate discussion.</p> + +<p>Five propositions had been laid on the table. One only demanded the full +and complete amnesty. The others excepted the crimes qualified as common +crimes, and amongst which were classed newspaper articles. The Chamber +appointed a commission to draw up a report. Seven commissioners out of +ten declared against all the propositions.</p> + +<p>The new layers were manifesting themselves. It was always this same +middle-class, bare of ideas and courage, hard to the people, timid +before Cæsar, pettifogging and jesuitical. The workmen already shot down +in June, 1848, by an Assembly of Republicans were to see in 1876 a +Republican Assembly rivet the chain forged by the Rurals.</p> + +<p>The motion for a full and complete amnesty was supported by those same +Radicals who had combated the Commune or abetted M. Thiers. They were +now the democratic lions of a Paris without a Socialist press, without +popular tribunes, without a history of the Commune, watched by the +courts-martial, always on the look-out for more victims, bereft of all +revolutionary electors. In this town which he had helped to bleed, there +were arrondissements which disputed the honour of electing Louis Blanc. +The deputy of Montmartre was the same man who, on the 18th March, had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>congratulated Lecomte on the capture of the cannon, M. Clémenceau.</p> + +<p>He made a jejune, garbled, timid exposé of the immediate causes of the +18th March, but took good care not to touch upon the veritable causes. +Other Radicals, in order to make the vanquished more interesting, strove +to lower them. "You are absolutely mistaken as to the character of this +revolution," said M. Lockroy very grandly. "You see in it a social +revolution, where there has really been only a fit of hysterics and an +attack of fever." M. Floquet, nominated in the most revolutionary +arrondissement, the one in which Delescluze had fallen, called the +movement "detestable." M. Marcou wisely declared that the Commune was +"an anachronism."</p> + +<p>No one even in the Extreme Left dared courageously to tell the country +the truth. "Yes, they were right to cling to their arms, these +Parisians, who remembered June and December; yes, they were right to +maintain that the monarchists were plotting for a revolution; yes, they +were right to struggle to the death against the advent of the priest." +No one dared to speak of the massacres, to call the Government to +account for the bloodshed. They were even less outspoken than the +Enquête Parlementaire. It is evident from this weak and superficial +discussion that they only wanted to redeem their word given to their +electors.</p> + +<p>To advocates who stooped so low the answer was easy enough. As M. Thiers +and Jules Favre had done on the 21st March, 1871, the Minister Dufaure +pertinently set forth the true question at issue. "No, gentlemen," said +he, "this was not a communal movement; this was in its ideas, its +thoughts, and even in its acts, the most Radical revolution which has +ever been undertaken in the world." And the reporter of the Commission: +"There have been hours in our contemporary history when amnesty may have +been a necessity, but the insurrection of the 18th March cannot from any +point of view be compared with our civil wars. I see a formidable +insurrection, a criminal insurrection, an insurrection against all +society. No, nothing obliges us to give back to the condemned of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>the +Commune the rights of citizens." The immense majority applauded Dufaure, +singing the praises of the courts-martial, and not a Radical had the +courage to protest, to defy the Minister to produce a single document, a +single regular judgment. It would be easy to retort to this Extreme +Left: "Silence, pharisees, who allow the people to be massacred and then +come supplicating for them; mute or hostile during the battle, +grandiloquent after their defeat." Admiral Fourichon denied that the +convicts of the Commune are put on the same footing as the others; +denied their ill-treatment; said the convicts lived in a very garden of +flowers. Some intransigents having stated that "The torture has been +re-established," this delicious answer was vouchsafed them, "It is we +whom you put to the torture."</p> + +<p>On the 18th May, 1876, 396 noes against 50 ayes rejected the full and +complete amnesty. Gambetta did not vote. The next day they discussed one +proposition of amnesty, which excluded those condemned for acts +qualified as common crimes by the courts-martial. The Commission again +rejected this motion, saying that it must be left to the mercy of the +Government, which had promised a considerable number of pardons. The +Radicals discussed a little to save appearances. M. Floquet said, "It is +not on a question of generosity and mercy that we should ever doubt of +the intentions of the Government;" and the proposition was thrown over.</p> + +<p>Two days after, in the Senate, Victor Hugo asked for the amnesty in a +speech in which he drew a comparison between the defenders of the +Commune and the men of the 2nd December. His proposition was not even +discussed.</p> + +<p>Two months after, MacMahon completed this hypocritical comedy by writing +to the Minister-at-War, "Henceforth no more prosecutions are to take +place unless commanded by the unanimous sentiment of honest people." The +honest officers understood. The condemnations continued. Some persons +condemned by default, who had ventured to return to France on the +strength of the hopes of the first days, had been captured; the +sentences against them were confirmed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span>The organisers of workingmen's +groups were mercilessly struck when their connection with the Commune +could be established.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> In November, 1876, the courts-martial +pronounced sentences of death.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p> + +<p>This merciless tenacity alarmed public opinion to such an extent that +the Radicals were again obliged to bestir themselves a little. Towards +the end of 1876 they demanded that the Chamber should put a stop to the +prosecutions, or at least limit them. An illusory law was voted; the +Senate threw it out; our Liberals reckoned upon that.</p> + +<p>The mercy of MacMahon was on a par with the rest. The day after the +rejection of the motion for an amnesty, Dufaure had installed a +consulting Commission of Pardons, composed of functionaries and +reactionists carefully culled by himself. The penitentiary +establishments in France then contained 1,600 persons condemned for +participation in the Commune, and the number of the transports rose to +about 4,400. The new Commission continued the system of the former one, +commuted some penalties, granted pardons of a few weeks or a few months, +even liberated two or three condemned who were dead. A year after its +institution it had recalled from New Caledonia a hundred at the utmost +of the least interesting of the prisoners.</p> + +<p>Thus the Liberal Chamber continued the vengeance of the Rural Assembly; +thus the bourgeois Republic appeared to the workingmen as hostile to +their rights, more implacable perhaps than the Monarchists, justifying +the remark of one of M. Thiers' Ministers, "It is above all the +Republicans who must be adverse to the amnesty." Once again there was +justified the instinct of the people on the 18th March, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span>when they +perceived in the conservative republic held out to them by M. Thiers an +anonymous oppression worse than the Imperialist yoke.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the present time, six years after the massacres, near fifteen +thousand men, women, and children are maintained in New Caledonia or in +exile.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p> + +<p>What hope remains? None. The bourgeoisie has been too much frightened. +The cries for amnesty, the blazoned-forth elections, will not disquiet +the conservative republicans or monarchists. All the apparent +concessions will only be so many snares. The most valiant, the most +devoted, will die in the bagnio, in the Peninsula Ducos, in the Ile des +Pins.</p> + +<p>It belongs to the workmen to do their duty so far as it is possible +to-day.</p> + +<p>The Irish, after the Fenian insurrection, opened hundreds of public +subscriptions for the benefit of the victims. Near £1,200 were devoted +to their defence before the tribunals. The three men hanged at +Manchester received on the morning of their death the formal promise +that their families should want for nothing. This promise was kept. The +parents of the one, the wife of the other, were provided for, the +children were educated, dowered. In Ireland alone the donations, for the +families exceeded £5,000. When the partial amnesty was granted, all +Irish people rushed forward to help the amnestied. The single journal, +the <i>Irishman</i>, in a few weeks received £1,000, for the most part in +penny and sixpenny subscriptions. In one single donation the Irish of +America sent them £4,000, and the poorest of the poor Irish, the +emigrants of New Zealand, over £240. And this was not the outburst of +one day. In 1874 the Political Prisoners' Family Fund still received +£425. The total of the subscriptions exceed £10,000. Finally, in 1876, a +few Fenians chartered a vessel and carried off some of their comrades +still retained in Australia.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>In France all the subscriptions for the families of the condemned of the +Commune have not exceeded £8,000. The Irish victims numbered only a few +hundreds; those of Versailles must be counted by thousands.</p> + +<p>Nothing has been done for the transported "convicts." The Greppos, Louis +Blancs & Co., who, without mandate, without any surveillance, have +arrogated to themselves the right of centralising the subscriptions, of +distributing them at pleasure, have thus formed themselves a retinue out +of the families of those whom they had betrayed. They have refused to +transmit anything to the convicts, that is to say, to the most +necessitous, who, six thousand leagues from France, pine away without +resources and with no possibility of work.</p> + +<p>Do you understand, workingmen, you who are free? You now know what the +whole situation is and what the men are. Remember the vanquished not for +a day, but at all hours. Women, you whose devotion sustains and elevates +their courage, let the agony of the prisoners haunt you like an +everlasting nightmare. Let all workshops every week put something aside +from their wages. Let the subscriptions no longer be sent to the +Versaillese committee, but made over to loyal hands. Let the Socialist +party attest its principles of international solidarity and its power by +saving those who have fallen for it.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> "We all recollect one of our comrades, Corcelles, who had +contracted pulmonary phthisis of the gravest form. He could scarcely +keep himself on his legs when crawling before the Commission. To the +President's usual question he answered by a pitiful smile only, and +while one of the younger members of the Commission, moved probably to +pity at the sight of the walking corpse, bent himself towards the ear of +the old surgeon, doubtless with the view of begging a respite, the +latter retorted, loud enough to be heard by the patient and several +other prisoners, 'Bah! the sharks will want something to eat.' And the +sharks did have something to eat; less than three weeks after we were +out at sea our friend Corcelles was dead, and we committed his remains +to the last common reservoir." We must give the name of this friend of +sharks; his name is Dr. Chanal. "Out of the four thousand condemned who +passed in file before him, ten cases of exemption are not known. And +perhaps the motives which dictated this may be better judged when the +following facts are known. M. Edmond Adam, deputy of the Seine, having +come to the Ile de Ré in order to visit M. H. Rochefort, who was shut up +there, had a young woman present herself at his hotel, who proposed to +him, for the modest sum of 1000 francs, to procure from the +chief-surgeon a respite for his friend on his departure. She had but one +word to say, remarked she, and the old man was under her +orders."—<i>Account by two escaped prisoners from New Caledonia, Paschal +Grousset and Jourde, published by the Times, 27th June 1874.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> The Australian and English journals having revealed these +sufferings, the Versaillese Government answered in its journal: "The +news of the convict ship the <i>Orne</i>, transmitted through the English +press, is inexact in all points. Far from counting 420 cases of scurvy, +this vessel had hardly 360 cases."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Report of the Commission of Pardons, presented in January +1876, by MM. Martel and F. Voisin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> In the Ile des Pins, 900 condemned received between them +all 500 hectares (about 100 acres). "We have been mistaken as to the +resources offered by the Ile des Pins," philosophically remarked the +Minister of Marine in 1876. "I said so three years ago," answered M. +Georges Périn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> "Admiral Ribourt, in his Inquiry, declares that during +the year 1873 the engineering department had paid the condemned in the +peninsula 110,525 francs. We must then leave off saying that the +convicts won't work."—<i>Speech of M. Georges Périn in favour of an +amnesty, Sitting of the 17th May 1876.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> An overlooker of the first class had been condemned for +an attempt to murder; another, decorated with the cross of the Légion +d'Honneur, sentenced to seven years' hard labour for attempting to +murder his wife. Many of them were every day condemned for drunkenness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Details taken from the very correct and by no means +exaggerated relation which Paschal Grousset and Jourde published in the +<i>Times</i> after their escape. It has since been republished as a +pamphlet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Two notorious murderers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> The Pole condemned for having in Paris shot at the Czar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> One of them has given a complete account of their escape, +together with some interesting details on New Caledonia: "Un Voyage de +Circumnavigation," by A. Baillère.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> On the 22nd December 1876, Baron, ex-delegate of the +accountants of Paris to the Workmen's Congress, was summoned before the +third court-martial, which accused him of having been one of the +secretaries of the delegation of war during the Commune. Baron was +condemned to transportation in a fortress. During the examination the +president said, "The Court will take notice that the accused still has +the same sentiments as those which animated him in 1871, for in 1876 we +have seen that he took part in the Workmen's Congress."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Appendix XXXVIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Even in the month of April 1877 another ship, having 506 +condemned to transportation, has been despatched from France to New +Caledonia.</p></div> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>APPENDIX.</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">I.—(Page 29.)</p> + +<p>The Central Committee found in the bureau of the War-Office, and the +<i>Officiel</i> of the Commune published on the 25th April, the following +letter from the supreme commander of the artillery of the army to +General Suzanne:—</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>12th December 1870</i>.</p> + +<p>"My dear Suzanne—I have not found among the young auxiliaries your +protégé Hetzel, but only a M. Hessel. Is it he who is meant? "Tell me +frankly what you desire, and I will do it. I will attach him to my +staff, where he will be bored, having nothing to do, or else I will send +him to Mont Valérien, where he will run less risk than at Paris (this +for the parents), and where he will have the air of firing the cannons +into the air, according to Noël's method.</p> + +<p>"Unbutton—your mouth, of course.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Guiod</span>"</p> + +<p>The Noël mentioned at that time commanded Mont Valérien.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">II.—(Page 83.)</p> + +<p class="cen"><i>The rôle of the Central Committee during the day of the 18th March.</i></p> + +<p>"I would remind you that the members of the Committee had separated at +about half-past three in the morning of the 17th to the 18th. Before +raising the sitting it had been decided that the meeting of the +following day should take place at eleven o'clock in the evening, at a +school requisitioned for the purpose in the Rue Basfroi.</p> + +<p>"Despite the lateness of the hour, nothing had transpired as to the +movements which the Government had decided upon, and the Committee +having only just constituted itself for the examination of its powers +and the distribution of the commissions, had received no information +which might have led it to suppose the imminence of the peril. Its +military commission had not yet begun to work; it had taken possession +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>of the documents, notes, and minutes of the former one, and that was +all.</p> + +<p>"You know how Paris woke up on the morning of the 18th. The members of +the Committee heard of the events of the night through public rumours +and the official placards. For my own part, aroused at about eight +o'clock, I hurried on my clothes, and repaired to the Rue Basfroi, +crossing the Place de la Bastille, occupied by the Guard of Paris. I had +hardly entered the Rue de la Roquette when I saw that the people were +beginning to organise the defence. A barricade was being commenced at +the corner of the Rue Neuve de Lappe. A little higher up I was refused +passage, in spite of the declaration which I made of my quality of +member of the Central Committee. I was obliged to go up the Rue de +Charonne, the faubourg, and come back in the direction of the Rue St. +Bernard. No work was going on as yet in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, +but the excitement there was great. At last, towards half-past ten +o'clock, I reached the Rue Basfroi, which was barricaded at both +outlets, with the exception of an opening reserved for the cannon drawn +up in the open grounds of this street, which were taken away one by one +to the different barricades in course of erection.</p> + +<p>"I succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting into a schoolroom, +where some of my colleagues were gathered. Citizens Assi, Prudhomme, +Rousseau, Gouhier, Lavalette, Geresme, Bouit, and Fougeret were there. +Just as I entered, a staff sublieutenant, arrested in the Rue St. Maur, +was being led in. He was examined. Next a gendarme was brought, but the +only papers found in his possession were placards transmitted to one of +the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organised a sort of +prison in the courtyard. I also saw defiling about fifteen individuals, +military and civil, arrested by the people. In the meantime I learnt +that Bergeret had been sent to take the command of Montmartre, where he +had been named <i>chef-de-légion</i> the day before. Varlin, who came +immediately after me, had set out again in order to organise the defence +of the Batignolles. Arnold also put in his appearance for a moment, and +then went to place himself at the head of his battalion. The Committee +had added Citizens Audoyneau, Ferrat and Billioray to its numbers.</p> + +<p>"At mid-day the course events would take was still waited for, and +nothing was decided upon. I begged some of my colleagues to leave X. to +his useless interrogations, and to come and to deliberate in another +room, the one we occupied having by degrees been invaded by persons +strangers to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span>Committee. As soon as we were installed, we asked for +some citizens willing to serve as our general staff, and to inform us as +to the situation in the different quarters. A great number presented +themselves. We sent them in all directions, to tell our colleagues to +hurry on as much as possible the construction of the barricades, to +muster the National Guard, to take the command of it, and to specify the +points whither we were to forward our communications.</p> + +<p>"Of our messengers only four returned. He whom we had sent to the +twentieth arrondissement informed us that the rallying point was in the +Rue de Paris and at Menilmontant, in front of the new mairie. Varlin had +great trouble in grouping the National Guards of the Batignolles. One +staff had mustered forces at the Place du Trône, and had repaired to the +Neuilly Barracks, but the soldiers had closed the gates, and assumed a +menacing attitude. Brunel, together with Lisbonne, was preparing to +threaten the barracks of the Château d'Eau.</p> + +<p>"Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being +waited for. Duval had established himself at the Panthéon, and waited. +Faltot sent us a note in these words: 'I have five or six battalions in +the Rue de Sèvres; what am I to do?' Pindy had taken possession of the +Mairie of the third arrondissement, and was mustering the battalions +devoted to the Committee. As soon as we had got this intelligence some +dispositions for the attack were taken.</p> + +<p>"While these resolutions were being discussed Lullier had come to place +himself at the disposal of the Committee. The Committee had given him no +formal order, and confined itself to telling him that all forces +available for the taking of the Hôtel-de-Ville were being mustered.</p> + +<p>"In order to assure the transmission of the orders, each one of the +members then present—others had come up, but I could not say +who—undertook to carry them to a designated point. So at three +o'clock the Committee broke up, leaving Assi and two other members as a +permanent sub-committee at the Rue Basfroi."—Extract from an +account addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">III.—(Page 160.)</p> + +<p>Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this +Revolution, M. Meline, general secretary of the Ministry of Justice, +written on the 30th March, to the president of the Council of the +Commune:</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ville de Paris</span> (<i>First +Arrondissement, Mairie of the Louvre</i>).</p> + +<p>"Citizen President—I no longer possess sufficient physical strength +after prolonged fatigues to combat in the midst of our Assembly, which is +destined to discuss so many grave questions. I beg you then to accept my +resignation, and my sincere hopes that the Assembly may consolidate the +Republic.—Receive, Citizen President, the expression of my fraternal +sentiments,</p> + +<p class="right smcap">"Jules Meline.</p> +<p>"<i>30th March 1871.</i>"</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">IV.—(Page 207.)</p> + +<p>Here is a letter addressed to the Delegate at War:—</p> + +<p>"Citizen—Excuse my addressing you these lines, and be so kind as to +take into consideration the request which I address to you.</p> + +<p>"I have three sons in the ranks of the National Guard—the eldest in the +197th battalion, the second in the 126th, and the third in the 97th. As +to myself, I am in the 177th.</p> + +<p>"However, there yet remains to me one son, who is the youngest. He will +soon be sixteen years old, and desires with all his heart to be enrolled +in no matter what battalion; for he has sworn to his brothers and to me +that he will take arms to sustain our young Republic against the hangmen +of Versailles.</p> + +<p>"We have all agreed, and we have sworn an oath to revenge him who should +fall under the fratricidal balls of our enemies.</p> + +<p>"Citizen, take then the last of my sons. I offer him with all my heart +to the Republican fatherland. Do with him as you wish, place him in a +battalion of your choice, and you will make me a thousand times +happy.—Accept, citizen, my fraternal salutation,</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Auguste Joulon</span>,<br /> +"<i>Guard of the 177th Battalion</i>.</p> +<p class="noin">"<span class="smcap">18 Avenue d'Italie, Paris</span>,<br /> +<i>12th May 1871</i>."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">V.—(Page 209.)</p> + +<p>Instances of their courage abound in the journals of the time. One +quotation taken at hazard from <i>La Commune</i> of the 12th April:—</p> + +<p>"On Thursday, the 6th, at the moment when the 26th battalion of St. Ouen +defended the barricade of the cross-roads, a child, V. Thiebault, +fourteen years old, ran up amidst the balls in order to give the +defenders something to drink. The shells having forced the Federals to +fall back, they were about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>to sacrifice the victuals of the battalion, +when the child, in spite of the shells, sprang towards a barrel of wine, +which he staved in, crying, 'At any rate they shall not drink our wine.' +At the same instant, seizing the rifle of a Federal who had just fallen, +he charged it, took aim, and killed an officer of gendarmes. Then +perceiving a waggon with two horses harnessed to it, whose driver had +just been wounded, he mounted the horses and saved the waggon.—Eugène +Léon Vanvière, thirteen and a half years old, contrived to save the guns +at the outpost of the Porte-Maillot, in spite of his wound."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">VI.—(Page 217.)</p> + +<p>The prefect of police, Valentin, sent the following circular to the +commissaries of the different railway stations:—</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Versailles</span>, <i>25th April 1871</i>.</p> + +<p>"The chief of the executive power has just decided that, dating from +to-day, all victualling trains and all supplies of provisions directed +to Paris shall be stopped.</p> + +<p>"I beg you to take all measures you may deem needful for the execution +of this decree at once. You are to examine with the most vigilant +attention all the railway trains, all the carriages destined for Paris, +and you will send back to the purveyors all the provisions you may +discover.</p> + +<p>"You will for this purpose concert with ... &c.</p> + +<p>"The delegate to the functions of prefect of police.</p> + +<p class="right"> +"<span class="smcap">Valentin.</span>"</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">VII.—(Page 219.)</p> + +<p>" ... Accompanied by Frankel and one of my brothers, I proceeded to the +General Post-Office, which was still occupied by the National Guards of +order. I was immediately received by M. Rampont, surrounded by the Board +of Administration. M. Rampont at first declared that he did not +recognise the authority of the Central Committee, which had appointed +me; but I think this was a merely formal precaution, for he began to +parley immediately. I told him that the Government of the 4th September, +which had named him, was also born of a revolutionary movement, and that +notwithstanding this he had accepted his post. During this discussion he +told us that he was a Mutualist-Socialist, a partisan of Proudhon's +ideas, and consequently hostile to Communistic ideas, which had just +triumphed with the Revolution of the 18th March. I answered that the +Revolution of the 18th March was not the triumph of a Socialist school, +but the prelude of a social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>transformation fettered by no particular +school, and that I myself belonged to the mutualist school. After a long +conversation, in which he declared himself ready to acknowledge the +authority of the Commune, which was to be named in two or three days, he +proposed to me to submit the following undertaking to the Central +Committee. Till the day when the Commune should have decided, he engaged +to remain at the head of the Post-Office; he accepted the control of two +delegates of the Committee. I communicated this proposal to Vaillant and +A. Arnaud (who had made over to me my nomination), in order that they +might inform the Committee. I waited in vain for an answer.</p> + +<p>"The Commune met. The second day, perhaps, I broached the question of +the Post-Office. It was to be comprised in the order of the day, but +always in the confused way which one finds in the order of these +debates, when, on the 30th March, a workman came to apprise Pindy that +the administration of the Post-Office was deserting. The Commune +immediately voted my nomination, and gave me the order to have the +office occupied. Chardon set out at the head of a battalion, accompanied +by Vermorel and myself. It was seven or eight o'clock in the evening. +The work was done, and only a small number of employés remained. Some +gave us a sympathetic welcome, others seemed indifferent. Chardon left a +guard, and I spent the night alone in the office.</p> + +<p>"The next day, at three o'clock in the morning, I walked through the +rooms and courts where the employés were arriving for the first +delivery. A manuscript placard, posted in all the rooms and courts, +ordered the employés to abandon their services, and repair to +Versailles, under pain of dismissal. I tore down these placards and +exhorted the men to remain true to their posts. There was at first some +indecision, then a few made up their minds to rally round me.</p> + +<p>"At eight o'clock other employés came; at nine o'clock still more. They +formed groups in the large court, talked, discussed, some beat a +retreat, and their example was about to be followed.</p> + +<p>"I had the doors closed, and militarily occupied by guards; and I went +from group to group, discussing, menacing. At last I gave the order to +each one to return to his respective bureau. Thereupon a precious +auxiliary came up, Citizen A——, an employé at the Post-Office, a +Socialist, for whom I had a letter from a friend. There was a momentary +hesitation. The father of a family, much respected, sure of an early +promotion, he was about to risk an advantageous place. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span>his +hesitation lasted only a few seconds. He promised me his assistance, and +he gave it me faithfully up to the last day. He brought me into relation +with Citizen B——, who soon became my second. Both of them furnished me +with information of the greatest utility concerning this department, of +which I did not know the most simple details.</p> + +<p>"All the chiefs of bureaux had abandoned their posts; so, too, had the +second head-clerks, save one, who immediately had himself put on the +sick-list. A—— and B—— got together some friends, head-clerks, who +for a long time had done all the work of the chiefs of the bureaux. +Citizen C—— was placed at the head of the postal service for Paris.</p> + +<p>"All the divisional bureaux, save two, had been closed and abandoned. +The stock had been carried off, the cash-box emptied, as was proved by +the minutes drawn up by a commissary of the Commune, with the assistance +of several well-known people of the quarter, amongst whom was M. Brelay, +since named deputy of Paris. Postage stamps were wanting. The carts had +set off for Versailles.</p> + +<p>"A., B., and some others of an indefatigable zeal, had the divisional +bureaux opened by locksmiths in the presence of the commissaries of the +quarter, and installed well-meaning citizens, whose apprenticeship they +superintended. But there was a stoppage of two days in the delivery of +letters, which gave rise to public grumbling, and I was obliged to +explain the facts in a placard. At the end of forty-eight hours A. and +B. had reorganised the collection and delivery of letters.</p> + +<p>"All the citizens whose services had been accepted as auxiliaries +received provisionally, till their capacities could be judged of, a +salary of five francs a day.</p> + +<p>"By chance we found some postage-stamps of ten centimes at the bottom of +a chest. Camélinat, appointed the director of the Mint, sent for the +plates and the stock, and forthwith began manufacturing stamps.</p> + +<p>"During the first days bundles of letters from Paris destined for the +provinces were taken in by the receiving officer of Sceaux, who no doubt +was without precise instructions; then the blockade was completed. The +sending of letters to the provinces became the object of a daily +struggle. Secret agents went to throw them into the boxes of the offices +for ten miles round. The letters of Paris for Paris alone were stamped +with date-marks. Those sent to the provinces by our smugglers only had +the postage-stamp, which did not permit of their being distinguished +from the others. When Versailles found out the manœuvre, it changed +the dotting of the stamps. We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>were quits at Paris by sending off the +letters of importance without prepayment, and procuring stamps from the +bureaux of Versailles.</p> + +<p>"If the bureaux for the letters to be sent out of Paris could still +work, those for the collection of the letters from abroad were at a +stand-still. The letters from the provinces accumulated at Versailles. +Some men of business set up agencies, where, for a very high fee, the +letters which they went to fetch at Versailles might be obtained. These +people exploited the population, but we could not supersede them, and we +were obliged to shut our eyes. We contented ourselves with reducing the +profits somewhat, by deducting from each letter the postage of Paris for +Paris, without their being able on that account to raise the sum fixed +by their advertisements.</p> + +<p>"The efforts of Versailles to disorganise the reconstituted postal +services were several times baffled, thanks to the vigilance of our two +inspectors. However, we could not prevent the success of all their +attempts at subornation.</p> + +<p>"From the first days of April we instituted a council at the +post-office, composed of the delegate, his secretary, the general +secretary, all the heads of services, two inspectors, and two head +postmen. The postmen, <i>gardiens de bureaux</i>, and sorters had their wages +raised, very little, alas! for our receipts, considerably reduced, did +not allow us to be very liberal.</p> + +<p>"We decided upon the suppression, if not absolute, at least partial, of +the time for serving as supernumerary, which was reduced to the strictly +necessary time. The aptness of the workmen had henceforth to be proved +by tests and examinations, as also the quantity and quality of their +labour."—Extract from an account addressed to the author by Theisz.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">VIII.—(Page 220.)</p> + +<p>The limits of this Appendix oblige me to make a résumé of the extremely +interesting accounts by Faillet and Louis Debock on the direct taxes and +the National Printing Office:—</p> + +<p>"In the evening of the 24th March Faillet and Combault (of the +International) presented themselves at the administration of the direct +taxes. On the written declaration that he yielded to menaces, the +director handed them over the keys. Citizen X., who was thoroughly +acquainted with the administrative movement, placed himself very +promptly at their disposal.</p> + +<p>"The original register and other materials for the collection of taxes +had disappeared. It was decided that the taxes should be gathered +according to the list of 1869. The <i>personnel</i> of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>the forty +collectorships, the valuers, the employés, to make up the list, had +fled. The collectors were replaced by forty citizens, some workingmen +belonging to the International, the others clerks of commercial houses +or government offices. Some of the old officials who had not withdrawn +were retained, but under the superintendence of a safe man. The presence +of Citizen X. decided a great number of employés to come and work under +the new directors.</p> + +<p>"The service of the direct taxes was composed—for the <i>interior</i>, of a +director, a general administrator, a general secretary, two +sub-secretaries, one chief of the bureaux of taxes and lists, a head +accountant, five other accountants, and two inspectors of the collecting +offices; for the <i>exterior</i>, of forty tax-gatherers, each one assisted +by two or three clerks, a bearer of summonses, and an agent with his +accountants at the bonded warehouse for wine.</p> + +<p>"Once or twice a week the director made a round in all the collector's +offices, which the inspectors visited every day. Each tax-gatherer +brought the cashier of the direction the receipts of the day before. The +cashier every evening laid the returns before the administration, and +made over to the Central Pay-Office of the Finance Department all that +was not needed for the general expenses of the service.</p> + +<p>"The service ceased on the Saturday evening, 25th May. A hundred clerks, +not thinking their whole duty to the Commune done, formed a corps of +scouts, whose post was established in the presbytery of the Temple des +Billettes."</p> + +<p>"On the 18th March, at five o'clock in the evening, Pindy and Louis +Debock presented themselves with a battalion at the National +Printing-Office, and established themselves there. The director Hauréau +came down, tried to negotiate, and then went up again to his apartments. +During the evening Debock went to ask him for the list of workmen. +Hauréau took advantage of the occasion to protest his republicanism, +said he was a former editor of the <i>National</i>, a friend of Marrast, +Arago, &c., and that the movement of the 18th March had no <i>raison +d'être</i> whatever. A few days were allowed him for removing.</p> + +<p>"The whole <i>personnel</i> was maintained, with the exception of the +director, the sub-director, the overseer, and the chief of the works, +Félix Derenémesnil, who was cordially detested for his brutality and +injustice. These spread abroad that the Central Committee had no money, +and that the workmen would not be paid. Debock answered by an order of +the day placarded in the workshops, guaranteeing the wages in the name +of the Central Committee.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>"At the end of March, on the injunction of Versailles, all the employés +and heads of the services, with very few exceptions, abandoned the +printing-office after having received their salaries. The new director +took advantage of this to have the new foremen of the workshops +appointed by the workmen themselves. The places of managers of the +printing-press were put up for competition. As the administration of the +Rue Pagevin threw obstacles into the way of placarding the decrees and +proclamations, Debock advised the workmen bill-stickers to associate +themselves. They did so; their wages increased by 25 per cent., and the +printing-office saved 200 francs a day.</p> + +<p>"The bulk of the salaries was greatly reduced; that of the lower clerks +and workmen increased. On the 18th March a fortnight's salary was due to +the workingmen and women, and a week's to the employés. The Commune +discharged these arrears. Versailles, victorious, refused to pay the few +days' wages due to the workmen. Yet the Versailles administration found +the stock intact and in perfect order.</p> + +<p>"The budget of monthly expenses before the 18th March rose to 120,000 +francs, of which 23,000 were absorbed by the salaries of the +functionaries, employés, &c. After this date the expenses did not reach +20,000 francs a week, the expenses of placarding included.</p> + +<p>"After the Commune the Union Républicaine announced in the journals that +it had saved the Archives and the National Printing-Office from the +flames. This was a lie, as proved by the order sent on the 24th May to +the Archives at the request of Debock.</p> + +<p class="cen">"<i>Order.—The Archives not to be burnt.—The Colonel +commanding the Hôtel-de-Ville, Pindy.</i></p> + +<p>"As to the printing-office, it was occupied by Debock up to the invasion +of the quarter. In the night of the 24th he sent to ask the Committee of +Public Safety for the documents, papers, and articles necessary for the +composition of the <i>Journal Officiel</i>. The next day, having received no +answer, and the Versaillese pressing forward, he repaired to Belleville, +where the three proclamations or placards which appeared on the +following days were printed by his order."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">IX.—(Page 241.)</p> + +<p>"Certainly the Communal principle must have been very strong in itself +to have held sixty days against such fools."—<i>Behind the Scenes at the +Commune</i>, <i>"Fraser's Magazine,"</i> December, 1872.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>"To conquer was so easy and simple, that it needed the double dose of +vanity and ignorance with which the feeble brains of the majority of the +Commune were stuffed to baulk the people of its victory."—<i>The Paris +Commune of 1871, "Fraser's Magazine,"</i> March, 1873.</p> + +<p>"He (Delescluze) had only once dared to attack me to my face, but it +resulted in so much discomfiture to himself, and he came out of the +affair so crestfallen, that for the future he confined himself to +plotting against us behind my back, while to my face he was as civil as +possible."—<i>Behind the Scenes at the Commune, "Fraser's Magazine,"</i> +December, 1872.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">X.—(Page 250.)</p> + +<p>At the trial of the members of the Commune, the advocate of Assi read a +letter which the prisoners in Germany had sent his client:—</p> + +<p>"Citizen Assi—So you no longer think, with the Central Committee of the +crapulous, that we are tired of your farces and evolutions without an +aim and without limits.... Woe to you, sink of the people! All possible +reverses will accumulate upon you, and give you, as the whole result of +your acts deprived of common-sense and capacity, the hatred of the +prisoners confined in Germany, and the severe punishment which the +admired representatives of all France will mercilessly inflict upon you. +Once over the frontier, the last of the prisoners will go and plunge +into the heart of the guilty the poniard which is to give back security +to the legal government. Be prepared for the sentence which all the +prisoners in Germany have in store for you.... Death to the insurgents! +Death to the infernal Committee! Tremble, brigands!</p> + +<p>"Seen and approved by all the prisoners of Magdebourg, Erfurt, Coblentz, +Mayence, Berlin," &c.</p> + +<p>The signatures follow.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XI.—(Page 267.)</p> + +<p>One of Laroque's reports concluded thus:</p> + +<p>"I send you the names of the friends of order and of the agents who have +rendered the greatest service. Jules Masse, P. Verdier, Sigismond, +Galle, Tarjest, Honobede, Toussaint, Arthur Sellion, Jullia Francisque +Baltead, E. Philips, Salowhicht, Maniel, Dolsand (42d battalion), +Rollin, Verox (seminarist), D'Anthome, Sommé, Cremonaty, Tascher de la +Pagerie, Josephine Legros, Jupiter (police agent), the manager of the +Café de Suéde, the proprietor of the Café de Madrid, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span>Lucia, Hermance, +Amélie, little Celestine of the Café des Princes, Camille and Laura +(Café Peters), Madame du Valdy (Faubourg St. Germain), Leynhass +(brewer).</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XII.—(Page 268.)</p> + +<p>This is what had passed between the Committee of Public Safety and +Dombrowski:—</p> + +<p>"The latter came to us one evening and informed us that through the +instrumentality of one of his officers (Hutzinger), Versailles had made +overtures to him, and asked him to appoint a rendezvous. He demanded of +us whether something could not be got out of this for the Commune. We +resolved to let him try the interview on condition that he should tell +us all that passed. That evening we charged somebody to follow and +arrest him if he yielded. From this time Dombrowski was closely +watched—it is thanks to this surveillance that he was not carried off +by the Versaillese who made use of a woman to allure him to the +neighbourhood of the Luxembourg—and I declare we learnt nothing that +was of a nature to weaken our confidence in him.</p> + +<p>"He came the next day, and told us that a million was offered him on +condition that he would betray one of the gates. He gave us the names of +those he had seen; amongst others, there was a confectioner of the Place +de la Bourse, the address of the suborners (8 Rue de la Michaudière) and +announced another rendezvous for the next day.... He explained to us how +he would entice a few thousand Versaillese into Paris to make them +prisoners. Pyat and I opposed this attempt. He did not insist, but +demanded that the next day 20,000 men and some howitzers should be +provided for him. He had decided on attracting the Versaillese troops by +a surprise within reach of the fortifications.... Of the 20,000 men, +3,000 or 4,000 only could be mustered, and instead of 500 artillerists, +there came only fifty."—<i>Extract from an account addressed to the +author by a member of the Committee of Public Safety.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XIII.—(Page 274.)</p> + +<p>Here is an extract from the report addressed to the Municipal Council of +Toulouse by the delegates sent to Versailles to M. Thiers and the +deputies of the Extreme Left to inquire into the situation:—</p> + +<p>"We went then for information to the members of the Extreme Left; Martin +Bernard, the companion and friend of Barbès, Louis Blanc, Schœlcher, +&c.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span>"M. Louis Blanc gave us the most precise information. It is useless, +said he to us, to again attempt conciliation; there is too much +animosity on both sides. Besides, with whom could one treat in Paris? +These different and hostile forces dispute for power.</p> + +<p>"First there is the <i>Commune</i>, the result of an election at which only a +small number of electors took part, composed chiefly of unknown men, of +doubtful capacities, and some times even of doubtful honour.</p> + +<p>"In the second place, a <i>Committee of Public Safety</i> named by the +Commune, but soon coming to a violent rupture with it because it wanted +to direct dictatorially.</p> + +<p>"In the third place, the <i>Central Committee</i>, formed during the siege, +and principally composed of agents of the International, solely occupied +with cosmopolitan interests, and caring very little for Parisian or +French interests; it is this Central Committee which disposes of the +cannon and the munitions, in one word, of almost all the material +forces.</p> + +<p>"To all this must be added the Bonapartist and Prussian influences, +whose more or less apparent action it is easy to trace in all three +powers.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p> + +<p>"The Parisian insurrection," continued M. Louis Blanc, "is legitimate in +its motives and in its first aim—the revindication of the municipal +franchise of Paris. But the intervention of the Central Committee and +the pretension manifested of governing all the other Communes of the +Republic, have quite altered its character. Finally, the insurrection in +the presence of the Prussian army, ready to enter Paris if the Commune +is victorious, is altogether condemnable, and must be condemned by every +true Republican. This is why the mayors of Paris, the Left of the +Assembly, and the Extreme Left, have not hesitated to protest against an +insurrection which the presence of the Prussian army and other +circumstances might render criminal.</p> + +<p>"M. Martin Bernard held the same language, and spoke almost in the same +terms. 'If Barbès still lived,' cried he, 'his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span>heart would have been +rent, and he too would have condemned this fatal insurrection.'</p> + +<p>"All the other persons whom we have been able to see—MM. Henri Martin, +Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Humbert, Victor Lefranc, &c., have spoken to us +in the same way, and this unanimity could not but make a deep impression +upon us."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XIV.—(Page 290.)</p> + +<p>This is the textual copy of a report addressed to the Versaillese +general staff:—</p> + +<p>"The <i>mot d'ordre</i> has been tampered with on the 17th, 18th, and 19th.</p> + +<p>"We had that of Versailles (General Douai's corps).</p> + +<p>"There has been an explosion at the Rapp powder magazine, as I have +already reported to you. There were some dead, and many wounded.</p> + +<p>"A commissary of police of the Commission of Safety has made about forty +arrests. Those made on account of the explosion are estimated to be +about 125.</p> + +<p>"Sergeant Toussaint (3rd battery, 2nd squadron) has been arrested by the +Commune. It is said that this brave officer is shot.</p> + +<p>"The sick, according to our information, had been taken away either the +day before or on the morning of the day of the catastrophe to the Hôtel +des Invalides. The workwomen, and not the men, were sent home earlier +that day.</p> + +<p>"The official of the Audit Office of the Hospital du Gros-Caillou, M. +Bernard, has behaved very well.</p> + +<p>"I recommend to the good-will of M. le Ministre, MM. Janvier, Bertalon +(?), Mauduit, Morelli, and Sigismond, men enjoying an excellent +reputation.</p> + +<p>"They desire the cross or an important collectorship.</p> + +<p>"Signal services have been rendered by Madame Brosset, and by +Mademoiselle Gigaud. It is at the latter's house that I hid for eight +days when Rigault's people were searching for me.</p> + +<p>"This woman is very devoted; she lives in the Quartier du Gros Caillou, +Rue Dominique St. Germain. She is the daughter of an ex-officer. She +would be glad to have a tobacconist's shop."—<i>Report of Commander +Jerriait, Ex-Chief of Squadron.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XV.—(Page 325.)</p> + +<p>This fact was categorically deposed to by M. E. Belgrand, Director of +the Service of Public Roads, before the Commission of Inquiry into the +18th March (vol. iii., p. 352-353).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span>"The insurgents attempted nothing with the sewers. In short, I may +affirm that from the 18th March up to the entry of the troops into Paris +there was no attempt at all as to the sewers; that no chambers had been +established there; that no incendiary, or explosive matters had been +introduced, nor wires destined to set fire to mines or to incendiary +matters."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XVI.—(Page 329.)</p> + +<p>The <i>Bien Public</i>, M. Thiers' organ, directed by Vrignault, published in +its number of the 23rd June, 1871:—</p> + +<p>"All Paris has preserved the souvenir of that terrible cannonade +directed from Montmartre during the last three days of the civil war +against the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, and the Père Lachaise. Here are +some very correct details of what was happening then at the summit of +the Butte, behind the batteries at No. 6 Rue des Rosiers.</p> + +<p>"There had been installed in this house, so sadly celebrated, a +provostship, presided over by a captain of Chasseurs. As the inhabitants +of the quarter rivalled each other in zeal in denouncing the insurgents, +the arrests were numerous. As the prisoners arrived they were +questioned.</p> + +<p>"They were forced to kneel down, bare-headed, in silence, before the +wall at the foot of which the unfortunate Generals Lecomte and +Clément-Thomas had been assassinated. They remained thus a few hours, +till others came to take their place. Soon, to lessen what might be +cruel in this <i>amende honorable</i>, the prisoners were allowed to sit down +in the shade, but always opposite the wall, the aspect of which prepared +them for death, and shortly after the principal culprits amongst them +were shot.</p> + +<p>"They were taken a few steps from there to the slope of the hill, at the +spot where during the siege a battery overlooked the St. Denis route. It +is there too that Varlin was conducted, whom they had great trouble in +protecting from the violence of the crowd. Varlin had confessed his +name, and made no efforts to escape the fate that awaited him; he died +game.</p> + +<p class="right">V. B."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XVII.—(Page 338.)</p> + +<p>The day before, at five o'clock, at the moment when the baggage of the +War Office arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the Avenue Victoria, two +guards, carrying a chest, were assailed with a hatchet, by an individual +dressed in a blouse and wearing a cap. One of the Federals fell dead. +The assassin, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span>immediately seized hold of, cried, 'You are done for! you +are done for! Give me back my hatchet and I shall recommence.' On this +madman the commissary of police of the Hôtel-de-Ville found papers and +the <i>livret</i>, proving that he had served in the <i>sergents-de-ville</i>.</p> + +<p>During the evening of Tuesday, an individual, wearing the uniform of an +officer of a free corps, came to ask for orders at the Hôtel-de-Ville. A +commandant of the same corps entered the hall and saw this officer, and +not recognising him, asked his name. The latter grew confused: 'But no, +you are not one of my men,' said the commandant. The individual was +arrested, and found to be the bearer of Versaillese instructions and +orders.</p> + +<p>Treason assumed all shapes. The same morning at Belleville, Place des +Fêtes, Ranvier and Frankel heard a drummer reading the Federal Guards +the order not to leave their arrondissements. Ranvier, interrogating the +drummer, learned that the order emanated from General du Bisson.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XVIII.—(Page 348.)</p> + +<p>"Colonel Gaillard, chief of the military prisons, interrogated by the +<i>Commission d'Enquête</i> as to the objects of value found on the +insurgents, answered: 'I can give you no information on this head. There +were valuables which have not been sent to Versailles. A few days ago I +saw a minister of Denmark. He came to inquire what had become of a sum +of 100,000 francs seized on one of his compatriots who had been shot +near the Hôtel-de-Ville. His minister told me he had been unable to +obtain any information. Many things happened in Paris of which we know +nothing.'"—<i>Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Colonel Gaillard</i>, v. 2, p. 246.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XIX.—(Page 351.)</p> + +<p>Shall we ever know of all the spurious speculators, the commercial men +with no resources left, the men at the brink of bankruptcy, who made use +of the conflagrations in order to quit scores? How many cried 'Death!' +who had themselves just set the petroleum on fire.</p> + +<p>On the 10th March, 1877, the assize court of the Seine sentenced to ten +years' hard labour a ruined Bonapartist, Prieur de la Comble, found +guilty of having set fire to his house, with the object of getting a +heavy premium from the companies where he was insured. He had prepared +his crime with the greatest <i>sang froid</i>, painted the walls, saturated +the hangings with petroleum, made sure of nine different centres of +fire. His <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span>father, a former mayor of the first arrondissement, had +failed to the amount of 1,800,000 francs, and at the end of the Empire +there had been proceedings of bankruptcy instituted against him. Now, on +the 24th May, 1871, the house of the accused in the Rue du Louvre, that +of his father in the Rue de Rivoli, that of the assignee of the failure +in the Boulevard Sebastopol, were consumed, and owing to these triple +conflagrations the account-books and vouchers disappeared. This fact was +only mentioned before the assize court, and the president confined +himself to saying that it was odd. He took good care not to interrogate +Prieur; and one knows that the presidents of assize courts are not +usually chary of sifting the antecedents of the accused.</p> + +<p>The motive of this extraordinary reticence is that no blame was to be +thrown upon the army and the courts-martial, which had shot or condemned +some <i>petroleuses</i> for the burning of these very houses set on fire by +Prieur de la Comble.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XX.—(Page 368.)</p> + +<p>" ... A picket of soldiers debouched from the Rue de Vaugirard on our +left. They marched in two ranks. In the midst of them was Millière.</p> + +<p>"He was dressed exactly as I had seen him some months before at Bordeaux +on the tribune of the Assembly and in the Republican Circle—black +trousers, dark-blue overcoat, tight and buttoned up, a high black hat.</p> + +<p>"The picket stopped before the door of the Luxembourg. One of the +soldiers, who held his rifle by the end of the barrel, cried, 'It is I +who took him! it is I who am entitled to shoot him!' There were about a +hundred persons there of both sexes and of all ages. Many cried, 'Death +to him! shoot him!'</p> + +<p>"A National Guard, wearing a tricolor armlet, seized hold of Millière by +the wrist, led him into the corner on the right, and placed him against +the wall, then he retired.... Millière uncovered himself, placed his hat +on the pedestal of the column, crossed his arms on his breast, and calm +and cool looked at the troops. He waited.</p> + +<p>"Round us the soldiers were being questioned. 'Who is it?' one of them +was asked, and I heard him answer, 'It is Mayer.'</p> + +<p>"A priest came out of the Luxembourg; he wore a straight-cut cassock and +a high hat. Advancing towards Millière, he spoke a few words to him and +pointed to heaven.</p> + +<p>"Without ostentation, but with a very firm and calm attitude, Millière +appeared to thank him, and shook his head in sign of refusal. The priest +retired.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>"Two officers came out from the palace and addressed themselves to the +prisoner. One of them, whom the first seemed to guide, spoke to him for +a minute or two. We heard the sound of voices without understanding the +words exchanged, then I heard this command: 'To the Panthéon!'</p> + +<p>"The picket re-formed round Millière, who put on his hat, and the +cortège remounted the Rue de Vaugirard in the direction of the Panthéon.</p> + +<p>"We reached the rails at the same time as the picket. The door opened +and shut upon them. Placing my feet on the stone balustrade, I passed my +two arms round the top of the bars; my head overlooked them, for these +railings are low. By my side a soldier, the sentry of the interior, +answered some prostitutes who were questioning him; his elbow, leaning +against the rails, touched mine.</p> + +<p>"The picket of the troop had stopped and almost leant against the closed +door. Millière was led between the two columns of the centre. Arrived at +the spot where he was to die, and after having ascended the last step of +the stairs, he exchanged a few words with the officer. Searching in the +pocket of his overcoat, which he had just unbuttoned, he took out an +object, which I believed to be a letter, and handed it over to him, as +also a watch and a locket. The officer took them, then seized hold of +Millière and placed him in such a manner that he should be shot from +behind. The latter turned round with a brusque movement, and, his arms +crossed, faced the troop. This is the only movement of indignation or of +anger that I saw him make.</p> + +<p>"Some more words were exchanged; Millière seemed to be refusing to obey +an order. The officer came down. The instant after, a soldier seized him +who was to be shot by the shoulder and forced him to bend his knee upon +the flagstone.</p> + +<p>"Half the rifles of the platoon only were levelled at him; the others +remained in the arms of the soldiers. During this time, believing his +last moment come, Millière three times uttered the cry, 'Vive la +République!'</p> + +<p>"The officer approaching the picket of the troop, ordered the rifles, +which had been too hurriedly lowered, to be raised again, and then he +pointed out with his sword how the order to fire would be given.</p> + +<p>"'Vive le peuple! Vive l'humanité,' cried Millière.</p> + +<p>"The soldier on sentry, whose elbow touched my arm, answered the last +words by these: 'On va t'en foutre de l'humanité!' I had hardly heard +them when Millière fell as if thunderstricken.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>"A military man, whom I believe to have been a non-commissioned officer, +went up the steps, approached the corpse, lowered his rifle, and fired +point-blank near the left temple. The explosion was so violent that the +head of Millière bounded, and appeared as if twisted back. The rain for +three-quarters of an hour had beaten against his face; the cloud of +powder fixed itself there.</p> + +<p>"Lying on his side, his hands joined, his clothes open and thrown into +disorder by the fall, his head blackened, as if burst open, seeming to +look at the frontispiece of the monument, his corpse was something +terrible...."—<i>The death of Millière recounted by M. Louis Mie, +Conseiller-Général of the Dordogne, Municipal Counciller of Périgueux, +deputy of Bordeaux to the Chamber.</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Madame Millière having instituted judiciary proceedings against +Staff-Captain Garcin, the murderer of her husband, the trial was cut +short by the following letter:—</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Versailles</span>, <i>30th June 1873</i>.</p> + +<p>"Captain Garcin of the General Staff attached to the 2d corps, has +during the second siege of Paris only executed the orders given him by +his superiors. He can thus in no way be made responsible for deeds which +were the result of these orders. The responsibility rests exclusively +upon those who have given the orders.</p> + +<p class="right">"The Minister at War,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">De Cissey</span>."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXI.—(Page 371.)</p> + +<p>To the number of the innocent victims of our civil discords we have the +sorrow to add the name of a young man, twenty-seven years old, M. +Faneau, a doctor of medicine.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Faneau had worked from the beginning of the war in the +International ambulances. During the whole siege of Paris he did not +cease tending the wounded with zealous devotion.</p> + +<p>"After the revolution of the 18th March he remained in Paris, and +resumed his service in the ambulances.</p> + +<p>"On the 25th May he was on duty at the Grand Seminaire de St. Sulpice, +where the Federals had established an ambulance.</p> + +<p>"When the army had taken possession of the cross-roads of the Croix +Rouge, it advanced as far as the Place.</p> + +<p>"A company of line soldiers came up to the door of the seminary, where +floated the flag of Geneva.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>"The officer who commanded asked to speak to the chief of the ambulance. +Dr. Faneau, who filled this function, presented himself.</p> + +<p>"'Are there any Federals here?' the officer asked him.</p> + +<p>"'I have only wounded,' answered M. Faneau, 'they are Federals, but they +have been in my ambulance for several days.'</p> + +<p>"At the moment when he was concluding these words, a shot was fired from +one of the windows of the first storey, and struck a soldier.</p> + +<p>"This shot was discharged by one of the wounded Federals, who had +dragged himself from his bed to the window.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a></p> + +<p>"Immediately the officer, exasperated, threw himself upon Dr. Faneau, +crying to him, 'You lie, you have set a snare for us; you are the friend +of these rascals; you are going to be shot.'</p> + +<p>"Dr. Faneau understood that it would be in vain to attempt to justify +himself; also, he offered no resistance to the firing-party.</p> + +<p>"Some minutes after the unfortunate young man fell, struck by ten +bullets.</p> + +<p>"We knew Dr. Faneau, and we can affirm that, far from sympathising with +the members of the Commune, he deplored their fatal errors, and waited +with impatience for the re-establishment of order."—<i>Le Siècle.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXII.—(Page 383.)</p> + +<p>In the <i>National</i> of the 29th May appeared the following:—</p> + +<p class="right"> +"<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>28th May 1871</i>.</p> + +<p>"Sir,—Last Friday, at the time when corpses were being picked up in the +Boulevard St. Michel, some individuals of nineteen to twenty-five years +old, dressed as well-to-do people, were seated with gay women inside, +and at the doors of certain cafés of this boulevard, indulging with +these in scandalous merrymaking.—Accept, Monsieur le rédacteur, &c.,</p> + +<p class="right smcap">Duhamel.</p> +<p>"55 <span class="smcap">Boulevard d'Enfer</span>."</p> + +<p>The facts mentioned above were repeated every day.</p> + +<p>The <i>Journal de Paris</i>, a Versaillese journal suppressed by the Commune, +wrote:—</p> + +<p>"The manner in which the population of Paris manifested its satisfaction +yesterday was rather more than frivolous, and we fear it will grow worse +as time progresses. Paris has now a fête-day appearance, which is sadly +out of place; and unless we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span>are to be called the Parisians of the +decline, this sort of thing must come to an end." Then he quoted the +passage from Tacitus: "Yet on the morrow of that horrible struggle, even +before it was completely over, Rome, degraded and corrupt, began once +more to wallow in the voluptuous slough which was destroying its body +and polluting its soul—<i>alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi balnea +popinaeque</i>—'here fights and wounds, there baths and restaurants.'"</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXIII.—(Page 384.)</p> + +<p>The Versaillese journals confessed to 1600 prisoners buried in the Père +Lachaise. The <i>Opinion Nationale</i> of the 10th June said:—</p> + +<p>"We do not wish to leave the Père Lachaise without saluting with a look +of Christian compassion these deep trenches, where lie entombed +pell-mell the insurgents taken under arms, and those who would not +surrender.</p> + +<p>"They have expiated their criminal folly by an act of summary justice. +May God pity and have mercy upon them!</p> + +<p>"Let us rectify, in passing, the exaggerated rumours which have been +spread on the subject of the executions at the Père Lachaise and in the +environs.</p> + +<p>"It appears from certain information—we might almost venture to say +official statements—that there have only been buried in that cemetery, +<i>shot</i> or killed fighting, <i>sixteen hundred men in all</i>."</p> + +<p>But the following account of the executions of La Roquette has been +given me by an eye-witness, who barely escaped death:—</p> + +<p>"I had returned to my house on the Saturday evening. Sunday morning, on +crossing the Boulevard du Prince Eugène, I was taken in a razzia. We +were conducted to La Roquette. A chief of battalion was standing at the +entrance. He surveyed us; then, with a nod of the head, said, 'To the +right,' or 'To the left.' I was sent to the left. 'Your affair is +settled,' the soldiers said to us; 'you are going to be shot, +<i>canailles!</i>' We were ordered to throw away our matches if we had any +about us, and then the signal was given to march on.</p> + +<p>"I was the last of the file, and by the side of the sergeant who +conducted us. He looked at me. 'Who are you?' he asked me. 'A professor. +I was taken this morning as I came out of my house.' No doubt my accent, +the elegance of my clothes, struck him, for he added, 'Have you any +papers?' 'Yes.' 'Come!' and he took me back before the chief of +battalion. 'Commander,' said he, 'there is a mistake. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span>young man +has his papers.' 'All right,' answered the officer, without looking at +me, 'to the right.'</p> + +<p>"The sergeant led me off. As we went along, he explained to me that the +prisoners taken to the left were shot. We had already got to a door on +the right, when a soldier ran after us: 'Sergeant, the commandant says +you are to take back this man to the left.'</p> + +<p>"Fatigue, despair at the defeat, the enervation caused by so much +anguish, deprived me of all strength to dispute my life. 'Well, shoot +me,' said I to the sergeant, 'for you it will be but a crime the more! +only return these papers to my family,' and I turned to the left.</p> + +<p>"I already perceived a long file of men drawn up against a wall, others +lying on the ground. Opposite them three priests read in their +breviaries the prayers of the dying. A few steps more and I was dead, +when suddenly I was seized hold of by the arm. It was my sergeant. He +took me back by force to the officer. 'Commandant,' said he, 'we cannot +shoot this man. He has his papers!' 'Let me see,' said the officer. I +handed over my pocket-book, which contained a card as employé at the +Ministry of Commerce during the first siege. 'To the right,' said the +commandant.</p> + +<p>"There were soon more than 3,000 prisoners on the right. All Sunday and +part of the night detonations resounded by the side of us. On Monday +morning a platoon came in. 'Fifty men,' said the sergeant. We thought we +were going to be shot by parties, and no one stirred. The soldiers took +the first fifty they came across. I was of the number. We were taken to +the famous left side.</p> + +<p>"On a space which seemed to us endless we saw heaps of corpses. 'Pick up +all this rubbish,' said the sergeants to us, 'and put them into these +carts.' We raised up these corpses covered with blood and mud. The +soldiers made frightful jokes; 'See what grimaces they cut,' and with +their heels crushed some face. It seemed to me that some were still +living. We told the soldiers so, but they answered, 'Come, come! get +on!' Certainly some died under the earth. We put 1,907 corpses into +these carts."</p> + +<p>The <i>Liberté</i> of the 4th June said:—</p> + +<p>"The governor of La Roquette during the Commune, and his acolytes, were +shot on the very scene of their exploits.</p> + +<p>"For the other National Guards arrested in this neighbourhood, and whose +number exceeded 4,000, a provisional court-martial was installed in the +Roquette itself. A commissary of police and police agents of safety were +charged with the first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>examination. Those appointed to be shot were +sent into the interior; they were killed from behind while they were +walking along, and their bodies were thrown on to the nearest heap. All +these monsters had the faces of bandits; the exceptions were to be +regretted."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXIV.—(Page 384.)</p> + +<p>"At the time of the trial of the members of the Council of the Commune +before the third court-martial sitting at Versailles, a certain M. +Gabriel Ossude came to give evidence as witness against Jourde, in whose +arrest he was concerned, he said, in his quality of provost of the +seventh arrondissement, and as Colonel Merlin, president of the court, +seemed astonished that such a function should have devolved upon a +civilian, M. Ossude entered into very precise explanations, which I +remember perfectly.</p> + +<p>"He declared that towards the end of the Commune the prevotal courts had +been instituted by the Government of Versailles in view of the early +entry of the troops into Paris; that the number and the seats of the +exceptional tribunals had been arranged beforehand, as well as the +topographical limits of their jurisdictions; that he (M. Gabriel Ossude) +had received his nomination from the hands of M. Thiers, although he +held no rank in the army, but as captain of the seventeenth battalion of +the National Guard."—<i>Letter of Ulysse Parent, Rappel, March 19, 1877.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXV.—(Page 385.)</p> + +<p>"Near the Ecole Militaire the scene is at this moment very affecting; +prisoners are continually being led there, and their trial is +<i>terminated</i> beforehand. It consists only in detonations."—<i>Siècle, +28th May.</i></p> + +<p>"The courts-martial functioned in Paris with unheard-of activity at +several special points. At the Lobau Barracks, at the Ecole Militaire, +the fusillade is permanently heard. It is the settling of accounts with +those wretches who openly took part in the struggle."—<i>Liberté, 30th +May.</i></p> + +<p>"Since morning (Sunday, 28th May) a strong cordon is being formed round +the theatre (Châtelet), where a court-martial is permanently +established. From time to time one sees a band of fifteen to twenty +individuals coming out, composed of National Guards, civilians, <i>women +and children fifteen to sixteen years old</i>.</p> + +<p>"These individuals are condemned to death. They march two and two, +escorted by a platoon of chasseurs, who lead and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span>bring up the +procession. This cortège goes up the Quai de Gèvres and enters the +Republican Barracks in the Place Lobau. A minute after one hears from +within the fire of platoons and successive musketry discharges; it is +the sentence of the court-martial which has just been executed.</p> + +<p>"The detachment of chasseurs returns to the Châtelet to fetch other +prisoners. The crowd seems deeply impressed on hearing the noise of the +fusillades."—<i>Journal des Débats, 30th May, 1871.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXVI.—(Page 385.)</p> + +<p>A journal of the Belgian bourgeoisie, the <i>Etoile</i>, one of the most +violent against the Commune, allowed this avowal to escape it:—</p> + +<p>"The majority have met death like the Arabs after battle, with +indifference, with contempt, without hatred, without anger, without +insult to their executioners.</p> + +<p>"All the soldiers who took part in these executions, and whom I have +questioned, have been unanimous in their accounts.</p> + +<p>"One of them said to me, 'We shot about forty of these <i>canailles</i> at +Passy. They all died like soldiers. Some crossed their arms, and stood +head erect. Others opened their tunics and cried to us 'Fire! we are not +afraid of death.'</p> + +<p>"Not one of those whom we have shot trembled. I especially remember an +artillerist, who by himself did us more harm than a whole battalion. He +was alone serving a piece of cannon. During three-quarters of an hour he +peppered us with grape shot, and he killed and wounded not a few of my +comrades. At last he was overwhelmed. We had turned his barricade.</p> + +<p>"I still see him. He was a strongly-built man. He was bathed in +perspiration from the service he had done during three-quarters of an +hour. 'Your turn now,' said he to us. 'I have merited shooting, but I +shall die game.'</p> + +<p>"Another soldier of General Clinchant's corps told me how his company +had led to the ramparts eighty-four insurgents taken bearing arms.</p> + +<p>"They all placed themselves in a line, he said to me, as if they were +going to exercise. Not one faltered. One of them who had a handsome +face, wore trousers in fine cloth tucked into his boots, and a Zouave's +belt round his waist, said to us calmly, 'Try to aim at my chest; be +careful not to touch my head.' We all fired, but the poor fellow had +half of his head carried away."</p> + +<p>A functionary of Versailles made me the following recital:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>"During the day, Sunday, I made an excursion to Paris. I went by the +Théâtre du Châtelet towards the smoking ruins of the Hôtel-de-Ville, +when I was surrounded and carried along by the stream of a crowd which +was following a convoy of prisoners.</p> + +<p>"I found among them the same men whom I had seen in the battalions of +the siege of Paris. Almost all seemed to me to be working-men.</p> + +<p>"Their faces betrayed neither despair nor despondency nor emotion. They +walked on with a firm, resolute step, and they seemed to me so +indifferent to their fate that I thought they expected to be released. I +was entirely mistaken. These men had been taken in the morning at +Menilmontant, and knew whither they were being led. Arrived at the Lobau +Barracks, the cavalry officers who preceded the escort had a semi-circle +formed, and prevented the curious from advancing."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXVII.—(Page 385.)</p> + +<p>One of the most ignoble barkers of Versailles, Francisque Sarcey, wrote +in the <i>Gaulois</i> of the 13th June:—</p> + +<p>"Men who are quite cool, of whose judgment and word I cannot doubt, have +spoken to me with an astonishment mingled with horror of the scenes they +had seen, seen with their own eyes, and which rendered me rather +meditative.</p> + +<p>"Young women, pretty of face, and dressed in silk dresses, came down +into the street, and a revolver in their hands, fired at random, and +then said with proud mien, elevated voice, eyes full of hatred, 'Shoot +me at once!' One of them, who had been taken in a house whence they had +fired from the windows, was about to be bound in order to be taken to +Versailles and judged there.</p> + +<p>"'Come,' said she, 'save me the trouble of the journey!' And placing +herself against a wall, her arms spread open, her breast bare, she +seemed to solicit—to provoke death.</p> + +<p>"All those who have been seen executed thus summarily by furious +soldiers have died, insults on their tongues, with a laugh of contempt, +like martyrs, who in sacrificing themselves accomplish a great duty."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXVIII.—(Page 386.)</p> + +<p>At the time of an action entered against M. Raspail, <i>fils</i>, in 1876, +for his pamphlet in favour of an amnesty, the following letter, +addressed to him by M. Hervey de Saisy, senator, was read in court:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>"I cannot, for motives of discretion bearing on divers persons, repeat +in this letter the recital which I made you <i>vivâ voce</i> on the occasion +of which you remind me. However, I wish to answer your courteous appeal +by repeating here the words which served as a reason for the iniquitous +order by which the life of M. Cernuschi was menaced, during the day on +which the troops took possession of the prison of Ste. Pélagie and the +Jardin des Plantes.</p> + +<p>"These are the words pronounced by the general of division who gave the +order of summary execution. Learning that Cernuschi had repaired to the +prison, at the door of which I saw his carriage, he said to some one, +whom I cannot mention, 'Ah! it is Cernuschi, the man of the 100,000 +francs of the plébiscite. Return to the prison, and let him be shot +within five minutes.'</p> + +<p>"Five minutes represented the time that would be required by the bearer +of the order in going to the prison from the Cèdre du Jussieu, whence +the general watched the phases of the combat.</p> + +<p>"At first I did not understand this strange phrase, but some moments +after I remembered that it was the expression of a political vengeance +which was about to be exercised against M. Cernuschi for having offered +100,000 francs for the propaganda which the Opposition was to make +during the final plébiscite of the Empire.</p> + +<p>"Profoundly indignant at what I had just heard, I was fortunate enough +to bring about a fortuitous incident to which the already condemned +victim owed his salvation.</p> + +<p>"Such are the details I am able to furnish you with.</p> + +<p class="right smcap">Hervé de Saisy.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXIX.—(Page 386.)</p> + +<p>"Some journals of Paris," wrote the <i>Echo de la Dordogne</i>, on the 19th +June, 1871, "have repeated that Tony Moilin had been condemned and shot +for having been taken arms in hand on the 27th May. This report is +incorrect.</p> + +<p>"One single fact was Tony Moilin reproached with: that of having on the +18th March taken possession of the mairie of his arrondissement, and +having thus had a share in giving the signal for the insurrection. He +was shown a kind of dismissal given by him on that day to M. Hérisson, +the mayor whom he had replaced. No witness was heard.</p> + +<p>"Moilin admitted the fact; then he added that he had exercised the +function of mayor during hardly two days; that at the end of this time, +little in accord with the men of the Commune, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>he had voluntarily ceased +to appear at the mairie, where he had been immediately replaced.</p> + +<p>"The court-martial asked Moilin to account for his time and his acts +since the day of the entry of the army of Versailles into Paris. He +answered that, known for a long time, especially through the Blois trial +and by his writings, as one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, having +to answer for taking possession of the mairie of the eighth +arrondissement on the 18th March, fearing a too summary justice and the +fury of the first moments, he had sought and found shelter at a +friend's, and that, from the Monday morning till the Saturday night; ... +that on the Saturday evening, the 27th March, this friend had asked his +guest to leave his retreat, and that on leaving this inhospitable house, +discouraged, not seeking any longer to defend his liberty, nor even his +life, he had returned to his home, where, on the denunciation of his +porter and his neighbours, he had been almost directly afterwards +arrested and taken before the court-martial at the Luxembourg.</p> + +<p>"To this recital was confined the defence of Tony Moilin, who was +immediately condemned to death. The court-martial <i>condescended to tell +him that the fact of the mairie, the only one he could be reproached +with, had in itself not much importance, and did not merit death, but +that he was one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, dangerous through +his talents, his character, and his influence over the masses; one of +those men, in short, of whom a prudent and wise Government must rid +itself when it finds a legitimate occasion to do so</i>.</p> + +<p>"Tony Moilin could only be satisfied with the urbanity (<i>sic</i>) of the +members of the court. Without any difficulty a respite of twelve hours +was granted him in order that he might make his testament, write a few +words of farewell to his father, and finally give his name to the woman +who had, during the Blois trial and since, shown him the greatest +devotion. These duties fulfilled, on the 28th May, in the morning, Tony +Moilin was led into the garden a few steps from the palace and shot. His +body, which his widow claimed, the surrender of which had been at first +promised, was refused her."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXX.—(Page 386.)</p> + +<p>This assassination also stands to the debit account of Garcin. Let us +again allow him to speak.</p> + +<p>"Billioray at first attempted to deny his identity. He wanted to rush +upon a soldier; he was a man of athletic strength.... He defended +himself, he foamed with rage. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>There was hardly time to interrogate him. +He began some tale about money, whose place of concealment he could +indicate. He spoke of 150,000 francs; then he interrupted himself, in +order to say to me, 'I see you are going to have me shot. It is useless +for me to say any more.' I said to him, 'You persist?' 'Yes.' He was +shot."—<i>Enquéte sur le 18 Mars</i>, vol. ii. p. 234.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXI—(Page 386.)</p> + +<p>"The event took place on Thursday, 25th May, at a few minutes past six +in the evening, in the small Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. +Vallès was coming out of the Théâtre du Châtelet, led off by the +firing-party charged to shoot him. He wore a black coat, and light +trousers of a yellowish shade. He wore no hat; and his beard, which he +had shaved but lately, was very short, and already getting grey.</p> + +<p>"On entering the lane where the ominous sentence was to be carried out, +the sentiment of self-preservation gave him back the energy which seemed +to have abandoned him. He wanted to fly; but, held back by the soldiers, +he got into a horrible fury, crying 'Murder!' writhing, seizing his +executioners by the throat, biting them, offering, in one word, a +desperate resistance.</p> + +<p>"The soldiers were beginning to be embarrassed and a little moved at +this horrible struggle, when one of them passing behind gave him such a +furious blow in the loins with the butt-end of his gun that the +unfortunate man fell with a low groan.</p> + +<p>"No doubt the spinal column was broken. They then fired some shots with +their revolvers straight into his body, and pierced him with bayonet +thrusts. As he was still breathing, one of the executioners approached +and discharged his chassepot into his ear. Part of the skull burst open; +his body was abandoned in the gutter till some one came to pick it up.</p> + +<p>"It is then that the spectators of this scene approached, and despite +the wounds that disfigured him, were able to establish his +identity."—<i>Account by a Military Surgeon published in the Gaulois.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>XXXII.—(Page 392.)</p> + +<p>The <i>Radical</i> of the 30th May, 1872, published the following letter from +an employé at St. Thomas d'Acquin, who during the Commune had rendered +the Versaillese the service of preventing the firing of the cannons of 8 +cm. breechloaders:—</p> + +<p>"<i>To Monsieur le Comte Daru, President of the Committee of Inquiry into +the Insurrection of the 18th March, Versailles.</i></p> + +<p>"Monsieur le President,—I have just read in a book, which is entitled +<i>Enquête Parlementaire sur l'Insurrection du 18 Mars</i>, under the head, +<i>Evidence of witnesses</i>, the following evidence by the Staff-Captain +Garcin:—</p> + +<p>"'All those who were arrested under arms were shot during the first +moments, that is to say, during the combat. But when we were masters of +the left bank there were no more executions.'</p> + +<p>"In the report of Marshal MacMahon on the operations of the army of +Versailles against insurgent Paris, I find the following declaration:—</p> + +<p>"'In the evening of the 25th May the whole left bank was in our power, +as also the bridges of the Seine.'</p> + +<p>"The evidence of Captain Garcin is unfortunately contrary to the truth. +Four days after the 25th May my son and fourteen other unhappy victims +were killed at the Dupleix Barracks, situated on the left bank, near the +Ecole Militaire.</p> + +<p>"On the 31st August I addressed the Minister of Justice a complaint on +this subject, of which I send you a correct copy. After having related +the facts with regard to my son, I demanded that the law should search +for and punish the culprits.</p> + +<p>"Up to the present time the law has remained deaf to my claims, +notwithstanding the publicity I have given this complaint, in order to +prove the disappearance of my child.</p> + +<p>"If it were true, as Captain Garcin declares, that orders had been given +by the general commander-in-chief of the troops of the left bank to put +an end to these executions after the evening of the 25th May; if again +it were true that Marshal MacMahon had by his despatch of the 28th May +given the order to suspend all executions, as the Colonel presiding over +the court-martial at the trial of the members of the Commune +declared—the officer of the gendarmerie, named Roncol, who ordered the +massacres at the Dupleix Barracks, and his accomplices should have been +prosecuted for having, in contempt of the orders of the chief of the +army, had unfortunate people killed who had taken no part in the +combat.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span>"Thus, horrible fact, in the morning of the 29th May, while I was giving +up the cannon at St. Thomas d'Acquin, which my son and I had sworn on +our honour to preserve for the state, and for which we had risked our +lives, my son was being massacred at the end of a stable by those who +ought to have protected him.</p> + +<p>"In consequence of these facts, which I have just made public, I beg +Monsieur le Président to be so obliging as to have the evidence of +Captain Garcin rectified, which is on this point of the executions +entirely contrary to truth.—I have the honour, Monsieur le Président, +&c.,</p> + +<p class="right">(Signed) "<span class="smcap">G. Laudet.</span>"</p> + +<p>"The correct copy of this was addressed in a registered letter of the +28th March, 1872, under the number 158, to M. le Comte Daru, who has +acknowledged the receipt of it.</p> + +<p class="right smcap">G. Laudet."</p> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>23rd May 1872</i>."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXIII.—(Page 393.)</p> + +<p>"It is in the Bois de Boulogne that those condemned to death by the +court-martial will for the future be executed. Whenever the number of +the condemned shall exceed ten men the execution platoons will be +replaced by a mitrailleuse."—<i>Paris Journal, 9th June.</i></p> + +<p>"All circulation is forbidden in the Bois de Boulogne.</p> + +<p>"One is forbidden to enter there, unless accompanied by a platoon of +soldiers, and still more forbidden to come out again."—<i>Paris Journal, +15th June.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXIV.—(Page 395.)</p> + +<p>"One man, a swarthy, burly fellow, with a shock head of black hair, sat +down at the corner of the Rue de la Paix and declined to go any further, +shaking his fist at the people and grinding his teeth. After several +attempts at coercive measures, one of the soldiers lost all patience, +and drove his bayonet twice into his body, telling him to get up and +walk on like the rest. As might have been expected, this method was not +successful, and so he was seized and placed on a horse, from which he +speedily threw himself, and was then tied to its tail, and dragged along +the ground after the manner of Brunhilda. He soon became faint from loss +of blood, and having thus been reduced to a quiescent state, was bundled +into an ambulance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>waggon, and carried off amid the shouts and +execrations of the populace."—<i>Times, May 31st.</i></p> + +<p>"Another prisoner, who had also refused to march, was dragged by the +hands and hair of the head along the road."—<i>Times, May 30th.</i></p> + +<p>"Near the Parc Monceaux a husband and wife were seized, and ordered to +march forward towards the Place Vendôme, a distance of a mile and a +half. They were both of them invalids and unable to walk so far. The +woman sat down on the kerbstone, and declined to move a step in spite of +her husband's entreaties that she would try. She persisted in her +refusal, and they both knelt down together, begging the gendarmes who +accompanied them to shoot them at once if shot they were to be. Twenty +revolvers were fired, but they still breathed, and it was only at the +second discharge that they finally sank down dead. The gendarmes then +rode away, leaving the bodies as they had fallen."—<i>Times, May 29th.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXV.—(Page 396.)</p> + +<p>The conservative paper, the <i>Tricolore</i>, said on the 31st May:—</p> + +<p>"Sunday morning, the 24th, out of more than <i>two thousand</i> Federals, one +hundred and eleven of them have been shot in the ditches of Passy, and +that under circumstances which show that the victory [the conclusion of +this nonsensical phrase must be given in the original] <i>était entrée +dans toute la maturité de la situation</i>.</p> + +<p>"'Let those who have white hairs step out from the ranks!' said General +Gallifet, who presided at the execution, and the number of grey-headed +Federals amounted to one hundred and eleven!</p> + +<p>"For these the aggravating circumstance was having been contemporaries +of June, 1848.</p> + +<p>"There is here a new <i>retro-syncopante</i> theory which might take us a +long way back."</p> + +<p>The <i>Liberté</i> of Brussels published the following declaration, signed by +eve-witnesses, of the facts which had occurred at La Muette on the 26th +May, 1871:—</p> + +<p>"On the 26th of last May we formed part of the column of prisoners who +had left the Boulevard Malesherbes at eight o'clock in the morning in +the direction of Versailles. We stopped at the Château of La Muette, +where General Gallifet, after having dismounted from his horse, passed +into our ranks, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span>and then making a choice, he pointed out to the troops +eighty-three men and three women. They were taken away along the talus +of the fortifications and shot before us. After this exploit the General +said to us: '<i>My name is Gallifet. Your journals in Paris have sullied +me enough. I take my revenge.</i>'</p> + +<p>"Thence we were directed to Versailles, where during the journey we were +again obliged to assist at frightful executions of two women and three +men, who, falling down exhausted and being unable to keep up with the +column, were killed with bayonet-thrusts by the <i>sergents de ville</i> +forming our escort."</p> + +<p>The names followed, with the professions and addresses of the signers, +to the number of eleven.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>"The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich and was drawn up +four or five deep on the footway facing to the road. General the Marquis +de Gallifet and his staff, who had preceded us there, dismounted, and +commenced an inspection from the left of the line and near where I was. +Walking down slowly, and eyeing the ranks as if at an inspection, the +General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or +beckoning him out of the rear-ranks. In most cases, without further +parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of +the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed.... +They evidently knew too well that their last hour had come, and it was +fearfully interesting to see their different demeanours. One, already +wounded, his shirt soaked with blood, sat down in the road and howled +with anguish; ... others wept in silence; two soldiers, presumed +deserters, pale but collected, appealed to all the other prisoners as to +whether they had ever seen them amongst their ranks; some smiled +defiantly.... It was an awful thing to see one man thus picking out a +batch of his fellow-creatures to be put to a violent death in a few +minutes without further trial.... A few paces from where I stood, a +mounted officer pointed out to General Gallifet a man and woman for some +particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself +on her knees and with outstretched arms implored mercy, and protested +her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and +then, with most impassable face and unmoved demeanour, said: 'Madame, I +have visited every theatre in Paris; your acting will have no effect on +me' (ce n'est pas la peine de jouer la comédie).... I followed the +General closely down the line, still a prisoner, but honoured with a +special escort of two chasseurs-à-cheval, and endeavoured to arrive at +what guided him in his selections. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span>The result of my observations was +that it was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, +dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one's neighbour. One individual +in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the +ills of this world to his having a broken nose on what might have been +otherwise an ordinary face, and being unable from his height to conceal +it. Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the +column resumed its marching, leaving them behind. In a few minutes +afterwards, a dropping fire in our rear commenced and continued for over +a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily convicted +wretches."—<i>The Daily News, June 8, 1871.</i></p> + +<p>"Yesterday (Sunday, 28th), about one o'clock, General Gallifet appeared +at the head of a column of 6,000 prisoners.... Upon their haggard +countenances and in their downcast eyes there was no ray of hope to be +seen. They were evidently prepared for the worst fate, and dragged +listlessly along, as though it were not worth while to walk to +Versailles to be shot when an immediate execution might save them the +trouble. M. de Gallifet seemed to be of the same opinion, and a little +beyond the Arc-de-Triomphe he halted the column, selected eighty-two, +and had them shot there and then. A little after this a band of twenty +Pompiers were marched into the Parc Monceaux and executed."—<i>The Times, +May 31, 1871.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXVI.—(Page 438.)</p> + +<p>Here is a copy of a letter addressed to the Versaillese general staff, +and probably still in its possession, and bearing the number 28 ibis:—</p> + +<p class="cen">"<i>To the Chief of the General Staff.</i></p> + +<p>"General—I have been mistaken for a M. de Beaufond, and this annoys me +all the more, that negligences committed by him are imputed to me.</p> + +<p>"I have certainly not wasted my time during this period of fifteen days. +I have organised quite a legion of combatants. Their order is to run +away on the approach of the troops, and thus to throw the ranks of the +Federals into disorder.</p> + +<p>"The means indicated by the Committee of A—— seems to be practicable. I +will make use of it. With only one hundred drunkards one can do many a +thing."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXVII.—(Page 444.)</p> + +<p>This, according to the, of course, very approximate report <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span>of General +Appert, is the contingent furnished by the different professions:—528 +jewellers, 124 pasteboard makers, 210 hatters, 328 carpenters, 1,065 +clerks, 1,491 shoemakers, 206 dressmakers, 172 gilders, 636 +cabinetmakers, 1,598 commercial employés, 98 instrument makers, 227 +tin-workers, 224 founders, 182 engravers, 179 watchmakers, 819 +compositors, 159 stained paper printers, 106 teachers, 2,901 day +labourers, 2,293 bricklayers, 1,659 joiners, 193 lace-makers, 863 +house-painters, 106 bookbinders, 283 sculptors, 2,664 locksmiths and +mechanicians, 681 tailors, 347 tanners, 157 moulders, 766 stone-cutters.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">XXXVIII.—(Page 463.)</p> + +<p>Notably in the affair of the spy of the Hautes-Bruyères, for which +several persons had already been condemned. This spy—a young man of +twenty, and not a child, as the reactionists have stated—had attracted +the shells of the enemy to the Federal positions. Brought before a +court-martial, composed of La Cécilia, commander of the army corps, of +Johannard, delegate of the Commune, and of all the chiefs of battalions, +he admitted having taken the Versaillese the plan of the Federal +positions, and having received twenty francs as reward. He was +unanimously condemned to death. At the moment of the execution, +Johannard and Grandier, La Cécilia's aide-de-camp, explained to the +condemned man that he would be pardoned if he would reveal the name of +his accomplice, an inhabitant of Montrouge. He replied, "You are +brigands. <i>Je vous emm....</i>" This fact, odiously travestied, has +furnished Victor Hugo, very ill informed as to this civil war, with a +verse for his "Année Terrible," as unjust to Johannard as to Sérizier, +one of the men shot at Satory. The great poet owes himself a disclaimer.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Thiers and Jules Favre themselves have calumniated Paris +less than Louis Blanc. The first says in the <i>Enquéte sur le 18 Mars</i>, +vol. ii. p. 15: "<i>It is not true, as has been asserted, that I had great +difficulties with the Prussian Government concerning the Commune, or +that it had any predilection for the latter.</i>" Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. +49; "<i>I have seen nothing that could authorise me to accuse either the +Bonapartists or Prussia. General Trochu has been mistaken. I have seen +nothing that could authorise me to accuse the Bonapartists of having +fomented the 18th March. After the insurrection of the 18th March, I +spent my time in refusing the offers which were made me by the Prussians +to assist in the overthrow of the Commune.</i>"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> The <i>Siècle</i>, in search of attenuating circumstances for +the army, had invented this more than phantasmagorial incident.</p></div> + + +<h3>THE END.</h3> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note</p> +<br /> + +Some inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in +the original document has been preserved.<br /> +<br /> +Typographical errors corrected in the text:<br /> +<br /> +Page xii CREUSOT changed to CREUZOT<br /> +Page xii ANSNIÈRES changed to ASNIÈRES<br /> +Page 10 wantel changed to wanted<br /> +Page 10 Strasburg changed to Strasbourg<br /> +Page 12 unheard-off changed to unheard-of<br /> +Page 13 phrenzy changed to frenzy<br /> +Page 16 Lafrançais changed to Lefrançais<br /> +Page 29 seing changed to seeing<br /> +Page 39 sergeants changed to sergents<br /> +Page 51 D'Aurelle's changed to D'Aurelles's<br /> +Page 75 sergeants changed to sergents<br /> +Page 78 posession changed to possession<br /> +Page 81 baracks changed to barracks<br /> +Page 81 Champs changed to Champ<br /> +Page 82 Brunei changed to Brunel<br /> +Page 85 Dou changed to Do<br /> +Page 85 obstain changed to abstain<br /> +Page 106 VEMDÔME changed to VENDÔME<br /> +Page 109 oppresion changed to oppression<br /> +Page 116 Arnand changed to Arnaud<br /> +Page 116 Beuit changed to Bouit<br /> +Page 134 Commisssion changed to Commission<br /> +Page 141 curassiers changed to cuirassiers<br /> +Page 147 motionles changed to motionless<br /> +Page 161 Thiesz changed to Theisz<br /> +Page 167 Molineaux changed to Moulineaux<br /> +Page 169 kepis changed to képis +Page 171 COMMUME changed to COMMUNE<br /> +Page 180 battailons changed to battalions<br /> +Page 181 seing changed to seeing<br /> +Page 190 ASNIERES changed to ASNIÈRES<br /> +Page 192 Slaav changed to Slav<br /> +Page 202 is changed to it<br /> +Page 204 Bourdeaux changed to Bordeaux<br /> +Page 213 Offiee changed to Office<br /> +Page 224 themelves changed to themselves<br /> +Page 244 aut changed to out<br /> +Page 246 Galiffet changed to Gallifet<br /> +Page 250 haid changed to said<br /> +Page 254 Aout changed to Août<br /> +Page 261 Gamlon changed to Gambon<br /> +Page 270 Afer changed to After<br /> +Page 277 Montargies changed to Montargiss<br /> +Page 280 Sebastien changed to Sébastien<br /> +Page 302 voll. changed to vol.<br /> +Page 309 batallion changed to battalion<br /> +Page 319 de changed to the<br /> +Page 323 Sarragossa changed to Saragossa<br /> +Page 329 Pigale changed to Pigalle<br /> +Page 330 carefuly changed to carefully<br /> +Page 333 Hausman changed to Hausmann<br /> +Page 332 run changed to ran<br /> +Page 397 und changed to and<br /> +Page 408 sergeants changed to sergents<br /> +Page 435 Verdagner changed to Verdagnier<br /> +Page 440 Boidenemetz changed to Boisdenemetz<br /> +Page 443 Quinsonnaz changed to Quinsonnas<br /> +Page 462 intransigeants changed to intransigents<br /> +Page 465 fvom changed to from<br /> +Page 465 Committe changed to Committee<br /> +Page 471 Meillot changed to Maillot<br /> +Page 485 Perigeux changed to Perigueux<br /> +Page 487 proclia changed to proelia<br /> +Page 487 cemetry changed to cemetery<br /> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's History of the Commune of 1871, by P. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Commune of 1871 + +Author: P. Lissagary + +Translator: Eleanor Marx-Aveling + +Release Date: May 6, 2011 [EBook #36043] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE OF 1871 *** + + + + +Produced by Odessa Paige Turner, Barbara Kosker and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public +domain material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + HISTORY + OF + THE COMMUNE OF 1871 + + + + + THE REFORMERS' BOOKSHELF. + + _Large crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. each._ + + 1. THE ENGLISH PEASANT: His Past and Present. By RICHARD + HEATH. + + 2. THE LABOUR MOVEMENT. By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A. + Preface by R. B. HALDANE, M.P. + + 3 & 4. SIXTY YEARS OF AN AGITATOR'S LIFE: George Jacob + Holyoake's Autobiography. 2 vols. + + 5 & 6. BAMFORD'S PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A RADICAL. Edited, + and with an Introduction by HENRY DUNCKLEY ("Verax"). 2 vols. + + 7. RICHARD COBDEN AND THE JUBILEE OF FREE TRADE. By P. + LEROY-BEAULIEU, HENRY DUNCKLEY ("Verax"), Dr. THEODOR BARTH, + the Right Hon. LEONARD COURTNEY, M.P., and the Right Hon. + CHARLES VILLIERS, M.P. + + 8 & 9. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY: Lectures on + Political Economy and its History, delivered at Oxford, + 1887-1888. By Professor THOROLD ROGERS. Third edition. 2 vols. + + 10 & 11. THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. + By Professor THOROLD ROGERS. 2 vols. + + 12. THE GLADSTONE COLONY. By JAMES FRANCIS HOGAN, M.P. + + 13 & 14. CHARLES BRADLAUGH: A Record of His Life and Work. + By His Daughter, HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER. 2 vols. + + 15 & 16. THE INNER LIFE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Selected + from the Writings of WILLIAM WHITE, with a Prefatory Note by + his Son, and an Introduction by JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P. + + 17. POLITICAL CRIME. By LOUIS PROAL. + + 18 & 19. THE LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. By JOHN MORLEY. 2 vols. + + LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. + + + + + HISTORY + of + THE COMMUNE OF 1871 + + + + + FROM THE FRENCH OF + LISSAGARAY + + + + + [Illustration] + + + + + LONDON + T. FISHER UNWIN + 1902 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PROLOGUE. + PAGE + HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE 1 + + + CHAPTER I. + + FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS--THE BATTALIONS + OF THE NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR CANNON--THE + PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS 58 + + + CHAPTER II. + + THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE + CONSTITUTES ITSELF--M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT 69 + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH 78 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS--THE MAYORS OF + PARIS AND DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT 88 + + + CHAPTER V. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC + SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS 101 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY + COMBINE AGAINST PARIS--THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE + VENDOME, AND IS PUNISHED 108 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND + CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS TO CAPITULATE 116 + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE 126 + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT 131 + + + CHAPTER X. + + THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE 142 + + + CHAPTER XI. + + THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS + --THE MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE 153 + + + CHAPTER XII. + + SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL--THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED + EVERYWHERE--FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED--THE VERSAILLESE + MASSACRE SOME PRISONERS 162 + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE 171 + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE--THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF + THE COUNCIL--NOMINATION OF CLUSERET--DECREE CONCERNING THE + HOSTAGES--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE--THE BANK 182 + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ANSNIERES--ORGANISATION AND + DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS 190 + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL--THE COMPLIMENTARY ELECTIONS OF + THE 16th APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL--FIRST + DISPUTES--THE GERMS OF DEFEAT 199 + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + OUR PARISIENNES--SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF + NEUILLY--THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS 207 + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + THE PUBLIC SERVICES--FINANCE--WAR--POLICE--EXTERIOR--JUSTICE + --EDUCATION--LABOR AND EXCHANGE 217 + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE--THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE + PART OF ISSY--CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 236 + + + CHAPTER XX. + + ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET--THE RIVALRIES--THE DEFENCE OF THE + FORT OF ISSY 246 + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + PARIS IS BOMBARDED--THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS--THE COUNCIL + ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--ROSSEL FLIES 254 + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE 265 + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES--THE EXTREME + LEFT BETRAYS PARIS 271 + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY-- + EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF ISSY + --THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY--THE EXPLOSION IN THE AVENUE + RAPP--FALL OF THE VENDOME COLUMN 288 + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH 293 + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY, AT THREE + O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON--THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE + DISSOLVES 304 + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + MONDAY 22ND--THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE + EAST--PARIS RISES 313 + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + TUESDAY 23RD--MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN--THE WHOLESALE MASSACRES + --WE LOSE GROUND--PARIS ON FIRE--THE LAST NIGHT OF THE + HOTEL-DE-VILLE 326 + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + + WEDNESDAY 24TH--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE + HOTEL-DE-VILLE--THE PANTHEON IS TAKEN--THE VERSAILLESE SHOOT + THE FEDERALS BY HUNDREDS--THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX HOSTAGES-- + THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON 339 + + + CHAPTER XXX. + + THURSDAY 25TH--THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF + THE TROOPS--DELESCLUZE DIES--THE BRASSARDIERS STIMULATE THE + MASSACRE--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE MAIRIE OF + THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT 353 + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + + THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE--FRIDAY, FORTY-EIGHT + HOSTAGES ARE SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO--SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE + TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS INVADED--THE PERE LACHAISE IS + TAKEN--SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE + MORNING--MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS SURRENDERED 365 + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + + THE VERSAILLESE FURY--THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES--THE PREVOTAL + COURTS--THE DEATH OF VARLIN--THE BURIALS 382 + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + + THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS--THE ORANGERIE--THE ARRESTS--SATORY + --THE DENUNCIATORS--THE PRESS--THE LEFT INSULTS THE + VANQUISHED--DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES 395 + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + + THE PONTOONS--THE FORTS--THE PRISONS--THE FIRST TRIALS 408 + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + + THE COURTS-MARTIAL--THE EXECUTIONS--BALANCE-SHEET OF THE + CONDEMNATIONS 424 + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + + NEW CALEDONIA--EXILE--BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS VENGEANCE + --THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY 445 + + + APPENDIX 467 + + + + +HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE. + +PROLOGUE. + + "Osons, ce mot renferme toute la politique de cette + heure."--_Rapport de St. Just a la Convention._ + + HOW THE PRUSSIANS GOT PARIS AND THE RURALS FRANCE. + + +_August 9, 1870._--In six days the Empire has lost three battles. Douai, +Frossart, MacMahon have allowed themselves to be isolated, surprised, +crashed. Alsace is lost, the Moselle laid bare. The dumbfoundered +Ministry has convoked the Chamber. Ollivier, in dread of a +demonstration, denounces if beforehand as "Prussian." But since eleven +in the morning an immense agitated crowd occupies the Place de la +Concorde, the quays, and surrounds the Corps Legislatif. + +Paris is waiting for the _mot d'ordre_ of the deputies of the Left. +Since the announcement of the defeats they have become the only moral +authority. Bourgeoisie, workingmen, all rally round them. The workshops +have turned their army into the streets, and at the head of the +different groups one sees men of tried energy. + +The Empire totters--it has now only to fall. The troops drawn up before +the Corps Legislatif are greatly excited, ready to turn tail in spite of +the decorated and grumbling Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. The people cry, +"To the frontier." Officers answer aloud, "Our place is not here." + +In the Salle des Pas Perdus well-known Republicans, the men of the +clubs, who have forced their way in, roughly apostrophise the +Imperialist deputies, speak loudly of proclaiming the Republic. The +pale-faced Mamelukes steal behind the groups. M. Thiers arrives and +exclaims, "Well, then, make your republic!" When the President, +Schneider, passes to the chair, he is received with cries of +"Abdication!" + +The deputies of the Left are surrounded by delegates from without. "What +are you waiting for? We are ready. Only show yourselves under the +colonnades at the gates." The honourables seem confounded, stupefied. +"Are you numerous enough? Were it not better to put it off till +to-morrow?" There are indeed only 100,000 men ready. Some one arrives +and tells Gambetta, "There are several thousands of us at the Place +Bourbon." Another, the writer of this history, says, "Make sure of the +situation to-day, when it may still be saved. To-morrow, having become +desperate, it will be forced upon you." But these brains seem paralysed; +no word escapes these gaping mouths. + +The sitting opens. Jules Favre proposes to this base Chamber, the +abettor of our disasters, the humus of the Empire, to seize upon the +government. The Mamelukes rise up in dudgeon, and Jules Simon, hair on +end, returns to us in the Salle des Pas Perdus. "They threaten to shoot +us," he shrieks; "I descended into the midst of the hall and said, +'Well, shoot us.'" We exclaim, "Put an end to this." "Yes," says he, "we +must make an end of it,"--and he returns to the Chamber. + +And thus ended their "damnable faces." The Mamelukes, who know their +Left, recover their self-assurance, throw Ollivier overboard and form a +_coup-d'etat_ Ministry. Schneider precipitately breaks up the sitting in +order to get rid of the crowd. The people, feebly repulsed by the +soldiers, repair in masses to the bridges, follow those who leave the +Chamber, expecting every moment to hear the Republic proclaimed. M. +Jules Simon, out of reach of the bayonets, makes a heroic discourse, and +convokes the people to meet the next day at the Place de la Concorde. +The next day the police occupy all the approaches. + +Thus the Left abandoned to Napoleon III. our two last armies. One effort +would have sufficed to overthrow this pasteboard Empire.[1] The people +instinctively offered their help to render the nation unto herself. The +Left repulsed them, refused to save the country by a riot, and, +confining their efforts to a ridiculous motion, left to the Mamelukes +the care of saving France. The Turks in 1876 showed more intelligence +and elasticity. + +During three weeks it was the story of the Bas-Empire all over +again,--the fettered nation sinking into the abyss in the face of its +motionless governing classes. All Europe cried, "Beware!" They alone +heard not. The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might +ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies +have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them. +The Left exhausts itself in exclamations. On the 12th M. Gambetta cries, +"We must wage Republican war"--and sits down again. On the 13th Jules +Favre demands the creation of a Committee of Defence. It is refused. He +utters no syllable. On the 20th the Ministry announces that Bazaine has +forced three army corps into the quarries of Jaumont; the next day the +whole European press related, on the contrary, that Bazaine, three times +beaten, had been thrown back upon Metz by 200,000 Germans. And no deputy +rises to interpellate the liars! Since the 26th they have known +MacMahon's insane march upon Metz, exposing the last army of France, a +mob of 80,000 conscripts, and vanquished, to 200,000 victorious Germans. +M. Thiers, again restored to favour since the disasters, demonstrates in +the committees and in the lobbies that this march is the way to utter +ruin. The extreme Left says and bruits about that all is lost and of all +these responsible persons seeing the state ship tempest-tossed, not one +raises his hand to seize the helm. + +Since 1813 France had seen no such collapse of the governing classes. +The ineffable dastardliness of the Cent-jours pales before this superior +cowardice; for here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion. Thirteen months +later, at Versailles, I hear, amidst enthusiastic applause, the Empire +apostrophised, "Varus, give us back our legions." Who speaks, who +applauds thus? The same great bourgeoisie, which, for eighteen years +mute and bowed to the dust, offered their legions to Varus. The +bourgeoisie accepted the Second Empire from fear of Socialism, even as +their fathers had submitted to the first to make an end of the +Revolution. Napoleon I. rendered the bourgeoisie two services not +overpaid by his apotheosis. He gave them an iron centralisation and sent +to their graves 15,000 wretches still kindled by the flame of the +Revolution, who at any moment might have claimed the public lands +granted to them. But he left the same bourgeoisie saddled for all +masters. When they possessed themselves of the parliamentary government, +to which Mirabeau wished to raise them at one bound, they were incapable +of governing. Their mutiny of 1830, turned into a revolution by the +people, made the belly master. The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of +1790, had but one thought--to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the +bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat. The +fortune of his country is nothing to him, so that he fatten. To lead, to +compromise France, the parliamentary king has as free license as +Bonaparte. When by a new outburst of the people the bourgeoisie are +compelled to seize the helm after three years, spite of massacre and +proscription, it slips out of their palsied hands into those of the +first comer. + +From 1851 to 1869 they relapse into the same state as after the 18th +Brumaire. Their privileges safe, they allow Napoleon III. to plunder +France, make her the vassal of Rome, dishonour her in Mexico, ruin her +finances, vulgarise debauchery. All-powerful by their retainers and +their wealth, they do not risk a man, a dollar, for the sake of +protesting. In 1869 the pressure from without raises them to the verge +of power; a little strength of will and the government is theirs. They +have but the velleity of the eunuch. At the first sign of the impotent +master they kiss the rod that smote them on the 2nd December, making +room for the plebiscite which rebaptizes the Empire. + +Bismarck prepared the war, Napoleon III. wanted it, the great +bourgeoisie looked on. They might have stopped it by an earnest gesture. +M. Thiers contented himself with a grimace. He saw in this war our +certain ruin; he knew our terrible inferiority in everything; he could +have united the Left, the _tiers-parti_, the journalists, have made +palpable to them the folly of the attack, and, supported by this +strength of opinion, have said to the Tuileries, to Paris if needs be, +"War is impossible; we shall combat it as treason." He, anxious only to +clear himself, simply demanded the despatches instead of speaking the +true word, "You have no chance of success."[2] And these great +bourgeois, who would not have risked the least part of their fortunes +without the most serious guarantees, staked 100,000 lives and the +milliards of France on the word of a Leboeuf and the equivocations of +a Grammont.[3] + +And what then is the small middle-class doing meanwhile? This lean +class, which penetrates everything--industry, commerce, the +administration--mighty by encompassing the people, so vigorous, so ready +in the first days of our Hegira, will it not, as in 1792, rise for the +common weal? Alas! it has been spoilt under the hot corruption of the +Empire. For many years it has lived at random, isolating itself from the +proletariat, whence it issued but yesterday, and whither the great +barons of Capital will hurl it back again to-morrow. No more of that +fraternity with the people, of that zeal for reform, which manifested +themselves from 1830 to 1848. With its bold initiative, its +revolutionary instinct, it loses also the consciousness of its force. +Instead of representing itself, as it might so well do, it goes about in +quest of representatives among the Liberals. + +The friend of the people who will write the history of Liberalism in +France will save us many a convulsion. Sincere Liberalism would be folly +in a country where the governing classes, refusing to concede anything, +constrain every honest man to become a revolutionist. But it was never +anything else than the Jesuitism of liberty, a trick of the bourgeoisie +to isolate the workmen. From Bailly to Jules Favre, the moderantists +have masked the manoeuvres of despotism, buried our revolutions, +conducted the great massacres of proletarians. The old clear-sighted +Parisian sections hated them more than the down right reactionists. +Twice Imperial despotism rehabilitated them, and the small middle-class, +soon forgetting their true part, accepted as defenders those who +pretended to be vanquished like themselves. The men who had made +abortive the movement of 1848 and paved the way for the 2nd December +thus became during the darkness which followed it the acclaimed +vindicators of ravished liberty. At the first dawn they appeared what +they had ever been----the enemies of the working-class. Under the +Empire the Left never condescended to concern itself with the interests +of the workmen. These Liberals never found for them a word, a +protestation, even such as the Chambers of 1830-1848 sometimes +witnessed. The young lawyers whom they had affiliated to themselves soon +revealed their designs, rallying to the Liberal Empire, some openly, +like Ollivier and Darimon, others with prudence, like Picard. For the +timid or ambitious they founded the "open Left," a bench of candidates +for public office; and in 1870 a number of Liberals indeed solicited +official functions. For the "intransigeants" there was the "closed +Left," where the irreconcilable dragons Gambetta, Cremieux, Arago, +Pelletan guarded the pure principles. The chiefs towered in the centre. +These two groups of augurs thus held every fraction of bourgeois +opposition--the timorous and the intrepid. After the plebiscite they +became the holy synod, the uncontested chiefs of the small middle-class, +more and more incapable of governing itself, and alarmed at the +Socialist movement, behind which they showed it the hand of the Emperor. +It gave them full powers, shut its eyes, and allowed itself to drift +gradually towards the parliamentary Empire, big with portfolios for its +patrons. The thunderbolt of the defeats galvanised it into life, but +only for a moment. At the bidding of the deputies to keep quiet, the +small middle-class, the mother of the 10th August, docilely bent its +head and let the foreigner plunge his sword into the very bosom of +France. + +Poor France! Who will save thee? The humble, the poor, those who for six +years contended for thee with the Empire. + +While the upper classes sell the nation for a few hours of rest, and the +Liberals seek to feather their nests under the Empire, a handful of men, +without arms, unprotected, rise up against the still all-powerful +despot. On the one hand, young men who form the bourgeoisie have gone +over to the people, faithful children of 1789, resolved to continue the +work of the Revolution; on the other hand, working-men unite for the +study and the conquest of the rights of labor. In vain the Empire +attempts to split their forces, to seduce the working-men. These see the +snare, hiss the professors of Caesarian socialism, and from 1863, without +journals, without a tribune, affirm themselves as a class, to the great +scandal of the Liberal sycophants, maintaining that 1789 has equalized +all classes. In 1867 they descend into the streets, make a manifestation +at the tomb of Manin, and, despite the bludgeons of the sbirri, protest +against Mentana. At this appearance of a revolutionary socialist party +the Left gnashes its teeth. When some working-men, ignorant of their own +history, ask Jules Favre if the Liberal bourgeoisie will support them on +the day of their rising for the Republic, the leader of the Left +impudently answers, "Gentlemen workmen, you have made the Empire; it is +your business to unmake it." And Picard says, "Socialism does not exist, +or at any rate we will not treat with it." + +Thus set right for the future, the working-men continue the struggle +single-handed. Since the re-opening of the public meetings they fill the +halls, and, in spite of persecution and imprisonment, harass, undermine +the Empire, taking advantage of every accident to inflict a blow. On the +26th October 1869 they threaten to march on the Corps Legislatif; in +November they insult the Tuileries by the election of Rochefort; in +December they goad the Government by the _Marseillaise_; in January, +1870, they go 200,000 strong to the funeral of Victor Noir, and, well +directed, would have swept away the throne. + +The Left, terrified at this multitude, which threatens to overwhelm +them, brands their leaders as desperadoes or as police agents. They, +however, keep to the fore, unmasking the Left, defying them to +discussion, keeping up at the same time a running fire on the Empire. +They form the vanguard against the plebiscite. At the war rumors they +are the first to make a stand. The old dregs of Chauvinism, stirred by +the Bonapartists, discharge their muddy waters. The Liberals remain +impassible or applaud; the workingmen stop the way. On the 15th July, at +the very same hour when Ollivier from the tribune invokes war with a +light heart, the revolutionary socialists crowd the boulevards crying, +"Vive la paix!" and singing the pacific refrain-- + + "Les peuples sont pour nous des freres + Et les tyrans des ennemis." + +From the Chateau d'Eau to the Boulevard St. Denis they are applauded, +but are hissed in the Boulevards Bonne Nouvelle and Montmartre, and come +to blows with certain bands shouting for war. + +The next day they meet again at the Bastille, and parade the streets, +Ranvier, a painter on porcelain, well known in Belleville, marching at +their head with a banner. In the Faubourg Montmartre the +sergents-de-ville charge them with drawn swords. + +Unable to influence the bourgeoisie, they turn to the working-men of +Germany, as they had done in 1869:--"Brothers, we protest against the +war, we who wish for peace, labour, and liberty. Brothers, do not listen +to the hirelings who seek to deceive you as to the real wishes of +France." Their noble appeal received its reward. In 1869 the students of +Berlin had answered the pacific address of the French students with +insults. The working-men of Berlin in 1870 spoke thus to the working-men +of France: "We too wish for peace, labour, and liberty. We know that on +both sides of the Rhine there are brothers with whom we are ready to die +for the Universal Republic." Great prophetic words! Let them be +inscribed on the first page of the Golden Book just opened by the +workmen. + +Thus towards the end of the Empire there was no life, no activity, save +in the ranks of the proletariat and the young men of the middle-class +who had joined them. They alone showed some political courage, and in +the midst of the general paralysis of the month of July 1870, they alone +found the energy to attempt at least the salvation of France. + +They lacked authority; they failed to carry with them the small +middle-class, for which they also combat, because of their utter want of +political experience. How could they have acquired it during eighty +years, when the ruling class not only withheld light from them, but even +the right to enlighten themselves? By an infernal Machiavelism they +forced them to grope their way in the dark, so that they might hand them +over the more easily to dreamers and sectarians. Under the Empire, when +the public meetings and journals reappeared, the political education of +the workmen had still to be effected. Many, abused by morbid minds, in +the belief that their affranchisement depended on a _coup-de-main_, gave +themselves up to whoever spoke of overthrowing the Empire. Others, +convinced that even the most thorough-going bourgeois were hostile to +Socialism, and only courted the people in furtherance of their ambitious +plans, wanted the workmen to constitute themselves into groups +independent of all tutelage. These different currents crossed each +other. The chaotic state of the party of action was laid bare in its +journal, the _Marseillaise_, a hot mish-mash of doctrinaires and +desperate writers united by hatred of the Empire, but without definite +views, and above all, without discipline. Much time was wanted to cool +down the first effervescence and get rid of the romantic rubbish which +twenty years of oppression and want of study had made fashionable. +However, the influence of the Socialists began to prevail, and no doubt +with time they would have classified their ideas, drawn up their +programme, eliminated the mere spouters, entered upon serious action. +Already, in 1869, working-men's societies, founded for mutual credit, +resistance and study, had united in a Federation, whose headquarters +were the Place de la Corderie du Temple. The International, setting +forth the most adequate idea of the revolutionary movement of our +century, under the guidance of Varlin, a bookbinder of rare +intelligence, of Duval, Theisz, Frankel, and a few devoted men, was +beginning to gain power in France. It also met at the Corderie, and +urged on the more slow and reserved workmen's societies. The public +meetings of 1870 no longer resembled the earlier ones; the people wanted +useful discussions. Men like Milliere, Lefrancais, Vermorel, Longuet, +etc., seriously competed with the mere declaimers. But many years would +have been required for the development of the party of labour, hampered +by young bourgeois adventurers in search of a reputation, encumbered +with conspiracy-mongers and romantic visionaries, still ignorant of the +administrative and political mechanism of the bourgeois regime which +they attacked. + +Just before the war some discipline was attempted. Some tried to move +the deputies of the Left, and met them at Cremieux'. They found them +stupefied, more afraid of a _coup-d'etat_ than of the Prussian +victories. Cremieux, pressed to act, answered naively, "Let us wait for +a new disaster, as, for instance, the fall of Strasbourg." + +It was indeed necessary to wait, for without these shadows nothing could +be done. The small Parisian middle-class believed in the extreme Left, +as it had believed in our armies. Those who wished to do without them +failed. On the 14th the friends of Blanqui attempted to raise the +outlying districts, attacked the quarters of the firemen of La Villette, +and put the sergents-de-ville to flight. Masters of the field, they +traversed the boulevard up to Belleville, crying, "Vive la Republique! +Death to the Prussians!" No one joined them. The crowd looked on from +afar, astonished, motionless, rendered suspicious by the police agents, +who thus drew them off from the real enemy--the Empire. The Left +pretended to believe in the Prussian agent, to reassure the bourgeoisie, +and Gambetta demanded the immediate trial of the prisoners of La +Villette. The Minister Palikao had to remind him that certain forms must +be observed, even by military justice. The court-martial condemned ten +to death, although almost all the accused had had nothing to do with the +affray. Some true-hearted men, wishing to prevent these executions, went +to Michelet, who wrote a touching letter on their behalf. The Empire had +no time to carry out the sentences. + +Since the 25th MacMahon was leading his army into the snares laid by +Moltke. On the 29th, surprised and beaten at Beaumont l'Argonne, he knew +himself overreached, and yet pushed forward. Palikao had written to him +on the 27th: "If you abandon Bazaine we shall have the Revolution in +Paris." And to ward off the Revolution he exposed France. On the 30th he +threw his troops into the pit of Sedan; on the 1st September the army +was surrounded by 200,000 enemies, and 700 cannons crowned the heights. +The next day Napoleon III. delivered up his sword to the King of +Prussia. The telegraph announced it; all Europe knew it that same night. +The deputies, however, were silent; they remained so on the 3rd. On the +4th only, at midnight, after Paris had passed through a day of feverish +excitement, they made up their minds to speak. Jules Favre demanded the +abolition of the Empire and a Commission charged with the defence, but +took care not to touch the Chamber. During the day some men of tried +energy had attempted to raise the boulevards, and in the evening an +anxious crowd pressed against the railings of the Corps Legislatif, +crying: "Vive la Republique." Gambetta met them and said, "You are +wrong; we must remain united; make no revolution." Jules Favre, +surrounded on his leaving the Chamber, strove to calm the people. + +If Paris had been guided by the Left, France would have capitulated that +very hour more shamefully than Napoleon III. But on the morning of the +4th of September the people assemble, and amongst them National Guards +armed with their muskets. The astonished gendarmes give way to them. +Little by little the Corps Legislatif is invaded. At ten o'clock +notwithstanding the desperate efforts of the Left, the crowd fills the +galleries. It is time. The Chamber, on the point of forming a Ministry, +try to seize the government. The Left support this combination with all +its might, waxing indignant at the mere mention of a Republic. When that +cry bursts forth from the galleries, Gambetta makes unheard-of efforts +and conjures the people to await the result of the deliberations of the +Chamber,--a result known beforehand. It is the project of M. Thiers: a +Government Commission named by the Assembly; peace demanded and accepted +at any price; after that disgrace, the parliamentary monarchy. Happily a +new crowd of invaders bursts its way through the doors, while the +occupants of the galleries glide into the hall. The people expel the +deputies. Gambetta, forced to the tribune, is obliged to announce the +abolition of the Empire. The crowd, wanting more than this, asks for the +Republic, and carries off the deputies to proclaim it at the +Hotel-de-Ville. + +This was already in the hands of the people. In the Salle du Trone were +some of those who for a month had attempted to rouse public opinion. +First on the ground, they might, with a little discipline, have +influenced the constitution of the government. The Left surprised them +haranguing, and, incited by an acclaiming multitude, Jules Favre took +the chair, which Milliere gave up to him, saying, "At the present moment +there is but one matter at stake--the expulsion of the Prussians."[4] +Jules Favre, Jules Simon, Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Cremieux, Emmanuel +Arago, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Picard, uniting, +proclaimed themselves the Government, and read their own names to the +crowd, which answered by adding those of men like Delescluze, +Ledru-Rollin, Blanqui. They, however, declared they would accept no +colleagues but the deputies of Paris. The crowd applauded. This frenzy +of just-emancipated serfs made the Left masters. They were clever enough +to admit Rochefort. + +They next applied to General Trochu, named governor of Paris by +Napoleon. This general had become the idol of the Liberals because he +had sulked a little with the Empire.[5] His whole military glory +consisted in a few pamphlets. The Left had seen much of him during the +last crisis. Having attained to power, it begged him to direct the +defence. He asked, firstly, a place for God in the new regime; secondly, +for himself the presidency of the council. He obtained everything. The +future will show what secret bond so quickly united the men of the Left +to the loyal Breton who had promised "to die on the steps of the +Tuileries in defence of the dynasty."[6] + +Twelve individuals thus took possession of France. They invoked no other +title than their mandate as representatives of Paris, and declared +themselves legitimate by popular acclamation. + +In the evening the International and syndicates of the workmen sent +delegates to the Hotel-de-Ville. They had on the same day sent a new +address to the German workingmen. Their fraternal duty fulfilled, the +French workmen gave themselves up to the defence. Let the Government +organize it and they would stay by it. The most suspicious were taken +in. On the 7th, in the first number of his paper _La Patrie en Danger_, +Blanqui and his friends offered the Government their most energetic, +their absolute co-operation. + +All Paris abandoned itself to the men of the Hotel-de-Ville, forgetting +their late defections, investing them with the grandeur of the danger. +To seize, to monopolize the government at such a moment, seemed a stroke +of audacity of which genius alone is capable. Paris, deprived for eighty +years of her municipal liberties, accepted as mayor the lachrymose +Etienne Arago. In the twenty arrondissements he named the mayors he +liked, and they again named the adjuncts agreeable to themselves. But +Arago announced early elections and spoke of reviving the great days of +1792. At this moment Jules Favre, proud as Danton, cried to Prussia, to +Europe, "We will cede neither an inch of our territories nor a stone of +our fortresses," and Paris rapturously applauded this dictatorship +announcing itself with words so heroic. On the 14th, when Trochu held +the review of the National Guard, 250,000 men stationed in the +boulevards, the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs-Elysees cheered +enthusiastically, and renewed a vow like that of their fathers on the +morning of Valmy. + +Yes, Paris gave herself up without reserve--incurable confidence--to +that same Left to which she had been forced to do violence in order to +make her revolution. Her outburst of will lasted but for an hour. The +Empire once overthrown, she re-abdicated. In vain did far-seeing +patriots try to keep her on the alert; in vain did Blanqui write, "Paris +is no more impregnable than we were invincible. Paris, mystified by a +braggart press, ignores the greatness of the peril; Paris abuses +confidence." Paris abandoned herself to her new masters, obstinately +shutting her eyes. And yet each day brought with it new ill omens. The +shadow of the siege approached, and the Government of Defence, far from +removing the superfluous mouths, crowded the 200,000 inhabitants of the +suburbs into the town. The exterior works did not advance. Instead of +throwing all Paris into the work, and taking these descendants of the +levellers of the Champ-de-Mars out of the enceinte in troops of 100,000, +drums beating, banners flying, Trochu abandoned the earthworks to the +ordinary contractors. The heights of Chatillon, the key to our forts of +the south, had hardly been surveyed, when on the 19th the enemy +presented himself, sweeping from the plateau an affrighted troop of +zouaves and soldiers who did not wish to fight. The following day, that +Paris which the press had declared could not be invested, was surrounded +and cut off from France. + +This gross ignorance very soon alarmed the Revolutionists. They had +promised their support, but not blind faith. Since the 4th September, +wishing to centralise the forces of the party of action for the defence +and the maintenance of the Republic, they had invited the public +meetings in each arrondissement to name a Committee of Vigilance charged +to control the mayors and to delegate four members to a Central +Committee of the twenty arrondissements. This tumultuous mode of +election had resulted in a committee composed of working-men, employes, +authors, known in the revolutionary movements of the last years. This +committee had established itself in the hall of the Rue de la Corderie, +lent by the International and the Federation of the syndicates. + +These had almost suspended their work, the service of the National Guard +absorbing all their activity. Some of their members again met in the +Committee of Vigilance and in the Central Committee, which caused the +latter to be erroneously attributed to the International. On the 4th it +demanded by a manifesto the election of the municipalities, the police +to be placed in their hands, the election and control of all the +magistrates, absolute freedom of the press, public meeting and +association, the expropriation of all articles of primary necessity, +their distribution by allowance, the arming of all citizens, the sending +of commissioners to rouse the provinces. But Paris was then infected +with a fit of confidence. The bourgeois journals denounced the committee +as Prussian. The names of some of the signers were, however, well known +in the meetings and to the press: Ranvier, Milliere, Longuet, Valles, +Lefrancais, Mallon, etc. Their placards were torn down. + +On the 20th, after Jules Favre's application to Bismarck, the Committee +held a large meeting in the Alcazar and sent a deputation to the +Hotel-de-Ville to demand war _a outrance_ and the early election of the +Commune of Paris. Jules Ferry gave his word of honour that the +government would not treat at any price, and announced the municipal +elections for the end of the month. Two days after a decree postponed +them indefinitely. + +Thus this Government, which in seventeen days had prepared nothing, +which had allowed itself to be blocked up without even a struggle, +refused the advice of Paris, and more than ever arrogated to itself the +right of directing the defence. Did it then possess the secret of +victory? Trochu had just said, "The resistance is a heroic madness;" +Picard, "We shall defend ourselves for honour's sake, but all hope is +chimerical;" the elegant Cremieux, "The Prussians will enter Paris like +a knife goes into butter;"[7] the chief of Trochu's staff, "We cannot +defend ourselves; we have decided not to defend ourselves;"[8] and, +instead of honestly warning Paris, saying, "Capitulate at once or +conduct the combat yourselves," these men, who declared defence +impossible, claimed its undivided direction. + +What then is their aim? To negotiate. Since the first defeats they have +no other. The reverses which exalted our fathers only made the Left more +cowardly than the Imperialist deputies. On the 7th of August Jules +Favre, Jules Simon, and Pelletan had said to Schneider, "We cannot hold +out; we must come to terms as soon as possible."[9] All the following +days the left had only one plan of policy--to urge the Chamber to +possess itself of the government in order to negotiate, hoping to get +into office afterwards. Hardly established, these defenders sent M. +Thiers all over Europe to beg for peace, and Jules Favre to run after +Bismarck to ask his conditions,[10]--a step that revealed to the +Prussian with what tremblers he had to deal. + +When all Paris cried to them, "Defend us; drive back the enemy," they +applauded, accepted, but said to themselves, "You shall capitulate." +There is no more crying treason in history. The asinine confidence of +the immense majority no more diminishes the crime than the foolishness +of the dupe excuses the cheater. Did the men of the 4th September, yes +or no, betray the mandate they received? "Yes," will be the verdict of +the future. + +A tacit mandate, it is true, but so clear, so formal, that all Paris +started at the news of the proceedings at Ferrieres. If the Defenders +had gone a step farther, they would have been swept away. They were +obliged to adjourn, to give way to what they termed the "madness of the +siege," to simulate a defence. In point of fact, they did not abandon +their idea for an hour, esteeming themselves the only men in Paris who +had not lost their heads. + +"There shall be fighting since those Parisians will have it so, but only +with the view to soften Bismarck." On his return from the review, this +scene of hopeful enthusiasm manifested by 250,000 armed men is said to +have affected Trochu, who announced that it would perhaps be possible to +hold the ramparts.[11] Such was the maximum of his enthusiasm: to hold +out--not to open the gates. As to drilling or organising these 250,000 +men, uniting them with the 240,000 mobiles, soldiers and marines +gathered together in Paris, and with all these forces forming a powerful +scourge to drive the enemy back to the Rhine, of this he never dreamt. +His colleagues thought of it as little, and only discussed with him the +more or less cavilling they might venture upon with the Prussian +invader. + +He was all for mild proceedings. His devoutness forbade him to shed +useless blood. Since, according to all military manuals, the great town +was to fall, he would make that fall as little sanguinary as possible. +Besides, the return of M. Thiers, who might at any moment bring back the +treaty, was waited for. Leaving the enemy to establish himself +tranquilly round Paris, Trochu organised a few skirmishes for the +lookers-on. One single serious engagement took place on the 30th at +Chevilly, when, after a success, we retreated, abandoning a battery for +want of reinforcements and teams. Public opinion still hoaxed by the +same men that had cried, "A Berlin," believed in a success. The +Revolutionists only were not taken in. The capitulation of Toul and of +Strasbourg was to them a solemn warning. Flourens, chief of the 63d +battalion, but who was the real commander of Belleville, could no longer +restrain himself. With the head and heart of a child, an ardent +imagination, guided only by his own impulse, Flourens conducted his +battalions to the Hotel-de-Ville, demanded the _levee en masse_, +sorties, municipal elections, and the putting the town on short rations. +Trochu, who, to amuse him, had given him the title of major of the +rampart, made an elaborate discourse; the twelve apostles argued with +him, and wound up by showing him out. As delegates came from all sides +to demand that Paris should have a voice in her own defence, should name +a council, her Commune, the Government declared on the 7th that their +dignity forbade them to concede these behests. This insolence caused the +movement of the 8th October. The committee of the twenty arrondissements +protested in an energetic placard. Seven or eight hundred persons cried +"Vive la Commune" under the windows of the Hotel-de-Ville. But the +multitude had not yet lost faith. A great number of battalions hastened +to the rescue; the Government passed them in review. Jules Favre opened +the flood-gates of his rhetoric and declared the election impossible +because--unanswerable reason!--everybody ought to be at the ramparts. + +The majority greedily swallowed the bait. On the 16th Trochu having +written to his crony Etienne Arago, "I shall pursue the plan I have +traced for myself to the end," the loungers announced a victory, and +took up the burden of their August song on Bazaine, "Let him alone; he +has his plan." The agitators looked like Prussians, for Trochu, as a +good Jesuit, had not failed to speak of "a small number of men whose +culpable views serve the projects of the enemy." Then Paris allowed +herself during the whole month of October to be rocked asleep to the +sound of expeditions commencing with success and always terminated by +retreats. On the 13th we took Bagneux, and a spirited attack would have +repossessed us of Chatillon: Trochu had no reserves. On the 21st a march +on the Malmaison revealed the weakness of the investment and spread +panic even to Versailles. Instead of pressing forward, General Ducrot +engaged only six thousand men, and the enemy repulsed him, taking two +cannons. The Government transformed these repulses into successful +reconnoitres, and coined money out of the despatches of Gambetta, who, +sent to the provinces on the 8th, announced imaginary armies, and +intoxicated Paris with the account of the brilliant defence of +Chateaudun. + +The mayors encouraged this pleasant confidence. They sat at the +Hotel-de-Ville with their adjuncts, and this Assembly of sixty-four +members could have seen clearly what the Defence was if they had had the +least courage. But it was composed of those Liberals and Republicans of +whom the Left is the last expression. They knocked at the door of the +Government now and then, timidly interrogated it, and received only +vague assurances, in which they did not believe,[12] but made every +effort to make Paris believe. + +But at the Corderie, in the clubs, in the paper of Blanqui, in the +_Reveil_ of Delescluze, in the _Combat_ of Felix Pyat, the plan of the +men of the Hotel-de-Ville is exposed. What mean these partial sorties +which are never sustained? Why is the National Guard hardly armed, +unorganized, withheld from every military action? Why is the casting of +cannon not proceeded with? Six weeks of idle talk and inactivity cannot +leave the least doubt as to the incapacity or ill-will of the +Government. This same thought occupies all minds. Let the sceptics make +room for those that believe in the Defence; let Paris regain possession +of herself; let the Commune of 1792 be revived to again save the city +and France. Every day this resolution sinks more deeply into virile +minds. On the 27th the _Combat_, which preached the Commune in +high-flown phraseology whose musical rhythm struck the masses more than +the nervous dialectics of Blanqui, hurls a terrific thunderbolt. +"Bazaine is about to surrender Metz, to treat for peace in the name of +Napoleon III.; his aide-de-camp is at Versailles." The Hotel-de-Ville +immediately contradicted this news, "as infamous as it is false. The +glorious soldier Bazaine has not ceased harassing the besieging army +with brilliant sorties." The Government called down upon the journalist +"the chastisement of public opinion." At this appeal the drones of Paris +buzzed, burnt the journal, and would have torn the journalist to pieces +if he had not decamped. The next day the _Combat_ declared that they had +the statement from Rochefort, to whom Flourens had communicated it. +Other complications followed. On the 20th a surprise made us masters of +Bourget, a village in the northeast of Paris, and on the 29th the +general staff announced this success as a triumph. The whole day it left +our soldiers without food, without reinforcements, under the fire of the +Prussians, who, returning on the 30th 15,000 strong, recovered the +village from its 1,600 defenders. On the 31st of October, Paris on +awaking received the news of three disasters: the loss of Bourget, the +capitulation of Metz, together with the whole army of the "glorious +Bazaine," and the arrival of M. Thiers for the purpose of negotiating an +armistice. + +The men of the 4th September believed they were saved, that their goal +was reached. They had placarded the armistice side by side with the +capitulation, "good and bad news,"[13] convinced that Paris, despairing +of victory, would accept peace with open arms. Paris started up as with +an electric shock, at the same time rousing Marseilles, Toulouse, and +Saint-Etienne. There was such spontaneity of indignation, that from +eleven o'clock, in pouring rain, the masses came to the Hotel-de-Ville +crying "No armistice." Notwithstanding the resistance of the mobiles who +defended the entrance, they invaded the vestibule. Arago and his +adjuncts hastened thither, swore that the Government was exhausting +itself in efforts to save us. The first crowd retired; a second followed +hard upon. At twelve o'clock Trochu appeared at the foot of the +staircase, thinking to extricate himself by a harangue; cries of "Down +with Trochu" answered him. Jules Simon relieved him, and, confident in +his rhetoric, even went to the square in front of the Hotel-de-Ville and +expatiated upon the comforts of the armistice. The people cried "No +armistice." He only succeeded in backing out by asking the crowd to name +six delegates to accompany him to the Hotel-de-Ville. Trochu, Jules +Favre, Jules Ferry, and Picard received them. Trochu in Ciceronic +periods demonstrated the uselessness of Bourget, and pretended that he +had only just learnt the capitulation of Metz. A voice cried, "You are a +liar." A deputation from the Committee of the twenty arrondissements and +of the Committees of Vigilance had entered the hall a little while +before. Others, wishing to pump Trochu, invited him to continue his +speech. He recommenced, when a shot was fired in the square, putting an +end to the monologue and scaring away the orator. Calm being +re-established, Jules Favre supplied the place of the general, and took +up the thread of his discourse. + +While these scenes were going on in the Salle du Trone, the mayors, so +long the accomplices of Trochu, were deliberating in the hall of the +municipal council. To quell the riot, they proposed the election of +municipalities, the formation of battalions of the National Guard, and +their joining them to the army. The scapegoat Etienne Aragot was sent to +offer this salve to the Government. At two o'clock an immense crowd +inundated the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, crying, "Down with Trochu! Vive +la Commune!" and carrying banners with the inscription "No armistice." +They had several times come into collision with the mobiles. The +delegates who entered the Hotel-de-Ville brought no answer. About three +o'clock, the crowd, growing impatient, rushed forward, breaking through +the mobiles, and forcing Felix Pyat, come to the Hotel-de-Ville as a +sight-seer, into the Salle des Maires. He exclaimed, struggled, +protested that this was against all rules. The mayors supported him as +well as they could, and announced that they had demanded the election of +the municipalities, and that the decree in that sense was about to be +signed. The multitude, still pushing forward, goes up to the Salle du +Trone, cutting short the oration of Jules Favre, who had rejoined his +colleagues in the Government-room. + +While the people were thundering at the door, the Defenders voted the +proposition of the mayors--but in principle--not fixing the date for the +elections,[14]--another jesuitical trick. Towards four o'clock the mass +penetrated into the room. Rochefort in vain promised the municipal +elections. They asked for the Commune! One of the delegates of the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements, getting upon the table, +proclaimed the abolition of the Government. A Commission was charged to +proceed with the elections within forty-eight hours. The names of +Dorian, the only Minister who had taken the defence to heart, of Louis +Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, Victor Hugo, Raspail, Delescluze, Felix Pyat, +Blanqui and Milliere were received with acclamation. + +Had this Commission seized on authority, cleared the Hotel-de-Ville, +posted up a proclamation convoking the electors with the briefest +delay, the day's work would have been beneficially concluded. But Dorian +refused. Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Ledru-Rollin, Raspail, Felix Pyat +remained silent or turned tail altogether. Flourens had time to come up. +He broke in upon the assembly with his tirailleurs of Belleville, got +upon the table round which were gathered the members of the Government, +and instead of a Commune proposed a Committee of Public Safety. Some +applauded, others protested, declaring the question was not to +substitute one kind of dictatorship for another. Flourens got the upper +hand, read the names, his own first, then those of Blanqui, Delescluze, +Milliere, Ranvier, Felix Pyat, and Mottu. Interminable discussions +followed, the disorder became terrible. The men of the 4th September +felt they were saved, and smiled as they looked at the conquerors who +allowed victory to slip through their fingers. + +Thenceforth all became involved in an inextricable imbroglio. Every room +had its government, its orators. The confusion was such that about eight +o'clock reactionary National Guards could, under Flourens' nose, pick up +Trochu and Jules Ferry, while others carried off Blanqui when some +franc-tireurs tried to rescue him. In the cabinet of the mayor, Etienne +Arago and his adjuncts convoked the electors for the next day under the +presidency of Dorian and Schoelcher. Towards ten o'clock their placard +was posted up in Paris. + +The whole day Paris had looked on. "On the morning of the 31st October," +says Jules Ferry, "the Parisian population, from highest to lowest, was +absolutely hostile to us.[15] Everybody thought we deserved to be +dismissed." Not only did Trochu's battalions not stir, but one of the +best, led to the succour of the Government by General Tamisier, +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, raised the butt end of their +guns on arriving at the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville. In the evening +everything changed when it became known that the members of the +Government were prisoners, and above all who were their substitutes. +The measure seemed too strong. Such a one, who might have accepted +Ledru-Rollin or Victor Hugo, could not make up his mind to Flourens and +Blanqui.[16] In vain the whole day drums had been beating to arms; in +the evening they proved effective. Battalions refractory in the morning +arrived at the Place Vendome, most of them believing, it is true, that +the elections had been granted; an assemblage of officers at the Bourse +only consented to wait for the regular vote on the strength of Dorian +and Schoelcher's placard. Trochu and the deserters from the +Hotel-de-Ville again found their faithful flock. The Hotel-de-Ville, on +the other hand, was getting empty. + +Most of the battalions of the Commune, believing their cause victorious, +had returned to their quarters. In the edifice there remained hardly a +thousand unarmed men, the only troops being Flourens' unmanageable +tirailleurs, while he wandered up and down amidst this mob. Blanqui +signed and again signed. Delescluze tried to save some remnants from +this great movement. He saw Dorian, received the formal assurance that +the elections of the Commune would take place the next day, those of the +Provisional Government the day after; put these assurances upon record +in a note where the insurrectional committee declared itself willing to +wait for the elections, and had it signed by Milliere, Flourens and +Blanqui. Milliere and Dorian went to communicate this document to the +members of the Defence. Milliere proposed to them to leave the +Hotel-de-Ville together, while charging Dorian and Schoelcher to +proceed with the elections, but on the express condition that no +prosecutions were to take place. The members of the Defence +accepted,[17] and Milliere was just saying to them, "Gentlemen, you are +free," when the National Guards asked for written engagements. The +prisoners became indignant that their word should be doubted, while +Milliere and Flourens could not make the Guards understand that +signatures are illusory. During this mortal anarchy the battalions of +order grew larger, and Jules Ferry attacked the door opening on to the +Place Lobau. Delescluze and Dorian informed him of the arrangement which +they believed concluded, and induced him to wait. At three o'clock in +the morning chaos still reigned supreme. Trochu's drums were beating on +the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville. A battalion of Breton mobiles debouched +in the midst of the Hotel-de-Ville through the subterranean passage of +the Napoleon Barracks, surprised and disarmed many of the tirailleurs. +Jules Ferry invaded the Government-room. The indisciplinable mass +offered no resistance. Jules Favre and his colleagues were set free. As +the Bretons became menacing, General Tamisier reminded them of the +convention entered upon during the evening, and, as a pledge of mutual +oblivion, left the Hotel-de-Ville between Blanqui and Flourens. Trochu +paraded the streets amidst the pompous pageantry of his battalions. + +Thus this day, which might have buoyed up the Defence, ended in smoke. +The desultoriness, the indiscipline of the patriots restored to the +Government its immaculate character of September. It took advantage of +it that very night to tear down the placards of Dorian and Schoelcher; +it accorded the municipal elections for the 5th, but in exchange +demanded a plebiscite, putting the question in the Imperialist style, +"Those who wish to maintain the Government will vote _aye_." In vain the +Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a manifesto; in vain the +_Reveil_, the _Patrie en Danger_, the _Combat_, enumerated the hundred +reasons which made it necessary to answer _No_. Six months after the +plebiscite which had made the war, the immense majority of Paris voted +the plebiscite that made the capitulation. Let Paris remember and accuse +herself. For fear of two or three men she opened fresh credit to this +Government which added incapacity to insolence, and said to it, "I want +you," 322,000 times. The army, the mobiles, gave 237,000 ayes. There +were but 54,000 civilians and 9,000 soldiers to say boldly, _no_. + +How did it happen that those 60,000 men, so clear-sighted, prompt, and +energetic, could not manage to direct public opinion? Simply because +they were wanting in _cadres_, in method, in organizers. The fever of +the siege had been unable to discipline the revolutionary party, in such +dire confusion a few weeks before, nor had the patriarchs of 1848 tried +to do so. The Jacobins like Delescluze and Blanqui, instead of leading +the people, lived in an exclusive circle of friends. Felix Pyat, +vibrating between just ideas and literary epilepsy, only became +practical[18] when he had to save his own skin. The others, +Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, the hope of the Republicans +under the Empire, returned from exile shallow, pursy, rotten to the core +with vanity and selfishness, without courage or patriotism, disdaining +the Socialists. The dandies of Jacobinism, who called themselves +Radicals, Floquet, Clemenceau, Brinon, and other democratic politicians, +carefully kept aloof from the working-men. The old Montagnards +themselves formed a group of their own, and never came to the Committee +of the twenty arrondissements, which only wanted method and political +experience to become a power. So it was only a centre of emotions, not +of direction,--the Gravilliers section of 1870-71, daring, eloquent, +but, like its predecessor, treating of everything by manifestoes. + +There at least was life, a lamp, not always bright, but always burning. +What is the small middle-class contributing now? Where are their +Jacobins, even their Cordeliers? At the Corderie I see the proletariat +of the small middle-class, men of the pen and orators, but where is the +bulk of the army? + +All is silent. Save the faubourgs, Paris was a vast sick chamber, where +no one dared to speak above his breath. This moral abdication is the +true psychological phenomenon of the siege, all the more extraordinary +that it co-existed with an admirable ardour for resistance. Men who +speak of going to seek death with their wives and children, who say, "We +will burn our houses rather than surrender them to the enemy,"[19] get +angry at any controversy as to the power intrusted to the men of the +Hotel-de-Ville. If they dread the giddy-headed, the fanatics, or +compromising collaborators, why do they not take the direction of the +movement into their own hands? But they confine themselves to crying, +"No insurrection before the enemy! No fanatics!" as though capitulation +were better than an insurrection; as though the 10th of August 1792 and +31st May 1793 had not been insurrections before the enemy; as though +there were no medium between abdication and delirium. And you, citizens +of the old sections of 1792-93, who furnished ideas to the Convention +and the Commune, who dictated to them the means of safety, who directed +the clubs and fraternal societies, entertained in Paris a hundred +luminous centres, say, do you recognise your offspring in these gulls, +weaklings, jealous of the people, prostrate before the Left like +devotees before the host? + +On the 5th and 7th they renewed their plebiscitory vote, naming twelve +of the twenty mayors named by Arago, four amongst them, Dubail, +Vautrain, Tirard, and Desmarets, belonging to the pure reaction. The +greater part of the adjuncts were of the Liberal type. The faubourgs, +always at their post, elected Delescluze in the nineteenth +arrondissement and Ranvier, Milliere, Lefrancais, and Flourens in the +twentieth. These latter could not take their seats. The Government, +violating the convention of Dorian and Tamisier, had issued warrants for +their arrest, and for that of about twenty other revolutionists.[20] +Thus, out of seventy-five effective members, mayors and adjuncts, there +were not ten revolutionists. + +These shadows of municipal councillors looked upon themselves as the +stewards of the Defence, forbade themselves any indiscreet question, +were on their best behaviour, feeding and administering Trochu's +patient. They allowed the insolent and incapable Ferry to be appointed +to the central mairie, and Clement-Thomas, the executioner of June 1848, +to be made commander-in-chief of the National Guard. For seventy days, +feeling the pulse of Paris growing from hour to hour more weak, they +never had the honesty, the courage to say to the Government, "Where are +you leading us?" + +Nothing was lost in the beginning of November. The army, the mobiles, +the marines numbered, according to the plebiscite, 246,000 men and 7,500 +officers: 125,000 National Guards capable of serving a campaign might +easily have been picked out in Paris, and 129,000 left for the defence +of the interior.[21] The necessary armaments might have been furnished +in a few weeks, the cannon especially, every one depriving himself of +bread in order to endow his battalion with five pieces, the traditional +pride of the Parisians. "Where find 9,000 artillerists?" said Trochu. +Why, in every Parisian mechanic there is the stuff of a gunner, as the +Commune has sufficiently proved. In everything else there was the same +superabundance. Paris swarmed with engineers, overseers, foremen, who +might have been drilled into officers. There lying wasted were all the +materials for a victorious army. + +The gouty martinets of the regular army saw here nothing but barbarism. +This Paris, for which Hoche, Marceau, Kleber would have been neither too +young, nor too faithful, nor too pure, had for generals the residue of +the Empire and Orleanism, Vinoy of December, Ducrot, Luzanne, Leflo, and +a fossil like Chabaud-Latour. In their pleasant intimacy they made much +fun of the defence.[22] Finding, however, that the joke was lasting a +little too long, the 31st October enraged them. They conceived an +implacable, rabid hatred to the National Guard, and up to the last hour +refused to utilise it. + +Instead of amalgamating the forces of Paris, of giving to all the same +_cadres_, the same uniforms, the same flag, the proud name of National +Guard, Trochu had maintained the three divisions: the army, mobiles, and +civilians. This was the natural consequence of his opinion of the +Defence. The army, incited by the staff, shared its hatred of Paris, who +imposed on it, it was said, useless fatigues. The mobiles of the +provinces, prompted by their officers, the cream of the country squires, +became also embittered. All, seeing the National Guard despised, +despised it, calling them, "_Les a outrance! Les trente sous!_" (Since +the siege the Parisians received thirty sous--1s. 2-1/2d.--as indemnity.) +Collisions were to be feared every day.[23] + +The 31st of October changed nothing in the real state of affairs. The +Government broke off the negotiations, which, notwithstanding their +victory, they could not have pursued without foundering, decreed the +creation of marching companies in the National Guard, and accelerated +the cannon-founding, but did not believe a whit the more in defence, +still steered towards peace. Riots formed the chief subject of their +preoccupation.[24] It was not only from the "folly of the siege" that +they wished to save Paris, but above all from the revolutionists. In +this direction they were pushed on by the great bourgeoisie. Before the +4th September the latter had declared they "would not fight if the +working-class were armed, and if it had any chance of prevailing;"[25] +and on the evening of the 4th September Jules Favre and Jules Simon had +gone to the Corps Legislatif to reassure them, to explain to them that +the new tenants would not damage the house. But the irresistible force +of events had provided the proletariat with arms, and to make them +inefficient in their hands became now the supreme aim of the +bourgeoisie. For two months they had been biding their time, and the +plebiscite told them it had come. Trochu held Paris, and by the clergy +they held Trochu, all the closer that he believed himself to be amenable +only to his conscience. Strange conscience, full of trap-doors, with +more complications than those of a theatre. Since the 4th of September +the General had made it his duty to deceive Paris, saying, "I shall +surrender thee, but it is for thy good." After the 31st October he +believed his mission two-fold--saw in himself the archangel, the St. +Michael of threatened society. This marks the second period of the +defence. It may perhaps be traced to a cabinet in the Rue des Postes, +for the chiefs of the clergy saw more clearly than any one else the +danger of inuring the working-men to war. Their intrigues were full of +cunning. Violent reactionists would have spoilt all, precipitated Paris +into a revolution. They applied subtle tricks in their subterranean +work, watching Trochu's every movement, whetting his antipathy to the +National Guard, penetrating everywhere into the general staff, the +ambulances, even the mairies. Like the fisherman struggling with too big +a prey, they bewildered Paris, now apparently allowing her to swim in +her own element, than suddenly weakening her by the harpoon. On the 28th +November Trochu gave a first performance to a full-band accompaniment. +General Ducrot, who commanded, presented himself like a Leonidas: "I +take the oath before you, before the whole nation. I shall return to +Paris dead or victorious. You may see me fall; you will never see me +retreat." This proclamation exalted Paris. She fancied herself on the +eve of Jemmappes, when the Parisian volunteers scaled the +artillery-defended heights; for this time the National Guard was to take +part in the proceedings. + +We were to force an opening by the Marne in order to join the mythic +armies of the provinces, and cross the river at Nogent. Ducrot's +engineer had taken his measures badly; the bridges were not in a fit +state. It was necessary to wait till the next day. The enemy, instead of +being surprised, was able to put himself on the defensive. On the 30th a +spirited assault made us masters of Champigny. The next day Ducrot +remained inactive, while the enemy, disgarnishing Versailles, +accumulated its forces upon Champigny. On the 2nd they recovered part of +the village. The whole day we fought severely. The former deputies of +the Left were represented on the field of battle by a letter to their +"very dear president." That evening we camped in our positions, but half +frozen, the "dear president" having ordered the blankets to be left in +Paris, and we had set out--a proof that the whole thing had been done in +mockery--without tents or ambulances. The following day Ducrot declared +we must retreat, and, "before Paris, before the whole nation," this +dishonoured braggart sounded the retreat. We had 8,000 dead or wounded +out of the 100,000 men who had been sent out, and of the 50,000 engaged. + +For twenty days Trochu rested on his laurels. Clement-Thomas took +advantage of this leisure time to disband and stigmatise the tirailleurs +of Belleville, who had, however, had many dead and wounded in their +ranks. On the mere report of the commanding general at Vincennes, he +also stigmatised the 200th battalion. Flourens was arrested. On the 20th +of December these rabid purgers of our own ranks consented to take a +little notice of the Prussians. The mobiles of the Seine were launched +without cannons against the walls of Stains and to the attack of +Bourget. The enemy received them with a crushing artillery. An advantage +obtained on the right of the Ville-Evrard was not followed up. The +soldiers returned in the greatest consternation, some of them crying, +"Vive la paix!" Each new enterprise betrayed Trochu's plan, enervated +the troops, but had no effect on the courage of the National Guards +engaged. During two days on the plateau D'Ouron they sustained the fire +of sixty pieces. When there was a goodly number of dead, Trochu +discovered that the position was of no importance, and evacuated. + +These repeated foils began to wear out the credulity of Paris. From hour +to hour the sting of hunger was increasing, and horse-flesh had become a +delicacy. Dogs, cats, and rats were eagerly devoured. The women waited +for hours in the cold and mud for a starvation allowance. For bread they +got black grout, that tortured the stomach. Children died on their +mothers' empty breasts. Wood was worth its weight in gold, and the poor +had only to warm them the despatches of Gambetta, always announcing +fantastic successes.[26] At the end of December their privations began +to open the eyes of the people. Were they to give in, their arms intact? + +The mayors did not stir. Jules Favre gave them little weekly receptions, +where they gossiped about the cuisine of the siege.[27] Only one did his +duty--Delescluze. He had acquired great authority by his articles in the +_Reveil_, as free of partiality as they were severe. On the 30th +December he interpellated Jules Favre, said to his colleagues, "You are +responsible," demanded that the municipal council should be joined to +the Defence. His colleagues protested, more especially Dubail and +Vacherot. He returned to the charge on the 4th of January, laid down a +radical motion--the dismissal of Trochu and of Clement-Thomas, the +mobilisation of the National Guard, the institution of a council of +defence, the renewal of the Committee of War. No more attention was paid +him than before. + +The Committee of the twenty arrondissements supported Delescluze in +issuing a red placard on the 6th: "Has the Government which charged +itself with the national defence fulfilled its mission? No. By their +procrastination, their indecision, their inertion, those who govern us +have led us to the brink of the abyss. They have known neither how to +administer nor how to fight. We die of cold, almost of hunger. Sorties +without object, deadly struggles without results, repeated failures. The +Government has given the measure of its capacity; it is killing us. The +perpetuation of this regime means capitulation. The politics, the +strategies, the administration of the Empire continued by the men of the +4th September have been judged. Make way for the people! Make way for +the Commune!"[28] This was outspoken and true. However incapable of +action the Committee may have been, its ideas were just and precise, and +to the end of the siege it remained the indefatigable, sagacious monitor +of Paris. + +The multitude who wanted illustrious names, paid no attention to these +placards. Some of those who had signed it were arrested. Trochu, +however, felt himself attainted, and the very same evening had posted on +all the walls, "The governor of Paris will never capitulate." And Paris +again applauded, four months after the 4th September. It was even +wondered at that, in spite of Trochu's declaration, Delescluze and his +adjuncts should tender their resignations.[29] + +Nevertheless, without obstinately shutting one's eyes it was impossible +not to see the precipice to which the Government was hurrying us on. The +Prussians bombarded our houses from the forts of Issy and of Vanves, and +on the 30th December, Trochu, having declared all further action +impossible, invoked the opinion of all his generals, and wound up by +proposing that he should be replaced. On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th January +the Defenders discussed the election of an Assembly which was to follow +the catastrophe.[30] But for the irritation of the patriots, Paris would +have capitulated before the 15th. + +The faubourgs no longer called the men of the Government other than "the +band of Judas." The great democratic lamas, who had withdrawn after the +31st October, returned to the Commune, thus proving their own +helplessness and the common sense of the people. The Republican +Alliance, where Ledru-Rollin officiated before half-a-dozen +incense-bearers, the Republican Union, and other bourgeois chapels, went +so far as to very energetically demand a Parisian Assembly to organise +the defence. The Government felt it had no time to lose. If the +bourgeoisie joined the people, it would become impossible to capitulate +without a formidable _emeute_. The population which cheered under the +shells would not allow itself to be given up like a flock of sheep. It +was necessary to mortify it first, to cure it of its "infatuation," as +Jules Ferry said, to purge it of its fever. "The National Guard will +only be satisfied when 10,000 National Guards have fallen," they said at +the Government table. Urged on by Jules Favre and Picard on the one +hand, and on the other by the simple-minded Emmanuel Arago, +Garnier-Pages, and Pelletan, the quack Trochu consented to give a last +performance. + +It was gotten up as a farce[31] at the same time as the +capitulation.[32] On the 19th the Council of Defence stated that a new +defeat would be the signal of the catastrophe. Trochu was willing to +accept the mayors as coadjutors on the question of capitulation and +revictualling. Jules Simon and Garnier-Pages were willing to surrender +Paris, and only make some reserve with regard to France. Garnier-Pages +proposed to name by special elections mandatories charged to capitulate. +Such was their vigil before the battle. + +On the 18th the din of trumpets and drums called Paris to arms and put +the Prussians on the alert. For this supreme effort Trochu had been able +to muster only 84,000 men, of whom nineteen regiments belonged to the +National Guard. He made them pass the night, which was cold and rainy, +in the mud of the fields of Mont-Valerien. + +The attack was directed against the defences that covered Versailles +from the side of La Bergerie. At ten o'clock, with the impulse of old +troops,[33] the National Guards and the mobiles, who formed the majority +of the left wing and centre,[34] had stormed the redoubt of Montretout, +the park of Buzenval, a part of St. Cloud, pushing forward as far as +Garches, occupying, in one word, all the posts designated. General +Ducrot, commanding the left wing, had arrived two hours behind time, and +though his army consisted chiefly of troops of the line, he did not +advance. + +We had conquered several commanding heights which the generals did not +arm. The Prussians were allowed to sweep these crests at their ease, and +at four o'clock sent forth assault columns. Ours gave way at first, +then, steadying themselves, checked the onward movement of the enemy. +Towards six o'clock, when the hostile fire diminished, Trochu ordered a +retreat. Yet there were 40,000 reserves between Mont-Valerien and +Buzenval. Out of 150 artillery pieces, thirty only had been employed. +But the generals, who during the whole day had hardly deigned to +communicate with the National Guard, declared they could not hold out a +second night, and Trochu had Montretout and all the conquered positions +evacuated. Battalions returned weeping with rage. All understood that +the whole affair was a cruel mockery.[35] + +Paris, which had gone to sleep victorious, awoke to the sound of +Trochu's alarm-bell. The General asked for an armistice of two days to +carry off the wounded and bury the dead. He said, "We want time, carts, +and many litters." The dead and wounded did not exceed 3000 men. + +This time Paris at last saw the abyss. Besides, the Defenders, +disdaining all further disguise, suddenly dropped the mask. Jules Favre +and Trochu summoned the mayors. Trochu declared that all was lost and +any further struggle impossible.[36] The sinister news immediately +spread over the town. + +During four months' siege, patriotic Paris had foreseen, accepted all; +pestilence, assault, pillage, everything save capitulation. On this +point the 20th of January found Paris, notwithstanding her credulity, +her weakness, the same Paris as on the 20th September. Thus, when the +fatal word was uttered, the city seemed at first wonder-struck, as at +the sight of some crime monstrous, unnatural. The wounds of four months +opened again, crying for vengeance. Cold, starvation, bombardment, the +long nights in the trenches, the little children dying by thousands, +death scattered abroad in the sorties, and all to end in shame, to form +an escort for Bazaine, to become a second Metz. One fancied one could +hear the Prussian sneering. With some, stupor turned into rage. Those +who were longing for the surrender threw themselves into attitudes. The +white-livered mayors even affected to fly into a passion. On the evening +of the 21st they were again received by Trochu. That same morning all +the generals had unanimously decided that another sortie was impossible. +Trochu very philosophically demonstrated to the mayors the absolute +necessity of making advances to the enemy, but declared he would have +nothing to do with it, insinuating that they should capitulate in his +stead. They cut wry faces, protested, still imagining they were not +responsible for this issue. + +After their departure the Defenders deliberated. Jules Favre asked +Trochu to tender his resignation. But he, the apostle, insisted upon +being dismissed by them, fancying thus to cheat history into the belief +that he had to the last resisted capitulation.[37] The discussion was +growing warm when, at three o'clock in the morning, they were informed +of the rescue of Flourens and other political prisoners confined at +Mazas. A body of National Guards headed by an adjunct from the +eighteenth arrondissement had presented themselves an hour before in +front of the prison. The bewildered governor had let them have their +way. The Defenders, fearing a repetition of the 31st October, hurried on +their resolution replacing Trochu by Vinoy. + +He wanted to be implored. Jules Favre and Leflo had to show him the +people in arms, an insurrection imminent. At that very moment, the +morning of the 22nd, the prefect of police, declaring himself powerless, +had sent in his resignation. The men of the 4th September had fallen so +low as to bend their knees before those of the 2nd December. Vinoy +condescended to yield. + +His first act was to arm against Paris, to dismantle her lines before +the Prussians, to recall the troops of Suresne, Gentilly, Les Lilas, to +call out the cavalry and gendarmerie. A battalion of mobiles commanded +by Vabre, a colonel of the National Guard, fortified itself in the +Hotel-de-Ville. Clement-Thomas issued a furious proclamation: "The +factions are joining the enemy." He adjured the "_entire_ National +Guard to rise in order to smite them." He had not called upon it to rise +against the Prussians. + +There were signs of anger afloat, but no symptoms of a serious +collision. Many revolutionists, well aware that all was at an end, would +not support a movement which, if successful, would have saved the men of +the Defence and forced the victors to capitulate in their stead. Others, +whose patriotism was not enlightened by reason, still warm from the +ardour of Buzenval, believed in a _sortie en masse_. We must at least, +said they, save our honor. The evening before, some meetings had voted +that an armed opposition should be offered to any attempt at +capitulation, and had given themselves a rendezvous before the +Hotel-de-Ville. + +At twelve o'clock the drums beat to arms at the Batignolles. At one +o'clock several armed groups appeared in the square of the +Hotel-de-Ville; the crowd was gathering. A deputation, led by a member +of the Alliance, was received by G. Chaudey, adjunct to the mayor, for +the Government was seated at the Louvre since the 31st October. The +orator said the wrongs of Paris necessitated the nomination of the +Commune. Chaudey answered that the Commune was nonsense; that he always +had, and always would oppose it. Another and more eager deputation +arrived. Chaudey received it with insults. Meanwhile the excitement was +spreading to the crowd that filled the square. The 101st battalion +arrived from the left bank crying "Death to the traitors!" when the +207th of the Batignolles, who had marched down the boulevards, debouched +on the square through the Rue du Temple and drew up before the +Hotel-de-Ville, whose doors and windows were closed. Others joined them. +Some shots were fired, the windows of the Hotel-de-Ville were clouded +with smoke, and the crowd dispersed with a cry of terror. Sheltered by +lamp-posts and some heaps of sand, some National Guards sustained the +fire of the mobiles. Others fired from the houses in the Avenue +Victoria. The fusillade had been going on for half an hour when the +gendarmes appeared at the corner of the Avenue. The insurgents, almost +surrounded, made a retreat. About a dozen were arrested and taken to the +Hotel-de-Ville, where Vinoy wanted to despatch them at once. Jules +Ferry recoiled, and had them sent before the regular court-martials. +Those who had got up the demonstration and the inoffensive crowd of +spectators had thirty killed or wounded, among others a man of great +energy, Commandant Sapia. The Hotel-de-Ville had only one killed and two +wounded. + +The same evening the government closed all the clubs and issued numerous +warrants. Eighty-three persons, most of them innocent,[38] were +arrested. This occasion was also taken advantage of to send Delescluze, +notwithstanding his sixty-five years, and an acute bronchitis which was +undermining his health, to rejoin the prisoners of the 31st October, +thrown pell-mell into a damp dungeon at Vincennes. The _Reveil_ and the +_Combat_ were suppressed. + +An indignant proclamation denounced the insurgents as "the partisans of +the foreigners," the only resource left the men of the 4th September in +this shameful crisis. In this only they were Jacobins. Who served the +enemy? The Government ever ready to negotiate, or the men ever offering +a desperate resistance? History will tell how at Metz an immense army, +with _cadres_, well-trained soldiers, allowed itself to be given over +without a single marshal, _chef-de-corps_, or a regiment rising to save +it from Bazaine;[39] whereas the revolutionists of Paris, without +leaders, without organization, before 240,000 soldiers and mobiles +gained over to peace, delayed the capitulation for months and revenged +it with their blood. + +The simulated indignation of traitors raised only a feeling of disgust. +Their very name, "Government of Defence," cried out against them. On the +very day of the affray they played their last farce. Jules Simon having +assembled the mayors and a dozen superior officers,[40] offered the +supreme command to the military man who could propose a plan. This +Paris, which they had received exuberant with life, the men of the 4th +September, now that they had exhausted and bled her, proposed to abandon +to others. Not one of those present resented the infamous irony. They +confined themselves to refusing this hopeless legacy. This was exactly +the thing Jules Simon waited for. Some one muttered, "We must +capitulate." It was General Lecomte. The mayors understood why they had +been convoked, and a few of them squeezed out a tear. + +From this time forth Paris existed like the patient who is expecting +amputation. The forts still thundered, the dead and the wounded were +still brought in, but Jules Favre was known to be at Versailles. On the +27th at midnight the cannon were silenced. Bismarck and Jules Favre had +come to an _honourable_ understanding.[41] Paris had surrendered. + +The next day the Government of the Defence published the basis of the +negotiations--a fortnight's armistice, the immediate convocation of an +Assembly, the occupation of the forts, the disarmament of all the +soldiers and mobiles with the exception of one division. The town +remained gloomy. These days of anguish had stunned Paris. Only a few +demonstrations were made. A battalion of the National Guard came before +the Hotel-de-Ville crying "Down with the traitors!" In the evening, 400 +officers signed a pact of resistance, naming as their chief Brunel, an +ex-officer expelled from the army under the Empire for his republican +opinions, and resolved to march on the forts of the east, commanded by +Admiral Saisset, whom the press credited with the reputation of a +Beaurepaire. At midnight the call to arms and the alarm bell summoned +the tenth, thirteenth, and twentieth arrondissements. But the night was +icy cold, the National Guard too enervated for an act of despair. Two +or three battalions only came to the rendezvous. Brunel was arrested two +days after. + +On the 29th January the German flag was hoisted on our forts. All had +been signed the evening before. 400,000 men armed with muskets and +cannons capitulated before 200,000. The forts, the enceinte were +disarmed. Paris was to pay 200,000,000 francs in a fortnight. The +Government boasted of having preserved the arms of the National Guard, +but every one knew that to take these it would have been necessary to +storm Paris. In fine, not content with surrendering Paris, the +Government of the National Defence surrendered all France. The armistice +applied to all the armies of the provinces save Bourbaki's, the only one +that would have profited by it. + +On the following days there arrived some news from the provinces. It was +known that Bourbaki, pressed by the Prussians, had, after a comedy of +suicide, thrown his whole army into Switzerland. The aspect and the +weakness of the Delegation of the Defence in the provinces had just +begun to reveal themselves, when the _Mot d'Ordre_, founded by +Rochefort, who had abandoned the Government after the 31st October, +published a proclamation by Gambetta, stigmatizing a shameful peace, and +a whole litany of Radical decrees: ineligibility of all the great +functionaries and official deputies of the Empire; dissolution of the +_conseils-generaux_, revocation of some of the judges[42] who had formed +part of the mixed commission of the 2nd December. It was ignored that +during the whole war the Delegation had acted in contradiction to its +last decrees, which, coming from a fallen power, were a mere electoral +trick, and Gambetta's name was placed on most of the electoral lists. + +Some bourgeois papers supported Jules Favre and Picard, who had been +clever enough to make themselves looked upon as the out-and-outers of +the Government; none dared to go so far as to support Trochu, Simon and +Ferry. The variety of electoral lists set forth by the republican party +explained its impotence during the siege. The men of 1848 refused to +accept Blanqui, but admitted several members of the International in +order to usurp its name, and their list, a medley of Neo-Jacobins and +Socialists, entitled itself "the list of the Four Committees." The clubs +and the workingmen's groups drew up lists of a more outspoken character; +one bore the name of the German Socialist deputy, Liebknecht. The most +decided one was that of the Corderie. + +The International and the Federal Chamber of the workingmen's societies, +mute and disorganized during the siege, again taking up their programme, +said, "We must also have workingmen amongst those in power." They came +to an arrangement with the Committee of the twenty arrondissements, and +the three groups issued the same manifesto. "This," said they, "is the +list of the candidates presented in the name of a new world by the party +of the disinherited. France is about to reconstitute herself; workingmen +have the right to find and take their place in the new order of things. +The Socialist-revolutionary candidatures signify the denial of the right +to discuss the existence of the Republic; affirmation of the necessity +for the accession of workingmen to political power; overthrow of the +oligarchical Government and of industrial feudalism." Besides a few +names familiar to the public, Blanqui, Gambon, Garibaldi, Felix Pyat, +Ranvier, Tridon, Longuet, Lefrancais, Valles, these Socialist candidates +were known only in the workingmen's centers--mechanics, shoemakers, +ironfounders, tailors, carpenters, cooks, cabinetmakers, carvers.[43] +Their placards were but few in number. These disinherited could not +compete with bourgeois enterprise. Their day was to come a few weeks +later, when two-thirds of them were to be elected to the Commune. Now +those only received a mandate who were accepted by the middle-class +papers, five in all: Garibaldi, Gambon, Felix Pyat, Tolain, and Malon. + +The list of representatives of the 8th February was a harlequinade, +including every republican shade and every political crotchet. Louis +Blanc, who had played the part of a goody during the siege, and who was +supported by all the committees except that of the Corderie, headed the +procession with 216,000 votes, followed by Victor Hugo, Gambetta, and +Garibaldi; Delescluze obtained 154,000 votes. Then came a motley crowd +of Jacobin fossils, radicals, officers, mayors, journalists, and +inventors. One single member of the Government slipped in, Jules Favre, +although his private life had been exposed by Milliere, who was also +elected.[44] By a cruel injustice, the vigilant sentinel, the only +journalist who during the siege had always shown sagacity, Blanqui, +found only 52,000 votes, about the number of those who opposed the +plebiscite, while Felix Pyat received 145,000 for his piping in the +_Combat_.[45] + +This confused incongruous ballot affirmed at least the republican idea. +Paris, trampled upon by the Empire and the Liberals, clung to the +Republic, who gave her promise for the future. But even before her vote +has been proclaimed she heard coming forth from the provincial ballot +boxes a savage cry of reaction. Before a single one of her +representatives had left the town, she saw on the way to Bordeaux a +troop of rustics, of _Pourceaugnacs_, of sombre clericals, spectres of +1815, 1830, 1848, high and low reactionists, who, mumbling and furious, +came by the grace of universal suffrage to take possession of France. +What signified this sinister masquerade? How had this subterranean +vegetation contrived to pierce and overgrow the summit of the country? + +It was necessary that Paris and the provinces should be crushed, that +the Prussian Shylock should drain our milliards and cut his pound of +flesh, that the state of siege should for four years weigh down upon +forty-two departments, that 100,000 Frenchmen should be cut off from +life or banished from their native soil, that the black brotherhood +should conduct their processions all over France, to bring about this +great conservative machination, which from the first hour to the last +explosion, the revolutionists of Paris and of the provinces had not +ceased to denounce to our treacherous or sluggish governors. + +In the provinces the field and the tactics were not the same. The +conspiracy, instead of being carried on within the Government, +circumvented it. During the whole month of September the reactionists +hid in their lurking-places. The Government of National Defence had only +forgotten one element of defence--the provinces, seventy-six +departments. Yet they were agitating, showed life; they alone held in +check the reaction. Lyons had even understood her duty earlier than +Paris; in the morning of the 4th September she proclaimed the Republic, +hoisted the red flag, named a Committee of Public Safety.--Marseilles +and Toulouse organized regional commissions.--The Defenders understood +nothing of this patriotic zeal, thought France disjointed, and delegated +to put it right again two Liberal relics very much tainted, Cremieux and +Glais-Bizoin, together with a former governor of Cayenne, the +Bonapartist Admiral Fourichon. + +They reached Tours on the 18th. The patriots hastened thither to meet +them. In the west and south, they had already organized Leagues to +marshal the departments against the enemy and supply the want of a +central impulse. They surrounded the delegates of Paris, asking them for +a _mot-d'ordre_, vigorous measures, the sending of commissioners, and +promised their absolute co-operation. The putridities answered, "We are +_entre nous_, let us speak frankly. Well, then, we have no longer any +army; all resistance is impossible. We only hold out for the sake of +making better conditions." We ourselves witnessed the scene.[46] There +was but one cry of indignation: "What! is this your answer when +thousands of Frenchmen come to offer you their lives and fortunes?" + +On the 28th, the Lyonese broke out. Hardly four departments separated +them from the enemy, who might at any moment come to levy a contribution +on their city, and since the 4th September they had in vain demanded +arms. The municipality, elected on the 16th in place of the Committee of +Public Safety, passed its time in squabbling with the Prefect, +Challemel-Lacour, an arrogant Neo-Jacobin. On the 27th, instead of any +serious measures of defence, the council had reduced by fivepence the +pay of the workingmen employed in the fortifications, and appointed +Cluseret general _in partibus_ of an army to be created.[47] + +The Republican committees of Les Brotteaux, of La Guillotiere, of La +Croix-Rousse,[48] and the Central Committee of the National Guard +decided to urge on the Hotel-de-Ville, and laid before it on the 28th +an energetic programme of defence. The workingmen of the fortifications, +led by Saigne, supported this step by a demonstration. They filled the +Place des Terreaux, and what with speeches, what with the excitement, +invaded the Hotel-de-Ville. Saigne proposed the nomination of a +revolutionary commission, and perceiving Cluseret, named him commander +of the National Guard. Cluseret, much concerned for his future, only +appeared on the balcony to propound his plan and recommend calm. +However, the commission being constituted, he no longer dared to resist, +but set out in search of his troops. At the door, the mayor, Henon, and +the prefect arrested him. They had penetrated into the Hotel-de-Ville by +the Place de la Comedie. Saigne, springing upon the balcony, announced +the news to the crowd, which, throwing itself upon the Hotel-de-Ville, +delivered the prospective general and in turn arrested the mayor and +prefect. + +The bourgeois battalions soon arrived at the Place des Terreaux; shortly +after those of La Croix-Rousse and of La Guillotiere debouched. Great +misfortune might have resulted from the first shot. They parleyed. The +commission disappeared and the general swooned. + +This was a warning. Other symptoms manifested themselves in several +towns. The prefects even presided over Leagues and met each other. At +the commencement of October, the Admiral of Cayenne had only been able +to set on foot 30,000 men, and nothing came from Tours but a decree +convoking the election for the 16th. + +On the 9th, when Gambetta alighted from his balloon, all the patriots +started. The Conservatives, who had begun to creep out of their +recesses, quickly drew back again. The ardour and the energy of his +first proclamation carried people away. Gambetta held France absolutely; +he was all-powerful. + +He disposed of the immense resources of France, of the innumerable men; +of Bourges, Brest, L'Orient, Rochefort, Toulon for arsenals; workshops +like Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons; the seas +free; incomparably greater strength than that of 1793, which had to +fight at the same time the foreigner and internal rebellions. The +centers were kindling. The municipal councils made themselves felt, the +rural districts as yet showing no signs of resistance; the national +reserve intact. The burning metal needed only moulding. + +The debut of the delegate was a serious blunder. He executed the decree +of Paris for the adjournment of the elections, which promised to be +republican and bellicose. Bismarck himself had told Jules Favre that he +did not want an Assembly, because this Assembly would be for war. +Energetic circulars, some measures against the intriguers, formal +instructions to the prefects, would have brightened and victoriously +brought out this patriotic fervor. An Assembly fortified by all the +republican aspirations, vigorously led, sitting in a populous town, +would have increased the national energy a hundredfold, brought to light +unhoped-for talents, and might have exacted everything from the country, +blood and gold. It would have proclaimed the Republic, and in case of +being obliged by reverses to negotiate, would have saved her from +foundering, prevented reaction. But Gambetta's instructions were formal. +"Elections at Paris would bring back days like June," said he. "We must +do without Paris," was our answer. All was useless. Besides, several +prefects, incapable of influencing their surroundings, predicted pacific +elections. Lacking the energy to grapple with the real difficulties of +the situation, Gambetta fancied he might shift them by the claptrap +expedient of his dictatorship. + +Did he bring a great political revolution? No. His whole programme was, +"To maintain order and liberty and push on the war."[49] Cremieux had +called the Bonapartists "republicans going astray." Gambetta believed, +or pretended to believe, in the patriotism of the reactionists. A few +pontifical zouaves who offered themselves, the abject submission of the +Bonapartist generals, the wheedling of a few bishops,[50] sufficed to +delude him. He continued the tactics of his predecessors to conciliate +everybody; he spared even the functionaries. In the department of +Finance and Public Instruction, he and his colleagues forbade the +dismissal of any official. The War Office for a long time remained under +the supreme direction of a Bonapartist, and always carried on an +underhand war against the defence. Gambetta maintained in some +prefectures the same employes who had drawn up the proscription lists of +the 2nd December, 1851. With the exception of a few justices of the +peace and a small number of magistrates, nothing was changed in the +political _personnel_, the whole subordinate administration remaining +intact. + +Was he wanting in authority? His colleagues of the council did not even +dare to raise their voices; the prefects knew only him; the generals put +on the manner of school-boys in his presence. Was a _personnel_ wanting? +The Leagues contained solid elements; the small bourgeoisie and +proletariat might have given the _cadres_. + +Gambetta saw here only marplots, chaos, federalism, and roughly +dismissed their delegates. Each department possessed groups of known, +tried republicans, to whom the administration and the part of spurring +the Defence under the direction of commissioners might have been +intrusted. Gambetta refused almost everywhere to refer to them; the few +whom he appointed he knew how to fetter closely. He vested all power in +the prefects, most of them ruins of 1848, or his colleagues of the +Conference Mole, nerveless, loquacious, timorous, anxious to have +themselves well spoken of, and many anxious to feather themselves a nest +in their department. + +The Defence in the provinces set out on these two crutches--the War +Office and the prefects. On this absurd plan of conciliation the +Government was conducted. + +Did the new delegate at least bring a powerful military conception? "No +one in the Government, neither General Trochu nor General Leflo, no one +had suggested a military operation of any kind."[51] Did he at least +possess that quick penetration which makes up for want of experience? +After twenty days in the provinces he comprehended the military +situation no better than he had done at Paris. The capitulation of Metz +drew from him indignant proclamations, but he understood no more than +his colleagues of the Hotel-de-Ville that this was the very moment to +make a supreme effort. + +With the exception of three divisions (30,000 men) and the greater part +of their cavalry, the Germans had been obliged to employ for the +investment of Paris all their troops, and they had no reserve left them. +The three divisions at Orleans and Chateaudun were kept in check by our +forces of the Loire. The cavalry, while infesting a large extent of +territory in the west, north and east, could not hold out against +infantry. At the end of October, the army before Paris, strongly +fortified against the town, was not at all covered from the side of the +provinces. The appearance of 50,000 men, even of young troops, would +have forced the Prussians to raise the blockade. + +Moltke was far from disregarding the danger. He had decided in case of +need to raise the blockade, to sacrifice the park of artillery then +being formed at Villecoublay, to concentrate his army for action in the +open country, and only to re-establish the blockade after the victory, +that is to say, after the arrival of the army of Metz. "Everything was +ready for our decampment; we only had to team the horses," has been said +by an eye-witness, the Swiss Colonel D'Erlach. The official papers of +Berlin had already prepared public opinion for this event. + +The blockade of Paris raised, even momentarily, might have led, under +the pressure of Europe, to an honorable peace; this was almost certain. +Paris and France recovering their salutary buoyancy, the revictualling +of the great town, and the consequent prolongation of her resistance, +would have given the time necessary for the organization of the +provincial armies. + +At the end of October our army of the Loire was in progress of +formation, the 15th corps at Salbris, the 16th at Blois, already +numbering 80,000 men. If it had pushed between the Bavarians at Orleans +and the Prussians at Chateaudun; if--and this was an easy matter with +its numerical superiority--it beat the enemy one after another, the +route to Paris would have been thrown open, and the deliverance of Paris +almost sure. + +The Delegation of Tours did not see so far. It confined its efforts to +recovering Orleans, in order to establish there an entrenched camp; so +on the 26th General D'Aurelles de Paladines, named by Gambetta +commander-in-chief of the two corps, received the order to rescue the +town from the Bavarians. He was a senator, a bigoted, rabid reactionist, +at best fit only to be an officer of zouaves, fuming in his heart at the +defence. It was resolved to make the attack from Blois. Instead of +conducting the 15th corps on foot, which by Romorantin would have taken +forty-eight hours, the Delegation sent it by the Vierzon railway to +Tours, a journey which took five days and could not be hidden from the +enemy. Still, on the 28th, D'Aurelles established before Blois, disposed +of 40,000 men at least, and the next day he was to have left for +Orleans. + +On the 28th, at nine o'clock in the evening, the commander of the German +troops had him informed of the capitulation of Metz. D'Aurelles, jumping +at this pretext, telegraphed to Tours that he should adjourn his +movement. + +A general of some ability, of some good faith, would, on the contrary, +have precipitated everything. Since the German army before Metz, now +disengaged, would swoop down upon the centre of France, there was not a +day to lose to be beforehand with it. Every hour told. This was the +critical juncture of the war. + +The Delegation of Tours was as foolish as D'Aurelles. Instead of +dismissing him, it contented itself with moans, ordering him to +concentrate his forces. This concentration was terminated on the 3d +November.[52] D'Aurelles then had 70,000 men established from Mer to +Marchenoir. He might have acted, for events seconded him. That very day +a whole brigade of Prussian cavalry had been obliged to abandon Mantes +and to retreat before bands of franc-tireurs; French forces were +observed to be marching from Courville in the direction of Chartres. +D'Aurelles did not stir, and the Delegation remained as paralyzed as he. +"M. le Ministre," wrote on the 4th November the Delegate at War, M. de +Freycinet,[53] "for some days the army and myself do not know if the +Government wants peace or war. At this moment, when we are just +disposing ourselves to accomplish projects laboriously prepared, rumors +of an armistice disturb the minds of our generals, and I myself, I seek +to revive their spirits and push them on, I know not whether the next +day I shall not be disavowed by the Government." Gambetta the same day +answered: "I agree with you as to the detestable influence of the +political hesitations of the Government. From to-day we must decide on +our march forward;" and on the 7th D'Aurelles still remained motionless. +At last, on the 8th, he set out, and went about fifteen kilometers, and +in the evening again spoke of making a halt.[54] All his forces together +exceeded 100,000 men. On the 9th he made up his mind to attack at +Coulmiers. The Bavarians immediately evacuated Orleans. Far from +pursuing them, D'Aurelles announced that he was going to fortify himself +before the town. The Delegation let him do as he liked, and gave him no +orders to pursue the enemy.[55] Three days after the battle Gambetta +came to the headquarters and approved of D'Aurelles's plan. The +Bavarians during this respite had fallen back upon Toury, and two +divisions hurried from Metz by the railway arrived before Paris. Moltke +could at his ease direct the 17th Prussian division towards Toury, where +it arrived on the 12th. Three other corps of the army of Metz approached +the Seine by forced marches. The ignorance of the Delegation, the +obstruction of Trochu, the ill-will and blunders of D'Aurelles, +frustrated the only chances of raising the blockade of Paris. + +On the 19th, the army of Metz protected the blockade in the north and in +the south. Henceforth the Delegation had but one part to play--to +prepare armies for France, solid, capable of manoeuvring, and finding +for this the necessary time, as in ancient times the Romans did, and in +our days the Americans. It preferred bolstering up vain appearances, +amusing public opinion with the din of arms, imagining that they could +thus puzzle the Prussians also. It threw upon them men raised but a few +days before, without instruction, without discipline, without +instruments of war, fatally destined to defeat. The prefects charged +with the organization of the mobiles, and those on the point of being +mobilized, were in continual strife with the generals, and lost +themselves in the details of the equipments. The generals, unable to +make anything of those ill-supplied contingents, only advanced on +compulsion.[56] Gambetta on his arrival had said in his proclamation, +"We will make young chiefs," and the important commands were given to +the men of the Empire, worn out, ignorant, knowing nothing of patriotic +wars. To these young recruits, who should have been electrified by +stirring appeals, D'Aurelles preached the word of the Lord and the +interest of the service.[57] The accomplice of Bazaine, Bourbaki,[58] +on his return from England, received the command of the army of the +East. The weakness of the new Delegate encouraged the resistance of all +malcontents. Gambetta asked the officers whether they would accept +service under Garibaldi;[59] he not only allowed them to refuse, but +even released a cure who in the pulpit had set a price on the General's +head. He humbly explained to the royalist officers that the question at +issue was not to defend the Republic but the territory. He gave leave to +the pontifical zouaves to hoist the banner of the Sacred Heart. He +suffered Admiral Fourichon to contend for the disposal of the navy with +the Delegation.[60] He indignantly rejected every project for an +enforced loan, and refused to sanction those voted in some departments. +He left the railway companies masters of the transport, in the hands of +reactionists, always ready to raise difficulties. From the end of +November, these boisterous and contradictory orders, these accumulations +of impracticable decrees, these powers given and taken back, clearly +proved that only a sham resistance was meant. + +The country obeyed, giving everything with passive blindness. The +contingents were raised without difficulty; there were no refractory +recruits in rural districts, although the gendarmerie were absent with +the army; the Leagues had given way on the first remonstrance. There was +only a movement on the 31st October. The Marseilles revolutionists, +indignant at the weakness of their Municipal Council, proclaimed the +Commune. Cluseret, who from Geneva had asked the "Prussian" Gambetta for +the command of an army corps, appeared at Marseilles, got himself named +general, again backed out and retired to Switzerland, his dignity +forbidding him to serve as a simple soldier. At Toulouse, the +population expelled the general. At Saint-Etienne the Commune existed +for an hour. But everywhere a word sufficed to replace the authority in +the hands of the Delegation; such was the apprehension of everybody of +creating the slightest embarrassment. + +This abnegation only served the reactionists. The Jesuits, who resumed +their intrigues, had been reinstated by Gambetta at Marseilles, whence +the indignation of the people had expelled them. The delegate cancelled +the suspension of papers that had published letters from Chambord and +D'Aumale. He protected the judges who had formed part of the mixed +commission, released the one who had decimated the department of the +Var, and dismissed the prefect of Toulouse for having suspended the +functions of another in the Haute-Garonne. The Bonapartists mustered +again.[61] The prefect of Bordeaux, an ultra-moderate Liberal, asking +for the authorization to arrest some of their ringleaders, Gambetta +severely answered him, "These are practices of the Empire, not of the +Republic." Cremieux, too, said, "The Republic is the reign of law." + +Then the Conservative Vendee arose. Monarchists, clericals, capitalists, +waited for their time; cowering in their castles, all their strongholds +remained intact; seminaries, tribunals, general councils, which for a +long time the Delegation refused to dissolve _en masse_. They were +clever enough to figure here and there in the field of battle, in order +to preserve the appearance of patriotism. In a few weeks they had seen +through Gambetta and found out the Liberal behind the Tribune. + +Their campaign was sketched, conducted from the beginning, by the only +serious political tacticians whom France possesses--by the Jesuits, +masters of the clergy. The arrival of M. Thiers provided the apparent +chief. + +The men of the 4th September had made him their ambassador. France, +almost without diplomatists since Talleyrand, has never possessed one +more easily gulled than this little man. He had gone naively to London, +to Petersburg, to Italy, whose inveterate enemy he had always been, +begging for vanquished France alliances which had been refused her when +yet intact. He was trifled with everywhere. He obtained but one +interview with Bismarck, and negotiated the armistice rejected by the +31st October. When he arrived at Tours in the first days of November, he +knew that peace was impossible, and that henceforth it must be war to +the knife. Instead of courageously making the best of it, of placing his +experience at the service of the Delegation, he had but one object, to +baffle the defence. + +It could not have had a more redoubtable enemy. The success of this man, +without ideas, without principles of government, without comprehension +of progress, without courage, would have been impossible everywhere, +save with the French bourgeoisie. But he has always been at hand when a +Liberal was wanted to shoot down the people, and he is a wonderful +artist in Parliamentary intrigue. No one has known like him how to +attack, to isolate a Government, to group prejudices, hatred, and +interests, to hide his intrigues behind a mask of patriotism and common +sense. The campaign of 1870-71 will certainly be his masterpiece. He had +made up his mind as to the lion's share due to the Prussians, and took +no more notice of them than if they had recrossed the Moselle. For him +the enemy was the defender. When our poor mobiles, without _cadres_, +without military training, succumbed to a temperature as fatal as that +of 1812, M. Thiers exulted at our disasters. His house had become the +headquarters for the Conservative notabilities. At Bordeaux especially +it seemed to be the true seat of the Government. + +Before the investment the reactionary press of Paris had organized a +provincial service, and from the outset cooled down the Delegation. +After the arrival of M. Thiers it carried on a regular war. It never +ceased harassing, accusing, pointing out the slightest shortcomings, +with a view not to instruct, but to slander, and to wind up by the +foregone conclusion: Fighting is madness, disobedience legitimate. From +the middle of December this watchword, faithfully followed by all the +papers of the party, spread over the rural districts. + +For the first time country squires found their way to the ear of the +peasant. This war was about to draw off all the men who were not in the +army or in the Garde Mobile, and camps were being prepared to receive +them. The prisons of Germany held 260,000 men; Paris, the Loire, the +army of the East, more than 350,000. Thirty thousand were dead, and +thousands filled the hospitals. Since the month of August France had +given at least 700,000 men. Where are they to stop? This cry was echoed +in every cottage: "It is the Republic that wants war! Paris is in the +hands of the _levellers_." What does the French peasant know of his +fatherland, and how many could say where Alsace lies? It is he above all +whom the bourgeoisie have in view when they resist compulsory education. +For eighty years all their efforts tended to transforming into coolies +the descendants of the volunteers of 1792. + +Before long a spirit of revolt infected the mobiles, almost everywhere +commanded by reactionists of mark. Here an equerry of the Emperor, there +rabid royalists led battalions. In the army of the Loire they muttered, +"We will not fight for M. Gambetta."[62] Officers of the mobilized +troops boasted of never having exposed the lives of their men. + +In the beginning of 1871 the provinces were undermined from end to end. +Some general councils that had been dissolved met publicly, declaring +that they considered themselves elected. The Delegation followed the +progress of this enemy, cursed M. Thiers in private, but took good care +not to arrest him. The revolutionists who came to tell it the lengths +things were going were curtly shown out. Gambetta, worn out, not +believing in the defence, thought only of conciliating the men of +influence and rendering himself acceptable for the future. + +At the signal of the elections, the scenery, laboriously prepared, +appeared all of a piece, showing the Conservatives grouped, +supercilious, their lists ready. We were far now from the month of +October, when, in many departments, they had not dared to put forward +their candidates. The decrees on the ineligibility of the high +Bonapartist functionaries only affected shadows. The coalition, +disdaining the broken-down men of the Empire, had carefully formed a +_personnel_ of pigtailed nobles, well-to-do farmers, captains of +industry, men likely to do the work bluntly. The clergy had skilfully +united on their lists the Legitimists and Orleanists, perhaps laid down +the basis for a fusion. The vote was carried like a plebiscite. The +republicans tried to speak of an honorable peace; the peasants would +only hear of peace at any price. The towns knew hardly how to make a +stand; at the utmost elected Liberals. Out of 750 members, the Assembly +counted 450 born monarchists. The apparent chief of the campaign, the +king of Liberals, M. Thiers, was returned in twenty-three departments. + +The conciliator _a outrance_ could rival Trochu. The one had worried out +Paris, the other the Republic. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The prefect of police, Pietri, attests it: "It is certain that on +that day the revolution might have succeeded, for the crowd which +surrounded the Corps Legislatif on the 9th August was composed of +elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th September."-- +_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 258. + +[2] Let it be understood that I proceed, the words of our adversaries in +hand--parliamentary inquiries, memoirs, reports, histories; that I do +not attribute to them an act or a word which has not been avowed by +them, their documents, or their friends. When I say M. Thiers _saw_, M. +Thiers _knew_, it is that M. Thiers has said, _I saw_, page 6, _I knew_, +page 11, vol. i. of the _Enquete sur les Actes du Gouvernement de la +Defense Nationale_. It will be the same with all the acts and words of +all the official or adverse personages that I quote. + +[3] See the evidence of the Marquis de Talhouet, reporter of the +Commission charged to verify the famous despatch which precipitated the +vote for war. _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 121-124. + +[4] _Compte-rendu du 31 Octobre_, by Milliere. + +[5] Which did not, however, prevent his accepting a secret mission +during the Crimean war. He was commissioned by Napoleon III. to propose +to the English to betray Turkey by limiting the war to the defence of +Constantinople. + +[6] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Brame, vol. i. p. 201. + +[7] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. ii. p. 194. + +[8] Ibid., p. 313. + +[9] Ibid., Jules Favre, vol. i. p. 330. + +[10] In his official report, Jules Favre, to clear the Government, did +not neglect to assume the responsibility of this mission, which he said +he had undertaken without the knowledge of his colleagues. + +[11] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Garnier-Pages, vol. i. p. 445. + +[12] "Constantly in relations with the anxious population, which +urgently asked what was going on, what the Government thought, what it +was doing, we were obliged to screen it; to say that it was acting for +the best; that it had given itself up entirely to the defence; that the +chiefs of the army were most devoted and working with ardour.... We said +this without knowing, without believing it. We knew nothing."--_Enquete +sur le 4 Septembre_, Corbon, vol. i. p. 375. + +[13] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Ferry. He even calls the +armistice a "compensation." + +[14] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 432. + +[15] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 395. The deposition of +this imbecile, always equally naive, is all the more conclusive. + +[16] "We were able to unite 40,000 men by telling the National Guards +that Blanqui and Flourens occupied the Hotel-de-Ville. These two names +did not fail to produce their usual effect."--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, +ed. Adam, vol. ii. p. 157. "If the name of Blanqui had not been +pronounced, the new elections announced by the placard of Dorian and +Schoelcher would have taken place the next day."--_Enquete sur le 4 +Septembre_, Jules Ferry, vol. i. p. 396-431. + +[17] See the affirmation of Dorian. _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. +i. p. 527-528. + +[18] He offered a musket of honour to any one who would kill the King of +Prussia, and patronised a Greek-fire that was to roast the German army. + +[19] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 42. + +[20] Even Felix Pyat was arrested. He managed to get out of prison +through a jest, writing to Emmanuel Arago: "What a pity that I should be +your prisoner; you might have been my advocate." He was set free. + +[21] The Minister of War, Leflo, who naturally undervalues everything, +says, "This left us, while assuring the operations of the siege against +the Prussians, a disposable force of 230,000 to 240,000 men." + +[22] Appendix I. + +[23] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Cresson, vol. ii. p. 135. + +[24] Jules Simon, _Souvenirs du 4 Septembre_. His textual expressions. + +[25] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. 43. + +[26] After the disaster of Orleans, which cut in two our army, he wrote: +"The army of the Loire is far from being annihilated; it is separated +into two armies of equal force." + +[27] They avoided drawing up minutes to prevent even the appearance of +being a municipality (_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Jules Ferry, vol. i. +p. 406). A dozen of these brave ones met with a few adjuncts at the +mairie of the third arrondissement. They confined their whole efforts to +seeking some one to replace Trochu. One of them, M. Corbon, has said +(_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 613): "However displeased they +might have been at the manner affairs were conducted by the Defence, +they would not for the world overthrow or weaken the Government." + +[28] This placard was drawn up by Tridon and Valles. + +[29] "See," said they, "what a terrible responsibility we should incur +if we consented any longer to remain the passive instruments of a policy +condemned by the interests of France and of the Republic." + +[30] See the Minutes of the Government of the Defence, evidently +arranged for the best by M. Dreo, the son-in-law of Garnier-Pages. + +[31] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Ducrot, vol. iii. p. xx. + +[32] See the Minutes of the Government of Defence. + +[33] Who bears witness to the bravery of the National Guard? Superior +officers themselves. See in the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, the +depositions of General Leflo, Vice-Admiral Pothuan, Colonel Lambert, and +Trochu, speaking from the tribune: "If I did not fear to appear +intrusive, I could show that up to the close of the day the +inexperienced National Guards took and retook with the energy of old +troops, under terrific fire, the heights that had been abandoned. It was +necessary to hold them at any price in order to effect the retreat of +the troops engaged in the centre. I had told them so, and they +sacrificed themselves without hesitation." + +[34] Vinoy's corps, which took Montretout, had five regiments and one +battalion of infantry, nineteen battalions of mobiles, five regiments of +National Guards. That of General Bellemare, which took Buzenval, had +five regiments of line, seventeen battalions of mobiles, eight regiments +of National Guards. + +[35] "We shall give the National Guard a little peppering (_ecrabouiller +un peu la garde nationale_) since they wish it," said a colonel of +infantry, much annoyed at this affair. _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, +Colonel Chaper, vol. ii. p. 281. + +[36] He told them by way of consolation that "from the evening of the +4th September he had declared that it would be madness to attempt +sustaining a siege by the Prussian army."--_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, +Corbon, vol. iv. p. 889. + +[37] He has pronounced these words of perfect Jesuitism: "To yield to +hunger is to die, not to capitulate."--_Jules Simon, Souvenirs du 4 +Septembre_, p. 299. + +[38] Deposition of General Soumairs, _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. +ii. p. 215. + +[39] What disgrace! 175,000 men pretending that they had been sold by a +single one! In the Seven Years' War, in Westphalia, at Minden, when +General Morangies prepared to capitulate, 1500 men, roused by a +corporal, refused to surrender, forced their way, and rejoined the army +of the Count of Clermont. + +[40] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Arnaud de l'Ariege, vol. ii. p. +320-321. + +[41] "I return from Versailles. I have come to terms with M. de +Bismarck, and it has been agreed upon between us as a matter of honour +the firing should cease."--Order sent by Jules Favre on the 27th, seven +o'clock evening. Vinoy, _L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 67. + +[42] The decree sacrificed fifteen and spared twenty-four. + +[43] _A. Arnaud_, _Avrial_, _Beslay_, _Blanqui_, _Demay_, _Dereure_, +Dupas, E. Dupont, _J. Durand_, _E. Duval_, _Eudes_, Flotte, _Frankel_, +_Gambon_, _Goupil_, Granger, Humbert, Jaclard, Jarnigon, Lacambre, +Lacord, _Langevin_, _Lefrancais_, Leverdays, _Longuet_, Macdonnell, +_Malon_, _Meillet_, Minet, _Oudet_, _Pindy_, _F. Pyat_, _Ranvier_, Rey, +Rouillier, _Serraillier_, _Theisz_, Tolain, _Tridon_, _Vaillant_, +_Valles_, _Varlin_. The names of those who were elected members of the +Commune are in italics. + +[44] In the _Vengeur_, which had taken the place of the _Combat_, he +proved, documents in hand, that for years Jules Favre had been guilty of +forgery, bigamy, and falsification of papers of legitimation. + +[45] After the five returned, sixteen candidates of La Corderie obtained +from 65,000 votes to 22,000 votes; Tridon 65,707, Duval 22,499. + +[46] Which, besides, has been recounted by Marc Dufraisse in the +_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. iv. p. 428. + +[47] Cluseret, an ex-officer, decorated in 1848 for his spirited +conduct. "I unfortunately displayed too much energy in that disastrous +battle," he wrote in _Fraser's Magazine_ of March 1878. Attached to the +Arabian Bureaux, he threw up his commission after the Crimean war, and +not being able to play a part in Europe, engaged in the American civil +war for a short time, then withdrew to New York, where he campaigned +with his pen. Misunderstood by the bourgeoisie of the two worlds, he +again took to politics, but from the opposite side; offered himself to +the Irish insurgents; landed in Ireland urging them to rise, and one +fine night abandoned them. The nascent International also saw this +powerful general come and offer his services. He did a good deal in the +way of pamphleteering; tried to impress upon the workmen that he was the +sword and buckler of Socialism. "We or nothing," said he to the sons of +the massacred of June. The Government of the 4th September having also +failed to appreciate his genius, he called Gambetta _Prussian_, and got +himself sent as delegate to Lyons by the Corderie, where Varlin, whom he +deceived for a long time, had introduced him. He offered the Lyons +council to organise an army of volunteers which was to operate on the +flank of the enemy. + +[48] The working-men's quarters of Lyons. + +[49] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 560. + +[50] The Jew Cremieux lived with the Ultramontane Archbishop Guibert +(since made Archbishop of Paris) in his episcopal palace at Tours, +dining every day at his table, and in return rendering him all the +little services asked for by the clergy. + +[51] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Gambetta, vol. i. p. 561. + +[52] D'Aurelles de Paladines, _La Premiere Armee de la Loire_, p. 93. + +[53] De Freycinet, _La Guerre en Province_, p. 86, 87. + +[54] Ibid., p. 91. + +[55] On the 11th, the delegate telegraphed to D'Aurelles: "We fully +approve of the dispositions you had taken for your troops round +Orleans.... You will receive instructions. In the meantime redouble your +vigilance in prevision of a return to the offensive on the part of the +enemy."--_D'Aurelles de Paladines_, _La Premiere Armee de la Loire_, p. +120. Thus, far from speaking of attacking, the Delegation only thought +of the defensive. + +[56] "It was only when they could not help it that they made up their +minds to act," Gambetta has said in the _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_. +The avowal is precious, coming from him. + +[57] It is most amusing to hear D'Aurelles chaffing Trochu without +perceiving that he is just as ridiculous. In his evidence (_Enquete sur +le 4 Septembre_, vol. iii. p. 201) he says: "I did not deposit either a +plan or a testament at a lawyer's; I confined myself to writing to the +Bishop of Orleans: Monsignor, the army of the Loire to-day sets out on +its march to meet the army of General Ducrot. Pray, Monsignor, for the +salvation of France." + +[58] And what other name is merited by the general who abandoned his +post in the field to go and negotiate with the sovereign whom France had +expelled? + +[59] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Rolland, vol. iii. p. 456. + +[60] Ibid., Dalloz, vol. iv. p. 398. + +[61] If General Boyer, who saw the letter, is to be believed, the +Delegation of Tours on the 24th October made officious advances to the +Empress, and then gave the order to the charge-d'affaires at London to +go and thank her for the patriotism that she had shown in refusing to +treat with Bismarck, who trifled with her as well as with Bazaine. See +_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. iv. p. 258. + +[62] _Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, Admiral Jaureguiberry, vol. iii. p. +297. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Le chef du pouvoir executif, pas plus que l'Assemblee + Nationale, s'appuyant l'un sur l'autre et se fortifiant + l'un par l'autre, n'avaient en aucune maniere provoque + l'insurrection parisienne."--_Discours de M. Dufaure contre + l'Amnistie_, _Seance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + FIRST ATTACKS OF THE COALITION AGAINST PARIS--THE BATTALIONS + OF THE NATIONAL GUARD FEDERALISE AND SEIZE THEIR + CANNON--THE PRUSSIANS ENTER PARIS. + + +The invasion has brought back the "Chambre introuvable" of 1816. After +having dreamt of a regenerated France soaring towards the light, to feel +oneself hurled back half a century, under the yoke of the Jesuits of the +Congregation, of the brutal rurals! There were men who lost heart. Many +spoke of expatriating themselves. The thoughtless said, "The Chamber +will only last a day, since it has no mandate but to decide on peace and +war." Those, however, who had watched the progress of the conspiracy and +the leading part taken in it by the clergy, knew beforehand that these +men would not allow France to escape their clutches before they crushed +her. + +Men just escaped from famine-stricken but glowing Paris found on their +arrival at Bordeaux the Coblentz of the first emigration, but this time +invested with the power to glut rancors that had been accumulating for +forty years. Clericals and Conservatives were for the first time +allowed, without the interference of either emperor or king, to trample +to their hearts' content on Paris, the atheist, the revolutionist, who +had so often shaken off their yoke and baffled their schemes. At the +first sitting their choler burst out. At the farther end of the hall, +sitting alone on his bench, shunned by all, an old man rose and asked to +address the Assembly. Under his cloak glared a red shirt. It was +Garibaldi. At the call of his name, he wished to answer, to say in a few +words that he resigned the mandate with which Paris had honored him. His +voice was drowned in howls. He remained standing, raising his hand, but +the insults redoubled. The chastisement, however, was at hand. "Rural +majority! disgrace of France!" cried from the gallery a young vibrating +voice, that of Gaston Cremieux, of Marseilles. The deputies rose +threatening. Hundreds of "Bravos" answered from the galleries, +overwhelming the rurals. After the sitting the crowd cheered Garibaldi +and hooted his insulters. The National Guard presented arms, despite the +rage of M. Thiers, who under the peristyle apostrophized the commanding +officer. The next day the people returned, forming lines in front of the +theatre, and forced the reactionist deputies to undergo their republican +cheers. But they knew their strength, and from the beginning of the +sittings opened their attack. One of the rurals, pointing to the +representatives of Paris, cried, "They are stained with the blood of +civil war!" And when one of these representatives cried, "Vive la +Republique!" the majority hooted him, saying, "You are only a fraction +of the country." On the next day the Chamber was surrounded by troops, +who kept off the republicans. + +At the same time the Conservative papers united in their hissings +against Paris, denying even her sufferings. The National Guard, they +said, had fled before the Prussians; its only exploits had been the 31st +October and 22nd January. These calumnies fructified in the provinces, +long since prepared to receive them. Such was their ignorance of the +siege, that they had named some of them several times--Trochu, Ducrot, +Ferry, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Emmanuel Arago--to whom Paris had +refused a single vote. + +It was the duty of the Parisian representatives to clear up this +darkness, to recount the siege, to denounce the men responsible for the +failure of the defence, to explain the significance of the Parisian +vote, to unfurl the flag of republican France against the +clerico-monarchical coalition. They remained silent, contenting +themselves with puerile party meetings, from which Delescluze turned +away as heart-broken as from the Assembly of the Paris mayors. Our +Epimenides of 1848 answered with stereotyped humanitarian phrases the +clashing of arms of the enemy, who all the while affirmed his programme: +to patch up a peace, to bury the Republic, and for that purpose to +checkmate Paris. Thiers was named chief of the executive power with +general acclamation, and chose for his Ministers Jules Favre, Jules +Simon, Picard and Leflo, who might still pass muster with the provincial +republicans. + +These elections, these menaces, these insults to Garibaldi, to the Paris +representatives; Thiers, the incarnation of the Parliamentary monarchy, +first magistrate of the Republic, blow after blow was struck at Paris, a +feverish, hardly revictualled Paris, hungering still more for liberty +than bread. This then was the reward for five months of suffering and +endurance. These provinces, which Paris had invoked in vain during the +whole siege, dared now to brand her with cowardice, to throw her back +from Bismarck to Chambord. Well, then, Paris was resolved to defend +herself even against France. The new imminent danger, the hard +experience of the siege, had exalted her energy and endued the great +town with one collective soul. + +Already, towards the end of January, some republicans, and also some +bourgeois intriguers in search of a mandate, had tried to group the +National Guards with a view to the elections. A large meeting, presided +over by Courty, a merchant of the third arrondissement, had been held in +the Cirque. They had there drawn up a list, decided to meet again to +deliberate in case of double electoral returns, and had named a +committee charged to convoke all the companies regularly. This second +meeting was held on the 15th in the Vauxhall Douane Street. But who then +thought of the elections? One single thought prevailed: the union of all +Parisian forces against the triumphant rurals. The National Guard +represented all the manhood of Paris. The clear, simple, essentially +French idea of confederating the battalions had long been in every mind. +It was received with acclamation and resolved that the confederate +battalions should be grouped round a Central Committee. + +A commission during the same sitting was charged to elaborate the +statutes. Each arrondissement represented--eighteen out of twenty--named +a commissary. Who were these men? The agitators, the revolutionists of +La Corderie, the Socialists? No; there was not a known name amongst +them. All those elected were men of the middle classes, shopkeepers, +employes, strangers to the coteries, till now for the most part +strangers even to politics.[63] Courty, the president, was known only +since the meeting at the Cirque. From the first day the idea of the +federation appeared what it was--universal, not sectarian, and therefore +powerful. The next day, Clement-Thomas declared to the Government that +he could no longer be answerable for the National Guard, and sent in his +resignation. He was provisionally replaced by Vinoy. + +On the 24th, in the Vauxhall, before 2,000 delegates and guards, the +commission read the statutes it had drawn up, and pressed the delegates +to proceed immediately to the election of the Central Committee. The +Assembly was tempestuous, disquiet, little inclined for calm +deliberations. Each of the last eight days had brought with it more +insulting menaces from Bordeaux. They were going, it was said, to disarm +the battalions, suppress the thirty sous, the only resource of the +workingmen, and exact at once the owing house-rents and overdue +commercial bills. Besides, the armistice, prolonged for a week, was to +expire on the 26th, and the papers announced that the Prussians would +enter Paris on the 27th. For a week this nightmare had weighed on all +the patriots. The meeting, too, proceeded at once to consider these +burning questions. Varlin proposed: The National Guard only recognizes +the chiefs elected by itself. Another: The National Guard protests +through the Central Committee against any attempt at disarmament, and +declares that in case of need it will offer armed resistance. Both +propositions were voted unanimously. And now, was Paris to submit to the +entry of the Prussians, to let them parade her boulevards? It could not +even be discussed. The whole assembly, springing up over-excited, raised +one cry of war. Some warnings of prudence are disdained. Yes, they would +oppose their arms to the entry of the Prussians. The proposition would +be submitted by the delegates to their respective companies. And +adjourning to the 3rd March, the meeting broke up its sitting and +marched _en masse_ to the Bastille, carrying along with it a great +number of soldiers and mobiles. + +Since the morning, Paris, fearing the loss of her liberty, had gathered +round her revolutionary column, as she had before crowded round the +statue of Strasbourg when trembling for France. The battalions defiled, +headed by drums and flags, covering the rails and pedestal with crowns +of immortelles. From time to time a delegate ascended the plinth, and +from this tribune of bronze harangued the people, who answered with +cries of "Vive la Republique!" Suddenly a red flag was carried through +the crowd into the monument, reappearing soon after at the balustrade. A +formidable cry saluted it, followed by a long silence. A man, climbing +the cupola, had the daring to go and fix it in the hand of the statue of +Liberty surmounting the column. Thus, amidst the frantic cheering of the +people, for the first time since 1848, the flag of equality overshadowed +this spot, redder than its flag by the blood of a thousand martyrs. + +The following day the pilgrimages were continued, not only by National +Guards, but by the soldiers and mobiles. The army gave way to the +inspiration of Paris. The mobiles arrived preceded by their +quartermasters carrying large black crowns; the trumpeters, posted at +each corner of the pedestal, saluted them, and the crowd cheered them to +the echo. Women dressed in black suspended a tricolor flag bearing the +inscription, "The republican women to the martyrs." When the pedestal +was covered, the crowns and flowers soon wound themselves entirely round +the bust, encircling it from top to bottom with yellow and black +flowers, red and tricolor oriflammes, symbols of mourning for the past +and hope in the future. + +On the 26th the manifestations became innumerable and irritated. A +police agent, surprised taking down the names of the battalions, was +seized and thrown into the Seine. Twenty-five battalions defiled, +sombre, a prey to a terrible anguish. The armistice was about to expire +and the _Journal Officiel_ did not speak of a prorogation. The journals +announced the entry of the German army by the Champs-Elysees for the +next day. The Government was sending the troops to the left bank of the +Seine and clearing out the Palace de l'Industrie. They forgot only the +cannons of the National Guards accumulated at the Place Wagram and at +Passy. Already the carelessness of the capitulards had delivered 12,000 +more muskets to the Prussians than were stipulated for.[64] Who could +tell if the latter would not stretch out their hands to these fine +pieces, cast with the flesh and blood of the Parisians, marked with the +numbers of the battalions?[65] Spontaneously all Paris rose. The +bourgeois battalions of Passy, in accord with the municipality,[66] set +the example, drawing the pieces of the Ranelagh to the Parc +Monceaux.[67] Other battalions came to fetch their cannon in the Park +Wagram, wheeling them by the Rues St. Honore and Rivoli to the Place +des Vosges, under the protection of the Bastille. + +During the day the troop sent by Vinoy to the Bastille had fraternized +with the people. In the evening, the rappel, the tocsin, the trumpets +had thrown thousands of armed men into the streets, who came to mass +themselves at the Bastille, the Chateau d'Eau, and the Rue de Rivoli. +The prison of St. Pelagie was forced and Brunel set free. At two o'clock +in the morning, forty thousand men remounted the Champs-Elysees and the +Avenue de la Grande Armee, silent, in good order, to encounter the +Prussians. They waited till daybreak. On their return, the battalions of +Montmartre seized all the cannon they found on their way, and took them +to the mairie of the eighteenth arrondissement and to the Boulevard +Ornano. + +To this feverish but chivalrous outburst Vinoy could only oppose an +order of the day stigmatizing it. And this Government, that insulted +Paris, asked her to immolate herself for France! A placard posted up on +the morning of the 27th announced the prolongation of the armistice, and +for the 1st of March the occupation of the Champs-Elysees by 30,000 +Germans. + +At two o'clock the commission charged to draw up the statutes for a +Central Committee held a sitting at the mairie of the third +arrondissement. Some of its members since the evening before, +considering themselves invested with powers by the situation, had tried +to organize a permanent sub-committee in this mairie; but not being +numerous enough, they had adjourned until the next day and consulted the +chiefs of the battalions. The sitting, presided over by Captain +Bergeret, was stormy. The delegates of the battalion of Montmartre, who +had established a committee of their own in the Rue des Rosiers, would +speak only of fighting, showed their _mandats imperatifs_, and recalled +the resolution of the Vauxhall. It was almost unanimously resolved to +take up arms against the Prussians. The mayor, Bonvalet, rather uneasy +at having such guests, had the mairie surrounded, and, half by +persuasion, half by force, succeeded in getting rid of them. + +During the whole day the faubourgs had armed and seized the munitions; +the rampart pieces were remounted on their carriages; the mobiles, +forgetting that they were prisoners of war, went to retake their arms. +In the evening one crowd inveigled the marines of La Pepiniere Barracks, +and led them to the Bastille to fraternize with the people. + +A catastrophe was inevitable but for the courage of a few men who dared +to oppose this dangerous current. All the societies that met at the +Place de la Corderie, the Central Committee of the twenty +arrondissements, the International, and the Federation, looked with +reserve upon this Central Committee, composed of unknown men, who had +never taken part in the revolutionary campaigns. On leaving the mairie +of the third arrondissement, some delegates of battalions who belonged +to the sections of the International came to the Corderie to tell of the +sitting and the desperate resolution come to. Every exertion was made to +pacify them, and speakers were sent to the Vauxhall, where a large +meeting was being held; they succeeded in making themselves heard. Many +other citizens made great efforts to recall the people to reason. The +next morning, the 28th, the three groups of the Corderie published a +manifesto conjuring the workingmen to beware. "Every attack," said they, +"would serve to expose the people to the blows of the enemies of the +Revolution, who would drown all social vindications in a sea of blood." +Pressed on all sides, the Central Committee was obliged to yield, as it +announced in a proclamation signed by twenty-nine names. "Every +aggression would result in the immediate overthrow of the Republic. +Barricades will be established all round the quarters to be occupied by +the enemy, so he will parade in a camp shut out from our town." This was +the first official appearance of the Central Committee. The twenty-nine +unknown men[68] capable of thus pacifying the National Guard were +applauded even by the bourgeoisie, who did not seem to wonder at their +power. + +The Prussians entered Paris on the 1st March. This Paris which the +people had taken possession of was no longer the Paris of the nobles and +the great bourgeoisie of 1815. Black flags hung from the houses, but the +deserted streets, the closed shops, the dried-up fountains, the veiled +statues of the Place de la Concorde, the gas not lighted at night, still +more pregnantly announced a town in its agony. Prostitutes who ventured +into the quarters of the enemy were publicly whipped. A cafe in the +Champs-Elysees which had opened its doors to the victors was ransacked. +There was but one _grand seigneur_ in the Faubourg St. Germain to offer +his house to the Prussians. + +Paris was still wincing under this affront, when a new avalanche of +insults poured down upon her from Bordeaux. Not only had the Assembly +not found a word or act to help her in this painful crisis, but its +papers, the _Journal Officiel_ at their head, were indignant that she +should have thought of defending herself against the Prussians. A +proposition was being signed in the bureaux to fix the seat of the +Assembly outside of Paris. The projected law on overdue bills and +house-rents opened the prospect of numberless failures. Peace had been +accepted, hurriedly voted like an ordinary business. Alsace, the greater +part of Lorraine, 1,600,000 Frenchmen torn from their fatherland, five +milliards to pay, the forts to the east of Paris to be occupied till the +payment of the first 500,000,000 francs, and the departments of the East +till the entire payment; this was what Trochu, Favre, and the coalition +cost us, the price for which Bismarck permitted us the _Chambre +introuvable_. And to console Paris for so much disgrace, M. Thiers +appointed as General of the National Guard the incapable and brutal +commander of the first army of the Loire, D'Aurelles de Paladines. Two +senators, Vinoy and D'Aurelles, two Bonapartists, at the head of +Republican Paris--this was too much. All Paris had the presentiment of a +_coup-d'etat_.[69] + +That evening there were large groups gathered in the boulevards. The +National Guards, refusing to acknowledge D'Aurelles as their commander, +proposed the appointment of Garibaldi. On the 3rd two hundred battalions +sent their delegates to Vauxhall. Matters began with the reading of the +statutes. The preamble declared the Republic "the only Government by law +and justice superior to universal suffrage, which is its offspring." +"The delegates," said Article 6, "must prevent every attempt whose +object would be the overthrow of the Republic." The Central Committee +was composed of three delegates for each arrondissement, elected by the +companies, battalions, legions and of the _chefs-de-legion_.[70] While +awaiting the regular election, the meeting there and then named a +provisional executive committee. Varlin, Pindy, Jacques Durand, and some +other Socialists of the Corderie formed part of it, an understanding +having been come to between the Central Committee, or rather the +commission which had drawn up the statutes, and the three groups of the +Corderie. Varlin carried a unanimous vote on the immediate re-election +of the officers of the National Guard. Another motion was put: "That the +department of the Seine constitute itself an independent republic in +case of the Assembly attempting to decapitalize Paris,"--a motion +unsound in its conception, faultily drawn up, which seemed to isolate +Paris from the rest of France--an anti-revolutionist, anti-Parisian +idea, cruelly exploited against the Commune. Who then was to feed Paris +if not the provinces? Who was to save our peasants if not Paris? But +Paris had been confined to solitary life for six months; she alone to +the last moment had declared for the continuation of the struggle at +any price, alone affirmed the Republic by a vote. Her abandonment, the +vote of the provinces, the rural majority, made so many men ready to die +for the universal republic fancy that the Republic might be shut up +within Paris. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[63] 3rd arrondissement, A. Genotal; 4th, Alavoine; 5th, Manet; 6th, V. +Frontier; 7th, Badois; 8th, Morterol?; 9th, Mayer; 10th, Arnold; 11th, +Piconel; 12th, Audoynaud; 13th, Soncial; 14th, Dacosta; 15th, Masson; +16th, Pe; 17th, Weber; 18th, Trouillet; 19th, Lagarde; 20th, A. Bonit. +Courty remained president, Ramel secretary. + +[64] Vinoy, _L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 128. + +[65] The reactionists have said that this fear was feigned; that the +cannon were safe from the Prussians. This is so false that the general +staff itself feared a surprise. See Mortemart, chef d'etat-major, +_Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. ii. p. 844. + +[66] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Colonel Lavigne, vol. ii. p. 467. + +[67] "The first cannons were taken, carried away, on the news of the +entry of the Prussians. And these, gentlemen, believe me, were carried +off by citizens devoted to order, the National Guards of Passy and +Auteuil, and taken where? From the Ranelagh."--_Jules Ferry_, _Enquete +sur le 18 Mars_, vol ii. p. 68. + +[68] A. Alavoine, A. Bouit, Frontier, Boursier, David, Buisson, Harond, +Gritz, Tessier, Ramel, Badois, Arnold, Piconel, Audoynaud, Masson, +Weber, Lagarde, J. Laroque, J. Bergeret, Pouchain, Lavalette, Fleury, +Maljournal, Chouteau, Cadaze, Gastaud, Dutil, Matte, Mutin. Ten only of +those elected on the 15th figure in this document. Various delegations, +abstentions, and irregular adhesions had given nearly twenty new names. + +[69] Roger du Nord, the chief of D'Aurelles' staff, "heard it said in +all the fractions of the National Guard, 'Why place a man of such energy +at the head of the National Guard if not to make a _coup +d'etat_?'"--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. + +[70] The National Guards of each of the twenty arrondissements were +formed into a separate legion. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "Cette republique a ete menacee par l'Assemblee, a-t-on dit, + Messieurs, quand l'insurrection a eclate, l'Assemblee ne + s'etait encore signalee au point de vue politique que par + deux actes: la nomination du chef du pouvoir executif et + l'acceptation d'un cabinet republicain."--_Discours de M. + Larcy, du Centre Gauche, contre l'Amnistie, Seance du 18 + Mai 1876._ + + THE COALITION OPENS FIRE ON PARIS--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE + CONSTITUTES ITSELF--M. THIERS ORDERS THE ASSAULT. + + +To the rural plebiscite the Parisian National Guard had answered by +their federation; to the threats of the monarchists, to the projects of +decapitalization, by the manifestation of the Bastille; to D'Aurelles' +appointment, by the resolutions of the 3rd March. What the perils of the +siege had not been able to effect the Assembly had brought about--the +union of the middle class with the proletariat. The immense majority of +Paris looked upon the growing army of the Republic without regret. On +the 3rd the Minister of the Interior, Picard, having denounced "the +anonymous Central Committee," and called upon "all good citizens to +stifle these culpable manifestations," no one stirred. Besides, the +accusation was ridiculous. The Committee showed itself in the open day, +sent its minutes to the papers, and had only made a manifestation to +save Paris from a catastrophe. It answered the next day: "The Committee +is not anonymous; it is the union of the representatives of free men +aspiring to the solidarity of all the members of the National Guard. Its +acts have always been signed. It repels with contempt the calumnies +which accuse it of inciting to pillage and civil war." The signatures +followed.[71] + +The chiefs of the coalition saw clearly which way events were drifting. +The republican army each day increased its arsenal of muskets, and +especially of cannon. There were now pieces of ordnance at ten different +places--at the Barriere d'Italie, at the Faubourg St. Antoine, at the +Buttes Montmartre. A red placard informed Paris of the formation of the +Central Committee of the federation of the National Guards, and invited +citizens to organize in each arrondissement committees of battalions and +councils of legions, and to appoint the delegates to the Central +Committee. The ensemble, the ardour of the movement seemed to bear +witness to the powerful organization of the Central Committee. A few +days more and the answer of the people would be complete if a blow were +not struck at once. + +What they misunderstood was the stout heart of the enemy. The victory of +the 22nd January blinded them. They believed in the stories of their +journals, in the cowardice of the National Guards, in the bragging of +Ducrot, who, in the bureaux of the Assembly swore eternal hatred to the +demagogues, but for whom, he said, he would have conquered.[72] The +bullies of the reaction fancied they could swallow Paris at a mouthful. + +The operation was conducted with clerical skill, method, and discipline. +Legitimists and Orleanists, disagreeing as to the name of the monarch, +had accepted the compromise of Thiers, an equal share in the Government, +which was called "the pact of Bordeaux." Besides, against Paris there +could be no division. + +From the commencement of March the provincial papers held forth at the +same time, speaking of incendiarism and pillage in Paris. On the 4th +there was but one rumor in the bureaux of the Assembly--that an +insurrection had broken out; that the telegraphic communications were +cut off; that General Vinoy had retreated to the left bank of the Seine. +The Government, which propagated these rumors,[73] despatched four +deputies, who were also mayors, to Paris. They arrived on the 5th, and +found Paris perfectly calm, even gay.[74] The mayors and adjuncts, +assembled by the Minister of the Interior, attested to the tranquility +of the town. But Picard, no doubt in the conspiracy, said, "This +tranquility is only apparent. We must act." And the ultra-Conservative +Vautrain added, "We must take the bull by the horns and arrest the +Central Committee." + +The Right never ceased baiting the bull. Sneers, provocations, insults, +were showered upon Paris and her representatives. Some among them, +Rochefort, Tridon, Malon, and Ranc, when withdrawing after the vote +mutilating the country, were followed by cries of "Pleasant journey to +you." Victor Hugo defending Garibaldi was hooted. Delescluze demanding +the impeachment of the members of the National Defence was no better +listened to. Jules Simon declared that he would maintain the law against +association. On the 10th the breach was opened. A resolution was passed +that Paris should no longer be the capital, and that the Assembly should +sit at Versailles. This was calling forth the Commune, for Paris could +not remain at the same time without a Government and without a +municipality. The field of battle once found, despair was to supply it +with an army. The Government had already decided to continue the pay of +the National Guards to those only who should ask for it. The Assembly +decreed that the bills due on the 13th November, 1870, should be made +payable on the 13th March, that is, in three days. The Minister Dufaure +obstinately refused any concession on this point. Notwithstanding the +urgent appeals of Milliere, the Assembly refused to pass any protective +bill for the tenants whose house-rents had been due for six months. Two +or three hundred thousand workmen, shopkeepers, model makers, small +manufacturers working in their own lodgings, who had spent their little +stock of money and could not yet earn any more, all business being at a +stand-still, were thus thrown upon the tender mercies of the landlord, +of hunger and bankruptcy. From the 13th to the 17th of March 150,000 +bills were dishonored. Finally, the Right obliged M. Thiers to declare +from the tribune "that the Assembly could proceed to its deliberations +at Versailles without fearing the paving stones of an _emeute_," thus +constraining him to act at once, for the deputies were to meet again at +Versailles on the 20th. + +D'Aurelles commenced operations against the National Guard, declaring he +would submit it to rigorous discipline and purge it of its bad elements. +"My first duty," said his order of the day, "is to secure the respect +due to law and property,"--this eternal provocation on the part of the +bourgeoisie when lifted to supreme power by revolutionary events. + +The other senators also joined in. On the 7th Vinoy threw into the +streets with a pittance of eight shillings a head the twenty-one +thousand mobiles of the Seine. On the 11th, the day on which Paris +learnt her decapitalization and the ruinous decrees, Vinoy suppressed +six Republican journals, four of which, _Le Cri du Peuple_, _Le Mot +d'Ordre_, _Le Pere Duchene_, and _Le Vengeur_, had a circulation of +200,000. The same day the court-martial which judged the accused of the +31st October condemned several to death, among others Flourens and +Blanqui. Thus everybody was hit--bourgeois, republicans, revolutionists. +This Assembly of Bordeaux, the deadly foe of Paris, a stranger to her +in sentiment, mind, and language, seemed a Government of foreigners. The +commercial quarters as well as the faubourgs rang with a general outcry +against it.[75] + +From this time the last hesitation disappeared. The mayor of Montmartre, +Clemenceau, had been intriguing for several days to effect the surrender +of the cannon, and he had even found officers disposed to capitulate; +but the battalion protested, and on the 12th, when D'Aurelles sent his +teams, the guards refused to deliver the pieces. Picard, making an +attempt at firmness, sent for Courty, saying, "The members of the +Central Committee are risking their heads," and obtained a +quasi-promise. The Committee expelled Courty. + +It had since the 6th met at the hall of the Corderie. Although keeping +aloof from, and entirely independent of, the three other groups, the +reputation of the place was useful to it. It gave evidence of good +policy and baffled the intrigues of the _commandant_, Du Bisson, an +officer who had served abroad and been employed in undertakings of an +equivocal character, and who was trying to constitute a Central +Committee from above with the chiefs of the battalions. The Central +Committee sent three delegates to this group, where they met with lively +opposition. One chief of battalion, Barberet, showed himself +particularly restive; but another, Faltot, carried away the Assembly, +saying, "I am going over to the people." The fusion was concluded on the +10th, the day of the general meeting of the delegates. The Committee +presented its weekly report. It recounted the events of the last days, +the nomination of D'Aurelles, the menaces of Picard, remarking very +justly, "That which we are, events have made us: the reiterated attacks +of a press hostile to democracy have taught it, the menaces of the +Government have confirmed it; we are the inexorable barrier raised +against every attempt at the overthrow of the Republic." The delegates +were invited to push forward the elections of the Central Committee. An +appeal to the army was drawn up: "Soldiers, children of the people! Let +us unite to serve the Republic. Kings and emperors have done us harm +enough." The next day the soldiers lately arrived from the army of the +Loire gathered in front of these red placards, which bore the names and +addresses of all the members of the Committee. + +The Revolution, bereft of its journals, spoke now through placards, of +the greatest variety of color and opinion, posted on all the walls. +Flourens and Blanqui, condemned in contumacy, placarded their +protestations. Sub-committees were being formed in all the popular +arrondissements. That of the thirteenth arrondissement had for its chief +a young iron founder, Duval, a man of cold and commanding energy. The +sub-committee of the Rue des Rosiers surrounded their cannon by a ditch +and had them guarded day and night.[76] All these committees quashed the +orders of D'Aurelles and were the true commanders of the National Guard. + +No doubt Paris was roused, ready to redeem her abdication during the +siege. This Paris, lean and oppressed by want, adjourned peace and +business, thinking only of the Republic. The provisional Central +Committee, without troubling itself about Vinoy, who had demanded the +arrest of all its members, presented itself on the 15th at the general +assembly of the Vauxhall. Two hundred and fifteen battalions were +represented, and acclaimed Garibaldi as commander-in-chief of the +National Guard. An orator, Lullier, led the Assembly astray. He was an +ex-naval officer, completely crack-brained, with a semblance of military +instruction, and when not heated by alcohol having intervals of lucidity +which might deceive any one. He was named commanding colonel of the +artillery. Then came the names of those elected members of the Central +Committee, about thirty in all, for several arrondissements had not yet +voted. This was the regular Central Committee which was to be installed +at the Hotel-de-Ville. Many of those elected had formed part of the +preceding commission. The others were all equally obscure, belonging to +the proletariat and small middle class, known only to their battalions. + +What mattered their obscurity? The Central Committee was not a +Government at the head of a party. It had no Utopia to initiate. A very +simple idea, fear of the monarchy, could alone have grouped together so +many battalions. The National Guard constituted itself an assurance +company against a _coup-d'etat_; for if Thiers and his agents repeated +the word "Republic," their own party and the Assembly cried "Vive le +Roi!" The Central Committee was a sentinel, that was all. + +The storm was gathering; all was uncertain. The International convoked +the Socialist deputies to ask them what to do. But no attack was +planned, nor even suggested. The Central Committee formally declared +that the first shot would not be fired by the people, and that they +would only defend themselves in case of aggression. + +The aggressor, M. Thiers, arrived on the 15th. For a long time he had +foreseen that it would be necessary to engage in a terrible struggle +with Paris; but he intended acting at his own good time, to retake the +town when disposing of an army of forty thousand men, well picked, +carefully kept aloof from the Parisians. This plan has been revealed by +a general officer. At this moment Thiers had only the mere wreck of an +army. + +The 230,000 men disarmed by the capitulation, mostly mobiles or men +having finished their term of service, had been sent home in hot haste, +as they would only have swelled the Parisian army. Already some mobiles, +marines, and soldiers had laid the basis of a republican association +with the National Guards. There remained to Vinoy only the division +allowed him by the Prussians and 3,000 sergents-de-ville or gendarmes, +in all 15,000 men, rather ill-conditioned. Lefio sent him a few thousand +men picked up in the armies of the Loire and of the North, but they +arrived slowly, almost without _cadres_, harassed, and disgusted at the +service. At Vinoy's very first review they were on the point of +mutinying. They left them straggling through Paris, abandoned, mixing +with the Parisians, who succored them, the women bringing them soups and +blankets to their huts, where they were freezing. In fact, on the 19th +the Government had only about 25,000 men, without cohesion and +discipline, two-thirds of them gained over to the faubourgs. + +How disarm 100,000 men with this mob? For, to carry off the cannon, it +was necessary to disarm the National Guard. The Parisians were no longer +novices in warfare. "Having taken our cannon," they said, "they will +make our muskets useless." The coalition would listen to nothing. Hardly +arrived, they urged M. Thiers to act, to lance the abscess at once. The +financiers--no doubt the same who had precipitated the war to give fresh +impulse to their jobbery[77]--said to him, "You will never be able to +carry out financial operations if you don't make an end of these +scoundrels."[78] All these declared the taking of the cannon would be +mere child's play. + +They were indeed hardly watched, but because the National Guard knew +them to be in a safe place. It would suffice to pull up a few paving +stones to prevent their removal down the narrow steep streets of +Montmartre. On the first alarm all Paris would hasten to the rescue. +This had been seen on the 16th, when gendarmes presented themselves to +take from the Place des Vosges the cannon promised by Vautrain. The +National Guards arrived from all sides and unscrewed the pieces, and +the shopkeepers of the Rue des Tournelles commenced unpaving the street. + +An attack was nonsensical, and it was this that determined Paris to +remain on the defensive. But M. Thiers saw nothing, neither the +disaffection of the middle classes nor the deep irritation of the +faubourgs. The little man, a dupe all his life, even of a MacMahon, +prompted by the approach of the 20th March, spurred on by Jules Favre +and Picard, who, since the failure of the 31st of October, believed the +revolutionists incapable of any serious action, and jealous to play the +part of a Bonaparte, threw himself head foremost into the venture. On +the 17th he held a council, and, without calculating his forces or those +of the enemy, without forewarning the mayors--(Picard had formally +promised them not to attempt to use force without consulting +them)--without listening to the chiefs of the bourgeois battalions,[79] +this Government, too weak to arrest even the twenty-five members of the +Central Committee, gave the order to carry off two hundred and fifty +cannon[80] guarded by all Paris. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Arnold, J. Bergeret, Bouit, Castioni, Chauviere, Chouteau, Courty, +Dutil, Fleury, Frontier, H. Fortune, Lacord, Lagarde, Lavalette, +Maljournal, Matte, Ostyn, Piconel, Pindy, Prudhomme, Varlin, H. Verlet, +Viard. Many of these names, those of the representatives elected on the +3rd, were new ones. On the other hand, many of those that had figured in +the placard of the 28th were missing, because only those signed who were +present at the sitting. + +[72] He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on the 3rd +"to save Paris from any demagogic attempts." + +[73] The prefecture of Rennes placarded this despatch of the Government: +"A criminal insurrection is being organised in Paris. I send forces +which, joined to the honest National Guards of Paris and to the other +regular troops which are still stationed there, will suppress, I hope, +this odious attempt." + +[74] Jules Ferry, who had remained at Paris, telegraphed on the 5th to +the Government: "Never has a Sunday been calmer, notwithstanding +sinister reports. The population is enjoying the sun and their +promenades as if nothing had happened. I no longer believe in the +danger." + +[75] "The vote of the Assembly," wrote Jules Favre, "was received at +Paris with extreme disfavour; not only amongst the fanatics and the +agitators; all classes of the population showed themselves almost +unanimous. Every one saw in it an affront and a menace. It was repeated +everywhere that this was the first act of a monarchical _coup-d'etat_; +that the Assembly was ready to name a king, and that, knowing the +unpopularity of its work, it sought to accomplish it far from the eyes +of those who might oppose it." + +[76] This is the Committee which many took for the Central Committee. + +[77] Some Bourse speculators, in the belief that a campaign of six weeks +would give a fresh impulse to the speculations they were living upon, +said, "It is a disagreeable moment to pass through, some 50,000 men to +be sacrificed, after which the horizon will clear and commerce +revive."--_M. Thiers, Enquete sur le 4 Septembre_, vol. i. p. 9. + +[78] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, M. Thiers, vol. ii. p. 11. + +[79] In the evening D'Aurelles assembled forty of the most reliable, and +asked them if their battalions would march. They all said their men were +not to be counted upon. _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 435, 456. + +[80] This is the number of pieces given by M. Thiers in the _Enquete sur +le 18 Mars_. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "Nous avons donc fait ce que nous devions faire; rien n'a + provoque l'insurrection de Paris."--_Discours de M. Dufaure + contre l'Amnistie, Seance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH. + + +The execution was as foolish as the conception. On the 18th of March, at +three o'clock in the morning, several columns dispersed in various +directions to the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, the Faubourg du Temple, +the Bastille, the Hotel-de-Ville, Place St. Michel, the Luxembourg, the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Invalides. General Susbielle marched +on Montmartre with two brigades about 6,000 men strong. All was silent +and deserted. The brigade Paturel took possession of the Moulin de la +Galette without striking a blow. The brigade Lecomte gained the Tower of +Solferino, only meeting with one sentinel, Turpin, who crossed bayonets +with them and was hewn down by the gendarmes. They then rushed to the +post of the Rue des Rosiers, stormed it, and threw the National Guards +into the caves of the Tower of Solferino. At six o'clock the surprise +was complete. M. Clemenceau hurried to the Buttes to congratulate +General Lecomte. Everywhere else the cannon were surprised in the same +way. The Government triumphed all along the line, and D'Aurelles sent +the papers a proclamation written in the conqueror's vein. + +There was only something wanted--teams to convey the spoil. Vinoy had +almost forgotten them. At eight o'clock they began to put some horses to +the pieces. Meanwhile the faubourgs were awaking and the early shops +opening. Around the milkmaids and before the wineshops the people began +talking in a low voice; they pointed to the soldiers, the mitrailleuse +levelled at the streets, the walls covered with the still wet placard +signed by M. Thiers and his Ministers. They spoke of paralyzed commerce, +suspended orders, frightened capitals: "Inhabitants of Paris, in your +interest the Government has resolved to act. Let the good citizens +separate from the bad ones; let them aid public force; they will render +a service to the Republic herself," said MM. Pouyer-Quertier, De Larcy, +Dufaure and other Republicans. The conclusion is borrowed from the +phraseology of December: "The culpable shall be surrendered to justice. +Order, complete, immediate and unalterable, must be re-established." +They spoke of order;--blood was to be shed. + +As in our great days, the women were the first to act. Those of the 18th +March, hardened by the siege--they had had a double ration of +misery--did not wait for the men. They surrounded the mitrailleuses, +apostrophized the sergeant in command of the gun, saying, "This is +shameful; what are you doing there?" The soldiers did not answer. +Occasionally a non-commissioned officer spoke to them: "Come, my good +women, get out of the way." At the same time a handful of National +Guards, proceeding to the post of the Rue Doudeauville, there found two +drums that had not been smashed, and beat the _rappel_. At eight o'clock +they numbered 300 officers and guards, who ascended the Boulevard +Ornano. They met a platoon of soldiers of the 88th, and, crying, "Vive +la Republique!" enlisted them. The post of the Rue Dejean also joined +them, and the butt-end of their muskets raised, soldiers and guards +together marched up to the Rue Muller that leads to the Buttes +Montmartre, defended on this side by the men of the 88th. These, seeing +their comrades intermingling with the guards, signed to them to advance, +that they would let them pass. General Lecomte, catching sight of the +signs, had the men replaced by sergents-de-ville, and confined them in +the Tower of Solferino, adding, "You will get your deserts." The +sergents-de-ville discharged a few shots, to which the guards replied. +Suddenly a large number of National Guards, the butt-end of their +muskets up, women and children, debouched on the other flank by the Rue +des Rosiers. General Lecomte, surrounded, three times commanded fire. +His men stood still, their arms ordered. The crowd, advancing, +fraternized with them, and Lecomte and his officers were arrested. + +The soldiers whom he had just shut up in the tower wanted to shoot him, +but some National Guards having succeeded in disengaging him with great +difficulty--for the crowd took him for Vinoy--conducted him with his +officers to the Chateau-Rouge, where the staff of the battalions of the +National Guard was seated. There they asked him for an order to evacuate +the Buttes. He signed it without hesitation.[81] The order was +immediately communicated to the officers and soldiers of the Rue des +Rosiers. The gendarmes surrendered their chassepots, and even cried, +"Vive la Republique!" Three discharges from the cannon announced the +recapture of the Buttes. + +General Paturel, who wanted to carry away the cannon, surprised at the +Moulin de la Galette, came into collision with a living barricade in the +Rue Lepic. The people stopped the horses, cut the traces, dispersed the +artillerymen, and took back the cannon to their post. In the Place +Pigalle, General Susbielle gave the order to charge the crowd collected +in the Rue Houdon, but the chasseurs, intimidated, spurred back their +horses and were laughed at. A captain, dashing forward, sabre in hand, +wounded a guard, and fell, pierced with balls. The General fled. The +gendarmes, who commenced firing from behind the huts, were soon +dislodged, and the bulk of the soldiers went over to the people. + +At Belleville, the Buttes Chaumont, the Luxembourg, the troops +fraternized everywhere with the crowds that had collected at the first +alarm. + +By eleven o'clock the people had vanquished the aggressors at all +points, preserved almost all their cannon, of which only ten had been +carried off, and seized thousands of chassepots. All their battalions +were now on foot, and the men of the faubourgs commenced unpaving the +streets. + +Since six o'clock in the morning D'Aurelles had had the rappel beaten in +the central quarters, but in vain. Battalions formerly noted for their +devotion to Trochu sent only twenty men to the rendezvous. All Paris, on +reading the placards, said, "This is the _coup-d'etat_." At twelve +o'clock D'Aurelles and Picard sounded the alarm: "The Government call on +you to defend your homes, your families, your property. Some misguided +men, under the lead of some secret chiefs, turn against Paris the cannon +kept back from the Prussians." These reminiscences of June, 1848, this +accusation of indelicacy toward the Prussians, failing to rouse any one, +the whole Ministry came to the rescue: "An absurd rumor is being spread +that the Government is preparing a _coup-d'etat_. It has wished and +wishes to make an end of an insurrectional Committee, whose members only +represent Communist doctrines." These alarms, repeatedly sounded, raised +in all 500 men.[82] + +The Government were at the Foreign Office, and, after the first +reverses, M. Thiers had given the order to fall back with all the troops +on the Champ-de-Mars. When he saw the desertion of the National Guards +of the Centre, he declared that it was necessary to evacuate Paris. +Several Ministers objected, wanted a few points to be guarded, the +Hotel-de-Ville, its barracks occupied by the brigade Derroja, the Ecole +Militaire, and that they should take a position on the Trocadero. The +little man, quite distracted, would only hear of extreme measures. +Leflo, who had almost been made a prisoner at the Bastille, vigorously +supported him. It was decided that the whole town should be evacuated, +even the forts on the south, restored by the Prussians a fortnight +before. Towards three o'clock the popular battalions of the Gros Caillou +marched past the Hotel-de-Ville, headed by drums and trumpets. The +Council believed itself surrounded.[83] M. Thiers escaped by a back +stair, and left for Versailles so out of his senses that at the bridge +of Sevres he gave the written order to evacuate Mont-Valerien. + +At the self-same hour when M. Thiers ran away, the revolutionary +battalions had not yet attempted any attack or occupied any official +posts.[84] The aggression of the morning had surprised the Central +Committee, as it had all Paris. The evening before they had separated as +usual, giving themselves a rendezvous for the 18th, at eleven o'clock at +night, behind the Bastille, at the school in the Rue Basfroi; the Place +de la Corderie, actively watched by the police, no longer being safe. +Since the 15th new elections had added to their numbers, and they had +appointed a Committee of Defence. On the news of the attack, some ran to +the Rue Basfroi, others applied themselves to raising the battalions of +their quarters: Varlin at the Batignolles, Bergeret, recently named +chef-de-legion, at Montmartre, Duval at the Pantheon, Pindy in the third +arrondissement, Faltot in the Rue de Sevres. Ranvier and Brunel, without +belonging to the Committee, were agitating Belleville and the tenth +arrondissement. At ten o'clock a dozen members met together, overwhelmed +with messages from all sides, and receiving from time to time some +prisoners. Positive intelligence only came in towards two o'clock. They +then drew up a kind of plan by which all the federalist battalions were +to converge upon the Hotel-de-Ville, and then dispersed in all +directions to transmit orders.[85] + +The battalions were indeed on the alert, but did not march. The +revolutionary quarters, fearing a resumption of the attack, and ignoring +the plenitude of their victory, were strongly barricading themselves, +and remained where they were. Even Montmartre was only swarming with +guards in search of news, and disbanded soldiers for whom collections +were being made, as they had had nothing to eat since the morning. +Towards half-past three o'clock the Committee of Vigilance of the +eighteenth arrondissement, established in the Rue de Clignancourt, was +informed that General Lecomte was in great danger. A crowd, consisting +chiefly of soldiers, surrounded the Chateau-Rouge and demanded the +General. The members of the Committee of Vigilance, Ferre, Jaclard, and +Bergeret, immediately sent an order to the commander of the +Chateau-Rouge to guard the prisoner, who was to be put on his trial. +When the order arrived Lecomte had just left. + +He had long been asking to be taken before the Central Committee. The +chiefs of the post, much perturbed by the cries of the crowd, anxious to +get rid of their responsibility, and believing this Committee was +sitting in the Rue des Rosiers, decided to conduct the General and his +officers there. They arrived at about four o'clock, passing through a +terribly irritated crowd, yet no one raised a hand against them. The +General was closely guarded in a small front room on the ground floor. +There the scenes of the Chateau-Rouge recommenced. The exasperated +soldiers asked for his death. The officers of the National Guard made +desperate efforts to quiet them, crying, "Wait for the Committee." They +succeeded in posting sentinels and appeasing the commotion for a time. + +No member of the Committee had arrived when, at half-past four, +formidable cries filled the street, and hunted by a fierce multitude, a +man with a white beard was thrust against the wall of the house. It was +Clement-Thomas, the man of June, 1848, the insulter of the revolutionary +battalions. He had been recognized and arrested at the Chaussee des +Martyrs, where he was examining the barricades. Some officers of the +National Guard, a Garibaldian captain, Herpin-Lacroix, and some +franc-tireurs had tried to stop the deadly mass, repeating a thousand +times, "Wait for the Committee! Constitute a court-martial!" They were +jostled, and Clement-Thomas was again seized and hurled into the little +garden of the house. Twenty muskets levelled at him battered him down. +During this execution the soldiers broke the windows of the room where +General Lecomte was confined, threw themselves upon him, dragging him +towards the garden. This man, who in the morning had three times +commanded fire upon the people, wept, begged for pity, and spoke of his +family. He was forced against the wall and fell under the bullets. + +These reprisals over, the wrath of the mass subsided. They allowed the +officers of Lecomte's suite to be taken back to the Chateau-Rouge, and +at nightfall they were set at liberty. + +While these executions took place, the people, so long standing on the +defensive, had begun to move. Brunel surrounded the Prince Eugene +Barracks, held by the 120th of the line. The colonel, accompanied by +about a hundred officers, assuming lofty airs, Brunel had them all +locked up. Two thousand chassepots fell into the hands of the people. +Brunel continued his march by the Rue du Temple towards the +Hotel-de-Ville. The Imprimerie Nationale was occupied at five o'clock. +At six the crowd attacked the doors of the Napoleon Barracks with +hatchets. A discharge was made, fired from the opening, and three +persons fell; but the soldiers made signs from the windows of the Rue +de Rivoli, crying, "It is the gendarmes who have fired. Vive la +Republique!" Soon after they opened the doors and allowed their arms to +be carried off.[86] + +At half-past seven the Hotel-de-Ville was almost invested. The gendarmes +who occupied it fled by the subterranean passage of the Lobau Barracks. +About half-past eight Jules Ferry and Vabre, entirely abandoned by their +men, left without any order by the Government, also stole away. Shortly +after Brunel's column debouched on the place and took possession of the +Hotel-de-Ville, where Ranvier arrived at the same time by the quays. + +The number of the battalions augmented incessantly. Brunel had given +order to raise barricades in the Rue de Rivoli, on the quays, manned all +the approaches, distributed the posts, and sent out strong patrols. One +of these, surrounding the mairie of the Louvre, where the mayors were +deliberating, almost succeeded in catching Ferry, who saved himself by +jumping out of a window. The mayors returned to the mairie of the Place +de la Bourse. + +They had already met there during the day together with many adjuncts, +much offended at the senseless governmental attack, waiting for +information and for ideas. Towards four o'clock they sent delegates to +the Government. M. Thiers had already made off. Picard politely showed +them out. D'Aurelles washed his hands of the whole affair, saying the +lawyers had done it. At night, however, it became necessary to take a +resolution. The federal battalions already surrounded the Hotel-de-Ville +and occupied the Place Vendome, whither Varlin, Bergeret, and Arnold had +conducted the battalions of Montmartre and the Batignolles. Vacherot, +Vautrain, and a few reactionists spoke of resisting at any price, as +though they had had an army to back them. Others, more sensible, sought +for some expedient. They thought they could calm down every thing by +naming as prefect of police Ed. Adam, who had distinguished himself +against the insurgents of June, 1848, and as General of the National +Guards the giddy Proudhonist Langlois, a former Internationalist, who +had been for the movement of the 31st of October in the morning, against +it in the evening, and was named deputy, thanks to a scratch received +while gesticulating at Buzenval. The delegates went to propose this +brilliant solution to Jules Favre. He refused outright, saying, "We +cannot treat with assassins." This comedy was only played to justify the +evacuation of Paris, which he concealed from the mayors. During the +conference it was announced that Jules Ferry had abandoned the +Hotel-de-Ville. The other Jules feigned surprise, and engaged the mayors +to call out the battalions of order for the purpose of replacing the +vanished army. + +They returned overwhelmed by this raillery, humbled at having been +altogether left in the dark about the intention of the Government. If +possessed of some political courage, they would have gone straight to +the Hotel-de-Ville, instead of commencing to deliberate again in their +mairie. At last, at ten o'clock in the morning, Picard informed them +that they might bring out their Lafayette. They immediately sent +Langlois to the Hotel-de-Ville. + +Some of the members of the Central Committee had been there since ten +o'clock, generally very anxious and very hesitating. Not one of them had +dreamt that power would fall so heavily upon their shoulders. Many did +not want to sit at the Hotel-de-Ville. They deliberated. At last it was +decided that they would only stay during the two or three days wanted +for the elections. Meanwhile it was necessary to ward off any attempt at +resistance. Lullier was present, buzzing around the Committee, in one of +his intervals of grave lucidity, promising to ward off all danger and +appealing to the vote of Vauxhall. He had played no part during the +whole day.[87] The Committee committed the blunder of appointing him +commander-in-chief of the National Guard, while Brunel, who had rendered +such service since the morning, was already installed in the +Hotel-de-Ville. + +At three o'clock, Langlois, the competitor of Lullier, announced +himself. He was full of confidence in himself, and had already sent his +proclamation to the _Journal Officiel_. "Who are you?" the sentinels +asked him. "General of the National Guard," answered Langlois. Some +deputies of Paris, Lockroy, Cournet, &c., accompanied him. The Committee +consented to receive them. "Who has named you?" said they to Langlois. +"M. Thiers." They smiled at this aplomb of a madman. As he pleaded the +rights of the Assembly they put him to the test; "Do you recognise the +Central Committee?" "No." He decamped to run after his proclamation. + +The night was calm, fatally calm for liberty. By the gates of the south +Vinoy marched off his regiments, his artillery, and his baggage to +Versailles. The disbanded troops jogged along peevishly, insulting the +gendarmes.[88] The staff, true to its traditions, had lost its head, and +left in Paris three regiments, six batteries, and all the gunboats, +which it would have sufficed to leave to the current of the river. The +slightest demonstration of the federals would have stopped this exodus. +Far from thinking of closing the gates, the new commander of the +National Guard--he boasted of it before the council of war--left open +all issues to the army. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] This order enjoining the troop to file off in the midst of the +National Guards was drawn up in pencil by a captain. Lecomte copied it +in ink without changing a word. The court-martial has denied this, in +order to glorify this general, who died so pusillanimously. + +[82] Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers; fourteen men per battalion, +says Jules Perry. _Enquete sur le 18 Mars._ + +[83] M. Thiers in the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_ says, firstly, "We let +them defile," then, twenty lines farther, "We repulsed them." Leflo has +not concealed the fright the Council was in: "The moment seemed critical +to me. And I said, 'I think we are done for; we shall be carried off;' +and indeed the battalions had only to penetrate into the palace and we +were all taken to the last man. But the three battalions marched off +without saying anything."--Vol. ii. p. 80. + +[84] The report of the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_ said that "the Committee +did not hesitate on the afternoon of the 18th March to take possession +of all the administrations." This is if not a lie, intended to palliate +the stampede of M. Thiers,--one of the grossest proofs of the ignorance +of this report, which attributes the manifestation of the 24th of +February to an order of the Central Committee. + +[85] See Appendix II., the details of the proceedings of the Central +Committee during this day, told by one of its members. + +[86] Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book _L'Armistice et la +Commune_: "The general assembled his men, and _sword in hand_ he bravely +placed himself at the head of his troops." + +[87] Ten days after he recounted in a crazy letter written in the +Conciergerie that he had done everything; taken the Hotel-de-Ville, the +Prefecture of Police, the Place Vendome, the Tuileries, &c.; and this +letter is referred to as an authority by the report of the _Enquete sur +le 18 Mars_! For the future, I shall abstain from pointing out the +errors that abound in this report, which is an ignorant and malignant +resume of the lies, inaccuracies, and animosity accumulated in this +_Inquiry_, from which all the vanquished, and even the smallest +adversaries, were excluded. Entirely insufficient as a historical +source, it may well serve to set forth the intelligence and morality of +the French bourgeoisie of the epoch. + +[88] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Marreille, vol. ii. p. 200. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + "Nos coeurs brises font appel aux votres."--_Les Maires et + Adjoints de Paris et les Deputes de la Seine a la Garde + Nationale et a tous les Citoyens._ + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE CONVOKES THE ELECTORS--THE MAYORS OF + PARIS AND DEPUTIES OF THE SEINE TURN AGAINST IT. + + +Paris only became aware of her victory on the morning of the 19th of +March. What a change in the scene, even after all the scene-shifting in +the drama enacted during these last seven months! The red flag floated +above the Hotel-de-Ville. With the early morning mists the army, the +Government, the Administration had evaporated. From the depths of the +Bastille, from the obscure Rue Basfroi, the Central Committee was lifted +to the summits of Paris in the sight of all the world. Thus on the 4th +September the Empire had vanished; thus the deputies of the Left had +picked up a derelict power. + +The Committee, to its great honour, had only one thought, to restore its +power to Paris. Had it been sectarian, hatching decrees, the movement +would have ended like that of the 31st October. Happily it was composed +of new-comers, without a past, and without political pretensions; men of +the small middle-class, as well as workmen, shopkeepers, commercial +clerks, mechanics, sculptors, architects, caring little for systems, +anxious above all to save the Republic. At this giddy height they had +but one idea to sustain them, that of securing to Paris her +municipality. + +Under the Empire this was one of the favourite schemes of the Left, by +which it had mainly won over the small Parisian bourgeoisie, much +humiliated at the sight of Governmental nominees enthroned at the +Hotel-de-Ville for full eighty years. Even the most pacific amongst them +were shocked, scandalised by the incessant increase of the budget, the +multiplied loans, and the financial swindling of Haussmann. And how they +applauded Picard, revindicating for the largest and most enlightened +city of France at least the rights enjoyed by the smallest village, or +when he defied the Pasha of the Seine to produce regular accounts! +Towards the end of the Empire, the idea of an elective municipal council +had taken root; it had to a certain extent been put into practice during +the siege, and now its total realisation could alone console Paris for +her decentralisation. + +On the other hand, the popular masses, insensible to the bourgeois ideal +of a municipal council, were bent on the Commune. They had called for it +during the siege as an arm against the foreign enemy; they still called +for it as a lever for uprooting despotism and misery. What did they care +for a council, even elective, but without real liberties and fettered to +the state--without authority over the administration of schools and +hospitals, justice and police, and altogether unfit for grappling with +the social slavery of its fellow-citizens? What the people strove for +was a political form allowing them to work for the amelioration of their +condition. They had seen all the constitutions and all the +representative governments run counter to the will of the so-called +represented elector, and the state power, grown more and more despotic, +despoil the workmen even of the right to defend his labour, and this +power, which has ordained even the very air to be breathed, always +refusing to interfere in capitalist brigandage. After so many failures, +they were fully convinced that the actual governmental and legislative +regime was from its very nature unable to emancipate the workingman. +This emancipation they expected from the autonomous Commune, sovereign +within the limits compatible with the maintenance of the national unity. +The communal constitution was to substitute for the representative +lording it over his elector the strictly responsible mandatory. The old +state power grafted upon the country, feeding upon its substance, +usurping supremacy on the foundation of divided and antagonistic +interests, organising for the benefit of the few, justice, finance, +army, and police, was to be superseded by a delegation of all the +autonomous communes. + +Thus the municipal question, appealing to the legitimate +susceptibilities of the one, to the bold aspirations of the other, +gathered all classes round the Central Committee. + +At half-past eight they held their first sitting in the same room where +Trochu had been enthroned. The president was a young man of about +thirty-two; Edward Moreau, a small commission agent. "He was not in +favour," he said, "of sitting at the Hotel-de-Ville, but since they were +there, it was necessary to at once regularise their situation, tell +Paris what they wanted, proceed to the elections within the briefest +term possible, provide for the public services, and protect the town +from a surprise." + +Two of his colleagues immediately said, "We must first march on +Versailles, disperse the Assembly, and appeal to France to pronounce." + +Another, the author of the Vauxhall motion, said, "No. We have only the +mandate to secure the rights of Paris. If the provinces share our views, +let them imitate our example." + +Some wanted to consummate the revolution before referring to the +electors. Others opposed this vague suggestion. The Committee decided to +proceed at once to the elections, and charged Moreau to draw up an +appeal. While it was being signed, a member of the Committee arrived, +saying, "Citizens, we have just been told that most of the members of +the Government are still in Paris; an attempt at resistance is being +organised in the first and second arrondissements; the soldiers are +leaving for Versailles. We must take prompt measures to lay hands on the +Ministers, disperse the hostile battalions, and prevent the enemy from +leaving the town." + +In fact, Jules Favre and Picard had hardly left Paris. The clearing of +the Ministries was publicly going on; files of soldiers were still +marching off through the gates of the left bank. But the Committee +continued signing, neglecting this traditional precaution--the shutting +of the gates--and lost itself in the elections. It saw not--very few saw +as yet--that this was a death-struggle with the Assembly of Versailles. + +The Committee, distributing the work to be done, appointed the delegates +who were to take possession of the Ministries and direct the various +services. Some of these delegates were chosen outside the Committee, +from amongst those who were reputed men of action, or the +revolutionists. Some one having spoken of an increase of pay, his +colleagues indignantly answered, "We are not here to imitate the +Government of the Defence. We have lived till now on our pay; it will +still suffice." Arrangements were made for the permanent presence of +some members at the Hotel-de-Ville, and then they adjourned at one +o'clock. + +Outside the joyous clamor of the people enlivened the streets. A spring +sun smiled on the Parisians. This was their first day of consolation and +of hope for eight months. Before the barricades of the Hotel-de-Ville, +at the Buttes Montmartre, in all the boulevards, lookers-on were +thronging. Who then spoke of civil war? Only the _Journal Officiel_. It +recounted the events in its own way. "The Government had exhausted every +means of conciliation," and in a despairing appeal to the National Guard +it said, "A committee taking the name of Central Committee has +assassinated in cold blood the Generals Clement-Thomas and Lecomte. Who +are the members of this Committee? Communists, Bonapartists, or +Prussians? Will you take upon yourselves the responsibility of these +assassinations?" These lamentations of runaways moved only a few +companies of the centre. Yet--a grave symptom this--the young bourgeois +of the Polytechnic School came to the mairie of the second +arrondissement, where the mayors had flocked, and the students of the +universities, till now the advanced guard of all our revolutions, +pronounced against the Committee. + +For this revolution was made by proletarians. Who were they? What did +they want? At two o'clock every one hurried to see the placards of the +Committee just issued from the Imprimerie Nationale. "Citizens, the +people of Paris, calm and impassible in their strength, have awaited +without fear, as without provocation, the shameless fools who want to +touch our Republic. Let Paris and France together lay the foundation of +a true Republic, the only Government which will for ever close the era +of revolutions. The people of Paris is convoked to make its elections." +And turning to the National Guard: "You have charged us to organise the +defence of Paris and of your rights. Our mandate has now expired. +Prepare, and at once make your communal elections. Meanwhile we shall, +in the name of the people, hold the Hotel-de-Ville." Twenty names[89] +followed, which, save three or four, Assi, Lullier, and Varlin, were +only known through the placards of the last few days. Since the morning +of the 10th August, 1792, Paris has not seen in her Hotel-de-Ville such +an advent of obscure men. + +And yet their placards were respected, their battalions circulated +freely. They took possession of the posts; at one o'clock the Ministries +of Finance and of the Interior; at two o'clock the Naval and War +Offices, the telegraph, the _Journal Officiel_, and Duval was installed +at the Prefecture de Police. And they had hit the mark. What indeed +could be said against this new-born power whose first word was its own +abdication? + +Everything around them bore a warlike aspect. Let us cross the half-open +barricades of the Rue de Rivoli. Twenty thousand men camped in the +square of the Hotel-de-Ville; bread stuck on the end of their muskets. +Fifty ordnance pieces, cannon, and mitrailleuses drawn up along the +facade served as the _chevaux de frise_ of the town hall. The court and +staircases encumbered with guards taking their meals, the large Salle du +Trone swarming with officers, guards, and civilians. In the hall on the +left, which was used by the staff, the noise subsided. The room by the +river-side, at the corner of the edifice, was the antechamber of the +Committee. About fifty men were writing there, bending over a long +table. There discipline and silence reigned. We were far from the +anarchists of the 31st October. From time to time the door, guarded by +two sentinels, opened to a member of the Committee who carried orders or +made inquiries. + +The sitting had recommenced. A member asked the Committee to protest +against the executions of Clement-Thomas and Lecomte, to which it was +entirely foreign. "Take care not to disavow the people," answered +another, "for fear they in turn should disavow you." A third said, "The +_Journal Officiel_ declares the execution took place under our eyes. We +must stop these calumnies. The people and the bourgeoisie have joined +hands in this revolution. This union must be maintained. You want +everybody to take part in the elections." "Well, then," he was +apostrophised, "abandon the people in order to gain the bourgeoisie; the +people will withdraw, and you will see if it is with the bourgeois that +revolutions are made."[90] + +The Committee decided that a note should be inserted in the _Journal +Officiel_ to re-establish the truth. Ed. Moreau proposed and read the +draft of a manifesto, which was adopted. + +The Committee were discussing the date and mode of the elections when it +was informed that a large meeting of the chiefs of battalions, the +mayors and deputies of the Seine was being held at the mairie of the +third arrondissement. M. Thiers, during the morning, had given over to +the union of the mayors the provisional administration of Paris, and +they were trying their authority on the National Guard. The Committee +was assured that they intended to convoke the electors. + +"If it is so," said several members, "we must come to an agreement with +them to make the situation regular." Others, remembering the siege, +simply wanted to have them arrested. One member said, "If we wish to +have France with us, we must not frighten her. Think what an effect the +arrest of the deputies and mayors would produce, and what, on the other +hand, the effect of their adhesion would be." Another, "It is important +to collect an imposing number of voters. All Paris will go to the +ballot-boxes if the representatives and mayors join us." "Say rather," +cried an impetuous colleague, "that you are not equal to your position; +that your only preoccupation is to disengage yourselves." They finally +decided to send Arnold to the mairie as delegate. + +He was badly enough received. The most radical adjuncts and deputies, +Socialists like Milliere and Malon, flatly declared against the +Hotel-de-Ville, appalled at the dangerous initiative of the people. Many +too said, "Who are these unknown men?" Even at the Corderie, +Internationalists and former members of the Committee of the twenty +arrondissements maintained a diffident attitude. However, the meeting +decided to send commissioners to the Hotel-de-Ville, for, whether they +liked it or not, there was the power. + +The Central Committee had, in the meantime, fixed the elections for the +Wednesday, decreed the raising of the state of siege, the abolition of +the court-martials, and amnesty for all political crimes and offences. +It held a third sitting at eight o'clock to receive the commissioners. +These were the deputies Clemenceau, Milliere, Tolain, Cournet, Malon, +and Lockroy, the mayors Bonvalet and Mottu, the adjuncts Murat, Jaclard, +and Leo Meillet. + +Clemenceau, half accomplice, half dupe of M. Thiers' _coup d'etat_, in +his quality of mayor and deputy, was the spokesman. He was prolix and +pedantic. "The insurrection has been undertaken upon an illegitimate +motive; the cannon belong to the State. The Central Committee is without +a mandate and in no wise holds Paris. Numerous battalions were gathering +round the deputies and mayors. Soon the Committee will become ridiculous +and its decrees will be despised. Besides, Paris has no right to revolt +against France, and must absolutely acknowledge the authority of the +Assembly. The Committee has but one other way of getting out of the +difficulty--to submit to the union of the deputies and mayors, who are +resolved to obtain from the Assembly the satisfaction claimed by Paris." + +He was frequently interrupted during this speech. What! They dared speak +of an insurrection! Who had began the civil war, attacked first? What +had the National Guards done but answer a nocturnal aggression, taken +back cannon paid for by themselves? What had the Central Committee done +but follow the people and occupy the deserted Hotel-de-Ville? + +A member of the Committee said, "The Central Committee has received a +regular, imperative mandate. This mandate forbids them to allow the +Government or the Assembly to touch their liberties or the Republic. Now +the Assembly has never ceased putting the existence of the Republic in +question. It has placed a dishonoured general at our head, decapitalised +Paris, tried to ruin her commerce. It has sneered at our sufferings, +denied the devotion, the courage, the abnegation Paris has shown during +the siege, hooted her best-loved representatives, Garibaldi and Victor +Hugo. The plot against the Republic is evident. The attempt was +commenced by gagging the press; they hoped to terminate it by the +disarmament of our battalions. Yes, our case was one of legitimate +defence. If we have bowed our heads under this new affront, there was +an end of the Republic. You have just spoken of the Assembly of France. +The mandate of the Assembly has expired. As to France, we had not the +pretension of dictating her laws--we have too often suffered under +hers--but we will not submit to her rural plebiscites. You see it; the +question is no longer to know which of our mandates is the most regular. +We say to you the revolution is made; but we are not usurpers. We wish +to call upon Paris to name her representatives. Will you aid us, and +proceed with us to consult the elections? We eagerly accept your +co-operation." + +As he spoke of autonomous communes and their federation, "Have a care," +said Milliere; "if you unfurl this flag they will launch all France upon +Paris, and I foresee days fatal as those of June. The hour of the social +revolution has not yet struck. Progress is obtained by slower marches. +Descend from the heights where you have placed yourselves. Victorious +to-day, your insurrection may be vanquished to-morrow. Make as much of +it as you can, but do not hesitate to content yourselves with little. I +adjure you to leave the field open to the union of the mayors and +deputies; your confidence will be well placed." + +One of the Committee: "Since the social revolution has been spoken of, I +declare our mandate does not go so far." (Others of the Committee, "Yes! +Yes!" "No! No!") "You have spoken of a federation, of Paris as a free +town. Our duty is more simple. It is to proceed to the elections. The +people will afterwards decide on their action. As to yielding to the +deputies and mayors, this is impossible. They are unpopular and have no +authority in the Assembly. The elections will take place with or without +their concurrence. Will they help us? We will receive them with open +arms. If not, we shall do without them, and, if they attempt to obstruct +our way, we shall know how to reduce them to impotency." + +The delegates resisted. The discussion grew hot. "But, in fine," said +Clemenceau, "what are your pretensions? Do you confine your mandate to +asking the Assembly for a municipal council?" + +Many of the Committee: "No! No!" "We want," said Varlin, "not only the +election of the municipal council, but real municipal liberties, the +suppression of the prefecture of police, the right of the National Guard +to name its chiefs and to reorganise itself, the proclamation of the +Republic as the legal Government, the pure and simple remittance of the +rents due, an equitable law on overdue bills, and the Parisian territory +interdicted the army." + +Malon: "I share your aspirations, but the situation is perilous. It is +clear that the Assembly will listen to nothing as long as the Committee +occupies the Hotel-de-Ville. If, on the contrary, Paris intrusts herself +again to her legal representatives, I believe they could do more than +you." + +The discussion was protracted until half-past ten; the Committee +defending its right to proceed to the elections, the delegates their +pretension of superseding the Committee. They at last agreed that the +Committee should send four of its members to the second arrondissement. +Varlin, Moreau, Arnold, and Jourde were appointed. + +There they found the whole staff of Liberalism: deputies, mayors, and +adjuncts; Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Carnot, Peyrat, Tirard, Floquet, +Desmarets, Vautrain, and Dubail, about sixty altogether. The cause of +the people there had a few partisans, sincere, but terribly dismayed by +the uncertain future. The mayor of the second arrondissement, Tirard, +presided, a Liberal, nervous, haughty, one of those who had helped to +paralyse Paris in the hands of Trochu. In his evidence before the Rural +Committee of Inquiry, he has mutilated, travestied this sitting, where +the Radico-Liberal bourgeoisie laid bare all its baseness. We shall now, +for the instruction of and in justice to the people, give the plain +truth. + +The delegates: "The Central Committee does not wish anything better than +to come to an agreement with the municipalities, if they will proceed +with the elections." + +Schoelcher, Tirard, Peyrat, Louis Blanc, all the Radicals and Liberals +in chorus: "The municipalities will not treat with the Central +Committee. There is only one authority--the union of the mayors +invested with the delegation by the Government." + +The delegates: "Let us not discuss the point. The Central Committee +exists. We have been named by the National Guard and we hold the +Hotel-de-Ville. Will you proceed to make the elections?" + +"But what is your programme?" + +Varlin set it forth. He was attacked from all sides. The four delegates +had to face twenty assailants. The great argument of the Liberals was +that Paris could not convoke herself, but ought to wait for the +permission of the Assembly. A reminiscence this of the times of the +siege, when they fell prone before the Government of the Defence. + +The delegates affirmed, on the contrary: "The people has the right to +convoke itself. It is an undeniable right, which it has more than once +made use of in our history in moments of great peril, and at present we +are passing through such a crisis, since the Assembly of Versailles is +making for monarchy." + +Then recriminations followed: "You are now face to face with force," +said the delegates. "Beware of letting loose a civil war by your +resistance." "It is you who want a civil war," replied the Liberals. At +midnight Moreau and Arnold, quite disheartened, withdrew. Their +colleagues were about to follow, when some adjuncts entreated them to +stay. "We promise," said the mayors and deputies, "to make every effort +to obtain the municipal elections with the shortest delay." "Very well," +answered the delegates, "but we maintain our position; we want +guarantees." The deputies and mayors, growing obstinate, pretended that +Paris must surrender unconditionally. Jourde was about to retire, when +some of the adjuncts again detained him. For a moment they seemed to be +coming to an understanding. The Committee was to give up all the +administrative services to the mayors, and let them occupy one part of +the Hotel-de-Ville; itself, however, was to continue sitting there, to +retain the exclusive direction of the National Guard, and to watch over +the security of the town. This agreement only required to be confirmed +by the issue of a common proclamation, but when the heading of the +latter came to be discussed, the contest grew more violent than before. +The delegates proposed, "The deputies, mayors, and adjuncts, in accord +with the Central Committee." These gentlemen, on the contrary, desired +to hide themselves behind a mask. For an hour Louis Blanc, Tirard, and +Schoelcher overwhelmed the delegates with indignities. Louis Blanc +cried to them, "You are insurgents against a most freely elected +Assembly.[91] We, the regular mandatories, we cannot avow a transaction +with insurgents. We should be willing to prevent a civil war, but not to +appear as your auxiliaries in the eyes of France." Jourde answered the +mannikin that this transaction, in order to be accepted by the people of +Paris, must be publicly consented to, and, despairing of making anything +out of this meeting, withdrew. + +And amongst this _elite_ of the Liberal Bourgeoisie, former exiles, +publicists, historians of our revolutions, not one indignant voice +protested, "Let us cease these cruel disputes, this barking at a +revolution. Woe to us if we do not recognise the force manifesting +itself through unknown men! The Jacobins of 1794 denied it, and they +perished; the Montagnards of 1848 abandoned it, and they perished; the +Left under the Empire, the Government of the National Defence, disdained +it, and our integrity as a nation has perished. Let us open our eyes, +our hearts; let us break out of the beaten track. No; we will not widen +the gulf that the days of June, 1848, and the Empire have placed between +us and the workmen. No; with the disasters of France in view, we shall +not allow her living forces still in reserve to be touched. The more +abnormal, monstrous our situation is, the more we are bound to find the +solution, even under the eye of the Prussian. You, the Central +Committee, who are the spokesmen of Paris, we, who are listened to by +Republican France, we will mark out a field for common action. You +supply the force, the large aspirations, we the knowledge of realities +and their inexorable behests. We shall present to the Assembly this +charter free from all Utopian views, equally regardful of the rights of +the nation and of those of the capital. If the Assembly rejects it, we +shall be the first to make the elections, to ask for your suffrage. And +when France sees Paris raising her force counterpoised by prudence at +her Hotel-de-Ville, vigorous new-comers allied with men of old repute, +the only possible bulwark against royalists and clericals, she will rise +as in the days of the Federation, and at her voice Versailles will have +to yield." + +But what was to be expected of men who had not even been able to pluck +up sufficient courage to wrench Paris from Trochu? Varlin single-handed +had to stand their combined attack. Exhausted, worn out--this contest +had lasted five hours--he at last gave way, but under protest. On +returning to the Hotel-de-Ville, he recovered all his wonted energy, his +calm intelligence, and told the Committee he now saw the snare, and +advised it to reject the pretensions of the mayors and deputies. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[89] Assi, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, C. Dupont, Varlin, +Boursier, Mortier, Gouhier, Lavalette, F. Jourde, Rousseau, C. Lullier, +Blanchet, J. Grollard, Barrond, H. Geresme, Fabre, Fougeret, the members +present at the morning sitting. The Committee decided later on that its +publications should bear the names of all its members. + +[90] The minutes of the first Central Committee have disappeared, but +one of its most assiduous members has restored the principal sittings +from memory. It is from his notes, checked by several of his colleagues, +that we have taken these details. It is superfluous to say that the +minutes published by the _Paris Journal_, which have been used by +reactionist historians, are incomplete, inexact, drawn up from hearsay, +unintelligent indiscretions, and often from pure imagination. Thus, for +instance, they make all the sittings presided over by Assi, attributing +to him the principal part, because under the Empire he was very +incorrectly supposed to have directed the strike of Creuzot. Assi never +had any influence in the Committee. + +[91] Textual. It is from the little man of Paris that the little man of +Versailles borrowed the phrase while he completed it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "Je croyais que les insurges de Paris ne pourraient pas + conduire leur barque."--_Jules Favre, Enquete sur le + 18 Mars._ + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC + SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS. + + +Thus no agreement had been come to, only one of the four delegates +having, from sheer weariness, given way to a certain extent. So on the +morning of the 20th, when the mayor Bonvalet and two adjuncts sent by +the mayors came to take possession of the Hotel-de-Ville, the members of +the Committee unanimously exclaimed, "We have not treated." But +Bonvalet, feigning to believe in a regular agreement, continued, "The +deputies are to-day going to ask for the municipal franchises. Their +negotiations cannot succeed if the administration of Paris is not given +up to the mayors. On pain of frustrating the efforts which will save +you, you must fulfil the engagements of your delegates." + +One of the Committee: "Our delegates received no mandate to enter into +such engagements for us. We do not ask to be saved." + +Another: "The weakness of the deputies and of the mayors is one of the +causes of the revolution. If the Committee abandons its position and +disarms, the Assembly will grant nothing." + +Another: "I have just come from the Corderie. The Committee of the +second arrondissement is holding a sitting, and it adjures the Central +Committee to remain at its post till the elections." + +Others were about to speak, when Bonvalet declared that he had come to +take possession of the Hotel-de-Ville, not to discuss, and walked off. +His superciliousness confirmed the worst suspicions. Those who the +evening before had been favourable to making terms said, "These men want +to betray us." Behind the mayors the Committee beheld the implacable +reaction. In any case, to ask them for the Hotel-de-Ville was to ask +their lives, for the National Guards would have believed them traitors, +and punished them on the spot. In one word, compromise had become +impossible. The _Journal Officiel_, for the first time in the hands of +the people, and the placards had spoken. + +"The election of the municipal council will take place on Wednesday +next, 22nd March," decreed the Central Committee. And in a manifesto it +said, "The offspring of a Republic whose device bears the great word +Fraternity, the Central Committee pardons its traducers, but it would +convince the honest people who have believed their calumnies through +ignorance. It has not been secret, for its members have signed their +names to all its proclamations. It has not been unknown, for it was a +free expression of the suffrage of 215 battalions. It has not been the +fomenter of disorder, for the National Guard has committed no excess. +And yet provocations have not been wanting. The Government calumniated +Paris and set on the provinces against her, wished to impose on us a +general, attempted to disarm us, and said to Paris, 'Thou hast shown +thyself heroic, we are afraid of thee, hence we will tear from thee the +crown of the capital of France.' What has the Central Committee done in +answer to these attacks? It has founded the Federation, preached +moderation, generosity. One of the greatest causes of anger against us +is the obscurity of our names. Alas! many names were known, well known, +and this notoriety has been fatal to us. Notoriety is cheaply gained; +often hollow phrases or a little cowardice suffice; recent events have +proved this. Now that our object is attained, we say to the people, who +esteemed us enough to listen to the advice that has often clashed with +their impatience, 'Here is the mandate you intrusted to us.' There, +where our personal interest commences, our duty ends. Do your will. You +have freed yourselves. Obscure a few days ago, obscure we shall return +to your ranks, and show our governors that it is possible to descend the +steps of your Hotel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of +receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands."[92] +By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel +the deputies and the mayors placarded a few dry and colourless lines, +where they promised to demand of the Assembly that same day the election +of all the chiefs of the National Guard and the establishment of a +municipal council. + +At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified +functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five +or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition +was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight--this was not +what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which +they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of +taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the +provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at +Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of +soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was +to place a few posts along the routes of Chatillon and Sevres, and +protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses. + +The President, Grevy, who during the whole war had cowered in the +provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by +stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could +extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession +towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before +the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection, +without general views, and without a preamble to explain them. First a +bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then +another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. +Milliere alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to +prolong them for six months. + +Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled +at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a +deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous +scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had +softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own +treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen +times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for +his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him +with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the +National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orleans two +generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who +took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without +endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them, +was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a +fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions. +"I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This +story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.[93] + +From the first sitting one could see what the struggle between +Versailles and Paris was to be. The monarchical conspirators, abandoning +their dream for a moment, hastened to do the most urgent work first: to +save themselves from the Revolution. They surrounded M. Thiers and +promised him their absolute support to crush Paris. Thus this Ministry, +that a truly National Assembly would have impeached, became, even +through its crime, all-powerful. Scarcely recovered from the fright of +their stampede, M. Thiers and his Ministers dared to play the +swaggerers. And indeed, would not the provinces hasten to their rescue, +as in June, 1848? And proletarians without political education, without +administration, without money, how could they be able "to steer their +bark"? + +In 1831 the proletarians, masters of Lyons, had failed in their attempt +at self-government, and how much greater was the difficulty for those of +Paris! All new powers had until then found the administrative machine in +working order, in readiness for the victor. On the 20th March the +Central Committee found it taken to pieces. At the signal from +Versailles the majority of functionaries had abandoned their posts. +Octrois, street inspection, lighting, markets, public charity, +telegraphs, all the respiratory and digestive apparatus of the town of +1,600,000 souls, everything had to be extemporised. Certain mayors had +carried off the seals, the registers, and the cash of their mairies. The +military intendance left without a farthing six thousand sick in the +hospitals and ambulances.[94] M. Thiers had tried to disorganise even +the management of the cemeteries. + +Poor man! who never knew anything of our Paris, of her inexhaustible +strength, her marvellous elasticity. The Central Committee received +support from all sides. The committees of arrondissements furnished a +_personnel_ to the mairies; some of the small middle-class lent their +experience, and the most important services were set to rights in no +time by men of common sense and energy, which soon proved superior to +routine. The employes who had remained at their posts in order to hand +over the funds to Versailles were soon discovered and obliged to flee. + +The Central Committee overcame a more menacing difficulty. Three hundred +thousand persons without work, without resources of any kind, were +waiting for the thirty sous upon which they had lived for the last seven +months. On the 19th, Varlin and Jourde, delegates to the finance +department, took possession of that Ministry. The coffers, according to +the statement of accounts handed over to them, contained 4,600,000 +francs; but the keys were at Versailles, and, in view of the movement +for conciliation then being carried on, the delegates did not dare to +force the locks. The next day they went to ask Rothschild to open them a +credit at the bank, and he sent word that the funds would be advanced. +The same day the Central Committee broached the question more forcibly, +and sent three delegates to the bank to request the necessary advances. +They were answered that a million was placed at the disposition of +Varlin and Jourde, who at six o'clock in the evening were received by +the governor, M. Rouland. "I expected your visit," he said. "On the +morning following a change of Government, the bank has always to find +the money for the new-comers. It is not my business to judge events; the +Bank of France has nothing to do with politics. You are a _de facto_ +Government, and the bank gives you for to-day a million. Only be so kind +as to mention in your receipt that this sum has been requisitioned on +account of the town of Paris."[95] The delegates took away a million +francs in bank-notes. All the employes of the Ministry of Finance had +disappeared since the morning, but with the help of a few friends the +sum was rapidly divided among the paying officers. At ten o'clock the +delegates were able to tell the Central Committee that the pay was being +distributed in all the arrondissements. + +The bank acted prudently: the Central Committee firmly held Paris. The +mayors and deputies had not been able to unite more than three or four +hundred men, although they had charged Admiral Saisset with the +organisation of the resistance. The Committee was so sure of its +strength that it had the barricades demolished. Everybody came to it, +the garrison of Vincennes spontaneously surrendering themselves with the +fort. Its victory was too complete, for it was perilous, obliging it to +disperse its troops in order to take possession of the abandoned forts +on the south. Lullier, intrusted with this mission, had the forts of +Ivry, Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves, and Issy occupied on the 19th and +20th. The last to which he sent the National Guard, Mont-Valerien, was +the key of Paris, and, at that time, of Versailles. + +For thirty-six hours the impregnable fortress had remained empty. On the +evening of the 18th, after the order of evacuation, it had to defend it +only twenty muskets and some chasseurs of Vincennes, interned there for +mutiny. The same evening they burst open the locks of the fortress and +returned to Paris. + +When the evacuation of Mont-Valerien became known at Versailles, +generals and deputies begged M. Thiers to have it reoccupied. He +obstinately refused, declaring this fort had no strategical value. +During the whole day of the 19th they still failed. At last Vinoy, in +his turn, urged by them, succeeded on the 20th, at one o'clock in the +morning, in wresting an order from M. Thiers. A column was immediately +despatched, and at mid-day a thousand soldiers occupied the fortress. +Not until evening, at eight o'clock, did the battalions of Ternes +present themselves; the governor easily got rid of their officers. +Lullier, on making his report to the Central Committee, said he had +occupied all the forts, and even named the battalion which, according to +him, was then in possession of Mont-Valerien. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[92] I need not justify the long quotations I shall make. The French +proletarian has never been allowed to speak in books of history; at +least he should do so in the recital of his own revolution. + +[93] The two generals have testified to the extreme consideration shown +them in their prison. See the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_. Two days later, +on Chanzy's simple promise not to serve against Paris, the Central +Committee set them free. + +[94] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Dr. Danet, vol. ii. p. 531. + +[95] Of course the Radicals have seen in this a Bonapartist manoeuvre, +have written and said from the tribune of the Assembly, "The Bonapartist +director of the Bank of France saved the Revolution; without the million +of the Monday the Central Committee would have capitulated." Two facts +answer this: From the 19th the Committee had in the Ministry of Finance +4,600,000 francs; the municipal coffers contained 1,200,000 francs, and +on the 21st the Octroi had brought in 500,000 more. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + "L'idee de voir un massacre me remplissait de douleur."-- + _Jules Favre, Enquete sur le 4 Septembre._ + + THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY + COMBINE AGAINST PARIS--THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE + VENDOME, AND IS PUNISHED. + + +On the 21st the situation stood out in bold relief. + +At Paris--the Central Committee, with it all the workmen and all the +generous and enlightened men of the small middle-class. The Committee +said, "We have but one object--the elections. Everybody is welcome to +co-operate with us, but we shall not leave the Hotel-de-Ville before +they have been made." + +At Versailles--the Assembly;--all the monarchists, all the great +bourgeoisie, all the slaveholders. They yelled, "Paris is only a rebel, +the Central Committee a band of brigands." + +Between Versailles and Paris--a few Radical deputies, all the mayors, +many adjuncts. They comprised the Liberal bourgeois, that sacred herd +that makes all revolutions and allows all the empires to be made. +Despised by the Assembly, disdained by the people, they cried to the +Central Committee, "Usurpers!" and to the Assembly, "You will spoil +all." + +The day of the 21st is memorable, for on it all these voices made +themselves heard. + +The Central Committee: "Paris has in nowise the intention of separating +from France; far from it. For France she has borne with the Empire and +the Government of the National Defence, with all their treachery and +defections, certainly not to abandon her now, but only to say to her as +an elder sister: Sustain thyself as I have sustained myself; oppose +thyself to oppression as I have done." + +And the _Journal Officiel_, in the first of those articles where Moreau, +Longuet, and Rogeard commented upon the new revolution, said: "The +proletarians of the capital, amidst the failures and treasons of the +ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to +save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of +public affairs. Hardly possessed of the government, they have hastened +to convoke the people of Paris to the ballot-boxes. There is no example +in history of a provisional government so anxious to divest itself of +its mandate. In the presence of conduct so disinterested, one may well +ask how a press can be found unjust enough to pour out upon these +citizens slander, contumely, and insult? The workingmen, those who +produce everything and enjoy nothing, are they then for ever to be +exposed to outrage? The bourgeoisie, which has accomplished its +emancipation, does it not understand that now the time for the +emancipation of the proletariat is come? Why, then, does it persist in +refusing the proletariat its legitimate share?" + +It was the first Socialist note struck in the movement. Parisian +revolutions never remain purely political. The approach of the +foreigner, the abnegation of the workmen, had, on the 4th September, +silenced all social demands. Peace once concluded, the workmen in power, +their voice would naturally make itself heard. How just was this +complaint of the Central Committee! What an act of accusation the French +proletariat could draw up against its masters! And on the 18th March, +1871, could not the people, making greater their great words of 1848, +say, "We had placed eighty years of patience at the service of our +country"? + +The same day the Central Committee suspended the sale of objects pledged +in the pawnshops, prolonged the overdue bills for a month, and forbade +landlords to dismiss their tenants till further notice. In three lines +it did justice, beat Versailles, and gained Paris. + +On the other hand, the representatives and mayors told the people, "No +election; everything is for the best. We wanted the maintenance of the +National Guard; we shall have it. We wanted Paris to recover her +municipal liberty; we shall have it. Your requests have been brought +before the Assembly. The Assembly _has satisfied them_ by a unanimous +vote, which guarantees the municipal elections. Awaiting these, the only +legal elections, we declare that we shall abstain from the elections +announced for to-morrow, and we protest against their illegality." + +Thrice-lying address! The Assembly had not said a word of the National +Guard; it had promised no municipal liberty, and several of the +signatures were supposititious. + +The bourgeois press followed suit. Since the 19th the Figarist papers, +supported by the police, the altar, and the alcove, the Liberal +gazettes, by which Trochu had prepared the capitulation of Paris, had +not ceased to fall foul of the federal battalions. They spoke of the +public coffers and private property being pillaged, of Prussian gold +streaming into the faubourgs, of documentary evidence hurtful to the +members of the Central Committee destroyed by them. The Republican +journals also discovered gold in the movement, but Bonapartist gold; and +the best of them, naively convinced that the Republic belonged to their +patrons, inveigled against the accession of the proletariat, saying, +"These people dishonour us." Emboldened by the mayors and deputies, they +all agreed to revolt; and on the 21st, in a collective declaration, +asked the electors to consider as null and void the illegal convocation +of the Hotel-de-Ville. + +Illegality! Thus the question was put by the Legitimists, twice imposed +on us by foreign bayonets; by the Orleanists, raised to power through +barricades; by the brigands of December; even by the exiles returned +home, thanks to an insurrection. What! When the bourgeois, who make all +laws, always act illegally, how are the workmen to proceed, against whom +all the laws are made? + +These attacks of the mayors and deputies and of the press screwed up the +courage of the Hectors of the reaction. For two days this rabble of +runaways, who during the siege had infested the cafes of Brussels and +the Haymarket of London, gesticulated on the fashionable boulevards, +asking for order and _work_. On the 21st, at about ten o'clock, at the +Place de la Bourse, about a hundred of these strange workingmen marched +round the Stock Exchange, banners flying, and advancing along the +boulevards to the cries of "Vive l'Assemblee!" came to the Place +Vendome, shouting before the general staff, "Down with the Committee!" +The commander of the Place, Bergeret, told them to send delegates. "No, +no!" cried they; "no delegates! You would assassinate them!" The +federals, losing patience, had the Place cleared. The riotous fops gave +themselves a rendezvous for the next day before the new Opera-House. + +At the same hour the Assembly made its demonstration. The draft of an +address to the people and the army, a tissue of lies and insults to +Paris, having just been read, and Milliere having pointed out that it +contained some unfortunate expressions, was hooted. The demand of the +Left to at least conclude the address with the words "Vive la +Republique!" was frantically refused by an immense majority. Louis Blanc +and his group, entreating the Assembly to immediately examine their +project of municipal law and oppose a vote to the elections that the +Committee announced for the next day, M. Thiers answered, "Give us time +to study the question." "Time!" exclaimed M. Clemenceau, "we have none +to lose." Then M. Thiers gave those drones a lesson they richly +deserved: "What would be the use of concessions?" said he. "What +authority have you at Paris? Who would listen to you at the +Hotel-de-Ville? Do you think that the adoption of a bill would disarm +the party of brigands, the party of assassins?" Then he charged Jules +Favre to expatiate on this theme for the special benefit of the +provinces. For an hour and a half that bitter follower of Guadet, +spinning round Paris his elaborate periods, limed her with his venom. No +doubt he again saw himself on the 31st October, when the people held him +in their power and pardoned him, a cruel remembrance for his rankling +spirit. He commenced by reading the declaration of the press, +"courageously written," said he, "under the knife of the assassins." He +spoke of Paris as in the power of "a handful of scoundrels, putting +above the right of the Assembly I know not what bloody and rapacious +ideal." Then, humbly supplicating monarchists and Catholics: "What they +want," cried he, "what they have realised, is an attempt at that baleful +doctrine which in philosophy may be called individualism and +materialism, and which in politics means the Republic placed above +universal suffrage." At this idiotic quibbling the Assembly burst into +roars of applause. "These new doctors," continued he, "have the +pretension of separating Paris from France. But let the insurgents know +this: if we left Paris, it was with the intention of returning in order +to combat them resolutely." (Bravo! bravo!) Then stirring the panic of +those rurals who every moment expected to see the federal battalions +coming down upon them: "If some of you fall into the hands of these men, +who have only usurped power for the sake of violence, assassination and +theft, the fate of the unfortunate victims of their ferocity would be +yours." And finally, garbling, improving with ferocious skill the +maladroitness of an article in the _Journal Officiel_ on the execution +of the generals: "No more temporising. For three days I combated the +exigencies of the victor who wanted to disarm the National Guard. I ask +pardon for it of God and of man." Each new insult, each banderillo +thrust into the flesh of Paris, drew from the Assembly mad hurrahs. +Admiral Saisset stamped, emphasizing certain phrases of the speaker with +his hoarse interjections. Goaded by these wild cheers, Jules Favre +doubled his invective. Since the Gironde, since Isnard's curse, Paris +had not undergone such an imprecation. Even Langlois, unable to stand it +any longer, exclaimed, "Oh, it is outrageous, atrocious to speak thus!" +And when Jules Favre concluded, implacable, impassible, only foaming a +little at the mouth: "France will not be lowered to the bloody level of +the wretches who oppress the capital," the whole Assembly rose raving. +"Let us appeal to the provinces," shrieked the rurals. And Saisset: +"Yes, let us appeal to the provinces and march on Paris." In vain one +of the deputies of the Seine adjured the Assembly not to let them return +to Paris empty-handed. This great bourgeoisie, which had just +surrendered the honour, the fortune, and the territory of France to the +Prussian, trembled with rage at the mere thought of conceding anything +to Paris. + +After this horrible scene, the Radical deputies found nothing better to +do than to issue a lachrymose address inviting Paris to be patient. The +Central Committee was obliged to adjourn the elections till the 23rd, +for several mairies belonged to the enemy; but on the 22nd it warned the +papers that provocation to revolt would be severely repressed. + +The matadors of reaction, reanimated by Jules Favre's speech, took this +warning for an idle boast. On the 22nd at mid-day they assembled at the +Place du Nouvel Opera. At one o'clock they numbered a thousand dandies, +squireens, journalists, notorious familiars of the Empire, who marched +down the Rue de la Paix to the cry of "Vive l'ordre!" Their plan was, +under the cloak of a pacific demonstration, to force the Place Vendome +and to expel the Federals from it; then, masters of the mairie of the +first arrondissement, of half of the second and of Passy, they would +have cut Paris in two and menaced the Hotel-de-Ville. Admiral Saisset +followed them. + +Before the Rue Neuve St. Augustin these pacific demonstration-men +disarmed and ill-treated two detached sentries of the National Guard. +Seeing this, the Federals of the Place Vendome seized their muskets and +hurried in marching order to the top of the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs. +They were but 200, the whole garrison of the place; the two cannon +levelled at the Rue de la Paix had no cartridges. The reactionists soon +encountered the first line with the cry, "Down with the Committee! Down +with the assassins!" waving a banner and their handkerchiefs, while some +of them stretched out their hands to seize the muskets. Bergeret, +Maljournal, members of the Committee, in the first ranks, summoned the +rioters to retire. Furious cries of "Cowards! brigands!" drowned their +voices, and sword-canes were pointed at them. Bergeret made a sign to +the drummers. A dozen times the _sommations_ were made and repeated. For +several minutes only the roll of the drums was heard, and between these +savage cries. The ranks in the rear of the manifestation pushed on those +in front and tried to break through the lines of the Federals. At last, +despairing no doubt of succeeding by mere bravado, the insurgents fired +their revolvers;[96] two guards were killed and seven wounded;[97] +Maljournal was struck in the thigh. + +The muskets of the guards went off, so to say, spontaneously. A volley +and a terrible cry, followed by silence more dismal. In a few seconds +the crowded Rue de la Paix was emptied. In the deserted road, strewn +with revolvers, sword-canes, and hats, lay about a dozen corpses. If the +Federals had only aimed at foes' hearts, there would have been 200 +killed, for in this compact mass no shot would have missed. The +insurgents had killed one of their own, the Vicomte de Molinat, fallen +in the front ranks, his face towards the place, a ball in the occiput. +On his body was found a poniard fixed by a small chain. A witty ball +struck in the rear the chief editor of the _Paris Journal_, the +Bonapartist De Pene, one of the basest revilers of the movement. + +The runaways traversed Paris shouting, "Murder!" The shops of the +boulevards were closed and the Place de la Bourse filled with rabid +groups. At four o'clock some of the reactionist companies appeared, +resolute, in good order, their muskets on their shoulders, and took +possession of the quarters of the Bourse. + +At three o'clock the event became known at Versailles. The Assembly had +just rejected Louis Blanc's bill on the municipal council, and Picard +was reading another one refusing all justice to Paris, when the news +arrived. The Assembly precipitately raised the sitting; the Ministers +looked dumbfoundered. + +All their swaggering of the evening before had only been meant to +frighten Paris, to encourage the men of order, and provoke a +_coup-de-main_. The incident had occurred, but the Central Committee +triumphed. For the first time M. Thiers began to believe that this +Committee, able to repress a riot, might after all be a Government. + +The news in the evening was more reassuring. The fusillade seemed to +have roused the _men of order_. They were flocking to the Place de la +Bourse. A great many officers just returned from Germany came to offer +their help. The reactionary companies were establishing themselves +solidly in the mairie of the ninth arrondissement and reoccupying that +of the sixth, dislodging the Federals of the station of St. Lazare, +guarding all the approaches of the occupied quarters, and forcibly +arresting the passers-by. They formed a town within the town. The mayors +were constituting a permanent committee in the mairie of the second +arrondissement. Their resistance was now provided with an army. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[96] The aggression was so evident, that not one of the twenty +court-martials that searched into every detail of the revolution of the +18th March dared allude to the affair of the Place Vendome. + +[97] Their names were published in the _Journal Officiel_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OBSTACLES AND + CONSTRAINS THE MAYORS TO CAPITULATE. + + +The Central Committee was equal to the occasion. Its proclamations, its +Socialist articles in the _Officiel_, the truculence of the mayors and +deputies, had at last rallied round it all the revolutionary groups. It +had also added to its members some men better known to the masses.[98] +By its order the Place Vendome was provided with barricades; the +battalions of the Hotel-de-Ville were reinforced; strong patrols +remounted the boulevards before the reactionary posts of the Rues +Vivienne and Drouot. Thanks to it, the night passed tranquilly. + +As the elections on the next day had become impossible, the Committee +declared they could only take place on the 26th, and said to Paris: "The +reaction, excited by your mayors and your deputies, has declared war on +us. We must accept the struggle and break this resistance." It announced +that it would summon before it all the journalists libelling the +people. It sent a battalion of Belleville to reoccupy the mairie of the +sixth, and replaced by its delegates the mayors and adjuncts of the +third, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and eighteenth arrondissements, in +spite of their protestations. M. Clemenceau wrote that he yielded to +force, but would not himself resort to force. This was all the more +magnanimous that his whole force consisted of himself and his adjunct. +The Federals installed themselves at the Batignolles on the railway +lines, and stopped the trains, thus preventing the occupation of the St. +Lazare station. Lastly, the Committee proceeded energetically against +the Bourse. + +The reaction counted upon famine to make the Committee capitulate. The +million of the Monday was gone; a second one had been promised. On the +Thursday morning, Varlin and Jourde, going to fetch an instalment, +received only threats. They wrote to the governor: "To starve out the +people, such is the aim of a party that styles itself honest. Famine +disarms no one; it will only encourage devastation. We take up the glove +that has been flung down to us." And, without deigning to take any +notice of the swashers of the Bourse, the Committee sent two battalions +to the bank, which had to give in. + +At the same time the Committee neglected nothing in order to reassure +Paris. Numerous ticket-of-leave men had been let loose upon the town. +The Committee denounced them to the vigilance of the National Guard, and +posted upon the doors of the Hotel-de-Ville, "Every individual taken in +the act of stealing will be shot." Picard's police had failed to put an +end to the gamblers who every night since the siege had encumbered the +streets; a single order of the Committee sufficed. The great scarecrow +of the reactionists was the Prussians, and Jules Favre had announced +their early intervention. The Committee published the despatches that +had passed between it and the commander of Compiegne, to this effect: +"The German troops will remain passive so long as Paris does not take a +hostile attitude." The Committee had answered with great dignity: "The +Revolution accomplished at Paris is of an essentially municipal +character. We are not qualified to discuss the preliminaries of peace +voted by the Assembly." Paris was therefore without anxiety on that +head. + +The only disturbance proceeded from the mayors. Authorised by M. Thiers, +they appointed as chief of the National Guards Saisset, the madman of +the sitting of the 21st, giving him Langlois and Schoelcher as +coadjutors, and made every effort to attract National Guards to the +Place de la Bourse, where they distributed the pay due to the guards of +the invaded mairies. Many came only to get the pay, not to fight. Even +the chiefs began to be divided amongst themselves. The most rabid +certainly spoke of sweeping away everything before them. Those were +Vautrain, Dubail, Denormandie, Degouve-Denuncques, and Heligon, an +ex-workingman, an idle fellow, admitted into the bourgeois servants' +hall, and bumptious like other lackeys. But many others flagged and +thought of conciliation, especially since some of the deputies and +adjuncts--Milliere, Malon, Dereure, and Jaclard--had withdrawn from the +union of the mayors, thus still further setting forth its frankly +reactionary character. Finally, some soft-headed mayors, still believing +that the Assembly needed only enlightenment, extemporised a melodramatic +scene. + +They arrived at Versailles on the 23rd, at the moment when the rurals, +again plucking up their courage, made an appeal to the provinces to +march on Paris. In most solemn attitude these mayors put in their +appearance before the tribune of the president, girdled with their +official scarfs. The Left applauded, crying "Vive la Republique!" The +Lamourettes returned the compliment. But the Right and the Centre cried +"Vive la France! Order! Order!" and with clenched hands they +apostrophised the deputies of the Left, who naively answered, "You +insult Paris!" to which the others replied, "You insult France!" and +they left the House. In the evening a deputy, who was also a mayor, +Arnaud De l'Ariege, read from the tribune the declaration that they had +brought, and wound up by saying, "We are on the eve of an awful civil +war. There is but one way to prevent it--that the election of the +commander-in-chief of the National Guard be fixed for the 28th, and that +of the municipal council for the 3rd of April." These propositions were +referred to the Committee. + +The mayors returned home indignant. A despatch of the evening before had +already disquieted Paris. M. Thiers announced to the provinces that the +Bonapartist Ministers, Rouher, Chevreau, and Boitelle, arrested by the +people of Boulogne, had been protected, and that Marshal Canrobert, one +of the accomplices of Bazaine, had offered his services to the +Government. The insult inflicted upon the mayors irritated the whole +middle-class, and called forth a sudden change in their Republican +journals. The attacks against the Central Committee relaxed. Even the +Moderates began to expect the worst from Versailles. + +The Central Committee took advantage of this change of opinion. Having +just been informed of the proclamation of the Commune at Lyons, it spoke +out all the more clearly in its manifesto of the 24th. "Some battalions, +misled by their reactionary chiefs, have thought it their duty to clog +our movements. Some mayors and deputies, forgetting their mandates, have +encouraged this resistance. We rely upon your courage for the +accomplishment of our mission. It is objected that the Assembly promises +us at some indefinite period the election of the municipal council and +that of our chiefs, and that consequently our resistance ought not to be +prolonged. We have been deceived too often to be entrapped again; the +left hand would take back what the right hand gives. See what the +Government has already done. In the Chamber, through the voice of Jules +Favre, it has challenged a terrible civil war, called on the provinces +to destroy Paris, and covered us with the most odious calumnies." + +Having spoken, the Committee now acted, and named three +generals--Brunel, Duval, and Eudes. It had to confine the drunkard +Lullier, who, assisted by a staff of traitors, had the evening before +allowed a whole regiment of the army encamped at the Luxembourg to leave +Paris with arms and baggage. Now, too, it was known that Mont-Valerien +was lost by his fault. + +The generals made a profession not to be misunderstood: "This is no +longer a time for Parliamentarism. We must act. Paris wishes to be free. +The great city will not permit public order to be disturbed with +impunity." + +A direct caution this addressed to the camp of the Bourse, which, +moreover, was visibly growing less. The desertions from it multiplied at +every sitting of the rurals. Women came to fetch their husbands. The +Bonapartist officers, overshooting the mark, irritated moderate +Republicans. The programme of the mayors--submission to +Versailles--discouraged the middle-class. The general staff of this +helter-skelter army had been foolishly established at the Grand Hotel. +There sat the crazy trio--Saisset, Langlois, and Schoelcher--who, from +extreme confidence, had fallen into a state of utter dejection. The most +crack-brained of them, Saisset, took upon himself to announce by +placards that the Assembly had granted the complete recognition of the +municipal franchise, the election of all the officers of the National +Guard, including the general-in-chief, modifications of the law on the +overdue commercial bills, and a bill on rents favourable to the tenants. +This gigantic hoax only mystified Versailles. + +The Committee, pushing forward,[99] ordered Brunel to seize the mairies +of the first and second arrondissements. Brunel, with 600 men of +Belleville, two pieces of artillery, and accompanied by two delegates of +the Committee, Lisbonne and Protot, presented himself at three o'clock +at the mairie of the Louvre. The bourgeois companies assumed an air of +resistance. Brunel had his cannon advanced, when the passage was at once +opened to him. He declared to the adjuncts, Meline and Ad. Adam, that +the Committee would proceed with the elections as soon as possible. The +adjuncts, intimidated, sent to the mairie of the second arrondissement +to ask for the authorisation to treat. Dubail answered that they might +promise the elections for the 3rd April. Brunel insisted on appointing +the 30th March. The adjuncts acquiesced. The National Guards of the two +camps saluted this agreement with enthusiastic acclamations, and +mingling their ranks, marched to the mairie of the second +arrondissement. In the Rue Montmartre a few companies of the Bourse +army, trying to stop the way, were told, "Peace is made," and they let +them pass. At the mairie of the second arrondissement, Schoelcher, who +presided at the meeting of the mayors, Dubail, and Vautrain resisted, +refusing to ratify the convention, insisting on the date of the 3rd +April. But the great majority of their colleagues accepted that of the +30th, and the election of the commander-in-chief of the National Guard +for the 3rd April. Immense cheers hailed the good news, and the popular +battalions, saluted by the bourgeois battalions, defiled through the Rue +Vivienne and the boulevards, dragging along their cannon, mounted by +lads with green branches in their hands. + +The Central Committee could not accept this transaction. Twice it had +postponed the elections. A new adjournment would have given certain +mayors five days for plotting and playing into the hands of Versailles. +Besides, the Federal battalions, on foot since the 18th, were really +tired out. Ranvier and Arnold the same evening went to the mairie of the +second arrondissement to say that the Hotel-de-Ville adhered to the date +of the 26th for the elections. The mayors and adjuncts, many of whom had +only the one purpose, as they have avowed since,[100] of gaining time, +inveighed against a breach of faith. The delegates protested, for +Brunel had had no mandate but that of occupying the mairies. For several +hours everything was tried to talk over the delegates, but they held +their ground, and went away at two o'clock in the morning without any +conclusion being arrived at. After their departure the more intractable +discussed the chance of resistance. The irrepressible Dubail wrote a +call to arms, sent it to the printing-office, and spent the whole night +with his faithful Heligon in transmitting orders to the chiefs of +battalions and providing the mairie with mitrailleuses. + +While they were thus bent upon resistance the rurals thought themselves +betrayed. Every day they became more nervous, being deprived of their +creature-comforts, obliged to camp in the lobbies of the castle of +Versailles, exposed to all winds and to all panics. They felt weary of +the incessant interference of the mayors, and were thunderstruck by the +proclamation of Saisset. They fancied that M. Thiers was coquetting with +the _emeute_, that the _petit bourgeois_, as he hypocritically called +himself, wanted to cozen the monarchists, and, using Paris as his lever, +overthrow them. They spoke of removing him, and appointing as +commander-in-chief one of the D'Orleans, Joinville or D'Aumale. Their +plot might have come to a head at the evening sitting, when the +proposition of the mayors was to be read. M. Thiers was beforehand with +them, implored the Assembly to adjourn the discussion, adding that an +ill-considered word might cost torrents of blood. Grevy shuffled through +the sitting in ten minutes. But the rumour of a plot got abroad. + +Saturday was the last day of the crisis. Either the Central Committee or +the mayors had to disappear. The Committee on that very morning +placarded: "The transport of mitrailleuses to the mairie of the second +arrondissement compels us to maintain our resolution. The election will +take place on the 26th March." Paris, which had believed peace +concluded, and for the first time since five days had passed a quiet +night, was very angry at seeing the mayors recommence the wrangle. The +idea of the election had made its way in all ranks, and many papers +declared for it, even among those that had signed the protestation of +the 21st. No one could understand this quarrel about a date. One +irresistible current of fraternisation swayed the whole town. The ranks +of the two or three hundred soldiers of order who had remained faithful +to Dubail dwindled away from hour to hour, leaving Admiral Saisset alone +to make his proclamation in the desert of the Grand Hotel. The mayors +had no longer an army when, at ten o'clock, Ranvier came to ask for +their final decision. Their dispute grew hot when some deputies of Paris +on their return from Versailles announced the news that the Duc d'Aumale +was proclaimed lieutenant-general. Several mayors and adjuncts then at +last understood that the Republic was at stake, and, convinced of their +impotence, capitulated. The draft of a placard was drawn up to be signed +by the mayors, deputies, and for the Central Committee by the two +delegates Ranvier and Arnold. The Committee wanted to sign _en masse_, +and slightly modified the text, saying, "The Central Committee, round +which the deputies of Paris, the mayors, and adjuncts have rallied, +convokes...." Thereupon some of the mayors, on the look-out for a +pretext, rose, crying, "This is not our convention; we said the +deputies, the mayors, the adjuncts, and the members of the +Committee...;" and, at the risk of rekindling the embers, placarded the +protest. Yet the Committee might well say, "Which have rallied?" since +it had yielded no point. However, Paris overruled the mischief-mongers. +Admiral Saisset had to disband the four men who remained to him. Tirard +in a placard advised the electors to vote; for M. Thiers that same +morning had given him the hint, "Do not continue a useless resistance. I +am reorganising the army. I hope that in a fortnight or three weeks we +shall have a sufficient force to relieve Paris."[101] + +Five deputies only signed the address for the election, MM. Lockroy, +Floquet, Clemenceau, Tolain, and Greppo; the rest of Louis Blanc's group +had kept aloof from Paris for several days. These weaklings, having all +their life sung the glories of the Revolution, when it rose up before +them ran away appalled, like the Arab fisher at the apparition of the +genie. + +With these mandarins of the tribune of history and of journalism, mute +and lifeless, contrast strangely the sons of the multitude, obscure, but +rich in will, faith, and eloquence. Their farewell address was worthy of +their advent: "Do not forget that the men who will serve you best are +those whom you will choose from amongst yourselves, living your life, +suffering the same ills. Beware of the ambitious as much as of the +upstarts. Beware also of mere talkers. Shun those whom fortune has +favoured, for only too rarely is he who possesses fortune prone to look +upon the workingman as a brother. Give your preference to those who do +not solicit your suffrages. True merit is modest, and it is for the +workingmen to know those who are worthy, not for these to present +themselves." + +They could indeed "come down the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville head +erect," these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the +18th March. Named only to organise the National Guard, thrown at the +head of a revolution without precedent and without guides, they had been +able to resist the impatient, quell the riot, re-establish the public +services, victual Paris, baffle intrigues, take advantage of all the +blunders of Versailles and of the mayors, and, harassed on all sides, +every moment in danger of civil war, known how to negotiate, to act at +the right time and in the right place. They had embodied the tendency of +the movement, limited their programme to communal revindications, and +conducted the entire population to the ballot-box. They had inaugurated +a precise, vigorous, and fraternal language unknown to all bourgeois +powers. + +And yet they were obscure men, all with an incomplete education, some of +them fanatics. But the people thought with them. Paris was the brazier, +the Hotel-de-Ville the flame. In the Hotel-de-Ville, where illustrious +bourgeois have only accumulated folly upon defeat, these new-comers +found victory because they listened to Paris. + +May their services absolve them from two grave faults--allowing the +escape of the army and of the functionaries, and the retaking of +Mont-Valerien by Versailles. It has been said that on the 19th or 20th +they ought to have marched on Versailles. But on the first alarm these +would have fled to Fontainebleau, with the Administration and the Left, +everything that was wanted to govern and deceive the provinces. The +occupation of Versailles would only have displaced the enemy, and it +would not have been for long, as the popular battalions were too badly +provided, too badly commanded, to hold at the same time this open town +and Paris. + +At all events, the Central Committee left its successor all the means +necessary to disarm the enemy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[98] Here are the names of those who signed the proclamations and +notices of the Committee. We shall restore, as far as possible, their +correct orthography, often altered, even in the _Officiel_, to the +extent of giving fictitious names:--Andignoux, A. Arnaud, G. Arnold, A. +Assi, Babick, Barroud, Bergeret, Billioray, Bouit, Boursier, Blanchet, +Castioni, Chouteau, C. Dupont, Eudes, Fabre, Ferrat, Fleury, H. Fortune, +Fougeret, Gaudier, Geresme, Gouhier, Grelier, J. Grollard, Josselin, +Jourde, Lavalette, Lisbonne, Lullier, Maljournal, Ed. Moreau, Mortier, +Prudhomme, Ranvier, Rousseau, Varlin, Viard. Notwithstanding the +decision of the Committee, all its members did not always sign the +proclamations. Finally, some who took part in certain deliberations +never signed at all. + +[99] This order had been given the evening before. The treachery of Du +Bisson, nominated chief of the staff by Lullier, had prevented its +execution. + +[100] Tirard: "My whole preoccupation and that of my colleagues had been +to postpone the elections so as to reach the date of the 3rd +April"--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 340. Vautrain: "My +colleagues and I thus gained eight days more."--_Ibid._, p. 379. J. +Favre: "For eight days we were the only barricade raised up between the +insurrection and the Government."--_Ibid._, p. 385. Desmarets: "I +believed it necessary to remain exposed to danger in order to give the +Government of Versailles time for arming."--_Ibid._, p. 412. + +[101] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Tirard, vol. ii. p. 342. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "Une portion considerable de la population et de la garde + nationale de Paris sollicite le concours des departements pour + le retablissement de l'ordre."--_Circulaire de M. Thiers aux + Prefets, le 27 Mars._ + + PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE. + + +This week ended with the triumph of Paris. Paris-Commune again resumed +her part as the capital of France, again became the national initiator. +For the tenth time since 1789 the workmen put France upon the right +track. + +The bayonets of Prussia had laid bare our country, such as eighty years +of bourgeois domination had left it--a Goliath at the mercy of his +driver. + +Paris broke the thousand fetters which bound France down to the ground, +like Gulliver a prey to ants; restored the circulation to her paralysed +limbs; said, "The life of the whole nation exists in each of her +smallest organisms; the unity of the hive, and not that of the barracks. +The organic cell of the French Republic is the municipality, the +commune." + +The Lazarus of the Empire and of the siege resuscitated, having torn the +napkin from his brow and shaken off the grave-clothes, was about to +begin a new existence with the regenerated Communes of France in his +train. This new life gave to all Paris a youthful aspect. Those who had +despaired a month before were now full of enthusiasm. Strangers +addressed each other and shook hands. For indeed we were not strangers, +but bound together by the same faith and the same aspirations. + +Sunday the 26th was a day of joy and sunshine. Paris breathed again, +happy like one just escaped from death or great peril. At Versailles +the streets looked gloomy, gendarmes occupied the station, brutally +demanded passports, confiscated all the journals of Paris, and at the +slightest expression of sympathy for the town arrested you. At Paris +everybody could enter freely. The streets swarmed with people, the cafes +were noisy; the same lad cried out the _Paris Journal_ and the +_Commune_; the attacks against the Hotel-de-Ville, the protestation of a +few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the placards of +the Central Committee. The people were without anger because without +fear. The voting paper had replaced the chassepot. + +Picard's bill only gave Paris sixty municipal councillors, three for +each arrondissement, whatever might be its population. Thus the 150,000 +inhabitants of the eleventh arrondissement had the same number of +representatives as the 45,000 of the sixteenth. The Central Committee +had decreed that there was to be a councillor for every 20,000 +inhabitants, and for each fraction of 10,000; ninety in all. The +elections were to be conducted with the lists of February and in the +usual manner; only the Committee had expressed the wish that for the +future open voting should be considered the only mode worthy of +democratic principles. All the faubourgs obeyed, and gave an open vote. +The electors of the St. Antoine quarter formed in long columns, and, +headed by a red flag, their voting papers stuck in their hats, defiled +before the column of the Bastille, and in the same order marched to +their sections. + +The adhesion and convocation of the mayors dissipating all scruple, also +made the bourgeois quarters vote. The elections became legal since +plenipotentiaries of the Government had given their consent. Two hundred +and eighty-seven thousand men voted, relatively a far greater number +than in the elections of February; for since the opening of the gates +after the siege, a great part of the easy classes had rushed to the +provinces there to recruit their health. + +The elections were conducted in a way becoming a free people. At the +approach to the halls, no police, no intrigues. And yet M. Thiers dared +telegraph to the provinces: "The elections will take place to-day +without liberty and without moral authority." The liberty was so +absolute that in all Paris not one single protestation occurred. + +The moderate papers even commended the articles of the _Officiel_, in +which the delegate Longuet set forth the part of the future Communal +Assembly: "Above all, it must define its mandate, fix the boundaries of +its attributes. Its first work must be the discussion and the drawing up +of its charter. This done, it must consider the means of having that +statute of the municipal autonomy recognised and guaranteed by the +central power." The plainness, the prudence, the moderation which marked +all official acts was beginning to move the most obdurate. Only the +hatred of the Versaillese did not abate. That same day M. Thiers cried +from the tribune, "No, France will not let those wretches triumph who +would drown her in blood." + +The next day 200,000 "wretches" came to the Hotel-de-Ville there to +instal their chosen representatives, the battalion drums beating, the +banners surmounted by the Phrygian cap and with red fringe round the +muskets; their ranks, swelled by soldiers of the line, artillerists, and +marines faithful to Paris, came down from all the streets to the Place +de Greve like the thousand streams of a great river. In the middle of +the Hotel-de-Ville, against the central door, a large platform was +raised. Above it towered the bust of the Republic, a red scarf slung +round it. Immense red streamers beat against the frontal and the belfry, +like tongues of fire announcing the good news to France. A hundred +battalions thronged the place, and piled their bayonets, lit up by the +sun, in front of the Hotel-de-Ville. The other battalions that could not +get into the place lined the streets up to the Boulevard de Sebastopol +and to the quays. The banners were grouped in front of the platform, +some tricolour, all with red tassels, symbolising the advent of the +people. While the place was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played +the _Marseillaise_ and the _Chant du Depart_, trumpets sounded the +charge, and the cannon of the old Commune thundered on the quay. + +Suddenly the noise subsided. The members of the Central Committee and of +the Commune, their red scarfs over their shoulders, appeared on the +platform. Ranvier said, "Citizens, my heart is too full of joy to make a +speech. Permit me only to thank the people of Paris for the great +example they have given the world." A member of the Committee announced +the names of those elected. The drums beat a salute, the bands and two +hundred thousand voices chimed in with the _Marseillaise_. Ranvier, in +an interval of silence, cried out, "In the name of the People the +Commune is proclaimed." + +A thousandfold echo answered, "Vive la Commune!" Caps were flung up on +the ends of bayonets, flags fluttered in the air. From the windows, on +the roofs, thousands of hands waved handkerchiefs. The quick reports of +the cannon, the bands, the drums, blended in one formidable vibration. +All hearts leaped with joy, all eyes filled with tears. Never since the +great Federation had Paris been thus moved. + +The filing off was very cleverly managed by Brunel, who, while having +the place evacuated on the one hand, brought in those battalions that +were without, all equally anxious to acclaim the Commune. Before the +bust of the Republic the flags were lowered, the officers saluted with +their sabres, the men raised their muskets. Not until seven o'clock did +the last procession pass by. + +The agents of M. Thiers returned in dismay to tell him, "It was really +the whole of Paris that took part in the manifestation." And the Central +Committee might well exclaim in its enthusiasm, "To-day Paris opened a +fresh page in the book of history, and there inscribed her powerful +name. Let the spies of Versailles, who are prowling around us, go and +tell their masters what the common movement of an entire population +means. Let these spies carry back to them the image of the magnificent +spectacle of a people recovering their sovereignty." + +This lightning would have made the blind to see. 287,000 voters, 200,000 +men with the same watchword. This was not a secret committee, a handful +of factious rioters and bandits, as had been said for ten days. Here was +an immense force at the service of a definite idea--Communal +independence, the intellectual life of France--an invaluable force in +this time of universal anaemia, a godsend as precious as the compass +saved from the wreck and saving the survivors. This was one of those +great historical turning-points when a people may be remoulded. + +Liberals, if it was in good faith that you called for decentralisation +under the Empire; Republicans, if you have understood June, 1848, and +December, 1851; Radicals, if you really want the self-government of the +people, listen to this new voice, avail yourselves of this marvellous +opportunity. + +But the Prussian! What does it matter? Why not forge arms under the eye +of the enemy? Bourgeois, was it not in sight of the foreigner that your +ancestor Etienne Marcel tried to remake France? And your Convention, did +not it first act in the very midst of the hurricane? + +What did they answer? Death to Paris! + +The red sun of civil discord melts veneer and all masks. There they are +side by side as in 1791, 1794, and 1848, Monarchists, Clericals, +Liberals, Radicals, all of them, their hands raised against the +people--one army in different uniforms. Their decentralisation is rural +and capitalist federalism; their self-government, the exploitation of +the budget by themselves, just as the whole political science of their +statesmen consists only in massacre and the state of siege. + +What bourgeoisie in the world after such immense disasters would not +with careful heed have tended such a reservoir of living force? They, +seeing this Paris capable of engendering a new world, her heart swelled +with the best blood of France, had but one thought--to bleed Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "Toutes les parties de la France sont unies et ralliees + autour de l'Assemblee et du gouvernement."--_Circulaire de + M. Thiers a la Province, le 23 au soir._ + + THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT. + + +What was the state of the provinces? + +For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon +lying despatches of M. Thiers,[102] then looked at the signatures to the +proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the +Left nor the democratic paragons, said, "Who are these unknown men?" The +Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the +siege of Paris--very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative +press--as their fathers had formerly said, "Pitt and Coburg," when +unable to comprehend popular movements, they cried, "These unknown men +can be nothing but Bonapartists." The people alone showed true instinct. + +The Paris Commune found its first echo at Lyons. This was a necessary +reverberation. Since the advent of the Assembly the workmen found +themselves watched. The municipal councillors, weak men, some of them, +almost to reaction, had lowered the red flag under the pretext that "the +proud flag of resistance _a outrance_ should not survive the humiliation +of France." The clumsy trick had not deceived the people, who, at the +Guillotiere, mounted guard round their flag. The new prefect, Valentin, +an ex-officer as brutal as vulgar, a kind of Clement-Thomas, +sufficiently forewarned the people what sort of Republic was in store +for them. + +On the 19th, at the first news, Republicans were on the alert, nor did +they hide their sympathy for Paris. The next day Valentin issued a +provocative proclamation, seized the Parisian journals, and refused to +communicate any despatches. On the 21st, in the municipal council, some +of the members grew indignant, and one said, "Let us at least have the +courage to be the Commune of Lyons." On the 22nd, at mid-day, eight +hundred delegates of the National Guard assembled at the Palais de St. +Pierre. A motion was put proposing to choose between Paris and +Versailles. A citizen just arrived from Paris explained the movement +there, and many wanted the meeting to declare itself immediately for +Paris. The Assembly finally sent delegates to the Hotel-de-Ville to ask +for the extension of the municipal liberties, the appointment of the +mayor as chief of the National Guard, and his investiture with the +functions of prefect. + +The municipal council was just sitting. The mayor, Henon, a +wooden-headed relic of 1848, opposed all resistance to Versailles. The +mayor of the Guillotiere, Crestin, a known Republican, demanded that +they should at least protest. Others wanted the council to extend its +prerogatives. Henon threatened to tender his resignation if they went on +like that, and proposed they should repair to the prefect, who was then +convoking the reactionary battalions. + +The delegates of the Palais St. Pierre arrived, and were roughly +received by Henon. One deputation succeeded the other, always meeting +with the same rebuffs. However, during this time the battalions of +Brotteaux and La Guillotiere were preparing, and at eight o'clock a +dense mass filled the Place des Terreaux in front of the Hotel-de-Ville, +crying, "Vive la Commune! Down with Versailles!" The reactionary +battalions did not respond to the prefect's appeal. + +Part of the council had met again at nine o'clock, while the others, +together with Henon, were still wrangling with the delegates. After an +answer from the mayor, which left them no hope of coming to an +understanding, the delegates invaded the council-chamber, and the crowd, +apprised of this, rushed into the Hotel-de-Ville. The delegates, sitting +down round the council table, named Crestin mayor of Lyons. He refused, +and, summoned to give his reasons, declared that the direction of the +movement belonged to those who had initiated it. After a great uproar, +the National Guards acclaimed a Communal Commission, at the head of +which they placed five municipal councillors--Crestin, Durand, +Bouvatier, Perret and Velay. The delegates sent for Valentin, and asked +him if he were for Versailles. He answered that his proclamation could +leave no doubt on that head, whereupon he was put under arrest. Then +they decided on the proclamation of the Commune, the dissolution of the +municipal council, the dismissal of the prefect and of the general of +the National Guard, who was to be replaced by Ricciotti Garibaldi, noted +alike by his name and his services in the army of the Vosges. These +resolutions were announced to the people and hailed with cheers. The red +flag was again unfurled from the balcony. + +The next day, the 23rd March, early in the morning, the five councillors +named the evening before backed out, thus obliging the insurgents to +present themselves single-handed to Lyons and the neighboring towns. +"The Commune," they said, "must vindicate for Lyons the right to impose +and administer her own taxes, to have her own police, and to dispose of +her National Guard, which is to occupy all posts and forts." This rather +meagre programme was a little further expanded by the committees of the +National Guard and the Republican Alliance: "With the Commune, the taxes +will be lightened, the public money will no longer be squandered, +social institutions demanded by the working-class will be founded. Much +misery and suffering will be alleviated pending the final disappearance +of that hideous social evil, pauperism." Insufficient proclamations +these, inconclusive, mute as to the danger of the Republic and the +clerical conspiracy, the only levers by which the small middle-class +might have been roused. + +So the Commission found itself isolated. It had taken the fort of +Charpennes, accumulated cartridges, disposed the cannons and +mitrailleuses round the Hotel-de-Ville; but the popular battalions, +except two or three, had withdrawn without leaving a picket, and the +resistance was being organised. General Crouzat at the station picked up +all the soldiers, marines, and mobiles dispersed about Lyons. Henon +named a general of the National Guard. The officers of the battalions of +order protested against the Commune, and placed themselves at the +disposition of the municipal council, which sat in the cabinet of the +mayor, close to the Commission. + +Forgetting it had dissolved the Council the evening before, it invited +the Council to hold their sitting in the ordinary council-room. They +arrived at four o'clock. The Commission gave up the place to them, +National Guards occupying that part of the room reserved to the public. +Had there been some vigour in this middle class, some foreboding of the +Conservative atrocities, the Republican councillors would have taken the +lead of this popular movement; but they were still, some of them, the +same mercantile aristocrats, chary of their gold and their persons +during the war of the national defence; the others, the same overweening +Radicals who had always striven for the subordination instead of the +emancipation of the working-class. While they were deliberating without +coming to any resolution, the assistants, growing impatient, uttered a +few exclamations shocking to their lordliness, and they brusquely raised +the sitting in order to go and draw up an address with Henon. + +In the evening two delegates of the Central Committee of Paris arrived +at the club of the Rue Duguesclin. They were taken to the +Hotel-de-Ville, where from the large balcony they harangued the mass, +who answered with cries of "Vive Paris! Vive la Commune!" and +Ricciotti's name was again acclaimed. + +But this was only a demonstration. The delegates were themselves too +inexperienced to keep alive and direct this movement. On the 24th there +remained on the Place de Terreaux but a few groups of idlers. The +_rappel_ sounded in vain. The four important journals of Lyons, Radical, +Liberal and Clerical, "energetically repudiated all connivance with the +Parisian, Lyonese, and other insurrections;" and General Crouzat spread +the rumour that the Prussians, camping at Dijon, threatened to occupy +Lyons within twenty-four hours if order were not re-established. The +Commission, more and more deserted, again turned to the Council, which +now held its sitting at the Bourse, proposing to hand over the +administration to them. The Council refused to treat. "No," said the +mayor, "we will never accept the Commune." And as the mobiles from +Belfort were announced, the Council decided to give them a solemn +reception. This was a declaration of war. + +The parley had been going on the whole afternoon until late into the +evening. Little by little the Hotel-de-Ville grew empty, and the members +of the Commission disappeared. At four o'clock in the morning the only +two who remained cancelled their powers,[103] dismissed the sentries who +guarded the prefect, and left the Hotel-de-Ville. The next day Lyons +found her Commune gone. + + * * * * * + +On the same evening, when dying out at Lyons, the revolutionary movement +burst forth at St. Etienne. Since the 31st October, when they had almost +succeeded in officially proclaiming the Commune, the Socialists had not +ceased calling for it, despite the resistance, and even the threats, of +the municipal council. + +There were two Republican centres--the Committee of the National Guard, +spurred on by the revolutionary club of the Rue de la Vierge, and the +Republican Alliance at the head of the advanced Republicans. The +municipal council was, with one or two exceptions, composed of those +Radicals who know not how to resist the people without being crushed by +the reaction. The Committee and the Alliance agreed to ask for its +renewal. + +The 18th March was enthusiastically welcomed by the workmen. The Radical +organ, _L'Eclaireur_, said, without drawing any conclusion: "If the +Assembly prevails, the Republic is done for; if, on the other hand, the +deputies of Paris separate from the Central Committee, they must have a +good reason for it." The people went straight on. On the 23rd the Club +de la Vierge sent delegates to the Hotel-de-Ville to ask for the +Commune. The mayor promised to submit the question to his colleagues. +The Alliance also came to demand the adjunction to the council of a +certain number of delegates. + +The next day, the 24th, the delegations returned. The Council tendered +their resignation, and declared they would only officiate till their +replacement by the electors, to be convoked with the briefest delay. +This was a defeat, for the same day the prefect _ad interim_, Morellet, +adjured the population not to proclaim the Commune, but to respect the +authority of the Assembly. At seven o'clock in the evening a company of +the National Guard relieved the sentinel to the cries of "Vive la +Commune!" The Central Committee invited the Alliance to join them in +taking possession of the Hotel-de-Ville. The Radicals refused, saying +that the promise of the Council sufficed; that the movements of Paris +and Lyons were of a vague character, and that it was necessary to affirm +order and public tranquility. + +During these negotiations the people had assembled at the Club de la +Vierge, accusing the first delegates of weakness, resolved to send +others, and to accompany them, so that they could not give way. At ten +o'clock two columns of 400 men each drew up before the rails that cover +the Hotel-de-Ville. These had been closed by order of the new prefect, +M. De l'Espee, an autocrat of iron works, who had just then arrived, +eager to subdue the disturbers. But the people began pulling down the +rails, and it was necessary to let in their delegates. They found the +mayor and Morellet, asked for the Commune, and provisionally the +adjunction of a popular commission. The mayor refused, the former +prefect obstinately tried to demonstrate that the Commune was a Prussian +invention. Hopeless of convincing the delegates, he went to warn M. De +l'Espee--the prefecture being contiguous to the mairie--and both then +making off by the garden, succeeded in rejoining General Lavoye, the +commander of the garrison. + +At midnight the delegates, unable to obtain anything, declared that +nobody would be allowed to leave the Hotel-de-Ville, and proceeding to +the rails, told the demonstrators to reflect. Some ran off in quest of +arms, others penetrated into the Salle des Prudhommes, where they held a +meeting. The night passed tumultuously. The delegates, who had just +learned the miscarriage of the movement at Lyons wavered. The people +threatened and were for beating the _rappel_. The mayor refused. At +last, at seven o'clock, he found an expedient, and promised to propose a +plebiscite on the establishment of the Commune. A delegate read this +declaration to the people, who at once withdrew from the Hotel-de-Ville. + +At the same moment M. De l'Espee conceived the brilliant idea of beating +the _rappel_, which the people had in vain asked for since midnight. He +picked up some National Guards of order, re-entered the now empty +Hotel-de-Ville, and promulgated his victory. The municipal council +informing him of the morning's agreement, De l'Espee refused to fix the +date of the elections. Besides, said he, the general had promised him +the aid of the garrison. + +At eleven o'clock the prefect's call to arms had reassembled all the +popular battalions. Groups formed before the Hotel-de-Ville, crying +"Vive la Commune!" De l'Espee sent for his troops, consisting of 250 +foot-soldiers and two squadrons of hussars, who came up sluggishly. The +multitude surrounded them; the Council protested; and the prefect had to +discharge his warriors, there remaining to face the crowd only a line of +firemen, and in the Hotel-de-Ville two companies, of which but one was +favourable to the party of order. + +Towards mid-day a delegation summoned the Council to keep their promise. +The councillors present--only few in number--were not adverse to +accepting as coadjutors two delegates from each company, but De l'Espee +formally declared against any concession. At four o'clock a very +numerous delegation from the Committee presented itself. The prefect +spoke of retrenching himself and of strengthening the gates for defence; +but the firemen raised the butt end of their muskets, opened the +passage, and De l'Espee had to receive some of the delegates. + +The crowd outside waxed unruly, impatient at these useless parleys. At +half-past four the workmen from the manufactory of arms arrived, when a +shot was fired from one of the houses of the place, killing Lyonnet, a +workingman. A hundred shots answered; the drums beat, the trumpets +sounded the charge, and the battalions rushed into the Hotel-de-Ville, +while others searched the house whence the attack was supposed to have +come. + +At the noise of the firing the prefect broke off the conference and +tried to escape as on the night before, mistook his way, was recognised +and seized, together with the deputy of the _procureur de la +Republique_, brought back with the latter into the large hall, and shown +from the balcony. The crowd hooted him, convinced that he had given the +order to fire upon the people. One of the reactionist guards, M. De +Ventavon, on his flight from the mairie, was taken for the murderer of +Lyonnet, and carried about on the litter on which the corpse had just +been transported to the hospital. + +The prefect and the procureur's deputy were left in the large hall in +the midst of exasperated men. Many accused De l'Espee of having provoked +the fusillade of the miners of Aubin under the Empire. He protested, +stating that he had been director of the mines of Archambault, not those +of Aubin. Little by little, the crowd, tired out, dispersed, and at +eight o'clock about forty guards only remained in the hall. The +prisoners took some food, when the president of the Commune, which was +constituting itself in a neighbouring room, seeing everything calm, also +withdrew. At nine o'clock the crowd returned, crying, "La Commune! La +Commune! Sign!" De l'Espee offered to sign his resignation, but added +that he did so under compulsion. The prisoners were in charge of two +men, Victoire and Fillon, the latter an old exile, quite distracted, who +turned now against the crowd, now against the prisoners. At ten o'clock, +being hard pressed by the throng of people, Fillon, as in a dream, faced +about, fired two shots from his revolver, killing his friend Victoire +and wounding a drummer. Instantaneously the muskets were levelled at +him, and Fillon and De l'Espee fell dead. The deputy, covered by the +corpse of Fillon, escaped the discharge. The next day he and M. De +Ventavon were set free. + +During the evening a Commission constituted itself, chosen from amongst +the officers of the National Guards and the habitual orators of the Club +de la Vierge. It had the station occupied, took possession of the +telegraph, seized the cartridges of the powder-magazine, and convoked +the electors for the 29th. "The Commune," it said, "does not mean +incendiarism, nor theft, nor pillage, as so many are pleased to give +out, but the conquest of the franchises and the independence ravished +from us by imperial and monarchical legislation; it is the true basis of +the Republic." This was the whole preamble. In this industrial hive, by +the side of the thousands of miners of La Ricamarie and Firminy, they +found not a word to say on the social question. The Commission only knew +how to beat the _rappel_, which, as at Lyons, was not responded to. + +The next day, Sunday, the town, calm and curious, read the proclamation +of the Commune, placarded side by side with the appeals of the general +and of the procureur. While this latter, as became a good Radical, spoke +of a Bonapartist plot, the general invited the Council to withdraw its +resignation. He went to the councillors, who had taken refuge in the +barracks, and said to them, "My soldiers won't fight, but I have a +thousand chassepots. If you will make use of them, forward!" The +councillors protested their unfitness for military exploits; but at the +same time, as at Lyons, refused to communicate with the Hotel-de-Ville, +considering "that one can only treat with honest men." + +On the 27th the Alliance and _L'Eclaireur_ altogether withdrew, and the +Commission gradually dwindled down. In the evening, the few faithful +still holding out received two young men, whom the delegates from the +Central Committee at Lyons had sent. They urged resistance; but the +Hotel-de-Ville was being deserted, and on the morning of the 28th there +were only about a hundred left. At six o'clock General Lavoye presented +himself with the francs-tireurs of the Vosges and some troops come from +Montbrison. The National Guards, on his appeal to lay down their arms in +order to avoid bloodshed, consented to evacuate the mairie. + +Numerous arrests were made. The Conservatives overwhelmed the Commune +with the customary insults, and recounted that cannibals had been seen +amongst the murderers of the prefect.[104] _L'Eclaireur_ did not fail to +demonstrate that the movement was purely Bonapartist. The workingmen +felt themselves vanquished, and at the solemn funeral of M. De l'Espee +not loud but deep curses were uttered. + + * * * * * + +At Creuzot, also the proletarians were defeated. Yet the Socialists +administered the town from the 4th September, the mayor, Dumay, being a +former workman at the iron works. On the 25th, at the news from Lyons, +they spoke of proclaiming the Commune. At their review on the 26th the +National Guards cried "Vive la Commune!" and the crowd accompanied them +to the Place of the Mairie, held by the colonel of cuirassiers, +Gerhardt. He ordered the foot-soldiers to fire. They refused. He then +ordered the cavalry to charge; but the guards levelled their bayonets +and invaded the mairie. Dumay pronounced the abolition of the Versailles +Government, proclaimed the Commune, and the red flag was hoisted. + +But there, as everywhere else, the people did not move. The commander of +Creuzot came back the next day with a reinforcement, dispersed the +crowd, which was standing curious and passive in the square, and took +possession of the mairie. + +In four days all the revolutionary centres of the east, Lyons, St. +Etienne, and Creuzot, were lost to the Commune. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[102] He then and there inaugurated this incomparable lying campaign, +the progress of which we shall closely watch. On the 19th he said, "The +army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated in good order at +Versailles." There were 23,000 men (the number given by himself in the +_Enquete_) totally disbanded. On the 20th: "The Government did not want +to enter into a bloody struggle, though provoked." By the 21st the army +had grown to 45,000 men: "The insurrection is disavowed by everybody." +On the 22nd: "From all sides the Government is offered battalions of +mobiles to support it against anarchy." On the 27th, while the votes +were being counted: "A considerable proportion of the population and of +the National Guard of Paris solicits the help of the provinces to +re-establish order." + +[103] "Considering," said they in their declaration, "that the +Provisional Commune of Lyons, acclaimed by the National Guard, is no +longer feeling itself supported by them, the members of the Commune +declare themselves released from their engagements towards their +electors, and resign all powers they have received." + +[104] Certain infamous evidence must be quoted in full in order to give +a notion of the delirium tremens of the great bourgeoisie when speaking +of the Commune. Four months after these events the Prefect Ducros, the +inventor of the famous bridges of the Marne, deposed before the +_Commission d'Enquete sur le 18 Mars_: "They did not respect his corpse; +they cut off his head. In the night, horrible to say, one of the men who +had participated in the assassination, and who has been put on his +trial, came to a cafe offering those present pieces of M. De l'Espee's +skull, and cracking under his teeth pieces of the same skull." And +Ducros dared to add: "The man had been arrested, put on his trial, and +acquitted." Horrible imaginings, which even the Radicals of St. Etienne +have stigmatised. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + THE COMMUNE AT MARSEILLES, TOULOUSE, AND NARBONNE. + + +Since the elections of the 8th February, the advent of the reactionists, +the nomination of M. Thiers, the patched-up and shameful peace, the +monarchy in prospect, the defiances and the defeats were as bitterly +resented by the valiant town of Marseilles as by Paris. There the news +of the 18th March fell upon a powder-magazine. Nevertheless, further +details were looked for, when the 22nd brought the famous despatch of +Rouher-Canrobert. + +The clubs, playing a great part in the ardent life of Marseilles, were +at once thronged. The prudent and methodical Radicals affected the club +of the National Guard; the popular elements met at the El Dorado. There +they applauded Gaston Cremieux, an elegant and effeminate speaker, now +and then happy at epigrammatic turns, as, for instance, at Bordeaux. +Gambetta owed him his election at Marseilles under the Empire. Cremieux +at once hurried to the club of the National Guard, denounced Versailles, +told them they could not allow the Republic to perish, but ought to act. +The club, though highly indignant at the despatch, cautioned him against +over-hastiness. The proclamations of the Central Committee, they said, +did not announce any clearly defined politics. Signed by unknown names, +they might well proceed from Bonapartists. + +This Jacobin argument was ridiculous at Marseilles, where the despatch +of M. Thiers had given the signal for the commotion. Who smacked of +Bonapartism--these unknown men rising against Versailles, or M. Thiers +patronising Rouher and his Ministers, and boasting of Canrobert's +offer? + +After a speech of Bouchet, the deputy of the _procureur de la +Republique_, Gaston Cremieux reconsidering his first impulsive step, and +accompanied by the delegates of the club, repaired to the El Dorado. +There he read and made comments upon the _Officiel_ of Paris, which he +had got from the prefect, and calmed the excitement. "The Government of +Versailles have raised their crutch against what they call the +insurrection of Paris; but it has broken in their hands, and their +attempt has brought forth the Commune. Let us swear that we are united +for the defence of the Government of Paris, the only one that we +recognise." They separated, ready for resistance, but resolved to bide +their time. + +Thus the excited population still checked itself when the prefect goaded +it by the most stupid of provocations. This Admiral Cosnier, a +distinguished naval officer, but politically a mere cipher, quite out of +his element in these surroundings, where he had only just arrived, was +the passive tool of the reaction, which since the 4th September had +already several times fallen out with the National Guard--the +_civiques_--who had proclaimed the Commune and expulsed the Jesuits. The +Rev. Father Tissier, though absent, was still its leader. The moderation +of the town it mistook for cowardice. Like M. Thiers on the 17th, it +believed itself strong enough to make a brilliant stroke. + +In the evening the Admiral held council with the mayor, Bories, an old +wreck of 1848, who had dabbled in all the clerico-liberal coalitions, +the _procureur de la Republique_, Guibert, a timid trimmer, and General +Espivent de la Villeboisnet, one of those cruel caricatures in which the +civil wars of South America abound. An obtuse Legitimist, a besotted +zealot, the Syllabus incarnate, a carpet knight and former member of the +Mixed Commissions of 1851, during the war he had been expelled from +Lille by the people, indignant alike at his utter incapacity and his +antecedents. He brought the council the _mot d'ordre_ of the priests +and reactionists, and proposed convoking the National Guards to make an +armed manifestation in favour of Versailles. He would have asked for +more, no doubt, but the garrison was solely composed of waifs of the +army of the East and of a few disbanded artillerists. Cosnier, quite led +astray, approved of the manifestation, and gave orders to the mayor and +to the colonel of the National Guards to prepare for it. + +On the 23rd March, at seven o'clock in the morning, the call to arms +sounded. The ingenious idea of the prefect had spread over the town, and +the popular battalions made ready to do it honour. From ten o'clock they +arrived at the Cours du Chapitre, and the artillery of the National +Guard was drawn up along the St. Louis Cours. At twelve, francs-tireurs, +National Guards, soldiers of all arms mingling, gathered in the Belzunce +Cours. Soon all the battalions of the Belle-de-Mai and of Endourre[105] +mustered in full strength, while the battalions of order remained +invisible. + +The municipal council, taking fright, disavowed the manifestation and +placarded a Republican address. The club of the National Guard joined +the council and demanded the return of the Assembly to Paris and the +exclusion from public functions of all the accomplices of the Empire. +The deputy of the procureur Bouchet tendered his resignation. + +All this time the battalions were marching up and down crying "Vive +Paris!" Popular orators harangued them, and the club, apprehensive of an +imminent explosion, sent Gaston Cremieux, Bouchet, and Frayssinet, to +ask the prefect to break up the ranks and communicate the despatches +from Paris. The delegates were discussing with Cosnier, when a terrific +clamour rose from without. The prefecture was besieged. + +At four o'clock the battalions, on foot for six hours, had moved, headed +by their drums. Twelve or thirteen thousand men having debouched through +the Cannebiere and the Rue St. Ferreol, drew up before the prefecture. +The delegates of the club tried to parley, when a shot was fired, and +the crowd, rushing into the prefecture, arrested the prefect, his two +secretaries, and General Ollivier. Gaston Cremieux appeared on the +balcony, spoke of the rights of Paris, and recommended the maintenance +of order. The crowd cheered, but still continued to enter and ask for +arms. G. Cremieux had two columns formed and sent them to the iron works +of Menpenti, whose guns were surrendered. + +During this tumult a Commission of six members was formed: G. Cremieux, +Job, Etienne, a street-porter, Maviel, a shoemaker, Gaillard, a +mechanic, and Allerini, who deliberated in the midst of the crowd. G. +Cremieux proposed setting at liberty the prisoners just made, but from +all sides they cried, "Keep them as sureties." The Admiral was conducted +into a neighbouring room, closely watched, and--strange mania of all +these popular movements--asked for his resignation. Cosnier, quite out +of his latitude, signed what he was asked for.[106] + +The Commission placarded that all the powers were concentrated in its +hands, and feeling the necessity of strengthening itself, invited the +municipal council and the club of the National Guard to send three +delegates each. The council named David Bosc, Desservy, and Sidore; the +club, Bouchet, Cartoux, and Fulgeras. The next day they made a moderate +proclamation: "Marseilles has wished to prevent the civil war provoked +by the circulars of Versailles. Marseilles will support a regularly +constituted Republican Government sitting in the capital. The +Departmental Commission, formed with the concourse of all Republican +groups, will watch over the Republic till a new authority emanating from +a regular Government sitting at Paris relieves it." + +The names of the municipal council and of the club reassured the +middle-class. The reactionists continued drawing in their horns, and the +army had evacuated the town during the night. Leaving the prefect in the +trap into which he had thrust him, the coward Espivent, on the +investment of the prefecture, went to hide himself at the mistress's of +a commander of the National Guard named Spir, on whom he afterwards +conferred the knighthood of the Legion of Honour for this service to +moral order. At midnight he sneaked off and rejoined the troops, who, +without hindrance from the people, lulled into security by its victory, +reached the village of Aubagne, about seventeen kilometres from +Marseilles. + +Thus Marseilles was entirely in the hands of the people. The victory was +even too complete for heads prone to exultation. That "city of the sun" +is not propitious to soft tints; its sky, its fields, its men all affect +crude colours. On the 24th the civil guards hoisted the red flag and +already deemed the Commission too lukewarm. Sidore, Desservy, and +Fulgeras, regardless of their duty, kept aloof from the prefecture; +Cartoux had gone to Paris for information, and so the whole burden +weighed upon Bosc and Bouchet, who, with Gaston Cremieux, strove to +regularise the movement. Having said that the red flag was inopportune, +the detention of the hostages useless, they soon became suspected and +menaced. On the evening of the 24th, Bouchet, quite discouraged, gave in +his resignation, but, on G. Cremieux' complaint to the club of the +National Guard, consented to resume his post. + +These disagreements were already bruited about the town, and on the 25th +the Commission was obliged to announce that "the most perfect accord +united it with the municipal council." But the latter on the same day +declared itself the only existing power, and called upon the National +Guard to rouse from apathy. Trimming between the reaction and the +people, it began that miserable play that was to end in ignominy. + +While the Liberals were imitating the Tirards and the deputies of the +extreme Left, to whom Dufaure referred in his despatches, Espivent in +every point copied General Thiers. He had rifled all the administrative +departments of Marseilles. The treasury office of the garrison had been +shuffled off to Aubagne. Fifteen hundred Garibaldians of the army of +the Vosges and soldiers who were rejoining their depots in Africa were +left without bread, without pay, without _feuilles-de-routes_, and would +have remained without refuge if Gaston Cremieux and Bouchet had not +caused a provisional quartermaster to be named by the council. Thanks to +the Commission, those who had shed their blood for France received bread +and shelter. Gaston Cremieux said to them in an address, "You will +remember when the time comes, the fraternal hand that we have held out +to you." He was a gentle enthusiast, who beheld the revolution under +rather a bucolic aspect. + +On the 26th the isolation of the Commission became more obvious. No one +armed against it, but no one joined it. Almost all the mayors of the +department refused to placard its proclamations, and at Arles a +manifestation in favor of the red flag miscarried. The fiery spirits at +the prefecture did nothing to explain the import of the flag which they +had unfurled, and, in the midst of this dull calm, in view of Marseilles +looking on curiously, it hung from the campanile of the prefecture +motionless and mute as an enigma. + + * * * * * + +The capital of the south-west also saw its insurrection die out. +Toulouse had vibrated at the thunder-burst of the 18th March. In the +Faubourg St. Cyprien there was an intelligent and valiant workingmen's +population that formed the very sinews of the National Guard, and had +since the 19th relieved the watch to the cries of "Vive Paris!" A few +revolutionists summoned the prefect, Duportal, to pronounce for or +against Paris. For a month the _Emancipation_, which he directed, had +made a campaign against the rurals, and he had even in a public meeting +emphasized his Republican views. But he was not the man to take the +initiative, and refused to break with Versailles. The clubs, however, +beset him, obliging the officers of the National Guard to take an oath +to defend the Republic, and asked for cartridges. M. Thiers, seeing that +Duportal would after all follow their lead, named as prefect De Keratry, +the former prefect of police of the 4th September. He arrived on the +night of the 21st-22nd at the house of the general of the division, +Nansouty, and being told that the garrison consisted of only 600 +disbanded men, and that the whole National Guard would declare for +Duportal, he beat his retreat on Agen. + +On the 23rd the National Guard prepared a manifestation in order to take +possession of the arsenal, when Duportal and the mayor rushed off to the +Capitol, the Hotel-de-Ville of Toulouse. The mayor declared that the +intended review was not to take place, and Duportal that he would tender +his resignation rather than pronounce for the movement. But the +generals, afraid of this outbreak of the faubourg, took refuge in the +arsenal. The mayor and the municipal council, understanding it would no +longer do to continue their Platonic role, fled in their turn, and hence +Duportal, left alone in his prefecture, shone forth as a great +revolutionist, and therefore all the more worthy of the sympathy of the +National Guard. He exerted himself to reassure the generals, went to the +arsenal, intimated there his firm resolution to maintain order in the +name of the Government of Versailles, the only one he recognised as +legitimate, and was so successful that they advised M. Thiers to keep +him in his post. Keratry, availing himself of his declaration, requested +his aid to take possession of the prefecture, and Duportal gave him a +rendezvous before the officers of the mobiles and of the National Guard, +convoked for the next day, the 24th. Keratry understood and remained at +Agen. + +The object of this meeting was to find the volunteers against Paris +asked for by the Assembly. Four officers of mobiles out of sixty offered +their services to Versailles. The officers of the National Guard did not +come to the prefecture, but, on the contrary, prepared at that same +moment a demonstration against Keratry. At one o'clock 2,000 men were +assembled in the Place du Capitole, and, their banner flying, repaired +to the prefecture, where Duportal received their officers. One of them +declared that, far from supporting the Assembly, they were ready to +march against it, and that if M. Thiers did not make peace with Paris +they would proclaim the Commune. At this name cries burst forth from all +corners of the room, "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris!" The officers, +growing hot, decreed the arrest of Keratry, proclaimed the Commune, and +summoned Duportal to place himself at their head. He tried to back out, +and proposed to act only as the officious prompter of the chiefs of the +Commune; but the officers, inveighing against defection, induced him to +come out to the square of the prefecture, where he was acclaimed by the +National Guard, and they proceeded to the Capitol. + +Hardly arrived in the large hall, the leaders seemed much embarrassed. +They offered the presidency in turn to the mayor, to other municipal +councillors, who slunk away, and to Duportal, who got off by drawing up +a manifesto, which was read from the large balcony. "The Commune of +Toulouse," it said, "declares for the Republic one and indivisible, +adjures the deputies of Paris to be the intermediaries between the +Government and the great town, and summons M. Thiers to dissolve the +Assembly." The mass cheered this milk-and-water Commune, which believed +in the deputies of the Left and the oppression of M. Thiers by the rural +majority. + +In the evening some officers of the National Guard appointed an +Executive Commission, composed, with two or three exceptions, of mere +talkers; in this the principal leaders of the movement did not figure. +It contented itself with placarding the manifesto, and neglected the +smallest precautions, even that of occupying the railway station. The +generals, nevertheless, did not dare to stir from their arsenal, where +they were joined on the 26th by the first president of the court and the +procureur-general, who launched an address calling upon the population +to rally round them. The National Guard wanted to answer by storming the +arsenal, and already the faubourg flocked to the Capitol. But the +Commission preferred to negotiate, sent word to the arsenal that it +would dissolve if the Government appointed a Republican prefect in the +stead of Keratry and entirely abandoned Duportal, who, it is true, had +done nothing. The negotiations lasted all the evening, and the National +Guard, tired out, deceived by their chiefs, and fancying everything +settled, returned to their homes. + +Keratry, well informed of all these failures, arrived the next day at +the railway station with three squadrons of cavalry, proceeded to the +arsenal, broke off the negotiations, and gave the order to march. At one +o'clock the Versaillese army, 200 cavalry and 600 ill-assorted soldiers +strong, opened its campaign. One column occupied the St. Cyprien Bridge, +in order to separate the town from the faubourg, another proceeded to +the prefecture, and the third, with Nansouty, Keratry, and the +magistrates, marched on the Capitol. + +About 300 men filled the courts, the windows, and the terrace. The +Versaillese deployed their troops and placed six guns in line at about +sixty yards from the edifice, thus recklessly exposing their infantry +and artillerists to the muskets of the insurgents. The first president +of the court and the procureur-general advanced to parley, but obtained +nothing. Keratry made the _sommations_, his voice being drowned by +cries. A single blank-cartridge volley would have scared soldiers and +artillerists, who might besides have been harassed on both flanks. But +the leaders had fled from the Capitol. The courage of a few men might +still have brought about a fight, when the Republican Association +interposed, persuaded the guards to retreat, and saved Keratry. The +prefecture was taken just as easily, and that same evening Keratry +installed himself there. The members of the Executive Commission the +next day published a manifesto of such platitude as to secure them +impunity, and one of them got himself named mayor by Keratry. + +Thus the generous workingmen of Toulouse, who had risen to the cry of +"Vive Paris!" were left in the lurch by those who had raised the +insurrection. A disastrous check this for Paris, for the whole south +would have followed the example of Toulouse if victorious. + + * * * * * + +The man of thought and energy, wanting in all these movements, appeared +in the insurrection of Narbonne. The old city, Gallic in its enthusiasm, +Roman in its tenacity, is the true centre of democracy in the department +of Aude. Nowhere during the war had a more vigorous protest been entered +against the shortcomings of Gambetta. For this very reason the National +Guards of Narbonne had not yet received their muskets, when those of +Carcassonne had long since been armed. At the news of the 18th March, +Narbonne did not hesitate, but declared for Paris. To proclaim the +Commune, an exile of the Empire, a man of strong convictions and firm +character, Digeon, was at once applied to. Digeon, as modest as +resolute, offered the direction of the movement to his comrade in exile, +Marcou, the recognised chief of the democracy in the Aude, one of the +most ardent opponents of Gambetta during the war. Marcou, a crafty +lawyer, afraid of compromising himself, and dreading the energy of +Digeon in the chief town of the department, induced him to leave for +Narbonne. Digeon arrived there on the 23rd, and first thought of +converting the municipal council to the principles of the Commune. But +on the refusal of the mayor, Raynal, to summon the council, the people, +out of all patience, invaded the Hotel-de-Ville on the evening of the +24th, and arming themselves with the muskets detained by the +municipality, installed Digeon and his friends. He appeared on the +balcony, proclaimed the Commune of Narbonne united to that of Paris, and +immediately proceeded to take measures of defence. + +The following day Raynal tried to rally the garrison, and some companies +formed before the Hotel-de-Ville; but the people, especially the women, +worthy of their Parisian sisters, disarmed the soldiers. A captain and a +lieutenant were retained as hostages; the rest of the garrison went and +shut itself up in the St. Bernard Barracks. As Raynal still continued +stirring up resistance, the people arrested him on the 26th; and Digeon, +with the three hostages, at the head of a detachment of Federals, went +to take possession of the prefecture, placing pickets at the railway +station and telegraph office. To get arms he forced the arsenal, where, +despite their lieutenant, who commanded them to fire, the soldiers +surrendered their guns. The same day the delegates from the neighbouring +Communes arrived, and Digeon set to work to generalise the movement. + +He had clearly understood that the departmental insurrections would soon +founder if not well combined, and he wanted to hold out a helping hand +to the rising of Toulouse and of Marseilles. Beziers and Cette had +already promised him their support, and he was preparing to leave for +Beziers, when, on the 28th, two companies of Turcos arrived, soon +followed by other troops sent from Montpellier, Toulouse, and Perpignan. +From this moment Digeon was obliged to stand on the defensive. He had +barricades thrown up, reinforced the posts, ordering the Federals always +to await the attacks and to aim at the officers. + +We shall return to this subject later on. Paris now recalls us. The +other provincial movements were but momentary vibrations. On the 28th, +when Paris was still elated with victory, all the Communes of France +were already swept away save those of Marseilles and Narbonne. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[105] The popular quarters of Marseilles. + +[106] This abdication was revealed before the court-martial by the +advocate of one of the accused. Cosnier, fearing that it might be +interpreted as an act of cowardice, blew out his brains. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS--THE + MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE. + + +The Place of the Hotel-de-Ville was still astir when the newly elected +members of the Commune assembled in the municipal council-hall. + +The ballot had returned sixteen mayors, adjuncts, and Liberals of all +shades,[107] a few Radicals,[108] and about sixty Revolutionists of all +sorts.[109] + +How came these latter to be chosen? All must be told, and virile truth +at last substituted for the stale flattery of the old romantic school +styling itself "Revolutionary." There might be something more terrible +than the defeat: to misconstrue or to forget its causes. + +Responsibility weighs heavily enough upon the elected, but we must not +charge it all to one side--the electors also have their share of it. + +The Central Committee had told the people on Sunday, the 19th instant, +"Prepare for your communal elections." They thus had a whole week in +which to frame a mandate and select their mandatories. No doubt the +resistance of the mayors and the occupation of the military posts kept +away many of the revolutionary electors from their arrondissements, but +there still remained enough citizens to conduct the work of selection. + +Never had a mandate been more indispensable, for the question at issue +was to give Paris a communal constitution acceptable to all France. +Never did Paris stand in such need of enlightened and practical men, +capable at once of negotiating and of combating. + +Yet there was never less preparatory discussion. A few men only recalled +to prudence a people habitually so over-scrupulous in electoral matters, +and which had just made a revolution to get rid of their +representatives. The Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a +manifesto very pertinent in several points, and which might have served +as an outline; the two delegates at the Home Office tried, through an +article in the _Officiel_, to impress Paris with the importance of her +vote. Not a single assembly framed the general programme of Paris; only +two or three arrondissements gave some sort of mandate. + +Instead of voting for a programme, they voted for names. Those who had +demanded the Commune, made a mark at the Corderie or during the siege, +were elected without being asked for further explanations, some even +twice, like Flourens, in spite of the blunders of the 31st October. Only +seven or eight, and those not the best, of the obscure men of the +Central Committee were named, the latter, it is true, having decided +not to present itself for election. The public meetings in many +arrondissements sent up the most violent talkers, romanticists sprung up +during the siege, and lacking all knowledge of practical life. Nowhere +were the candidates put to any test. In the ardour of the struggle they +took no thought for the morrow. One might have fancied that the object +in view was a simple manifestation, not the foundation of a new order of +things. + +Twenty-four workmen only were elected, and of these a third belonged +rather to the public meetings than to the International or the +workingmen's societies. The other delegates of the people were chosen +from the small middle-class and the so-called liberal professions, +accountants, publicists--there were as many as twelve of these--doctors +and lawyers. These, save a few really studious men, whether veterans or +new-comers, were as ignorant as the workmen of the political and +administrative mechanism of the bourgeoisie, albeit full of their own +personality. The safety of the Central Committee lay in this, that it +was unadorned with great men, each one provided with a formula of his +own. The Council of the Commune, on the contrary, abounded in chapels, +groups, semi-celebrities, and hence endless competition and rivalry. + +Thus the precipitation and heedlessness of the Revolutionary electors +sent up to the Hotel-de-Ville a majority of men, most of them devoted, +but chosen without discernment, and, into the bargain, abandoned them to +their own inspirations, to their whims, without any determined mandate +to restrain and guide them in the struggle entered upon. + +Time and experience would no doubt have corrected this negligence, but +time was wanting. The people never holds sway but for an hour, and woe +to them if they are not then ready, armed _cap-a-pie_. The elections of +the 26th March were irreparable. + +Only about sixty of those elected were present at the first sitting. At +its opening, the Central Committee came to congratulate the Council. The +chairman by seniority, Beslay, a capitalist of a fraternising turn of +mind, made the opening speech. He very happily defined this young +revolution: "The enfranchisement of the Commune of Paris is the +enfranchisement of all the communes of the Republic. Your adversaries +have said that you have struck the Republic. It is as with the pile, to +be driven deeper into the earth. The Republic of 1793 was a soldier, who +wanted to centralise all the forces of the nation; the Republic of 1871 +is a workman, who above all wants liberty to fecundate peace. The +Commune will occupy itself with all that is local, the Department with +what is regional, the Government with what is national. Let us not +overstep this limit, and the country and the Government will be happy +and proud to applaud this revolution." This was the naive illusion of an +old man, who, nevertheless, had had the experience of a long political +life. This programme, so moderate in its form, was nothing less than the +death-knell of the great bourgeoisie, as shown during this very sitting. + +There were already some jarring notes. The violent and the giddy-headed +launched out into random motions, and wanted the Commune to declare +itself omnipotent. Tirard, elected by his arrondissement, improved this +occasion to withdraw, stating that his mandate was purely municipal, +that he could not recognise the political character of the Commune, gave +in his resignation, and ironically bade farewell to the Council: "I +leave you my sincere good wishes; may you succeed in your task," &c. + +The insolence of this dishonest man, who for eight days had been busy in +fomenting civil war and now threw up the mandate solicited in his +address to the electors, evoked general indignation. The more impatient +wanted to have him arrested, others to declare his mandate forfeited. He +escaped scot-free because he had said at the Versailles tribune, "When +you enter the Hotel-de-Ville, you are not sure to return from it." + +This incident no doubt induced the Council to vote the secrecy of their +sittings, their awkward pretext being that the Commune was not a +parliament. This decision produced a very bad effect, violating the +best traditions of the great Commune of 1792-93, as it gave the Council +the appearance of a conspiracy, and it was found necessary to quash it +two weeks after, when the newspapers abounded in fantastic reports, as a +natural consequence of the secret sittings. But the publicity never +consisted in anything but the insertion of curtailed reports in the +_Officiel_. The Council never admitted the public, whose presence would +have prevented many faults. + +The next day the Council subdivided itself into commissions charged with +the various services. A Military Commission, and others of Finance, +Justice, Public Safety, Labour and Exchange, Provisions, Foreign +Affairs, Public Services, and Education were named. The Executive +Commission was composed of Lefrancais, Duval, Felix Pyat, Bergeret, +Tridon, Eudes, and Vaillant, of whom Duval, Bergeret, and Eudes also +belonged to the Military Commission. + +It had just been voted that all decrees should be signed _The +Commune_--a vote too soon forgotten--when the delegates of the Central +Committee were announced. After waiting half an hour they were +introduced. "Citizens," said their spokesman, "the Central Committee +comes to hand over to you its revolutionary powers. We resume the +functions defined by our statutes." + +This was the moment for the Council to affirm its authority. The only +representative of the population, alone responsible, it should now have +absorbed all powers, not tolerating the co-existence of a Committee +which was sure always to remember the paramount position it had held and +strive to recover it. In the previous sitting, the Council had done +justice to the Central Committee in voting that they had deserved well +of Paris and the Republic, and now taking them at their word, ought to +have declared that the role of the Committee had come to an end. Instead +of an authoritative decision in this sense, recriminations were resorted +to. + +A member of the Council recalled the promise of the Central Committee +to dissolve after the elections. Unless they aimed at power, there was +no necessity for the maintenance of their organisation. Varlin and +Beslay defended the existence of the Committee, which was combated by +Jourde and Rigault. The delegates, who would have yielded to a +peremptory word, held out against this weakness. "This is," they said, +"the Federation that has saved the Republic. The last word is not yet +said. To dissolve this organisation is to break your strength. The +Central Committee does not pretend to share in the government. It +remains the bond of union between you and the National Guard, the right +hand of the Revolution. We again become what we were, the great _conseil +de famille_ of the National Guard." + +This simile made a marked impression. The debate was prolonged, and the +delegates of the Committee withdrew, no conclusion having been arrived +at. + +Thereupon, without preamble, like a Jack-in-the-box, Felix Pyat jumped +up and proposed the abolition of the conscription. + +On the 3rd March he had stolen away from the National Assembly, as he +had on the 31st October deserted the Hotel-de-Ville, and, a few days +after, sneaked out of prison. On the 18th March he did not stir, while +Delescluze had joined the revolution from the first day. Felix Pyat +waited for the triumph, and on the eve of the elections came to sound +the timbrel before the Committee, "which teaches modesty to the proudest +name and inspires men of genius with a feeling of inferiority." Elected +by about 12,000 votes in the tenth arrondissement, he was now forward to +take his seat at the Hotel-de-Ville. + +The hour awaited for twenty years had at last struck; he was about to +tread the boards. Amidst the crowd of dramatists, thaumaturgists, +romanticists, visionaries, and Jacobin relics, trailing since 1830 at +the heels of the social revolution, his business had been that of +appeals to regicide, to revolutionary chouannerie, of epistles, +allegories, toasts, invocations, evocations, pieces of rhetoric on the +events of the day, tinkering the old Montagnard wares, and doing them +up with a little humanitarian varnish. Under the Empire his rabid +manifestoes had been the joy of the police and of the Bonapartist +journals, excellent sops to throw to the people, who could not extract +from them a practical idea or a grain of sense. This intoxication was +more than half-feigned. The dishevelled madman of the stage behind the +scenes turned crafty, trickish, and wary to a degree. At bottom he was +only a splenetic sceptic, sincere only in his self-idolatry. He came to +the Commune his pockets crammed with decrees. + +When he read his motion, it was lustily cheered by the romanticists and +passed at once. Yet still in the morning the Council had intimated +nothing of the sort, but only stated in the proclamation in which they +presented themselves to Paris: "To-day the decision on house-rents, +to-morrow that on the overdue bills, the public services re-established +and simplified, and the National Guards reorganised, these are our first +acts." And now it abruptly encroached upon national affairs. Commune in +the morning, Constituent Assembly in the evening. + +If they wanted to change the revolution from a communal into a national +one, they ought to have said so, boldly set forth their whole programme, +and demonstrated to France the necessity of their attempt. But what +signified this decree, improvised at random, without a preliminary +declaration and without a sequel? This _quid pro quo_ was not even taken +up. Under pretext of avoiding parliamentarism, the matters at issue were +hurried over. + +Then the Council decreed the general release of rents due between +October, 1870, and July, 1871. Versailles had offered only delays; this +was contrary to equity. The Council released rents for the good reason +that property ought to bear its share of the general sacrifices; but it +did not except a lot of industrials who had realised scandalous profits +during the siege. This was contrary to justice. + +Finally, they neglected to announce themselves to the provinces, already +so forsaken by the Central Committee. A commission had certainly been +charged to draw up an address, but its work had not pleased, and another +one had been named, so that what with one commission and another, the +programme of the Commune was kept in suspense for twenty-two days, and +the Council had allowed all the insurrections of the provinces to die +out without giving them any advice or ideas. + +These encroachments, this disorder, disturbed Paris with the thought +that the new power had neither very clear ideas nor consciousness of the +situation. The Liberal fraction of the Council took advantage of this +pretext to withdraw. If their convention of the 20th had been sincere, +if they had cared for the destinies of Paris, the mayor and adjuncts +elected would have courageously stood by their mandates. Like those of +the provinces, they deserted, but were still more culpable, since they +had not protested against their elections. Many had never been seen at +the Hotel-de-Ville; others wrung their hands, lamenting, "Where are we +going?" Some shammed mortal illness: "You see I am at my last gasp." +Those who have been most abusive since, then sought for humble evasions. +Not one broke boldly. + +Their resignations,[110] the double elections, left twenty-two seats +vacant on the 30th, when the Council verified the credentials. Faithful +to the best traditions of the French Republic, it admitted the Hungarian +Frankel, one of the most intelligent members of the International, +elected in the thirteenth arrondissement. Six candidates had not +received the eighth part of the votes required by the law of 1849; the +Council passed by this irregularity because the arrondissements of these +candidates, composed of reactionary quarters, were emptying themselves +from day to day. + +The men of order, twice chastised, continued migrating to Versailles, +which they stocked with a new store of rancour and rhodomontades. The +town had assumed a warlike aspect; all announced that the struggle was +near at hand. Already M. Thiers had cut off Paris from France. On the +eve of the April term, the 31st March, the director of the general +post-office, Rampont, belying the word of honour he had given the +delegate of the Central Committee, Theisz, made off after having +disorganised the postal service, and M. Thiers suppressed all the goods +trains and kept back all correspondence destined for Paris. + +On the 1st April he officially announced war. "The Assembly," he +telegraphed to the prefects, "is sitting at Versailles, where the +organisation of one of the finest armies that France has ever possessed +is being completed. Good citizens may then take heart and hope for the +end of a struggle which will be sad but short." A cynical boast of that +same bourgeoisie which had refused to organise armies against the +Prussians. "One of the finest armies," was as yet only the rabble of the +18th March, strengthened by five or six regiments; about 35,000 men, +with 3,000 horses, and 5,000 gendarmes or sergents-de-ville, the only +corps that had any solidity. + +Paris would not believe in the existence even of this army. The popular +papers demanded a sortie, speaking of the journey to Versailles as a +promenade. The most impetuous was the _Vengeur_, in which Felix Pyat +furiously shook his cap and bells. He exhorted the Commune "to press +Versailles. Poor Versailles! it no longer remembers the 5th and 6th +October, 1789, when the women of the Commune alone sufficed to catch its +king." On the morning of Sunday the 2nd April the same member of the +Executive Commission announced to Paris: "Yesterday at Versailles the +soldiers, requested to vote by _aye_ or _no_ if they were to march on +Paris, answered No!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Ad. Adam, Meline, Rochard, Barre (1st arrondissement, Louvre); +Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Cheron (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat (3rd, +Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. Ferry, Nast +(9th, Opera); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Passy). + +[108] Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lefevre (7th, Palais-Bourbon); A. +Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Opera). + +[109] Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, C. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. Arnould, +Lefrancais, Clemence, E. Gerardin (4th, Hotel-de-Ville); Regere, Jourde, +Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Pantheon); Beslay, Varlin (6th, +Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon); Raoul +Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elysees); Gambon, +Felix, Pyat, H. Fortune, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (10th, Enclos St. +Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure +(11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Geresme, Theisz, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly); +Leo Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray, +Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Clement, J. Valles, Langevin +(15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Clement, Ch. Gerardin, Chalain, Malon +(17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Clement, Ferre, +Vermorel, P. Grousset (18th, Montmartre); Oudet, Puget, Delescluze, J. +Miot, Ostyn, Flourens (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Bergeret, Ranvier, +Flourens, Blanqui (20th, Menilmontant). Blanqui had been arrested in the +South of France, where he had gone for the sake of his health. + +[110] See Appendix III. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + SORTIE OF THE THIRD APRIL--THE PARISIANS ARE REPULSED + EVERYWHERE--FLOURENS AND DUVAL ARE KILLED--THE VERSAILLESE + MASSACRE SOME PRISONERS. + + +That very day, the 2nd April, at one o'clock, without warning, without +summons, the Versaillese opened fire and threw their shells into Paris. + +For several days their cavalry had exchanged shots with our advanced +posts at Chatillon and Putteaux. We occupied Courbevoie, that commands +the route to Versailles, which made the rurals very anxious. On the 2nd, +at ten o'clock in the morning, three brigades of the best Versailles +troops, 10,000 strong, arrived at the cross-roads of Bergeres. Six or +seven hundred cavalry of the brigade Gallifet supported this movement, +while we had only three federal battalions at Courbevoie, in all five or +six hundred men, defended by a half-finished barricade on the road of +St. Germain. Their watch, however, was well kept; their vedettes had +killed the head-surgeon of the Versaillese army, whom they had mistaken +for a colonel of gendarmerie. + +At mid-day the Versaillese, having cannonaded the barracks of Courbevoie +and the barricade, launched themselves to the assault. At the first +shots from our men they scampered off, abandoning on the road cannon and +officers. Vinoy was obliged to come himself and rally the runagates. +Meanwhile the 113th of the line outflanked Courbevoie on the right, and +the infantry of marines turned the left, marching through Putteaux. Too +inferior in number and fearing to be cut off from Paris, the Federals +evacuated Courbevoie, and, pursued by shells, fell back on the Avenue de +Neuilly, leaving twelve dead and some prisoners. The gendarmes had +taken five, one of whom was a child of fifteen, beating them +unmercifully, and shot them at the foot of Mont-Valerien. This +expedition concluded, the army regained its cantonment. + +At the report of the cannon all Paris started. No one believed in an +attack, so completely did all, since the 28th, live in an atmosphere of +confidence. It was no doubt an anniversary, a misunderstanding at the +utmost. When the news, the ambulance-carriages, arrived; when the word +was spoken, "The siege is recommencing!" an explosion of horror shook +all the quarters. An affrighted hive, such was Paris. The barricades +were again thrown up, the call to arms beaten everywhere, and the cannon +drawn to the ramparts of the Porte-Maillot and of the Ternes. At three +o'clock 80,000 men were on their legs crying, "To Versailles!" The women +excited the battalions, and spoke of marching in the vanguard. + +The Executive Commission met and placarded a proclamation: "The royalist +conspirators have attacked; despite the moderation of our attitude, they +have attacked. Our duty is to defend the great city against these +culpable aggressions." In the Commission, the generals Duval, Bergeret, +and Eudes declared for an attack. "The enthusiasm," they said, "is +irresistible, unique. What can Versailles do against 100,000 men? We +must sally out." Their colleagues resisted, especially Felix Pyat, +confronted with his rant and vapourings of the morning. His poltroonery +stood him in the stead of a life-preserver. "One does not start," said +he, "at random, without cannon, without _cadres_, and without chiefs;" +and he demanded the return of the strength of the troops. Duval, who +since the 19th March had been strongly bent upon a sortie, violently +apostrophised him: "Why, then, for three days have you shouted, 'To +Versailles?'" The most energetic opponent of the sortie was Lefrancais. +Finally, the four civil members--that is, the majority--decided that the +generals should present a detailed statement as to their forces in men, +artillery, munitions, and transports. The same evening the Commission +named Cluseret delegate at War jointly with Eudes, who, being a member +of the so-called party of action, owed this post only to the patronage +of his old cronies. + +In spite of the majority of the Commission, the generals set out. They +had, besides, received no formal order to the contrary. Felix Pyat had +even concluded by saying, "After all, if you think you are ready...." +They saw Flourens always ready for a _coup-de-main_, other colleagues +equally adventurous, and, on their own authority, certain of being +followed by the National Guard. They sent to the _chefs-de-legion_ the +order to form columns. The battalions of the right bank were to +concentrate at the Place Vendome and Place Wagram; those of the left +bank, at the Place d'Italie and Champ-de-Mars. + +These movements, without staff officers to guide them, were very badly +executed. Many men marched hither and thither, grew tired. Yet at +midnight there were still about 20,000 men on the right bank of the +Seine and about 17,000 on the left. + +From eight o'clock to midnight the Council was sitting. The inexorable +Felix Pyat, always pertinent, demanded the abolition of the budget of +public worship. The majority immediately satisfied him. He might just as +well have decreed the abolition of the Versaillese army. Of the sortie, +of the military preparations deafening Paris, no one breathed a word in +the Council--no one disputed the field with the generals. + +The plan of the latter, which they communicated to Cluseret, was to make +a strong demonstration in the direction of Rueil, while two columns were +to march on Versailles by Meudon and the plateau of Chatillon. Bergeret, +assisted by Flourens, was to operate on the right; Eudes and Duval were +to command the columns of the centre and the left. A simple idea, and +easy of execution with experienced officers and solid heads of columns. +But most of the battalions had been without chiefs since the 18th March, +the National Guards without _cadres_, and the generals who assumed the +responsibility of leading 40,000 men had never conducted a single +battalion into the field. They neglected even the most elementary +precautions, knew not how to collect artillery, ammunition-waggons, or +ambulances, forgot to make an order of the day, and left the men for +several hours without food in a penetrating fog. Every Federal chose the +chief he liked best. Many had no cartridges, and believed the sortie to +be a simple demonstration. The Executive Commission had just placarded a +despatch from the Place Vendome, headquarters of the National Guard: +"Soldiers of the line are all coming to us, and declare that, save the +superior officers, no one wants to fight." + +At three o'clock in the morning Bergeret's column, about 10,000 men +strong and with only eight ordnance pieces, arrived at the bridge of +Neuilly. It was necessary to give the men, who had taken nothing since +the evening before, time to recover themselves. At dawn they moved in +the direction of Rueil. The battalions marched by sections in line in +the middle of the road, without scouts, and cheerfully climbed the +Plateau des Bergeres, when suddenly a shell burst into their ranks, +followed by a second. Mont-Valerien had opened fire. + +A terrible panic broke the battalions, amidst thousandfold cries of +"Treason!" the whole National Guard believing that we occupied +Mont-Valerien. Many members of the Commune, of the Central Committee, at +the Place Vendome, knew the contrary, and very foolishly concealed it, +living in the hope that the fortress would not fire. It possessed, it is +true, only two or three badly appointed guns, the range of which the +Guards might have escaped by one quick movement; but, surprised when in +a state of blind confidence, they fancied themselves betrayed, and fled +on all sides. Bergeret exhausted every means to stay them. A shell cut +in two the brother of the chief of his staff, an officer of the regular +army gone over to the Commune. The greater part of the Federals +dispersed in the fields and regained Paris. The 91st only and a few +others, 1,200 men in all, remained with Bergeret, and, dividing into +small groups, reached Rueil. Shortly after, Flourens arrived by the road +of Asnieres, bringing hardly a thousand men.[111] The rest had lagged +behind in Paris or on the way. Flourens, all the same, pressing forward, +arrived at the Malmaison, put Gallifet's chasseurs to flight, and the +Parisian vanguard pushed as far as Bougival. + +The Versaillese, surprised by this sortie, only drew up very late, +towards ten o'clock. Ten thousand men were launched against Bougival, +and the batteries placed on the hill of La Jonchere cannonaded Rueil. +Two brigades of cavalry on the right and that of Gallifet on the left +defended the wings. The Parisian vanguard--a mere handful of +men--offered a determined resistance, in order to give Bergeret time to +operate his retreat, which commenced towards one o'clock, on Neuilly, +where they fortified the bridge-head. Some valiant men, who had +obstinately held out in Rueil, with great difficulty gained the bridge +of Asnieres, whither they were pursued by the cavalry, who took some +prisoners. + +Flourens was surprised at Rueil, and the house which he occupied with +some officers surrounded by gendarmes. While preparing to defend +himself, the officer of the detachment, Captain Desmarets, cleft his +head with so furious a blow of the sabre that the brains gushed out. The +body was thrown into a dust-cart and taken to Versailles, where the fine +ladies gathered to enjoy the spectacle. Thus ended the large-hearted +man, loved of the Revolution. + +At the extreme left Duval had passed the night with six or seven +thousand men on the plateau of Chatillon. Towards seven o'clock he +formed a column of picked men, advanced to Petit-Bicetre, dispersed the +outpost of General du Barail, and sent an officer to reconnoitre +Villecoublay, that commanded the route. The officer announced that the +roads were free, and the Federals advanced without fear. When near the +hamlet firing commenced. The men deployed as skirmishers, and Duval, +uncovered, in the middle of the road, set them the example. They held +out for several hours. A few shells would have sufficed to dislodge the +enemy; but Duval had no artillery. Even cartridges were already +wanting, and he had to send to Chatillon for more. + +The bulk of the Federals who occupied the redoubt, confounded in an +inextricable disorder, already believed themselves surrounded on all +sides. The messengers of Duval on their arrival begged, menaced, but +could not obtain either reinforcements or munitions. An officer even +ordered a retreat. The unfortunate Duval, totally abandoned, was +assailed by the Derroja brigade and the whole Pelle division, 8,000 men. +He retired with his troops to the plateau of Chatillon. + +Our efforts in the centre were not more fortunate. Ten thousand men had +left the Champ-de-Mars at three o'clock in the morning with Ranvier and +Avrial. General Eudes as his whole battle array had ordered the troops +to move on. At six o'clock the 61st reached the Moulineaux, defended by +gendarmes; these were soon forced to retreat to Meudon, strongly +occupied by a Versaillese brigade entrenched in the villas and provided +with mitrailleuses. The Federals had only eight pieces, while Paris +possessed hundreds, and each of these had only eight rounds. At six +o'clock, weary of shooting at walls, they retreated to Moulineaux. +Ranvier went in search of cannon, and mounted them in the fort of Issy, +thus preventing the Versaillese from taking the offensive. + +We were beaten at all points, and the Communalist papers shouted +"Victory!" Led astray by staffs which did not even know the names of the +generals, the Executive Commission announced the junction of Flourens +and Duval at Courbevoie. Felix Pyat, again become bellicose, six times +cried in his _Vengeur_, "To Versailles!"[112] Despite the runaways of +the morning, the popular enthusiasm did not flag. A battalion of 300 +women marched up the Champs-Elysees, the red flag at their head, +demanding to sally forth against the enemy. The journals of the evening +announced the arrival of Flourens at Versailles. + +At the ramparts the sad truth was discovered. Long files of guards +re-entered by all the gates, and at six o'clock the only army outside +Paris was the guards on the plateau de Chatillon. A few shells falling +in their midst completed the disorder. Some of the men threatened Duval, +who was making desperate efforts to keep them together. He remained, +surrounded only by a handful of men, but always equally resolute. The +whole night he, usually so taciturn, did not cease repeating, "I will +not retreat." + +The next day at eight o'clock the plateau and the neighbouring villages +were surrounded by the brigade Derroja and the division Pelle. +"Surrender and your lives will be spared," General Pelle had told them. +The Parisians surrendered. The Versaillese at once seized the soldiers +fighting in the ranks of the Federals and shot them. The prisoners, +between two lines of chasseurs, were sent on to Versailles, while their +officers, bare-headed, their _galons_ torn off, were put at the head of +the convoy. + +At Petit-Bicetre they met the general-in-chief, Vinoy. He commanded the +officers to be shot, but the chief of the escort reminding him of +General Pelle's promise, Vinoy said, "Is there a chief?" "Myself," said +Duval, darting from the ranks. Another advanced: "I am the chief of +Duval's staff." Then the commander of the volunteers of Montrouge placed +himself by their side. "You are awful scoundrels," said Vinoy; and, +turning to his officers, "Shoot them." Duval and his comrades disdained +to reply, cleared a ditch, and leant against a wall on which were +inscribed the words, "Duval, horticulturist." They undressed, and, +crying "Vive la Commune," died for it. A horseman tore off Duval's boots +and carried them about as a trophy,[113] and an editor of the _Figaro_ +took possession of his blood-stained collar. + +Thus the army of order inaugurated the civil war by the massacre of the +prisoners. It had begun on the 2nd; on the 3rd, at Chatou, General +Gallifet had three Federals shot who were surprised in an inn taking +their meal, and then he published a ferocious proclamation: "War has +been declared by the bandits of Paris. They have assassinated my +soldiers. It is a merciless war which I declare against these assassins. +I had to make an example." + +The general who called the combatants of Paris "bandits" and these +assassinations "an example" was a scamp of high life, first ruined, then +kept by actresses. Famous for his brigandage in Mexico, he had in a few +years obtained a generalship of brigade by the charms of his wife, +prominent in the orgies of the Imperial court. Nothing is more edifying +in this civil war than the standard-bearers of the "honest people." + +Their band in full strength hastened to the Paris Avenue at Versailles +to receive the prisoners of Chatillon. The whole Parisian emigration, +functionaries, elegants, women of the world and of the streets, all came +with the rage of hyenas to strike the Federals with closed hands, with +canes and parasols, pushing off their kepis and cloaks, crying, "Down +with the assassins! To the guillotine!" Amongst these "assassins" was +the geographer Elisee Reclus, taken with Duval. In order to give them +time to glut their fury, the escort made several halts before conducting +their prisoners to the barracks of the gendarmes. They were then thrown +into the docks of Satory, and thence carried to Brest in cattle-trucks. + +Picard wanted to associate all the honest people of the provinces in +this baiting. "Never," telegraphed this Falstaff of pustulous aspect, +"have baser countenances of a base demagogy met the afflicted gaze of +honest men." + +Already, the evening before, after the assassinations of Mont-Valerien +and of Chatou, M. Thiers had written to his prefects, "The moral effect +is excellent." Odious repetition of those words, "Order reigns in +Warsaw," and "The chassepot has done wonders." Ah! it is well known that +it was not the French bourgeoisie, but a daughter of the people who +spoke those great words, "I have never seen French blood shed without my +hair standing on end." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[111] MacMahon, with his _coup-d'oeil_ of Reischoffen and Sedan, saw +there 17,000 men. _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 22. + +[112] "To Versailles, if we don't want again to resort to balloons! To +Versailles, if we don't want to fall back upon pigeons! To Versailles, +if we don't want to be reduced to bran bread," &c., &c.--_Le Vengeur_, +3rd April. + +[113] These details, related in part by the journals of the time, have +been completed by numerous comrades of Duval whom we have questioned. In +his mutilated, lying, naively cynical book, Vinoy dared to say: "The +insurgents threw down their arms an surrendered _at discretion_: the man +called Duval was _killed in the affray_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE. + + +The same sun that saw the scale turn against Paris looked also on the +defeat of the people of Marseilles. + +The paralytic Commission still continued to dose, when, on the 26th, +Espivent beat the reveille, placed the department in a state of siege, +and issued a proclamation _a la_ Thiers. The municipal council began to +tremble, and on the 27th withdrew their delegates from the prefecture. +Gaston Cremieux and Bouchet were at once sent to the Mairie to announce +that the Commission was ready to withdraw before the council. The +council asked for time to consider. + +The evening was passing away, and the Commission searching for a +loophole by which to escape from a position become untenable, when +Bouchet proposed to telegraph to Versailles that they would resign their +powers into the hands of a Republican prefect. Poor issue of a great +movement! They knew what the Republican prefects of M. Thiers were. The +Commission, jaded, discouraged, let Bouchet draw up the telegram, when +Landeck, Amouroux, and May arrived, sent, they said, by Paris. They +spoke in the name of the great town. Bouchet wanted to verify their +powers and contested their validity, which were indeed more than +contestable, whereat the members of the Commission grew indignant. The +magic name of victorious Paris resuscitated the enthusiasm of the first +hours, and Bouchet left the place. At midnight the municipal council +decided to maintain its resolution, and communicated this to the club of +the National Guard, who immediately followed their example. At half-past +one in the morning the delegates of the club informed the Commission +that their powers were at an end. The Liberal bourgeoisie, coward-like, +stole away, the Radicals backed out, and the people remained alone to +face the reaction. + +This was the second phase of the movement. The most exalted of the three +delegates, Landeck, became an authority paramount to the Commission. The +cold-blooded Republicans who heard him and knew of his past dealings +with the Imperialist police, suspected a Bonapartist under the grossly +ignorant bully. He was indeed but a juggler, meant for the itinerant +stage, of grotesque vanity, and shrinking from nothing, because ignorant +of everything. The situation waxed tragic with this mountebank for a +leader. G. Cremieux, unable to find another issue, was still for the +solution of the evening before. On the 28th he wrote to the municipal +council that the Commission was ready to retire, leaving them the +responsibility of events, and urged his colleagues to release the +hostages; this only rendered him the more suspected of moderatism. +Closely watched, threatened, he lost heart at these disputes, and that +same evening left the prefecture. His secession divested the Commission +of all authority. It succeeded in discovering his retreat, made an +appeal to his devotion to the cause, and led him back to the prefecture, +there to resume his strange part of a chief at once captive and +responsible. + +The municipal council did not answer G. Cremieux' letter and on the 29th +the Commission renewed its proposal. The council still remained silent. +In the evening 400 delegates of the National Guard, met at the museum, +decided to federate the battalions, and appointed a commission charged +to negotiate between the Hotel-de-Ville and the prefecture. But these +delegates represented only the revolutionary element of the battalions, +and the Hotel-de-Ville plunged more and more into a slough of despond. + +A war of proclamations now ensued between the two powers. On the 30th +the council answered the deliberations of the museum meeting by a +proclamation of the chiefs of the reactionary battalions. The Commission +launched a manifesto demanding the autonomy of the Commune and the +abolition of prefectures; immediately after, the council declared the +general secretary of the prefect the legal representative of the +Government, and invited him to retake his post. The secretary turned a +deaf ear and took refuge aboard _La Couronne_, many councillors also +betaking themselves to the frigate--gratuitous cowardice, since the most +notorious reactionists went to and fro without being in the least +interfered with. The energy of the Commission was mere show; it arrested +only two or three functionaries, the procureur Guibert, the deputy, and +for a short time the director of the customhouse, and the son of the +mayor. General Ollivier was set free as soon as it became known that he +had refused to form part of the Mixed Commissions of 1851. They even +were so facile as to leave a post close to the prefecture in the hands +of chasseurs forgotten by Espivent. The flight of the council, +therefore, appeared only the more shameful. The town continued to be +calm, gay, facetious. One day the advice-boat _Le Renard_ coming to show +its cannon at the Cannebiere, the crowd thronging on the quay hooted so +much that it was obliged to slip its cable and rejoin the frigate in the +new harbour. + +Therefore the Commission inferred this, that no one would dare to attack +them, and thus took no measures of defence. They might easily have armed +the heights of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, which commanded the town, and +enlisted a great number of Garibaldians, some officers of the last +campaign having offered to organise everything. The Commission thanked +them, said that the troops would not come, and that even if they did, +they would fraternise with the people. They contented themselves with +hoisting the black flag, addressing a proclamation to the soldiers, and +accumulating at the prefecture arms and cannon without projectiles of +corresponding calibre. Landeck, for his part, wanting to distinguish +himself, declared Espivent's grade forfeited, and in his place nominated +a former cavalry sergeant named Pelissier. "Until the assumption of his +functions," said the decree, "the troops will remain under the orders of +General Espivent." This gross farce dated from the 1st April. Before +the court-martial which tried him, Pelissier hit the mark. When asked, +"Of what armies were you general?" "I was general of the situation," was +his reply; and indeed he never did lead any troops. On the morning of +the 24th the workmen had returned to their work, for the National +Guards, save the guardians of the prefecture, were not paid. Men to +garrison the posts were found with difficulty, and at midnight the +prefecture had but a hundred defenders. + +A _coup-de-main_ would have been easy, and some rich bourgeois wanted to +try it. The men were there and the manoeuvres agreed upon. At midnight +the Commission was to be carried off and the prefecture taken possession +of, while Espivent was to march on the town so as to get there by +daybreak. An officer was despatched to Aubagne. The general refused +under the pretext of prudence, but his retinue revealed the true motive +of the refusal. "We," they told the messenger, "have stolen away from +Marseilles like thieves; we want to re-enter it as conquerors." + +Such a performance seemed rather difficult with the army of Aubagne, 600 +or 700 men, without _cadres_ and without discipline. One single +regiment, the 6th Chasseurs, showed a more martial carriage. But +Espivent relied upon the sailors of _La Couronne_, the National Guards +of order, in continual relations with him, and above all, on the +well-known supineness of the Commission. + +The latter tried to strengthen itself by the adjunction of delegates +from the National Guard. They voted the dissolution of the municipal +council, and the Commission convoked the electors for the 3rd April. +This measure, if taken on the 24th March, might perhaps have settled +everything, but on the 2nd April it was only a stroke in the air. + +On the 3rd, at the news from Versailles, Espivent sent an order to the +chiefs of the reactionary battalions to hold themselves in readiness. In +the evening, at eleven o'clock, Garibaldian officers came to inform the +prefecture that the troops at Aubagne were moving. The Commission +recommenced its old refrain: "Let them come; we are ready to receive +them." At half-past one they decided to beat the retreat, and towards +four o'clock some men mustered at the prefecture. About a hundred +franc-tireurs established themselves at the station, where the +Commission had not even thought of placing a battery. + +At five o'clock Marseilles was on the alert. Some reactionary companies +appeared at the Place du Palais de Justice and in the Cours Bonaparte; +the sailors of _La Couronne_ were drawn up before the Bourse; the first +shots were fired at the station. + +Espivent's troops presented themselves at three points--the station, the +Place Castellane, and La Plaine. The franc-tireurs, notwithstanding a +fine defence, were soon surrounded and obliged to retreat. The +Versaillese shot the Federalist stationmaster under the eyes of his son, +a child of sixteen, who threw himself at the feet of the officer, +offering his life for his father's. The second stationmaster, Funel, was +able to escape with only a broken arm. The columns of La Plaine and +L'Esplanade pushed their advanced posts as far as 300 yards from the +prefecture. + +The Commission, always in the clouds, sent an embassy to Espivent. G. +Cremieux and Pelissier set out, followed by an immense mass of men and +children, crying "Vive Paris!" At the outposts of the Place Castellane, +the seat of the staff, the chief of the 6th Chasseurs, Villeneuve, came +forward towards the delegates. "What are your intentions?" asked G. +Cremieux. "We want to re-establish order." "What! you would dare fire on +the people?" cried G. Cremieux, and commenced haranguing, when the +Versaillese threatened to order his chasseurs to march on. The delegates +then had themselves conducted to Espivent. He first spoke of putting +them under arrest, but then would allow them five minutes for the +evacuation of the prefecture. G. Cremieux on his return found the +chasseurs struggling with the crowd, who sought to disarm them. A new +current of people, preceded by a black flag, arrived, making a vigorous +push against the soldiers. A German officer of Espivent's staff arrested +Pelissier, but the Versaillese chiefs, seeing their men waver, ordered +a retreat. + +The mass applauded, believing they would disband. Two infantry corps had +already refused to march, and the Place de la Prefecture was filled with +groups certain of success. Suddenly, towards ten o'clock, the chasseurs +debouched by the Rues de Rome and De l'Armeny. The people shouted and +surrounded them, when many raised the butt-end of their muskets. One +officer who, urging on his company, made them cross bayonets, fell, his +head pierced by a bullet. His men charged the Federals, who took refuge +and were taken prisoners in the prefecture, whither the chasseurs +followed. The volleys of the National Guards of order and the chasseurs +from the Cours Bonaparte and from the house of the Freres Ignorantins, +keeping up a running fire, were replied to by the Federals from the +windows of the prefecture. + +The fusillade had lasted two hours, and no reinforcement arrived in +support of the Federals. Inexpugnable in the prefecture, a solid square +building, they were none the less vanquished, having neither provisions +nor sufficient munition, and it would have sufficed to wait with arms +ordered till they had exhausted their cartridges. But the general of the +Sacre Coeur would not put up with such a half-triumph. This was his +first campaign; he wanted blood, and, above all, noise. Since eleven +o'clock he had had the prefecture bombarded from the top of +Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, a distance of about 500 yards. The Fort St. +Nicolas also opened its fire, but its shells, less far-seeing than those +of our Lady-de-la-Garde, dashed down upon the aristocratic houses of the +Cours Bonaparte, killing one of those heroic guards of order who fired +from behind the soldiers. At three o'clock the prefecture hoisted a flag +of truce. Espivent continued to fire. An envoy was sent to him, but he +insisted upon their surrender at discretion. At five o'clock more than +300 shells had traversed the edifice, wounding many Federals. Little by +little, the defenders, seeing that they were not supported, left the +place. The prefecture had long ceased firing when Espivent was still +bombarding it. The fright of this brute was so great that he continued +throwing shells till nightfall. At half past seven the sailors of _La +Couronne_ and _Le Magnanime_ courageously stormed the prefecture, void +of all its defenders. + +They found the hostages safe and sound, as were the chasseurs taken +prisoner in the morning. Yet the Jesuitic repression was atrocious. The +men of order arrested at hazard, and dragged their victims into the +lamp-stores of the station. There an officer scrutinised the prisoners, +made a sign to one or the other of them to step out, and blew out his +brains. The following days there were rumours of summary executions in +the barracks, the forts and the prisons. The number of dead the people +lost is unknown, but it exceeded 150, besides many wounded who concealed +themselves. The Versaillese had thirty killed and fifty wounded. More +than 900 persons were thrown into the casemates of the Chateau d'If and +of the Fort St. Nicolas. G. Cremieux was arrested at the porter's of the +Israelite Cemetery. He voluntarily discovered himself to those who +sought him, strong in his good faith, and still believing in the judges. +The brave Etienne was also taken. Landeck, of course, had made his exit +in good time. + +On the 5th Espivent entered triumphantly, acclaimed with savage frenzy +by the reactionists. But from the further ranks of the crowd cries and +hisses rose against the murderers. At the Place St. Ferreol a captain +was fired at, and the people stoned the windows of a house from which +the sailors had been cheered. + +Two days after the struggle, on its return from _La Couronne_, the +municipal council recovered its voice to strike the vanquished. + +The National Guard was disarmed, a fierce reaction raged, the Jesuits +again lorded it, and Espivent paraded about, receiving ovations to the +cries of "Vive Jesus! Vive le Sacre Coeur!" The club of the National +Guard was closed, Bouchet arrested, and the Radicals, insulted, +persecuted, once more saw what it costs to desert the people. + +Narbonne, too, was subdued. On the 30th March the prefect and the +procureur-general issued a proclamation in which they spoke of "the +handful of factious men," presented themselves as upholders of the true +Republic, and telegraphed everywhere the failure of the provincial +movements. "Is this a reason," Digeon answered in a placard, "to lower +before force this red flag dyed in the blood of our martyrs? Let others +consent to live eternally oppressed." Whereupon he prepared for battle, +and barricaded the streets leading to the Hotel-de-Ville. The women, +always to the fore, pulled up pavements and piled up furniture. The +authorities, afraid of a serious resistance, sent M. Marcou to his +friend Digeon. The Brutus of Carcassonne bestrode the Hotel-de-Ville, +accompanied by two Republicans of Limoux, to offer in the name of the +procureur-general a full and complete amnesty to those who would +evacuate the edifice. They offered Digeon twenty-four hours to gain the +frontier. Digeon assembled his council, and all refused to fly. M. +Marcou hastened to inform the military authorities that they might now +act.[114] General Zentz was at once sent to Narbonne. + +At three o'clock in the morning a detachment of Turcos reconnoitred the +barricades of the Rue du Pont. The Federals, anxious to fraternise, +cleared it, and were received with a volley, killing two men and +wounding three. On the 31st, at seven o'clock, Zentz in a proclamation +announced that the bombardment was about to recommence. Digeon at once +wrote to him, "I have the right to reply to such a savage menace in the +same style. I warn you that if you bombard the town, I shall have the +three prisoners who are in my power shot." Zentz for all answer arrested +the envoy, and had brandy distributed to the Turcos, the only troops who +would march. These brutes arrived at Narbonne eager to loot, and had +already pillaged three cafes. The fight was about to begin, when the +procureur-general again sent two envoys, offering amnesty to all those +who would evacuate the Hotel-de-Ville before the opening of the fire, +but the execution of the hostages would be punished by the massacre of +all its occupants. Digeon wrote out these conditions under the dictation +of one of the envoys, read them to the Federals, and left every one free +to withdraw. At this moment the procureur-general presented himself with +the Turcos before the terrace of the garden. Digeon rushed thither. The +procureur harangued the multitude, and as he spoke of indulgence, Digeon +protested that an amnesty had just been promised. The procureur drowned +the discussion in a roll of drums, read the legal _sommation_ in front +of the Hotel-de-Ville, and asked for the hostages, whom the soldiers who +had deserted delivered over to him. + +All these parleys had profoundly enervated the defence. Besides, the +Hotel-de-Ville could do nothing against a bombardment that would have +battered the town. Digeon had the edifice evacuated, and shut himself up +alone in the cabinet of the mayor, resolved to sell his life dearly; but +the people, in spite of his resistance, carried him off. The +Hotel-de-Ville was empty when the Turcos arrived. They plundered in all +its corners, and officers were seen to deck themselves with stolen +valuables. + +Notwithstanding the formal promises of amnesty, numerous warrants of +arrest were issued. Digeon refused to fly, and wrote to the +procureur-general that he might arrest him. Such a man at Toulouse would +have saved the movement and raised the whole South. + + * * * * * + +Limoges had one glimpse of hope on the fatal day of the 4th April. That +revolutionary capital of the Centre could not look on the efforts of +Paris unmoved. On the 23rd March the Societe Populaire, centralised all +the democratic forces and passed a vote of thanks to the army of Paris +for its conduct on the 18th. When Versailles called for volunteers, the +Society enjoined the municipal council to prevent such an incitement to +civil war. The workingmen's societies despatched a delegate to Paris +soon after the proclamation of the Commune, there to inquire into its +principles, and to request the sending of a commissary to Limoges. The +members of the Commune replied that this was impossible for the present, +that they would consider it by and by; and never sent anybody. The +Societe Populaire was thus obliged to act alone. It urged the municipal +council to hold a review of the National Guards, certain that it would +result in a demonstration against Versailles. The council composed, with +few exceptions, of timid men, tried to gain time, when the news of the +3rd April became known. On the morning of the 4th, on reading on the +walls the triumphant telegram from Versailles, the workmen revolted. A +detachment of five hundred soldiers was about to leave for Versailles; +the crowd followed them to the station, and the workmen urged them to +join the people. The soldiers, surrounded, much excited, fraternised, +surrendered their arms, many of which were taken to the Societe +Populaire, and hidden there. + +The rappel was at once beaten. The colonel of cuirassiers, Billet, who, +accompanied by orderlies, rode through the town, was hemmed in by the +people, and constrained to cry, "Vive la Republique!" At five o'clock +the whole National Guard was in arms on the Place de la Mairie. The +officers met in the Hotel-de-Ville, where a councillor proposed to +proclaim the Commune. The mayor objected, but the cry resounded on all +sides. Captain Coissac took upon himself to go to the station in order +to stop the train ready for the departure of the troops. The other +officers consulted their companies, which answered with one unanimous +cry, "Vive Paris! A bas Versailles!" Soon after, the battalions, filing +off before the Hotel-de-Ville, preceded by two municipal councillors in +their official costume, went to ask the general for the release of the +soldiers arrested during the course of the day. The general gave the +order to set them free, and at the same time sent word to Colonel Billet +to prepare against the insurrection. From the Place Tourny the Federals +repaired to the prefecture, occupying it in spite of the resistance of +the Conservative National Guards, and commenced throwing up some +barricades. A few soldiers arriving from the Rue des Prisons, several +citizens adjured the officers not to commence a civil war. These +hesitated, retired, when Colonel Billet, at the head of about fifty +cuirassiers, debouched on the Place de l'Eglise St. Michel, and ordered +his men to advance and draw swords. They fired their pistols, the +Federals answered, and the colonel was mortally wounded. His horse +turning about, carried its rider as far as the Place St. Pierre, the +other horses following, and the Federals thus remained masters of the +field. But lacking organisation, they disbanded in the night and left +the prefecture. The next day the company that occupied the station +seeing themselves abandoned withdrew. The arrests began, and many were +obliged to hide. + + * * * * * + +Thus the revolts of the great towns died out one by one like the lateral +craters of an exhausted volcano. The revolutionists of the provinces +showed themselves everywhere completely disorganised, without any +faculty to wield power. Everywhere victorious at the outset, the workmen +had only known how to pronounce for Paris. But at least they showed some +vitality, generosity, and pride. Eighty years of bourgeois domination +had not been able to transform them into a nation of mercenaries; while +the Radicals, who either combated or held aloof from them, once more +attested the decrepitude, the egotism of the middle-class, always ready +to betray the workingmen to the "upper" classes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[114] "The general commanding the department and the procureur-general, +aware that I had for thirty years been the friend of the man who +commanded the Commune at Narbonne, came to solicit my intervention to +induce him to submit. It was arranged that if I did not succeed I should +immediately send a telegram to General Robinet, in order that the +military authorities might act in consequence. At midnight I sent the +telegram.... You do not know me; it is thanks to my personal influence +that order was maintained at Carcassonne."--_Speech of M. Marcou to the +Assembly in answer to M. de Gavardie, Sitting of the 27th January +1874._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + THE GREAT RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNE--THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF THE + COUNCIL--NOMINATION OF CLUSERET--DECREE CONCERNING THE + HOSTAGES--THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE--THE BANK. + COMMITTEE--THE BANK. + + +After an armistice of seventy days, Paris again took up the struggle for +France single-handed. It was no longer the territory only which she +strove for, but the very ground-work of the nation. Victorious, her +victory would not be sterile as those of the battlefield; regenerated, +the people would set to the great work of remaking the social edifice; +vanquished, all liberty would be quenched, the bourgeoisie turn its +whips into scorpions, and a generation glide into the grave. + +And Paris, so generous, so fraternal, did not shudder at the impending +civil war. She stood up for an idea that exalted her battalions. While +the bourgeois refuses to fight, saying, "I have a family," the workman +says, "I fight for my children." + +For the third time since the 18th March Paris had but one soul. The +official despatches, the hireling journalists established at Versailles, +pictured her as the pandemonium of all the black-legs of Europe, +recounted the thefts, the arrests _en masse_, the endless orgies, +detailed sums and names. According to them, honest women no longer dared +venture into the streets; 1,500,000 persons oppressed by 20,000 ruffians +were offering up ardent prayers for Versailles. But the traveller +running the risk of a visit to Paris, found the streets and boulevards +tranquil, presenting their usual aspect. The pillagers had only pillaged +the guillotine, solemnly burnt before the mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement. From all quarters the same murmur of execration rose +against the assassination of the prisoners and the ignoble scenes at +Versailles. The incoherence of the first acts of the Council was hardly +noticed while the ferocity of the Versaillese was the topic of the day. +Persons coming full of indignation against Paris, seeing this calm, this +union of hearts, these wounded men crying "Vive la Commune!" these +enthusiastic battalions; there Mont-Valerien vomiting death, here men +living as brothers, in a few hours caught the Parisian malady. + +This was a fever of faith, of blind devotion, and of hope--of hope above +all. What rebellion had been thus armed? It was no longer a handful of +desperate men fighting behind a few pavements, reduced to charging their +muskets with slugs or stones. The Commune of 1871, much better armed +than that of 1793, possessed at least 60,000 men, 200,000 muskets, 1,200 +cannon, five forts; an enceinte covered by Montmartre, Belleville, the +Pantheon overtowering the whole city, munitions enough to last for +years, and milliards at her bidding. What else is wanted to conquer? +Some revolutionary instinct. There was not a man at the Hotel-de-Ville +who did not boast of possessing it. + +The sitting of the 3rd April during the battle was stormy. Many +inveighed against this mad sortie. Lefrancais, indignant at having been +deceived, withdrew from the Commission, which, called upon to explain, +threw all the blame upon the generals. The friends of the latter took up +their defence, demanded that news should be waited for. Soon the +disastrous tidings were brought, and they could not hesitate any longer. +For such a usurpation of authority there was but one atonement possible. +Flourens and Duval had made it voluntarily. The others ought to have +followed. Thus the dead would have been appeased, similar follies once +for all cut short, and the authority of the Commune brought home to the +most refractory. + +But the men at the Hotel-de-Ville were not of such inflexibility. Many +had fought, plotted together under the Empire, lived in the same +prisons, identified the Revolution with their friends. And besides, the +generals, were they alone guilty? So many battalions could not have +bestirred themselves all the night without the Council being informed +thereof. Though blind or deaf, they were none the less responsible. In +order to be just they ought to have decimated themselves. They felt +this, no doubt, and did not dare strike the generals. + +They might at least have dismissed them. They contented themselves with +replacing them on the Executive Commission, and notified this measure +most respectfully. "The Commune was desirous to leave them all liberty +in the conduct of the military operations; it was as far from wishing to +disoblige them as from wishing to weaken their authority." And yet their +heedlessness, their incapacity, had been mortal. Their ignorance only +saved them from the suspicion of having betrayed. This indulgence was +big with promises for the future. + +This future meant Cluseret. From the first days he had beset the Central +Committee, the Ministries, in quest of a generalship, his hands full of +war plans against the mayors. The Committee would have nothing to do +with him. He then clung to the Executive Commission, which on the 2nd +April, at seven o'clock in the evening, appointed him delegate at war, +with the order to enter upon his duties immediately.[115] The rappel was +being beaten at that moment for the fatal sortie. Cluseret took good +care not to take possession of his post, allowed the generals to ruin +themselves, and on the 3rd appeared before the Council to denounce their +"_gaminerie_." It was this military pamphlet-monger, with no pledge but +his decoration, won against the Socialists of 1848, who had played the +marionette in three insurrections, whom the Socialists of 1871 charged +with the defence of their Revolution. + +The choice was execrable, the very idea of naming a delegate faulty. The +Council had just decided to keep on the defensive. To guard the lines, +regularise the services, provision and administer the battalions, the +best delegate would have been common sense. A commission, composed of a +few active and laborious men, would have offered all guarantees of +security. + +Moreover, the Council failed to point out what sort of defence they had +in view. The defence of the forts, of the redoubts, of the accessory +positions, required thousands of men, experienced officers, a war with +the mattock as well as the musket. The National Guard was not qualified +for such soldiership. Behind the ramparts, on the contrary, it became +invincible. It would have sufficed to blow up the forts of the south, to +fortify Montmartre, the Pantheon, and the Buttes-Chaumont, to strongly +arm the ramparts, to create a second, a third enceinte, to render Paris +inaccessible or untenable to the enemy. The Council did not indicate +either of these systems, but allowed its delegates to dabble with the +two, and finally annulled the one by the other. + +If they wished by the appointment of a delegate to concentrate the +military power, why not dissolve the Central Committee? The latter +acted, spoke more boldly and much better than the Council which had +excluded it from the Hotel-de-Ville. The Committee had installed itself +in the Rue de l'Entrepot, behind the Customs House, near its cradle. +Thence on the 5th April it launched a fine proclamation: "Workmen, do +not deceive yourselves about the import of the combat. It is the +engagement between parasitism and labour, exploitation and production. +If you are tired of vegetating in ignorance and wallowing in misery, if +you want your children to be men enjoying the benefit of their labour, +and not mere animals trained for the workshop and the battlefield, if +you do not want your daughters, whom you are unable to educate and +overlook as you yearn to do, to become instruments of pleasure in the +arms of the aristocracy of money, if you at last want the reign of +justice, workmen, be intelligent, rise!" + +The Committee certainly declared in another placard that it did not +pretend to any political power, but power in times of revolution of +itself belongs to those who define it. For eight days the Council had +not known how to interpret the Commune, and its whole baggage consisted +in two insignificant decrees. The Central Committee, on the contrary, +very distinctly set forth the character of this contest, that had become +a social one, pointed out behind the struggle for municipal liberties +that devouring sphinx the question of the proletariat. + +The Council might have profited by the lesson, endorsed if necessary +that manifesto, and then, referring to the protestations of the +Committee, obliged it to dissolve itself. This was all the more easy +that the Committee, much weakened by the elections, only existed thanks +to four or five members and its eloquent mouthpiece, Moreau. But the +Council contented itself with mildly protesting at the sitting of the +5th, and as usual letting things get along as best they could. + +It was already drifting from weakness to weakness; and yet, if ever it +believed in its own energy it was that day. The savagery of the +Versaillese, the assassination of the prisoners, of Flourens and Duval, +had excited the most calm. They had been there full of life three days +ago, these brave colleagues and friends. Their empty places seemed to +cry out for vengeance. Well, then, since Versailles waged a war of +cannibals, they would answer an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. +Besides, if the Council did not act, the people, it was said, would +perhaps revenge itself, and more terribly. They decreed that any one +accused of complicity with Versailles would be judged within forty-eight +hours, and if guilty, retained as a hostage. The execution by Versailles +of a defender of the Commune would be followed by that of a hostage--by +three said the decree, in equal or double number said the proclamation. + +These different readings betrayed the troubled state of their minds. The +Council alone believed in having frightened Versailles. The bourgeois +journals certainly shouted "Abomination!" and M. Thiers, who shot +without any decrees, denounced the ferocity of the Commune. At bottom +they all laughed in their sleeves. The reactionists of any mark had long +since fled; there only remained in Paris the small fry and a few +isolated men, whom, if needs be, Versailles was ready to sacrifice.[116] +The members of the Council, in their childish impetuosity, had not seen +the real hostages staring them in the face--the bank, the civil +register, the domains and the suitors' fund. These were the tender +points by which to hold the bourgeoisie. Without risking a single man, +the Commune had only to stretch out its hand and bid Versailles +negotiate or commit suicide. + +The timid delegates of the 26th March were not the men to dare this. In +allowing the Versaillese army to file off, the Central Committee had +committed a heavy fault; that of the Council was incomparably more +damaging. All serious rebels have commenced by seizing upon the sinews +of the enemy--the treasury. The Council of the Commune was the only +revolutionary Government that refused to do so. While abolishing the +budget of public worship, which was at Versailles, they bent their knees +to the budget of the bourgeoisie, which was at their mercy. + +Then followed a scene of high comedy, if one could laugh at negligence +that has caused so much bloodshed. Since the 19th March the governors of +the bank lived like men condemned to death, every day expecting the +execution of their treasure. Of removing it to Versailles they could not +dream. It would have required sixty or eighty vans and an army corps. On +the 23rd, its governor, Rouland, could no longer stand it, and fled. The +sub-governor, De Ploeuc, replaced him. From his first interview with +the delegates of the Hotel-de-Ville he had seen through their timidity, +given battle, then seemed to soften, yielded little by little, and doled +out his money franc by franc. The bank, which Versailles believed almost +empty, contained: coin, 77 millions;[117] bank-notes, 166 millions; +bills discounted, 899 millions; securities for advances made, 120 +millions; bullion, 11 millions; jewels in deposit, 7 millions; public +effects and other titles in deposit, 900 millions; that is, 2 milliards +180 million francs: 800 millions in bank-notes only required the +signature of the cashier, a signature easily made. The Commune had then +three milliards in its hands, of which over a milliard realised, enough +to buy all the generals and functionaries of Versailles; as hostages, +90,000 depositors of titles, and the two milliards in circulation whose +guarantee lay in the boxes in the Rue de la Vrilliere. + +On the 29th March old Beslay presented himself before the tabernacle. De +Ploeuc had mustered his 430 clerks, armed with muskets without +cartridges. Beslay, led through the lines of these warriors, humbly +prayed the governor to be so kind as to supply the pay of the National +Guard. De Ploeuc answered superciliously, spoke of defending himself. +"But," said Beslay, "if, to prevent the effusion of blood, the Commune +appointed a governor." "A governor! never!" said De Ploeuc, who +understood his man; "but a delegate! If you were that delegate we might +come to an understanding." And, doing the pathetic, "Come, M. Beslay, +help me to save this. This is the fortune of your country; this is the +fortune of France." + +Beslay, deeply moved, hurried off to the Executive Commission, repeated +his lesson all the better that he believed it and prided himself on his +financial lore. "The bank," he said, "is the fortune of the country: +without it, no more industry, no more commerce. If you violate it, all +its notes will be so much waste-paper."[118] This trash circulated in +the Hotel-de-Ville, and the Proudhonists of the Council, forgetting +that their master put the suppression of the bank at the head of his +revolutionary programme, backed old Beslay. At Versailles itself, the +capitalist stronghold had no more inveterate defenders than those of the +Hotel-de-Ville. If some one had at least proposed, "Let us at least +occupy the bank," but the Executive Commission had not the nerve to do +this, and contented itself with commissioning Beslay. De Ploeuc +received the good man with open arms, installed him in the nearest +cabinet, even persuading him to sleep at the bank, made him his hostage, +and once more breathed freely. + +Thus since the first week the Assembly of the Hotel-de-Ville showed +itself weak towards the authors of the sortie, weak towards the Central +Committee, weak towards the bank, trifling in its decrees, in the choice +of its delegate to the War Office, without a military plan, without a +programme, without general views, and indulging in desultory +discussions. The Radicals who had remained in the Council saw whither it +was drifting, and, not inclined to play the martyrs, they sent in their +resignations. + +O Revolution! thou dost not await the well-timed day and hour. Thou +comest suddenly, blind and fatal as the avalanche. The true soldier of +the people accepts the combat wherever hazard may place him. Blunders, +defections, compromising companions do not dishearten him. Though +certain of defeat, he struggles still; his victory looms in the future. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[115] Such is the text of the decree. + +[116] M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, M. Thiers' secretary, answered Barral +de Montaut, who spoke of the possibility of a massacre in the prisons: +"The hostages! the hostages! But we can do nothing. What should we do? +So much the worse for them."--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 271. + +[117] M. Beslay, in his book _Mes Souvenirs_, Paris, 1873, says: "The +cash in hand was forty and some odd millions." These "some odd" were no +less than 203 millions. They presented the good man fictitious +statements, with which they gulled him. In his evidence and the annexes +(_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. iii. errata, p. 488), M. de Ploeuc has +given the true statements. + +[118] These were all the reasons he could ever allege, even in his book +written in Switzerland, whither M. de Ploeuc himself went to deposit him +after the fall of the Commune. Besides his life being saved, he, later +on, received a judicial ordinance to the effect that no further judicial +proceedings were to be taken against him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + THE FIRST COMBATS OF NEUILLY AND ASNIERES--ORGANISATION AND + DEFEAT OF THE CONCILIATORS. + + +The rout of the 3rd April daunted the timorous but exalted the fervent. +Battalions inert until then rose; the armament of the forts no longer +lagged. Save Issy and Vanves, rather damaged, the forts were intact. All +Paris soon heard these fine cannon of seven, which Trochu had +disdained,[119] firing so lustily and with such correct aim, that on the +evening of the 4th the Versaillese were obliged to evacuate the plateau +of Chatillon. The trenches that protected the forts were manned. Les +Moulineaux, Clamart, Le Val-Fleury resounded with the fusillade. To the +right we reoccupied Courbevoie, and the bridge of Neuilly was +barricaded. + +Thence we continued to threaten Versailles. Vinoy received the order to +take Neuilly. On the morning of the 6th, Mont-Valerien, recently armed +with 24-pounders, opened fire on Courbevoie. After six hours of +bombardment the Federals evacuated the cross-roads and took up a +position behind the large barricade of the bridge of Neuilly. The +Versaillese cannonaded it while it was protected by the Porte-Maillot. + +This Porte-Maillot, which has become legendary, had only a few cannon +exposed to the fire from above of Mont-Valerien. For forty-eight days +the Commune found men to hold this untenable post. Their courage +electrified all. The crowd went to the Arc-de-Triomphe to see them, and +the boys hardly waited for the explosion to run after the fragments of +the shells. + +The Parisian intrepidity soon reappeared in the first skirmishes. The +bourgeois papers themselves regretted that so much ardour should not +have been spent on the Prussians. The panic of the 3rd April had +witnessed heroic deeds, and the Council, happily inspired, wanted to +give the defenders of the Commune a funeral worthy of them. It appealed +to the people. On the 6th, at two o'clock, an innumerable multitude +hurried up to the Beaujon Hospital, whither the dead had been +transported. Many, shot after the combat, bore on their arms the marks +left by cords. There were heart-rending scenes. Mothers and wives +bending over these bodies uttered cries of fury and vows of vengeance. +Three immense catafalques, each containing thirty-five coffins, covered +with black crape, adorned with red flags, drawn by eight horses each, +slowly rolled towards the great boulevards, preceded by trumpets and the +_Vengeurs de Paris_. Delescluze and five members of the Commune, with +their red scarfs on and bare-headed, walked as chief mourners. Behind +them followed the relations of the victims, the widows of to-day +supported by those of to-morrow. Thousands upon thousands, men, women, +and children, immortelles in their button-holes, silent, solemn, marched +to the sound of the muffled drums. At intervals subdued strains of music +burst forth like the spontaneous mutterings of sorrow too long +contained. On the great boulevards we numbered 200,000, and 100,000 pale +faces looked down upon us from the windows. The women sobbed, many +fainted. This Via Sacra of the Revolution, the scene of so many woes and +so many joys, has perhaps never witnessed such a communion of hearts. +Delescluze exclaimed in ecstasy, "What an admirable people! Will they +still say that we are a handful of malcontents?" At the Pere la Chaise +he advanced to the common grave. Wrinkled, stooping, sustained only by +his indomitable faith, this dying man saluted the dead. "I will make +you no long speeches; these have already cost us too dear.... Justice +for the families of the victims; justice for the great town which, after +five months of siege, betrayed by its Government, still holds in its +hands the future of humanity.... Let us not weep for our brothers who +have fallen heroically, but let us swear to continue their work, and to +save Liberty, the Commune, the Republic!" + +The following day the Versaillese cannonaded the barricade and the +Avenue of Neuilly. The inhabitants, whom they had not the humanity to +forewarn, were obliged to take refuge in their cellars. Towards +half-past four the fire of the Versaillese ceased, and the Federals were +snatching a little rest, when the soldiers debouched en masse on the +bridge. The Federals, surprised, attempted to arrest their progress, +wounding one general and killing two, one of whom, Besson, was +responsible for the surprise of Beaumont l'Argonne during the march on +Sedan. But the soldiers in overwhelming force succeeded in pushing as +far as the old park of Neuilly. + +The loss of this outlet was all the more serious that Bergeret, in a +letter published in the _Officiel_, had answered for Neuilly. The +Executive Commission replaced him by the Pole Dombrowski, whom Garibaldi +had demanded for his general staff during the war in the Vosges. +Bergeret's staff protested, and their bickerings led to the arrest of +their chief by the Council, already grown suspicious. The National Guard +itself showed some distrust of the new general. The Commission had to +present him to Paris, and, misinformed, invented a legend in his favour. +Dombrowski was not long in making it good. + +The same day the Federals of Neuilly beheld a young man, small of +stature, in a modest uniform, slowly inspecting the vanguards in the +thick of the fire. It was Dombrowski. Instead of the explosive glowing +French bravery, the cool and, as it were, unconscious courage of the +Slav. In a few hours the new chief had conquered all his men. The able +officer soon revealed himself. On the 9th, during the night, with two +battalions from Montmartre, Dombrowski, accompanied by Vermorel, took +the Versaillese by surprise at Asnieres, drove them off, seized their +cannon, and from the ironclad railway carriages cannonaded Courbevoie +and the bridge of Neuilly from the flank. At the same time his brother +stormed the castle of Becon, that commands the road from Asnieres to +Courbevoie. Vinoy having tried to retake this post on the night of the +12th-13th, his men were shamefully repulsed, and fled to Courbevoie as +fast as their legs would carry them. + +Paris was ignorant of this success, so defective was the service of the +general staff. This brilliant attack was the deed of one man, just as +the defence of the forts was the spontaneous work of the National Guard. +There was as yet no direction. Whoever cared to rush into some venture +did so; whoever wanted cannon or reinforcements went to ask for them at +the Place Vendome, at the Central Committee, at the Hotel-de-Ville, of +the generalissime Cluseret. + +The latter had made his debut with a blunder, calling out only the +unmarried men from seventeen to thirty-five, thus depriving the Commune +of its most energetic defenders, the grey-headed men, the first and last +under fire in all our insurrections. Three days after, this decree had +to be revoked. On the 5th, in his report to the Council, this profound +strategist announced that the attack of Versailles masked a movement for +occupying the forts of the right bank, at that moment in the hands of +the Prussians. Like Trochu, he blamed the cannonades of the last few +days, for squandering, as he said, the munitions. And this when Paris +abounded in powder and shell; when her young troops should have been +amused and sustained by artillery; when the Versaillese of Chatillon, +incessantly pursued by our fire, were obliged to remove every night; +when an uninterrupted cannonade alone could save Neuilly. + +The Council was no wiser in its measures of defence. It decreed +compulsory service and the disarmament of the refractory; but the +perquisitions, made at random, without the assistance of the police, did +not procure a man or a hundred muskets the more. It voted life-pensions +to the widows, to the parents of the Federals killed in combat, to +their children an annuity till the age of eighteen, and adopted the +orphans. Excellent measures these, raising the spirits of the +combatants, only they assumed the Commune victorious. Was it not better, +as in the cases of Duval and Dombrowski, to give at once a few thousand +francs to those having a right to them? In fact, these unfortunate +pensioners received but fifty francs from the Commune. + +These measures, incomplete, ill-managed, implied a want of study and of +reflection. The members came to the Council as to a public meeting, +without any preparation, there to proceed without any method. The +decrees of the day before were forgotten, questions only half solved. +The Council created councils of war and court-martials, and allowed the +Central Committee to regulate the procedure and the penalties; it +organised one-half of the medical service and Cluseret the other; it +suppressed the title of general, and the superior officers retained it, +the delegate at War conferring it on them. In the middle of a sitting, +Felix Pyat bounded from his chair to demand the abolition of the Vendome +column, while Dombrowski was making desperate appeals for +reinforcements. + +He had hardly 2,500 men to hold Neuilly, Asnieres, and the whole +peninsula of Gennevilliers, while the Versaillese were accumulating +their best troops against him. From the 14th to 17th April they +cannonaded the castle of Becon, and on the morning of the 17th attacked +it with a brigade. The 250 Federals who occupied it held out for six +hours, and the survivors fell back upon Asnieres, where panic entered +with them. Dombrowski, Okolowitz, and a few sturdy men hastened thither, +succeeded in re-establishing a little order and fortified the +bridge-head. Dombrowski asking for reinforcements, the War Office sent +him only a few companies. The following day our vanguard was surprised +by strong detachments, and the cannon of Courbevoie battered Asnieres. +After a well-contested struggle, towards ten o'clock, several +battalions, worn out, abandoned the southern part of the village. In the +northern part the combat was desperate. Dombrowski, in spite of +telegram after telegram received only 300 men. At five o'clock in the +evening the Versaillese made a great effort, and the Federals, +exhausted, fearing for their retreat, threw themselves upon the bridge +of boats, which they crossed in disorder. + +The reactionary journals made much ado about this retreat. Paris was +stirred by it. This fierce obstinacy of the combat began to open the +eyes of the optimists. Till then many persons believed it all some +dreadful misunderstanding and formed groups of conciliation. How many +thousands in Paris failed to understand the plan of M. Thiers and the +coalition till the day of the final massacre! On the 4th April some +manufacturers and tradesmen had created the _National Union of the +Syndical Chambers_, and taken for their programme, maintenance and +enfranchisement of the Republic, acknowledgment of the municipal +franchises of Paris. The same day, in the Quartier des Ecoles, +professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and students placarded a +manifesto demanding a democratic and laical Republic, an autonomous +Commune and the federation of the communes. An analogous group placarded +a letter to M. Thiers: "You believe in a riot, and you find yourself +brought face to face with precise and universal convictions. The immense +majority of Paris demands the Republic as a right superior to all +discussion. Paris has seen in the whole conduct of the Assembly the +premeditated design of re-establishing the monarchy." Some dignitaries +of the Freemason lodges appealed at once to Versailles and to the +Council: "Stop the effusion of such precious blood." + +Finally, a certain number of those mayors and adjuncts who had not +capitulated till the eleventh hour, like Floquet, Corbon, Bonvalet, &c., +pompously got up the _Republican Union League for the Rights of Paris_. +Now they asked for the recognition of the Republic, the right of Paris +to govern herself, and the custody of the town exclusively confided to +the National Guard; all that the Commune had wanted--all that they had +contented against from the 19th to the 25th of March. + +Other groups were forming. All agreed on two points--the consolidation +of the Republic and the recognition of the rights of Paris. Almost all +the Communal journals reproduced this programme, and the Republican +journals accepted it. The deputies of Paris were the last to speak, and +then only to fall foul of Paris. In that lachrymose and Jesuitical tone +with which he has travestied history,[120] in those long-winded +sentimental periods which serve to mask the aridity of his heart and the +pettiness of his mind, that king of gnomes, Louis Blanc, wrote in the +name of his colleagues: "Not one member of the majority has as yet +questioned the Republican principle.... As to those engaged in the +insurrection, we tell them that they ought to have shuddered at the +thought of aggravating, of prolonging the scourge of the foreign +occupation by adding thereto the scourge of civil discords." + +It is this that M. Thiers repeated word for word to the first +conciliators, the delegates of the _Union Syndicale_, who applied to him +on the 8th May: "Let the insurrection disarm; the Assembly cannot +disarm. But Paris wants the Republic. The Republic exists; by my honour, +so long as I am in power, it will not succumb. But Paris wants municipal +franchises. The Chamber is preparing a law for all communes; Paris will +get neither more nor less." The delegates read a project of compromise +which spoke of a general amnesty and a suspension of arms. M. Thiers let +them read on, did not formally contest a single article, and the +delegates returned to Paris convinced that they had discovered the basis +of an arrangement. + +They had hardly left when M. Thiers rushed off to the Assembly, which +had just endowed all communes with the right of electing their mayors. +M. Thiers ascended the tribune, demanding that this right should be +restricted to towns of less than 20,000 souls. They cried to him, "It is +already voted." He persisted, declaring that "in a republic the +Government must be all the better armed because order is the more +difficult to maintain;" threatened to hand in his resignation, and +forced the Assembly to annul its vote. + +On the 10th, the _League of the Rights of Paris_ sounded the trumpet and +had a solemn declaration placarded: "Let the Government give up +assailing the facts accomplished on the 18th March. Let the general +re-election of the Commune be proceeded with.... If the Government of +Versailles remains deaf to these legitimate revindications, let it be +well understood that all Paris will rise to defend them."[121] The next +day the delegates of the League went to Versailles, and M. Thiers took +up his old refrain, "Let Paris disarm," and would hear neither of an +armistice nor of an amnesty. "Pardon shall be extended" said he, "to +those who will disarm, save to the assassins of Clement-Thomas and +Lecomte." This was to reserve himself the choice of a few thousands. In +short, he wanted to be replaced in his position of the 18th March with +victory into the bargain. The same day he said to the delegates of the +Masonic lodges, "Address yourselves to the Commune; what is wanted is +the submission of the insurgents, and not the resignation of legal +power." To facilitate this submission, the next day the _Officiel_ of +Versailles compared Paris to the plain of Marathon infested by a band of +"brigands and assassins." On the 13th, a deputy, Brunet, having asked +whether the Government would or would not make peace with Paris, the +Assembly adjourned this interpellation for a month. + +The League, thus well whipped, went on the 14th to the Hotel-de-Ville. +The Council, foreign to all these negotiations, left them entirely free, +and had only forbidden a meeting announced at the Bourse by +ill-disguised Tirards. It contented itself with opposing to the League +its declaration of the 10th: "You have said that if Versailles remained +deaf all Paris would rise. Versailles has remained deaf; arise." And to +make Paris the judge, the Council loyally published in its _Officiel_ +the report of the conciliators. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[119] Out of 400 pieces cast by Paris during the siege, the Government +of the National Defence only accepted forty, on the pretence that the +others were imperfect.--Vinoy, _Siege de Paris_, p. 287. + +[120] Sometimes even to falsification. In his account of the 9th +Thermidor, he makes Barrere say to Billaud-Varennes, "Do _not_ attack +Robespierre;" and on the strength of this expatiates on the greatness of +his hero. Now, the report of Courtois that he quotes, hoping, no doubt, +that no one would examine the accuracy of the statement, says, "Attack +_only_," and not "Do _not_ attack." + +[121] It seems there was a split in the League. The Radicals, Floquet, +Corbon, &c., disapproved of this semi-commanding attitude, and boasted +of it later on before the Committee of Inquiry into the 18th March; but +during the Commune they made no public protest against this address. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + THE MANIFESTO OF THE COUNCIL--THE COMPLEMENTARY ELECTIONS OF + THE 16TH APRIL SHOW A MINORITY WITHIN THE COUNCIL--FIRST + DISPUTES--THE GERMS OF DEFEAT. + + +For the second time the situation was distinctly marked out. If the +Council did not know how to define the Commune, was it not in the most +unmistakable manner, and before the eyes of all Paris, declared to mean +a camp of rebels by the fighting, the bombardment, the fury of the +Versaillese, and the rebuff of the conciliators? The complementary +elections of the 16th April--death, double election returns, and +resignations had given thirty-one vacant seats--revealed the effective +forces of the insurrection. The illusion of the 26th March had vanished; +the votes were now taken under fire. Also the journals of the Commune +and the delegates of the Syndical Chambers in vain summoned the electors +to the ballot-box. Out of 146,000 who had mustered in these +arrondissements at the election of the 26th March, there came now only +61,000. The arrondissements of the councillors who had deserted their +seats gave 16,000 instead of 51,000 votes. + +It was now or never the moment to explain their programme to France. The +Executive Commission had on the 6th, in an address to the provinces, +protested against the calumnies of Versailles, but had confined itself +to the statement that Paris fought for all France, and had not set forth +any programme. The Republican protestations of M. Thiers, the hostility +of the extreme Left, the desultory decrees, had completely led astray +the provinces. It was necessary to set them right at once. On the 19th, +a commission charged to draw up a programme presented its work, or +rather the work of another. Sad and characteristic symbol this; the +declaration of the Commune did not emanate from the Council, its twelve +publicists notwithstanding. Of the five members charged to draw up the +project, only Delescluze contributed some passages; the technical part +was the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis. + +In the _Cri du Peuple_ he had taken up and formulated as a law the whim +of _Paris a free town_, hatched in the first gush of passion of the +Vauxhall meetings. According to this legislator, Paris was to become a +Hanseatic town, crowning herself with all liberties, and from the height +of her proud fortress say to the enchained communes of France, "Imitate +me if you can; but mind, I shall do nothing for you but set an example." +This charming plan had turned the heads of several members of the +Council, and too many traces of it were visible in the declaration. + +"What does Paris demand?" it said. "The recognition of the Republic. +Absolute autonomy of the Commune extended to all localities of France. +The inherent rights of the Commune are: the vote of the communal budget; +the settlement and repartition of taxes; the direction of the local +services; the organisation of its magistracy, of its internal police, +and of education; the administration of communal goods; the choice and +permanent right of control over the communal magistrates and +functionaries; the absolute guarantee of individual liberty, of the +liberty of conscience and the liberty of labour; the organisation of +urban defence and of the National Guard; the Commune alone charged with +the surveillance and assurance of the free and just exercise of the +right of meeting and of publicity.... Paris wants nothing more ... on +condition of finding in the great central administration, the delegation +of the federated communes, the realisation and practical application of +the same principle." + +What were to be the powers of that central delegation, the reciprocal +obligations of the Communes? The declaration did not state these. +According to this text, every locality was to possess the right to shut +itself up within its autonomy. But what to expect of autonomy in Lower +Brittany, in nine-tenths of the French Communes, more than half of which +have not 600 inhabitants,[122] if even the Parisian declaration violated +the most elementary rights, charged the Commune with the surveillance of +the _just_ exercise of the right of meeting and of publicity, forgetting +to mention the right of association? It is notorious, it has been proved +but too well. The rural autonomous communes would be a monster with a +thousand suckers attached to the flank of the Revolution. + +No! Thousands of mutes and blind are not fitted to conclude a social +pact. Weak, unorganised, bound by a thousand trammels, the people of the +country can only be saved by the towns, and the people of the towns +guided by Paris. The failure of all the provincial insurrections, even +of the large towns, had sufficiently testified this. When the +declaration said, "Unity such as has been imposed upon us until to-day +by the Empire, the monarchy and parliamentarism is only despotic, +unintelligent centralisation," it laid bare the cancer that devours +France; but when it added, "Political unity, as understood by Paris, is +the voluntary association of all local initiative," it showed that it +knew nothing whatever of the provinces. + +The declaration continued, in the style of an address, sometimes to the +point: "Paris works and suffers for all France, whose intellectual, +moral, administrative, and economical regeneration she prepares by her +combats and her sufferings.... The communal revolution, commenced by the +popular initiative of the 18th March, inaugurates a new era." But in all +this there was nothing definite. Why not, taking up the formula of the +28th March, "To the commune what is communal, to the nation what is +national," define the future commune, sufficiently extended to endow it +with political life, sufficiently limited to allow its citizens easily +to combine their social action, the commune of 15,000 to 20,000 souls, +the canton-commune, and clearly set forth its rights and those of +France? They did not even speak of federating the large towns for the +conquest of their common enfranchisement. Such as it was, this +programme, obscure, incomplete, impossible in many points, could not, +spite of some generous ideas, contribute much to the enlightenment of +the provinces. + +It was only a project. No doubt the Council was going to discuss it. It +was voted after the first reading. No debate, hardly an observation. +This assembly, which gave four days to the discussion on overdue +commercial bills, had not one sitting for the study of this declaration, +its programme in case of victory, its testament if it succumbed. + +To make things worse, a new malady infected the Council, the germs of +which, sown for some days, were brought to full maturity by the +complementary elections. The Romanticists gave rise to the Casuists, and +both came to loggerheads on the verification of the new mandates. + +On the 30th March the Council had validated six elections with a +relative majority. The reporter on the election of the 16th proposed +declaring all those candidates elected who had received an absolute +majority. The Casuists grew indignant. "This would be," said they, "the +worst blow that any Government had dealt universal suffrage." But it was +impossible to go on continually convoking the electors. Three of the +most devoted arrondissements had given no result; one of them, the +thirteenth, being deprived of its best men, then fighting at the +advanced posts. A new ballot would only set forth in bolder relief the +isolation of the Commune; and then, is the moment of the fight, when the +battalion is decimated, deprived of its chief, the opportune time for +insisting upon a regular promotion? + +The discussion was very warm, for in this outlawed Hotel-de-Ville there +sat outrageous legality-mongers. Paris was to be strangled by their +saving principles. Already, in the name of holy autonomy, which forbade +intervention with the autonomy of one's neighbour, the Executive +Commission had refused to arm the communes round Paris that asked to +march against Versailles. M. Thiers took no more efficient measure to +isolate Paris. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-six voices against thirteen voted the conclusions of the report. +Twenty elections only were declared valid,[123] which was illogical; one +with less than 1100 votes was admitted, another with 2500 rejected. All +the elections should have been declared valid, or none at all. Four of +the new delegates were journalists, six only workmen. Eleven sent by the +public meetings came to strengthen the Romanticists. Two whose elections +had been validated by the Council refused to sit because they had not +obtained the eighth part of the votes. The author of the admirable +_Propos de Labienus_, Rogeard, allowed himself to be deceived by a false +scruple of legality--the only weakness of this generous man, who devoted +to the Commune his pure and brilliant eloquence. His resignation +deprived the Council of a man of common sense, but once more served to +unmask the apocalyptic Felix Pyat. + + * * * * * + +Since the 1st April, scenting the coming storm and professing the same +horror for blows as Panurge, Felix Pyat had attempted to leave Paris, +sent in his resignation as member of the Executive Commission to the +Council, and declared his presence at Versailles indispensable. The +Versaillese hussars making the sortie too perilous, he had condescended +to stay, but at the same time assuming two masks, one for the +Hotel-de-Ville, the other for the public. In the Council, at the secret +sittings, he urged violent measures with the vivacity of a wild cat; in +the _Vengeur_ he held forth pontifically, shaking his grey hairs, +saying, "To the ballot-box, not to Versailles!" In his own paper he had +two faces. Did he want the suppression of the journals, he signed "Le +Vengeur;" did he want to cajole, he signed Felix Pyat. The defeat of +Asnieres struck him again with fear, and anew he looked out for a +loophole. The resignation of Rogeard opened it. Under the shelter of +this pure name Felix Pyat slipped in his resignation. "The Commune has +violated the law," wrote he. "I do not want to be an accomplice." And, +to debar himself from any return to the Council he involved the dignity +of the latter. If, said he, it persisted, he would be forced, to his +great regret, to send in his resignation "_before the victory_." + +He had counted on stealing away as from the Assembly of Bordeaux; but +his roguery disgusted the Council. The _Vengeur_ had just blamed the +suppression of several reactionary papers demanded many and many a time +by Felix Pyat. Vermorel denounced this duplicity. One member: "It has +been said here that resignations would be considered as treason." +Another: "A man must not leave his post when that post is one of peril +and of honour." A third formally demanded the arrest of Felix Pyat. "I +regret," said another, "that it has not been distinctly laid down that +resignation can only be tendered to the electors themselves." And +Delescluze added, "Nobody has the right to withdraw for personal rancour +or because some measure does not chime in with his ideal. Do you then +believe that every one approves what is done here? Yes; there are +members who have remained, and who will remain till the end, +notwithstanding the insults hurled at us. For myself, I am decided to +remain at my post, and if we do not see victory, we shall not be the +last to fall on the ramparts or on the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville." + +These manly words were received with prolonged cheers. No one's devotion +was more meritorious. The habits of Delescluze, grave and laborious, his +high aspirations, alienated him more than any other from many of his +colleagues, light-headed idlers, prone to personal bickerings. One day, +weary of this chaos, he wanted to resign. It sufficed to tell him that +his withdrawal would be very prejudicial to the cause of the people to +persuade him to remain, and await, not victory--as well as Felix Pyat he +knew that impossible--but the death that fecundates the future. + +Felix Pyat, so lashed from all sides, not daring to snap at Delescluze, +turned round upon Vermorel, whom for all argument he called "spy;" and +as Vermorel was a member of the Commission of Public Safety, accused him +in the _Vengeur_ of putting out of the way evidence accumulated against +him at the prefecture of police. This member of the leporide species +called Vermorel "_bombic_." Such was his mode of discussion. Under the +veil of literary refinement lurked the amenities of Billingsgate. In +1848, in the _Constituante_, he called Proudhon "_swine_;" and in 1871, +in the _Commune_, he called Tridon "_dunghill_." He was the only member +of this Assembly, where there were workmen of rude professions, who +introduced ribaldry into the discussions. + +Vermorel, replying in the _Cri du Peuple_, easily floored him. The +electors of Felix Pyat sent him three summations to remain at his post: +"You are a soldier; you must stay in the breach. It is we alone who have +the right to revoke you." Ferreted out by his mandatories, threatened +with arrest by the Council, this Greek chose the lesser danger, and +re-entered the Hotel-de-Ville in mincing attitude. + +Versailles was jubilant at these miserable triflings. For the first time +the public became acquainted with the interior of the Council, its +infinitesimal coteries, made up of purely personal friendships or +antipathies. Whoever belonged to such a group got thorough support, +whatever his blunders. Far more; in order to be allowed to serve the +Commune, it was necessary to belong to such a confraternity. Many +sincerely devoted men offered themselves, tried democrats, intelligent +employes, deserters from the Government, even Republican officers. They +were overweeningly met by some incapable upstarts of yesterday, whose +devotion was not to outlast the 20th May. And yet the insufficiency of +the _personnel_ and the want of talent each day became more +overwhelming. The members of the Council complained that nothing was +getting on. The Executive Commission did not know how to command, nor +its subordinate how to obey; the Council devolved power and retained it +at the same time, interfered every moment with the slightest details of +the service; conducted the government, the administration, and the +defence like the sortie of the 3rd April. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[122] Seventy-three communes have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 108 have +from 10,000 to 20,000; 309 from 5000 to 10,000; 249 from 4000 to 5000; +and 581 from 3000 to 4000. There are then only 1320 communes having more +than 3000 inhabitants, 800 at most that possess any political life. + +[123] Vesinier, Cluseret, Pillot, Andrieu (1st arrondissement, Louvre); +Pothier, Serraillier, J. Durand, Johannard (2nd, Bourse); Courbet, +Rogeard (6th, Luxembourg); Sicard (7th, Palais-Bourbon); Briosne (9th, +Opera); Philippe, Lonclas (12th, Reuilly); Longuet (16th, Passy); Dupont +(17th, Batignolles); Cluseret, Arnold (18th, Montmartre); Menotti +Garibaldi (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Viard, Trinquet (20th Menilmontant). + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + OUR PARISIENNES--SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF + NEUILLY--THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS. + + +The glorious flame of Paris still hid these failings. One must have been +enkindled by it to describe it. Beside it the Communard journals, in +spite of their romanticism, show pale and dull. It is true the _mise en +scene_ was unpretending. In the streets, in the silent boulevards, a +battalion of a hundred men setting out for the battle or returning from +it; a woman who follows, a passer-by who applauds--that is all. But it +is the drama of the Revolution, simple and gigantic as a drama of +AEschylus. + +The commander in his _vareuse_, dusty, his silver lace singed, his men +greyheads or youths, the veterans of June 1848 and the pupils of March, +the son often marching by the side of the father.[124] + +This woman, who salutes or accompanies them, she is the true Parisienne. +The unclean androgyne, born in the mire of the Empire, the madonna of +the pornographers, the Dumas fils and the Feydeaux, has followed her +patrons to Versailles or works the Prussian mine at St. Denis. She, who +is now uppermost, is the Parisienne, strong, devoted, tragic, knowing +how to die as she loves. A helpmeet in labour, she will also be an +associate in the death-struggle. A formidable equality this to oppose to +the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is doubly strong--one heart and four +hands. On the 24th of March a Federal addressed these noble words to the +bourgeois battalions of the first arrondissement, making them drop +their arms: "Believe me, you cannot hold out; your wives are all in +tears, and ours do not weep." + +She does not keep back her husband.[125] On the contrary, she urges him +to battle, carries him his linen and his soup, as she had before done to +his workshop. Many would not return, but took up arms. At the plateau de +Chatillon they were the last to stand the fire. The _cantinieres_, +simply dressed as workwomen, not fancy costumes, fell by dozens. On the +3rd April, at Meudon, the Citoyenne Lachaise, _cantiniere_ of the 66th +battalion, remained the whole day in the field of battle, tending the +wounded, alone, without a doctor. + +If they return, it is to call to arms. Having formed a central committee +at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, they issued fiery +proclamations: "We must conquer or die. You who say, 'What matters the +triumph of our cause if I must lose those I love?' know that the only +means of saving those who are dear to you is to throw yourselves into +the struggle." Their committees multiplied. They offered themselves to +the Commune, demanding arms, posts of danger, and complaining of the +cowards who swerved from their duty.[126] Madame Andre Leo, with her +eloquent pen, explained the meaning of the Commune, summoned the +delegate at the War Office to avail himself of the "holy fever that +burns in the hearts of the women." A young Russian lady, of noble +birth, educated, beautiful, rich, called Demitrieff, was the Theroigne +de Mericourt of this Revolution. The proletarian character of the +Commune was embodied in Louise Michel, a teacher in the seventeenth +arrondissement. Gentle and patient with the little children, who adored +her, in the cause of the people the mother became a lioness. She had +organised a corps of ambulance nurses, who tended the wounded even under +fire. There they suffered no rivals. They also went to the hospitals to +save their beloved comrades from the harsh nuns; and the eyes of the +dying brightened at the murmur of those gentle voices that spoke to them +of the Republic and of hope. + +In this contest of devotion the children fought with men and women. The +Versaillese, victorious, took 660 of them, and many perished in the +battle of the streets. Thousands served during the siege. They followed +the battalions to the trenches, in the forts, especially clinging to the +cannon. Some gunners of the Porte-Maillot were boys of from thirteen to +fourteen years old. Unsheltered, in the open country, they performed +exploits of mad heroism.[127] + +This Parisian flame radiated beyond the enceinte. The municipalities of +Sceaux and St. Denis united at Vincennes to protest against the +bombardment, revindicate the municipal franchises and the establishment +of the Republic. Its heat was even felt in the provinces. + +They began to believe Paris was impregnable, and laughed much at the +despatches of M. Thiers, saying on the 3rd April, "This day is decisive +of the fate of the insurrection;" on the 4th, "The insurgents have +to-day suffered a decisive defeat;" on the 7th, "This day is decisive;" +on the 11th, "Irresistible means are being prepared at Versailles;" on +the 12th, "We expect the decisive moment." And despite so many decisive +successes and irresistible means, the Versaillese army was all the while +baffled at our advanced posts. Its only decisive victories were against +the houses of the enceinte and the suburbs. + +The neighbourhood of the Porte-Maillot, the Avenue de la Grande Armee, +and the Ternes were continually lighting up with conflagrations. +Asnieres and Levallois were filling with ruins, the inhabitants of +Neuilly starving in their cellars. The Versaillese threw against these +points alone 1500 shells a day; and yet M. Thiers wrote to his prefects, +"If a few cannon-shots are heard, it is not the act of the Government, +but of a few insurgents trying to make us believe they are fighting, +while they hardly dare show themselves." + +The Commune assisted the bombarded people of Paris, but could do nothing +for those of Neuilly, caught between two fires. A cry of pity went up +from the whole press. All the journals demanded an armistice for the +evacuation of Neuilly; the Freemasons and the _Ligue des Droits de +Paris_ interposed. With much trouble, for the generals did not want an +armistice, the delegates got a suspension of arms for eight hours. The +Council appointed five of its members to receive the bombarded people; +the municipalities prepared them an asylum, and some of the women's +committees left Paris to assist them. + +On the 25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the cannon from the +Porte-Maillot to Asnieres were silent. Thousands of Parisians went to +visit the ruins of the Avenue and the Porte-Maillot, a mortar of earth, +granite, and fragments of shells; stood still, deeply moved, before the +artillerists leaning on their famous pieces, and then dispersed all over +Neuilly. The little town, once so coquettish, displayed in the bright +rays of the sun its shattered houses. At the limits agreed upon were two +barriers, one of soldiers of the line, the other of Federals, separated +from each other by an interval of about twenty yards. The Versaillese, +chosen from amongst their most reliable troops, were watched by officers +with hangdog looks. The Parisians, good fellows, approached the +soldiers, speaking to them. The officers immediately ran up shouting +furiously. When a soldier gave a polite answer to two ladies, an officer +threw himself upon him, tore away his musket, and pointing the bayonet +at the Parisiennes, cried, "This is how one speaks to them." Some +persons having crossed the boundary marked out were taken prisoners. +Still five o'clock struck without any massacre having occurred. The +Avenue grew empty. Each Parisian on returning home carried his sack of +earth to the fortifications of the Porte-Maillot, which found themselves +re-established as if by magic. + +In the evening the Versaillese again opened fire. It had not ceased +against the forts of the south. That same day the enemy unmasked on this +side the batteries he had been constructing for a fortnight,--the first +part of the plan of General Thiers. + +He had on the 6th placed all the troops under the command of that +MacMahon, his stains of Sedan still upon him. The army at this time was +46,000 strong, for the most part the residuum of depots, incapable of +any serious action. To reinforce it and obtain soldiers, M. Thiers had +sent Jules Favre whining to Bismarck. The Prussians had set free 60,000 +prisoners on harsher conditions of peace, and authorised his gossip +Thiers to augment to 130,000 men the number of soldiers round Paris, +which, according to the preliminaries of peace, were not to have +exceeded 40,000 men. On the 25th April the Versaillese army comprised +five corps, two of them, those of Douai and Clinchant, composed of the +released prisoners from Germany and a reserve commanded by Vinoy, all in +all 110,000 men. It increased to 170,000 receiving rations, of whom +130,000 were combatants. M. Thiers displayed real ability in setting it +against Paris. The soldiers were well fed, well dressed, severely +overlooked; discipline was re-established. There occurred mysterious +disappearances of officers guilty of having given utterance to their +horror at this fratricidal war. Still this was not yet the army for an +attack, the men always scampering away before a steady resistance. +Despite official brag, the generals only counted upon the artillery, to +which they owed the successes of Courbevoie and of Asnieres. Paris was +only to be overcome by fire. + +As during the first siege, Paris was literally hemmed in by bayonets, +but this time half-foreign, half-French. The German army, forming a +semi-circle from the Marne to St. Denis, occupying the forts of the east +and of the north; the Versaillese army, closing the circle from St. +Denis to Villeneuve St. Georges, mistress only of Mont-Valerien. The +latter could then only attack the Commune by the west and south. The +Federals had then the five forts of Ivry, Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves, +and Issy to defend themselves, with the trenches and the advanced posts +that united them to each other, and the principal villages, Neuilly, +Asnieres, and St. Ouen. + +The vulnerable point of the enceinte facing the Versaillese was on the +south-west, the salient of the Point du Jour, defended by the fort of +Issy. Sufficiently covered on the right by the park, the castle of Issy +and a trench uniting it to the Seine, commanded by our gunboats, this +fort was overtopped in front and on the left by the heights of Bellevue, +Meudon, and Chatillon. M. Thiers armed them with siege pieces which he +had sent from Toulon, Cherbourg, Douai, Lyons, and Besancon--293 +ordnance pieces--and their effect was such that from the first days the +fort of Issy was shaken. General Cissey, charged with the command of +these operations, immediately commenced manoeuvring. + +To crush the fort of Issy and that of Vanves, which supported it, then +to force the Point du Jour, whence the troops could deploy into Paris, +such was M. Thiers' plan. The only object of the operations from St. +Ouen to Neuilly was to prevent our attack by Courbevoie. + +What forces and what plan did the Commune oppose? + +The returns stated about 96,000 men and 4000 officers for the active +National Guard; for the reserve, 100,000 men and 3500 officers.[128] +Thirty-six free corps claimed to number 3450 men. All deductions made, +60,000 combatants might have been obtained had they known how to set +about it. But the weakness of the Council, the difficulty of supervision +and repression, allowed the less brave and those who did not stand in +need of pay, to shirk all control. Many contrived to limit their +services to the interior of Paris. Thus for want of order the effective +forces remained very weak, and the line from St. Ouen to Ivry was never +held by more than 15,000 or 16,000 Federals. + +The cavalry existed only on paper. There were only 500 horses to drag +the guns or the waggons and to mount the officers and estafettes. The +engineer department remained in a rudimentary state, the finest decrees +notwithstanding. Of the 1200 cannon possessed by Paris, only 200 were +utilised. There were never more than 500 artillerists, while the returns +stated 2500. + +Dombrowski occupied the bridge of Asnieres, Levallois, and Neuilly with +4000 or 5000 men at the utmost.[129] To protect his positions he had at +Clichy and Asnieres about thirty ordnance pieces and two ironclad +railway carriages, which from the 15th April to the 22nd May, even after +the entry of the Versaillese, did not cease running along the lines; at +Levallois, a dozen pieces. The ramparts of the north assisted him, and +the valiant Porte-Maillot covered him at Neuilly. + +On the left bank, from Issy to Ivry, in the forts, the villages, and the +trenches, there were 10,000 to 11,000 Federals. The fort of Issy +contained on an average 600 men and 50 pieces of 7 and 12 centimetres, +of which two-thirds were inactive. The bastions 72 and 73 relieved him a +little, aided by four ironclad locomotives established on the viaduct of +the Point du Jour. Underneath, the gunboats, re-armed, fired on +Breteuil, Sevres, Brimborion, even daring to push as far as Chatillon, +and, unsheltered, cannonaded Meudon. A few hundred tirailleurs occupied +the park and the castle of Issy, the Moulineaux, Le Val, and the +trenches which united the fort of Issy to that of Vanves. This latter, +exposed like Issy, valiantly supported its efforts with a garrison of +500 men and about 20 cannon. The bastions of the enceinte supported it +very little. + +The fort of Montrouge, with 350 men and 10 to 15 ordnance pieces, had +only to support the fort of Vanves. That of Bicetre, provided with 500 +men and 20 pieces, had to fire at objects hidden from its view. Three +considerable redoubts protected it--the Hautes Bruyeres, with 500 men +and 20 pieces; the Moulin Saquet, with 700 men and about 14 pieces; and +Villejuif, with 300 men and a few howitzers. At the extreme left, the +fort of Ivry and its dependencies had 500 men and about 400 pieces. The +intermediate villages, Gentilly, Cachan, and Arcueil, were occupied by +2000 to 2500 Federals. + +The nominal command of the forts of the south, first confided to Eudes, +assisted by an ex-officer of Garibaldi, La Cecilia, on the 20th passed +into the hands of the Alsatian Wetzel, an officer of the army of the +Loire. From his headquarters of Issy he was to superintend the trenches +of Issy and of Vanves and the defence of the forts. In reality, their +commanders, who often changed, did just as they pleased. + +The command, from Issy to Arcueil was, towards the middle of April, +entrusted to General Wroblewski, one of the best officers of the Polish +insurrection, young, an adept in military science, brave, methodical, +and shrewd, turning everybody and everything to account; an excellent +chief for young troops.[130] + +All these general officers never received but one order: "Defend +yourselves." As to a general plan, there never was one. Neither Cluseret +nor Rossel held councils of war. + +The men were also abandoned to themselves, being neither cared for nor +controlled. Scarcely any, if any, relieving of the troops under fire +ever took place. The whole strain fell upon the same men. Certain +battalions remained twenty, thirty days in the trenches, while others +were continually kept in reserve. If some men grew so inured to fire +that they refused to return home, others were discouraged, came to show +their clothes covered with vermin and asked for rest. The generals were +obliged to retain them, having no one to put in their places. + +This carelessness soon destroyed all discipline. The brave wanted to +rely only upon themselves, and the others slunk from the service. The +officers did the same, some leaving their posts to assist the fight at a +contiguous place, others returning to the town. The court-martial +sentenced a few of them very severely. The Council quashed the +sentences, and commuted one condemnation to death to three years' +imprisonment. + +As they recoiled from rigour, from regular war discipline, they ought to +have changed their method and their tactics. But the Council was now +even less capable of showing will of its own than on the first day. It +always lamented that things were at a stand-still, but did not know how +to set them going. On the 26th, the military commission, declaring that +decrees and orders remained a dead letter, charged the municipalities, +the Central Committee, and the _chefs-de-legions_ with the +reorganisation of the National Guard. Not one of these mechanisms +functioned methodically; the Council had not even thought of organising +Paris by sections; the Central Committee intrigued; the _chefs de +legions_ were agitated; certain members of the Council and generals +dreamt of a military dictatorship. In the midst of this fatal wrestling, +the Council discussed during several sittings whether the pawn-tickets +to be given back gratuitously to their owners should amount to twenty or +thirty francs, and whether the _Officiel_ should be sold for five +centimes. + +Towards the end of April, no observer of any perspicacity could fail to +see that the defence had become hopeless. In Paris, active and devoted +men exhausted their strength in enervating struggles with the bureaux, +the committees, the sub-committees, and the thousand pretentious rival +administrations, often losing a whole day in order to obtain possession +of a single cannon. At the ramparts, some artillerists riddled the line +of Versailles, and, asking for nothing but bread and iron, stood to +their pieces until torn away by shells. The forts, their casemates +staved in, their embrasures destroyed, lustily answered the fire from +the heights. Brave skirmishers, unprotected, surprised the line-soldiers +in their lurking-places. All this devotion and dazzling heroism were +spent in vain, like the steam of an engine escaping through hundreds of +issues. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Appendix IV. + +[125] And what sublime faith in their naivete! We heard in an omnibus +two women on their return from the trenches. The one wept; the other +said to her, "Do not distress yourself; our husbands will come back. And +then the Commune has promised to take care of us and of our children. +But no! it is impossible they should be killed in defending so good a +cause. Besides I would rather have my husband dead than in the hands of +the Versaillese." + +[126] "My heart bleeds to see that only those ready to volunteer engage +in the combat. This is not, citizen delegate, a denunciation; far from +me such a thought; but I fear lest the weakness of the members of the +Commune should cause our great projects for the future to miscarry." +This heroic letter is taken from a book, _Le Fond de la Societe sous la +Commune_, which contains documents found by the army in different +mairies and administrations. The work in general is an odious +caricature, of which the author himself, a Joseph Prudhomme, in the +shape of a bloodhound, is certainly the most ridiculous trait. + +[127] Appendix V. + +[128] Very approximate numbers. The return of the _Officiel_ of the 6th +May is very incomplete. In general, these statements were erroneous, +fictitious, especially after the administration of Meyer. + +[129] The figures which I give have been carefully verified _de visu_, +first during the struggle, afterwards with generals, superior officers, +and functionaries of the War Office. General Appert has drawn up merely +fantastic returns. He has created imaginary brigades, manufactured +effective returns by counting as regular combatants all men who, at any +time, might have been told off for active service, and constantly +duplicated the items of his accounts. He has thus contrived to give more +than 20,000 men to Dombrowski, and as much as 50,000 to the three +commanders--quite ridiculous figures. His report swarms with mistakes as +to names and functions; he does not even know the names of certain +general commanders. It possesses no kind of historical value. + +[130] A member of the Council discovered him, and presented him at the +War Office, where he explained his ideas: "But," it was remarked to him, +"this is word for word what Felix Pyat does not cease saying to us." "A +few days ago," answered Wroblewski, "I sent Felix Pyat a memorandum." +Rossel went to Pyat's bureau, and there found the memorandum. For +several days this trickster had been making capital of the ideas of +Wroblewski without the least allusion to their author, and astounding +the Commission by his common sense and technical knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + THE PUBLIC SERVICES--FINANCE--WAR--POLICE--EXTERIOR--JUSTICE + --EDUCATION--LABOUR AND EXCHANGE. + + +The insufficiency and the weakness of the Executive Commission became so +shocking, that on the 20th the Council decided to replace it by the +delegates of the nine commissions, amongst whom it had distributed its +different functions. These commissions were renewed the same day. In +general they were rather neglected; and how could one man attend to the +daily sittings of the Hotel-de-Ville, to his commission and his mairie? +For the Council had charged its members with the administration of their +respective arrondissements; and the real work of the several commissions +weighed on the delegates who had presided over them from their origin, +and for the most part were not changed on the 20th April. They continued +to act, as heretofore, almost single-handed. Before proceeding with our +narrative we will look more narrowly into their doings. + +Two delegations required only good-will--those of the victualling +department and of the public or municipal services. The provisioning of +the town was carried on through the neutral zone, where M. Thiers, +however anxious to starve Paris,[131] could not prevent a regular supply +of food. All the foremen having remained at their posts, the municipal +services did not suffer. Four delegations--Finance, War, Public Safety, +Exterior--required special aptitude. The three others, Education, +Justice, Labour and Exchange, had to propound the philosophical +principles of this revolution. All the delegates save Frankel, a +workman, belonged to the small middle-class. + +The Commission of Finance centered in Jourde, who, with his +inexhaustible garrulity, had eclipsed the too modest Varlin. The task +imposed was to procure every morning 675,000 francs for the payment of +the services, to feed 250,000 persons, and find the sinews of war. +Besides the 4,658,000 francs in the coffers of the Treasury, 214 +millions in shares and other effects had been found in the Finance +Office; but Jourde could not or would not negotiate them, and to fill +his exchequer he had to lay hold of the revenues of all the +administrations--the telegraph and postal offices, the octrois, direct +contributions, custom house offices, markets, tobacco, registration and +stamps, municipal funds and the railway duties. The bank, little by +little, paid back the 9,400,000 francs due to the town, and even parted +with 7,290,000 francs on its own account. From the 20th March to the +30th April, twenty-six millions were thus scraped together. During the +same period the War Office alone absorbed over twenty. The Intendance +received 1,813,000 francs, all the municipalities together 1,446,000, +the Interior 103,000, Marine 29,000, Justice 5500, Commerce 50,000, +Education _one thousand_ only, Exterior 112,000, Firemen 100,000, +National Library 80,000, Commission of Barricades 44,500, L'Imprimerie +Nationale 100,000, the Association of Tailors and Shoemakers 24,882. +These proportions remained almost the same from the 1st May to the fall +of the Commune. The expenses of the second period rose to about twenty +millions. The sum total of the expenses of the Commune was about +46,300,000 francs, of which 16,696,000 were supplied by the bank, and +the rest by the various services, the octrois yielding nearly twelve +millions. + +Most of these Services were under the superintendence of workmen or +former subordinate employes, and were all carried on with a fourth part +of their ordinary numerical strength. The director of the postal +department, Theisz, a chaser, found the Service quite disorganised, the +divisionary bureaux closed, the stamps hidden away or carried off, the +material, seals, the carts, &c., taken away, and the coffers empty. +Placards posted up in the hall and courts ordered the employes to +proceed to Versailles on pain of dismissal, but Theisz acted with +promptitude and energy. When the subordinate employes who had not been +forewarned came as usual to organise the mail service, he addressed +them, discussed with them, and had the doors shut. Little by little they +gave way. Some functionaries who were Socialists also lent their help, +and the direction of the various services was intrusted to the +head-clerks. The divisionary bureaux were opened, and in forty-eight +hours the collection and distribution of letters for Paris reorganised. +As to the letters destined for the provinces, clever agents threw them +into the offices of St. Denis and ten miles round, while for the +introduction of letters into Paris every latitude was given to private +initiative. A superior council was instituted, which raised the wages of +postmen, sorters, porters, caretakers of the bureaux, shortened the time +of service as supernumeraries, and decided that the ability of the +employes should be tested for the future by means of tests and +examinations.[132] + +The Mint, directed by Camelinat, a bronze-mounter, one of the most +active members of the International, manufactured the postage stamps. At +the Mint, as at the general post-office, the Versaillese director and +principal employes had first parleyed, then made off. Camelinat, +supported by some friends, bravely took this place, had the works +continued, and every one contributing his professional experience, +improvements in the machinery as well as new methods were introduced. +The bank, which concealed its bullion, was obliged to furnish about +110,000 francs' worth, immediately coined into five-franc pieces. A new +coin-plate was engraved, and was about to be put into use, when the +Versaillese entered Paris. + +The department of Public Assistance also depended on that of the +Finances. A man of the greatest merit, Treilhard, an old exile of 1851, +reorganised this administration, which he found entirely out of order. +Some doctors and agents of the service had abandoned the hospitals; the +director and the steward of the Petits-Menages at Issy had fled, thus +reducing many of their pensioners to go out begging. Some employes +forced our wounded to wait before the doors of the hospital, while the +sisters of mercy tried to make them blush for their glorious wounds; but +Treilhard soon put all in order, and, for the second time since 1792, +the sick and the infirm found friends in their guardians and blessed the +Commune. This kind-hearted and intellectual man, who was assassinated by +a Versaillese officer on the 24th May at the Pantheon, has left a very +elaborate report on the suppression of bureaux of charity, which chain +the poor to the Government and to the clergy. He proposed having them +replaced by a bureau of assistance in each arrondissement, under the +direction of a communal committee. + +The Telegraph-office, Registration, and Domains, cleverly directed by +the honest Fontaine; the Service of the Contributions, entirely +re-established by Faillet and Combault; the National Printing Press, +which Debock reorganised and administered with remarkable +dexterity,[133] and the other departments connected with that of +Finance, ordinarily reserved to the great bourgeoisie, were managed with +skill and economy--the maximum of the salaries, 6000 francs, was never +reached--by workmen, subordinate employes; and this is not one of their +least crimes in the eyes of the Versaillese bourgeoisie. + +Compared with the Finance department, that of War was a region of +darkness and utter confusion. Officers and guards encumbered the offices +of the Ministry, some demanding munitions and victuals, others +complaining of not being relieved. They were sent back to the Place +Vendome, maintained in the teeth of common sense, and directed by the +rather equivocal colonel, Henry Prudhomme. On the floor below, the +Central Committee, installed there by Cluseret, bustled, spent time and +breath in endless sittings, found fault with the delegate at war, amused +itself with creating new insignia, received the malcontents of the +Ministry, asked returns from the general staff, claimed to give advice +on military operations. In its turn, the Committee of Artillery, founded +on the 18th March, wrangled about the disposal of the cannon with the +War Office. The latter had the pieces of the Champ-de-Mars and the +Committee those of Montmartre. Attempts at creating a central park of +artillery,[134] or even at learning the exact number of the ordnance +pieces, were made in vain. Pieces of long range remained to the last +moment lying along the ramparts, while the forts had only pieces of +seven and twelve centimetres to answer the huge cannon of Marine, and +often the munitions sent were not of corresponding calibre. The +commissariat, assailed by adventurers of all sorts, took their stores at +haphazard. The construction of the barricades, which were to form a +second and third enceinte, instituted on the 9th April, had been left to +a crotchety fellow, sowing works broadcast without method and against +the plans of his superiors. All the other Services were conducted in the +same style, without fixed principles, without limitation of their +respective provinces, the wheels of the machine not working within one +another. In this concert without a conductor, each instrumentalist +played what he liked, confusing his own score with his neighbour's. + +A firm and supple hand would soon have restored harmony. The Central +Committee, despite its assumption of lecturing the Commune, which it +said was "its daughter and must not be allowed to go astray," was now +only an assemblage of talkers devoid of all authority. It had, to a +great extent, been renewed since the establishment of the Commune, and +the much-contested elections to it--for many aspired to the title of +member--had given a majority of flighty, heedless men.[135] In its +present state this Committee derived its whole importance from the +jealousy of the Council. The Committee of Artillery, monopolised by +brawlers, would have yielded at once to the slightest pressure. The +commissariat and the other services depended entirely upon the action of +the delegate at War. + +The phantom general, stretched on his sofa, hatched orders, circulars, +now melancholy, now commanding, and never stirred a finger to watch over +their execution. If some member of the Council came to rouse him, "What +are you doing? Such a place is in peril;" he answered loftily, "All my +precautions are taken; give my combinations time to be accomplished," +and turned over again. One day he bullied the Central Committee, which +left the Ministry to go and sulk in the Rue de l'Entrepot; a week later +he went after the same Committee, reinstating it at the War Office. Vain +to shamelessness,[136] he showed sham letters from Todleben proposing +plans of defense, and spent his time in posing to correspondents of +foreign journals. With an affectation of pride, he never put on a +uniform, which, however, at that time was the true dress of the +proletarian. It took the Council almost a month to recognise that this +pithless braggart was only a disappointed officer of the standing army, +his airs of an innovator notwithstanding. + +Many hopes turned to the chief of his staff, Rossel, a young Radical, +twenty-eight years old, self-restrained, puritanic, who was sowing his +revolutionary wild oats. A captain of engineers in the army of Metz, he +had attempted to resist Bazaine, and escaped from the Prussians. +Gambetta had appointed him colonel of engineers at the camp of Nevers, +where he was still lingering on the 18th March. He was dazzled; saw in +Paris the future of France, and his own; threw up his commission and +hurried thither, where some friends placed him in the 17th Legion. He +was haughty, soon became unpopular, and was arrested on the 3rd April. +Two members of the Council, Malon and Ch. Gerardin, had him set free +and presented him to Cluseret, by whom he was accepted as chief of the +general staff. Rossel, fancying that the Central Committee was a power, +made up to it, seemed to ask it for advice, and sought out the men he +thought popular. His coldness, his technical vocabulary, his clearness +of speech, his get up as a great man, enchanted the bureaux, but those +who studied him more closely noticed his unsteady look, the infallible +sign of a perturbed spirit. By degrees the young revolutionary officer +became the fashion, and his consular bearing did not displease the +public, sickened at the flabbiness of Cluseret. + +Nothing, however, justified this infatuation. Chief of the general staff +since the 5th April, he allowed all the Services to shift for +themselves; the only one in some measure organised, the _Control of +General Information_, was the work of Moreau, who every morning +furnished the War Office and the Commune with detailed, and often very +picturesque, reports on the military operations and the moral condition +of Paris. + +This was about all the police the Commune had. The Commission of Public +Safety, which should have thrown light upon the most secret recesses, +emitted only a fitful glimmering. + +The Central Committee had appointed Raoul Rigault, a young man of +twenty-four, much mixed up in the revolutionary movement, as civil +delegate to the prefecture of police, but under the severe direction of +Duval. Rigault well kept in hand might have made a very good subaltern, +and so long as Duval lived he did not go wrong. The unpardonable fault +of the Council was to place him at the head of a service where the +slightest mistake was more dangerous than at the advanced posts. His +friends, who, with the exception of a small number, Ferre, Regnard, and +two or three others, were as young and as giddy-headed as himself, +discharged in a boyish way the most delicate functions. The Commission +of Public Safety, which ought to have superintended Rigault, only +followed his example. There, above all, did they live as boon +companions, apparently unaware of having assumed the guardianship of, +and the responsibility for, 100,000 lives. + +No wonder the mice were soon seen playing round the prefecture of +police. Papers suppressed in the morning were cried out in the evening +in the streets; the conspirators wormed themselves into all the services +without exciting the suspicion of Rigault or his companions. They never +discovered anything; it was always necessary to do it for them. They +made arrests like military marches in the daytime, with large +reinforcements of National Guards. After the decree on the hostages, +they had only managed to lay hands on four or five ecclesiastics of +mark, the Gallican Archbishop Darboy, an arrant Bonapartist; his +grand-vicar, Lagarde; the curate of the Madeleine; Deguerry, a kind of +De Morny in cassock; the Abbe Allard, the Bishop of Surat; and a few +Jesuits of nerve. Chance only delivered into their hands the president +of the Court of Appeal, Bonjean,[137] and Jecker, the famous inventor of +the expedition to Mexico.[138] + +This culpable heedlessness, which the people have paid for with their +blood, was the salvation of criminals. Some National Guards had brought +to light the mysteries of the Picpus convent, discovered three +unfortunate women shut up in grated cages, strange instruments,[139] +corselets of iron, straps, racks, which smacked strangely of the +Inquisition, a treatise on abortion, and two skulls still covered with +hair. One of the prisoners, the only one whose reason had not given way, +said that she had been in this cage for ten years. The police contented +itself with sending the nuns to St. Lazare.[140] Some inhabitants of the +tenth arrondissement had discovered feminine skeletons in the caves of +the St. Laurent Church. The prefecture only made a show of inquiry that +ended in nothing. + +However, in the midst of all these faults, the humanitarian idea +revealed itself, so thoroughly sound was this popular revolution. The +chief of the Bureau of Public Safety, making an appeal to the public for +the victims of the war, said, "The Commune has sent bread to ninety-two +wives of those who are killing us. The widows belong to no party. The +Republic has bread for every misery and care for all the orphans." +Admirable words these, worthy of Chalier and of Chaumette. The +prefecture, overrun by denunciations, declared that it would take no +account of the anonymous ones. "The man," said the _Officiel_, "who does +not dare to sign a denunciation serves a personal rancour and not the +public interest." The hostages were allowed to obtain from without food, +linen, books, papers, to be visited by their friends, and to receive the +reporters of foreign journals. An offer was even made M. Thiers to +exchange the hostages of greatest mark, the Archbishop, Deguerry, +Bonjean, and Lagarde, for the single Blanqui. To conduct this +negotiation the Vicar-General was sent to Versailles, after having sworn +to the Archbishop and the delegate to return to his prison in case of +non-success. But M. Thiers thought that Blanqui would give a head to the +movement, while the Ultramontanes, eagerly covetous of the episcopal +seat of Paris, took good care not to save the Gallican Darboy, whose +death would be a double profit, leaving them a rich inheritance, and +giving them at small expense a martyr. M. Thiers refused, and Lagarde +remained at Versailles.[141] The Council did not punish the Archbishop +for this want of faith, and a few days after set his sister at liberty. +Never even in the days of despair was the privilege of women forgotten. +The culpable nuns of Picpus and the other religieuses conducted to St. +Lazare were confined in a special part of the building. + +The prefecture and the delegation of Justice also evinced their humanity +in ameliorating the service of the prisons. The Council in its turn, +striving to guarantee individual liberty, decreed that every arrest +should be immediately notified to the delegate of Justice, and that no +perquisition should be made without a regular warrant. National Guards, +misinformed, having arrested certain individuals reputed suspicious, the +Council declared in the _Officiel_ that every arbitrary act would be +followed by a dismissal and immediate prosecution. A battalion looking +for arms at the gas company's thought itself authorised to seize the +cash-box; the Council at once had the sum returned. The commissary of +police who arrested Gustave Chaudey, arraigned for having commanded fire +on the 22nd January, had also seized the money of the prisoner; the +Council dismissed the commissary. To prevent all abuse of power, it +ordered an inquiry into the state of the prisoners and the motives of +their detention, authorising at the same time all its members to visit +the prisoners. Rigault thereupon sent in his resignation, which was +accepted, for he was beginning to weary everybody, and Delescluze had +been obliged to rebuke him. His pranks filled the columns of the +Versaillese journals, always on the look-out for scandals. They accused +this childish police of terrorising Paris, and represented the members +of the Council, who refused to endorse the condemnations of the +court-martial, as assassins. The Figarist historians have kept up this +legend. That vile bourgeoisie, which bent its head under the 30,000 +arrests of December, the _lettres de cachet_ of the Empire, and +applauded the 50,000 arrests of May, still howls about the 800 or 900 +arrests made under the Commune. They never exceeded this figure in two +months of strife, and two-thirds of those arrested were only imprisoned +a few days, many only a few hours. But the provinces, only fed with news +by the Versaillese press, believed in its inventions, amplified in the +circulars of M. Thiers telegraphing to the prefects: "The insurgents +are emptying the principal houses of Paris in order to put the furniture +to sale." + +To enlighten the provinces and provoke their intervention, such was the +role of the delegation of the Exterior, which, under an ill-chosen +title, was only second in importance to that of War. Since the 4th +April--(I shall afterwards recount these movements)--the departments had +been stirring. Save that of Marseilles, in part disarmed, the National +Guard everywhere had guns. In the centre, east, west and south, powerful +diversions might easily have been made, the stations occupied, and +thereby the reinforcements and artillery destined for Versailles +arrested. + +The delegation contented itself with sending some few emissaries, +without knowledge of the localities they were sent to, without tact and +without authority. It was even exploited by traitors, who pocketed its +money and handed over its instructions to Versailles. Well-known +Republicans, familiar with the habits of the provinces, offered their +services in vain. There, as elsewhere, it was necessary to be a +favourite. Finally, for the work of enlightening and rousing France to +insurrection, only a sum of 100,000 francs was allowed. + +The delegation put forth only a small number of manifestoes, one a true +and eloquent resume of the Parisian revolution, and two addresses to the +peasants, one by Madame Andre Leo, simple, fervent, quite within the +reach of the peasantry: "Brother, you are being deceived. Our interests +are the same. What I ask for, you wish it too. The affranchisement which +I demand is yours.... What Paris after all wants is the land for the +peasant, the instrument for the workmen." This good seed was carried +away in free balloons, which, by a cleverly-contrived mechanism, from +time to time dropped the printed papers. How many were lost, fell among +thorns! + +This delegation, created only for the exterior, entirely forgot the rest +of the world. Throughout all Europe the working-classes eagerly awaited +news from Paris, were in their hearts fellow-combatants of the great +town, now become their capital, multiplied their meetings, processions, +and addresses. Their papers, poor for the most part, courageously +struggled against the calumnies of the bourgeois press. The duty of the +delegation was to hold out a hand to these priceless auxiliaries: it did +nothing. Some of these papers exhausted their last means in defense of +the Commune, which allowed its defenders to succumb for want of bread. + +The delegation, without experience, without resources, could not fight +against the astute cleverness of M. Thiers. It showed great zeal in +protecting foreigners, and sent the rich silver plate of the Ministry to +the Mint, but it did almost no real work. + +Now we come to the delegations of vital importance. Since, by the force +of events, the Commune had become the champion of the Revolution, it +ought to have proclaimed the aspirations of the century, and, if it was +to die, leave at least their testament on its tomb. It would have +sufficed to state lucidly the ensemble of institutions demanded for +forty years by the revolutionary party. + +The delegate of Justice, a lawyer, had only to make a summary of the +reforms long since demanded by all Socialists. It was the part of a +proletarian revolution to show the aristocracy of our judicial system +the despotic and antiquated doctrines of the Code Napoleon; the +sovereign people hardly ever judging themselves, but judged by a caste +issued from another authority than their own, the absurd hierarchy of +judges and tribunals, the _tabellionat_, the procureurs, 400,000 +notaries, solicitors, sheriffs' officers, registrars, bailiffs, +advocates and lawyers, draining national wealth to the amount of many +hundreds of millions. It was, above all, for a revolution made in the +name of the Commune to endow the Commune with a tribunal at which the +people, restored to their rights, should judge by jury all cases, civil +and commercial, misdemeanours as well as crimes; a final tribunal, +without any appeal but for informalities, to state how solicitors, +registrars, sheriffs, may be rendered useless, and the notaries replaced +by simple registration officers. The delegate mostly limited himself to +appointing notaries, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs, provided with a +fixed salary,--very useless appointments in a time of war, and which, +besides, had the fault of consecrating the principle of the necessity +for such officers. Scarcely anything progressive came of it. It was +decreed that, in case of arrests, the minutes were to state the motives +and the names of the witnesses to be called, while the papers, valuables +and effects of the prisoners were to be deposited at the Suitors' Fund. +Another decree ordered the directors of lunatic asylums to send the +nominal and explanatory statement concerning their patients within four +days. If the Council had thrown some light on these institutions, which +veil so many crimes, humanity would have been its debtor. However, these +decrees were never executed. + +Did practical instinct make up for want of science on the part of the +delegation? Did it shed light upon the mysteries of the caves of Picpus, +the skeletons of St. Laurent? It seemed to take no notice of them, and +the reaction made merry at these supposed discoveries. The delegation +even missed the opportunity of winning over to the Commune, if only for +one day, all Republicans of France. Jecker was in their power. Rich, +brave, audacious, he had always lived certain of impunity, since +bourgeois legality inflicts no chastisement for crimes like the Mexican +expedition. The Revolution alone could smite him. Nothing was more easy +than to proceed against him. Jecker, pretending to have been the dupe of +the Empire, craved to make revelations. In a public court, before twelve +jurors chosen at hazard, in the face of the world, through him the +Mexican expedition might have been sifted, the intrigues of the clergy +unveiled, the pockets of the thieves turned out; it might have been +shown how the Empress, Miramon, and Morny had set the plot on foot, in +what cause and for what men France had lost seas of blood and hundreds +of millions. Afterwards the expiation might have been accomplished in +the open day, on the Place de la Concorde, in face of the Tuileries. +Poets, who rarely get shot, would perhaps have sighed, but the people, +the eternal victim, would have applauded, and said, "The Revolution +alone does justice." They neglected even to question Jecker. + +The delegation at the Education department was bound to write one of the +finest pages of the Commune, for, after go many years of study and +experiments this question should spring forth ready armed from a truly +revolutionary brain. The delegation has not left a memoir, a sketch, an +address, a line, to bear witness for it in the future. Yet the delegate +was a doctor, a student of the German universities. He contented himself +with suppressing the crucifixes in the schoolrooms and making an appeal +to all those who had studied the question of teaching. A commission was +charged to organise primary and professional instruction, whose work +consisted in announcing the opening of a school on the 6th May. Another +commission for the education of women was named on the day the +Versaillese entered Paris. + +The administrative action of the delegate was confined to impracticable +decrees and a few appointments. Two devoted and talented men, Elie +Reclus and B. Gastineau, were charged with the reorganisation of the +National Library. They forbade the lending of books, thus putting an end +to the scandalous practice by which a privileged few carved out a +private library from public collections. The federation of artists, +presided over by Courbet, elected member of the Council on the 16th +April, occupied itself with the re-opening and superintendence of the +museums. + +Nothing would be known of the ideas of this revolution on education were +it not for a few circulars of the municipalities. Many had reopened the +schools abandoned by the Congregationists and the municipal teachers, or +driven away the priests who had remained. The municipality of the +twentieth arrondissement clothed and fed the children; that of the +fourth said, "To teach children to love and respect their +fellow-creatures, to inspire them with a love of justice, to teach them +that they must instruct themselves in the interests of all, such are the +principles of morality on which for the future communal education will +be based." "The teachers of the schools and infant asylums," declared +the municipality of the seventeenth arrondissement, "will for the future +exclusively employ the experimental and scientific method, that which +always starts from facts, physical, moral, intellectual." But these +vague formulas could not make amends for the want of a complete +programme. + +Who, then, will speak for the people? The delegation of Labour and +Exchange. Exclusively composed of revolutionary Socialists, its purpose +was, "The study of all the reforms to be introduced into the public +services of the Commune or into the relations of the working men and +women with their employers; the revision of the commercial code and +customhouse duties; the transformation of all direct and indirect taxes, +the establishment of statistics of labour." It intended collecting from +the citizens themselves the materials for the decrees to be submitted to +the Commune. + +The delegate to this department, Leo Frankel, procured the assistance of +a commission of initiative composed of workingmen. Registers for offers +and demands of work were opened in all the arrondissements. At the +request of many journeymen bakers night-work was suppressed, a measure +of hygiene as much as of morality. The delegation prepared a project for +the suppression of pawnshops, a decree concerning stoppages of wages, +and supported the decree relative to workshops abandoned by their +runaway masters. + +Their plan gratuitously returned the pledged objects to the victims of +war and to the necessitous. Those who might refuse to confess this +latter title were to receive their pledges in exchange for a promise of +repayment in five years. The report terminated with these words: "It is +well understood that the suppression of the pawnshops is to be succeeded +by a social organisation giving serious guarantees of support to the +workmen thrown out of employment. The establishment of the Commune +necessitates institutions protecting the workmen from the exploitation +of capital." + +The decree that abolished stoppages of salaries and wages put an end to +one of the most crying iniquities of the capitalist regime, these fines +often being inflicted on the most futile pretext by the employer +himself, who is thus at once judge and plaintiff. + +The decree relative to the deserted workshops made restitution to the +mass, dispossessed since centuries, of the property of their own labour. +A commission of inquiry named by the Syndical Chambers was to draw up +the statistics and the inventory of the deserted workshops to be given +back into the hands of the workmen. Thus "the expropriators were in +their turn expropriated." The nineteenth century will not pass away +without having begun this revolution; every progress in machinery brings +it nearer. The more the exploitation of labour concentrates itself in a +few hands, the more the working multitude are massed together and +disciplined. Soon, conscious and united, the producing class will, like +the young France of 1789, have to confront but a handful of privileged +appropriators. The most inveterate revolutionary Socialist is the +monopolist. + +No doubt this decree contained voids and stood in need of an elaborate +explanation, especially on the subject of the co-operative societies to +which the workshops were to be handed over. It was no more than the +other applicable in this hour of strife, and required a number of +supplementary decrees; but it at least gave some idea of the claims of +the working-class, and had it nothing else on its credit side, by the +mere creation of the Commission of Labour and Exchange, the revolution +of the 18th March would have done more for the workmen than all the +bourgeois Assemblies of France since the 5th May, 1789. + +The delegation of Labour wanted to look carefully into the contracts of +the commissariat. It demonstrated that in the case of contracts +adjudicated to the lowest bidder, the running down of prices falls upon +wages and not on the profit of the contractor. "And the Commune is +blind enough to lend itself to such manoeuvres," said the report, "and +at this very moment, when the workingman dares death rather than submit +any longer to this exploitation." The delegate demanded that the +estimate of charges should specify the cost of labour, that the orders +should by preference be given to the workmen's corporations, and the +contracting prices fixed by arbitration between the commissariat, the +Syndical Chamber of the corporation, and the delegate of Labour. + +To overlook the financial administration of all the delegations, the +Council in the month of May instituted a superior commission charged to +audit their accounts. It decreed that functionaries or contractors +guilty of peculation or theft should be punished with death. + +In short, save the delegation of Labour, where they did work, the +fundamental delegations were unequal to their task. All committed the +same fault. During two months they had in their hands the archives of +the bourgeoisie since 1789. There was the Cour des Comptes (a judicial +board of accounts) to disclose the mysteries of official jobbery; the +Council of State, the dark deliberations of despotism; the Prefecture of +Police, the scandalous under-currents of social power; the Ministry of +Justice, the servility and crimes of the most oppressive of all classes. +In the Hotel-de-Ville there lay deposited the still unexplored records +of the first Revolution, of those of 1815, 1830, 1848, and all +diplomatists of Europe dreaded the opening of the portfolios at the +Foreign Office. They might have laid bare before the eyes of the people +the intimate history of the Revolution, the Directory, the first Empire, +the monarchy of July, 1848, and of Napoleon III. They published only two +or three fascicles.[142] The delegates slept by the side of these +treasures, heedless, as it seemed, of their value. + +The Radicals, seeing these lawyers, these doctors, these publicists, who +allowed Jecker to remain mute and the Cour des Comptes closed, would +not believe in such ignorance, and still affect to unriddle the enigma +with the word "Bonapartism." A stupid accusation, given the lie by a +thousand proofs. For the honour even of the delegates the bitter truth +must be told. Their ignorance was not simulated, but only too real. To a +great extent it was the offspring of past oppression. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[131] Appendix VI. + +[132] Appendix VII., report by Theisz. + +[133] Appendix VIII. + +[134] There were five parks--the Hotel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, the +Ecole Militaire, Montmartre, Vincennes. In all, including the artillery +of the forts and that of the open country, the Commune had more than +1100 cannon, howitzers, mortars, and mitrailleuses. + +[135] The second Central Committee was composed of forty members, of +whom twelve only had formed part of the first Committee. + +[136] "Do you know," said he to Delescluze, "that Versailles has offered +me a million?" "Be silent!" answered Delescluze, turning his back upon +him. + +[137] He was arrested on the 20th March in his private room in the +Palace of Justice, where he had given the procureur-general a +rendezvous. + +[138] He was recognised as he asked for his passport at the prefecture +of police. + +[139] The correspondent of the _Times_ wrote in the number of 9th May: +"The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopaedic +instruments--a superficial falsehood. The mattress and straps struck me +as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French +midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its +adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of +brutal force which no disease at present known would justify." + +[140] The nun who filled the post of superior, a big and bold virago, +answered Rigault in an easy-going manner. "Why have you shut up these +women?" "To do their families a service; they were mad. See gentlemen, +you are young men of good families; you'll understand that sometimes one +is glad to conceal the madness of one's relations." "But do you not know +the law?" "No, we obey our superiors." "Whose books are these?" "We know +nothing about them." Thus affecting simpleness, they sold the +simpletons. + +[141] This negotiation has in part been recounted in the _Officiel_ of +the Commune. We add further details. Soon after his arrest the +Archbishop wrote to M. Thiers begging him to stop the execution of the +prisoners, on which the lives of the hostages depended. M. Thiers did +not answer. An old friend of Blanqui's, Flotte, went to the President to +propose an exchange, and said that the Archbishop might incur peril. M. +Thiers made a decided gesture: "What does it matter to me?" Flotte again +took up the negotiation through Darboy, who named Deguerry as envoy to +Versailles. The prefecture, unwilling to give up such a hostage, the +Vicar-General Lagarde took Deguerry's place. The Archbishop furnished +him with instructions, and on the 12th April Flotte conducted Lagarde to +the station and made him swear to return if he failed in his mission. +Lagarde swore, "Even if to be shot, I shall return. Can you believe that +I could for a single moment harbour the thought of leaving Monseigneur +alone here?" At the moment when the train was about to start, Flotte +insisted again, "Do not go if you have not the intention of returning." +The priest again renewed his oath. He went off, and handed over a letter +in which the Archbishop solicited the exchange. M. Thiers, pretending to +know nothing of this one, answered the first, which a Communalist +journal had just published. His answer is one of his masterpieces of +hypocrisy and falsehood: "The facts to which you call my attention are +absolutely false, and I am really surprised that so enlightened a +prelate as you, Monseigneur.... Our soldiers have never shot prisoners +nor sought to kill the wounded. That, in the heat of the combat, they +may have turned their arms against men who assassinate their generals, +is possible; but, the combat terminated, they resume the natural +generosity of the national character. I therefore spurn, Monseigneur, +the calumny that has been told you. I affirm that our soldiers have +never shot prisoners." On the 17th Flotte received a letter in which +Lagarde informed him that his presence was still indispensable at +Versailles. Flotte complained to the Archbishop, who could not believe +in this desertion. "It is impossible," said he, "that M. Lagarde should +remain at Versailles; he will come back; he has sworn it to me myself," +and he gave Flotte a note for Lagarde. The latter answered that M. +Thiers retained him. On the 23rd Darboy wrote to him again: "On the +reception of this letter, M. Lagarde is immediately to retrace his steps +to Paris and to re-enter Mazas. This delay compromises us gravely, and +may have the saddest results." Lagarde did not answer any more. + +Blanqui, transported to the Fort du Taureau, was rigorously kept in +solitary confinement. His friends thought of delivering him, and a sum +of 50,000 francs was prepared for his release. But much more would have +been necessary, and, above all, adroit agents, for the least imprudence +would have cost the life of the prisoner. The affair was procrastinated, +and part of the funds were still in the coffers of the Committee of +Public Safety at the entry of the Versaillese. + +[142] Georges Duchene began examining the commercial transactions of the +Government of National Defence, but he published nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE--THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE + FORT OF ISSY--CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY. + + +M. Thiers was fully acquainted with the failings of the Commune, but he +also knew the weakness of his army. Besides, he piqued himself upon +playing the soldier before the Prussians. In order to appease his +colleagues, eager for the assault on Paris, he received haughtily the +conciliators, who multiplied their advances and their lame combinations. + +Everybody intermeddled, from the good and visionary Considerant down to +the cynic Girardin, down to Saisset's ex-aide-de-camp Schoelcher, who +had replaced his plan of battle of the 24th March by a plan of +conciliation. These encounters became the common topics of raillery. +Since its pompous declaration, "All Paris will rise," the _Ligue des +Droits de Paris_ had been altogether sunk out of sight. It was perfectly +understood that these Radicals were in search of some decent contrivance +to back out of the peril. At the end of April their sham movements +served only as a foil to set off the courageous conduct of the +Freemasons. + +On the 21st April the Freemasons, having gone to Versailles to ask for +the armistice, complained of the municipal law recently voted by the +Assembly. "What!" M. Thiers replied, "but this is the most liberal one +we have had in France for eighty years." "We beg your pardon, and how +about the communal institutions of 1791?" "Ah! you want to return to the +follies of our fathers?" "But, after all, are you then resolved to +sacrifice Paris?" "There will be some houses riddled, some persons +killed, but the law will be enforced." The Freemasons had this hideous +answer placarded in Paris. + +On the 26th they met at the Chatelet, and several proposed that they +should go and plant their banners on the ramparts. A thousand cheers +answered. M. Floquet, who, with an eye to the future, had sent in his +resignation as deputy, together with MM. Lockroy and Clemenceau, +protested against this co-operation of the small middle-class with the +people. His shrill voice was drowned in the enthusiastic cries in the +hall.[143] On the motion of Ranvier, the Freemasons went up to the +Hotel-de-Ville, preceded by their banner, where they were met by the +Council in the Court of Honour. "If at the outset," said their +spokesman, Thirifocq, "the Freemasons did not wish to act, it was +because they wanted to have certain proof that Versailles would not hear +of conciliation. They are ready to-day to plant their banner on the +rampart. If one single ball touches it, the Freemasons will march with +the same ardour as yourselves against the common enemy." This +declaration was loudly applauded. Jules Valles, in the name of the +Commune, tendered his red scarf, which was twisted round the banner, and +a delegation of the Council accompanied the brethren to the Masonic +temple in the Rue Cadet. + +They came three days after to redeem their word. The announcement of +this intervention had given great hope to Paris. From early in the +morning an immense crowd encumbered the approaches to the Carrousel, the +rendezvous of all the lodges; and, despite a few reactionary Freemasons, +who had protested in a placard, at ten o'clock 10,000 brethren, +representing fifty-five lodges, had gathered in the Carrousel. Six +members of the Council led them to the Hotel-de-Ville in the midst of +the crowd and a lane of battalions. A band, playing music of solemn and +ritual character, preceded the procession; then came superior officers, +the grand-masters, the members of the Council, and the brethren, with +their wide blue, green, white, red or black ribbon, according to their +grade, grouped around sixty-five banners that had never before been +displayed in public. The one carried at the head of the procession was +the white banner of Vincennes, bearing in red letters the fraternal and +revolutionary inscription, "_Love one another_." A lodge of women was +especially cheered. + +The banners and a numerous delegation were introduced into the +Hotel-de-Ville, the members of the Council waiting to receive them on +the balcony of the staircase of honour. The banners were fixed along the +steps. These standards of peace by the side of the red flag, this small +middle-class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of +the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled, brightened up even the +most downcast. Felix Pyat indulged in a rhapsody of words and rhetorical +antitheses. Old Beslay was much more eloquent in a few words broken by +true tears. A brother solicited the honour of being the first to plant +on the rampart the banner of his lodge, _La Perseverance_, founded in +1790, in the era of the great federations. A member of the Council +presented the red flag: "Let it accompany your banners; let no hand +henceforth turn us against each other." And the orator of the +delegation, Thirifocq, pointing to the banner of Vincennes: "This will +be the first to be presented before the ranks of the enemy. We will say +to them, 'Soldiers of the mother country, fraternise with us, come and +embrace us.' If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war." + +When the delegates left the Hotel-de-Ville, a free balloon, marked with +the three symbolical points, made an ascent, here and there dropping the +manifesto of the Freemasons. The immense procession having shown the +Bastille and the boulevards its mysterious banners, frantically +applauded, arrived about two o'clock at the cross-roads of the +Champs-Elysees. The shells of Mont-Valerien obliged them to take the +bye-streets on their way to the Arc-de-Triomphe. There a delegation of +all the venerables went to plant the banners at the most dangerous +posts, from the Porte-Maillot to the Porte-Bineau. When the white flag +was hoisted on the outpost of the Porte-Maillot the Versaillese ceased +firing. + +The delegates of the Freemasons and some members of the Council, +appointed by their colleagues to accompany them, advanced, headed by +their banner, into the Avenue of Neuilly. At the bridge of Courbevoie, +before the Versaillese barricade, they found an officer who conducted +them to General Montaudon, himself a Freemason. The Parisians explained +the object of their manifestation, and asked for a truce. The general +proposed that they should send a deputation to Versailles. Three +delegates were chosen, and their companions returned to the town. In the +evening silence reigned from St. Ouen to Neuilly, Dombrowski having +taken upon himself to continue the truce. For the first time for +twenty-five days the sleep of Paris was not disturbed by the report of +cannon. + +The next day the delegates returned. M. Thiers had hardly deigned to +receive them, had shown himself impatient, irritated, decided to grant +nothing and to admit no more deputations. The Freemasons then resolved +to march to battle with their insignia. + +In the afternoon the _Alliance Republicaine des Departements_ made an +act of adhesion to the Commune. Milliere, who had quite joined the +movement without being able to gain the confidence of the +Hotel-de-Ville, exerted himself to group the provincials residing at +Paris. Who does not know what the provinces contributed in blood and +sinew to the great town? Out of 35,000 prisoners of French origin +figuring in the official reports of Versailles, there were, according to +their own statement, only 9,000 born Parisians. Each departmental group +was to strain itself to enlighten its native place, to send circulars, +proclamations, delegates. On the 30th all the groups met in the Court of +the Louvre to vote an address to the departments, and all, about 15,000 +men, headed by Milliere, went to the Hotel-de-Ville "to renew their +adhesion to the patriotic work of the Commune of Paris." + +The procession was still passing when a sinister rumour spread: the fort +of Issy had been evacuated. + +Under cover of their batteries, the Versaillese, pushing forward, had on +the night of the 26th to the 27th surprised the Moulineaux, by which the +park of Issy may be reached. On the following day sixty pieces of +powerful calibre concentrated their shells on the fort, while others +occupied Vanves, Montrouge, the gunboats and the enceinte. Issy answered +valiantly, but our trenches, to which Wetzel ought to have attended, +were in bad condition. On the 29th the bombardment redoubled and the +projectiles ploughed the park. At eleven o'clock in the evening the +Versaillese ceased firing, and in the nocturnal stillness surprised the +Federals and occupied the trenches. On the 30th, at five o'clock in the +morning, the fort, which had received no warning of this incident, found +itself surrounded by a semi-circle of Versaillese. The commander, Megy, +was disconcerted, sent for reinforcements, but received none. The +garrison grew alarmed, and these Federals, who had cheerfully withstood +a hailstorm of shells, took fright at a few skirmishers. Megy held a +council, and the evacuation was decided upon. The cannon were +precipitately spiked--so badly that they were unnailed the same +evening--and the bulk of the garrison left. Some men with different +notions of duty made it a point of honour to stay at their post. In the +course of the day a Versaillese officer summoned them to surrender +within a quarter of an hour on pain of being shot. They did not even +answer. + +At three o'clock Cluseret and La Cecilia arrived at Issy with a few +companies picked up in haste. They deployed as skirmishers, drove the +Versaillese from the park, and at six o'clock the Federals reoccupied +the fort. At the entrance they found a child, Dufour, near a wheelbarrow +filled with cartridges and cartouches, ready to blow himself up, and, as +he believed, the vault with him. In the evening Vermorel and Trinquet +brought other reinforcements, and we reoccupied all our positions. + +At the first rumour of the evacuation, National Guards had hurried to +the Hotel-de-Ville interpellating the Executive Commission. It denied +having given any order to evacuate the fort, and promised to punish the +traitors if there were any. In the evening it arrested Cluseret on his +arrival from the fort of Issy. Strange rumours circulated about him, and +he quitted the Ministry without leaving the slightest trace of any +useful work whatever. As to the defence of the interior, all he had done +was to bury cannon at the Trocadero, which, he said, were to breach +Mont-Valerien. At a later period, after the fall of the Commune, he +endeavoured to throw his whole incapacity upon his colleagues, treating +them in English reviews as vain and ignorant fools, imputing villanies +to a man like Delescluze, stating that his arrest had ruined everything, +and modestly calling himself the "incarnation of the people."[144] + +This panic of Issy was the origin of the Committee of Public Safety. +Already on the 28th April, at the end of the sitting, Miot, one of the +best-bearded men of 1848, had risen to demand "without phrases" the +creation of a Committee of Public Safety, having authority over all the +Commissions. Being pressed to give his reasons, he majestically replied +that he believed the Committee necessary. There was only one opinion as +to the necessity of strengthening the central control and action, for +the second Executive Commission had shown itself as impotent as the +first, each delegate going his own way and decreeing on his own account. +But what signified this word Committee of Public Safety, this parody of +the past and scarecrow of boobies? It jarred with this proletarian +revolution, this Hotel-de-Ville, whence the original Committee of Public +Safety had torn away Chaumette, Jacques Roux and the best friends of the +people. But the Romanticists of the Council had only a smattering of the +history of the Revolution, and this high-sounding title delighted them. +They would have there and then voted it but for the energy of some +colleagues, who insisted on a discussion. "Yes," said these latter, "we +want a vigorous Commission, but give us no revolutionary pasticcio. Let +the Commune be re-formed; let it cease to be a small talkative +parliament, quashing one day, just as it suits its caprices, what it +created the day before." And they proposed an Executive Committee. The +votes were equally divided. + +The affair of Issy turned the scale. On the 1st May 34 _Ayes_ against 28 +_Noes_ carried the title of Committee of Public Safety. On the whole of +the project 48 voted for and 23 against. Several had voted for the +Committee notwithstanding its title, with the only object of creating a +strong power. Many explained their votes. Some alleged they were obeying +the _mandat imperatif_ of their electors. Some wanted "to make the +cowards and traitors tremble;" others simply declared, like Miot, that +"it was an indispensable measure." Felix Pyat, who had egged on Miot, +and violently supported the proposition in order to win back the esteem +of the ultras, gave this cogent reason: "Yes: considering that the words +_Salut Public_ are absolutely of the same epoch as the words French +Republic and Commune of Paris." But Tridon: "No: because I dislike +useless and ridiculous cast-off old clothes." Vermorel: "No: they are +only words, and the people have too long taken up with words." Longuet: +"Not believing any more in words of salvation than in talismans and +amulets, I vote No." Seventeen collectively declared against the +institution of a Committee, which, they said, would create a +dictatorship, and others pleaded the same motive, which was puerile +enough. The Council remained so sovereign that eight days after it +overturned the Committee. + +Having protested by this vote, the opponents ought afterwards to have +made the best of the situation. Tridon had certainly said, "I see no men +to put in such a Committee;" all the more reason not to leave the place +to the Romanticists. Instead of coming to an understanding with those of +their colleagues who were desirous to concentrate the power and not +galvanise a corpse, the opponents folded their arms. "We can," they +said, "appoint no one to an institution considered by us as useless and +fatal.... We consider abstention as the only dignified, logical, and +politic attitude." + +The ballot, thus stigmatised beforehand, gave a power without authority; +there were only 37 votes. Ranvier, A. Arnaud, Leo Meillet, Ch. Gerardin, +Felix Pyat were named. The alarmists might comfort themselves. The only +one of real energy, the upright and warm-hearted Ranvier, was at the +mercy of his blind kindliness. + +The friends of the Commune, the brave soldiers of the trenches and of +the forts, then learnt that there was a minority at the Hotel-de-Ville. +It put in its appearance at the very moment when Versailles unmasked its +batteries. This minority, which, with the exception of some ten members, +comprised the most enlightened and the most laborious members of the +Council, was never able to accommodate itself to the situation. These +men could never understand that the Commune was a barricade, not a +government. This was the general error, the superstitious belief in +their governmental longevity; hence, for instance, they delayed for +seven months the date for the total return of the pledges at the +pawnshops. There were perhaps as many dreamers in the minority as in the +majority. Some put forward their principles like the head of a Medusa, +and would have made no concessions even for the sake of victory. They +strained the reaction against the principle of authority to the verge of +suicide. "We," they said, "were for liberty under the Empire; in power +we will not deny it." Even in exile they have fancied that the Commune +perished through its authoritative tendencies. With a little diplomacy, +by yielding to circumstances and the weaknesses of their colleagues, +they might have detached from the majority all men of real value.[145] +Tridon had come to them uninvited, but his was a superior mind; they +ought to have made advances to the others, opposing to the mere +braggarts precise ideas, and by true energy reduced the turbulent. They +remained unrelenting, dogged, and contented themselves with forcible +protests. + +Thenceforth divergences degenerated into hostilities. The council-room +was small, badly ventilated; the soon overheated atmosphere ruffled the +temper. The discussions grew bitter, and Felix Pyat turned them into +attacks. Delescluze never spoke but for union, concord. The other would +have preferred the Commune dead rather than saved by one of those he +bore a grudge to, and he hated whoever smiled at his craziness. He did +not mind discrediting the Council, aspersing its most devoted members, +so that he resented a trespass on his vanity. He could lie with perfect +effrontery, carve out some infamous calumny, slaver a colleague, then +suddenly, in emotional attitude, open his arms, exclaiming, "Let us +embrace." He now accused Vermorel of having sold his journal to the +Empire after having offered it to the Orleanists. He glided about in the +lobbies, the Commissions, a Barrere of the boards, now insinuating, now +foaming, now patriarchal. "The Commune! why it is my child! I have +watched over it for twenty years. I have nursed, I have rocked it." To +hear him, the 18th March was owing to him. He thus enlisted the naive, +the light-headed sent to the Council by the public meetings, and, +despite his blank incapacity, shown by the man while a member of the +first executive, despite his attempts at fight, he picked up twenty-four +voices at the election of the Committee of Public Safety. The aspic +profited by it to hiss forth discord. + +Disunion within the Council was fatal, the mother of defeat. It +ceased--let the people know this as well as their faults--when they +thought of the people, when they rose above these miserable personal +quarrels. They followed the funeral of Pierre Leroux, who had defended +the insurgents of June, 1848; ordered the demolition of the Brea church, +built in memory of a justly punished traitor; of the expiatory monument, +an affront to the Revolution; were not forgetful of the political +prisoners still at the Bagnio, and ennobled the Place d'Italie with the +name of Duval. All Socialist decrees passed unanimously; for though +they differed they were all Socialists. There was but one voice in the +Council to expel two of its members guilty of some former offence,[146] +and no one even in the thick of the peril dared to utter the word +capitulation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[143] Before the Commission of Inquiry at the Assembly he has assumed +the attitude of a Daniel in the lions' den. The meeting, however, +contented with hissing him, for Paris let these impotent drones buzz as +much as they liked without taking any notice of them. + +[144] Appendix IX. + +[145] The minority formed a nucleus of twenty-two members: Andrieu, +Arnold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Clemence, V. Clement, Courbet, +Frankel, E. Gerardin, Jourde, Lefrancais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, +Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Valles, Varlin, Vermorel. + +[146] Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Clement, who under +the Empire had offered his services to the police. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET--THE RIVALRIES--THE DEFENCE OF THE + FORT OF ISSY. + + +The last act of the second Executive Commission was to name Rossel +delegate at War. On the same evening (the 30th April) it sent for him. +He came at once, recited the history of famous sieges, and promised to +make Paris impregnable. No one asked him for a written plan, and there +and then, as on the stage, his nomination was signed. He forthwith wrote +to the Council, "I accept these difficult functions, but I want your +entire support in order not to succumb under the weight of these +circumstances." + +Rossel knew these circumstances through and through. For twenty-five +days chief of the general staff, he was the best-informed man in Paris +as to all her military resources. He was familiar with the members of +the Council, of the Central Committee, the officers, the effective +forces, the character of the troops he undertook to lead. + +At the outset he struck a wrong chord in his answer to the Versaillese +officer who had summoned the fort of Issy to surrender. "My dear +comrade, the first time you permit yourself to send us such an insolent +summons, I shall have your flag of truce shot. Your devoted comrade." +The cynical levity smacked of the condottiere. Certainly he who +threatened to shoot an innocent soldier, and bestowed his _dear_, his +_devoted comrade_ upon a collaborator of Gallifet, was foreign to the +great heart of Paris and her civil war. + +No man understood Paris, the National Guard, less than Rossel. He +imagined that the _Pere Duchesne_ was the real mouthpiece of the +workmen. Hardly raised to the Ministry, he spoke of putting the +National Guard into barracks, of cannonading the runaways; he wanted to +dismember the legions and form them into regiments, with colonels named +by himself. The Central Committee, to which the _chefs-de-legion_ +belonged, protested, and the battalions complained to the Council, which +sent for Rossel. He set forth his project in a professional way in +sober, precise words, so different from the Pyatical declamations, that +the Council believed it beheld a man and was charmed. Still his project +was the breaking-up of the National Guard, and the Council no more than +the Executive Commission got a general plan of defence from him. He +certainly demanded that the municipalities should be charged with +concentration of arms, the horses, and prosecution of the refractory, +but he made no condition _sine qua non_. + +He sent in no report on the military situation. He gave orders for the +construction of a second enceinte of barricades, and of three citadels +at Montmartre, the Trocadero, and the Pantheon, but never personally +concerned himself about their execution. He extended the command of +General Wroblewski over all troops and forts on the left bank, but three +days after restricted it again to bestow it upon La Cecilia, who had +none of the qualities necessary in a superior commander. He never gave +the generals any instructions for attack or defence. Despite certain +fits and starts, he had in reality so little energy that he named Eudes +commander of the second active reserve at the very moment when, against +formal orders, this latter left the fort of Issy, which he had commanded +since the reoccupation. + +The Versaillese had recommenced firing with perfect fury. The shells, +the bombs, battered the casemates, the grapeshot paved the trenches with +iron. In the night of the 1st-2nd, the Versaillese, always proceeding by +nocturnal surprises, attacked the station of Clamart, which was taken +almost without a struggle, and the castle of Issy, which they had to +conquer foot by foot. On the morning of the 2nd the fort again found +itself in the same situation as three days before. A part of the village +of Issy was even in the hands of the soldiers. During the day the +francs-tireurs of Paris dislodged them at the point of the bayonet. +Eudes, who in vain demanded reinforcements, went to the War Office to +declare that he would not remain if Wetzel were not discharged. Wetzel +was replaced by La Cecilia, but Eudes did not return to the fort, and +left the command to the chief of his staff. + +Thus since the 3rd it was evident that everything would go on as under +Cluseret, and the Central Committee grew bolder. It had been thrown more +and more into the shade, for the Commission of War kept it at a +distance. Its sittings, more and more confused and void, were little +attended--by about ten members, sometimes even by less. The enterprise +of Rossel against the legions gave it back a little authority and +daring. On the 3rd, in accord with the _chefs-de-legion_, they resolved +to ask the Council for the direction and administration of the War +Office. Rossel got wind of the affair, and had one of its members +arrested; the others in great numbers, the _chefs-de-legion_ with their +sabres at their sides, went up to the Hotel-de-Ville, where they were +received by Felix Pyat, deeply moved by the odd conceit that they came +to lay hands on him. "Nothing is getting along at the War Office," said +they. "All the services are in disorder. The Central Committee offers +itself to direct them. The delegate will conduct the operations, the +Committee will see to the administration." Felix Pyat approved of the +idea and submitted it to the Council. The minority took umbrage at the +pretensions of the Committee, and even spoke of having them arrested. +The majority left the matter to the Committee of Public Safety, which +issued a decree admitting the co-operation of the Central Committee. +Rossel accepted the situation and announced it to the chiefs of corps. +The Commission of War continued, in spite of all this, to squabble with +the Committee. + +Our men paid dearly for these small cabinet revolutions. Tired out, +badly commanded, they were negligent of their watches, and thus exposed +to every surprise. The most terrible one took place in the night of the +3rd-4th May at the redoubt of the Moulin Saquet, held by 500 men at +this moment. They were sleeping in their tents, when the Versaillese, +having seized the sentinels, entered the redoubt and butchered about +fifty Federals. The soldiers pierced the tents with their bayonets, +slashing the corpses, and then made off with five pieces and 200 +prisoners. The captain of the 55th was accused of having betrayed the +watchword. The truth is not known, as--incredible fact!--the Council +never inquired into the affair. + +M. Thiers announced this "elegant _coup-de-main_"[147] in a bantering +despatch to the effect that they had killed two hundred men; that "such +was the victory the Commune might announce in its bulletins." The +prisoners, taken to Versailles, were received by the elegant rabble who +killed time in the cafes of St. Germain, now become the headquarters of +high-life prostitution, or who went to the heights to see the shells +battering the walls and the Parisians. But what were these insipid +amusements by the side of a convoy of prisoners, whom they could beat, +spit upon, and revile, a thousand times renewing the agonies of Matho? + +The simply bestial ferocity of the soldiers was much less horrible. +These poor wretches firmly believed that the Federals were thieves or +Prussians, and that they tortured their prisoners. There were some who, +taken to Paris, for a long time refused all nourishment in dread of +poison. The officers propagated these horrible stories; some even +believed them.[148] The greater part, arriving from Germany in a state +of extreme irritation against Paris,[149] said publicly, "We shall give +these scoundrels no quarter," and they set the example of summary +executions. On the 25th April, at the Belle-Epine, near Ville-Juif, four +National Guards, surprised by mounted chasseurs, called upon to +surrender, laid down their arms. The soldiers were leading them when an +officer appeared, and, without further ado, discharged his revolver at +them. Two were killed; the two others, left for dead, were able to drag +themselves as far as the neighbouring trenches, where one of them +expired.[150] The fourth was transported to the ambulance. Paris, +erstwhile besieged by the Prussians, was now tracked by tigers. + +These sinister forebodings of the lot reserved to the vanquished made +the Council indignant, but did not enlighten it. The disorder grew +greater with the danger. Rossel set nothing going. Pyat, whom he had +often silenced with a word, abhorred him, and never ceased undermining +his authority. "You see this man," said he to the Romanticists, "well, +he is a traitor--a Caesarian! After the Trochu plan, the Rossel plan." On +the 8th May he had the direction of the military operations transferred +to Dombrowski, leaving only nominal functions to Rossel, who, apprised +of this that same evening, hurried to the Committee of Public Safety and +forced it to revoke the decree.[151] On the 4th Felix Pyat sent orders +to General Wroblewski without informing Rossel. The next day Rossel +complained to the Council of the Committee of Public Safety of this +mischievous interference, which embroiled everything. "Under these +circumstances I cannot be responsible," said he, and demanded the +publicity of the sittings, as he had always been received in private +audience. Instead of forcing him to communicate his plan, they amused +themselves with making him pass a sort of Freemason examination. The +antediluvian Miot asked him what were his democratic antecedents. Rossel +extricated himself very cleverly. "I will not tell you that I have +studied the question of social reforms profoundly, but I abominate this +society which has just betrayed France in so dastardly a way. I do not +know what will be the new order of Socialism. I like it on trust, and it +will anyhow be better than the old one." Everybody put him the questions +he chose personally, and not through the medium of the president. He +answered them all with sangfroid and precision, disarming all their +scruples, and carried away cheers, but nothing more. + +Had he possessed the strong head he was credited with, he would long +since have fathomed the situation, understood that for this struggle +without precedent new tactics were wanted, found a field of battle for +these improvised soldiers, organised the internal defence, and awaited +Versailles from the heights of Montmartre, the Trocadero, and +Mont-Valerien. But he dreamt of battles, was at bottom but a bookish +soldier, original only in speech and style. While always complaining of +want of discipline and of men, he allowed the best blood of Paris to be +shed in the sterile struggles without the town, in heroic challenges at +Neuilly, Vanves, and Issy. + +At Issy above all. It was no longer a fort, hardly a strong position, +but a medley of earth and rubble-work battered by shells. The staved-in +casemates opened a view upon the country, the powder magazines were laid +bare, half of bastion 3 was in the moat, one could drive up to the +breach in a carriage. Ten pieces at most answered the fire of sixty +Versaillese ordnance pieces, while the fusillade of the trenches aimed +at the embrasures killed almost all our artillerists. On the 3rd the +Versaillese renewed their summons to surrender; they were answered with +the word of Cambronne. The chief of the general staff left by Eudes had +also made off, but happily the fort remained in the valiant hands of +the engineer Rist and of Julien, commander of the 14th battalion of the +eleventh arrondissement. It is to them and to the Federals who stood by +them that the honour of this prodigious defence belongs. Here are a few +notes from their military journal. + +"_4th May._--We are receiving explosive balls that burst with the noise +of percussion-caps. The waggons do not come; food is scanty and the +shells of seven centimetres, our best pieces, will soon fail us. The +reinforcements promised every day do not appear. Two chiefs of +battalions have been to Rossel. He received them very badly, and said +that he had the right to shoot them for having abandoned their post. +They explained our situation. Rossel answered that a fort defends itself +with the bayonet and quoted the work of Carnot. Still he has promised +reinforcements. The Freemasons have planted their banner on our +ramparts. The Versaillese knocked it down in an instant. Our ambulances +are full; the prison and corridor that lead to it are crammed with +corpses. An ambulance omnibus arrives in the evening. We put in as many +of our wounded as possible. During its passage from the fort to Issy the +Versaillese pepper it with balls. + +"_5th._--The fire of the enemy does not cease for a moment. Our +embrasures no longer exist; the pieces of the front still answer. At two +o'clock we receive ten waggons of shells of seven centimetres. Rossel +has come. He looked at the works of the Versaillese for a long time. The +_enfants-perdus_ who serve the pieces of bastion 5 are losing many men; +they remain steadfast. There are now in the dungeons two yards deep of +corpses. All our trenches, riddled by artillery, have been evacuated. +The trench of the Versaillese is sixty yards from the counterscarp. They +push on more and more. The necessary precautions are taken in case of an +attack to-night. All the flank pieces are loaded with grapeshot. We have +two mitrailleuses above the _terre-plein_ to sweep at once the moat and +the glacis. + +"_6th._--The battery of Fleury regularly discharges its six rounds on +us every five minutes. A cantiniere has just been brought to the +ambulance, wounded in the left side of the groin. For four days past +three women have gone into the thickest of the fire to tend the wounded. +This one is dying and bids us remember her two little children. No more +food. We eat only horse-flesh. Evening: the rampart is untenable. + +"_7th._--We are receiving as many as ten shells a minute. The ramparts +are totally uncovered. All the pieces, save two or three, are +dismounted. The Versaillese works almost touch us. There are thirty more +dead. We are about to be surrounded." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[147] _La Guerre des Communeux_ by a superior officer of the Versaillese +army. + +[148] On the 12th May, at the barricade of Petit-Vanves, an officer of +engineers of the Lacretelle division, second corps, Captain Rozhem, was +taken prisoner. When brought before the commander of the trenches, "I +know what is in store for me," said he; "shoot me." The commander +shrugged his shoulders and took him to Delescluze. "Captain," said the +delegate, "promise that you will not fight against the Commune and you +are free." The officer promised, and, deeply moved, asked Delescluze for +permission to shake hands with him. This is one fact among a hundred +such. Is it necessary to add that from the 3rd April to the 23rd May the +Federals did not shoot _one single_ prisoner, officer or soldier? + +[149] Appendix X. + +[150] This fact was established through the minute inquiry which the +Council charged three of its members to make. Two of these, Gambon and +Langevin, are by their characters above all suspicion. They received the +declaration of the wounded man and saw one of the bodies, the two others +not having been found. + +[151] It never appeared in the _Officiel_, but was announced in the +_Vengeur_; for Felix Pyat abused his functions in order to give his +journal the first news of the official decisions. This time he was a +little too quick. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + "La plus grande infamie dont l'histoire moderne ait garde la + souvenir, s'accomplit a cette heure, Paris est bombarde." + --Jules Favre, Jules Simon, E. Picard, Trochu, Jules Ferry, + E. Arago, Garnier-Pages, Pelletan. _Proclamation du + Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale a propos du bombardement + Prussien._ + + "Nous avons ecrase tout un quartier de Paris."--_M. Thiers a + l'Assemblee Nationale, Seance du 5 Aout 1871._ + + PARIS IS BOMBARDED--THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS--THE COUNCIL + ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--ROSSEL FLIES. + + +We must leave this heroic atmosphere to return to the quarrels of the +Council and of the Central Committee. Why did they not hold their +sittings at the Muette or under the eyes of the public?[152] The shells +of Montretout, which had just unmasked its powerful battery, the severe +attitude of the people, would no doubt have made them unite against the +common enemy. He had commenced to batter in breach. + +On the 8th May, in the morning, seventy marine pieces began to attack +the enceinte from the bastion 60 to the Point du Jour. The shells of +Clamart already reached the quay of Javelle, and the battery of Breteuil +covered the Grenelle quarter with projectiles. In a few hours half Passy +had become uninhabitable. + +M. Thiers accompanied his shells with a proclamation: "Parisians, the +Government will not bombard Paris, as the men of the Commune will not +fail to tell you. It will discharge its cannon.... It knows, it would +have understood, even if you had not said so on all sides, that as soon +as the soldiers cross the enceinte you will rally round the national +flag." And he invited the Parisians to open the gates to him. What was +the action of the Council in reply to this appeal to treason? + +On the 8th it entered upon a random discussion on the minutes of its +sittings[153] and the publicity of the latter, which one member of the +majority wanted to suppress altogether. The minority complained of the +Central Committee, which had encroached upon all services in spite of +the Commission of War; it had driven away Varlin from the commissariat, +entirely reorganised by him. They asked whether the Government called +itself Central Committee or Commune. Felix Pyat justified himself by +accusing Rossel. "It is not the fault of the Committee of Public Safety +if Rossel has neither the strength nor the intelligence to keep the +Central Committee within its functions." The friends of Rossel answered, +accusing Pyat of continually interfering even in purely military +questions. If the Moulin Saquet had been surprised, it was because +Wroblewski, who commanded on that side, received a formal order from +Felix Pyat to repair to Issy. "It is false," said Pyat; "I have never +given such an order." They let him thoroughly enmesh himself, and then +produced the order, written entirely in his own hand. He took hold of +it, turned it round, feigned astonishment, and was finally obliged to +confess.[154] The discussion then reverted to the Central +Committee--were they to dissolve it, arrest its members, or surrender to +it the administration of the War Office? The Council, as usual, did not +dare to decide, and, after a confused debate, abode by the resolution of +the 3rd May--the Central Committee will be held subordinate to the +Military Commission. + +At this very moment strange scenes were enacted at the War Office. The +_chefs-de-legion_, who were stirring more and more against Rossel, had +that day resolved to ask him for the report of all the decisions he was +about to take with respect to the National Guard. Rossel knew of their +project. In the evening, when they arrived at the Ministry, they found +in its court an armed platoon, and beheld Rossel watching them from his +window. "You are audacious," said he; "do you know that this platoon is +here to shoot you?" They, without appearing to care much: "There is no +need of audacity; we simply come to speak to you of the organisation of +the National Guard." Rossel relaxed, went to the window, gave orders to +the platoon to re-enter. This burlesque demonstration did not miss its +effect. The _chefs-de-legion_ disputed the project on the regiments +point by point, demonstrating its impossibility. Tired of arguing, +Rossel said to them, "I am fully aware that I have no forces, but I +affirm you have not either. You have, say you? Well, give me the proof. +To-morrow, at eleven o'clock, bring me 12,000 men to the Place de la +Concorde, and I will try to do something." He wanted to make an attempt +by the Clamart station. The _chefs-de-legion_ engaged to find the men, +and spent the whole night in search of them. + +While these contests went on, the fort of Issy was being evacuated. +Since the morning it had been reduced to the last extremity. Any of its +defenders who approached the guns was a dead man. In the evening the +officers assembled, and came to the conclusion that they could no longer +hold out. Thereupon the men, driven away from all sides by the shells, +massed themselves under the entrance vault, when a shell from the Moulin +de Pierre fell in their midst, killing sixteen of them. Rist, Julien, +and several others, who were stubbornly bent upon holding these ruins, +were at last obliged to yield. About seven o'clock the evacuation began. +The commander, Lisbonne, one of the members of the first Central +Committee, a man of extraordinary courage, covered the retreat amidst a +shower of bullets. + +A few hours after, the Versaillese, crossing the Seine, established +themselves before Boulogne in front of the bastions of the Point du +Jour, and opened a trench three hundred yards from the enceinte. All +that night and the whole morning of the 9th the War Office and the +Committee of Public Safety knew nothing of the evacuation of the fort. + +On the 9th, at mid-day, the battalions asked for by Rossel were drawn up +along the Place de la Concorde. Rossel arrived on horseback, hardly +looked at the front lines, and then addressed the _chefs-de-legion_, +"There are not enough men here for me;" and at once turning about, rode +off to the War Office, where he was informed of the evacuation of the +fort of Issy. He seized his pen, wrote, "The tricolor flag floats from +the fort of Issy, abandoned yesterday evening by the garrison," and, +without apprising the Council or the Committee of Public Safety, gave +the order to placard ten thousand copies of these two lines, while six +thousand was the number usually printed. + +He next sent in his resignation: "Citizens, members of the Commune, I +feel myself incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a +command where every one deliberates and no one obeys. The Central +Committee of Artillery has deliberated and prescribed nothing. The +Commune has deliberated and resolved upon nothing. The Central +Committee deliberates and has not yet known how to act. During this +delay the enemy has hemmed in the fort of Issy by imprudent attacks, for +which I would punish him if I had the smallest military force at my +disposal." He then recounted in his own fashion, and very inaccurately, +the evacuation of the fort, the review on the Place de la Concorde; said +that, instead of the 12,000 men promised, there were only 7,000,[155] +and concluded: "Thus the nullity of the Committee of Artillery prevented +the organisation of the artillery; the hesitation of the Central +Committee stopped the administration; the paltry pre-occupations of the +_chefs-de-legion_ paralysed the mobilisation of the troops. My +predecessor committed the fault of struggling against this absurd +situation. I retire, and have the honour to ask you for a cell at +Mazas." + +He thus thought to clear his military reputation; but point by point he +might have been categorically answered. Why did you accept this "absurd" +situation with which you were thoroughly conversant? Why did you make no +conditions on entering the Ministry on the 1st April, no condition to +the Council on the 2nd and 3rd May? Why did you send away at least 7,000 +men this morning, when you pretend not to have "the smallest military +force" at your disposal? Why did you know nothing for fifteen hours of +the evacuation of a fort whose straits it was your duty to watch from +hour to hour? Where is your second enceinte? Why has no work been done +at Montmartre and the Pantheon? + +Rossel might perhaps have addressed his reproaches to the Council, but +he committed an unpardonable fault in sending his letters to the +journals. Thus in less than two hours he had disheartened 8,000 +combatants, spread panic, stigmatised the brave men of Issy, denounced +the weakness of the defence to the enemy, and that at the very moment +when the Versaillese were rejoicing over the taking of Issy. + +There every one was merrymaking. M. Thiers and MacMahon harangued the +soldiers, who, singing, brought back the few pieces found in the fort. +The Assembly suspended its sittings and came into the marble court to +applaud these children of the people who thought themselves victors. M. +Thiers a month later said from the tribune, "When I see these sons of +our soil, strangers often to an education that elevates, die for you, +for us, I am profoundly touched." Touching emotion this of the hunter +before his pack. Remember this avowal and the sort of men for whom you +die, sons of the soil! + +And at the Hotel-de-Ville they were still disputing! Rigault +recriminated. The majority of the Council had named him procureur of the +Commune in spite of his culpable levity at the Prefecture. The +discussion was growing angry when Delescluze entered hastily and +exclaimed, "You discuss when it has been placarded that the tricolor +flag floats from the fort of Issy. I make an appeal to you all. I had +hoped that France would be saved by Paris and Europe by France. The +Commune is pregnant with a power of revolutionary instinct capable of +saving the country. Cast aside to-day all your animosities. We must save +the country. The Committee of Public Safety has not answered our +expectations. It has been an obstacle instead of a stimulus. With what +is it occupying itself? With individual appointments instead of general +measures. A decree signed Meillet names this citizen himself governor of +the fort of Bicetre. We had a man there, a soldier,[156] who was thought +too severe. It is desirable that all were as severe as he. Your +Committee of Public Safety is undone, crushed beneath the weight of the +memories attached to it. I say it must disappear." + +The Assembly, thus brought back to a sense of its duty, resolved into a +secret committee, thoroughly discussing the Committee of Public Safety. +What had it done for a week past? Installed the Central Committee at the +War Office, increased the disorder, sustained two disasters. Its members +lost themselves in details or else did amateur service. One deserted +the Hotel-de-Ville to go and shut himself up in a fort; if at least it +had been that of Issy or of Vanves! Felix Pyat passed the greater part +of his time in the office of the _Vengeur_, there venting his spleen in +long-winded articles. A member of the Committee of Public Safety +endeavoured to defend it by pleading the vagueness of its attributes. He +was answered that Article 3 of the decree gave the Committee full powers +over all the Commissions. Finally, after many hours, they decided to +renew the Committee at once; to appoint a civil delegate to the War +Office; to draw up a proclamation; to meet, save in cases of emergency, +only three times a week; to establish the new Committee permanently at +the Hotel-de-Ville, while the other members of the Council were to stay +regularly in their respective arrondissements. Delescluze was named +Delegate at War. + +In the evening, at ten o'clock, there was a second meeting for the +nomination of the new Committee. The majority voted Felix Pyat, quite +exasperated at the attacks of the afternoon, to the chair. He opened the +sitting by demanding the arrest of Rossel. Cleverly grouping together +appearances which seemed proofs to the suspicious, he made Rossel the +scapegoat of the faults of the Committee, turning the anger of the +Council against him. For half an hour he disparaged the absent man, whom +he would not have dared attack to his face. "I told you, citizens, that +he was a traitor. You would not believe me. You are young; you did not, +like our paragons of the Convention, know how to mistrust military +power." This reminiscence ravished the Romanticists. They had but one +dream--to be Conventionnels. So difficult was it for this revolution of +proletarians to rid itself of bourgeois tinsel. + +The ire of Pyat was not wanted to convince the Assembly. Rossel's act +was culpable in the eyes of the least prejudiced. His arrest was decreed +unanimously, less two voices, and the Commission of War received the +order to carry it out. + +They next passed to the nomination of the Committee. The minority, a +little reassured by the election of Delescluze and Jourde, which seemed +to acknowledge the right of the Council to appoint the delegates, +resolved to take part in the vote, and asked for a place in the list of +the majority. This was an excellent occasion to efface all differences, +to re-establish union against Versailles. But the perfidious promptings +of Felix Pyat had induced the Romanticists to look upon their colleagues +of the minority as veritable reactionists. After his speech the sitting +was suspended; little by little the members of the minority found +themselves alone in the council-hall. They looked for their colleagues +and surprised them in a neighbouring room deliberating apart. After a +violent altercation they all returned to the Council. + +A member of the minority demanded that they should put an end to these +shameful divisions. A Romanticist answered by asking for the arrest of +the factious minority, and the President, Pyat, was about to empty the +vials of his wrath, when Malon cried to him, "Silence! you are the evil +genius of this revolution. Do not continue to spread your venomous +suspicions, to stir up discords. It is your influence that is ruining +the Commune!" And Arnold, one of the founders of the Central Committee, +"It is still these fellows of 1848 who will undo the revolution." + +But it was too late now to engage in the struggle, and the minority was +to expiate its doctrinairism and maladroitness. The whole list of the +majority passed; Ranvier, Arnaud, Gambon, Delescluze, and Eudes. The +nomination of Delescluze to the War Office having left a vacancy, there +was after two days a second vote, and the minority proposed Varlin. The +majority, abusing their victory, committed the impropriety of preferring +Billioray, a most worthless member. + +The Council broke up at one o'clock in the morning. "Did not we do them? +and what do you think of the way I managed the business?" said Felix +Pyat to his friends on leaving the chair.[157] This honest mandatory, +altogether absorbed in the work of "doing" his colleagues, had forgotten +to verify the capture of the fort of Issy. And that same evening, +twenty-six hours after the evacuation, the Hotel-de-Ville placarded on +the door of the mairies, "It is false that the tricolor flag floats on +the fort of Issy. The Versaillese do not and shall not occupy it." This +contradiction was as good as Trochu's apropos of Metz. + +During these tempests at the Hotel-de-Ville the Central Committee had +sent for Rossel, reproached him with the placard of the afternoon, and +the unusual number of copies printed. He defended himself acrimoniously. +"It was my duty. The greater the danger, the greater the duty to make it +known to the people." Yet he had done nothing of the kind on the +surprise of the Moulin-Saquet. After his departure the Committee +deliberated at length. Some one said, "We are lost if we get no +dictatorship." For some days this idea was uppermost in the Committee. +The latter voted quite seriously that there should be a dictator, and +that the dictator was to be Rossel. A deputation of five members gravely +went to fetch him; he came down to the Committee, pretended to reflect, +and finally said, "It is too late. I am no longer delegate. I have sent +in my resignation." Some waxing angry with him, he rebuked them and +left. In his cabinet he found the Commission of War, Delescluze, Tridon, +Avrial, Johannard, Varlin, and Arnold, who had just arrived. + +Delescluze explained their mission. Rossel listened very calmly; said +that though the decree was unjust, he submitted to it. He then described +the military situation, the rivalries of all kinds that had continually +clogged him, the weakness of the Council. "It has not known," said he, +"how to utilise the Central Committee, nor how to break it at the +opportune time. Our resources are quite sufficient, and I am ready, for +my own part, to assume all responsibility, but on the condition of being +supported by a strong and homogeneous power. I could not in the face of +history take upon myself the responsibility for certain necessary +repressions without the assent and support of the Commune." He spoke at +great length in that clear and nervous style that twice in the Council +had won over his most decided adversaries. The Commission, much struck +by his arguments, withdrew to another room. Delescluze declared that he +could not make up his mind to arrest Rossel till the Council had heard +him. His colleagues were of the same opinion, and left the ex-delegate +under the guard of Avrial and Johannard, who the next morning conducted +him to the Hotel-de-Ville. Avrial stayed with Rossel in the questor's +office, while Johannard went to apprise the Council of their arrival. + +Some wanted Rossel to be heard; the greater number, distrustful of +themselves, were afraid lest his voice should again bring round the +Council, maintained that his hearing was contrary to equity, and cited +the example of Cluseret, who had been arrested without being heard, as +though one injustice could sanction another. The admission of Rossel was +refused. + +Ch. Gerardin, a member of the Council, repaired to the questor's office. +"What has the Commune decided?" said Avrial. "Nothing yet," answered Ch. +Gerardin, who nevertheless had just left the sitting, and seeing +Avrial's revolver on the table, he said to Rossel, "Your guardian +fulfils his duty conscientiously." "I do not suppose," answered Rossel +hurriedly, "that this precaution concerns me. Besides, Citizen Avrial, I +give you my word of honour as a soldier that I shall not seek to +escape." + +Avrial, very tired of his post as sentry, had already asked the Council +to relieve him. Receiving no answer, he thought he might leave his +prisoner under the guard of a member of the Committee of Public +Safety--for Ch. Gerardin had not yet been discharged from his +functions--and he proceeded to the Council. When he returned, Rossel and +Ch. Gerardin were gone. The ambitious young man had slunk like a weasel +out of this civil war into which he had heedlessly thrown himself. + +One may divine whether Pyat was sparing of adjectives against the +fugitive. The new Committee having just been informed of the discovery +of two conspiracies, launched a desperate proclamation: "Treason had +slipped into our ranks. The abandonment of the fort of Issy announced in +an impious placard by the wretch who surrendered it, was only the first +act of the drama. A monarchical insurrection in our midst coinciding +with the surrender of one of our gates was to follow. All the threads of +the dark plot are now in our hands. Most of the culprits are arrested. +Let all eyes be open, all arms ready to strike the traitors!" + +This was going off into melodrama when cold blood and precision were +wanted. And the Committee boasted strangely when it pretended to have +arrested "most of the culprits" and that it held "in its hands all the +threads of the dark plot." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[152] On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be admitted, +and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the decree was +not executed, although in the Hotel-de-Ville itself there was the +splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few hours. + +[153] The reports in the _Officiel_, confided to inexperienced writers, +who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the +printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret +committees, give but a very vague idea of these sittings. + +[154] "Committee of Public Safety, No. 98.--Paris, 3rd May +1871.--General Wroblewski,--Please repair immediately to the fort of +Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering, +artillery, &c. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Felix +Pyat, Ant. Arnaud. Enclosed is a despatch from the commander of the +fort." + +Before the public, ignorant of this despatch, Pyat kept up his lie. He +said in the _Vengeur_: "The only order given directly to the generals by +the Committee of Public Safety to defend Issy, which Rossel did not +defend, was addressed to General Wroblewski, intrusted with the forts of +the south. The Committee of Public Safety, in ordering him to watch over +Issy, did not displace him." In point of fact, not Wroblewski was +charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La Cecilia, who since +the reoccupation held the chief post on this side, and commanded Wetzel, +intrusted with the defence of the approaches of the fort. + +[155] The _chefs-de-legion_ have said 10,000. The truth lies between the +two. + +[156] P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian General +Bossack. + +[157] Heard and reported by Lefrancais, whose veracity is above +suspicion. _Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste par G. Lefrancais_, p. +294. Neuchatel, 1870. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + THE CONSPIRACIES AGAINST THE COMMUNE. + + +The Commune had given rise to the various trades of the plot-monger, the +betrayer of gates, the conspiracy-broker. Vulgar sharpers, Jonathan +Wilds of the gutter, whom a shadow of police would have scared away, +they had no other strength than the weakness of the prefecture and the +carelessness of the delegations. The evidence relative to them is to a +certain extent still in the keeping of the Versaillese; but they have +themselves published a good deal, often borne witness against each +other, and what with private information, what with the opportunities +offered by our exile, we shall be able to penetrate into this realm of +blackguardism. + +From the end of March they levied contributions upon all the Ministries +of Versailles, offering for a few sous to surrender some of the gates of +Paris or to kidnap the members of the Council. By degrees they were more +or less classed. The colonel of the staff, Corbin, was charged with the +organisation of the faithful National Guards still at Paris. The +commander of a reactionary battalion, Charpentier, a former drill +officer of St. Cyr, offered him his services, was accepted, and +presented a few of his cronies, Durouchoux, Demay, and Gallimard. Their +instructions were to recruit clandestine battalions, who were to occupy +the strategic points of the town on the day when the general attack +would summons all the Federals to the ramparts. A naval officer, +Domalain, offered at that moment to surprise Montmartre, the +Hotel-de-Ville, the Place Vendome, and the commissariat, with a few +thousand volunteers, whom he professed to have at hand. He entered into +partnership with Charpentier. + +They bestirred themselves with might and main, grouped an astonishing +number of persons around official posts, and soon gave notice of 6,000 +men and 150 artillerists provided with spiking machines. All these brave +ones only waited for a signal. In the meanwhile, money was of course +wanted to keep up their zeal, and Charpentier and Domalain, through the +agency of Durouchoux, indeed drew several hundred thousand francs from +the Versaillese. + +Towards the end of April they found a redoubtable rival in Le Mere de +Beaufond, an ex-naval officer and governor of Cayenne _ad interim_. +Instead of drumming up for bourgeois recruits, an idea he declared +ridiculous, Beaufond proposed paralysing the resistance by means of +clever agents who should provoke defections and disorganise the +services. His plan, quite in accord with M. Thiers' notions, was +favourably looked upon at Versailles, which gave him full powers. He +took as helpmates two men of resolution, Laroque, a clerk at the bank, +and Lasnier, an ex-officer of Schoelcher's legion. + +Besides these, the Ministry had still other bloodhounds--the Alsatian +Aronshonne, colonel of a free corps during the war, cashiered by his +men, who at Tours had accused him of theft; Franzini, later on +extradited by England and condemned as a swindler; Barral de Montaut, +who boldly presented himself at the War Office, and, thanks to his +aplomb, got himself named chief of the seventh legion; the Abbe Cellini, +chaplain of one knows not what fleet, patronised by Jules Simon; last, +the noble-minded conspirators, the great generals disdained by the +revolution, Lullier, Du Bisson, Ganier d'Abin. These honest Republicans +could not allow the Commune to ruin the Republic. If they accepted money +from Versailles, it was only with a view to saving Paris and the +Republican party from the men of the Hotel-de-Ville. They wanted to +overthrow the Commune, but betray it, oh! no, by no means! + +One Briere de St.-Lagier framed comprehensive reports on all these +knights, and M. Thiers' secretary, Troncin-Dumersan, condemned three +years after as swindler, travelled backwards and forwards between Paris +and Versailles, brought the money, superintended and held in his hand +all the threads of these multifarious conspiracies, the one being often +carried on behind the back of the other. + +Thence continual collisions. The ragamuffins mutually denounced each +other. Briere de St.-Lagier wrote: "I beg M. le Ministre of the Interior +to have M. Le Mere de Beaufond watched. I strongly suspect him of being +a Bonapartist. The money he has received has been used to a great extent +to pay his debts." By way of compensation another report said, "I +suspect MM. Domalain, Charpentier, and Briere de St.-Lagier. They often +meet at Peter's, and instead of occupying themselves with the great +cause of the deliverance, imitate Pantagruel. They pass for +Orleanists."[158] + +The most venturesome of these enterprisers, Beaufond, managed to enter +into relations with the general staff of Colonel Henry Prodhomme, with +the Ecole Militaire, commanded by Vinot, and with the War Office, where +the chief of the artillery, Guyet, contrived to embroil the service of +the munitions. His agents, Lasnier and Laroque, worked upon a certain +Muley, who, having circumvented the Central Committee, got himself named +chief of the seventeenth legion, and to some extent disabled it. An +officer of artillery, Captain Piguier, placed at their disposal by the +Ministry, traced the plan of the barricades, and one of the band could +write on the 8th May, "No torpedoes are laid; the army may enter to the +flourish of trumpets." Now they had recourse to direct subornation; now +acting the part of fervent Communards, they knew how to draw out +information; while the imprudence of the functionaries singularly +facilitated their task. Staff officers, chiefs of services, fond of +assuming consequential airs, discussed the most delicate matters in the +cafes of the boulevards, full of spies.[159] Cournet, who had succeeded +Rigault at the prefecture of police, despite the gravity of his +deportment, did not better the service of general safety. Lullier, twice +arrested, each time escaping, openly spoke in the cafes of sweeping away +the Commune. Troncin-Dumersan, known for twenty years as the police +agent of the Ministry of the Interior, freely promenaded on the +boulevards, passing his retainers in review. The contractors charged +with the fortification of Montmartre every day found new pretexts to +defer the opening of the works; the Brea Church remained intact; the +undertaker of the demolition of the expiatory monument managed to put it +off till the entry of the troops. Hazard alone discovered the _brassard_ +(armlet) plot, and the fidelity of Dombrowski disclosed that of Vaysset. + +This commercial agent had gone to Versailles to propose to the Ministry +an operation of revictualling. Shown out, he again turned up, but this +time with the offer to bribe Dombrowski. Under the patronage of Admiral +Saisset--more crazy than ever--he got up his enterprise in the shape of +a commercial society, found shareholders, twenty thousand francs for the +incidental expenses, and entered into communication with an aide-de-camp +of Dombrowski's named Hutzinger, afterwards employed by the Versaillese +police as spy amongst the exiles in London. Vaysset told him that +Versailles would give Dombrowski a million if the general surrendered +the gates under his command. Dombrowski at once apprised the Committee +of Public Safety, and proposed to allow one or two Versaillese army +corps to enter the town and then to crush them by battalions lying in +ambush. The Committee would not risk this venture, but ordered +Dombrowski to follow up the negotiation.[160] Hutzinger accompanied +Vaysset to Versailles, saw Saisset, who offered to surrender himself as +hostage in guarantee of the execution of the promises made to +Dombrowski. The admiral was even, on a certain night, to repair secretly +to the Place Vendome, and the Committee of Public Safety, forewarned, +was preparing to arrest him, when Barthelemy St. Hilaire dissuaded +Saisset from this new blunder. + +Then M. Thiers began to abandon the hope of taking the town by surprise. +This was his hobby of the first days of May. Upon the faith of a +bailiff, who promised to get the Dauphine gate surrendered by his friend +Laporte, chief of the sixteenth legion, M. Thiers had built up a whole +plan in spite of the repugnance of MacMahon and of the army, eager for a +triumphal entry.[161] In the night of the 3d May the whole active army +and part of the reserve were set on foot, and General Thiers went to +sleep at Sevres. At midnight the troops were massed in the Bois de +Boulogne before the lower lake, their eyes fixed on the closed gates. +The latter were to be thrown open by a reactionary company which had +formed at Passy under the orders of Wery, a lieutenant of the +thirty-eighth, acting as deputy of his former commander, Lavigne. But +the intelligent conspirators had forgotten to warn Lavigne, and the +company that was to relieve the Federals having had no order from their +superior, suspected an ambush, and refused the service. Thus the trusty +watch was not relieved. At dawn, after waiting in vain for several +hours, the troops returned to their cantonments. Two days after Laporte +was arrested and set free again, much too soon. + +Beaufond, taking up the bailiff's plan, guaranteed the surrender of the +gates of Auteuil and Dauphine for the night of the 12th to the 13th May. +M. Thiers, again caught, forwarded all the gear for an escalade, and +several detachments were directed towards the Point du Jour, while the +army held itself in readiness to follow. But at the last moment the +profound combinations of the conspirators were foiled,[162] and, as on +the 3rd, the army had to turn tail. This attempt was known to the +Committee of Public Safety, who had known nothing of the first one. + +Lasnier was arrested the next day. The Committee had just laid hands +upon the tricolor armlets which the National Guards of order were to +have worn on the entry of the army. The woman Legros, who made them, +neglected to pay the girls in her employ. One of them, believing that +the work was done on account of the Commune, went to ask for her wages +at the Hotel-de-Ville. Inquiries made at the woman Legros' put them on +the traces of Beaufond and his accomplices. Beaufond and Laroque managed +to hide; Troncin-Dumersan packed off to Versailles. Charpentier thus +remained master of the field. Corbin urged him to organise his men by +tens and hundreds, and traced him out a whole plan by which to get +possession of the Hotel-de-Ville immediately after the entry of the +troops. Charpentier, always imperturbable, diverted him day by day by +news of fresh conquests, spoke of 20,000 recruits, asked for dynamite to +blow up the houses,[163] and in true Pantagruelic style gobbled up the +considerable sums made over to him by Durouchoux. + +After all, the whole gang of conspirators did not succeed in +surrendering one single gate, but they lent considerable aid in +disorganising the services. Still great care should be taken in availing +oneself of their reports, often inflated with imaginary successes to +justify the disbursement of the hundreds of thousands of francs that +they pocketed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[158] All the unpublished reports that I quote and on which I rely have +been copied from the originals. + +[159] Appendix XI. + +[160] Appendix XII. + +[161] "It was better to take possession of the town by main force," said +the apostolic Comte de Mun (_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 277). +"Thus right manifests itself in peremptory manner"--the right of +carnage, no doubt. "It was better that it should not be said that we had +got in by the back-door." + +[162] It has been stated that a Polish officer of Dombrowski's staff, +killed afterwards during the street fight, was the agent in this +attempted treason. I have been unable, in spite of a minute search, to +discover the least proof of this imputation. + +[163] See a letter from Colonel Corbin, quoted in the _Histoire des +Conspirations sous la Commune_, a work by A. J. Dalseme, arranged in the +form of a novel, but containing some documents. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + "C'est par le canon et par la politique que nous avons pris + Paris."--_M. Thiers, Enquete sur le 18 Mars._ + + M. THIERS' POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES--THE EXTREME + LEFT BETRAYS PARIS. + + +Who was the great conspirator against Paris? The Extreme Left. + +On the 19th March, what remained to M. Thiers wherewith to govern +France? He had neither an army, nor cannon, nor the large towns. These +possessed arms, and their workmen were on the alert. If that small +middle-class which makes the provinces endorse the revolutions of the +metropolis had followed the movement, imitated their kindred of Paris, +M. Thiers could not have opposed to them a single regiment. In order to +subsist, retain the provinces, and induce them to provide the soldiers +and the cannon that were to reduce Paris, what were the resources of the +chief of the bourgeoisie? A word and a handful of men. The word was +Republic; the men, the recognised chiefs of the Republican party. + +Though the dull rurals barked at the mere name of the Republic, and +refused to insert it in their proclamations, M. Thiers, more cunning, +mouthed it lustily, and distorting the votes of the Assembly,[164] gave +it out as the watchword to his underlings.[165] Since the first risings +all the provincial officials had the same refrain: "We defend the +Republic against the factions."[166] + +This was certainly something; but the rural votes, the past of M. +Thiers, clashed with these Republican protestations. The former heroes +of the National Defence were no longer acceptable as securities even for +the provinces. M. Thiers was well aware of it, and invoked the purest of +the pure--the chevroned returned from exile. Their prestige was still +intact in the eyes of the provincial democrats. M. Thiers met them in +the lobbies, told them they held the fate of the Republic in their +hands, flattered their senile vanity, and inveigled them so +successfully, that, from the 23rd,[167] they served him as +bottle-holders. When the small middle-class republicans of the provinces +beheld the profound Louis Blanc, the intelligent Schoelcher, and the +most famous grumblers of the radical vanguard fly to Versailles, and +insult the Central Committee, and, on the other hand, received neither +programme nor able emissaries from Paris, they turned away, and let the +flame enkindled by the workmen die out. + +The cannonading of the 3rd April roused them a little. On the 5th, the +municipal council of Lille, composed of Republican notabilities, spoke +of conciliation, and called upon M. Thiers to affirm the Republic. That +of Lyons drew up a like address; St. Omer sent delegates to Versailles; +Troyes declared that it was "heart and soul with the heroic citizens who +fought for their republican convictions." Macon summoned the Government +and the Assembly to put an end to this struggle by the recognition of +republican institutions. The Drome, the Var, Vaucluse, the Ardeche, the +Loire, Savoy, the Herault, the Gers, and the Eastern Pyrenees, twenty +departments, issued similar addresses. The workmen of Rouen declared +their adhesion to the Commune; the workmen of Havre, rebuffed by the +bourgeois Republicans, constituted an independent group. On the 16th +April, at Grenoble, 600 men, women, and children went to the station to +prevent the departure of the troops and munitions for Versailles. On the +18th, at Nimes, the people, headed by a red flag, marched through the +town to the cry of "Vive la Commune! Vive Paris! Down with Versailles!" +On the 16th, 17th, 18th, there were disturbances at Bordeaux. Some +police agents were imprisoned, some officers ill-treated, the infantry +barracks pelted with stones, the people crying, "Vive Paris! Death to +the traitors!" The movement even spread to the agricultural classes. At +Saincoin in the Cher, at the Charite-sur-Loire, at Pouilly in the +Nievre, the National Guards in arms carried about the red flag. Cosne +followed on the 18th, Fleury-sur-Loire on the 19th. The red flag was +permanently hoisted in the Ariege; at Foix they stopped the transport of +the cannon; at Varilhes they tried to run the munition trains off the +lines. At Perigueux, the workmen of the railway station seized the +mitrailleuses. + +On the 15th April five delegates from the municipal council of Lyons +presented themselves to M. Thiers. He protested his devotion to the +Republic, swore that the Assembly should not turn into a Constituent +Assembly. If he chose his functionaries outside the Republicans, it was +in order to treat all parties with consideration in the interest of the +Republic itself. He defended it against the men of the Hotel-de-Ville, +its worst enemies, said he; the delegates might assure themselves of +this even in Paris, and he was quite ready to furnish them with +safe-conducts. Besides, if Lyons dared to stir, 30,000 men were ready to +quell it.[168] This was his typical speech. All the deputations +received the same answer, given with such an air of bonhommie and such +complaisant familiarity as quite to overwhelm the provincials. + +From the presidency they proceeded to the luminaries of the Extreme +Left, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Adam, and other eminent democrats, who +endorsed M. Thiers' words. These gentlemen, if condescending to admit +that the cause of Paris was not altogether wrong, declared it ill-begun +and compromised by a criminal combat. When Paris once disarmed they +would see what could be done. Opportunism is not of yesterday's growth. +It was born[169] into the world on the 19th March, 1871, had Louis Blanc +& Co. for godfathers, and was baptized in the blood of 30,000 Parisians. +"With whom should they treat in Paris?" asked Louis Blanc. "Without +speaking of Bonapartist and Prussian intrigues, the people who were +there striving to seize the government were fanatics, fools, or +rogues."[170] And all the Radicals bridled up: "Should we not be at +Paris if Paris were in the right?" The majority of the delegates, +lawyers, doctors, business men, brought up in veneration of these +shining lights, hearing besides the young men speaking like the +pontiffs, went back to the provinces, and as the Left preached to them, +preached in turn that it was necessary to abandon the Commune in order +to save the Republic. A few of them had visited Paris; but seeing the +divisions of the Hotel-de-Ville, often received by men unable to +formulate their ideas, threatened by Felix Pyat in the _Vengeur_, they +came back convinced that nothing could emerge from this disorder. When +they again passed through Versailles the deputies of the Left triumphed. +"Well, what did we tell you?" Even Martin-Bernard gave his electors the +ass's kick. + +At Paris there were people who could not believe in such barefaced +treachery on the part of the Left, and still adjured them. "What are you +about at Versailles when Versailles is bombarding Paris?" said an +address of the end of April. "What figure can you cut in the midst of +these colleagues who assassinate your electors? If you persist in +remaining amongst the enemies of Paris, at least do not make yourselves +their accomplices by your silence. What! you allow M. Thiers to write to +the departments, '_The insurgents are emptying the principal houses of +Paris in order to put the furniture to sale_,' and you do not ascend the +tribune to protest! What! the whole Bonapartist and rural press may +inundate the departments with infamous articles, in which they affirm +that at Paris murder, violation, and theft reign supreme, and you are +silent! What! M. Thiers may assert that his gendarmes do not assassinate +the prisoners; you cannot ignore these atrocious executions, and you are +silent! Ascend the tribune; tell the departments the truth, which the +enemies of the Commune conceal from them. But our enemies, are they +yours also?" + +A useless appeal, which the cowardice of the Left knew how to elude. +Louis Blanc, in his Tartuffe style, exclaimed, "O civil war! hideous +struggle! The cannon thunder! People are killing each other and dying; +and those in the Assembly who would willingly give their life to see +this sanguinary problem pacifically resolved are condemned to the +torture of not being able to make an act, utter a cry, speak a word." +Since the birth of the French Assemblies so ignominious a Left had never +been seen. The spectacle of the prisoners smitten, reviled, spat upon, +was unable to draw a protest from these wretched Parisian deputies. One +only, Tolain, asked for an explanation on the assassination at the +Belle-Epine. Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Greppo, Adam, Langlois, Brisson, +&c., the Gerontes and the Scapins, sanctimoniously contemplated their +bombarded electors, and, fully aware of the facile forgetfulness of +Paris, dreamt of their future re-election. + +Their calumnies succeeded in stifling the action but not the anguish of +the provinces. With heart and soul the workmen of France were with +Paris. The employes at the railway stations harangued the soldiers on +their passage, adjuring them to raise the butt-ends of their guns; the +official placards were torn during the night; the large centres sent +their addresses by the hundred; all the Republican papers demanded +peace, sought for some method of conciliation between Paris and +Versailles. + +Paris and Versailles! The agitation becoming chronic, M. Thiers launched +forth Dufaure, the Chapelier of the modern bourgeoisie, one of the most +odious executors of its dirty work. He enjoined his procureurs to +prosecute all the writers countenancing the Commune, "that dictatorship +usurped by foreigners and ticket-of-leave men, which signalises its +reign by burglary, breaking open private houses in the dead of night and +by force of arms," and to lay hands upon "the conciliators who entreat +the Assembly to hold out its noble hand to the blood-stained hand of its +enemies." Versailles thus hoped to strike terror at the moment of the +municipal elections, which took place on the 30th April. + +They were everywhere Republican. These provinces, which had risen +against Paris in June, 1848, and in the elections of 1849, did not send +a hundred volunteers in 1871, and would only fight the Assembly. At +Thiers (Puy-de-Dome) the people occupied the Hotel-de-Ville, hoisted the +red flag, and seized the telegraphs. There occurred disturbances at +Souppe, Nemours, Chateau-Landau, in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. +At Dordives (Loiret) the Communards planted a poplar surmounted by the +red flag in front of the mairie. At Montargis they raised the red flag, +placarded the appeal of the Commune to the rural districts, and forced a +solicitor who had tried to tear down the placard to ask pardon on his +knees. At Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) a demonstration took place to the +cries of "Vive la Republique! Vive la Commune!" + +Lyons rose in insurrection. Since the 24th March the tricolor lorded it +here, save at the Guillotiere,[171] where the people maintained the red +one. The Council on its return to the Hotel-de-Ville had demanded the +recognition of the rights of Paris, the election of a Constituent +Assembly, and named an officer of _francs-tireurs_, Bourras, commander +of the National Guard. While the Council multiplied its addresses and +its applications to M. Thiers, the National Guard was again stirring. It +presented a programme to the municipal council, which officially +rejected it. The rebuff met by the delegates sent to Versailles +increased the irritation. When the communal elections were announced for +the 30th April, the revolutionary element maintained that the municipal +law voted by the Assembly was null and void, because that Assembly had +not the rights of a constituent one. Two delegates from Paris summoned +the mayor, Henon, to postpone the elections; and one of the actors in +the affray of the 28th September, Gaspard Blanc, reappeared on the +scene. The Radicals, always upon the scent of Bonapartism, have made +much ado about the presence of that personage. However, at that time he +was as yet but a madcap, and only in exile put on the Imperialist +livery. On the 27th, at the Brotteaux, in a large public meeting, +abstention from voting was decided upon. All the committees of the +Guillotiere followed, and in a public sitting of the 29th resolved to +oppose the vote. + +On the 30th, the day of the elections, from six o'clock in the morning +the _rappel_ was beaten at the Guillotiere; armed citizens carried off +the ballot-boxes, and posted sentinels at the entrance of the hall. A +proclamation was placarded: "The city of Lyons can no longer look on +while her sister the heroic city of Paris is being strangled. The +Lyonnese revolutionists have with one accord named a Provisional +Commission. Its members are above all determined, rather than sustain +defeat, to make one heap of ruins of a town cowardly enough to allow the +assassination of Paris and the Republic." The Place de la Mairie was +thronged with an excited crowd; the mayor, Crestin, and his adjutant, +who attempted to interfere, were not listened to, and a Revolutionary +Commission installed itself in the Mairie. + +Bourras sent an order to the commanders of the Guillotiere to unite +their battalions. They drew up towards two o'clock in the Des Brosses +court. A great number of guards disapproved the movement, yet no one was +willing to be the soldier of Versailles. The crowd surrounded them, and +finally broke the ranks; about a hundred, led by their captain, went to +the Mairie to hoist their red field-colours. The mayor was sent for, and +the Commission called upon him to join the movement; but he refused, as +he had done on the 22nd March. Suddenly the cannon thundered. + +Henon and his council, as the month before, would have liked to +temporise; while Valentin and Crouzat dreamt of Espivent. At five +o'clock the 38th of the line debouched by the bridge of the Guillotiere; +the crowd penetrated into the ranks of the soldiers, conjuring them not +to fire, and the officers were constrained to take back their men to the +barracks. During this time the Guillotiere was fortifying itself. A +large barricade, extending from the store-houses of the Nouveau-Monde to +the angle of the Mairie, barred the Grande Rue; another was thrown up at +the entrance of the Rue des Trois Rois; a third on a level with the Rue +de Chabrol. + +At half-past six the 38th came out of their barracks, but this time +watched by a battalion of chasseurs. Valentin, Crouzat, and the +procureur de la republique marched at their head. In front of the mairie +the Riot Act was read; some shots answered it, wounding the prefect. The +cavalry swept the Des Brosses court and the Place de la Mairie, while +two pieces of cannon opened fire on the edifice. Its doors soon gave way +and the occupants abandoned it. The troops entered after having killed +the sentinel, intent upon mounting guard to the very last. It has been +said that five insurgents, taken by surprise in the interior of the +building, were killed by a Versaillese officer with shots from his +revolver. + +The struggle continued during part of the night in the neighbouring +streets, and the soldiers, deceived by the darkness, killed about a +hundred of their own men. The losses of the Communards were less great. +By three o'clock in the morning all was over. + +At the Croix-Rousse some citizens had invaded the mairie and scattered +the voting-papers; the check of the Guillotiere cut short their +resistance. + +The Versaillese took advantage of this victory to disarm the battalions +of the Guillotiere; but the population refused, rallying round the +victors. Some monarchists had been elected during the day, but everybody +considering the elections of the 30th null and void, they were obliged +to submit to a second ballot, and not one of them was re-elected. The +movement in favour of Paris continued. + +These newly-elected republican councillors might have effectively +counterbalanced the authority of Versailles; the advanced press +encouraged them. The _Tribune_ of Bordeaux had the honour first to +propose a congress of all the towns of France, for the purpose of +terminating the civil war, assuring the municipal franchises, and +consolidating the Republic. The municipal council of Lyons issued an +identical programme, inviting all the municipalities to send delegates +to Lyons. On the 4th May the delegates of the councils of the principal +towns of the Herault met at Montpellier. The _Liberte_ of the Herault, +in a warm appeal reproduced by fifty journals, convoked the departmental +press to a congress. A common action was about to take the place of the +incoherent agitations of the last few weeks. If the provinces understood +their own strength, the time, their wants--if they found a group of men +equal to the occasion, Versailles, taken between Paris and the +departments, would have been obliged to capitulate to Republican France. +M. Thiers, with a vivid presentment of the danger, affected the attitude +of a strong Government, and energetically forbade the congresses. "The +Government would betray the Assembly, France, civilisation," said the +_Officiel_ of the 8th May, "if it allowed the assizes of Communism and +of the rebellion to constitute themselves by the side of the regular +power issued from universal suffrage." Picard, speaking from the tribune +of the instigation of the congress, said, "Never was there a more +criminal attempt than theirs. Outside the Assembly there exists no +right." The procureurs-generaux and the prefects received the order to +prevent all meetings. Some members of the _Ligue des Droits de Paris_ on +their way to Bordeaux were arrested. + +More was not needed to frighten the Radicals. The organisers of the +congress of Bordeaux held their peace; those of Lyons wrote a piteous +address to Versailles, to the effect that they had only intended +convoking an assembly of the notables. M. Thiers, having attained his +object, disdained to prosecute them, even allowed the delegates of +eighteen departments to draw up their grievances, and seriously declare +that they "made that one of the two combatants responsible who should +refuse their conditions." And yet they might feel proud. Their chief had +done less. Gambetta had retired to Spain, to St. Sebastien, and there, +mute, without a sign of sympathy for those who sacrificed themselves for +the Republic, he in a cynical _far niente_ awaited the issue of the +civil war. + +Thus the small middle-class of the provinces missed a rare chance of +conquering their liberties, of again taking up their grand role of 1792. +It became obvious how much its blood and its intelligence had been +impoverished by a long political vassalage and the complete absence of +all municipal life. From the 19th March to the 5th April they had +forsaken the workmen, when by seconding their efforts they might have +saved and continued the Revolution. When at last they wanted to +pronounce, they found themselves alone, the toy and laughing-stock of +their enemies. Such is their history since Robespierre. + +So on the 10th May M. Thiers entirely mastered the situation. Making use +of all arms, of corruption as well as of patriotism, lying in his +telegrams, making his journals lie, by turns familiar and haughty in his +interviews with the deputations, putting forward now his gendarmes, now +the deputies of the Left, he had succeeded in baffling all attempts at +conciliation. He had just signed the peace of Frankfort, and, free on +this side, rid of the provinces, he remained alone face to face with +Paris. + +It was time. Five weeks of siege had exhausted the patience of the +rurals; the suspicions of the first days were reviving; they fancied +that the "petit bourgeois" was procrastinating in order to spare Paris. +The _Union des Syndicats_ had just published a report of a new +interview, in which M. Thiers had seemed to relax. A deputy of the Right +rushed to the tribune accusing M. Thiers of putting off the entry into +Paris. He answered curtly, "The opening by our army of trenches only six +hundred yards from Paris does not signify that we do not want to enter +there." The following day, 12th May, the Right returned to the charge. +Was it true that M. Thiers had said to the mayor of Bordeaux, "If the +insurgents will cease hostilities the gates of Paris shall be flung wide +open during a week for all except the assassins of the generals?" Could +it be that the Government intended withdrawing some Parisians out of the +clutches of the Assembly? M. Thiers inveighed, whined. "You select the +day when I am exiled, on which my house is being pulled down. It is an +indignity. I am obliged to command terrible acts; I command them. I must +have a vote of confidence." At last, nettled out of patience, he +retorted upon the rural growls with a snarl. "I tell you that there are +among you imprudent men, who are in too great a hurry. They must have +another eight days. At the end of these eight days there will be no more +danger, and the task will be proportionate to their courage and to their +capacity." + +Eight days! Do you hear, members of the Commune? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[164] On the 23rd, Picard telegraphed to the procureur-general of Aix: +"The Republic was, the day before yesterday, again affirmed in a +proclamation of the Assembly." The very proclamation which the Assembly +had refused to conclude by the cry "Vive la Republique!" + +[165] The same day--it was that of the Marseilles insurrection--Dufaure +telegraphed to the same procureur-general: "Read the name Republique +Francaise at the head of all the despatches I send you." + +[166] I have in my possession about twenty proclamations of prefects or +magistrates. They are all on this point identically the same. + +[167] "A great speech of the President of the Council has been applauded +by the Extreme left." The speech of the 21st March against Paris. +Dufaure to the procureur-general at Aix, 23rd March. + +[168] He confessed his trickery in a speech pronounced at Bordeaux in +1875: "I was enabled with the remains of the defeated army to unite a +military force of 150,000 men, but if this force was sufficient to tear +Paris from the Commune, it could not have kept down the large towns of +France, keenly bent on the maintenance of the Republic, and coming to +ask me with distrust and irritation if it were the monarchy that we +combated for." + +[169] I should say "resuscitated," if it were not doing these eunuchs +too much honour to compare them to Robespierre, who by their side +appears a hero. But how prevent one's thoughts from wandering to the +pontiff declaring inopportune the Republican outburst of June-July 1791; +inopportune the cries of Paris famished by engrossers; inopportune the +people asking for a single article in their favour in the Constitution +of 1798; inopportune the commissaries, without whom France would have +been dismembered; inopportune the great movement against the Church; +inopportune the Socialists and Jacques Roux, whom he did to death; +inopportune the popular societies closed by him, and after the +disappearance of which Paris expired; inopportune Clootz, yearning to +rally round France all the revolutionary forces of the world; +inopportune Hebert, who, nevertheless, had helped him to stifle the +Socialists; inopportune, in fine, all that was not cut out after his own +amiable pattern up to the day when he was himself declared inopportune +by the great bourgeoisie, who found it as easy as opportune to swallow +him at a mouthful as soon as he had purged, bled, muzzled for them the +revolutionary lion. + +[170] Appendix XIII. + +[171] The workmen's quarter in Lyons. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY-- + EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF + ISSY--THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY--THE EXPLOSION IN + THE AVENUE RAPP--FALL OF THE VENDOME COLUMN. + + +At the advent of the new Committee on the 10th May our military +situation had not changed within the line from St. Ouen to Neuilly, +where both sides faced each other on the same level; but it was becoming +serious from La Muette. The powerful battery of Montretout, that of +Meudon, of Mont-Valerien, covered Passy with shells and greatly injured +the ramparts. The Versaillese trenches extended from Boulogne to the +Seine. Their skirmishers were pressing upon the village of Issy, and +occupied the trenches between the fort and that of Vanves, which they +tried to cut off from Montrouge. The negligence of the defence was still +the same. The ramparts from La Muette to the fort of Vanves were hardly +armed; our gunboats supported almost alone the fire of Meudon, Clamart, +and Val-Fleury. + +The first act of the new Committee was to order the demolition of M. +Thiers' house. This giddy act helped the bombarder to a palace, which +the Assembly voted him the day after. Then the Committee issued its +proclamation: "Treason had slipped into," &c. + +Delescluze issued one on his own account. He dragged himself along, +panting for breath, and might well say, "If I consulted only my strength +I should have declined this function. The situation is grave; but when I +contemplate the sublime future in store for our children, even though it +should not be given us to reap what we have sown, I shall still +enthusiastically hail the revolution of the 18th March." + +On entering the Ministry, he found the Central Committee also +elaborating a proclamation. "The Central Committee declares that it is +its duty not to allow this revolution of the 18th March, which it had so +well begun, to succumb. It will unsparingly break down all resistance. +It is determined to make an end of all controversies, put down the +malignants, quell rivalry, ignorance, and incapacity." This was to speak +more authoritatively than the Council, and, above all, to flatter itself +strangely. + +From the first night it was necessary to repair a disaster. The fort of +Vanves, upon which all the fires formerly directed against Issy were now +concentrated, had become almost untenable, and its commander had +evacuated it. Wroblewski, informed of this, took the command from La +Cecilia, who had fallen ill, and in the night of the 10th to the 11th +hurried thither at the head of the 187th and the 105th battalions of the +celebrated 11th legion, which up to the last day did not cease to supply +the defence with men. At four o'clock in the morning Wroblewski appeared +before the glacis where the Versaillese were stationed, charged them at +the point of the bayonet, put them to flight, took some prisoners, and +recovered the fort. Once more our brave Federals showed what they could +do when properly commanded. + +During the day the Versaillese recommenced the bombardment. They +overwhelmed the convent Des Oiseaux and the whole village of Issy, whose +principal street was now one heap of ruins, with shells, grenades filled +with potassium picrate. On the night of the 12th to the 13th they +surprised the Lycee of Vanves, and on the 13th they attacked the +seminary of Issy. For five days Brunel exhausted himself in trying to +bring a little order into the defence of this village. Rossel had sent +for this brave member of the Council, whom the jealousy of coteries kept +at a distance, and said to him, "The situation of Issy is almost lost; +will you undertake its defence?" Brunel devoted himself, threw up +barricades, asked for artillery (there were only four pieces), and new +battalions to relieve the 2,000 men who had held out for forty-one +days.[172] They only sent him two or three hundred men. He tried to make +something of these, and fortified the seminary, which the Federals, +under a hailstorm of shells, were unable to hold. Brunel organised a +second line of defence in the houses of the village, and in the evening +repaired to the War Office, where Delescluze wanted him to assist at the +Council of War. + +The first and only Council of War held under the Commune. Dombrowski, +Wroblewski, and La Cecilia were present. Dombrowski, very enthusiastic, +spoke of raising 100,000 men. Wroblewski, more practical, proposed to +concentrate all the efforts uselessly spent at Neuilly against the +trenches of the south. After a long debate no conclusion was come to. +When Brunel arrived the sitting was already raised; so he was obliged to +go and look for Delescluze at the Hotel-de-Ville, and then he retraced +his steps to Issy. At the gate of Versailles he perceived his battalions +on the other side of the rampart. These, deaf to their chiefs, had +evacuated the village and wanted to re-enter the town. Brunel forbade +the lowering of the drawbridge, and tried to get out by the gates of +Vanves, where they refused to let him pass. He returned to the War +Office, explained the situation, asked for men, wandered about the whole +night looking for some, and at four o'clock in the morning set out with +150 Federals, but found the village entirely occupied by the +Versaillese. The officers of Issy were tried by court-martial. Brunel +gave evidence, and complained bitterly of the culpable carelessness +which had paralysed the defence. For answer he was arrested. + +He spoke but too truly. The disorder of the War Office rendered all +resistance chimerical. Delescluze had brought only his devotion. Of a +weak character despite his apparent rigidity, he was at the mercy of the +general staff, still directed by Prodhomme, who, surviving all his +chiefs, had succeeded in making himself thought indispensable. The +Central Committee, emboldened by the timidity of the Council, intruded +everywhere, published decrees, ordered the payment of expenses without +submitting them to the control of the Military Commission. The members +of the Commission, men of intelligence, but belonging to the minority, +complained to the Committee of Public Safety, which replaced them by +Romanticists. The dispute went on all the same, and waxed so violent +that rumours of a rupture between the Council and the Central Committee +spread amongst the legions. + +The Versaillese, on their part, still pushed on. In the night of the +13th to the 14th the fort of Vanves, which now only fired occasional +volleys, was quite extinguished, and could no more be rekindled. The +garrison, cut off on all sides, retired by the quarries of Montrouge, +and the Versaillese occupied what remained of the fort. There was again +an ovation at Versailles. + +On the 16th May we had not a single man from the left bank to the Petit +Vanves, where about 2,000 Federals, under the command of La Cecilia and +Lisbonne, were encamped. We attempted to retake the village of Issy, but +were repulsed. Henceforth the enemy could continue his approaches and +arm the two bastions of the fort of Issy that faced the town. His fire, +counteracted for a moment by the ramparts, now showed a marked +superiority, and joined the batteries that crushed the sixteenth +arrondissement. This unfortunate quarter was now taken in enfilade from +the front and the flank by nearly a hundred ordnance pieces. It was +indeed time to think of the defence of the interior. Delescluze extended +the powers of the three generals to the quarters of the town contiguous +to their command; he disbanded the battalion of the barricades, which +had been of no utility whatever; he confided the works to the military +engineers, and made an appeal to the navvies. But all his decrees +remained so much waste paper or were crossed by others. When the +delegate offered the navvies 3 francs 50 centimes, the Committee of +Public Safety, in the same column of the _Officiel_, offered them 3 +francs 75 centimes. + +The Committee of Public Safety contributed to the defence by a decree +obliging all the inhabitants of Paris to provide themselves with a civil +card, whose production might be requested by any National Guard--as +impracticable and unpractised a decree as that on the refractory +recruits. The Hotel-de-Ville awed nobody; behind its big words impotence +made itself felt. On the 12th, some battalions having surrounded the +Bank and wanting to make a search, old Beslay prevented them doing so, +and the terrible dictators of the Committee of Public Safety disavowed +their own agent. The public chaffed--a terrible thing! A last blow, and +it was all over with the authority of the Commune; and this blow came +from the minority. + +The latter was exasperated at seeing its most capable members expelled +from the services--Vermorel from the Commission of Public Safety, +Longuet from the _Officiel_, Varlin from the Commissariat--and was +struck with dismay at the disorder of the War Office. It had the +unfortunate idea of denying its own responsibility, prepared a +manifesto, and brought it to the sitting of the 15th. The majority, +forewarned, with the exception of four or five members, kept away. The +minority had their absence verified, and instead of waiting for the next +sitting, sent the declaration to the papers. "The Commune," it said, +"has abdicated its power into the hands of a dictatorship, to which it +has given the name of Committee of Public Safety. The majority has +declared itself irresponsible by its vote. The minority, on the +contrary, affirms that the Commune owes it to the revolutionary movement +to accept all responsibilities. As to ourselves, we claim the right of +being alone answerable for our acts without screening ourselves behind a +supreme dictatorship. We withdraw to our arrondissements. Convinced that +the question of the war takes the lead of all other ones, we shall spend +the time left us by our municipal functions in the midst of our brothers +of the National Guard." + +A great fault this, and altogether inexcusable. The minority had not the +right to cry out about a dictatorship, having voted, without making any +express reserve, for the second Committee. It had not the right to say +that the elected delegates of the people were encroaching upon its +sovereignty, for this concentration of power was quite accidental, +necessitated by the battle, and leaving the principle of the people's +sovereignty intact under ordinary circumstances. It would have been more +dignified to openly disavow the acts of the Committee, and then propose +something better themselves. It would have been logical, since "the +question of the war took the lead of all others," not to thus morally +weaken the defence by deserting the Hotel-de-Ville. It was not with a +view to retain them in their arrondissements that the arrondissements +had sent delegates to the Council. + +Several members of the minority brought the question before public +meetings, which called on them to return to their posts. Those of the +fourth arrondissement gave an explanation in the Theatre-Lyrique, in +which they said "that their guiding principle was that the Commune was +to be only the executive agent of the public will, manifesting itself +continually, and indicating day by day what was to be done to secure the +triumph of the revolution." No doubt that principle was correct, and the +revolution can only be made safe by the direct legislation of the +people. But was this a time to legislate when the cannon ruled supreme? +And in the midst of the fire, is the "executive agent" to expect that +the soldier who does battle for him will also bring him ideas? + +The Versaillese journals crowed over this manifesto. Many of those who +had signed it understood their mistake, and fifteen of them presented +themselves at the sitting of the 17th. The Council had never been so +numerous; the roll-call was answered by sixty-six members. The Council +was first taken up with a proposition prompted by a traitor. Barral de +Montaut, chief of the staff of the 7th legion, had just published that +the Versaillese of Vanves had shot an ambulanciere of the Commune. +Urbain, urged by Montaut, who had managed to gain his friendship, asked +that, as reprisal, five hostages should be shot in the interior of +Paris, and five at the advanced posts. The Council passed to the order +of the day. Immediately after this incident, a member of the majority +interpellated those of the minority. He demonstrated without any +difficulty the futility of the reasons invoked in their manifesto, and, +growing warm, called his adversaries Girondists. "What! Girondists!" +answered Frankel; "one can see that you go to bed at night and get up in +the morning with the _Moniteur_ of 1793, else you would know the +difference there is between us Socialist Revolutionists and the +Girondists." The discussion became heated. Valles, who had signed the +manifesto, said, "I have declared that we must come to an understanding +with the majority; but they must also respect the minority, which is a +force;" and he demanded that all forces should be turned against the +enemy. Citizen Miot answered severely from the profound depths of his +beard. A member of the majority spoke of conciliation; immediately Felix +Pyat, to incense their ire, asked for the reading of the manifesto. In +vain Vaillant said, with sense and justice, "When our colleagues come +back to us disavowing their programme, we must not put it under their +eyes to engage them to persevere in their faults," and a conciliatory +order of the day was beaten by that of Miot, drawn up in terms offensive +to the minority. + +Suddenly a tremendous explosion interrupted the dispute. Billioray +rushed into the room with the news that the cartridge factory of the +Avenue Rapp had just blown up. + +The whole east of Paris was shaken. A pyramid of flame, of molten lead, +human remains, burning timber and bullets burst forth from the +Champ-de-Mars to an enormous height, and showered down upon the +environs. Four houses fell in; more than forty persons were wounded, and +the catastrophe would have been still more terrible if the firemen of +the Commune had not torn waggons of cartridges and barrels of gunpowder +from the midst of the flames. A maddened crowd gather, and believe in a +crime; a few individuals were arrested, and an artillerist was taken to +the Ecole Militaire. + +Who was the culprit? Nobody knows. Neither the Council nor the procureur +of the Commune examined the affair. Yet the Committee of Public Safety +announced in a proclamation that it held four of the culprits, and +Delescluze that the case was to be sent before the court-martial. No +more was heard about it, although it was as much the duty as the +interest of the Council to throw light upon this affair. A serious +inquest would probably have revealed a crime. The women, who usually +left the factory at seven o'clock, had been on that day dismissed at six +o'clock. It has been seen that Charpentier asked Corbin for dynamite; it +might have been very useful to the conspirators to spread panic with one +stroke at the War Office, the Ecole Militaire, the artillery park and +the huts of the Champ-de-Mars, which were always occupied by a few +Federals.[173] Paris firmly believed in a plot. The reactionists said, +"This is the revenge for the Vendome column." + +It had been pulled down the evening before with great ceremony. Its +demolition, the idea of which had become quite current during the first +siege,[174] was decreed on the 12th April.[175] This inspiration, +popular, humane, profound, showing that a war of classes was to +supersede the war of nations, aimed at the same time a blow at the +ephemeral triumph of the Prussian. The rather expensive preparations, +costing almost 15,000 francs, had been much protracted, owing to the +lukewarmness of the engineer and the continual efforts to suborn the +workmen. On the 16th May, at two o'clock, an immense crowd thronged all +the neighbouring streets, rather anxious as to the result of the +operation. The reactionists foretold all sorts of catastrophes; the +engineer, on the contrary, affirmed that there would be no shock; that +the column would break to pieces during its descent. He had sawn it +horizontally a little above the pedestal; a slanting groove was to +facilitate the fall backwards upon a vast bed of faggots, sand, and +dung, accumulated in the direction of the Rue de la Paix. + +A rope attached to the summit of the column was twisted round a capstan +fixed at the entrance of the street. The place was crowded with National +Guards; the windows, the roofs were filled with curious spectators. In +default of MM. Jules Simon and Ferry, erewhile warm partisans of the +operation, M. Glais-Bizoin felicitated the new prefect of police, Ferre, +who had just taken the place of Cournet, and confided to him that for +forty years it had been his ardent desire to see the expiatory monument +demolished. The bands played the "Marseillaise," the capstan turned +about, the pulley broke, and a man was wounded. Already rumours of +treason circulated among the crowd; but a second pulley was soon +supplied. At a quarter past five an officer appeared on the balustrade +for some time, waved a tricolor flag, then fixed it on the rails. At +half-past five the capstan again turned, and a few minutes after the +extremity of the column slowly displaced itself; the shaft little by +little gave way, then, suddenly reeling to and fro, broke and fell with +a low moan. The head of Bonaparte rolled on the ground, and his +parricidal arm lay detached from the trunk. An immense acclamation, as +that of a people freed from a yoke, burst forth. The ruins were climbed +upon and saluted by enthusiastic cries, and the red flag floated from +the purified pedestal, which on that day had become the altar of the +human race. + +The people wanted to divide among themselves the fragments of the +column, but were prevented by the inopportune interference of the +Council members present. A week afterwards, the Versaillese picked them +up. One of the first acts of the victorious bourgeoisie was to again +raise this enormous block, the symbol of their sovereignty. To lift up +Caesar on his pedestal they needed a scaffolding of 30,000 corpses. Like +the mothers under the First Empire, may those of our days never look +upon this bronze without weeping. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172] These were what General Appert calls the Brunel brigade. 7882 +strong. + +[173] Appendix XIV. + +[174] During the first siege, the _Journal Officiel_ of the mairie of +Paris had inserted a letter from Courbet demanding the overthrow of the +column. + +[175] Thus Courbet was not as yet a member of the Council. Nevertheless +he was considered as the principal author of the fall of the column, and +condemned in the costs of its re-erection. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + PARIS ON THE EVE OF DEATH. + + +The Paris of the Commune has but three days more to live; let us engrave +upon our memory her luminous physiognomy. + +He who has breathed in thy life that fiery fever of contemporaneous +history, who has panted on thy boulevards and wept in thy faubourgs, who +has sung to the morns of thy revolutions and a few weeks after bathed +his hands in powder behind thy barricades, he who can hear from beneath +thy stones the voices of the martyrs of sublime ideas and read in every +one of thy streets a date of human progress, even he does less justice +to thy original grandeur than the stranger, though a Philistine, who +came to glance at thee during the days of the Commune. The attraction of +rebellious Paris was so strong that men hurried thither from America to +behold this spectacle unprecedented in the world's history--the greatest +town of the European continent in the hands of the proletarians. Even +the pusillanimous were drawn towards her. + +In the first days of May one of our friends arrived--one of the most +timid men of the timid provinces. His kith and kin had escorted him on +his departure, tears in their eyes, as though he were descending into +the infernal regions. He said to us, "What is true in all the rumours +bruited about?" "Well, come and search all the recesses of the den." + +We set out from the Bastille. Street-arabs cry Rochefort's _Mot +d'Ordre_, the _Pere Duchene_, Jules Valles' _Cri du Peuple_, Felix +Pyat's _Vengeur_, _La Commune_, _L'Affranchi_, _Le Pilori des +Mouchards_. The _Officiel_ is little asked for; the journalists of the +Council stifle it by their competition. The _Cri du Peuple_ has a +circulation of 100,000. It is the earliest out; it rises with +chanticleer. If we have an article by Valles this morning, we are in +luck; but in his stead, Pierre Denis, with his autonomy _a outrance_, +makes himself too often heard. Only buy the _Pere Duchene_ once, though +its circulation is more than 60,000. Take Felix Pyat's article in the +_Vengeur_ as a fine example of literary intoxication. The bourgeoisie +has no better helpmates than these vain and ignorant claptrap-mongers. +Here is the doctrinaire journal _La Commune_, in which Milliere +sometimes writes, and in which Georges Duchene takes the young men and +the old of the Hotel-de-Ville to task with a severity which would better +fit another character than his. Do not forget the _Mot d'Ordre_, +whatever the romanticists may say. It was one of the first to support +the Revolution of the 18th March, and darted terrible arrows at the +Versaillese. + +In the kiosques are the caricatures. Thiers, Picard, and Jules Favre +figure as the Three Graces, clasping each other's paunches. This fine +fish, the _maquereau_, with the blue-green scales, who is making up a +bed with an imperial crown, is the Marquis de Gallifet. _L'Avenir_, the +mouthpiece of the _Ligue_. _Le Siecle_, become very hostile since the +arrest of Gustave Chaudey; and _La Verite_, the Yankee Portalis's paper, +are piled up, melancholy and intact. Many reactionist papers have been +suppressed by the prefecture, but for all that are not dead; for a lad, +without any mystery about him, offers them to us. + +Read, search, find one appeal to murder, to pillage, a single cruel line +in all these Communard journals excited by the battle, and then compare +them with the Versaillese papers, demanding fusillades _en masse_ as +soon as the troops shall have vanquished Paris. + +Let us follow those catafalques that are being taken up the Rue de la +Roquette, and enter with them into the Pere Lachaise cemetery. All those +who die for Paris are entombed with obsequies in the great +resting-place. The Commune has claimed the honour of paying for their +funerals; its red flag blazes from the four corners of the hearse, +followed by some comrades of the battalion, while a few passers-by +always join the procession. This is a wife accompanying her dead +husband. A member of the Council follows the coffin; at the grave he +speaks not of regrets, but of hope, of vengeance. The widow presses her +children in her arms, and says to them, "Remember and cry with me, 'Vive +la Republique! Vive la Commune!'"[176] + +On retracing our steps, we pass by the mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement. It is hung with black, the mourning of the last +Imperialist plebiscite, of which the people of Paris was innocent and +became the victim. We cross the Place de la Bastille, gay, animated by +the ginger-bread fair. Paris will yield nothing to the cannon; she has +even prolonged the annual fair for a week. The swings move to and fro, +the wheels-of-fortune turn, booth-keepers cry their sixpenny wares, the +mountebanks allure spectators, and promise half their receipts to the +wounded. + +We go down these great boulevards. A crowd pushes against the Napoleon +Circus, where 5,000 people are gathered, filling it from the area to the +ceiling. Small flags, each one bearing the name of a department, urge +the provincials to group themselves. This meeting has been called by +some merchants, who propose to the citizens of the departments to send +delegates to their respective deputies, in the belief that the latter +may be brought round and peace gained by explanations. A tall, thin man, +with a sad face, asks for permission to address the people, and gets +upon the platform. It is Milliere, whom the crowd cheers. "Peace," said +he, "we all wish for it, citizens. But who, then, has commenced the war? +Who attacked Paris on the 18th March? M. Thiers. Who attacked her on the +2nd April? M. Thiers. Who has spoken of conciliation, multiplied +attempts at peace? Paris. Who has always repulsed them? M. Thiers. +Conciliation! M. Dufaure has said, 'Why, insurrection is less criminal.' +And that which neither the Freemasons, nor the leagues, nor the +addresses, nor the municipal councillors of the provinces could do, you +expect to get from a deputation chosen from amongst the Parisians! See, +without knowing it, you are enervating the defence. No, no more +deputations, but active correspondence with the provinces--there lies +salvation!" "This, then, is that energumen whom we are so frightened of +in the provinces!" exclaimed our friend. "Yes, and these thousands of +men of all conditions, who in common seek for peace, consult each other, +answer courteously, these are the demented people, the handful of +bandits who hold the capital." + +Before the Prince Eugene Barracks we notice the 1,500 soldiers who +remained in Paris on the 18th March, and whom the Commune entertains +without asking them for any service. At the top of the Boulevard Magenta +we visit the numerous skeletons of the St. Laurent Church, arranged in +the same order they were found in, without coffins or winding-sheets. +Are not interments in churches formally prohibited? Some, however, Notre +Dame des Victoires especially, abound in skeletons. Is it not the duty +of the Commune to expose these illegal proceedings, which are perhaps +crimes? + +On the boulevards, from Bonne-Nouvelle to the Opera, we find the same +Paris loitering before the shops, sitting in front of the cafes. +Carriages are rare, for the second siege has cut short the provisions +for horses. By the Rue du 4 Septembre we reach the Stock Exchange, +surmounted by the red flag, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, where +readers are sitting round the long tables. Crossing the Palais-Royal, +whose arcades are always noisy, we come to the Museum of the Louvre; the +rooms, hung with their pictures, are open to the public. The Versaillese +journals none the less say the Commune is selling the national +collections to foreigners. + +We descend the Rue de Rivoli. On the right, in the Rue Castiglione, a +huge barricade obstructs the entrance of the Place Vendome. The issue of +the Place de la Concorde is barred by the St. Florentin redoubt, +stretching to the Ministry of Marine on its right, and the garden of +the Tuileries on its left, with three rather badly directed embrasures +eight yards wide. An enormous ditch, laying bare all the arteries of +subterranean life, separates the place from the redoubt. The workmen are +giving it the finishing stroke, and cover the epaulments with gazon. +Many promenaders look on inquisitively, and more than one brow lowers. A +corridor skilfully constructed conducts us to the Place de la Concorde. +The proud profile of the Strasbourg statue stands out against the red +flags. The Communards, who are accused of ignoring France, have piously +replaced the faded crowns of the first siege by fresh spring flowers. + +We now enter the zone of battle. The avenue of the Champs-Elysees +unrolls its long-deserted line, cut by the dismal bursting of the shells +from Mont-Valerien and Courbevoie. These reach as far as the Palais de +l'Industrie, whose treasures the employes of the Commune courageously +protect. In the distance rises the mighty bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. +The sight-seers of the first days have disappeared, for the Place de +l'Etoile has become almost as deadly as the rampart. The shells break +off the bas-reliefs that M. Jules Simon had caused to be iron-clad +against the Prussians. The main arch is walled up to stop the +projectiles that enfiladed it. Behind this barricade they are getting +ready to mount some pieces on the platform, which is almost as high as +Mont-Valerien. + +By the Faubourg St. Honore we pass along the Champs-Elysees. In the +right angle comprised between the Avenue de la Grande Armee, that of the +Ternes, the ramparts, and the Avenue Wagram there is not a house intact. +You see M. Thiers "does not bombard Paris, as the people of the Commune +will not fail to say." Some shreds of a placard hang from a +half-battered wall; it is M. Thiers' speech against King Bomba, which a +group of conciliators have been witty enough to reproduce. "You know, +gentlemen," said he to the bourgeois of 1848, "what is happening at +Palermo. You all have shaken with horror on hearing that during +forty-eight hours a large town has been bombarded. By whom? Was it by a +foreign enemy exercising the rights of war? No, gentlemen, it was by +its own Government. And why? Because that unfortunate town demanded its +rights. Well, then, for the demand of its rights it has got forty-eight +hours of bombardment!" Happy Palermo! Paris already has had forty days +of bombardment. + +We have some chance of getting to the Boulevard Pereire by the left side +of the Avenue des Ternes. From there to the Porte-Maillot every spot is +beset with danger. Watching for a momentary lull, we reach the gate, or +rather the heap of ruins that mark its place. The station no longer +exists, the tunnel is filled up, the ramparts are slipping into the +moats. And yet there are human salamanders who dare to move about amidst +these ruins. Facing the gate there are three pieces commanded by Captain +La Marseillaise; on the right, Captain Rouchat with five pieces; on the +left, Captain Martin with four. Monteret, who commands this post for the +last five weeks, lives with them in this atmosphere of shells. The +Mont-Valerien, Courbevoie, and Becon have thrown more than eight hundred +of them. Twelve pieces are served by ten men, naked to the waist, their +body and arms blackened with powder, in a stream of perspiration, often +a match in each hand. The only survivor of the first set, the sailor +Bonaventure, has twenty times seen his comrades dashed to pieces. And +yet they hold out, and these pieces, continually dismounted, are +continually renewed; their artillerists only complain of the want of +munition, for the waggons no longer dare approach. The Versaillese have +very often attempted, and may attempt, surprises. Monteret watches day +and night, and he can without boasting write to the Committee of Public +Safety that so long as he is there the Versaillese will not enter by the +Porte-Maillot. + +Every step towards La Muette is a challenge to death. But our friend +must witness all the greatness of Paris. On the ramparts, near the gate +of La Muette, an officer is waving his kepi toward the Bois de Boulogne; +the balls are whistling around him. It is Dombrowski, who is amusing +himself with inveighing against the Versaillese of the trenches. A +member of the Council who is with him succeeds in making him forego +this musketeer foolhardiness, and the general takes us to the castle, +where he has established one of his headquarters. All the rooms are +perforated by shells. Still he remains there, and makes his men remain. +It has been calculated that his aides-de-camp on an average lived eight +days. At this moment the watch of the Belvedere rushes in with appalled +countenance; a shell has traversed his post. "Stay there," says +Dombrowski to him; "if you are not destined to die there you have +nothing to fear." Such was his courage--all fatalism. He received no +reinforcements despite his despatches to the War Office; believed the +game lost, and said so but too often. + +This is my only reproach, for you do not expect me to apologise for the +Commune's having allowed foreigners to die for it. Is not this the +revolution of all proletarians? Is it not for the people to at last do +justice to that great Polish race which all French governments have +betrayed? + +Dombrowski accompanies us across Passy as far as the Seine, and shows us +the almost abandoned ramparts. The shells crush or mow down all the +approaches to the railway; the large viaduct is giving way at a hundred +places; the iron-clad locomotives have been overthrown. The Versaillese +battery of the Billancourt Isle fires point-blank at our gunboats, and +sinks one, _L'Estoc_, under our very eyes. A tug arrives in time, picks +up the crew, and ascends the Seine under the fire that follows it up to +the Jena Bridge. + +A clear sky, a bright sun, peaceful silence envelop this stream, this +wreck, these scattered shells. Death appears more cruel amidst the +serenity of nature. Let us go and salute our wounded at Passy. A member +of the Council, Lefrancais, is visiting the ambulance of Dr. Demarquay, +whom he questions as to the state of the wounded. "I do not share your +opinions," answers the doctor, "and I cannot desire the triumph of your +cause; but I have never seen wounded men preserve more calm and +sangfroid during operations. I attribute this courage to the energy of +their convictions." We then visit the beds; most of the sick anxiously +inquire when they will be able to resume their service. A young fellow +of eighteen, whose right hand had just been amputated, holds out the +other, exclaiming, "I have still this one for the service of the +Commune!" An officer, mortally wounded, is told that the Commune has +just handed over his pay to his wife and children. "I had no right to +it," answers he. "These, my friend, these are the brutish drunkards who, +according to Versailles, form the army of the Commune." + +We return by the Champ-de-Mars; its huts are badly manned. Other +_cadres_, a different discipline would be needed to retain the +battalions there. Before the Ecole, 1500 yards from the ramparts, and a +few steps from the War Office, a hundred ordnance pieces remain inert, +loaded with mud. Leaving on our right the War Office, that centre of +discord, let us enter the Corps Legislatif, transformed into a workshop. +Fifteen hundred women are there, sewing the sand sacks that are to stop +up the breaches. A tall and handsome girl, Marthe, round her waist the +red scarf with silver fringe given her by her comrades, distributes the +work. The hours of labour are shortened by joyous songs. Every evening +the wages are paid, and the women receive the whole sum, eight centimes +a sack, while the former contractors hardly gave them two. + +We now proceed along the quays, lulled in imperturbable calm. The +Academy of Sciences holds its Monday sittings. It is not the workmen who +have said, "The Republic wants no savants." M. Delaunay is in the chair. +M. Elie de Beaumont looks through the correspondence, and reads a note +from his colleague, M. J. Bertrand, who has fled to St. Germain. We +shall find the report in the _Officiel_ of the Commune. + +We must not leave the left bank without visiting the military prison. +Ask the soldiers if they have met with a single menace, a single insult +in Paris; if they are not treated as comrades, subjected to no +exceptional rules, set free when willing to help their Parisian +brothers. + +Meanwhile evening has set in. The theatres are opening. The Lyrique +gives a grand performance for the benefit of the wounded, and the +Opera-Comique is preparing another. The Opera promises us a special +performance for the following Monday, when we shall hear Gossec's +revolutionary hymn. The artists of the Gaiete, abandoned by their +manager, themselves direct their theatre. The Gymnase, Chatelet, +Theatre-Francais, Ambigu-Comique, Delassements, have large audiences +every night. Let us pass to more virile spectacles, such as Paris has +not witnessed since 1793. + +Ten churches open, and the Revolution mounts the pulpits. In the old +quarter of the Gravilliers, St. Nicholas des Champs is filling with the +powerful murmur of many voices. A few gas-burners hardly light up the +swarming crowd; and at the farther end, almost hidden by the shadow of +the vaults, hangs the figure of Christ draped in the popular oriflamme. +The only luminous centre is the reading-desk, facing the pulpit, hung +with red. The organ and the people chant the _Marseillaise_. The orator, +over-excited by these fantastic surroundings, launches forth into +ecstatic apostrophes, which the echo repeats like a menace. The people +discuss the events of the day, the means of defence; the members of the +Council are severely censured, and vigorous resolutions are voted to be +presented to the Hotel-de-Ville the next day. Women sometimes ask to +speak; at the Batignolles they have a club of their own. No doubt, few +precise ideas come forth from these feverish meetings, but many find +there a provision of energy and of courage. + +It is only nine o'clock, and we may still be in time for the concert of +the Tuileries. At the entrance, citoyennes, accompanied by +commissioners, are making a collection for the widows and orphans of the +Commune. The immense rooms are animated by a decent and gay throng. For +the first time respectably-dressed women are seated on the forms of the +court. Three orchestras are playing in the galleries, but the soul of +the fete is in the Salle des Marechaux, where Mademoiselle Agar recites +from "Les Chatiments" in that same place, where, ten months before, +Bonaparte and his band were enthroned. Mozart, Meyerbeer, Rossini, the +great works of art have driven away the musical obscenities of the +Empire. From the large central window the harmonious strains vibrate to +the garden; joyous lights shine like stars on the green-sward, dance +among the trees, and colour the playing fountains. Within the arbours +the people are laughing; but the noble Champs-Elysees, dark and +desolate, seem to protest against these popular masters, whom they have +never acknowledged. Versailles, too, protests by that conflagration of +which a wan reflex lights up the Arc de Triomphe, whose sombre mass +overtowers the civil war. + +At eleven o'clock, as the crowd is retiring, we hear a noise from the +side of the chapel. M. Schoelcher has just been arrested. He has been +taken to the prefecture, where, a few hours after, the procureur Rigault +sets him at liberty. + +The boulevards are thronged with the people coming from the theatres. At +the Cafe-Peters there is a scandalous gathering of staff-officers and +prostitutes. Suddenly a detachment of National Guards appears and leads +them off. We follow them to the Hotel-de-Ville, where Ranvier, who is on +duty there, receives them. Short shrift is made: the women to St. +Lazare, the officers, with spades and mattocks, to the trenches. + +One o'clock in the morning. Paris sleeps tranquilly. Such, my friend, is +the Paris of the brigand. You have seen this Paris thinking, weeping, +combating, working, enthusiastic, fraternal, severe to vice. Her streets +free during the day, are they less safe in the silence of the night? +Since Paris has her own police crime has disappeared.[177] Each one is +left to his instincts, and where do you see debauchery victorious? These +Federals, who might draw milliards, live on ridiculous pay compared with +their usual salaries. Do you at last recognise this Paris, seven times +shot down since 1789, and always ready to rise for the salvation of +France? Where is her programme, say you? Why, seek it before you, and +not at the faltering Hotel-de-Ville. These smoking ramparts, these +explosions of heroism, these women, these men of all professions +united, all the workmen of the earth applauding our combat, all +monarchs, all the bourgeois coalesced against us, do they not speak +loudly enough our common thought, and that all of us are fighting for +equality, the enfranchisement of labour, the advent of a social society? +Woe to France if she does not comprehend! Leave at once; recount what +Paris is. If she dies, what life remains to you? Who, save Paris, will +have strength enough to continue the Revolution? Who save Paris will +stifle the clerical monster? Go, tell the Republican provinces, "These +proletarians fight for you too, who perhaps may be the exiles of +to-morrow." As to that class, the purveyor of empires, that fancies it +can govern by periodical butcheries, go and tell them, in accents loud +enough to drown their clamours, "The blood of the people will enrich the +revolutionary field. The idea of Paris will arise from her burning +entrails and become an inexorable firebrand with the sons of the +slaughtered." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[176] Funeral of Lieutenant Chatelet, of the 61st. + +[177] See the evidence of the chief of police, M. Claude, _Enquete sur +le 18 Mars_. vol. ii. p. 106. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + "La porte de St. Cloud vient de s'abatre. Le general Douai + s'y est precipite."--_M. Thiers aux Prefets, le 21 Mai._ + + THE VERSAILLESE ENTER PARIS ON SUNDAY, 21ST MAY. AT THREE + O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON--THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE + DISSOLVES. + + +The great attack approached; the Assembly drew up in battle-array. On +the 16th May it refused to recognise the Republic as the Government of +France, and voted public prayers by 417 voices out of 420. On the 17th +the army established its breach batteries against the gates of La +Muette, Auteuil, St. Cloud, Point du Jour, Issy. The batteries in the +rear continued to pound the enceinte of the Point du Jour and to +confound Passy. The pieces of the Chateau de Brecon ruined the +Montmartre cemetery, and reached as far as the Place St. Pierre. We had +five arrondissements under shell. + +On the 18th, in the evening, the Versaillese surprised the Federals of +Cachan by approaching them with the cry of "Vive la Commune!" However, +we succeeded in preventing their movement towards the Hautes-Bruyeres. +The Dominican monks who from their convent gave signals to the enemy +were arrested and taken to the Fort de Bicetre. + +_19th._--Despite the Versaillese approaches, our defence did not become +more vigorous. The bastions 72 and 73 threw a few occasional shells upon +the village and the fort of Issy. From the Point du Jour to the +Porte-Maillot we had only the cannon of the Dauphine gate to answer the +hundred Versaillese pieces and check their works in the Bois de +Boulogne. A few barricades at the Bineau and Asnieres gates and the +Boulevard d'Italie, two redoubts at the Place de la Concorde and Rue +Castiglione, a moat in the Rue Royale and another at the Trocadero; this +was all that the Council had done in seven weeks for the defence of the +interior. There were no works at the Mont-Parnasse Station, the +Pantheon, the Buttes Montmartre, where two or three pieces had been +fired off on the 14th, only to kill our own men at Laval's. At the +terrace of the Tuileries about twelve navvies sadly dug away at a +useless fosse. The Committee of Public Safety could not, they said, find +workmen, when they had 1,500 idlers at the Prince-Eugene Barracks, +100,000 sedentary guards, and millions of francs to hand. An iron will +and firm direction might still have saved everything; and we were now in +the period of coma, of immense lassitude. The competitions, quarrels, +and intrigues had relaxed all energy. The Council occupied itself with +details, with trifles. The Committee of Public Safety multiplied its +romantic proclamations, which moved nobody. The Central Committee +thought only of seizing upon a power it was unable to wield, and on the +19th announced itself administrator of the War Office. Its members had +made so sure of their sway, that one of them by a decree inserted in the +_Officiel_ ordered all the inhabitants of Paris to "present themselves +at their homes within forty-eight hours," on pain of "having their +rent-titles on the grand livre burnt." This was the pendant of the civic +card. + +Our best battalions, decimated, abandoned to themselves, were but +wrecks. Since the beginning of April we had lost 4,000 men, killed or +wounded, and 3,500 prisoners. There now remained to us 2,000 men from +Asnieres to Neuilly, 4,000 perhaps from La Muette to Petit-Vanves. The +battalions designated for the posts of Passy were not there, or stayed +in the houses far from the ramparts; many of their officers had +disappeared. At the bastions 36 to 70, precisely at the point of attack, +there were not twenty artillerists; the sentinels were absent. + +Was it treason? The conspirators boasted a few days after of having +dismantled these ramparts; but the terrible bombardment would suffice to +explain this dereliction. Still there was a culpable heedlessness. +Dombrowski, weary of struggling against the inertness of the War Office, +was discouraged, went too often to his quarters at the Place Vendome, +while the Committee of Public Safety, informed of the abandonment of the +ramparts, contented itself with warning the War Office instead of +hurrying to the rescue and taking the situation in hand. + +On Saturday, the 20th May, the breach batteries were unmasked; 300 naval +guns and siege-pieces blending together their detonations announced the +beginning of the end. + +The same day De Beaufond, whom Lasnier's arrest had not discouraged, +sent his habitual emissary to warn the chief of the Versaillese general +staff that the gates of Montrouge, Vanves, Vaugirard, Point du Jour, and +Dauphine were entirely deserted. Orders for concentrating the troops +were immediately issued. On the 21st the Versaillese found themselves in +readiness, as on the 3rd and 12th, but this time success seemed certain; +the gate of St. Cloud was dashed to pieces. + +For several days some members of the Council had pointed out this breach +to the chief of the general staff, Henry Prodhomme. He answered a la +Cluseret that his measures were taken; that he was even going to throw +up a terrible iron-clad barricade before this gate; but he did not stir. +On the Sunday morning, Lefrancais, traversing the moat on the ruins of +the drawbridge, at about fifteen yards distance, ran up against the +Versaillese trenches. Struck by the imminence of the peril, he sent +Delescluze a note, which was lost. + +At half-past two, under the shade of the Tuileries, a monster concert +was being given for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the +Commune. Thousands of people had come; the bright spring dresses of the +women lit up the green alleys; people eagerly inhaled the fresh air sent +forth from the great trees. Two hundred yards off, on the Place de la +Concorde, the Versaillese shells burst, uttering their discordant note +amidst the joyous sounds of the bands and the invigorating breath of +spring. + +At the end of the concert a staff officer ascended the platform of the +conductor of the orchestra. "Citizens," said he, "M. Thiers promised to +enter Paris yesterday. M. Thiers has not entered; he will not enter. I +invite you to come here next Sunday, to the same place, to our second +concert for the benefit of the widows and orphans." + +At that very hour, at that very minute, almost within gunshot, the +vanguard of the Versaillese was making its entry into Paris. + +The expected signal had at last been given from the St. Cloud gate, but +did not come from the licensed conspirators. An amateur spy, Ducatel, +was crossing these quarters, when he saw everything, gates and ramparts, +quite deserted. He thereupon climbed the bastion 64, waving a white +handkerchief, and cried to the soldiers of the trenches, "You can enter; +there is no one here." A naval officer came forward, interrogated +Ducatel, crossed over the ruins of the drawbridge, and was able to +assure himself that the bastions and neighbouring houses were entirely +abandoned. Returning immediately to the trenches, the officer +telegraphed the news to the nearest generals. The breach batteries +ceased firing, and the soldiers of the trenches near penetrated by small +platoons into the enceinte. M. Thiers, MacMahon, and Admiral Pothuan, +who were just then at Mont-Valerien, telegraphed to Versailles to have +all the divisions put in motion. + +Dombrowski, absent from his headquarters of La Muette for several hours, +arrived at four o'clock. A commander met him, and informed him of the +entry of the Versaillese. Dombrowski let the officer terminate his +report, then, turning to one of his aides-de-camp, with that coolness +that he exaggerated in critical circumstances, said, "Send to the +Ministry of Marine for a battery of seven cannon; warn such and such +battalions. I shall take the command myself." He also addressed a +despatch to the Committee of Public Safety and the War Office, and sent +the battalion of volunteers to occupy the gate of Auteuil. + +At five o'clock, National Guards, without kepis, without arms, uttered a +cry of alarm in the streets of Passy; some officers unsheathing their +swords tried to stop them; the Federals left their houses, some loading +their guns, others maintaining that it was a false alarm. The commander +of the volunteers picked up and led off as many men as he could get to +follow him. + +These volunteers were troops inured to fire. Near the railway station +they saw the red-coats, and received them with a volley. A Versaillese +officer on horseback, who hurried up trying to urge on his men with +drawn sabre, fell beneath our balls, and his soldiers retreated. The +Federals established themselves solidly on the viaduct and at the +opening of the Murat Boulevard, while, at the same time, the quay +abreast of the Jena Bridge was being barricaded. + +Dombrowski's despatch had reached the Committee of Public Safety. +Billioray, on duty at this moment, at once proceeded to the Council. The +Assembly was just putting Cluseret on his trial, and Vermorel was +speaking. The ex-delegate, seated on a chair, listened to the orator +with that vain nonchalance which the naive took for talent. Billioray, +very pale, entered, and for a moment sat down; then, as Vermorel went +on, cried to him, "Conclude! conclude! I have to make a communication of +the greatest importance to the Assembly; I demand a secret sitting." + +Vermorel: "Let citizen Billioray speak." + +Billioray rose and read a paper that trembled slightly in his hand. +"Dombrowski to War and Committee of Public Safety. The Versaillese have +entered by the Porte de St. Cloud. I take measures to drive them back. +If you can send me reinforcements, I answer for everything."[178] + +There was first a silence of anguish, soon broken by interpellations. +"Some battalions have marched off," answered Billioray; "the Committee +of Public Safety watches." + +The discussion was again taken up, and naturally cut short. The Council +acquitted Cluseret; the ridiculous impeachment brought forward by Miot, +made up only of gossip, neglected the only incriminating fact--the +inactivity of Cluseret during his delegation. They then formed into +groups and commented on the despatch. The confidence of Dombrowski, the +assurance of Billioray, proved quite sufficient to the romanticists. +What with faith in the general, the solidity of the ramparts, the +immortality of the cause; what with the responsibility of the Committee +of Public Safety, the question at issue was slurred over; let every one +go about in search of information, and in case of need betake himself to +his own arrondissement. + +The time was wasted in small-talk; there were neither motion nor debate; +eight o'clock struck, and the president raised the sitting. The last +sitting of the Council! And there was no one to demand a permanent +committee; no one to call on his colleague to wait here for news, to +summon the Committee of Public Safety to the bar of the Council. There +was no one to insist that at this critical moment of uncertainty, when +perhaps it might be necessary to improvise a plan of defence at a +moment's notice or take a great resolution in case of disaster, the post +of the guardians of Paris was in the centre, at the Hotel-de-Ville, and +not in their respective arrondissements. + +Thus the Council of the Commune disappeared from history and the +Hotel-de-Ville at the moment of supreme danger, when the Versaillese +penetrated into Paris. + +The same prostration reigned at the War Office, where they had received +the news at five o'clock. The Central Committee went to Delescluze, who +seemed very calm, and said, what many indeed believed, that the fight in +the streets would be favourable to the Commune. The commander of the +section of the Point du Jour having just come to report that nothing +serious had happened, the delegate accepted his statements without +corroboration. The chief of the general staff did not even think it +worth while to go and make a personal recognisance, and towards eight +o'clock he had this incredible despatch placarded: "The observatory of +the Arc de Triomphe denies the entry of the Versaillese; at least, it +sees nothing that looks like it. The commander (Renaud) of the section +has just left my cabinet, and declares that there has only been a panic, +and that the gate of Auteuil has not been forced; that if a few +Versaillese have entered, they have been repulsed. I have sent for +eleven battalions of reinforcements, by as many officers of the general +staff, who are not to leave them till they have led them to the posts +which they are to occupy." + +At the same hour M. Thiers telegraphed to his prefects, "The gate of St. +Cloud has fallen under the fire of our cannon. General Douai has dashed +into the town." A two-fold lie. The gate of St. Cloud had been wide open +for three days without the Versaillese daring to pass it, and General +Douai had crept in very modestly, man by man, introduced by treason. + +At night the Ministry seemed to wake up a little. Officers flocked +thither asking for orders. The general staff would not allow the tocsin +to be sounded, on the pretext that the population must not be alarmed. +Some members of the Council pored over the plan of Paris at last, +studying those strategical points that had been forgotten for six weeks. +When it was necessary at once to find an idea, a method, and give +precise instructions, the delegate shut himself in his cabinet in order +to frame a proclamation. + +While in the midst of Paris, confident in her trustees, a few men, +without soldiers, without information, prepared the first resistance, +the Versaillese continued to slip in through the breaches of the +ramparts. Wave on wave their flood grew silent, veiled by the dusk. By +degrees they massed themselves between the railway line and the +fortifications. At eight o'clock they were numerous enough to divide +into two columns, one of which, turning to the left, crowned the +bastions 66 and 67, while the other filed off to the right on the route +to Versailles. The first lodged itself in the centre of Passy, occupying +the St. Perine asylum, the church, and the place of Auteuil; the other, +having swept away the rudimentary barricade constructed on the quay at +the top of the Rue Guillon, towards one o'clock in the morning, by the +Rue Raynouard, scaled the Trocadero, neither fortified nor manned on +this side, and at once took possession of it. + +At the Hotel-de-Ville the members of the Committee of Public Safety had +at last assembled. Billioray alone had vanished not to appear again. +They knew nothing of the number and position of the troops, but knew +that under the cover of night the enemy had entered Passy. Staff +officers sent to the Muette to reconnoitre came back with the most +reassuring news. Thereupon, at eleven o'clock, a member of the Council, +Assi, entered the Rue Beethoven, where the lights had been put out. Soon +his horse refused to advance; it had slipped down in large pools of +blood, and National Guards seemed to lie asleep along the walls. +Suddenly men sprang forward. They were the Versaillese waiting in +ambush; these sleepers were murdered Federals. + +The Versaillese were slaughtering within the walls of Paris, and Paris +knew it not. The night was clear, starlit, mild, fragrant; the theatres +were crowded, the boulevards sparkling with life and gaiety, the bright +cafes swarming with visitors, and the cannon were everywhere hushed--a +silence unknown for three weeks. If "the finest army that France ever +had" were to push straight on by the quays and boulevards, entirely free +of barricades, with one bound, without firing a shot, it would crush the +Commune of Paris. + +The volunteers held out on the railway line till midnight; then, +exhausted, left without any reinforcements, they fell back upon La +Muette. General Clinchant followed them, occupied the Auteuil gate, +passed by that of Passy, and marched on the headquarters of Dombrowski. +Fifty volunteers for some time still kept up a skirmish in the chateau, +but outflanked on the east, about to be closed in from the Trocadero, at +half-past one in the morning they beat a retreat on the Champs-Elysees. + +On the left bank General Cissey had the whole evening massed his forces +at about 200 yards from the enceinte. At midnight his sappers crossed +the moat, scaled the ramparts, without even falling in with a sentinel, +and opened the gates of Sevres and Versailles. + +At three o'clock in the morning the Versaillese inundated Paris through +the five gaping wounds of the gates of Passy, Auteuil, St. Cloud, +Sevres, and Versailles. The greater part of the fifteenth arrondissement +was occupied, the Muette taken; taken all Passy and the heights of the +Trocadero, taken too the powder-magazine of the Rue Beethoven, immense +catacombs running underneath the sixteenth arrondissement, crammed with +3,000 barrels of powder, millions of cartridges, thousands of shells. At +five o'clock the first Versaillese shell fell upon the Legion d'Honneur. +As on the morning of the 2nd December, Paris was asleep. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[178] The original of this document has been lost, but we have been able +to re-establish the text with the evidence of Dombrowski's brother and +of a great number of members of the Council present at this sitting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + "Les generaux qui ont conduit l'entree a Paris sont de grands + hommes de guerre."--_M. Thiers a l'Assemblee Nationale, 22 + Mai 1871._ + + MONDAY 22ND--THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE + EAST--PARIS RISES. + + +At two o'clock Dombrowski arrived at the Hotel-de-Ville, pale, dejected, +his chest bruised with stones ploughed up by shot. He told the Committee +of Public Safety of the entry of the Versaillese, the surprise of Passy, +his useless efforts to rally the men. As he was pressed for news, as +they appeared astonished at such a rapid invasion, so little did the +Committee know of the military situation, Dombrowski, who misunderstood +them, exclaimed, "What! the Committee of Public Safety takes me for a +traitor! My life belongs to the Commune." His gesture, his voice, +testified to his bitter despair. + +The morn was warm and bright, as the day before. The call to arms, the +tocsin, set three or four thousand men on foot, who hurried towards the +Tuileries, the Hotel-de-Ville, and the War Office; but hundreds of +others at that moment had abandoned their posts, left Passy, and emptied +the fifteenth arrondissement. The Federals of Petit-Vanves came back to +Paris at five o'clock, and seeing the Trocadero occupied by the +Versaillese, refused to hold out. On the left bank, at the St. Clothilde +Square, some officers attempted to stay them, but were repulsed by the +guards. "It is now a war of barricades," said they; "every one to his +quarter." At the Legion d'Honneur they forced their way; the +proclamation of Delescluze had released them. + +Thus began that fatal proclamation placarded on all the walls:-- + +"Enough of militarism! No more staff-officers with their +gold-embroidered uniforms! Make way for the people, for the combatants +with naked arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck! The +people know nothing of learned manoeuvres. But when they have a gun in +their hands, pavement under their feet, they fear not all the +strategists of the monarchical school!" + +When the Minister of War thus stigmatises all discipline, who will +henceforth obey? When he repudiates all method, who will listen to +reason? Thus we shall see hundreds of men refusing to quit the pavement +of their street, paying no heed to the neighboring quarter in agonies, +remaining motionless up to the last hour waiting for the army to come +and overwhelm them. + +At five o'clock in the morning the official retreat began. The chief of +the general staff, Henri Prodhomme, had the War Office precipitately +evacuated, without carrying off or destroying the papers. The next day +they fell into the hands of the Versaillese, and furnished the +courts-martial with thousands of victims. + +On leaving the Ministry, Delescluze met Brunel, who, set at liberty only +the evening before, had at once rallied his legion, and now came to +offer his services, for he was one of those men of convictions too +strong to be shaken by the most cruel injustice. Delescluze gave him the +order to defend the Place de la Concorde. Brunel repaired thither, and +disposed 150 tirailleurs, three pieces of 4 cm., one of 12, two of 7 on +the terrace of the Tuileries and by the bank of the river. He provided +the St. Florentin redoubt with a mitrailleuse and a piece of 4; that of +the Rue Royale, at the entrance of the Place de la Concorde, with two +pieces of 12. + +In front of Brunel, at the Place Beauvan, some men of the 8th legion +made vain efforts to stop the fugitives from Passy and Auteuil, and then +betook themselves to put the quarter in a fit state of defence. +Barricades were thrown up in the Faubourg St. Honore as far as the +English Embassy, in the Rue de Suresne and Ville-Leveque; obstacles were +heaped up at the Place St. Augustin, the opening of the Boulevard +Haussmann, and in front of the Boulevard Malesherbes, when the +Versaillese presented themselves. + +Early in the morning they had begun their onward march. At half-past +five Douai, Clinchant, and Ladmirault, passing along the ramparts, +debouched on the Avenue de la Grande Armee. The artillerists of the +Porte-Maillot, turning round, beheld in their rear the Versaillese, +their neighbours for some ten hours. Not a sentinel had denounced them. +Monteret filed off his men by the Ternes; then, alone with a child, +charged one of the cannon of the Porte-Maillot, fired his last round at +the enemy, and succeeded in escaping by the Batignolles. + +The column Douai remounted the Avenue as far as the barricade in front +of the Arc de Triomphe, which they took without a struggle, the Federals +hardly having time to carry off the cannon that were to have surmounted +the Arc de Triomphe. The soldiers marched up the quay, and ventured on +the silent Place de la Concorde; suddenly the terrace of the Tuileries +lighted up; the Versaillese, received with a point-blank volley, fled as +far as the Palais de l'Industrie, leaving many dead. + +On the left the soldiers occupied the abandoned Elysee, and by the Rues +Morny and Abbatucci debouched on the Place St. Augustin, where the +barricades, hardly begun, could not resist, and towards half-past seven +the Versaillese installed themselves at the Pepiniere Barracks. The +Federals formed a second line in the rear, closing the Boulevard +Malesherbes at the top of the Rue Boissy d'Anglas. + +On the left of Douai, Clinchant and Ladmirault continued their movement +along the ramparts. The important works at the gates of Bineau, +Courcelles, Asnieres, and Clichy, directed against the fortifications, +became useless, and the Ternes were occupied without striking a blow. At +the same time one of the Clinchant divisions passed by the outer +ramparts. The Federal battalions on duty at Neuilly, Levallois-Perret, +and St. Ouen were assailed with balls from the rear--(this was the +first intimation they got of the entry of the Versaillese)--and many +Federals were taken prisoners. Others succeeded in returning to Paris by +the gates of Bineau, Asnieres, and Clichy, spreading panic and rumours +of treason in the seventeenth arrondissement. + +The rappel had been beaten all night in the Batignolles, and had called +out the sedentary guards and the youths. A battalion of engineers rushed +forward to encounter Clinchant's skirmishers, and began firing in front +of the Parc Monceaux and the Place Wagram, when the National Guards, +deceived by their red trousers, opened a deadly fire upon them. They +retreated and laid bare the Parc, which the Versaillese occupied, and +then pushed on to the Batignolles. There they were stopped by barricades +rising on all sides; on the left, from the Place Clichy to the Rue +Levis; in the centre, in the Rues Lebouteux, La Condamine, and Des +Dames; on the right, La Fourche, the rival position of the Place Clichy, +had been fortified, and soon the Batignolles formed a serious outwork +for Montmartre, our principal fortress. + +The latter, for seventeen hours,[179] had looked silently on the entry +of the troops of Versailles. In the morning the columns of Douai and +Ladmirault, their artillery and their waggons, had met each other, and +become entangled on the Place du Trocadero. A few shells from +Montmartre[180] would have changed this confusion into a rout, and the +least check met with by the troops on their entry would have been for +Paris a second 18th March; but the cannon of the Buttes remained mute. + +Monstrous negligence, which alone would suffice to condemn the Council, +the War Office, and the delegates of Montmartre. Eighty-five cannon and +about twenty mitrailleuses were lying there, dirty, pell-mell, and no +one during these eight weeks had even thought of cleaning them. +Projectiles of 7 cm. abounded, but there were no cartridges. At the +Moulin de la Galette three pieces of 24 cm. alone were supplied with +carriages, but there were neither parapets, blindages, nor even +platforms. At nine o'clock in the morning they had not yet fired; after +the first discharge the recoil overthrew the carriages, and much time +was required to set them up again. These three pieces themselves had +very little munition. Of fortifications or earthworks there were none; +merely a few barricades at the foot of the external boulevards had been +begun. At nine o'clock La Cecilia sent to Montmartre, and found the +defence in this disgraceful state. He immediately addressed despatches +to the Hotel-de-Ville, conjuring the members of the Council to come +themselves, or at least to send reinforcements of men and munitions. + +A similar thing occurred at the same time on the left bank at the Ecole +Militaire. Face to face with its park of artillery, the Versaillese +since one o'clock in the morning were manoeuvring on the Trocadero +without a single cannon shot being fired at them. What, then, was the +governor of the Ecole about? + +At daybreak the Langourian brigade attacked the huts of the +Champ-de-Mars. The Federals defended themselves several hours, and were +only dislodged by the shells of the Trocadero, which enkindled a +conflagration.[181] They then fell back upon the Ecole, and for a long +time checking the effort of the troops, gave the seventeenth +arrondissement time to rise. The quay as far as the Legion d'Honneur, +the Rues de Lille, De l'Universite, and the Boulevard St. Germain up to +the Rue Solferino were being barricaded. Half-a-dozen of the armlet +conspirators, led by Durouchoux and Vrignault, were coming down the Rue +du Bac at great speed, when a member of the Council, Sicard, arrested +them before the Petit St. Thomas. A bullet struck Durouchoux; his +acolytes carried him away, and took advantage of the occasion not to +appear again. The Rue de Beaune, Verneuil, and St. Peres were put in a +state of defence, and a barricade was thrown up in the Rue de Sevres at +the Abbaye-au-Bois. + +On the right Cissey's soldiers descended the Rue de Vaugirard without +hindrance as far as the Avenue du Maine; another column filed off along +the railway, and at half-past six reached the Mont-Parnasse station. +This position, of supreme importance, had been utterly neglected; about +twenty men defended it, and they were soon short of cartridges, and +obliged to retreat to the Rue de Rennes, where, under the fire of the +troops, they constructed a barricade at the top of the Rue du Vieux +Colombier. On his extreme right Cissey occupied the Vanves gate and +lined the whole railway of the west. + +Paris rose to the roar of the cannon and read the proclamation of +Delescluze. The shops were at once shut up again, the boulevards +remained empty, and Paris, the old insurgent, resumed her combative +physiognomy. Estafets dashed through the streets, and remainders of +battalions came to the Hotel-de-Ville, where the Central Committee, the +Committee of Artillery, and all the military services were concentrated. + +At nine o'clock twenty members of the Council had assembled. A miracle! +There was Felix Pyat, who had cried "To arms!" in his paper that very +morning. He had put on his patriarchal air. "Well, my friends, our last +hour has come. Oh, for myself what matters it! My hair is grey, my +career run out. What more glorious end could I hope for than that of the +barricade. But when I see around me so many in the prime of youth, I +tremble for the future of the Revolution!" Then he demanded that the +names of the members present should be entered, in order to mark out +distinctly those true to their duty. He signed his name, and, with tears +in his eyes, the old comedian trotted off to a hiding-place, surpassing +by his last cowardice all his former villainies. + +A sterile meeting this, spent in discussing the news of the day; no +impulsion given, no system of defence propounded. The Federals were left +to their own inspirations--left to look after themselves. During the +whole past night neither Dombrowski, nor the War Office, nor the +Hotel-de-Ville had thought of the battalions outside the town. +Henceforth each corps had nothing to expect but from its own initiative, +from the resources it might be able to create and the intelligence of +its chiefs. + +In default of direction proclamations abounded. + +"Let good citizen rise! To the barricades! The enemy is within our +walls. No hesitation. Forward, for the Commune and for liberty. To +arms!" + +"Let Paris bristle up with barricades, and from behind these improvised +ramparts still hurl at her enemies her cry of war, of pride, of +defiance, but also of victory; for Paris with her barricades is +inexpugnable." + +Great words; nothing but words. + +_Mid-day._--General Cissey had turned the Ecole Militaire, and thereby +forced its last defenders. The soldiers invaded the Esplanade des +Invalides and entered the Rue Grenelle St. Germain, when L'Ecole +d'Etat-major exploded and put them to flight. Two of our cannon +enfiladed the Rue de l'Universite; four gunboats, anchored under the +Pont-Royal, opened fire on the Trocadero. In the centre, in the eighth +arrondissement, the Versaillese skirmished. At the Batignolles they did +not advance, but their shells harassed the Rue Levis. We also lost many +men in the Rue Cardinet, where children were fighting furiously. + +Malon and Jaclard, who directed this part of the defence, had since +morning in vain applied to Montmartre for reinforcements; so towards one +o'clock they themselves went in search of them. Not one of the +staff-officers could give them the slightest information. The Federals +were wandering about the streets or chatting in small groups. Malon +wanted to take them back with him, but they refused, reserving +themselves, they said, for the defence of their own quarter. The cannon +of the Buttes were mute, being short of cartridges; the Hotel-de-Ville +had sent only words. + +Still there were two generals on the heights, Cluseret and La Cecilia, +the ex-delegate melancholily airing his somnolent incapacity, while La +Cecilia, unknown in this quarter, at once found himself powerless. + +_Two o'clock._--The Hotel-de-Ville had again assumed its grand aspect of +March. On the right the Committee of Public Safety and on the left the +War Office were overrun. The Central Committee was multiplying its +orders and exclaiming against the incapacity of the members of the +Council, though itself incapable of setting forth a single precise idea. +The Committee of Artillery, more beset than ever, could not yet make out +its cannon, did not know to whom to give them, and often refused pieces +for the most important positions. + +The delegates of the Congress of Lyons, conducted by MM. Jules Amigues +and J. Larroque, came to offer their intervention, but they had no +mandate, and did not even know whether M. Thiers would admit them. They +were received rather coldly. Besides, many at the Hotel-de-Ville +believed in victory, and almost rejoiced at the entry of the +Versaillese; for indeed Paris seemed to be rising. + +The barricades increased quickly. That of the Rue de Rivoli, which was +to protect the Hotel-de-Ville, was erected at the entrance of the St. +Jacques Square, at the corner of the Rue St. Denis. Fifty workmen did +the mason-work, while swarms of children brought wheelbarrows full of +earth from the square. This work, several yards deep, six yards high, +with fosses, embrasures, an outwork, as solid as the Florentin redoubt, +which had taken weeks to raise, was finished in a few hours--an example +this of what an intelligent effort at the right time might have done for +the defence of Paris. In the ninth arrondissement, the Rues Auber, De la +Chaussee d'Antin, De Chateaudun, the cross-roads of the Faubourg +Montmartre, Notre Dame de Lorette, De la Trinite, and the Rue des +Martyrs were being unpaved. The large approaches, La Chapelle, Buttes +Chaumont, Belleville, Menilmontant, the Rue de la Roquette, the +Bastille, the Boulevards Voltaire and Richard Lenoir, the Place du +Chateau d'Eau, the large boulevards especially from the Porte St. Denis; +and on the left bank the whole length of the Boulevard St. Michel, the +Pantheon, the Rue St. Jacques, the Gobelins, and the principal avenues +of the thirteenth arrondissement were being barricaded. A great many of +these works of defence were never finished. + +While Paris was preparing for the last struggle, Versailles was wild +with joy. The Assembly had met at an early hour, and M. Thiers would not +leave to any of his Ministers the glory of announcing the first +butcheries in Paris. His appearance on the tribune was hailed by +ferocious cheers. "The cause of justice, order, humanity, and +civilisation has triumphed," screamed the little man. "The generals who +have conducted the entry into Paris are great men of war. The expiation +will be complete. It will take place in the name of the law, by the law, +with the law." The Chamber understanding this promise of carnage, rose +to a man, and by a unanimous vote, Right, Left, Centre, Clericals, +Republicans, Monarchists, swore that "the Versaillese army and the chief +of the executive power had merited well of the country."[182] + +The sitting was at once raised, the deputies rushing off to the Lanterne +de Diogene, Chatillon, and Mont-Valerien, to all the heights whence they +could, as from an immense Colosseum, observe the butchery of Paris +without incurring the least danger. The population of idlers accompanied +them, and on this route of Versailles deputies, courtesans, women of the +world, journalists, functionaries stung by the same craving, sometimes +crammed into the same carriage, displayed before the Prussians and +France the spectacle of a saturnalia of the bourgeoisie. + +After eight o'clock the army ceased to advance, save in the eighth +arrondissement, where the barricade before the English Embassy was +turned by the gardens. Our line of the Faubourg St. Germain resisted +from the Seine to the Mont-Parnasse Station, which we were cannonading. + +With nightfall the fusillade slackened, but the cannonade still went on. +A red light glared in the Tuileries; the Ministry of Finance was +burning. It had during the whole day received part of the Versaillese +shells, destined for the terrace of the Tuileries, and the papers piled +up in its upper storeys had taken fire. The firemen of the Commune had +at first extinguished this conflagration, interfering with the defence +of the St. Florentin redoubt, but it had soon lit up again, and become +unquenchable. + +Then began those nights of horror, where, amidst the roaring of the +cannon, by the glimmer of burning houses, men sought each other in pools +of blood. The Paris of the revolt had at length been roused. Her +battalions descended towards the Hotel-de-Ville headed by bands and the +red flag. Small in number, a battalion perhaps two hundred strong, but +resolute, these Federals marched on in silence; there were seen also, +muskets on their shoulders, those men, devoted to the Social Revolution, +whom personal jealousy had kept at a distance. But in this hour none +thought of such recriminations. Because of the incapacity of the chiefs +ought the soldiers to desert their flag? The Paris of 1871 represented +against Versailles the Social Revolution and the new destinies of the +nation; one must be against or for her despite the faults committed. +Cowards only abstained. All the true revolutionists rose, even those who +had no illusions as to the issue of the struggle, eager to defy death in +the service of their immortal cause. + +_Ten o'clock._--We proceeded to the Hotel-de-Ville. An irritated group +of Federals had just arrested Dombrowski. The general, without any +command since morning, had repaired with his officers to the outposts of +St. Ouen, and believing his role terminated, wanted in the night to ride +through the Prussian ranks and gain the frontier. A commander, who was +afterwards shot as a traitor, had incited his men against the general +under the pretext that he was betraying them. Led before the Committee +of Public Safety, Dombrowski indignantly exclaimed, "They say I have +betrayed!" The members of the Committee welcomed him affectionately, and +the incident had no further consequences. + +Messengers arrived at the War Office from all the points of the battle. +A great number of guards and officers issued orders and despatches in +the midst of a continual bustle. The inner courts were full of waggons +and carriages, the horses all ready harnessed; munitions were being +taken out or brought in, and not the least sign of discouragement, or +even of anxiety, was visible, but everywhere an almost gay activity. + +The streets and boulevards, with the exception of the invaded quarters, +had been lighted as usual. At the entrance of the Faubourg Montmartre +the light ceased abruptly, giving it the appearance of an enormous black +hole. This obscurity was guarded by Federal sentinels, uttering every +now and then their cry, "Passez au large!" Beyond this only a menacing +silence. These shadows moving about in the night seemed to assume +gigantic forms; one fancied oneself haunted by a sinister dream; the +bravest were appalled. + +There were nights more noisy, more glaring, more grandiose, when the +conflagrations and the cannonade enveloped Paris, but none of more +lugubrious impress. A night of meditation this, the vigil of battle. We +sought each other in the gloom, spoke low, giving and taking comfort. At +the cross-roads we consulted each other in order to examine our +positions, and then to work! Now for the spade and the pavements! Let +the earth be heaped up where the shells may flatten themselves against +it; let the mattresses thrown from the windows shelter the combatants. +Henceforth there is to be no more rest; let the stones cemented with +hate press against each other like the shoulders of men arrayed for the +battlefield. The enemy has taken us by surprise, defenceless. May he +to-morrow encounter a Saragossa or a Moscow! + +Every passer-by was requisitioned. "Come, citizen, lend a hand for the +Republic!" At the Bastille and in the interior boulevards one met crowds +of workers, some digging the earth, others carrying the paving-stones; +children using spades and mattocks as big as themselves. The women +encouraged the men; the delicate hand of the young girl raised the heavy +pickaxe that fell with a sharp sound, emitting fiery sparks. It took an +hour to seriously break through the soil. What matter! they will spend +their night at it. On the Tuesday evening, at the intersection of the +Square St. Jacques and the Boulevard Sebastopol, many _dames de la +halle_ worked for a long time, filling earth sacks and wicker +baskets.[183] + +And these were no longer the traditional redoubts two storeys high. Save +four or five in the Rue St. Honore and the Rue de Rivoli, the barricades +of May consisted of a few paving-stones hardly a man's height; behind +these sometimes a cannon or a mitrailleuse; and in the midst, wedged in +by two paving-stones, the red flag, the colour of vengeance. Behind +these shreds of ramparts thirty men held regiments in check. + +If this general effort had been directed by the least thought of +combination, if Montmartre and the Pantheon had crossed their fires, the +Versaillese army would have melted away in Paris; but the Federals, +without directions, without military knowledge, saw no further than just +their own quarter, or even their own streets; so that instead of 200 +strategical solidary barricades, easy to defend with 7,000 or 8,000 men, +hundreds were scattered about which it was impossible to arm +sufficiently. The general mistake was a belief that they would be +attacked from the front; while the Versaillese, thanks to their +numbers, everywhere executed flank movements. + +In the evening the Versaillese line extended from the station of the +Batignolles to the extremity of the Railway of the West on the left +bank, passing by the St. Lazare Station, the Pepiniere Barracks, the +English Embassy, the Palais de l'Industrie, the Corps Legislatif, the +Rue de Bourgogne, the Boulevard des Invalides, and the Mont-Parnasse +Station. To face the invader there were but embryo barricades. If with +one effort he were to break through this line still so weak, he would +surprise the centre quite disarmed. But these 130,000 men did not dare +to. Soldiers and chiefs were afraid of Paris. They fancied the streets +would open, the houses fall upon them; as witness the fable of the +torpedoes, of the mines under the sewers, invented later on to justify +their indecision.[184] On the Monday evening, masters of several +arrondissements, they still trembled, fearful of some terrible surprise. +They needed all the tranquility of the night to recover from their +conquest, and convince themselves that the Committee of Defence, despite +their boasting, had neither foreseen nor prepared anything. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[179] "Seventeen hours were required to get in 130,000 men and our +numerous artillery."--_M. Thiers, Enquete sur le 18 Mars._ + +[180] "From this unexpected obstruction there resulted a confusion that +lasted till after the passage of the troops, and might have had serious +consequences. If the insurgents had then opened fire upon the Trocadero, +from the batteries of Montmartre, their shells would have harassed us a +great deal. But the cannon of Montmartre still kept silent. It was only +a little after nine o'clock that they commenced firing; the passage was +then already cleared."--_Vinoy, La Commune_, p. 130. + +[181] The first conflagration of the days of May, and the Versaillese +have admitted that they themselves kindled it.--_Vinoy, L'Armistice et +la Commune_, p. 809. + +[182] No deputy protested either on this day or after, or declared he +had abstained from voting, neither those of the extreme Left nor those +of the extreme Right. They are then, all of them equally answerable for +this vote. + +[183] "At the Place Blanche," wrote G. Maroteau in the _Salut Public_ of +the next day, "there was a barricade perfectly constructed and defended +by a battalion of women, about 120. At the moment when I arrived, a dark +form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It was a young girl +with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, a +cartridge-box by her side. 'Stand, citizen! no one passes here!' I +stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed me +to go to the foot of the barricade." + +[184] Appendix XV. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + TUESDAY 23RD--MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN--THE WHOLESALE MASSACRES + --WE LOSE GROUND--PARIS ON FIRE--THE LAST NIGHT OF THE + HOTEL-DE-VILLE. + + +The defenders of the barricades slept on their paving-stones. The +hostile outposts were on the watch. At the Batignolles the Versaillese +reconnaissance carried off a sentinel. The Federal cried out with all +his might, "Vive la Commune!" and his comrades, thus warned, were able +to put themselves on their guard. He was shot there and then. In like +manner fell D'Assas and Barra. + +At two o'clock La Cecilia, accompanied by the members of the Council, +Lefrancais, Vermorel, and Johannard, and the journalists Alphonse +Humbert and G. Maroteau, brought up a reinforcement of 100 men to the +Batignolles. To Malon's reproaches for having left the quarter without +succour the whole day, the General answered, "I am not obeyed." + +_Three o'clock._--To the barricades! The Commune is not dead! The fresh +morning air bathes the fatigued faces and revives hope. The enemy's +cannonade along the whole line salutes the break of day. The +artillerists of the Commune, from Mont-Parnasse to the Buttes +Montmartre, which seem awaking, answered as well as they could. + +Ladmirault, almost motionless the day before, now launched his men along +the fortifications, taking all the gates from Neuilly to St. Ouen in the +rear. On his right, Clinchant attacked by the same movement all the +barricades of the Batignolles. The Rue Cardinet yielded first, then the +Rues Noblet, Truffaut, La Condamine, and the lower Avenue of Clichy. +Suddenly the gate of St. Ouen opened, and the Versaillese poured into +Paris; it was the Montaudon division, which since evening had been +operating in the exterior. The Prussians had surrendered the neutral +zone, and so, with the help of Bismarck, Clinchant and Ladmirault were +able to take the Buttes by the two flanks. + +Nearly surrounded in the mairie of the seventeenth arrondissement, Malon +ordered the retreat on Montmartre, whither a detachment of twenty-five +women, come to offer their services under the conduct of the citoyennes +Dimitrieff and Louise Michel, were also sent. + +Clinchant, pursuing his route, was arrested by the barricade of the +Place Clichy. To reduce these badly disposed paving-stones, behind which +hardly fifty men were fighting, required the combined effort of the +Versaillese of the Rue de St. Petersbourg and their tirailleurs of the +College Chaptal. The Federals, having no more shells, charged with +stones and bitumen; their powder exhausted, they fell back upon the Rue +des Carrieres, and Ladmirault, master of the St. Ouen Avenue, turned +their barricade by the Montmartre Cemetery. About twenty guards refused +to surrender, and were at once shot by the Versaillese. + +In the rear, the quarter Des Epinettes still held out for a time; at +last all resistance ceased, and about nine o'clock the entire +Batignolles belonged to the army. + +The Hotel-de-Ville knew nothing yet of the progress of the troops when +Vermorel rushed thither in search of munitions for Montmartre. As he was +setting out at the head of the waggons he met Ferre, and, with the smile +familiar to him, said, "Well, Ferre, the members of the minority fight." +"The members of the majority will do their duty," answered Ferre. +Generous emulation of these men, who were both devoted to the people, +and who were to die so nobly. + +Vermorel could not take his waggons as far as Montmartre, the +Versaillese already investing the heights. Masters of the Batignolles, +they had but to stretch out their hand to seize upon Montmartre. The +Buttes seemed dead; panic had during the night hurried on its underhand +work; the battalions, one after the other, had grown smaller, vanished. +Individuals seen later on in the ranks of the army had stirred +defections, spread false news, and every moment arrested civil and +military chiefs, under the pretext that they were betraying. Only about +a hundred men lined the north side of the hill; a few barricades had +been commenced in the night, but without spirit; the women alone had +shown any ardour. + +Cluseret had, according to his usual habit, gone off in a vapour. +Despite his despatches and the promises of the Hotel-de-Ville, La +Cecilia had received neither reinforcements nor munitions. At nine +o'clock, no longer hearing the cannon of the Buttes, he hurried up, and +found the cannoniers gone. The runaways from the Batignolles arriving at +ten o'clock only brought in panic. The Versaillese might have presented +themselves; there were not 200 combatants there to receive them. + +MacMahon, however, only dared attempt the assault with his best troops, +so redoubtable was this position, so great the renown of Montmartre. Two +entire army corps assailed it by the Rues Lepic, Mercadet, and the +Chaussee Clignancourt. From time to time some shots were fired from a +few houses; forthwith frightened columns came to a stand-still and began +regular sieges. These 20,000 men, who completely surrounded Montmartre, +helped by the artillery established on the terre-plein of the enceinte, +took three hours to climb these positions, defended without method by a +few dozen tirailleurs. + +At eleven o'clock the cemetery was taken, and shortly after the troops +reached the Chateau-Rouge. In the environs there were some fusillades, +but the few obstinate men who still fought were soon killed, or withdrew +discouraged at their isolation. The Versaillese, scrambling up to the +Buttes by all the acclivities that lead to them, at mid-day installed +themselves at the Moulin de la Galette, descended by the Place St. +Pierre to the mairie, and occupied the whole of the eighteenth +arrondissement without any resistance. + +Thus without a battle, without an assault, without even a protestation +of despair, was this impregnable fortress abandoned, from which a few +hundred resolute men might have kept the whole Versaillese army in +check, and constrained the Assembly to come to terms. + +Hardly arrived at Montmartre, the Versaillese staff offered a holocaust +to the manes of Lecomte and Clement-Thomas. Forty-two men, three women, +and four children were conducted to No. 6 in the Rue des Rosiers and +forced to kneel bare-headed before the wall, at the foot of which the +generals had been executed on the 18th March; then they were killed. A +woman, who held her child in her arms, refused to kneel down, and cried +to her companions, "Show these wretches that you know how to die +upright." + +On the following day these massacres continued. Each batch of prisoners +halted some time before this wall, marked with bullets, and were then +despatched on the slope of the Buttes that overlooks the St. Denis +route.[185] + +The Batignolles and Montmartre witnessed the first wholesale massacres. +Every individual wearing a uniform or regulation boots was shot, as a +matter of course, without questions put, without explanations given. +Thus the Versaillese had been assassinating since the morning in the +Square des Batignolles, Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, and at the gate of +Clichy. The Parc Monceaux was their principal slaughter-house in the +seventeenth arrondissement. At Montmartre the centres of massacre were +the Buttes, the Elysee, of which every step was strewn with corpses, and +the exterior boulevards. + +A few steps from Montmartre the catastrophe was not known. At the Place +Blanche the women's barricade held out for several hours against +Clinchant's soldiers; they then retreated towards the Pigalle barricade, +which fell at about two o'clock. Its chief was led before a Versaillese +chief of battalion. "Who are you?" asked the officer. "Leveque, mason, +member of the Central Committee." The Versaillese discharged his +revolver in his face; the soldiers finished him. + +On the other bank of the Seine our resistance was more successful. The +Versaillese had been able since morning to occupy the Babylone Barracks +and L'Abbaye-au-Bois, but Varlin stopped them at the cross-roads of the +Croix-Rouge. This cross-road will remain celebrated in the defence of +Paris. All the streets that open into it had been powerfully barricaded, +and this stronghold was only abandoned when fire and shells had reduced +it to a heap of ruins. On the banks of the river, the Rues de +l'Universite, St. Dominique, St. Germain, and De Grenelle, the 67th, +135th, 138th, and 147th battalions, supported by the _enfants perdus_ +and _les tirailleurs_, resisted obstinately. In the Rue de Rennes and on +the contiguous boulevards the Versaillese exhausted their strength. In +the Rue Vavin, where Lisbonne conducted the defence, the resistance was +prodigious; for two days this advanced sentinel kept back the invasion +from the Luxembourg. + +We were less secure on our extreme left. The Versaillese had early in +the day invested the Mont-Parnasse Cemetery, which we held with a +handful of men. Near the restaurant Richefeu, the Federals, allowing the +enemy to approach, unmasked their mitrailleuses; but in vain, for the +Versaillese were numerous enough to surround the few defenders of the +cemetery on all sides, and soon stormed it. From there, passing by the +ramparts of the fourteenth arrondissement, they arrived at the Place St. +Pierre. The fortifications of the Avenue d'Italie and of the Route de +Chatillon, long since carefully prepared, but always against the +ramparts, were taken in the rear by the Chaussee du Maine, and the whole +defence of the cross-roads of the Quatre-Chemins was concentrated round +the church. From the top of the steeple about a dozen Federals of +Montrouge supported the barricade that barred two-thirds of the Chaussee +du Maine, held by thirty men for several hours. At last, their +cartridges exhausted, the tricolor flag was hoisted at the mairie, at +the same hour that it floated above the Buttes Montmartre. Henceforth +the route to the Place d'Enfer was open, and the Versaillese arrived +there after having undergone the fire from the Observatoire, where some +Federals had made a stand. + +Behind these lines thus forced other defences were thrown up, thanks to +the care of Wroblewski. The day before, the general, receiving the order +to evacuate the forts, had answered, "Is it treachery or a +misunderstanding? I will not evacuate." Montmartre taken, the general +went to Delescluze, urging him to transfer the defence to the left bank. +The Seine, the forts, the Pantheon, the Bievre, formed, in his opinion, +a safe citadel, with the open fields for a retreat; a very just +conception this with regular troops, but one cannot at will displace the +heart of an insurrection, and the Federals were more and more bent on +remaining in their own quarters. + +Wroblewski returned to his headquarters, assembled the commanders of the +forts, prescribed all the dispositions to be taken for their defence, +and came back to resume the command of the left bank, given him by +earlier decrees. But on sending orders to the Pantheon, he was answered +that Lisbonne commanded there. Wroblewski, undeterred, placed the +section left to him in a state of defence. He installed a battery of +eight pieces and two batteries of four on the Butte-aux-Cailles, a +dominant position between the Pantheon and the forts; he fortified the +Boulevards d'Italie, De l'Hopital, and De la Gare. His headquarters were +established at the Mairie des Gobelins, and his reserve at the Place +d'Italie, Place Jeanne d'Arc, and at Bercy. + +At the other extremities of Paris the fourteenth and twentieth +arrondissements also prepared their defence. The brave Passedouet had +replaced Du Bisson, who still dared to present himself as +_chef-de-legion_ of La Villette. They barricaded the Grande Rue de la +Chapelle behind the Strasbourg Railway, the Rues d'Aubervilliers, De +Flandre, and the canal, so as to form five lines of defence, protected +on the flank by the boulevards and the fortifications. Cannon were +placed in the Rue Riquet at the gasworks, while rampart pieces were +carried by the men on to the Buttes Chaumont and others to the Rue de +Puebla. A battery of six was mounted on the height of the Pere Lachaise, +covering Paris with its rumbling reports. + +A mute and desolate Paris. As on the day before, the shops remained +closed, and the streets, bleached by the sun, looked empty and menacing. +Estafets riding at full speed, pieces of artillery shifted from their +places, combatants on the march, alone broke this solitude. Cries of +"Open the shutters!" "Draw up the blinds!" alone interrupted this +silence. Two journals, _Le Tribun du Peuple_ and _Le Salut Public_, were +published, notwithstanding the Versaillese shells that were falling into +the printing-office of the Rue Aboukir. + +A few men at the Hotel-de-Ville did their best to attend to details. One +decree authorised the chiefs of barricades to requisition the necessary +implements and victuals; another condemned every house from which +Federals were shot at to be burned. In the afternoon the Committee of +Public Safety issued an appeal to the soldiers:-- + +"The people of Paris will never believe that you could raise your arms +against them. When they face you your hands will recoil from an act that +would be a veritable fratricide. + +"Like us, you too are proletarians. That which you did on the 18th March +you will do again. Come to us, brothers, come to us; our arms are open +to receive you." + +The Central Committee at the same time placarded a similar appeal--a +puerile but generous illusion; and on this point the people of Paris +entirely agreed with their mandatories. In spite of the frenzy of the +Assembly, the fusillade of the wounded, the treatment inflicted upon the +prisoners for six weeks, the workingmen did not admit that children of +the people could rend the entrails of that Paris who combated for them. + +At three o'clock M. Bonvalet and other members of the _Ligue des Droits +de Paris_ presented themselves at the Hotel-de-Ville, where some members +of the Council and of the Committee of Public Safety received them. They +bewailed this struggle, proposed to interfere, as they had so +successfully done during the siege, and to carry to M. Thiers the +expression of their sorrow; further, they placed themselves at the +disposition of the Hotel-de-Ville. "Well, then," they were answered, +"shoulder a gun and go to the barricades!" Before this direct appeal +the League fell back upon the Central Committee, which had the weakness +to listen to them. + +There was no question of negotiating in the midst of the battle. The +Versaillese, following up their success at Montmartre, were at this +moment pushing towards the Boulevard Ornano and the Northern Railway +station. At two o'clock the barricades of the Chaussee Clignancourt were +abandoned, and in the Rue Myrrha, by the side of Vermorel, Dombrowski +fell mortally wounded. In the morning Delescluze had told him to try his +best in the neighbourhood of Montmartre; and, without hope, without +soldiers, suspected since the entry of the Versaillese, all Dombrowski +could do was to die. He expired two hours afterwards at the Lariboisiere +Hospital. His body was taken to the Hotel-de-Ville, the men of the +barricades presenting arms as he was carried by. His glorious death had +disarmed suspicion. + +Clinchant, thenceforth free on his left, proceeded to the ninth +arrondissement. A column marched down the Rues Fontaine, St. Georges, +and Notre Dame de Lorette, and made a halt at the cross-roads; while +another cannonaded the Rollin College before penetrating into the Rue +Trudaine, where it was held in check until the evening. + +More in the centre, at the Boulevard Haussmann, Douai pressed close upon +the barricade of the Printemps shop, and with gunshots dislodged the +Federals who occupied the Trinite Church. Five pieces established under +the porch of the church were then directed at the very important +barricade that barred the Chaussee d'Antin at the entrance of the +boulevard. A detachment penetrated into the Rues Chateaudun and +Lafayette, but at the cross-roads of the Faubourg Montmartre a +barricade, a yard high at the utmost, defended by twenty-five men, +arrested them until night. + +Douai's right was still powerless against the Rue Royale. There for two +days Brunel sustained a struggle only equalled by that of the +Butte-aux-Cailles, of the Bastille, and the Chateau d'Eau. His main +barricade, transversely crossing the street, was overlooked by the +neighbouring houses, from which the Versaillese decimated the Federals; +and Brunel, impressed with the importance of the post confided to him, +ordered these murderous houses to be burned down. A Federal obeying him +was struck by a ball in the eye, and came back dying to Brunel's side, +saying, "I am paying with my life for the order you have given me. Vive +la Commune!" All the houses comprised between No. 13 and the Faubourg +St. Honore were caught in the flames, and the Versaillese, appalled, ran +away, some passing over to the Federals. One of them put on the Parisian +uniform and became Brunel's orderly. + +On the right the Boulevard Malesherbes, on the left the terrace of the +Tuileries, which Bergeret occupied since the day before, seconded +Brunel's efforts. The Boulevard Malesherbes, furrowed by shells, was +like a field ploughed up by gigantic shares. The fire of eighty pieces +of artillery at the Quay d'Orsay, Passy, the Champ-de-Mars, the Barriere +de l'Etoile converged on the terrace of the Tuileries and the barricade +St. Florentine. About a dozen Federal pieces bore up against this +shower. The Place de la Concorde, taken between these cross-fires, was +strewn with fragments of fountains and lamp-posts. The statue of Lille +was beheaded, that of Strasbourg pitted by the grapeshot. + +On the left bank the Versaillese made their way from house to house. The +inhabitants of the quarter lent their assistance, and from behind their +closed blinds fired on the Federals, who, indignant, forced and set fire +to the treacherous houses. The Versaillese shells had already begun the +conflagration, and the rest of the quarter was soon in flames. The +troops continued to gain ground, occupied the Ministry of War, the +telegraph office, and reached the Bellechasse Barracks and the Rue de +l'Universite. The barricades of the quay and the Rue du Bac were +battered down by the shells; the Federal battalions, which for two days +had held out at the Legion d'Honneur, had no longer any retreat but the +quays. At five o'clock they evacuated this unclean place after having +set it on fire. + +At six o'clock the barricade of the Chaussee d'Antin was lost to us; +the enemy advancing by the side streets had occupied the Nouvel Opera, +entirely dismantled, and from the top of the roofs the marine-fusileers +commanded the barricade. Instead of imitating them, of also occupying +the houses, the Federals, there as everywhere else, obstinately kept +behind the barricade. + +At eight o'clock the barricade of the Rue Neuve des Capucines, at the +entrance of the Boulevard, gave way under the fire of the pieces of 4 +cm. established in the Rue Caumartin. The Versaillese approached the +Place Vendome. + +At all points the army had made decided progress. The Versaillese line, +starting from the Northern Railway station, following the Rues +Rochechouart, Cadet, Drouot, whose mairie was taken, the Boulevard des +Italiens, stretched to the Place Vendome and the Place de la Concorde, +passed along the Rue du Bac, the Abbaye-au-Bois, and the Boulevard +d'Enfer, ending at the bastion 81. The Place de la Concorde and the Rue +Royale, surrounded on their flanks, stood out like a promontory in the +midst of a tempest. Ladmirault faced La Villette; on his right Clinchant +occupied the ninth arrondissement; Douai presented himself at the Place +Vendome; Vinoy supported Cissy operating on the left bank. At this hour +hardly one-half of Paris was still held by the Federals. + +The rest was given over to massacre. They were still fighting at one end +of a street when the conquered part was already being sacked. Woe to him +who possessed arms or a uniform! Woe to him who betrayed dismay! Woe to +him who was denounced by a political or personal enemy! He was dragged +away. Each corps had its regular executioner, the provost; but to speed +the business there were supplementary provosts in the streets. The +victims were led there--shot. The blind fury of the soldiers encouraged +by the men of order served their hatred and liquidated their debts. +Theft followed massacre. The shops of the tradesmen who had supplied the +Commune, or whom their rival shopkeepers accused, were given over to +pillage; the soldiers smashed their furniture and carried off the +objects of value. Jewels, wine, liqueurs, provisions, linen, perfumery, +disappeared into their knapsacks. + +When M. Thiers was apprised of the fall of Montmartre, he believed the +battle over, and telegraphed to the prefects. For six weeks he had not +ceased to announce that, the ramparts taken, the insurgents would fly; +but Paris, contrary to the habits of the men of Sedan and Metz and of +the National Defence, contested street by street, house by house, and +rather than surrender, burned them. + +A blinding glare arose at nightfall. The Tuileries were burning, so also +the Legion d'Honneur, the Conseil d'Etat, and the Cour des Comptes. +Formidable detonations were heard from the palace of the kings, whose +walls were falling, its vast cupolas giving way. Flames, now slow, now +rapid as darts, flashed from a hundred windows; the red tide of the +Seine reflected the monuments, thus redoubling the conflagration. Fanned +by an eastern wind, the blazing flames rose up against Versailles, and +cried to the conqueror of Paris that he will no longer find his place +there, and that these monarchical monuments will not again shelter a +monarchy. The Rue du Bac, the Rue du Lille, La Croix-Rouge, dashed +luminous columns into the air; the Rue Royale to St. Sulplice seemed a +wall of fire divided by the Seine. Eddies of smoke clouded all the west +of Paris, and the spiral flames shooting forth from these furnaces +emitted showers of sparks that fell upon the neighbouring quarters. + +_Eleven o'clock._--We go to the Hotel-de-Ville. Sentinels on far +advanced posts made it secure against any surprise; at long intervals a +gaslight flickered in the obscurity; at several barricades there were +torches, and even bivouac fires. That of the St. Jacques Square, +opposite the Boulevard Sebastopol, made of large trees, whose branches +swung to and fro in the wind, muttered and fluttered in the redoubtable +gloom. + +The facade of the Hotel-de-Ville was reddened by distant flames; the +statues, which the reflection seemed to move, stirred in their niches. +The interior courts were filled with crowds and tumult. Artillery +ammunition waggons, carts, omnibuses, crammed with munitions, rolled off +with a great noise under the vaults. The fetes of Baron Haussmann awoke +no such sonorous echoes. Life and death, agony and laughter, jostled +each other on these staircases, on every storey, illumined by the same +dazzling light of the gas. + +The lower lobbies were encumbered by National Guards rolled up in their +blankets. The wounded lay groaning on their reddened mattresses; blood +was trickling from the litters placed along the walls. A commander was +brought in who no longer presented a human aspect; a ball had passed +through his cheek, carried away the lips, broken the teeth. Incapable of +articulating a sound, this brave fellow still waved a red flag, and +summoned those who were resting to replace him in the combat. + +In the notorious chamber of Valentine Haussmann the corpse of Dombrowski +was laid out upon a bed of blue satin. A single taper threw its lurid +light on the heroic soldier. His face, white as snow, was calm, the nose +fine, the mouth delicate, the small fair beard standing out pointed. Two +aides-de-camp seated in the darkened corners watched silently, another +hurriedly sketched the last traits of his general. + +The double marble staircase was filled with people coming and going, +whom the sentinels could hardly keep away from the delegate's cabinet. +Delescluze signed orders, mute and wan as a spectre. The anguish of +those later days had absorbed his last vital powers; his voice was only +a death-rattle; the eye and the heart alone lived still in this moribund +athlete. + +Two or three officers calmly prepared the orders, stamped and sent the +despatches; many officers and guards surrounded the table. No speeches, +a little conversation, among the various groups. If hope had waned, +resolution had not grown less. + +Who are these officers who have laid aside their uniforms, these members +of the Council, these functionaries who have shaved their beards? What +are they doing here amongst these brave men? Ranvier, meeting two of his +colleagues thus disguised, who during the siege had been among the most +beplumed, apostrophised them, threatening to shoot them if they did not +at once return to their arrondissements. + +A great example would not have been useless. From hour to hour all +discipline foundered. At that same moment the Central Committee, which +believed itself invested with power by the abdication of the Council, +launched a manifesto, in which it made conditions: "Dissolution of the +Assembly and of the Commune; the army to leave Paris; the Government to +be provisionally confided to the delegates of the large towns, who will +have a Constituent Assembly elected; mutual amnesty." The ultimatum of a +conqueror. This dream was placarded on a few walls, and threw new +disorder into the resistance. + +From time to time some greater clamour arose from the square. A spy was +shot against the barricade of the Victoria Avenue. Some were audacious +enough to penetrate into the most intimate councils.[186] That evening, +at the Hotel-de-Ville, Bergeret had received the verbal authorisation to +fire the Tuileries, when an individual pretending to be sent by him +asked for this order in writing. He was still speaking when Bergeret +returned. "Who sent you?" said he to the personage. "Bergeret." "When +did you see him?" "Just here, a moment ago." + +During this evening, Raoul Rigault, taking orders from himself only, and +without consulting any of his colleagues, repaired to the prison of Ste. +Pelagie, and signified to Chaudey that he was to die. Chaudey protested, +said he was a Republican, and swore that he had not given the order to +fire on the 22nd January. However, he had been at that time the only +authority in the Hotel-de-Ville. His protestations were of no avail +against Rigault's resolution. Led into the exercise-ground of Ste. +Pelagie, Chaudey was shot, as were also three gendarmes taken prisoners +on the 18th March. During the first siege he had said to some partisans +of the Commune, "The strongest will shoot the others." He died perhaps +for those words. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[185] Appendix XVI. + +[186] Appendix XVII. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + "Nos vaillants soldats se conduisent de maniere a inspirer la + plus haute estime, la plus grande admiration a + l'etranger."--_Discours de M. Thiers, a l'Assemblee + Nationale le 24 Mai 1871._ + + WEDNESDAY 24TH--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE THE + HOTEL-DE-VILLE--THE PANTHEON IS TAKEN--THE VERSAILLESE + SHOOT THE FEDERALS BY HUNDREDS--THE FEDERALS SHOOT SIX + HOSTAGES--THE NIGHT OF THE CANNON. + + +The defenders of the barricades, already without reinforcements and +munitions, were now left even without food, and altogether thrown on the +resources of the neighbourhood. Many, quite worn out, went in search of +some nourishment; their comrades, not seeing them return, grew +desperate, while the chiefs of the barricades strained themselves to +keep them back. + +At nine o'clock Brunel received the order to evacuate the Rue Royale. He +went to the Tuileries to tell Bergeret that he could still hold out, but +at midnight the Committee of Public Safety again sent him a formal order +to retreat. Forced to abandon the post he had so well defended for two +days, the brave commander first removed his wounded and then his cannon +by the Rue St. Florentin. The Federals followed; when at the top of the +Rue Castiglione, they were assailed by shots. + +It was the Versaillese, who, masters of the Rue de la Paix and the Rue +Neuve des Capucines, had invaded the Place Vendome, entirely deserted, +and by the Hotel-du-Rhin turned the barricade of the Rue Castiglione. +Brunel's Federals, abandoning the Rue de Rivoli, forced the rails of the +garden, went up the quays, and regained the Hotel-de-Ville. The enemy +did not dare to pursue them, and only at daybreak occupied the Ministry +of Marine, long since abandoned. + +The rest of the night the cannon were silent. The Hotel-de-Ville had +lost its animation. The Federals slept in the square; in the bureaux the +members of the committees and the officers snatched a few moments of +repose. At three o'clock a staff officer arrived from Notre Dame, +occupied by a detachment of Federals. He came to tell the Committee of +Public Safety that the Hotel-Dieu harboured eight hundred sick, who +might suffer from the proximity of the struggle, and the Committee +commanded the evacuation of the cathedral in order to save these +unfortunate people. + +And now the sun rose, eclipsing the glare of the conflagrations; the day +dawned radiant, but with no ray of hope for the Commune. Paris had no +longer a right wing; her centre was broken; to assume the offensive was +impossible. The prolongation of her resistance could now only serve to +bear witness to her faith. + +Early in the morning the Versaillese moved on all points. They pushed +towards the Louvre, the Palais-Royal, the Bank, the Comptoir d'Escompte, +the Montholon Square, the Boulevard Ornano, and the line of the Northern +Railway. From four o'clock they cannonaded the Palais-Royal, round which +desperate battles were being fought. By seven o'clock they were at the +Bank and at the Bourse; thence they descended to St. Eustache, where +they met an obstinate resistance. Many children fought with the men; and +when the Federals were outflanked and massacred, these children had the +honour not to be excepted. + +On the left bank the troops with difficulty marched up the quays and all +that part of the sixth arrondissement bordering upon the Seine. In the +centre, the barricade of the Croix-Rouge had been evacuated during the +night, like that of the Rue de Rennes, which thirty men had held for two +days. The Versaillese were then able to enter the Rues d'Assas and +Notre-dame-des-Champs. On the extreme right they reached the Val de +Grace, and advanced against the Pantheon. + +At eight o'clock about fifteen members of the Council assembled at the +Hotel-de-Ville and decided to evacuate it. Two only protested. The third +arrondissement, intersected by narrow and well-barricaded streets, +sheltered the flank of the Hotel-de-Ville, which defied every attack +from the front and by the quays. Under such conditions of defence to +fall back was to fly, to strip the Commune of the little prestige still +remaining to it; but no more than the days before were they able to +collect two sound ideas. They feared everything, because ignorant of +everything. Already the commander of the Palais Royal had received the +order to evacuate that edifice, after having set it on fire. He had +protested, and declared he could still hold out, but the order was +repeated. Such was the state of bewilderment, that a member proposed a +retreat on Belleville. They might as well abandon the Chateau d'Eau and +the Bastille at once. As usual, the time was spent in small-talk. The +governor of the Hotel-de-Ville went backwards and forwards impatient. + +Suddenly the flames burst forth from the summit of the belfry; an hour +after the Hotel-de-Ville was but one glow. The old edifice, witness of +so many perjuries, where the people have so often installed powers that +have afterwards shot them down, now cracked and fell with its true +master. With the noise of the crumbling pavilions, of the toppling +vaults and chimneys, of the dull detonations and the loud explosions, +mingled the sharp reports of the cannon from the large barricade St. +Jacques, that swept the Rue de Rivoli. + +The War Office and all the services moved off to the mairie of the +eleventh arrondissement. Delescluze had protested against the desertion +of the Hotel-de-Ville, and predicted that this retreat would discourage +many combatants. + +The next day they left the Imprimerie Nationale, where the _Officiel_ of +the Commune appeared on the 24th for the last time. Like an _Officiel_ +that respects itself, it was a day behind time; it contained the +proclamations of the day before and a few details of the battle, but +not beyond the Tuesday morning. + +This flight from the Hotel-de-Ville, cutting the defence in two, +increased the difficulty of the communications. The staff officers who +had not disappeared reached the new headquarters with great trouble; +they were stopped at every barricade and constrained to carry +paving-stones. On producing their despatches pleading urgency, they were +answered, "To-day there are no more epaulettes." The anger they had +inspired for a long time broke out this very morning. In the Rue +Sedaine, near the Place Voltaire, a young officer of the general staff, +the Count de Beaufort, was recognised by the guards of the 166th +battalion, whom he had threatened some days before at the War Office. +Arrested for having tried to violate the orders of the post, Beaufort, +losing his temper, had flung out a menace to purge the battalion. Now, +the day before, near the Madeleine, the battalion had lost sixty men, +and believed in a revenge on the part of Beaufort. This officer was +arrested and conducted before a court-martial, which installed itself in +a shop of the Boulevard Voltaire. Beaufort produced such certificates +that the accusation was abandoned. Nevertheless, the judges decided that +he was to serve in the battalion as a simple guard. Some of those +present objected and named him captain. He came out triumphant. The +crowd, ignorant of his explanation, grumbled on seeing him free. A guard +rushed at him, and Beaufort was imprudent enough to draw out his +revolver. He was immediately seized and thrown back into the shop. The +chief of the general staff did not dare to come to the rescue of his +officer. Delescluze hurried up, asked for a respite, said that Beaufort +should be judged; but the crowd would hear of nothing, and it was +necessary to yield in order to prevent a terrible affray. Beaufort, +conducted to the open space situated behind the mairie, was shot. + +Close by this outburst of fury, at the Pere Lachaise, Dombrowski was +receiving the last honours. His corpse had been transported thither in +the night, and during the passage to the Bastille a touching scene had +taken place. The Federals of these barricades had stopped the cortege +and placed the corpse at the foot of the July column; some men, torches +in their hands, formed into a circle, and all the Federals, one after +the other, came to place a last kiss on the brow of the general, while +the drums beat a salute. The body, enveloped in a red flag, was then put +into the coffin. Vermorel, the general's brother, his aides-de-camp, and +about 200 guards were standing up bareheaded. "There is he," cried +Vermorel, "who was accused of treachery! One of the first, he has given +his life for the Commune. And we, what are we doing here instead of +imitating him?" He went on stigmatising cowardice and panics. His +speech, usually intricate, now flowed from him, heated by passion, like +molten metal. "Let us swear to leave here only to seek death!" This was +his last word; he was to keep it. The cannon a few steps off had at +intervals covered his voice; few of the men present but shed tears. + +Happy those who may have such funerals! Happy those buried during the +battle saluted by their cannon, wept over by their friends. + +At that same moment the Versaillese agent who had flattered himself he +could corrupt Dombrowski was being shot. Towards mid-day the +Versaillese, vigorously pushing their attack on the left bank, had +stormed the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Institute, the Mint, which its +director, Camelinat, left only at the last minute. On the point of being +shut up in the Ile Notre Dame, Ferre had given the order to evacuate the +Prefecture of Police and to destroy it. The 450 prisoners arrested for +slight offences were, however, first set at liberty; one only, Vaysset, +was retained and shot on the Pont-Neuf before the statue of Henry IV. +Just before his death he uttered these strange words, "You will answer +for my death to the Comte de Fabrice."[187] + +The Versaillese, neglecting the Prefecture, entered the Rue Tarranes and +the contiguous streets. They were held in check for two hours at the +barricade of the Place de l'Abbaye, which the inhabitants of the +quarter helped to outflank. Eighteen Federals were shot. More to the +right the troops penetrated into the Place St. Sulpice, where they +occupied the mairie of the sixth arrondissement; thence they entered the +Rue St. Sulpice on one side, and on the other penetrated by the Rue de +Vaugirard into the garden of the Luxembourg. After two days of struggle +the brave Federals of the Rue Vavin fell back, and on their retreat blew +up the powder-magazine of the Luxembourg garden. The commotion for a +moment suspended the combat. The Palace of the Luxembourg was not +defended. Some soldiers crossed the garden, broke down the rails facing +the Rue Soufflot, traversed the boulevard, and surprised the first +barricade in that street. + +Three barricades were raised before the Pantheon; the first at the +entrance of the Rue Soufflot--it had just been taken; the second in the +centre; the third extending from the mairie of the fifth arrondissement +to the Ecole de Droit. Varlin and Lisbonne, hardly escaped from the +Croix-Rouge, had hastened up again to face the enemy. Unfortunately the +Federals would listen to no chief, remained on the defensive, and, +instead of attacking the handful of soldiers exposed at the entrance of +the Rue Soufflot, gave the reinforcements time to arrive. + +The bulk of the Versaillese reached the Boulevard St. Michel by the Rues +Racine and De l'Ecole de Medecine, which women had defended. The St. +Michel Bridge ceased firing for want of munitions, so that the soldiers +were able to pass over the boulevard in a body, and got as far as the +Place Maubert, while at the same time on the right they remounted the +Rue Mouffetard. At four o'clock the height Ste. Genevieve, well-nigh +abandoned, was invaded by all its slopes and its few defenders +dispersed. Thus the Pantheon, like Montmartre, fell almost without a +struggle. As at Montmartre, too, the massacres commenced immediately. +Forty prisoners were shot one after the other in the Rue St. Jacques, +under the eyes and by the orders of a colonel. + +Rigault was killed in this neighbourhood. The soldiers seeing a Federal +officer knocking at the door of a house in the Rue Gay-Lussac fired +without hitting him. The door opened and Rigault went in. The soldiers +followed at full speed, rushed into the house, seized the landlord, who +proved his identity, and hastened to deliver up Rigault. The soldiers +were dragging him to the Luxembourg, when, in the Rue Royal-Collard, a +Versaillese staff colonel met the escort, and asked the name of the +prisoner. Rigault bravely answered, "Vive la Commune! Down with +assassins!" He was immediately thrown against a wall and shot. May this +courageous end be counted to him! + +When the fall of the Pantheon, so valiantly defended in June, 1848, +became known in the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, they at once +cried out against traitors; but what then had the Council and the +Committee of Public Safety done for the defence of this capital post? At +the mairie, as at the Hotel-de-Ville, they were deliberating. + +At two o'clock the members of the Council, of the Central Committee, +superior officers, and the chiefs of the services were assembled in the +library. Delescluze spoke first, amidst a profound silence, for the +least whisper would have covered his dying voice. He said all was not +lost; that they must make a great effort, and hold out to the last. +Cheers interrupted him. He called upon each one to state his opinion. "I +propose," said he, "that the members of the Commune, engirded with their +scarfs, shall make a review of all the battalions that can be assembled +on the Boulevard Voltaire. We shall then at their head proceed to the +points to be conquered." + +The idea appeared grand, and transported those present. Never since the +sitting when he had said that certain delegates of the people would know +how to die at their post, had Delescluze so profoundly moved all hearts. +The distant fusillade, the cannon of the Pere Lachaise, the confused +clamours of the battalions surrounding the mairie, blended with, and at +times drowned his voice. Behold, in the midst of this defeat, this old +man upright, his eyes luminous, his right hand raised defying despair, +these armed men fresh from the battle suspending their breath to listen +to this voice which seemed to ascend from the tomb. There was no scene +more solemn in the thousand tragedies of that day. + +There was a superabundance of most vigorous resolutions. Open on the +table lay a large case of dynamite; an imprudent gesture might explode +the Mairie. They spoke of cutting off the bridges, of upheaving the +sewers. What was the use of this tall talking? Very different munitions +were needed now. Where is the engineer-in-chief who had said that at his +bidding an abyss would open and swallow up the enemy? He is gone. Gone +too the chief of the general staff. Since the execution of Beaufort, he +has felt an ill wind blowing for his epaulettes. More motions were made, +and motions will still be made to the end. The Central Committee +condescended to declare that it would subordinate itself to the +Committee of Public Safety. It seemed settled at last that the chief of +the 11th legion was to group all the Federals who had taken refuge in +the eleventh arrondissement; perhaps he might succeed in forming the +columns of which Delescluze had spoken. + +The Delegate at War then visited the defences. Solid preparations were +being made at the Bastille. In the Rue St. Antoine, at the entrance of +the place, a barricade provided with three pieces of artillery was being +finished; another at the entrance of the faubourg covered the Rues de +Charenton and De la Rouqette; but here, as everywhere else, the flanks +were not guarded. Cartridges, shells, were piled up along the houses, +exposed to all projectiles. The approaches to the eleventh +arrondissement were hastily armed, and at the intersection of the +Boulevards Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir a barricade was being thrown up +with casks, pavements, and large bales of paper. This work, inaccessible +from the front, was also to be turned. Before it, at the entrance of the +Boulevards Voltaire, Place du Chateau d'Eau, a wall of pavement two +yards high was raised. Behind this mortal rampart, assisted by two +pieces of cannon, the Federals for twenty-four hours stopped all the +Versaillese columns debouching on the Place du Chateau d'Eau. On the +right, the bottom of the Rues Oberkampf, D'Angouleme, of the Faubourg du +Temple, the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi, and the Avenue des Amandiers were +already on the defensive. Higher up, in the tenth arrondissement, +Brunel, arrived that same morning from the Rue Royale, was again to the +fore, like Lisbonne, like Varlin, eager for new perils. A large +barricade cut off the intersection of the Boulevards Magenta and +Strasbourg; the Rue du Chateau d'Eau was barred, and the works of the +Porte St. Martin and St. Denis, at which they had worked day and night, +were filling with combatants. + +Towards ten o'clock the Versaillese had been able to gain possession of +the Northern Railway station by turning the Rue Stephenson and the +barricades of the Rue de Dunkerque; but the Strasbourg Railway, the +second line of defence of La Villette, withstood their shock, and our +artillery harassed them greatly. On the Buttes Chaumont, Ranvier, who +directed the defence of these quarters, had established three howitzers +of 12 cm., two pieces of 7 near the Temple de la Sybille, and two pieces +of 7 on the lower hill, while five cannon enfiladed the Rue Puebla and +protected the Rotonde. At the Carrieres d'Amerique there were two +batteries of three pieces; the pieces of the Pere Lachaise fired +incessantly at the invaded quarters, seconded by cannon of large calibre +at the bastion 24. + +The ninth arrondissement filled with fusillades. We lost much ground in +the Faubourg Poissonniere. Despite their success in the Halles, the +Versaillese were not able to get into the third arrondissement, +sheltered by the long arm of the Boulevard Sebastopol, and we commanded +the Rue Turbigo by the Prince Eugene Barracks. The second +arrondissement, almost totally occupied, still held out on the banks of +the Seine; from the Pont-Neuf the barricades of the Avenue Victoria and +Quai de Gevres resisted till night. Our gunboats having been abandoned, +the enemy seized and re-armed them. + +The only success of our defence was at the Butte aux Cailles, where, +under the impulsion of Wroblewski, it changed into the offensive. +During the night the Versaillese had examined our positions, and at +daybreak they mounted to the assault. The Federals did not wait for +them, and rushed forward to meet them. Four times the Versaillese were +repulsed, four times they returned; four times they retreated, and the +soldiers, discouraged, no longer obeyed their officers. + +Thus La Villette and the Butte aux Cailles, the two extremities of our +defence, kept their ground; but what gaps all along the line! Of Paris, +all theirs on Sunday, the Federals now only possessed the eleventh, +twelfth, nineteenth, and twentieth arrondissements, and a part only of +the third, fifth, and thirteenth. + +On that day the massacres took that furious flight which in a few hours +left St. Bartholomew's Day far behind. Till then only the Federals or +the people denounced had been killed; now the soldiers knew neither +friend nor foe. When the Versaillese fixed his eye upon you, you must +die; when he searched a house, nothing escaped him. "These are no longer +soldiers accomplishing a duty," said a conservative journal, _La +France_. And indeed these were hyenas, thirsting for blood and pillage. +In some places it sufficed to have a watch to be shot. The corpses were +searched,[188] and the correspondents of foreign newspapers called those +thefts the last perquisition. And the same day M. Thiers had the +effrontery to tell the Assembly: "Our valiant soldiers conduct +themselves in such a manner as to inspire foreign countries with the +highest esteem and admiration." + +Then, too, was invented that legend of the petroleuses, which, born of +fear and propagated by the press, cost hundreds of unfortunate women +their lives. The rumour was spread that furies were throwing burning +petroleum into the cellars. Every woman badly dressed, or carrying a +milk-can, a pail, an empty bottle, was pointed out as a petroleuse, her +clothes torn to tatters, she was pushed against the nearest wall, and +killed with revolver-shots. The monstrously idiotical side of the legend +is that the petroleuses were supposed to operate in the quarters +occupied by the army. + +The fugitives from the invaded quarters brought the news of these +massacres to the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. There, within +smaller compass and more menacing, reigned the same confusion as at the +Hotel-de-Ville. The narrow courts were full of waggons, cartridges, and +powder; every step of the principal staircase was occupied by women +sewing sacks for the barricades. In the Salle des Mariages, whither +Ferre had removed the office of Public Safety, the delegate, assisted by +two secretaries, gave orders, signed free passes, questioned the people +brought to him with the greatest calm, and pronounced his decisions in a +polite, soft, and low voice. Farther on, in the rooms occupied by the +War Office, some officers and chiefs of services received and expedited +despatches; some of them, as at the Hotel-de-Ville, doing their duty +with perfect sangfroid. At this hour certain men revealed extraordinary +strength of character, especially among the secondary actors of the +movement. They felt that all was lost, that they were about to die, +perhaps even at the hands of their own people, for the fever of +suspicion had reached its utmost degree of paroxysm; yet they remained +in the furnace, their hearts calm, their minds lucid. Never had a +Government, with the exception of that of the National Defence, more +resources, more intelligence, more heroism at its disposal than the +Council of the Commune; never was there one so inferior to its electors. + +At half-past seven a great noise was heard before the prison of La +Roquette, where the day before the three hundred hostages, detained +until then at Mazas, had been transported. Amidst a crowd of guards, +exasperated at the massacres, stood a delegate of the Public Safety +Commission, who said, "Since they shoot our men, six hostages shall be +executed. Who will form the platoon?" "I! I!" was cried from all sides. +One advanced and said, "I avenge my father;" another, "I avenge my +brother." "As for me," said a guard, "they have shot my wife." Each one +brought forward his right to vengeance. Thirty men were chosen and +entered the prison. + +The delegate looked over the jail register, pointed out the Archbishop +Darboy, the President Bonjean, the banker Jecker, the Jesuits Allard, +Clerc, and Ducoudray; at the last moment Jecker was replaced by the Cure +Deguerry. + +They were taken to the exercise-ground. Darboy stammered out, "I am not +the enemy of the Commune. I have done all I could. I have written twice +to Versailles." He recovered a little when he saw death was inevitable. +Bonjean could not keep on his legs. "Who condemns us?" said he. "The +justice of the people." "Oh, this is not the right one," replied the +president. One of the priests threw himself against the sentry-box and +uncovered his breast. They were led further on, and, turning a corner, +met the firing-party. Some men apostrophised them; the delegate at once +ordered silence. The hostages placed themselves against the wall, and +the officer of the platoon said to them, "It is not we whom you must +accuse of your death, but the Versaillese, who are shooting the +prisoners." He then gave the signal and the guns were fired. The +hostages fell back in one line, at an equal distance from each other. +Darboy alone remained standing, wounded in the head, one hand raised. A +second volley laid him by the side of the others.[189] + +The blind justice of revolutions punishes in the first-comers the +accumulated crimes of their caste. + +At eight o'clock the Versaillese closed in upon the barricade of the +Porte St. Martin. Their shells had long since set the theatre on fire, +and the Federals, pressed by this conflagration, were obliged to fall +back. + +That night the Versaillese bivouacked in front of the Strasbourg +Railway, the Rue St. Denis, the Hotel-de-Ville (occupied towards nine +o'clock by Vinoy's troops), the Ecole Polytechnique, the Madelonnettes, +and the Monsouris Park. They presented a kind of fan, of which the fixed +point was formed by the Pont-au-Change, the right side by the +thirteenth arrondissement, the left by the streets of the Faubourg St. +Martin and the Rue de Flandre, the arc by the fortifications. The fan +was about to close at Belleville, which formed the centre. + +Paris continued to burn furiously. The Porte St. Martin, the St. +Eustache Church, the Rue Royale, the Rue de Rivoli, the Tuileries, the +Palais-Royal, the Hotel-de-Ville, the Theatre-Lyrique, the left bank +from the Legion d'Honneur up to the Palais de Justice and the Prefecture +de Police, stood out bright red in the darkness of night. The caprices +of the fire displayed a blazing architecture of arches, cupolas, +spectral edifices. Great volumes of smoke, clouds of sparks flying into +the air, attested formidable explosions; every minute stars lit up and +died out again in the horizon. These were the cannon of the fort of +Bicetre, of the Pere Lachaise, and the Buttes Chaumont, which fired on +the invaded quarters. The Versaillese batteries answered from the +Pantheon, the Trocadero, and Montmartre. Now the reports followed each +other at regular intervals; now there was a continuous thunder along the +whole line. They aimed at random, blindly, madly. The shells often +exploded in the midst of their career; the whole town was enveloped in a +whirl of flame and smoke. + +What men this handful of combatants, who, without chiefs, without hope, +without retreat, disputed their last pavements as though they implied +victory! The hypocritical reaction has charged them with the crime of +incendiarism, as if in war fire were not a legitimate arm; as if the +Versaillese shells had not set fire to at least as many edifices as +those of the Federals; as if the private speculation of certain men of +order had not its share in the ruins.[190] And that same bourgeois who +spoke of "burning everything"[191] before the Prussians, calls this +people scoundrels because they preferred to bury themselves in the +ruins rather than abandon their faith, their property, their families, +to a coalition of despots a thousand times more cruel and more lasting +than the foreigner. + +At eleven o'clock two officers entered Delescluze's room and informed +him of the execution of the hostages. He listened to the recital without +ceasing to write, and then only asked, "How did they die?" When the +officers were gone, Delescluze turned to the friend who was working with +him, and, hiding his face in his hands, "What a war!" cried he, "what a +war!" But he knew revolutions too well to lose himself in bootless +reflections, and, mastering his emotion, he exclaimed, "We shall know +how to die!" + +During the whole night despatches succeeded each other without +intermission, all demanding cannon and men under the threat of +abandoning such or such a position. But where to find cannon? And men +began to be as rare as the bronze. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[187] One of the commanders of the German troops. + +[188] Appendix XVIII. + +[189] At half-past eight o'clock in the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement the delegate Genton made this recital, which we heard, +and reproduce verbatim. + +[190] Appendix XIX. + +[191] "Burn everything! I have heard these words from the most wise, the +most virtuous men."--_Jules Favre, Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. +42. "Rather Moscow than Sedan," wrote during the first siege one of +these wise and virtuous men--M. Jules Simon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + THURSDAY 25TH--THE WHOLE LEFT BANK FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF + THE TROOPS--DELESCLUZE DIES--THE BRASSARDIERS[192] + STIMULATE THE MASSACRE--THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL EVACUATE + THE MAIRIE OF THE ELEVENTH ARRONDISSEMENT. + + +A few thousand men could not indefinitely hold a line of battle several +miles long. When night had set in, many Federals abandoned their +barricades in order to snatch a little rest. The Versaillese, who were +on the look-out, took possession of their defences, and the glimmering +of dawn saw the tricolor where on the eve had floated the red flag. + +In the darkness the Federals evacuated the greater part of the tenth +arrondissement, whose artillery pieces were transported to the Chateau +d'Eau. Brunel and the brave _pupilles de la Commune_ still stood their +ground in the Rue Magnan and on the Quay Jemappes, the troops holding +the top of the Boulevard Magenta. + +On the left bank, the Versaillese erected batteries at the Place +d'Enfer, the Luxembourg, and the bastion 81. More than fifty cannon and +mitrailleuses were levelled at the Butte aux Cailles; for, despairing of +taking it by assault, Cissey wished to crush it with his artillery. +Wroblewski, on his side, did not remain inactive. Besides the 175th and +176th battalions, he had under his command the legendary 101st, which +was to the troops of the Commune what the 32nd brigade had been to the +army of Italy. Since the 3rd April the 101st had not rested. Day and +night, their guns hot, they had roamed about the trenches, the +villages, the fields; the Versaillese of Neuilly, of Asnieres, ten times +fled before them. They had taken three cannon from them, which, like +faithful mastiffs, followed them everywhere. All citizens of the +thirteenth arrondissement and the Mouffetard quarter, undisciplined, +undisciplinable, wild, rough, their clothes and flag torn, obeying only +one order, that to march forward, mutineering when inactive, when hardly +out of fire rendering it necessary to plunge them into it again. +Serizier commanded, or rather accompanied them; for indeed their rage +was their only commander. While at the front they attempted surprises, +seized outposts, kept the soldiers in alarm. Wroblewski, uncovered on +his right since the taking of the Pantheon, secured his communications +with the Seine by a barricade on the Bridge of Austerlitz, and furnished +the Place Jeanne d'Arc with cannon, in order to check the troops who +might venture along the railway station. + +That day M. Thiers dared to telegraph to the provinces that Marshal +MacMahon had just, for the last time, summoned the Federals to +surrender. This was an odious lie added to so many others. Like +Cavaignac in 1848, M. Thiers, on the contrary, wanted to prolong the +battle. He knew that his shells were setting Paris on fire, that the +massacre of the prisoners, of the wounded, would fatally entail that of +the hostages. But what cared he for the fate of a few priests and a few +gendarmes? What cared the bourgeoisie if it triumphed amidst ruins--if +on these ruins it could write, "Paris waged war with the privileged; +Paris is no more!" + +The Hotel-de-Ville and the Pantheon in the power of the troops, their +whole efforts concentrated upon the Chateau d'Eau, the Bastille, and the +Butte aux Cailles. At four o'clock Clinchant resumed his march towards +the Chateau d'Eau. One column, setting out from the Rue Paradis, went up +the Rues du Chateau d'Eau and De Bondy; another advanced against the +barricade of the Boulevards Magenta and Strasbourg; while a third from +the Rue des Jeuneurs pushed on between the boulevards and the Rue +Turbigo. The corps Douay on the right supported this movement, and +endeavoured to remount the third arrondissement by the Rues Charlot and +De Saintonge. Vinoy advanced towards the Bastille by the small streets +that abut upon the Rue St. Antoine, the quays of the right and of the +left banks. Cissey, with more modest strategy, cannonaded the Butte aux +Cailles, before which his men had so often turned tail. + +Painful scenes were enacted in the forts. Wroblewski, whose left wing +was covered by them, relied for their preservation upon the energy of +the member of the Council who had assumed the functions of delegate. The +evening before the commander of Montrouge had abandoned that fort and +had retreated to Bicetre with his garrison. The fort of Bicetre did not +hold out much longer. The battalions declared that they wanted to return +to the town in order to defend their quarters, and the delegate, in +spite of his threats, was unable to retain them; so, after having spiked +their guns, the whole garrison returned to Paris. The Versaillese +occupied the two evacuated forts, and there at once erected batteries +against the fort of Ivry and the Butte aux Cailles. + +The general attack on the Butte did not begin till mid-day. The +Versaillese followed the ramparts as far as the Avenue d'Italie and the +Route de Choisy, with the view of making sure of the Place d'Italie, +which they attacked from the side of the Gobelins. The Avenues d'Italie +and De Choisy were defended by powerful barricades which they could not +dream of forcing; but that of the Boulevard St. Marcel, protected on one +side by the conflagration of the Gobelins, could be turned by the +numerous gardens intersecting this quarter, and the Versaillese +succeeded in doing this. They first took possession of the Rue des +Cordillieres St. Marcel, where twenty Federals who refused to surrender +were massacred, and then entered the gardens. For three hours a long and +obstinate fusillade enveloped the Butte aux Cailles, battered down by +the Versaillese cannon, six times as numerous as Wroblewski's. + +The garrison of Ivry arrived towards one o'clock. On leaving the fort +they had set fire to a mine which sprung two bastions. Soon after the +Versaillese penetrated into the abandoned fort, and then there was no +struggle, as M. Thiers tried to make it appear in one of those bulletins +in which he very cleverly intermingled truth and falsehood. + +Towards ten o'clock on the right bank the Versaillese reached the +barricade of the Faubourg St. Denis, near the St. Lazare prison, +outflanked and shot seventeen Federals.[193] Thence they went to occupy +the St. Laurent barricade at the junction of the Boulevard Sebastopol, +erected batteries against the Chateau d'Eau, and by the Rue des +Recollets gained the Quay Valmy. On the night, their debouching on the +Boulevard St. Martin was retarded by the Rue de Lanery, against which +they fired from the Ambigu-Comique Theatre. In the third arrondissement +they were stopped in the Rue Meslay, Rue Nazareth, Rue du Vert-Bois, Rue +Charlot, Rue de Saintonge. The second arrondissement, invaded from all +sides, was still disputing its Rue Montorgueuil Nearer the Seine, Vinoy +succeeded in entering the Grenier d'Abondance by circuitous streets, and +in order to dislodge him the Federals set fire to this building, which +overlooks the Bastille. + +_Three o'clock._--The Versaillese invaded the thirteenth arrondissement +more and more. Their shells falling upon the prison of the Avenue +d'Italie, the Federals evacuated it, at the same time taking out the +prisoners, amongst whom were the Dominicans of Arcueil, who had been +brought back to Paris with the garrison of Bicetre. The sight of these +men, doubly odious, exasperated the combatants, whose guns, so to say, +spontaneously went off, and a dozen of the apostles of the Inquisition +fell under the bullets at the moment they were running away by the +Avenue. All the other prisoners were respected. + +Since the morning Wroblewski had received the order to fall back upon +the eleventh arrondissement. He persisted in holding out, and had +shifted the centre of his resistance a little further to the rear, to +the Place Jeanne d'Arc. But the Versaillese, masters of the Avenue des +Gobelins, made their junction with the columns of the Avenues d'Italie +and Choisy in the thirteenth arrondissement. One of their detachments +continuing to file along the rampart, reached the embankment of the +Orleans Railway, and the red-coats were already showing themselves on +the Boulevard St. Marcel. Wroblewski, almost hemmed in on all sides, was +at last forced to consent to a retreat. Moreover, the subaltern chiefs +had, like their general, received the order to fall back; and so, +protected by the fire of the Austerlitz Bridge, the able defender of the +Butte aux Cailles passed the Seine in good order with his cannon and a +thousand men. A certain number of Federals, who obstinately remained +behind in the thirteenth arrondissement, were surrounded and taken +prisoners. + +The Versaillese did not dare to disturb Wroblewski's retreat, although +they held part of the Boulevard St. Marcel, the Orleans Station, and +their gunboats were ascending the Seine. The latter were delayed for a +moment at the entrance of the St. Martin's Canal, but putting on full +steam, they overcame the obstacle, and in the evening lent assistance in +the attack on the eleventh arrondissement. + +The whole left bank now belonged to the enemy; the Bastille and the +Chateau d'Eau became the centre of the combat. + +In the Boulevard Voltaire might now be seen all the true-hearted men who +had not perished, or whose presence was not indispensable in their +quarters. One of the most active was Vermorel, who during the whole +struggle showed a courage composed at once of fire and coolness. On +horseback, his red scarf tied round him, he rode from barricade to +barricade, encouraging the men, fetching and bringing reinforcements. At +the Mairie another meeting was held towards twelve o'clock. Twenty-two +members of the Council were present; about ten more were defending +their arrondissements, the others had disappeared. Arnold explained that +the evening before, the secretary of Mr. Washburne, the ambassador of +the United States, had come to offer the mediation of the Germans. The +Commune, he said, had now only to send commissaries to Vincennes in +order to regulate the conditions of an armistice. The secretary, +introduced to the meeting, renewed this declaration, and the discussion +began. Delescluze showed great reluctance to accept this plan. What +motive induced the foreigner to intervene? To put an end to the +conflagration and preserve their guarantee, he was answered. But their +guarantee was the Versaillese Government, whose triumph was no longer +doubtful at this moment. Others gravely asserted that the inveterate +defence of Paris had inspired the Prussian with admiration. No one asked +whether this insensate proposition did not hide some snare; if the +pretended secretary were not a simple spy. They clung like drowning men +to this last chance of salvation. Arnold even set forth the basis of an +armistice similar to that of the Central Committee. Four of the members +present, and amongst them Delescluze, were charged to accompany the +American secretary to Vincennes. + +At three o'clock they reached the gate of Vincennes, but the commissary +of police refused to let them pass. They showed their scarfs, their +cards of members of the Council. The commissary insisted upon a +safe-conduct from the Commission of Public Safety. While the discussion +was going on some Federals came up. "Where are you going?" said they. +"To Vincennes." "Why?" "On a mission." A painful controversy ensued. The +Federals thought the members of the Council wanted to abscond, and they +were even about to ill-use them, when some one recognised Delescluze. +His name saved the others; but the commissary still insisted upon a +safe-conduct. + +One of the delegates run off to the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement to procure it, but, even on Ferre's order, the guards +refused to lower the drawbridge. Delescluze addressed them, said that +the common weal of all was at stake; but prayers and threats proved +alike unable to overcome the idea of a defection. Delescluze came back +shivering all over. For one moment he had been suspected of cowardice; +this was to him a death-blow. + +Before the mairie he found a crowd shouting at some flags, surmounted by +eagles, which had just, they said, been taken from the Versaillese. +Wounded were being brought from the Bastille. Mademoiselle Dimitrieff, +wounded herself, supported Frankel, wounded at the barricade of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. Wroblewski just arriving from the Butte aux +Cailles, Delescluze offered him the command-in-chief. "Have you a few +thousand resolute men?" asked Wroblewski. "A few hundred at most," +answered the delegate. Wroblewski could not accept any responsibility of +command under such unequal conditions, and continued to fight as a +simple soldier. He was the only general of the Commune who had showed +the qualities of a chef-de-corps. He always asked to have those +battalions sent him which everybody else declined, undertaking to +utilise them. + +The attack was coming nearer and nearer the Chateau d'Eau. This place, +constructed with the object of checking the faubourgs, and opening into +eight large avenues, had not been really fortified. The Versaillese, +masters of the Folies-Dramatiques Theatre and of the Rue du Chateau +d'Eau, attacked it by turning the Prince Eugene Barracks. House by house +they tore the Rue Magnan from the _pupilles de la Commune_. Brunel, +after facing the enemy for four days, fell wounded in the thigh. The +_pupilles_ carried him away on a litter across the Place du Chateau +d'Eau amidst a shower of bullets. + +From the Rue Magnan the Versaillese soon reached the barracks, and the +Federals, too few in number to defend this vast monument, had to +evacuate it. + +The fall of this position uncovered the Rue Turbigo, thus enabling the +Versaillese to occupy the whole upper part of the third arrondissement, +and to surround the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. After a rather +long struggle the Federals abandoned the barricade of the Conservatoire, +leaving behind them a loaded mitrailleuse. A woman also remained. As +soon as the soldiers were within range she discharged the mitrailleuse +at them. + +The barricades of the Boulevards Voltaire and Dejazet's Theatre had +henceforth to sustain the whole fire of the Prince Eugene Barracks, the +Boulevard Magenta, the Boulevard St. Martin, the Rue du Temple, and the +Rue Turbigo. Behind their fragile shelter the Federals gallantly +received this avalanche. How many men have been called heroes who never +showed a hundredth part of this simple courage, without any stage +effects, without a history, which shone forth during these days in a +thousand places in Paris! At the Chateau d'Eau a young girl of nineteen, +rosy and charming, with black, curling hair, dressed as a marine +fusileer, fought desperately a whole day. At the same place a lieutenant +was killed in front of the barricade; a child of fifteen, Dauteuille, +went to pick up the kepi of the dead man in the thick of the bullets, +and brought it back amidst the cheers of his companions. + +For in the battle of the streets, as in the open field, the children +proved themselves as brave as the men. At a barricade of the Faubourg du +Temple the most indefatigable gunner was a child. The barricade taken, +all its defenders were shot, and the child's turn also came. He asked +for three minutes' respite; "so that he could take his mother, who lived +opposite, his silver watch, _in order that she might at least not lose +everything_." The officer, involuntarily moved, let him go, not thinking +to see him again; but three minutes after the child cried, "Here I am!" +jumped on to the pavement, and nimbly leant against the wall near the +corpses of his comrades. Paris will never die as long as she brings +forth such people. + +The Place du Chateau d'Eau was ravaged as by a cyclone. The walls +crumbled beneath the shells and bombs; enormous blocks were thrown up; +the lions of the fountains perforated or overthrown, the basin +surmounting it shattered. Fire burst out from twenty houses. The trees +were leafless, and their broken branches hung like limbs all but parted +from the main body. The gardens, turned up, sent forth clouds of dust. +The invisible hand of death alighted upon each stone. + +At a quarter to seven, near the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, +we saw Delescluze, Jourde, and about a hundred Federals marching in the +direction of the Chateau d'Eau. Delescluze wore his ordinary dress, +black hat, coat, and trousers, his red scarf, little conspicuous as was +his wont, tied round his waist. Without arms, he lent on a cane. +Apprehensive of some panic at the Chateau d'Eau, we followed the +delegate. Some of us stopped at the St. Ambroise Church to get arms. We +then met a merchant from Alsace, who, exasperated at those who had +betrayed his country, had been fighting for five days, and had just been +severely wounded; farther on, Lisbonne, who, like Brunel, having too +often defied death, had at last fallen at the Chateau d'Eau; he was +being brought back almost dead; and finally, Vermorel, wounded by the +side of Lisbonne, whom Theisz and Jaclard were carrying off on a litter, +leaving behind him large drops of blood. We thus remained a little +behind Delescluze. At about eighty yards from the barricade the guards +who accompanied him kept back, for the projectiles obscured the entrance +of the boulevard. + +Delescluze still walked forward. Behold the scene; we have witnessed it; +let it be engraved in the annals of history. The sun was setting. The +old exile, unmindful whether he was followed, still advanced at the same +pace, the only living being on the road. Arrived at the barricade, he +bent off to the left and mounted upon the paving-stones. For the last +time his austere face, framed in his white beard, appeared to us turned +towards death. Suddenly Delescluze disappeared. He had fallen as if +thunderstricken on the Place du Chateau d'Eau. + +Some men tried to raise him. Three out of four fell dead. The only thing +to be thought of now was the barricade, the rallying of its few +defenders. A member of the Council, Johannard, almost in the middle of +the boulevard, raising his gun, and weeping with rage, cried to those +who hesitated, "No! you are not worthy of defending the Commune!" Night +set in. We returned heart-broken, leaving, abandoned to the outrages of +an adversary without respect for death, the body of our friend. + +He had forewarned no one, not even his most intimate friends. Silent, +having for confidant only his severe conscience, Delescluze walked to +the barricade as the old Montagnards went to the scaffold. An eventful +life had exhausted his strength; he had but a breath left, and he gave +it. The Versaillese have stolen his body, but his memory will remain +enshrined in the heart of the people as long as France shall be the +mother-country of the Revolution. He lived only for Justice. That was +his talent, his science, the pole-star of his life. He proclaimed her, +confessed her, through thirty years of exile, prisons, insult, +disdaining the persecutions that crushed him. A Jacobin, he fell with +the men of the people to defend her. It was his recompense to die for +her, his hands free, in the open daylight, at his own time, not +afflicted by the sight of the executioner. + +Compare the conduct of the Minister of War of the Commune with the +cowardice of the Bonapartist Minister and generals escaping death by +surrendering their swords. + +The whole evening the Versaillese attacked the entrance of the Boulevard +Voltaire, protected by the conflagration of the two corner houses. On +the side of the Bastille they did not get beyond the Place Royale, but +they were breaking into the twelfth arrondissement. Under the shelter of +the wall of the quay, they had in the course of the day penetrated +beneath the Austerlitz Bridge; in the evening, protected by their +gunboats and the batteries of the Jardin des Plantes, they pushed as far +as Mazas. + +Our right wing held out better. The Versaillese had not been able to +proceed further than the Eastern Railway line. From afar they attacked +the Rue d'Aubervilliers, aided by the fire of the Rotonde. Ranvier +vigorously cannonaded Montmartre, when a despatch from the Committee of +Public Safety informed him that the red flag was floating from the +Moulin de la Galette. Ranvier, unable to believe this, refused to cease +firing. + +In the evening the Versaillese formed in front of the Federals a broken +line, commencing from the Eastern Railway, passing the Chateau d'Eau and +the Bastille, and ending at the Lyons Railway. There remained to the +Commune but two arrondissements intact, the nineteenth and twentieth, +and about half of the eleventh and twelfth. + +The Paris of Versailles no longer presented a civilised aspect. Fear, +hate, and fiendish brutishness smothered all feelings of humanity. It +was a universal "furious madness," said the Siecle of the 26th. "One no +longer distinguishes the just from the unjust, the innocent from the +guilty. The life of citizens weighs no more than a hair. For a cry, for +a word, one is arrested, shot." The ventilators of the cellars were +blocked up by order of the army, which wanted to give credit to the +legend of the petroleuses. The National Guards of order crept out from +their lurking-places, proud of their armlets, offering their services to +the officers, ransacking the houses, revindicating the honour of +presiding at the fusillades. In the tenth arrondissement the former +mayor, Dubail, assisted by the commander of the 109th battalion, led the +soldiers to hunt those who had formerly been under his administration. +Thanks to the _brassardiers_, the tide of prisoners swelled so that it +became necessary to centralise the carnage. The victims were pushed into +the mairies, the barracks, the public edifices, where prevotal courts +were organised, and shot in troops. When the fusillade proved +insufficient the mitrailleuse mowed them down. All did not die at once, +and in the night there arose from these bleeding heaps ghastly cries of +agony. + +The shades of night brought back the spectacle of the conflagrations. +Where the rays of the sun had only shown sombre clouds, pyramids of fire +now appeared. The Grenier d'Abondance illuminated the Seine far beyond +the fortifications. The column of the Bastille, entirely perforated by +the shells, which had set its covering of crowns and flags on fire, +blazed like a gigantic torch. The Boulevard Voltaire was burning on the +side of the Chateau d'Eau. + +The death of Delescluze had been so simple and so rapid, that even at +the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement it was doubted. Towards +midnight some members of the Council agreed to evacuate the Mairie. +What! always fly before powder and shot! Is the Bastille taken? Does not +the Boulevard Voltaire still hold out? The whole strategy of the +Committee of Public Safety, its whole plan of battle, was to retreat. At +two o'clock in the morning, when a member of the Commune was wanted to +support the barricade of the Chateau d'Eau, only Gambon was found, +asleep in a corner. An officer awoke him and begged his pardon. The +worthy Republican answered, "It is as well it should be I as another; I +have lived," and he departed. But the balls already swept the Boulevard +Voltaire up to the St. Ambroise Church. The barricade was deserted. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[192] Armlet conspirators. + +[193] Summoned several times to surrender, the Federals answered, "Vive +la Commune!" They were thrown against the wall of the prison and fell +with the same cry, one of them still clasping the red flag of the +barricade. Before such faith the Versaillese officer felt a little +ashamed. He turned to the people who had hurried up from the +neighbouring houses, and several times repeated by way of excuse, "It is +their fault! Why did they not surrender!" As though all Federals were +not regularly and mercilessly massacred by them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + "Le commandant Segoyer a ete pris par les scelerats qui + defendaient la Bastille, et, sans respect des lois de la + guerre, a ete immediatement fusille"--_M. Thiers aux + Prefets, le 27 Mai._ + + THE RESISTANCE CENTRES IN BELLEVILLE--FRIDAY, FORTY-EIGHT + HOSTAGES ARE SHOT IN THE RUE HAXO--SATURDAY 27TH, THE WHOLE + TWENTIETH ARRONDISSEMENT IS INVADED--THE PERE LACHAISE IS + TAKEN--SUNDAY 28TH, THE BATTLE ENDS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN + THE MORNING--MONDAY 29TH, THE FORT OF VINCENNES IS + SURRENDERED. + + +The soldiers continuing their nocturnal surprises, got hold of the +deserted barricades of the Rue d'Aubervilliers and the Boulevard de la +Chapelle. On the side of the Bastille they occupied the barricade of the +Rue St. Antoine at the corner of the Rue Castex, the station of the +Lyons Railway, and the Mazas prison; in the third, all the abandoned +defences of the market and of the Square du Temple. They reached the +first houses of the Boulevard Voltaire, and established themselves at +the Magasins Reunis. + +In the darkness of the night a Versaillese officer was surprised by our +outposts of the Bastille and shot; "without respecting the laws of war," +said M. Thiers the next day. As though during the four days that he had +been mercilessly shooting thousands of prisoners, old men, women, and +children, M. Thiers obeyed any other law than that of the savages. + +The attack recommenced at daybreak. At La Villette the Versaillese, +crossing the Rue d'Aubervilliers, turned and occupied the abandoned +gasworks; in the centre, they got as far as the Cirque Napoleon; on the +right, in the twelfth arrondissement, they invaded the bastions nearest +the river without a struggle. One detachment went up the embankment of +the Vincennes Railway and occupied the station, while another took +possession of the Boulevard Mazas, the Avenue Lacuee, and penetrated +into the Faubourg St. Antoine. The Bastille was thus close pressed on +its right flank, while the troops of the Place Royale attacked it on the +left by the Boulevard Beaumarchais. + +The sun did not shine forth. This five days' cannonade had drawn on the +rainfall that usually accompanies great battles. The fusillade had lost +its sharp, quick voice, but rolled on in muffled tones. The men, +harassed, wet to the skin, hardly distinguished through the misty veil +the point whence the attack came. The shells of a Versaillese battery +established at the Orleans Railway station disturbed the entrance of the +Faubourg St. Antoine. At seven o'clock the presence of soldiers at the +top of the faubourg was announced. The Federals hurried thither with +their cannon. If they do not hold out, the Bastille will be turned. + +They did hold out. The Rue d'Aligre and the Avenue Lacuee vied with each +other in devotion. Intrenched in the houses, the Federals fell, but +neither yielded nor retreated; and, thanks to their self-sacrifice, the +Bastille for six hours still disputed its shattered barricades and +ruined houses. Each stone had its legend in this estuary of the +Revolution. Here encased in the wall is a bullet launched in 1789 +against the fortress. Leaning against the same wall the sons of the +combatants of June fought for the same pavement as their fathers. Here +the conservatives of 1848 gave vent to their rage; but what was their +fury compared with that of 1871? The house at the corner of the Rue de +la Roquette, the angle of the Rue de Charenton, disappeared like the +scenery of a theatre, and amidst these ruins, under these burning beams, +some men fired their cannon, twenty times raised up the red flag, as +often overthrown by the Versaillese balls. Powerless as it well knew to +triumph over an entire army, the old glorious place will at least +succumb honourably. + +How many were there at mid-day? Hundreds, since at night hundreds of +corpses lay around the chief barricade. In the Rue Crozatier they were +dead; they were dead too in the Rue d'Aligre, killed in the struggle or +after the combat. And how they died! In the Rue Crozatier an artillerist +of the army, gone over to the people on the 18th March, was surrounded. +"We are going to shoot you," cried the soldiers. He, shrugging his +shoulders, answered, "We can only die once!" Farther on an old man was +struggling; the officer by a refinement of cruelty wanted to shoot him +upon a heap of filth. "I fought bravely," said the old man; "I have the +right not to die in the mire." + +Indeed they died well everywhere. That same day Milliere, arrested on +the left bank of the Seine, was taken to Cissey's staff. This +Imperialist general, ruined by the vilest debauchery, and who terminated +his Ministerial career by treachery,[194] had made of his headquarters +at the Luxembourg one of the slaughter-houses of the left bank. +Milliere's role during the Commune had been one of mere conciliation, +and his polemic in the journals entirely one of doctrine, and of a most +elevated character; but the hatred of the officers for every Socialist, +the hatred of Jules Favre, lay in wait for him. The assassin, the +staff-captain Garcin,[195] has recounted his crime, head erect.[196] +Before history we must let him speak. + +"Milliere was brought in when we were breakfasting with the general at +the restaurant De Tournon, near the Luxembourg. We heard a great noise, +and went out. I was told, 'It is Milliere.' I took care that the crowd +did not take justice into its own hands. He did not come into the +Luxembourg; he was stopped at the gate. I addressed myself to him, and +said, 'You are Milliere?' 'Yes, but you know that I am a deputy.' 'That +may be, but I think you have lost your character of deputy. Besides, +there is a deputy amongst us, M. de Quinsonnas, who will recognise you.' + +"I then said to Milliere that the general's orders were that he was to +be shot. He said to me, 'Why?' + +"I answered him, 'I only know your name. I have read articles by you +that have revolted me' (probably the articles on Jules Favre). 'You are +a viper, that one crushes under one's feet. You detest society.' He +stopped, saying, with a significant air, 'Oh, yes! I indeed hate this +society.' 'Well, it will remove you from its bosom; you are going to be +shot.' 'This is summary justice, barbarity, cruelty.' 'And all the +cruelty you have committed, do you take that for nothing? At any rate, +since you say you are Milliere, there is nothing else to be done.' + +"The general had ordered that he was to be shot at the Pantheon, on his +knees, to ask pardon of society for all the ill he had done. He refused +to be shot kneeling. I said to him, 'It is the order; you will be shot +on your knees, and not otherwise.' He played a little comedy, opening +his coat, and baring his breast before the firing party. I said to him, +'You are acting; you want them to say how you died; die quietly, that +will be the best.' 'I am free in my own interest and for the sake of my +Cause to do as I like.' 'So be it; kneel down.' Then he said to me, 'I +will only do so if you force me down by two men.' I had him forced on +his knees, and then his execution was proceeded with. He cried, 'Vive +l'humanite!' He was about to cry something else when he fell dead."[197] + +An officer ascended the steps, approached the corpse, and discharged his +chassepot into the left temple. Milliere's head rebounded, and, falling +back, burst open, black with powder, seemed to look at the frontispiece +of the monument. + +"Vive l'humanite!" The word implies two causes. "I care as much for the +liberty of other people as for that of France," said a Federal to a +reactionist.[198] In 1871, as in 1793, Paris combats for all the +oppressed. + +The Bastille succumbed about two o'clock. La Villette still struggled +on. In the morning the barricade at the corner of the boulevard and of +the Rue de Flandre had been surrendered by its commander. The Federals +concentrated in the rear along the line of the canal, and barricaded the +Rue de Crimee. The Rotonde, destined to support the principal shock, was +reinforced by a barricade on the quay of the Loire. The 269th, which for +two days had withstood the enemy, recommenced the struggle behind the +new positions. This line from La Villette being of great extent, Ranvier +and Passedouet went to fetch reinforcements in the twentieth +arrondissement, where the remnants of all the battalions took refuge. + +They crowded round the Mairie, that distributed lodgings and orders for +food. Near the church the waggons and horses were noisily put up. The +headquarters and different services were established in the Rue Haxo at +the Cite Vincennes, a series of constructions intersected by gardens. + +The very numerous barricades in the inextricable streets of Menilmontant +were almost all turned against the boulevard. The strategical route, +which on this point overlooks the Pere Lachaise, the Buttes Chaumont, +and the exterior boulevard, was not even guarded. + +From the heights of the ramparts the Prussians were discernible in arms. +According to the terms of a convention previously concluded between +Versailles and the Prince of Saxony, the German army since Monday +invested Paris on the north and east. It had cut off the Railway of the +North, manned the canal line from St. Denis, posted sentinels from St. +Denis to Charenton, erected barricades on all the routes. From five +o'clock in the evening of Thursday 5,000 Bavarians marched down from +Fontenay, Nogent, and Charenton, forming an impenetrable cordon from the +Marne to Montreuil; and during the evening another corps of 5,000 men +occupied Vincennes, with eighty artillery pieces. At nine o'clock he +invested the fort and disarmed the Federals, who wanted to return to +Paris. He did still better--trapped the game for Versailles. Already +during the siege the Prussians had given an indirect support to the +Versaillese army; their cynical collusion with the French conservatives +showed itself undisguised during the eight days of May. Of all M. +Thiers' crimes, one of the most odious will certainly be his introducing +the conquerors of France into our civil discords, and begging their help +in order to crush Paris. + +Towards mid-day fire broke out in the west part of the docks of La +Villette, an immense warehouse of petroleum, essences, and combustible +matters, set alight by the shells from both sides. This conflagration +forced us to leave the barricades of the Rues de Flandre and Riquet. The +Versaillese, attempting to traverse the canal in boats, were stopped by +the barricades of the Rue de Crimee and the Rotonde. + +Vinoy continued to ascend the twelfth arrondissement after having left +the few thousand men necessary for the perquisitions and executions at +the Bastille. The barricade of the Rue de Reuilly, at the corner of the +Faubourg St. Antoine, held out a few hours against the soldiers who +cannonaded it from the Boulevard Mazas. At the same time the +Versaillese, marching along the Boulevard Mazas and the Rue Picpus, +moved towards the Place du Trone, which they tried to outflank by the +ramparts. The artillery prepared and covered their slightest movement. +Generally they charged the pieces at the corner of the roads they wanted +to reduce, advanced them, fired, and drew them back again under shelter. +The Federals could only reach this invisible enemy from the heights; but +it was impossible to centralise the artillery of the Commune, for each +barricade wanted to possess its gun without caring where it carried. + +There was no longer authority of any kind. At the headquarters a +pell-mell of bewildered officers. The march of the enemy was only known +by the arrival of the survivors of the battalions. Such was the +confusion, that in this place, mortal to traitors, there might be seen, +in a general's uniform, Du Bisson, turned out of La Villette. The few +members of the Council to be met with in the twentieth arrondissement +wandered about at hazard, absolutely ignored; but they had not foregone +deliberating. On the Friday there were twelve of them in the Rue Haxo, +when the Central Committee arrived and claimed the dictatorship. It was +given them, in spite of some who protested, Varlin being added to their +number. The Committee of Public Safety was no longer heard of. + +The only one of its members who played any part was Ranvier, splendidly +energetic in the combats. During these days he was the soul of La +Villette and Belleville, urging on the men, watching over everything. On +the 26th he issued a proclamation: "Citizens of the twentieth +arrondissement! if we succumb you know what fate is in store for you. To +arms! Be vigilant, above all in the night. I ask you to execute our +orders faithfully. Lend your support to the nineteenth arrondissement; +help it to repulse the enemy. There lies your safety. Do not wait for +Belleville itself to be attacked. Forward then. Vive la Republique!" + +But very few read or obeyed. The shells from Montmartre, which from the +day before crushed Belleville and Menilmontant, the cries, the sight of +the wounded, dragging themselves from house to house in search of +succour, the too evident signs of the approaching end, precipitated the +ordinary phenomena of defeat. The people became fierce and suspicious. +Any individual without a uniform ran the risk of being shot if he had +not a well-known name to recommend him. The news that came from all +points of Paris augmented the anguish and despair. It was known that the +soldiers gave no quarter; that they despatched the wounded, killing even +doctors;[199] that every individual taken in a National Guard's uniform, +shod with regulation boots, or whose clothes showed traces of stripes +recently unstitched, was shot in the street or in the yard of his house; +that the combatants who surrendered, under the promise of having their +lives spared, were massacred; that thousands of men, women, children, +and aged people were taken to Versailles bareheaded, and often killed on +the way; that it sufficed to be related to a combatant, or to offer him +a refuge in order to share his fate; the numberless executions of +so-called petroleuses were recounted. + +About six o'clock forty-eight gendarmes, ecclesiastics, and civilians +marched up the Rue Haxo between a detachment of Federals. At first they +were supposed to be prisoners recently taken, and defiled in the midst +of perfect silence. But the rumour spread that they were the hostages of +La Roquette, and that they were being led to death. The crowd grew +larger, followed, apostrophised, but did not strike them. At half-past +six the cortege reached the Cite Vincennes; the gates closed upon them, +and the crowd dispersed in the neighbouring grounds. + +The escort tumultuously pushed the hostages against a kind of trench at +the foot of a wall. The chassepots were being levelled, when a member of +the Council said, "What are you doing? There is a powder-magazine here; +you will blow us up." He thus hoped to delay the execution. Others, +quite distracted, went from group to group, attempting to discuss, to +appease the wrath. They were repulsed, menaced, and their notoriety +hardly sufficed to save them from death. + +The chassepots went off on all sides; by degrees the hostages fell. +Outside the crowd applauded. And yet for two days the soldiers taken +prisoners passed through Belleville without exciting a murmur; but these +gendarmes, these spies, these priests, who for fully twenty years had +trampled upon Paris, represented the Empire, the bourgeoisie, the +massacres under their most hateful forms. + +That same morning Jecker, the accomplice of Morny, had been shot. The +Council had not known how to punish him; the justice of the people +alighted upon him. A platoon of four Federals went to fetch him at La +Roquette. He appeared to resign himself quietly, and even chatted on the +way. "You are mistaken," said he, "if you think I did a good piece of +business. Those people cheated me." He was executed in the open grounds +adjoining the Pere Lachaise from the side of Charonne. + +During this day the troops did not execute any great movements. The +corps Douay and Clinchant were stationed on the Boulevard +Richard-Lenoir. The double barricade in the rear of Bataclan stopped the +invasion of the Boulevard Voltaire; a Versaillese general was killed in +the Rue St. Sebastian; the Place du Trone still held out by means of the +Philippe-Auguste barricade. The Rotonde and docks of La Villette also +prolonged their resistance. Towards the close of the day the +conflagration spread to the part of the docks nearest the Mairie. + +In the evening, the army hedged in the defence between the +fortifications and a curved line which from the slaughter-houses of La +Villette extended to the gate of Vincennes, passing by the St. Martin +Canal, the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and the Rue du Faubourg St. +Antoine--Ladmirault and Vinoy occupying the two extremities, Douay and +Clinchant the centre. + +The night of the Friday to Saturday was sombre and feverish in +Menilmontant and Belleville, ravaged by the shells. At the turning of +each street the sentinels demanded the watchword (Bouchotte-Belleville), +and often even that did not suffice, and one had to prove being sent +upon an errand. Every chief of a barricade claimed the right to stop +your passage. The remainder of the battalions continued arriving in +disorder, and encumbered all the houses. The majority finding no +shelter, rested in the open air, amidst the shells, always saluted with +cries of "Vive la Commune!" + +In the Grande Rue de Belleville some National Guards carried coffins on +their crossed muskets, some men preceding them with torches, the drums +beating. These combatants, who amidst the shells silently interred their +comrades, appeared in touching grandeur. They were themselves at the +gates of death. + +In the night the barricades of the Rue d'Allemagne were abandoned. A +thousand men at the utmost had for two days kept in check Ladmirault's +25,000 soldiers. Almost all these brave men were sedentary guards and +children. + +The humid glimmer of the Saturday morning discovered a sinister +prospect. The fog was dense and penetrating, the soil steeped in +moisture. Clouds of white smoke rose slowly above the rain; it was the +fusillade. The Federals shivered under their drenched cloaks. + +Since daybreak barricades of the strategic route, the gates of Montreuil +and Bagnolet, were occupied by the troops, who without resistance +invaded Charonne. At seven o'clock they established themselves in the +Place du Trone, whose defences had been abandoned. At the entrance of +the Boulevard Voltaire the Versaillese erected a battery of six pieces +against the Mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. Henceforth certain of +victory, the officers wanted to triumph noisily. This barricade, against +which they fired during the whole day of the 27th, had but two pieces of +the most irregular projection. Many a Versaillese shell strayed to the +legs of the statue of Voltaire, who, with his sardonic smile, seemed to +remind his bourgeois descendants of the "beau tapage" he had promised +them. + +At La Villette the soldiers deviated from the line on all sides, passed +by the fortifications and attacked the Rues Puebla and De Crimee. Their +left, still engaged in the upper part of the tenth arrondissement, +endeavoured to gain possession of all its streets leading to the +Boulevard de la Villette. Their batteries of the Rue de Flandre, of the +ramparts, and the Rotonde united their fire to that of Montmartre, and +whelmed the Buttes Chaumont with shells. The barricade of the Rue Puebla +yielded towards ten o'clock. A sailor who had remained alone, hidden +behind the paving-stones, awaited the Versaillese, discharged his +revolver at them, and then, hatchet in hand, dashed into the midst of +their ranks. The enemy deployed in all the adjacent streets up to the +Rue Menadier, steadily held by our tirailleurs. At the Place des Fetes +two of our pieces enfiladed the Rue de Crimee and protected our right +flank. + +At eleven o'clock nine or ten members of the Council met in the Rue +Haxo. One of them, Jules Allix, whom his colleagues had been obliged to +shut up as mad during the Commune, came up radiant. According to him, +all was for the best; the quarters of the centre were dismantled; they +had only to descend thither. Others thought that by surrendering +themselves to the Prussians, who would deliver them up to Versailles, +they might put an end to the massacres. One or two members demonstrated +the absurdity of this hope, and that besides the Federals would allow no +one to leave Paris. They were not listened to. A solemn note was being +drawn up, when Ranvier, who wandered about in all corners picking up men +one by one for the defence of the Buttes Chaumont, broke in upon their +deliberations, exclaiming, "Why do you not go and fight instead of +discussing!" They dispersed in different directions, and this was the +last meeting of these men of everlasting deliberations. + +At this moment the Versaillese occupied the bastion 16. At mid-day the +rumour spread that the troops were issuing by the Rue de Paris and the +ramparts. A crowd of men and women, driven from their houses by the +shells, beset the gate of Romainville, asking with loud cries to be +allowed to flee into the neighbouring fields. At one o'clock the +drawbridge was lowered in order to give passage to some Freemasons who +had been to the German authorities to ask them whether they would allow +free passage to the fugitives. The crowd dashed out and dispersed in the +houses of the Village des Lilas. Some women and children attempting to +push on further and to cross the barricade thrown up in the middle of +the road, the sergeant of gendarmerie of Romainville threw himself upon +them, crying to the Prussians, "Fire! come, fire on this _canaille_!" A +Prussian soldier fired, wounding a woman. + +Meanwhile the drawbridge had been raised. About four o'clock Colonel +Parent, on horseback, and preceded by a trumpet, dared on his own +authority to go and ask the Prussian troops for permission to pass. +Useless degradation. The officer answered that he had no orders, and +that he would refer to St. Denis. + +The same day the member of the Council, Arnold, who still believed in an +American intervention, went to take a letter for Mr. Washburne to the +German outposts. He was conducted from one officer to another, received +rather rudely, and sent back with the promise that his letter would be +forwarded to the ambassador. + +Near two o'clock several Versaillese battalions, having swept the +strategic route, reached the Rue de Crimee by the Rue des Lilas and the +open grounds of the fortifications, but were stopped in the Rue de +Bellevue. From the Place du Marche three cannon joined their fire to +that of the Place des Fetes in order to protect the Buttes Chaumont. +These pieces were the whole day served by only five artillerists, their +arms bare, without witnesses, needing neither chief nor orders. At five +o'clock the cannon of the Buttes were silent, having no more munitions, +and their gunners rejoined the skirmishers of the Rues Menadier, +Fessart, and Des Annelets. + +At five o'clock Ferre brought up to the Rue Haxo the line soldiers of +the Prince Eugene Barracks, removed since Wednesday to the prison of La +Petite Roquette, which had just been evacuated, as also the Grande +Roquette. The crowd looked at them, not uttering a single threat, for +they felt no hatred to the soldiers, who belong, like themselves, to the +people. They were quartered in Belleville church. Their arrival caused a +fatal diversion. The people ran up to see them pass, and the Place des +Fetes was dismantled. The Versaillese came up, occupied it, and the last +defenders of the Buttes fell back on the Faubourg du Temple and the Rue +de Paris. + +While our front was yielding we were attacked from the rear. Since four +o'clock in the afternoon the Versaillese had been laying siege to the +Pere Lachaise, which enclosed no more than 200 Federals, resolute, but +without discipline or foresight. The officers had been unable to make +them embattle the walls. Five thousand Versaillese approached the +enceinte from all sides, while the artillery of the bastion furrowed the +interior. The pieces of the Commune had scarcely any munition since the +afternoon. At six o'clock the Versaillese, not daring, in spite of their +numbers, to escalade the enceinte, cannonaded the large gate of the +cemetery, which soon gave way, notwithstanding the barricade propping +it. Then began a desperate struggle. Sheltered behind the tombs, the +Federals disputed their refuge foot by foot; they closed in with the +enemy in frightful hand-to-hand scuffles; in the vaults they fought with +side-arms. The foes rolled and died in the same grave. The darkness that +set in early did not end the despair. + +On the Saturday evening there only remained to the Federals part of the +eleventh and twentieth arrondissements. The Versaillese camped in the +Place des Fetes, Rue Fessart, Rue Pradier up to Rue Rebeval, where, as +on the boulevard, they were detained. The quadrilateral comprised +between the Rue de Faubourg du Temple, the Rue Folie Mericourt, the Rue +de la Roquette and the exterior boulevard was in part occupied by the +Federals. Douay and Clinchant awaited on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir +the moment when Vinoy and Ladmirault would have carried the heights, and +thus forced the Federals against the guns. + +What a night for the few combatants of the last hours! It rained in +torrents. The conflagration of La Villette lit up this gloom with its +blinding glare. The shells continued to pound Belleville; they even +reached as far as Bagnolet and wounded some Prussian soldiers. + +The wounded arrived in large numbers at the Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement. There were neither doctors, nor medicines, nor +mattresses, nor blankets, and the unhappy people expired without +succour. Some spies, surprised in the dress of National Guards, were +there and then shot in the court. The _Vengeurs de Flourens_ arrived, +headed by their captain, a fine, handsome young fellow, reeling in his +saddle. The cantiniere, delirious, a handkerchief tied round her +bleeding brow, swore, called the men together with the cry of a wounded +lioness. From between the convulsive hands the guns went off at random. +The noise of the waggons, the threats, the lamentations, the fusillades, +the whizzing of the shells, mingled in a maddening tumult, and who in +those frightful hours did not feel his reason giving way? Every moment +brought with it a new disaster. One guard rushed up and said, "The +barricade Pradier is abandoned!;" another, "We want men in the Rue +Rebeval;" a third, "They are flying in the Rue des Pres." To hear these +death-knells there were but a few members of the Council present, among +whom were Trinquet, Ferre, Varlin, and Ranvier. Desperate of their +powerlessness, broken down by these eight days, without sleep and +without hope, the strongest were lost in grief. + +From four o'clock Vinoy and Ladmirault launched their troops along the +ramparts on the defenceless strategic route, and soon effected a +junction at the Romainville gate. Towards five o'clock the troops +occupied the barricade of the Rue Rebeval in the Boulevard de la +Villette, and by the Rue Vincent and the Passage du Renard attacked the +barricades of the Rue de Paris from behind. The Mairie of the twentieth +arrondissement was not taken till eight o'clock. The barricade of the +Rue de Paris at the corner of the boulevard was defended by the +commander of the 191st and five or six guards, who held out till their +munitions were exhausted. + +A column set out from the Boulevard Philippe-Auguste, penetrated into +the Roquette towards nine o'clock, and released the hostages who were +there. Masters of the Pere Lachaise from the day before, the Versaillese +might at least from nine o'clock in the evening have penetrated into the +abandoned prison. This delay of twelve hours sufficiently shows their +contempt for the lives of the hostages. Four of the latter--among whom +was the Bishop Surat--who had made their escape in the afternoon of +Saturday, had been retaken at the neighbouring barricades and shot +before the Petite Roquette. + +At nine o'clock the resistance was reduced to the small square formed by +the Rues du Faubourg du Temple, Des Trois Bornes, Des Trois Couronnes, +and the Boulevard de Belleville. Two or three streets of the twentieth +arrondissement still struggled on, among others the Rue Ramponeau. A +small phalanx of fifty men, led by Varlin, Ferre, and Gambon, their red +scarfs round their waists, their chassepots slung across their +shoulders, marched down the Rue des Champs, and from the twentieth +arrondissement debouched on the boulevard. A gigantic Garibaldian +carried an immense red flag in front of them. They entered the eleventh +arrondissement. Varlin and his colleagues were going to defend the +barricade of the Rue du Faubourg du Temple and of the Rue Fontaine au +Roi. From the front it was inaccessible; the Versaillese, masters of the +St. Louis Hospital, succeeded in turning it by the Rues St. Maur and +Bichat. + +At ten o'clock the Federals had almost no cannon left, and two-thirds of +the army hemmed them in. What mattered it? In the Rue du Faubourg du +Temple, Rue Oberkampf, Rue St. Maur, Rue Parmentier, they still wanted +to fight. There were barricades not to be turned and houses without +exits. The Versaillese artillery cannonade them till the Federals had +used up their munitions. Their last cartridge spent, whelmed by shells, +they threw themselves upon the muskets bristling around them. + +By degrees the fusillade was lulled, all was silent. About ten o'clock +the last Federal cannon was discharged in the Rue de Paris, which the +Versaillese had taken. The piece, charged with double shot, with a +terrible crash exhaled the last sigh of the Commune of Paris. + +The last barricade of the days of May was in the Rue Ramponeau. For a +quarter of an hour a single Federal defended it. Thrice he broke the +staff of the Versaillese flag hoisted on the barricade of the Rue de +Paris. As a reward for his courage, this last soldier of the Commune +succeeded in escaping. + +At eleven o'clock all was over. The Place de la Concorde had held out +two days, the Butte aux Cailles two, La Villette three, the Boulevard +Voltaire two days and a half. Of the seventy-nine members of the +Council filling functions on the 21st of May, one, Delescluze, had died +on the barricades; two, J. Durand and R. Rigault, had been shot; two, +Brunel and Vermorel (who died some days after at Versailles),[200] were +wounded severely; three, Oudet, Protot, Frankel, slightly. The +Versaillese had lost few men. We had 3,000 killed or wounded. The losses +of the army in June, 1848, and the resistance of the insurgents had been +relatively more serious. But the insurgents of June had only to face +30,000 men; those of May combated against 130,000 soldiers. The struggle +of June lasted only three days; that of the Federals eight weeks. On the +eve of June the revolutionary army was intact; on the 21st May it was +decimated. The most valiant defenders had fallen at the advanced posts. +What might not these 15,000 men, uselessly sacrificed outside the town, +have done within Paris? What might not the brave men of Neuilly, +Asnieres, Issy, Vanves, Cachan, have done at the Pantheon and +Montmartre? + +The occupation of the fort of Vincennes took place on Monday the 29th. +This fort, disarmed in conformity with the stipulations of the treaty of +peace, had been unable to take any part in the strife. Its garrison +consisted of 350 men and twenty-four officers, commanded by the +_chef-de-legion_ Faltot, a veteran of the wars of Poland and of +Garibaldi, one of the most active men on the 18th March. He was offered +a perfectly secure asylum, but answered that honour forbade his +deserting his companions in arms. + +On the Saturday a Versaillese staff colonel came to negotiate a +capitulation. Faltot demanded passports in blank, not for himself, but +for some of his officers of foreign nationality, and on the refusal of +the Versaillese, Faltot committed the fault of applying to the Germans. +But MacMahon, in prevision of a siege, had solicited the assistance of +the Prince of Saxony, and the German was on the look-out on behalf of +his brother officer.[201] During the negotiations General Vinoy had +managed to hold communication with the place, where a few disreputable +individuals offered to reduce the intractable Federals. Among the latter +was Merlet, garde-general of engineering and artillery, +ex-non-commissioned officer, able, energetic, and quite resolved to blow +up the place rather than surrender it. The powder-magazine contained +1,000 kilogrammes of powder and 400,000 cartridges. + +On Sunday, at eight o'clock in the morning, a shot sounded in Merlet's +chamber. His room was entered, and he was found lying on the ground, his +head pierced by the ball of a revolver. The disorder of the room +attested a struggle; and a captain of the 99th, released later on by the +Versaillese, B----, admitted that he had dispersed the elements of the +electric pile by means of which Merlet intended to spring the fort. + +On Monday towards mid-day the Versaillese colonel renewed the proposal +for a surrender. For twenty-four hours the struggle had been over in +Paris. The officers deliberated; it was agreed that the gates should be +opened, and at three o'clock the Versaillese entered. The garrison, +having laid down their arms, had drawn up at the end of the court. Nine +officers were incarcerated apart. + +In the night, in the fosses, a hundred yards from the spot where the +Duke of Enghien had fallen, these nine officers formed in a line before +a firing-party. One of them, Colonel Delorme, turned to the Versaillese +in command with the words, "Feel my pulse; see if I am afraid." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[194] Minister of War from 1871, he was in 1876, notwithstanding the +desperate efforts of MacMahon, expelled from the Ministry, partly +because of irregularities discovered in his budget, partly for having +let his mistress, a German, take the plan of one of the new forts round +Paris, which was transmitted to Berlin. + +[195] Since promoted to a higher grade. + +[196] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 239. + +[197] See Appendix XX. + +[198] Heard and reported by the author of the book _Le Fond de la +Societe sous la Commune_. The author wittily adds, "What the devil was +this imbecile solicitous about?" + +[199] Appendix XXI. + +[200] The Versaillese calumniators, pursuing him even to his last hour, +spread abroad that he had confessed to a Jesuit, and had disavowed his +writings "in presence of the gendarmes and nuns." + +[201] "Marshal MacMahon to General Vinoy, 29th May, 10.5 morning.--On +our propositions to enter the fort, Prince of Saxony has given the order +to enlarge the blockade, in order to leave the French authorities free +to act as they think fit. He has promised to preserve the +blockade."--_Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune_, p. 430. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + "Nous sommes d'honnetes gens; c'est par les lois ordinaires + que justice sera faite. Nous n'aurons recours qu'a la + loi."--_M. Thiers a l'Assemblee Nationale, 22 Mai 1871._ + + "Honest, honest Iago!"--_Shakespere._ + + THE VERSAILLESE FURY--THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES--THE PREVOTAL + COURTS--THE DEATH OF VARLIN--THE BURIALS. + + +Order reigned in Paris. Everywhere ruins, death, sinister crepitations. +The officers walked provokingly about clashing their sabres; the +non-commissioned officers imitated their arrogance. The soldiers +bivouacked in all the large roads. Some, stupefied by fatigue and +carnage, slept on the pavement; others prepared their soup by the side +of the corpses, singing the songs of their native homes. + +The tricolor flag hung from all the windows in order to prevent +house-searches. Guns, cartridge-boxes, uniforms, were piled up in the +gutters of the popular quarters. Before the doors sat women leaning +their heads upon their hands, looking fixedly before them, waiting for a +son or a husband who was never to return. + +In the rich quarters the joy knew no bounds. The runaways of the two +sieges, the demonstrators of the Place Vendome, many emigrants of +Versailles, had again taken possession of the boulevards. Since the +Thursday this kid-glove populace followed the prisoners, acclaiming the +gendarmes who conducted the convoys,[202] applauding at the sight of +the blood-covered vans.[203] The civilians strove to outdo the military +in levity. Such a one, who had ventured no further than the Cafe du +Helder, recounted the taking of the Chateau d'Eau, bragged of having +shot his dozen prisoners. Elegant and joyous women, as in a pleasure +trip, betook themselves to the corpses, and, to enjoy the sight of the +valorous dead, with the ends of sunshades raised their last coverings. + +"Inhabitants of Paris," said MacMahon on the 28th at mid-day, "Paris is +delivered! To-day the struggle is over. Order, labour, security are +about to revive." + +"Paris delivered" was parcelled into four commands under the orders of +General Vinoy, Ladmirault, Cissey, Douay, and once more placed under the +regime of the state of siege raised by the Commune. There was no longer +any government at Paris than the army which massacred Paris. The +passers-by were constrained to demolish the barricades, and any sign of +impatience brought with it an arrest, any imprecation death. It was +placarded that any one in the possession of arms would immediately be +sent before a court-martial; that any house from which shots were fired +would be given over to summary execution. All public places were closed +at eleven o'clock. Henceforth officers in uniform alone could circulate +freely. Mounted patrols thronged the streets. Entrance into the town +became difficult, to leave it impossible. The tradespeople not being +allowed to go backwards and forwards, victuals were on the point of +failing. + +"The struggle over," the army transformed itself into a vast platoon of +executioners. On the Sunday more than 5,000 prisoners taken in the +neighbourhood of the Pere Lachaise were led to the prison of La +Roquette. A chief of battalion standing at the entrance surveyed the +prisoners and said, "To the right," or "To the left." Those to the left +were to be shot. Their pockets emptied, they were drawn up along a wall +and then slaughtered. Opposite the wall two or three priests bending +over their breviaries mumbled the prayers for the dying. + +From the Sunday to the Monday morning in La Roquette alone more than +1,900 persons were thus murdered.[204] Blood flowed in large pools in +the gutters of the prison. The same slaughter took place at the Ecole +Militaire and the Parc Monceaux. + +These were the butcheries without phrases. At other places the prisoners +were conducted before the prevotal courts, with which Paris swarmed +since the Monday. These had not sprung up at hazard, and, as has been +believed in the midst of the fury of the struggle. It was proved before +the courts-martial that the number and seats of these prevotal courts, +with their respective jurisdictions, had been appointed at Versailles +before the entry of the troops.[205] One of the most celebrated was that +of the Chatelet Theatre, where Colonel Vabre officiated. Thousands of +prisoners who were led there were first of all penned in upon the stage +and in the auditorium, under the guns of the soldiers placed in the +boxes; then, little by little, like sheep driven to the door of the +slaughter-house, from wing to wing they were pushed to the saloon, +where, round a large table, officers of the army and the honest National +Guard were seated,[206] their sabre between their legs, a cigar in their +mouth. The examination lasted a quarter of a minute. "Did you take arms? +Did you serve the Commune? Show your hands." If the resolute attitude of +a prisoner betrayed a combatant, if his face was unpleasant, without +asking for his name, his profession, without entering any note upon any +register, he was _classed_. "You?" was said to the next one, and so on +to the end of the file, without excepting the women, children, and old +men. When by a caprice a prisoner was spared, he was said to be +_ordinary_, and reserved for Versailles. No one was liberated. + +The _classed_ ones were at once delivered to the executioners, who led +them into the nearest garden or court. From the Chatelet, for instance, +they were taken to the Lebau Barracks.[207] There the doors were no +sooner closed than the gendarmes fired, without even grouping their +victims before a platoon. Some, only wounded, ran along by the walls, +the gendarmes chasing and shooting at them till they fell dead. Moreau +of the Central Committee perished in one of these gangs. Surprised on +the Thursday evening in the Rue de Rivoli, he was conducted to the +Chatelet, and shot the next day. Those condemned in the prevotal court +of the Luxembourg were conducted into the garden and placed against a +terrace. There were so many victims, that the soldiers, tired out, were +obliged to rest their guns actually against the sufferers. The wall of +the terrace was covered with brains; the executioners waded through +pools of blood. + +The massacre was thus carried on, methodically organised, at the Caserne +Dupleix, the Lycee Bonaparte, the Northern and Eastern Railway Stations, +the Jardin des Plantes, in many mairies and barracks, at the same time +as in the abattoirs. Large open vans came to fetch the corpses, and went +to empty them in the square or any open space in the neighbourhood. + +The victims died simply, without fanfaronade.[208] Many crossed their +arms before the muskets, and themselves commanded the fire. Women and +children followed their husbands and their fathers, crying to the +soldiers, "Shoot us with them!" And they were shot. Women, till then +strangers to the struggle, were seen to come down into the streets, +exasperated by these butcheries, strike the officers, and then throw +themselves against a wall waiting for death.[209] + +In June, 1848, Cavaignac had promised pardon, and he massacred. M. +Thiers had sworn by the law, and he gave the army carte-blanche. The +officers returned from Germany might now glut to their hearts' content +their wrath against that Paris which had insulted them by not +capitulating; the Bonapartists revenge on the Republicans the old +hatreds of the Empire; the boys just fresh from St. Cyr serve their +apprenticeship of insolence upon the _pekins_. A general (Cissey most +probably) gave the order to shoot M. Cernuschi, whose crime consisted in +having offered 100,000 francs for the anti-plebiscitary campaign of +1870.[210] Any individual of some popular notoriety was sure to die. Dr. +Tony Moilin, who had played no part during the Commune, but had been +implicated in several political trials during the Empire, was in a few +moments judged and condemned to death; "not," his judges condescended to +tell him, "that he had committed any act that merited death, but because +he was a chief of the Socialist party, one of those men of whom a +prudent and wise Government must rid itself when it finds a legitimate +occasion."[211] The Radicals of the Chamber, whose hatred of the Commune +had been most clearly demonstrated, did not dare to set foot in Paris +for fear of being included in the massacres. + +The army, having neither police nor precise information, killed at +random. Any passer-by calling a man by a revolutionary name caused him +to be shot by soldiers eager to get the premium. At Grenelle they shot a +pseudo-Billioray,[212] notwithstanding his despairing protests; at the +Place Vendome they shot a pseudo-Brunel in the apartments of Madame +Fould. The _Gaulois_ published the recital by a military surgeon who +_knew_ Valles, and was present at his execution;[213] an eye-witness +declared he had seen Lefrancais shot on the Thursday in the Rue de la +Banque. The real Billioray was tried in the month of August; Brunel, +Valles, and Lefrancais succeeded in escaping from France. Members and +functionaries of the Commune were thus shot, and often several times +over, in the persons of individuals who resembled them more or less. + +Varlin, alas! was not to escape. On Sunday, the 28th May, he was +recognised in the Rue Lafayette, and led, or rather dragged, to the foot +of the Buttes Montmartre before the commanding general. The Versaillese +sent him to be shot in the Rue des Rosiers. For an hour, a mortal hour, +Varlin was dragged through the streets of Montmartre, his hands tied +behind his back, under a shower of blows and insults. His young, +thoughtful head, that had never harboured other thoughts than of +fraternity, slashed open by the sabres, was soon but one mass of blood, +of mangled flesh, the eye protruding from the orbit. On reaching the Rue +des Rosiers, he no longer walked; he was carried. They set him down to +shoot him. The wretches dismembered his corpse with blows of the +butt-ends of their muskets. + +The Mount of Martyrs has no more glorious one than Varlin. May he too be +enshrined in the great heart of the working-class! Varlin's whole life +was an example. He had quite alone, by the mere force of his will, +educated himself, giving to study the rare hours left him in the evening +after the workshop; learning not with the view to push into the +bourgeoisie, as many others, but to instruct and enfranchise the people. +He was the heart and soul of the workingmen's associations at the end of +the Empire. Indefatigable, modest, speaking little, always at the right +moment, and then enlightening a confused discussion with a word, he had +preserved that revolutionary instinct which is often blunted in educated +workmen. One of the first on the 18th March, labouring during the whole +Commune, he was at the barricades to the last. His death is all to the +honour of the workmen. It is to Varlin and to Delescluze that this +history should be dedicated, if there were room in the frontispiece for +any other name than that of Paris. + +The Versaillese journalists spat on his corpse; said that some hundreds +of thousands of francs had been found on him.[214] Returned to Paris +behind the army, they followed it like jackals. Those of the +demi-monde, above all, were mad with a sanguinary hysteria. The +coalition of the 21st March was re-made. All uttered one howl against +the vanquished workmen. Far from moderating the massacre, they +encouraged it, published the names, the hiding-places of those who were +to be killed, unflagging in inventions calculated to keep up the furious +terror of the bourgeoisie. After every fusillade they cried encore. + +I quote at hazard, and could quote pages: "We must make a Communard +hunt" (_Bien Public_). "Not one of the malefactors in whose hands Paris +has been for two months will be considered as a political man. They will +be treated like the brigands they are, like the most frightful monsters +ever seen in the history of humanity. Many journals speak of re-erecting +the scaffold destroyed by them, in order not even to do them the honour +of shooting them" (_Moniteur Universel_). "Come, honest people, an +effort to make an end of this democratic and international vermin" +(_Figaro_). "These men, who have killed for the sake of killing and +stealing, are taken, and we should answer, Mercy! These hideous women, +who stabbed the breast of dying officers, are taken, and we should cry, +Mercy!" (_Patrie_).[215] + +To encourage the hangmen, if that were necessary, the press threw them +crowns. + +"What an admirable attitude is that of our officers and soldiers!" said +the _Figaro_. "It is only to the French soldier that it is given to +recover so quickly and so well." "What an honour!" cried the _Journal +des Debats_. "Our army has avenged its disasters by an inestimable +victory." + +Thus the army wreaked on Paris revenge for its defeats. Paris was an +enemy like Prussia, and all the less to be spared that the army had its +prestige to reconquer. To complete the similitude, after the victory +there was a triumph. The Romans never adjudged it after civil struggles. +M. Thiers was not ashamed, under the eye of the foreigner, before still +smoking Paris, to parade his troops in a grand review. Who then will +dare to blame the Federals for having resisted the army of Versailles as +they would have the Prussians? + +And when did foreigners show such fury?[216] Death even seemed to whet +their rancour. On Sunday, the 28th, near the Mairie of the eleventh +arrondissement, about fifty prisoners had just been shot. Urged not by +an unworthy curiosity, but by the earnest desire to know the truth, we +went, at the risk of being recognised, as far as the corpses lying on +the pavement. A woman lay there, her skirts turned up; from her +ripped-up body protruded the entrails, which a marine-fusileer amused +himself by dividing with the end of his bayonet. The officers, a few +steps off, let him do this. The victors, in order to dishonor these +corpses, had placed inscriptions on their breasts, "assassin," "thief," +"drunkard," and stuck the necks of bottles into the mouths of some of +them. + +How to justify this savagery? The official reports only mention very few +deaths among the Versaillese--877 during the whole time of the +operations, from the 3rd April up to the 28th May.[217] The Versaillese +fury had then no excuse for these reprisals. When a handful of +exasperated men, to avenge thousands of their brothers, shoot +sixty-three of their most inveterate enemies[218] out of nearly 300 whom +they had in their hands, the hypocritical reaction veils its face and +protests in the name of justice. What, then, will this justice say when +those shall be judged who methodically, without any anxiety as to the +issue of the combat, and, above all, the battle over, shot 20,000 +persons, of whom three-fourths had not taken part in the fight? Still +some flashes of humanity were shown by the soldiers, and some were seen +coming back from the executions their heads bowed down; but the officers +never slackened for one second in their ferocity. Even after the Sunday +they still slaughtered the prisoners, shouted "Bravo!" at the +executions. The courage of the victims they called insolence.[219] Let +them be responsible before Paris, France, the new generation, for these +deeds of infamy. + +At last the smell of the carnage began to choke even the most frantic. +The pest, if not pity, was coming. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from +the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The _Avenir +Liberal_, singing the praises of MacMahon's proclamations, applied the +words of Flechier: "He hides himself, but his glory finds him out." The +glory of the Turenne of 1871 betrayed him even up to the Seine.[220] In +certain streets the corpses encumbered the pathway, looking at the +passers-by from out of their dead eyes. In the Faubourg St. Antoine they +were to be seen everywhere in heaps, half white with chloride of lime. +At the Polytechnic School they occupied a space of 100 yards long and +three deep. At Passy, which was not one of the great centres of +execution, there were 1,100 near the Trocadero. These, covered over by a +thin shroud of earth, also showed their ghastly profiles. "Who does not +recollect," said the _Temps_, "even though he had seen it but one +moment, the square, no, the charnel of the Tour St. Jacques? From the +midst of this moist soil, recently turned up by the spade, here and +there look out heads, arms, feet, and hands. The profiles of corpses, +dressed in the uniform of National Guards, were seen impressed against +the ground. It was hideous. A decayed, sickening odour arose from this +garden, and occasionally at some places it became fetid." The rain and +heat having precipitated the putrefaction, the swollen bodies +reappeared. The glory of MacMahon displayed itself too well. The +journals were taking fright. "These wretches," said one of them, "who +have done us so much harm during their lives, must not be allowed to do +so still after their death." And those that had instigated the massacre +cried "Enough!" + +"Let us not kill any more," said the _Paris Journal_ of the 2nd June, +"even the assassins, even the incendiaries. Let us not kill any more. It +is not their pardon we ask for, but a respite." "Enough executions, +enough blood, enough victims," said the _Nationale_ of the 1st June. And +the _Opinion Nationale_ of the same day: "A serious examination of the +accused is imperative. One would like to see only the really guilty +die." + +The executions abated, and the sweeping off began. Carriages of all +kinds, vans, omnibuses, came to pick up the corpses and traversed the +town. Since the great pests of London and Marseilles, such cart-loads of +human flesh had not been seen. These exhumations proved that a great +number of people had been buried alive. Imperfectly shot, and thrown +with the heaps of dead into the common grave, they had eaten earth, and +showed the contortions of their violent agony. Certain corpses were +taken up in pieces. It was necessary to shut them as soon as possible +into closed waggons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the +cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid +masses. + +The cemeteries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed +side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled +enormous ditches at the Pere Lachaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where +the people in pious remembrance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, +more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, +Bicetre, &c., the trenches dug during the first siege were utilised. +"There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations," said _La +Liberte_ "an impure blood will water the soil of the labourer, +fecundating it. The deceased delegate at war will be able to pass a +review of his faithful followers at the hour of midnight; the watchword +will be _Incendiarism and assassination_." Women by the side of the +lugubrious trench endeavoured to recognise these remains. The police +waited that their grief should betray them, in order to arrest those +"females of insurgents." + +The burying of such a large number of corpses soon became too difficult, +and they were burnt in the casemates of the fortifications; but for want +of draught the combustion was incomplete, and the bodies were reduced to +a pulp. At the Buttes Chaumont the corpses, piled up in enormous heaps, +inundated with petroleum, were burnt in the open air. + +The wholesale massacres lasted up to the first days of June,[221] and +the summary executions up to the middle of that month. For a long time +mysterious dramas were enacted in the Bois de Boulogne.[222] Never will +the exact number of the victims of the Bloody Week be known. The chief +of military justice admitted 17,000 shot;[223] the municipal council of +Paris paid the expenses of burial of 17,000 corpses; but a great number +were killed out of Paris or burnt. There is no exaggeration in saying +20,000 at least. + +Many battlefields have numbered more dead, but these at least had fallen +in the fury of the combat. The century has not witnessed such a +slaughtering after the battle; there is nothing to equal it in the +history of our civil struggles. St. Bartholomew's Day, June, 1848, the +2nd December, would form but an episode of the massacres of May. Even +the great executioners of Rome and modern times pale before the Duke of +Magenta. The hecatombs of the Asiatic victors, the fetes of Dahomey +alone could give some idea of this butchery of proletarians. + +Such was the repression "by the laws, with the laws." And during these +atrocities of incomparably worse than Bulgarian type, the bourgeoisie, +raising to heaven its bloody hands, undertook to incite the whole world +against this people, who, after two months of domination and the +massacre of thousands of their own, had shed the blood of sixty-three +prisoners. + +All social powers covered the death-rattle of the victims by their +applause. The priests, those great consecrators of assassination, +celebrated the victory in a solemn service, at which the entire Assembly +assisted. The reign of the _Gesu_ was about to commence. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[202] In the Boulevard des Italiens women kissed the boots of the +mounted officers who escorted the convoys. A journalist, Francisque +Sarcey, wrote: "With what serene joy the eye rested on the loyal faces +of those brave gendarmes, who marched with a sprightly step by the sides +of the hideous column, forming a martial and severe framework!" + +[203] Appendix XXII. + +[204] Appendix XXIII. + +[205] Appendix XXIV. + +[206] Later on all the names will be known. Let us cite from amongst a +hundred. At the Mairie of the fifth arrondissement, the colonel of the +National Guard, Galle; at the seventh, M. Gabriel Ossude and M. Blamont; +at the College Bonaparte, M. de Soulanges, chief of the 69th battalion; +at the Mairie of the ninth arrondissement, M. Charpentier; at L'Elysee, +M. de St. Geniez, chief of the 3rd battalion; at the Luxembourg, MM. +Gosselin, Parfait, Daniel; at the Mairie of the thirteenth +arrondissement, MM. D'Avril, chief of the 4th battalion, Lascol, chief +of the 17th Thierce; at the Chatelet, Vabre in a few hours achieved an +atrocious celebrity. + +[207] Appendix XXV. + +[208] Appendix XXVI. + +[209] Appendix XXVII. + +[210] Appendix XXVIII. + +[211] Appendix XXIX. + +[212] Appendix XXX. + +[213] Appendix XXXI. + +[214] The journal _L'Ariegeois_ has published the text of the report +addressed to the colonel of the 67th of the line by Lieutenant Sicre, a +native of the department of Ariege, who had taken part in the arrest of +Varlin, and commanded the firing-party. We extract the following +passage:--"Amongst the objects found on him were a pocket-book bearing +his name, a purse containing 284 francs 15 centimes, a penknife, a +silver watch, and a card of the man Tridon." + +[215] Some foreign journals uttered the same cry. The _Naval and +Military Gazette_ of the 27th May said, "We are deliberately of opinion +that hanging is too good a death for such villains to die, and if +medical science could be advanced by operating upon the living body of +the malefactors who have crucified their country, we at least should +find no fault with the experiment." + +[216] At a wineshop of the Place Voltaire we met some quite young +soldiers on the Sunday morning. They were marine-fusileers of the 1871 +class. Their complexion was sallow, their movements heavy, their eyes +dull. "And there are many dead?" said we. "Ah!" answered one of them in +a stupefied tone, "we have the order to make no prisoners; it is the +general who told us" (they could not tell us the name of their general). +"If they had not lighted these fires they would not have been served +thus; but as they set on fire, we must kill" (textual). Then he went on +talking to his comrade. "This morning there" (and he pointed to the +barricade of the Mairie), "one came up in a blouse. We led him off. 'You +are not going to shoot me?' said he. 'Oh, I should think not!' We made +him pass in front of us, and then, pan, pan; and didn't he kick about +funnily!" + +[217] Sixty-three officers killed and 430 wounded, 794 soldiers dead and +6024 wounded--in all, 877 dead and 6454 wounded. _Rapport du Marechal +MacMahon._ + +[218] This is the exact number of the hostages executed: four at Ste. +Pelagie, six at the Roquette, forty-eight at the Rue Haxo, four at the +Petite Roquette, and the banker Jecker. + +[219] The Count de Mun said (_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 276), +"When they were shot, they all died with a kind of insolence which +cannot be attributed to a moral sentiment" (the sentiment of the +executioner, Monsieur de Mun, no doubt), "and can only be attributed to +the resolution to come to an end by death rather than live by working." +It is true that MacMahon had said (p. 28), "They seemed to think they +were defending a sacred cause, the independence of Paris. In their +intentions some of them may have been of good faith." Who is more +odious, he who believes he is killing an "insolent," or he who knows +that he is killing a martyr? + +[220] "On the Seine may be seen a long trail of blood following the +course of the water and passing under the second arch from the side of +the Tuileries. This trail never stopped."--_La Liberte of the 31st May._ + +[221] Appendix XXXII. + +[222] Appendix XXXIII. + +[223] This is the figure given by General Appert in the _Enquete sur le +18 Mars_. MacMahon has said, "When men surrender their arms they must +not be shot; that was admitted. Unhappily, on certain points, the +instructions I had given were forgotten. I can, however, affirm that the +number of executions has been very restricted." Admire the logic of this +reasoning. No doubt a list has been kept of all, oblivious as to the +victims of the prevotal courts; the "loyal soldier" ignores them +completely. + +Some days after the battle the _Nationale_, a Liberal-conservative paper +said, "In official circles it is estimated that 20,000 is the number of +Federals killed, shot, or dead in consequence of wounds received during +the days of May. We should not have dared to give this figure, which +seems to us considerable, if we had not got this information from +officers who have declared that this estimate is very probably +correct." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + "La cause de la justice, de l'ordre, de l'humanite, de la + civilisation, a triomphe."--_M. Thiers a l'Assemblee + Nationale, 22 Mai 1871._ + + THE CONVOYS OF PRISONERS--THE ORANGERIE--THE ARRESTS-- + SATORY--THE DENUNCIATORS--THE PRESS--THE LEFT INSULTS + THE VANQUISHED--DEMONSTRATIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. + + +Happy the dead! They had not to mount the Calvary of the prisoners. + +From the wholesale fusillades one may guess the number of arrests. It +was a furious razzia; men, women, children, Parisians, provincials, +foreigners, a crowd of people of all sexes and all ages, of all parties +and all conditions. All the lodgers of a house, all the inhabitants of a +street, were carried off in a body. A suspicion, a word, a doubtful +attitude were sufficient to cause one to be seized by the soldiers. From +the 21st to the 30th May they thus picked up 40,000 persons. + +These prisoners were formed into long chains, sometimes free, sometimes, +as in June, 1848, bound by cords so as to form only one body. Whoever +refused to walk on was pricked with the bayonet, and, if he resisted, +shot on the spot, sometimes attached to a horse's tail.[224] In front of +the churches of the rich quarters the captives were forced to kneel +down, bareheaded, amidst an infamous mob of lackeys, fashionables, and +prostitutes, crying, "Death! death! Do not go any further; shoot them +here!" At the Champs-Elysees they wanted to break the files to taste +blood. + +The prisoners were sent on to Versailles. Gallifet awaited them at La +Muette. In the town he escorted the chains, halting under the windows +of the aristocratic clubs in order to earn plaudits and hurrahs. At the +gates of Paris he levied his tithe, walked past the ranks, and, with his +look of a famished wolf, "You seem intelligent," said he to some one; +"step out of the ranks." "You have a watch," said he to another; "you +must have been a functionary of the Commune," and he placed him apart. +On the 26th, in one single convoy, he chose eighty-three men and three +women, made them draw up along the talus of the fortifications and had +them shot.[225] Then he said to their comrades, "My name is Gallifet. +Your journals in Paris had sullied me enough. I take my revenge." On +Sunday, the 28th, he said, "Let those who have white hairs step out from +the ranks." One hundred and eleven captives advanced. "You," continued +Gallifet, "you have seen June, 1848; you are more culpable than the +others," and he had their corpses thrown over into the fortifications. + +This purgation over, the convoys entered upon the route to Versailles, +pressed between two files of cavalry. It looked like the population of a +city dragged away by fierce hordes. Lads, grey-bearded men, soldiers, +dandies, all and every condition; the most delicate and the most rude +confounded in the same vortex. Many women, some with manacles on their +hands; such a one with her baby, who pressed its mother's neck with its +frightened little hands; another, her arm broken, her chemisette stained +with blood; another depressed, clinging to the arm of her more vigorous +neighbour; another in a statuesque attitude, defying pain and insults; +always that woman of the people, who, after having carried the bread to +the trenches and given consolation to the dying, hopeless-- + + "Decouragee de mettre au jour des malheureux," + +longed for liberating death. + +Their attitude, which inspired foreign journals with admiration,[226] +exasperated the Versaillese ferocity. "In seeing the convoys of +insurgent women," said the _Figaro_, "one feels in spite of oneself a +kind of pity; but one is reassured by thinking that all the brothels of +the capital have been thrown open by the National Guards, who patronised +them, and that the majority of these ladies were inhabitants of these +establishments." + +Panting, covered with filth, idiotic with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, +burnt by the sun, the convoys dragged themselves along for hours in the +overheated dust of the roads, harassed by the cries, the blows from the +mounted chasseurs. The Prussians had not thus cruelly treated these +soldiers when, prisoners themselves some months before, they had been +led away from Sedan or Metz. The captives who fell were sometimes shot, +sometimes they were only thrown into the carts that followed. + +At the entry into Versailles the crowd awaited them, always the _elite_ +of French society, deputies, functionaries, priests, officers, women of +all sorts. The fury of the 4th April and the preceding convoys were as +much surpassed as the sea swells at the equinoctial tide. The Avenues de +Paris and De St. Cloud were lined by savages, who followed the convoys +with vociferations, blows, covered them with filth and broken pieces of +bottle. "One sees," said the Liberal-Conservative newspaper, the +_Siecle_, of the 30th May, "women, not prostitutes, but elegant ladies, +insult the prisoners on their passage, and even strike them with their +sunshades." Woe to whoever did not insult the vanquished! Woe to him who +allowed a movement of commiseration to escape him! He was at once +seized, led to the post,[227] or else simply forced into the convoy. +Frightful retrogradation of human nature, all the more hideous that it +contrasted with the elegance of the costume! Prussian officers came from +St. Denis once more to see what governing classes they had had to oppose +them. + +The first convoys were promenaded about as a spectacle in the streets of +Versailles; others were stationed for hours at the torrid Place d'Armes, +a few steps from the large trees, whose shade was refused them. The +prisoners were then distributed in four depots, the cellars of the +Grandes-Ecuries, the Orangerie of the castle, the docks of Satory, and +the maneges of the Ecole de St. Cyr. Into these damp, nauseous cellars, +where light and air only penetrated by some narrow openings, men, +children, of whom some were not more than ten years old, were crowded +without straw during the first days. When they did get some, it was soon +reduced to mere dung. No water to wash with; no means of changing their +rags, as the relations who brought linen were brutally sent back. Twice +a day, in a trough, they got a yellowish liquid, a porridge. The +gendarmes sold tobacco at exorbitant prices, and confiscated it in order +to sell it over again. There were no doctors. Gangrene attacked the +wounded; ophthalmia broke out; deliriousness became chronic. In the +night were heard the shrieks of the fever-stricken and the mad. +Opposite, the gendarmes remained impassive, their guns loaded. + +Even these horrors were outdone by the Fosse-aux-Lions, a vault without +air, absolutely dark, the antechamber of the tomb, under the large red +marble staircase of the terrace. Whoever was noted as dangerous, or +whoever had simply displeased the corporal, was thrown into it. The most +robust could only bear up against it a few days. On leaving it, giddy, +the mind a blank, dazzled by the broad daylight, they swooned. Happy he +who met the look of his wife. The wives of the captives pressed against +the outer rails of the Orangerie, striving to distinguish some one +amidst the dimly seen herd. They tore their hair, implored the +gendarmes, who thrust them back, struck them, called them infamous +names. + +The hell of open daylight was the docks of the plateau of Satory, a vast +parallelogram enclosed by walls. The soil is clayey, and the least rain +soaks it. The first arrivals were placed within the buildings, which +could contain about thirteen hundred persons, the others remained +outside, bareheaded, for their hats had been knocked off at Paris or at +Versailles. The gendarmes were on duty, being more reliable, more +hardened than the soldiers. + +On the Thursday evening at eight o'clock a convoy, composed chiefly of +women, arrived at the dock. "Many of us," one of them has reported to +me, the wife of a _chef-de-legion_, "had died on the way; we had had +nothing since morning. + +"It was still daylight. We saw a great multitude of prisoners. The women +were apart in a hut at the entrance. We joined them. + +"We were told that there was a pond, and, dying of thirst, we rushed +thither. The first who drank uttered a loud cry, vomited. 'Oh, the +wretches! they make us drink the blood of our own people.' For since +evening the wounded went there to bathe their wounds; but thirst +tormented us so cruelly, that some had the courage to rinse out their +mouths with this bloody water. + +"The hut was already full, and we were made to lie on the earth in +groups of about 200. An officer came and said to us, 'Vile creatures! +listen to the order I give. Gendarmes, the first who moves, fire on +these----!' + +"At ten o'clock we heard reports quite near. We jumped up. 'Lie down, +wretches!' cried the gendarmes, taking aim at us. It was some prisoners +being shot a few steps from us. We thought the balls would pass through +our heads. The gendarmes who had just been shooting came to relieve our +guardians. We remained the whole night watched by men heated with +carnage. They grumbled at those who writhed with terror and cold. 'Do +not be impatient; your turn is coming.' At daybreak we saw the dead. The +gendarmes said to each other, 'Oh! isn't this a jolly vintage?' + +"In the evening the prisoners heard a sound of spades and hammers in the +wall of the south. The fusillades, the menaces had maddened them. They +awaited death from all sides and in every shape; they thought that this +time they were going to be blown up. Holes opened and mitrailleuses +appeared, some of which were discharged."[228] + +On Friday evening a storm of several hours broke out above the camp. The +prisoners were forced, on pain of being shot, to lie down all night in +the mud. About twenty died of cold. + +The camp of Satory soon became the Longchamp of Versailles high life. +Captain Aubrey did the honors with the ladies, the deputies, the +literary men, showing them his subjects grovelling in the mud, devouring +a few biscuits, taking tumblers of water from the pond into which the +gendarmes stood on no ceremony in easing themselves. Some, going mad, +dashed their heads against the walls; others howled, tearing their +beards and hair. A fetid cloud arose from this living mass of rags and +horrors. "There are," said the _Independence Francaise_, "several +thousands of people poisoned with dirt and vermin spreading infection a +kilometre around. Cannon are levelled at these wretches penned up like +wild beasts. The inhabitants of Paris are afraid of the epidemic +resulting from the burying of the insurgents killed in the town. Those +whom the _Officiel___ of Paris called the rurals are much more afraid of +the epidemic resulting from the presence of the live insurgents at +Satory." + +Those are the honest people of Versailles, who had just caused the +triumph of "the cause of justice, order, humanity, and civilisation." +How good and humane, despite the bombardment and the sufferings of the +siege, those _brigands_ of Paris had been, above all by the side of +these _honest people_! Who ever ill-treated a prisoner in the Paris of +the Commune? What woman perished or was insulted? What obscure corner of +the Parisian prisons had hidden a single one of the thousand tortures +which displayed themselves in broad daylight at Versailles? + +From the 24th May to the first days of June the convoys did not cease +flowing into those depths. The arrests went on in large hauls by day and +night. The sergents-de-ville accompanied the soldiers, and, under the +pretext of perquisitions, forced the locks, appropriating objects of +value. Several officers were in the sequel condemned for the +embezzlement of objects seized.[229] They arrested not only the persons +compromised in the late affairs, those who were denounced by their +uniforms, or documents found in the mairies and at the War Office, but +whoever was known for his republican opinions. They arrested, too, the +purveyors of the Commune, and even the musicians, who had never crossed +the ramparts. The ambulance attendants shared the same fate. And yet +during the siege a delegate of the Commune, having inspected the +ambulances of the press, had said to the personnel, "I am aware that +most of you are the friends of the Government of Versailles, but I hope +you may live long enough to recognise your mistake. I do not trouble +myself to know whether the lancets at the service of the wounded are +royalist or republican. I see that you do your task worthily. I thank +you for it. I shall report it to the Commune." + +Some poor wretches had taken refuge in the Catacombs. They were hunted +by torchlight. The police agents, assisted by dogs, fired at every +suspicious shadow. Battues were organised in the forests near Paris. The +police watched all the stations, all the ports of France. Passports had +to be renewed and vised at Versailles. The masters of boats were under +supervision. On the 26th Jules Favre had solemnly asked the foreign +powers for the extradition of the fugitives, under the pretext that the +battle of the streets was not a political act. + +Extradition flourished at Paris. Fear closed all doors. No shelter was +there for the fugitives. Few friends were left--no comrades. Everywhere +pitiless refusals or denunciations. Doctors renewed the infamies of +1834, and delivered up the wounded.[230] Every cowardly instinct rose to +the surface, and Paris disclosed sloughs of infamy whose existence she +had not suspected even under the Empire. The honest people, masters of +the streets, had their rivals, their creditors, arrested as Communards, +and formed committees of inquiry in their arrondissements. The Commune +had rejected the denunciators; the police of order received them with +open arms. The denunciations rose to the fabulous height of +399,823,[231] of which a twentieth at most were signed. + +A very considerable part of these denunciations issued from the press. +For several weeks it did not cease stirring the rage and panic of the +bourgeoisie. M. Thiers, re-editing one of the absurdities of June, 1848, +in a bulletin spoke of "poisonous liquids collected in order to poison +the soldiers." All the inventions of that time were again taken up, +appropriated to the hour, and horribly amplified; chambers in the +sewers with wires all prepared, 8,000 petroleuses enrolled, houses +marked with a stamp for burning, pumps, injectors, eggs filled with +petroleum, poisoned balls, roasted gendarmes, hanged sailors, violated +women, prostitutes requisitioned, endless thefts--all was printed, and +the gulls believed all. Some journals had the speciality of false orders +for arson;[232] false autographs, of which the originals could never be +produced, but which were to be admitted as positive evidence by the +courts-martial and honest historians. When it fancied the fury of the +bourgeoisie was flagging, the press fanned it again, each journal +outbidding the other in villainy. "Paris, we know," said the _Bien +Public_, "asks for nothing better than to go to sleep again; though we +should trouble her, we will awaken her." And on the 8th June the +_Figaro_ still drew up plans of carnage.[233] The revolutionary writer +who will take the pains to collect in a volume extracts from the +reactionary press of May and June, 1871, from the Parliamentary +inquiries, the bourgeois pamphlets, and histories of the Commune--a +mixture as monstrous as that of the witches' cauldron--will do more for +the edification and the future justice of the people than a whole band +of mouthing agitators. + +There were, to French honour, some traits of generosity, and even +heroism, amidst this epidemic of cowardice. Vermorel, wounded, was +taken in by the wife of a concierge, who succeeded for a few hours in +passing him off for her son. The mother of a Versaillese soldier gave +several members of the Council of the Commune an asylum. A great number +of insurgents were saved by unknown people; and yet it was during the +first days a matter of death, afterwards of transportation, to shelter +the vanquished. The women once again showed their great heart. + +The average of arrests kept up in June and July to a hundred a day. At +Belleville, Menilmontant, in the thirteenth arrondissement, in certain +streets, there were only old women left. The Versaillese, in their lying +returns, have admitted 38,568 prisoners,[234] amongst whom were 1,058 +women and 651 children, of whom forty-seven were thirteen years of age, +twenty-one twelve, four ten, and one seven,[235] as though they had by +some secret method counted the herds whom they fed at the troughs. The +number of those arrested very probably reached 50,000 men. + +The errors were numberless. Some women of that beau monde who went with +dilated nostrils to contemplate the corpses of the Federals were +included in the razzias, and led off to Satory, where, their clothes in +rags, devoured by vermin, they figured very well as the imaginary +petroleuses of their journals. + +Thousands of individuals were obliged to hide; thousands gained the +frontier. An idea of the general losses may be gathered from the fact +that at the complementary elections of July there were 100,000 less +electors than in February.[236] Parisian industry was crushed by it. +Most of the workmen who gave this branch of manufacture its artistic +cachet perished, were arrested, or emigrated in masses. In the month of +October the municipal council proved in an official report that certain +industries were obliged to refuse orders for want of hands. + +The savageness of the searches, the number of the arrests, joined to the +despair of the defeat, tore from this town--bled to the last drop of +blood--some supreme convulsions. At Belleville, at Montmartre, in the +thirteenth arrondissement, shots were fired from houses. At the Cafe du +Helder, in the Rue de Rennes, the Rue de la Paix, Place de la Madeleine, +soldiers and officers fell, struck by invisible hands; near the +Pepiniere Barracks a general was shot at. The Versaillese journals +wondered, with naive impudence, that popular fury was not calmed, and +could not understand "what reason, even the most futile, of hatred one +could have for soldiers who had the most inoffensive look in the world" +(_La Cloche_). + +The Left followed to the very end the line it had traced out for itself +on the 19th March. Having prevented the provinces from coming to the +rescue of Paris and voted its thanks to the army, it also joined its +maledictions to those of the rurals. Louis Blanc, who in 1877 was to +defend the red flag, wrote to the _Figaro_ to stigmatise the vanquished, +to bow down before their judges, and declare "the public indignation +legitimate."[237] This Extreme Left, which five years after grew +enthusiastic for the amnesty, would not hear the death-groans of the +20,000 shot, nor even, though but a hundred yards from them, the shrieks +from the Orangerie. In June, 1848, the sombre imprecation of Lammennais +fell upon the massacres, and Pierre Leroux defended the insurgents. The +great philosophers of the Rural Assembly, Catholic or Positivist, were +all one against the workingmen. Gambetta, delighted at being rid of the +Socialists, hurried back from St. Sebastien, and in a solemn speech at +Bordeaux declared that the Government which had been able to crush Paris +"had even by that proved itself legitimate." + +There were some men of courage in the provinces. The _Droits de l'Homme_ +of Montpellier, the _Emancipation_ of Toulouse, the _National du +Loiret_, and several advanced journals recounted the assassinations of +the conquerors. Most of these journals were prosecuted and suppressed. +Some movements took place; a commencement of riots at Pamiers (Ariege) +and at Voiron (Isere). At Lyons the army was confined in its barracks, +and the prefect, Valentin, had the town closed in order to arrest the +fugitives of Paris. There were arrests at Bordeaux. + +At Brussels Victor Hugo protested against the declaration of the Belgian +government, which promised to deliver up the fugitives. Louis Blanc and +Schoelcher wrote him a letter full of blame, and his house was stoned +by a fashionable mob. Bebel in the German Parliament and Whalley in the +House of Commons denounced the Versaillese fury. Garcia Lopez said from +the tribune of the Cortes, "We admire this great revolution, which no +one can appreciate justly to-day." + +The workingmen of foreign countries solemnised the obsequies of their +brothers of Paris. At London, Brussels, Zurich, Geneva, Leipzig, and +Berlin, monster meetings proclaimed themselves in accord with the +Commune, devoted the slaughterers to universal execration, and declared +accomplices of these crimes the Governments which had not made any +remonstrances. All the Socialist journals glorified the struggle of the +vanquished. The great voice of the International recounted their effort +in an eloquent address,[238] and confided their memory to the workmen of +the whole world. + +On the triumphal entry of Moltke at the head of the victorious Prussian +army into Berlin, the workmen received them with hurrahs for the +Commune, and at several places the people were charged by the cavalry. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[224] Appendix XXXIV. + +[225] This fact and the following one are not only attested by the +prisoners, but by the journals of order and the correspondents of the +conservative foreign newspapers speaking as eye-witnesses. Appendix +XXXV. + +[226] "I observed a slender figure walking alone, in the costume of the +National Guard, with long fair hair floating over the shoulders, a +bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold young face, that seemed to know +neither shame nor fear. When the spectators detected at a glance that +this seeming young National Guardsman was a woman, their indignation +found vent in strong language; but the only response of the victim was +to glare right and left with heightened colour and flashing eyes. If the +French nation were composed only of Frenchwomen, what a terrible nation +it would be!"--_The Times, 29th May, 1871._ + +[227] They treated in this manner M. Ratisbonne, he who in the _Debats_ +had just written, "What an inestimable victory!" + +[228] These facts are borne witness to by several conservative journals, +among others the _Siecle_. We cite this paper in preference to the +Figarist journals, which might be suspected of having amplified the +glory of the army. "The day before yesterday there has been (at Satory) +an attempt at revolt. The soldiers began by aiming at the most mutinous; +but as this procedure did not seem sufficiently expeditious, +mitrailleuses were advanced, which fired into the crowd. Order was +re-established, but at what a price!" (Versailles, 27th May). "Towards +four o'clock in the morning a new rising took place amongst the +prisoners of Satory. There were several volleys of mitrailleuses, and, +as you may suppose, the number of dead and wounded must have been rather +considerable." (Versailles, May 28). + +[229] Among others, one Thierce, lieutenant-colonel, who had presided at +the executions in the thirteenth arrondissement. + +[230] At the Beaujon Hospital there was a wounded Federal whom all the +staff wanted to save. Only one person refused, the doctor Delbeau, +head-surgeon and professor in the faculty of medicine. He sent up the +soldiers of the neighbouring post and had the poor fellow taken away. Be +it said to the honour of the students that they forced him some months +after to suspend his lectures. + +[231] The numbers of the registers where the denunciations were +inscribed enabled the proof of this statistic of infamy, published by +the spy journals of the time, to be ascertained. + +[232] One of these orders, which commanded Milliere to set fire to the +left bank, was signed Billioray, who had fled on the 21st, and +Dombrowski, already dead at this time. + +[233] "GENERAL ENTERPRISE OF PARISIAN SWEEPING.--The repression must +equal the crime. These are the means by which this result will be +arrived at. The members of the Commune, the chiefs of the insurrection, +the members of the committees, courts-martial and revolutionary +tribunals, the foreign generals and officers, the deserters, the +assassins of Montmartre, La Roquette, and Mazas, the _petroleurs_ and +the _petroleuses_, the ticket-of-leave men, are to be shot. Martial law +must be applied in all its rigour to the journalists who have placed the +torch and the chassepot in the hands of fanatic imbeciles. A part of +these measures have already been put into practice. Our soldiers have +simplified the work of the courts-martial of Versailles by shooting on +the spot; but it must not be overlooked that a great many culprits have +escaped chastisement."--_Le Figaro of the 8th June._ + +[234] Report of the General Appert, table i. pp. 215, 262. + +[235] Report of the Captain Guichard, _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. +iii. p. 313. + +[236] The _Journal des Debats_ estimated that "the losses by the party +of the insurrection in dead and prisoners reached the figure of 100,000 +individuals." + +[237] In the _Figaro_ of the 8th June--the same number which contained +the plan of massacre--might be read, "We have received the following +letter from M. Louis Blanc:-- + +"'To Monsieur Philippe Gille. + +"'SIR,--I read in an article signed by you that the honest Republican +party has the right to expect a protestation from me against the +abominations of which Paris has been the theatre and the victim. This +observation surprises me. + +"'What honest man could, without lacking self-respect, believe himself +obliged to warn the public that incendiarism, pillage, and assassination +horrify him? I esteem myself enough to judge that, on my part, a +declaration is perfectly useless. + +"'When, too, public indignation is so legitimate and so great, are you +aware, sir, that in the tribunals the silence of the assistants is +obligatory; so true is it that the duty of everybody is to remain silent +when the judge is about to speak. Receive, sir, the assurance of my +regard. + + LOUIS BLANC.'" + + +[238] The Civil War in France. Address of the Council of the +International Working-Men's Association. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "La conciliation, c'est l'ange qui plane apres + l'orage."--_Dufaure a l'Assemblee Nationale, 26 Avril + 1871._ + + THE PONTOONS--THE FORTS--THE PRISONS--THE FIRST TRIALS. + + +The human lakes of Versailles and Satory were soon overflowing. From the +first days of June the prisoners were filed off to the seaports and +crowded into cattle-waggons, the awnings of which, hermetically closed, +let in no breath of air. In a corner was a heap of biscuits; but +themselves thrown upon this heap, the prisoners had soon reduced it to +mere crumbs. For twenty-four hours, and sometimes thirty-two hours, they +remained without anything to drink. They fought in this throng for a +little air, a little room. Some, maddened, flung themselves upon their +comrades.[239] One day at La Ferte-Bernard cries were uttered in a +waggon. The chief of the escort stopped the convoy; the +sergents-de-ville discharged their revolvers through the awning. Silence +ensued, and the rolling coffins set out again at full speed. + +From the month of June to the month of September 28,000 prisoners were +thus thrown into the harbours, the forts and the oceanic isles, from +Cherbourg to the Gironde. Twenty-five pontoons took in 20,000, the forts +and isles 8,087. + +On the pontoons tortures were inflicted by regulation. The traditions +of June and of December were religiously observed with the victims of +1871. The prisoners, penned in cages made of wooden planks and iron +bars, received only a dim light through the nailed down port-holes. +Ventilation there was none. From the first hours the exhalations were +unbearable. The sentinels walked up and down in this menagerie with the +order to fire at the slightest alarm. Cannon charged with grapeshot +overlooked the batteries. There were neither hammocks nor blankets, and +for all food some biscuits, bread, and haricots, but no wine or tobacco. +The inhabitants of Brest and Cherbourg having sent some provisions and +little luxuries, the officers sent them back. + +This cruelty relaxed somewhat after a time. The prisoners received a +hammock for every two, some shirts, some blouses, and now and then some +wine. They were allowed to wash, to come on to the deck to snatch a +little fresh air. The sailors showed some humanity, but the +marine-fusileers were always the same bandits as in the days of May, and +the crew was often obliged to tear the prisoners from them. + +The regime of the pontoons varied according to the officers. At Brest +the second officer, commander of the _Ville de Lyon_, forbade the +insulting of the prisoners; while the master-at-arms of the _Breslau_ +treated them like convicts. At Cherbourg one of the lieutenants of the +_Tage_, Clemenceau, was ferocious. The commander of the _Bayard_ turned +his vessel into a diminutive Orangerie. This ship had witnessed the most +abominable acts perhaps that have sullied the history of the French +navy. Absolute silence was the rule on board. As soon as any one spoke +in the cages, the sentry menaced and several times shot. For a +complaint, or mere forgetfulness of a rule, the prisoners were tied to +the bars of their cages by the ankles and wrists.[240] + +The dungeons on shore were as terrible as the pontoons. At Quelern as +many as forty prisoners were shut up in the same casemate. The lower +ones were deadly. The cesspools emptied into them, and in the morning +the faecal matter covered the floor some two inches deep. By the side of +these were salubrious disengaged lodgments, but they would not remove +the prisoners thither. One day M. Jules Simon came, thought that his +former electors were looking but poorly, and decided that recourse must +be taken to severity. Elisee Reclus had opened a school, and tried to +raise out of their ignorance a hundred and fifty-one prisoners who could +neither read nor write. The Minister of Public Education had the classes +stopped, and had the small library, which the prisoners had got together +by making the greatest sacrifices, closed. + +The prisoners of the forts, like those of the pontoons, were fed on +biscuits and bacon; later on, soup and broth were added on Sundays; +knives and forks were forbidden; it cost several days' struggle to get +spoons. The profit of the sutler, which, according to the list of +charges, ought to be limited to a tenth, reached as much as five hundred +per cent. + +At the Fort Boyard men and women were packed into the same enclosure, +separated only by a screen. The women were forced to perform their +ablutions under the eyes of the sentinels. Sometimes their husbands were +in the neighbouring compartment. "We noticed," wrote a prisoner, "a +young and beautiful woman, twenty years old, who fainted every time she +was forced to undress."[241] + +According to much evidence which we have received, the most cruel prison +was that of St. Marcouf. The prisoners remained there for over six +months, deprived of air, light, and tobacco, forbidden to speak, having +for their only nourishment the crumbs of brown biscuits and rancid fat. +All were attacked with scurvy. + +This continual severity got the better of the most robust constitutions; +there were in consequence 2,000 sick in the hospitals. The official +reports admit 1,179 dead out of 33,665 civil prisoners. This figure is +evidently below the truth. During the first days at Versailles a certain +number of individuals were killed, and others died without being +counted. There were no statistics before the transfer to the pontoons. +There is no exaggeration in saying that 2,000 prisoners died while in +the hands of the Versaillese. A great number perished afterwards of +anaemia, and of maladies contracted during their captivity. + +Some idea of the tortures of the pontoons and the forts, far from the +surveillance of public opinion, may be gathered from those that were +openly displayed at Versailles,[242] under the eyes of the Government, +the Chamber, and the Radicals. Colonel Gaillard, chief of military +justice, had said to the soldiers who guarded the prisoners of the +Chantiers, "As soon as you see any one move, raising their arms, fire; +it is I who give you the order." + +At the Grenier d'Abondance of the Western Railway there were eight +hundred women. For weeks and weeks they slept on straw, were unable to +change their linen. At the slightest noise, a quarrel, the guards threw +themselves upon them, struck them, more especially on the breasts. +Charles Mercereau, a former Cent-Garde, the governor of this sink, had +those that displeased him tied down and then beat them with his cane. He +led about over his dominions the ladies of Versailles, covetous of +petroleuses, and before them said to his victims, "Come, hussies, cast +down your eyes." And indeed that was the least our Federal women could +do before these honest persons. + +Prostitutes, carried off in the razzias, and carefully kept there in +order to spy upon the other prisoners, publicly abandoned themselves to +the guardians. The protests of the women of the Commune were punished by +blows with cords. With a refinement of infamy, the Versaillese wished to +bow down these valiant women to the level of the others. All the +prisoners were subjected to inspection. + +Dignity and outraged nature revenged themselves by terrible crises. +"Where is my father? Where my husband? and my son? What! alone, quite +alone, and all these cowards against me! I, the mother, the laborious +wife, subjected to the whip, insult, and sullied by these unclean hands +for having defended liberty!" Many went mad. All passed through their +hours of madness. Those who were pregnant miscarried or brought forth +still-born children. + +The priests were no more wanting in the prisons than at the fusillades. +The chaplain of Richemont said to the prisoners, "I know that I am here +in a forest of Bondy,[243] but my duty," &c. On the day of St. Magdalene +the Bishop of Algiers, making a delicate allusion to the saint of the +day, said to them, "That they were all Magdalenes, but not repentant; +that Magdalene had neither burned nor assassinated;" and uttering other +evangelical amenities. + +The children were shut up in a part of the women's prison, and were just +as brutally treated. A corporal, the secretary of Mercereau, kicked open +the stomach of a boy; another received the bastinado, and lingered for a +long time at the infirmary. The son of Ranvier, twelve years old, was +cruelly beaten for refusing to betray the hiding-place of his father. + +All these unfortunate prisoners of the pontoons, the forts, and the +houses of correction were for several months devoured by vermin before +their cases were inquired into. The Versaillese Moloch held more victims +than he could digest. After the first days of June he disgorged 1,090 +persons reclaimed by the reactionists. But how to draw up indictments +against 36,000 prisoners? It was all very well for Dufaure to let loose +all the police agents of the Empire into the prisons; in the month of +August only 4,000 prisoners had been interrogated. + +Still it was necessary to satiate the rage of the bourgeoisie, which +wanted a sensational trial. A few celebrities who had escaped the +massacre had been taken, some members of the Council of the Commune, of +the Central Committee, Rossel, Rochefort, &c. M. Thiers and Dufaure got +up a grand performance. + +This trial was to be the model one, to serve as a type for the +jurisprudence of the courts-martial, for the prisoners were to be judged +by the same soldiers who had conquered them. The old procureur and his +president applied all their pettifogging cunning to lowering the debate. +They refused the character of political men to the accused, and reduced +the insurrection to an ordinary crime, thus securing to themselves the +right of cutting short effective defences, and the advantage of +condemnations to the bagnio and to death, which the hypocritical +bourgeoisie pretends to have abolished in political cases.[244] The +third court-martial was carefully selected. The commissary chosen was +Gaveau, a low energumen, who had shown signs of mental alienation, and +had struck the prisoners in the streets of Versailles; the president, +Merlin, a colonel of engineers, one of the capitulards of Bazaine's +army; the rest an assortment of trusty Bonapartists. Sedan and Metz were +going to judge Paris. + +The ceremony commenced on the 7th August, in a large hall containing two +thousand seats. Personages of rank reclined in the red velvet +arm-chairs; deputies occupied three hundred seats; the remainder +belonged to the bourgeois of note, to "honest" families, to the +aristocracy of prostitution, and to the howling press. These talking +journalists, these brilliant dresses, these smiling faces, these toyings +with fans, these gay bouquets, these opera-glasses pointed in all +directions, reminded one of the most elegant first-night performances. +The staff officers, in full uniform, smartly conducted the ladies to +their seats, not forgetting to make the indispensable bow. + +All this scum boiled over when the prisoners appeared. There were +seventeen: Ferre, Assi, Jourde, Paschal Grousset, Regere, Billioray, +Courbet, Urbain, Victor Clement, Trinquet, Champy, Rastoul, Verdure, +Decamps, Parent, members of the Council of the Commune; Ferrat and +Lullier, members of the Central Committee. + +Gaveau read the accusation act. This revolution was born of two plots, +that of the revolutionary party and that of the International; Paris had +risen on the 18th March, in answer to the appeal of a few scoundrels; +the Central Committee had ordered the execution of Lecomte and +Clement-Thomas; the manifestation of the Place Vendome was an unarmed +manifestation; the head-surgeon of the army had been assassinated while +making a supreme appeal to conciliation; the Commune had committed +thefts of all kinds; the implements of the nuns of Picpus were +transformed into instruments of orthopedy; the explosion of the Rapp +magazines was the work of the Commune; desirous of kindling violent +hatred of the enemy in the hearts of the Federals, Ferre had presided at +the execution of the hostages of La Roquette, set fire to the Ministry +of Finance, as was proved by the facsimile of an order written in his +hand, "_Burn Finances!_" Each one of the members of the Council of the +Commune had to answer for facts relating to his particular functions, +and collectively for all the decrees issued. This indictment, worthy of +a low police agent, communicated beforehand to M. Thiers, indeed made of +the cause a simple affair of robbery and arson. + +It took up a whole sitting. The next day, Ferre, interrogated the first, +refused to answer, and laid his conclusions upon the table. "The +conclusions of the incendiary Ferre are of no moment!" cried Gaveau, and +the witnesses against him were called. Fourteen out of twenty-four +belonged to the police; the others were priests or Government employes. +An expert in handwriting, celebrated at the law-courts for his blunders, +affirmed that the order "_Burn Finances_" was certainly in Ferre's hand. +In vain the accused demanded that the signature of this order should be +compared with his, which figured very often in the jail register; that +at least the original should be produced, and not the facsimile. Gaveau +exclaimed indignantly, "Why, this is want of confidence!" + +Thus set to rights from the outset as to the plot and the character of +their judges, the accused might have declined every debate; they +committed the fault of accepting it. If even they had proudly +revindicated their political character! But it was not so; some even +denied it. Almost all, confining themselves to their personal defence, +abandoned the Revolution of the 18th March, whose mandate they had +solicited or accepted. Their preoccupation for their own safety betrayed +itself by sad defections. But from the very dock of the accused the +voice of the people thus denied arose avengingly. A workman of that +brave Parisian race, the first in labour, study, and combat, a member of +the Council of the Commune, intelligent and convinced, modest in the +Council, one of the foremost in the struggle, the shoemaker Trinquet, +revindicated the honour of having fulfilled his mandate to the end. "I +was," said he, "sent to the Commune by my co-citizens; I have paid with +my person; I have been to the barricades, and I regret not having died +there; I should not to-day assist at this sad spectacle of colleagues +who, after having taken their share in the action, will no longer bear +their part of the responsibility. I am an insurgent; I do not deny it." + +The examinations were drawn out with fastidious slowness during +seventeen sittings. Always the same public of soldiers, bourgeois, +courtesans, hissing the accused; the same witnesses, priests, police +agents, and functionaries; the same fury in the accusation, the same +cynicism in the tribunal, the same howling of the press. The massacres +had not glutted this. It yelled at the accused, demanded their death, +and every day dragged them through the mire of its reports.[245] +Foreign correspondents were revolted. The _Standard_, a great reviler of +the Commune, said, "Anything more scandalous than the tone of the +demi-monde press during this trial it is impossible to imagine." Some of +the accused having asked for the protection of the president, Merlin +took up the defence of the journals. + +Then came the prosecutor's address to the court. Gaveau, to remain true +to his instructions, was to demonstrate that Paris had fought for six +weeks in order to enable a few individuals to steal the remainder of the +public chests, to burn some houses, and to shoot a few gendarmes. This +epauletted limb of the law overthrew as a soldier all the arguments he +built up as a magistrate. "The Commune," he said, "had acted as a +Government," and five minutes after he refused the members of the +Council of the Commune the character of political men. Passing in review +the different accused, he said of Ferre, "I should be wasting my time +and yours by discussing the numerous charges weighing upon him;" of +Jourde, "The figures he has given you are quite imaginary. I shall not +trespass upon your time by discussing them." During the battle in the +streets Jourde had received the order of the Committee of Public Safety +to remit a thousand francs to every member of the Council. About thirty +only had received this sum. Gaveau said, "They divided millions amongst +each other;" and a man of his sort must have believed this. What +sovereign has ever abandoned power without carrying off millions? He +lengthily accused Grousset of having stolen paper in order to print his +journal; another of having lived with a mistress. A coarse _lansquenet_, +incapable of understanding that the more he lowered the men the greater +he made this Revolution, so vital despite all defections and +incapacities. + +The audience emphasised this accusation with frantic applause. At the +conclusion there were calls as in a theatre. Merlin gave Ferre's +advocate permission to speak, but Ferre declared he wished to defend +himself, and commenced reading:-- + +After the conclusion of the treaty of peace consequent upon the shameful +capitulation of Paris, the Republic was in danger, the men who had +succeeded the Empire fallen in the midst of mire and blood"---- + +_Merlin._ Fallen in the midst of mire and blood! Here I must stop you. +Was not your Government in the same situation? + +_Ferre._ "Clung to power, and, though overwhelmed by public contempt, +they prepared in the dark a coup-d'etat; they persisted in refusing +Paris the election of her municipal council"---- + +_Gaveau._ This is not true. + +_Merlin._ What you are saying, Ferre, is false. Continue, but at the +third time I shall stop you. + +_Ferre._ "The honest and sincere journals were suppressed, the best +patriots condemned to death"---- + +_Gaveau._ The prisoner cannot go on reading this. I shall ask for the +application of the law. + +_Ferre._ "The Royalists were preparing for the partition of France. At +last, in the night of the 18th March, they believed themselves ready, +and attempted to disarm the National Guard, and the wholesale arrest of +Republicans"---- + +_Merlin._ Come, sit down. I allow your advocate to speak. + +The advocate of Ferre demanded that his client might be allowed to read +the last sentences of his declaration, and Merlin gave way. + +_Ferre._ "A member of the Commune, I am in the hands of its victors. +They want my head; they may take it. I will never save my life by +cowardice. Free I have lived, so I will die. I add but one word. Fortune +is capricious; I confide to the future the care of my memory and my +revenge." + +_Merlin._ The memory of an assassin! + +_Gaveau._ It is to the bagnio that such manifestoes should be sent. + +_Merlin._ All this does not answer to the acts for which you are here. + +_Ferre._ This means that I accept the fate that is in store for me. + +During this duel between Merlin and Ferre the hall had remained silent. +Ferocious hisses burst forth when Ferre concluded. The president was +obliged to raise the sitting, and the judges were going out when a +barrister demanded that notice should be taken for the defence that the +president had called Ferre "assassin." + +The hisses of the audience answered. The advocate indignantly turned to +the tribunal, to the seats of the press, to the public. Cries of rage +arose from all corners of the hall, drowning his voice for several +minutes. Merlin, who was radiant, at last obtained silence, and answered +cavalierly, "I acknowledge that I made use of the expression of which +the advocate spoke. The court takes notice of your conclusions." + +The day before, as a barrister remarked to him, "We are all answerable, +not to the public opinion of to-day, but to history, which will judge +us;" Merlin had cynically answered, "History! At that epoch we shall no +longer be here!" The French bourgeoisie had found its Jeffries. + +Early the next day the hall was crowded. The curiosity of the public, +the anxiety of the judges, were extreme. Gaveau, in order to accuse his +adversaries of all crimes at once, had for two days talked politics, +history, socialism. It would have sufficed to answer each one of his +arguments, in order to give the cause that political character which he +denied it, if one of the prisoners were at last to rouse up, and, less +careful of his person than of the Commune, follow up the accusation step +by step, oppose to the grotesque theories of conspiracy the eternal +provocation of the privileged classes; describe Paris offering herself +to the Government of National Defence, betrayed by it, then attacked by +Versailles, abandoned; the proletarians reorganising all the services of +this great city, and in a state of war, surrounded by treason, governing +for two months without police spies and without executions, remaining +poor in sight of the milliards of the bank; if he were to confront the +sixty-three hostages with the 20,000 assassinated, unveil the pontoons, +the jails, swarming with 40,000 unfortunate beings; take the world to +witness in the name of truth, of justice, of the future, and make of the +accused Commune the accuser. + +The president might have interrupted him, the cries of the public +drowned his revindication, the court after the first words declared him +outlawed. Such a man, reduced to silence, would, like Danton gagged, +find a gesture, a cry, which should pierce the walls and hurl his +anathema at the head of the tribunal. + +The vanquished missed this revenge. Instead of presenting a collective +defence or of maintaining a silence which would have saved their +dignity, the accused intrusted themselves to the barristers. Each one of +these gentlemen stretched a point to save his client even at the expense +of his brother lawyers. One barrister was also the _Figaro's_ and the +confidant of the Empress; another, one of the demonstrators of the Place +Vendome, begged the court not to confound his cause with that of the +scoundrel's near him. There were scandalous pleadings. This debasement +disarmed neither the tribunal nor the public. Every moment Gaveau +bounded out of his arm-chair. "You are an insolent fellow," said he to a +lawyer. "If there is anything absurd here, it is you." The audience +applauded, ever ready to pounce upon the prisoners. On the 31st August +its fury rose to such a pitch that Merlin threatened to have the court +cleared. + +On the 2nd September the court feigned to deliberate the whole day. At +nine o'clock in the evening it returned to the sitting, and Merlin read +the judgment. Ferre and Lullier were condemned to death; Trinquet and +Urbain to hard labour for life; Assi, Billioray, Champy, Regere, +Grousset, Verdure, Ferrat to transportation in a fortress; Courbet to +six months' and Victor Clement to three months' imprisonment. Decamps +and Parent were acquitted. The audience retired much disappointed at +having got only two condemnations to death. + +As a fact, this judicial performance had proved nothing. Could the +Revolution of the 18th March be appreciated from the conduct of +secondary actors, and Delescluze, Varlin, Vermorel, Tridon, Moreau, and +many others, by the attitude of Lullier, Decamps, Victor Clement, or +Billioray? And even if the bearing of Ferre and Trinquet had not proved +that there had been men in the Council of the Commune, what then did the +defection of the majority show if not that this movement was the work of +all, not of a few great minds; that in this crisis the people only had +been great, they only revolutionary; that the Revolution was to be found +in the people, not in the Government of the Commune? + +The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, had displayed all its hideousness. The +audience, the tribunal, had been on the same level. Some witnesses had +manifestly perjured themselves. During the debates, in the lobbies, in +the cafes, all the ragamuffins who had endeavoured to dupe the Commune +impudently ascribed to themselves the success of the army. The _Figaro_, +having opened a subscription for Ducatel, had picked up 100,000 francs +and an order of the Legion d'Honneur for him. Allured by this success, +all the conspirators demanded their alms and their order. The partisans +of Beaufond-Lasnier, those of Charpentier-Domalain, fell out, recounted +their prowess, each and all swearing that he had betrayed better than +his rivals. + +While society was being avenged at Versailles, the Court of Assizes of +Paris avenged the honour of Jules Favre. Immediately after the Commune, +the Minister for Foreign Affairs had had M. Laluye arrested, who was +guilty of having communicated to Milliere the documents published in the +_Vengeur_. The honest Minister, not having succeeded in getting his +enemy shot as a Communard, summoned him before the assizes for libel. +Here the former member of the Government of National Defence, the former +Minister of Foreign Affairs, the deputy of Paris, publicly confessed +that he had committed forgeries, but he pleaded having done so to secure +his children a fortune. This touching avowal melted the _patres +familias_ of the jury, and Laluye was condemned to imprisonment for one +year. Some months after he died at Ste. Pelagie. Jules Favre was +terribly lucky. In less than six months the fusillade and the dungeon +had delivered him of two redoubtable enemies.[246] + +While the third court-martial was quarrelling with the lawyers, the +fourth hurried through its business without phrases. On the 16th August, +almost immediately after its opening, it had already pronounced two +sentences of death. If the one court had its Jeffries, the other had its +Trestaillon in Colonel Boisdenemetz, a kind of wild boar, a drunkard, +seeing all red, a wit at times, and correspondent of the _Figaro_. On +the 4th September some women were brought before him, accused of setting +fire to the Legion d'Honneur. This was the trial of the petroleuses. The +eight thousand enrolled furies who had been announced by the journals of +order were reduced to the number of five. The cross-examination proved +that the so-called petroleuses were only admirably kind-hearted +ambulance nurses. One of them, Retiffe, said, "I should have looked +after a soldier of Versailles as well as a National Guard." "Why," +another was asked, "did you remain when all the battalion ran away?" +"There were wounded and dying," answered she simply. The witnesses for +the prosecution themselves declared that they had not seen any of them +kindle fire; but their fate was decided beforehand. Between two sittings +Boisdenemetz cried in a cafe, "Death to all these trulls!" + +Three barristers out of five had deserted the bar. "Where are they?" +said the president. "They have asked to be allowed to absent themselves +to go to the country," answered the commissary. The court charged +soldiers with the defence of these poor women. One of them, the +Quartermaster Bordelais, made this fine speech: "I defer to the wisdom +of the tribunal." + +His client, Suetens, was condemned to death, as were also Retiffe and +Marchais, "for having attempted to change the form of the Government;" +the two others to transportation and confinement. One of the condemned, +turning to the officer who read the sentence, cried to him in a +heart-rending voice, "And who will feed my child?" + +Thy child! See, he is here! + +Some days after, before this same Boisdenemetz, fifteen children of +Paris appeared; the eldest was sixteen years old, the youngest, so small +that he could hardly be seen in the dock of prisoners, was eleven. They +wore blue blouses and military kepis. + +"Druet," said the soldier, "what did your father do?" + +"He was a mechanic." + +"Why did you not work like him?" + +"Because there was no work for me." + +"Bouverat, why did you join the _Pupilles de la Commune_?" + +"To get something to eat." + +"You have been arrested for vagrancy?" + +"Yes, twice; the second time for stealing a pair of stockings." + +"Cagnoncle, you were _Enfant de la Commune_?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Why did you leave your family?" + +"Because they had no bread." + +"Did you discharge many shots?" + +"About fifty." + +"Lescot, why did you leave your mother?" + +"Because she could not keep me." + +"How many children were there of you?" + +"Three." + +"You have been wounded?" + +"Yes, by a ball in the head." + +"Leberg, you have been with a master, and you were surprised taking the +cash-box. How much did you take?" + +"Ten sous." + +"Did not that money burn your hands?" + +And you, red-handed man! these words, do they not burn your lips? +Sinister fools! who do not understand that before these children, thrown +into the streets without education, without hope, through the necessity +you have made for them, the culprit is you, lace-bedecked soldier, you, +the public minister of a society in which children twelve years old, +capable and willing to work, are forced to steal in order to get a pair +of stockings, and have no other alternative than to fall beneath bullets +or die of hunger! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[239] These details are extracted from very numerous notes furnished not +only by the prisoners, among others by Elisee Reclus, but by persons +entire strangers to the Commune, municipal councillors of seaport towns, +foreign journalists, &c. + +[240] General Appert's report is not only silent with regard to these +ignominious proceedings, but lies with a placidity that is frightful. He +says, for instance, "The prisoners of the pontoons were treated like the +sailors, with this difference, that they did no work and got frequent +distributions of wine." Of the cages, the vermin, the blows, not a word. +In the same manner he recounts, in the style of a pretentious +quartermaster, the history of the Commune and of the last struggles. It +would be doing him too much honour to point out how his absurd +statements contradict each other. And yet it is from these official lies +that all bourgeois historians have till to-day compiled their histories. + +[241] Letter addressed to the _Liberte_ of Brussels. + +[242] Besides the 27,837 prisoners officially recognised at the +pontoons, 8472 others were admitted as being dispersed at Satory, +L'Orangerie, Les Chautiers, the houses of justice and correction of +Rouen-Clermont and St. Cyr. On the 15th of October there were still 3500 +in the prisons of Versailles. + +[243] The former resort of all sorts of criminals. + +[244] The great political hecatombs have taken place in France since the +decree of the Provisional Government of 1848. + +[245] Here is a sample, and not one of the most emphatic, "We must make +no mistake," said _La Liberte_; "we must, above all, not stand on +niceties; this is certainly a band of scoundrels, assassins, thieves, +and incendiaries whom we have before our eyes. To argue from their +situation of accused in order to exact for them the respect and benefit +of the law which supposes them innocent would be a want of faith. No, +no! a thousand times no! These are not ordinary accused; they were +taken, some in the very act, and the others have so surely signed their +culpability by authentic and solemn acts that it suffices to establish +their identity in order to cry with the full and sonorous voice of +conviction, 'Yes, yes! they are guilty!' + +"The detained witnesses are, for the most part, sinister bandits, with +atrocious faces, repulsive types, especially the youngest, and whom one +would not like to meet even in broad daylight at the corner of a wood." + +[246] Family and morality were triumphing along the whole line. Some +days after the fall of the Commune, the first president of the Court of +Cassation, the official go-between of the amours of Napoleon III., +solemnly reoccupied, before all the courts united, his seat, whence the +hypocritical prudery of the men of the 4th September had expelled him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + "A Versailles, tous les moyens ont ete employes pour assurer + l'instruction la plus serieuse, la plus attentive, la plus + complete de tous les proces qui ont ete juges.... Je tiens + donc que les jugements qui ont ete rendus ne sont pas + seulement en droit, d'apres toutes nos lois, inattaquables, + mais que, pour la conscience la plus scrupuleuse, ils sont + des jugements qui ont dit la verite.--('Tres bien! tres + bien!')"--_Le Garde des Sceaux Dufaure, Discours contre + l'Amnistie, Seance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + "Les conseils de guerre ont juge, je l'admets, pour le + mieux."--_Allain-Targe, depute Gambettiste, Seance du 19 + Mai 1876._ + + THE COURTS-MARTIAL--THE EXECUTIONS--BALANCE-SHEET OF THE + CONDEMNATIONS. + +Twenty-six courts-martial, twenty-six judicial mitrailleuses, were at +work at Versailles, Mont-Valerien, Paris, Vincennes, St. Cloud, Sevres, +St. Germain, Rambouillet, as far as Chartres. In the composition of +these tribunals not only all semblance of justice, but even all military +rules had been despised. The Assembly had not even troubled itself to +define their prerogatives. And these officers, hot from the struggle, +and for whom every resistance, even the most legitimate, is a crime, had +been let loose upon their overwhelmed enemies without any other +jurisprudence than their fancy, without any other rein than their +humanity, without any other instruction than their commission. With such +janissaries and a penal code comprising everything in its elastic +obscurity, there was no need for exceptional laws in order to attaint +all Paris. Soon one saw the most extravagant theories invented and +propagated in these judicial dens. Thus, being at the place of the crime +constituted legal complicity; with these magistrates this was a dogma. + +Instead of removing the courts-martial into the ports, the prisoners +were forced to again undergo the painful journey from the sea to +Versailles. Some, like Elisee Reclus, had thus to pass through fourteen +prisons. From the pontoons they were conducted to the railway station on +foot, their hands manacled; but at Brest, when they passed through the +streets showing their chains, the passers-by uncovered before them. + +With the exception of a few prisoners of note, whose trials I shall +briefly recount, the bulk of the prisoners were thrust before the +tribunals after an examination which did not even always make sure of +their identity. Too poor to get a defender, these unfortunate people, +without guides, without witnesses for the defence--those whom they +called did not dare to come for fear of being arrested--only appeared +and disappeared before the tribunal. The accusation, the examination, +the sentence were shuffled through in a few minutes. "You fought at +Issy, at Neuilly? Sentenced to transportation." "What! for life? And my +wife, my children?" To another: "You served in the battalions of the +Commune?" "And who would have fed my family when the workshop and +factory were closed?" Again sentenced to transportation. "And you? +Guilty of an illegal arrest. To the bagnio." On the 14th October, in +less than two months, the first and second courts had pronounced more +than six hundred sentences. + +Would that I could recount the martyrology of the thousands who defiled +thus in sombre lines, National Guards, women, children, old men, +ambulance attendants, doctors, functionaries, of this decimated town! It +is you whom I should honour, you above all, you, the nameless, to whom I +should give the first place, as you took it in the work at the +barricades, where you obscurely did your duty. The true drama of the +courts-martial was not in those solemn sittings in which the accused, +the tribunal, the barristers prepared for public performance, but in +those halls which only saw the unhappy ones, ignored by the whole world, +face to face with a tribunal as inexorable as the chassepot. How many of +these humble defenders of the Commune held up their heads more proudly +than the chiefs, and whose heroism no one will tell! When the insolence, +the insults, the grotesque arguments of the conspicuous judges are +known, it may be guessed with what ignominy the unknown accused were +overwhelmed in the shade of these new prevotal courts. Who will avenge +these hecatombs of unknown men, executed in silence, like the last +combatants of the Pere Lachaise in the darkness of the night? + +The journals have left no trace of their trials; but, in default of the +names of the victims, I can scatter those of some judges to the four +winds of history. + +Formerly, in the days of honour of the French army, in 1795, after +Quiberon, it was necessary to threaten the officers of the Republic with +death in order to form the courts-martial that were to judge the +Vendeens. And yet those vanquished had, under the cannon, with English +arms, attacked their country in the rear, while the coalesced Powers +struck her in front. In 1871 the accomplices of Bazaine solicited the +honour of judging the vanquished of that Paris which had been the +bulwark of national honour. Through long months 1,509 officers of this +degraded army, that has not an hour too much for its rehabilitation and +for study, 14 generals, 266 colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and 284 +commanders, were dubbed judges and commissaries. How select amongst this +pick of bestiality? When I mention a few presidents at hazard--Merlin, +Boisdenemetz, Jobey, Delaporte, Dulac, Barthel, Donnat, Aubert--I shall +be wronging a hundred others. + +Merlin and Boisdenemetz are known. Colonel Delaporte was of the Gallifet +species. Old, used up, valetudinarian, he only revived after a sentence +of death. It is he who pronounced the greatest number, aided by the +clerk of the court, Duplan, who prepared the sentences beforehand, and +afterwards committed the most impudent forgeries in the minutes. Jobey +had, it was said, lost a son in the struggle with the Commune, and now +he avenged himself. His small wrinkled eye watched for the anguish in +the face of the unfortunate he condemned. Every appeal to good sense was +to him an insult. + +"He would have been happy," said he, "to stew the lawyers together with +the culprits." + +And yet how few lawyers did their duty! Many had declared that one could +not decently assist such prisoners. Others wanted to be requisitioned. +With four or five exceptions,[247] these unworthy defenders banqueted +with the officers. Barristers and commissaries communicated to each +other their means of attack or defence; the officers announced the +verdicts beforehand. The advocate Riche boasted of having drawn up the +accusation act against Rossel. The advocates officially designated did +not answer the call. + +These ignorant judges, making a parade of violence, insulting the +prisoners, witnesses, and lawyers, were worthily seconded by the +commissaries. One of them, Grimal, sold to the demi-monde journals the +papers of the celebrated prisoners.[248] Gaveau, a savage simpleton, +without a shadow of talent, died some months after in a madhouse. +Bourboulon, eager for display, aimed at oratorical effects. Barthelemy, +a beer-drinker, fair and fat, made puns while asking for the heads of +the accused. Charriere, at fifty years of age still captain, a kind of +wild-cat, an imbecile, and a pretentious liar, said that he had "made a +vow of cruelty to Caesar." Jouesne, notorious in the army for his +stupidity, made up for it by his stubborn animosity. Not much was needed +in such courts. The most implacable, on the whole, were the third, +fourth, and sixth courts, and the thirteenth at St. Cloud, which +publicly boasted of acquitting nobody. + +So much for the judges and the justice which the bourgeoisie gave those +proletarians they had not shot down. I should like to be able to follow +up step by step their swash-buckling jurisprudence, take the trials one +by one, show the laws violated, the most elementary rules of procedure +despised, the documents falsified, the evidence distorted, the prisoners +condemned to hard labour and to death without what would have been the +ghost of a proof with a serious jury; the cynicism of the prevotal +courts of the Restoration and of the Mixed Commissions of December +ingrafted on the brutality of the soldier who revenges his caste. Such a +work would require long technical labour.[249] I shall only indicate the +principal lines. Besides, are not these judgments already judged? + +In 1871 the Versaillese Government demanded of Switzerland the +extradition of the governor of the Ecole Militaire, in 1876 that of the +delegate Frankel from Hungary, both condemned to death for assassination +and incendiarism. They were at once arrested. Liberal Switzerland and +rural Hungary, considering the acts of the Commune as common crimes, +were ready to deliver up the prisoners if Versailles furnished the legal +proof required by treaties of extradition that they had committed the +acts for which they had been condemned. The Versaillese Government only +produced the sentences of the courts-martial, and could not add the +least "trace of proof or any precise evidence establishing +culpability."[250] The prisoners had to be released. + +On the 8th September Rossel appeared before the third court. His defence +consisted in saying that he had served the Commune in the hope that the +insurrection would recommence the war against the Prussians. Merlin +treated the prisoner with the greatest consideration, who in turn +testified the most profound respect for the army. But an example was +needed for romantic soldiers, and Rossel was condemned to death. + +On the 21st Rochefort was sentenced to transportation in a fortress. The +Bonapartists of the court especially had their eye on the author of the +_Lanterne_. Merlin had defended Pierre Bonaparte. Gaveau accused the +prisoner of having outraged the person of the Emperor. Trochu, whom +Rochefort had called as a witness for the defence, answered the man who +during the siege had for him sacrificed his popularity, by an insulting +letter. + +Revolutionary journalism had the honour of counting some victims in its +ranks. Young Maroteau, for two articles--two only--in the _Salut Public_ +was condemned to death; Alphonse Humbert, for three or four articles in +the _Pere Duchesne_, to hard labour for life. + +Other journalists were condemned to transportation. What was their +crime? Having defended the Commune. Yet the Commune had contented itself +with suppressing the journals that defended Versailles. In point of +fact, the courts-martial were charged to exterminate the revolutionary +party. + +Fear of the future rendered them implacable. After the numberless +assassinations in the Rue des Rosiers, they too wanted to offer a +holocaust to the manes of Lecomte and Clement-Thomas. The real +executioners were not to be found. The explosion of fury which cost the +two generals their lives had been spontaneous, sudden as that which in +1789 killed Flesselles, Foulon, and Berthier. The actors of the drama +were legion, and with it all traces of them were lost. The military +judges selected the accused at random, as their colleagues had on the +Buttes Montmartre shot the first-comers. + +"Simon Mayer," said the report, "tried to the last moment to defend the +prisoners, and Kazdansky did his best to oppose the carrying out of the +threats of death. The crowd insulted him and tore off his gold lace." +Herpin-Lacroix had made desperate efforts; Lagrange, who had refused to +form the firing-party, felt so secure in his innocence that he had come +to give himself up to the judges of his own free will. The report made +the principal accused of him, along with Simon Mayer, Kazdansky, +Herpin-Lacroix, and a sergeant of the line, Verdagnier, who on the 18th +March had raised the butt-end of his gun. + +The trial was conducted by Colonel Aubert, a sneering melodramatic +bigot. Despite his efforts and those of the commissary, not the +slightest proof could be brought forward against the prisoners. Even the +officers of the army, companions of General Lecomte, gave evidence in +their favour. "Simon Mayer did all that was possible to save us," said +the Commander Poussargue. This officer had heard a voice cry, "Do not +kill even traitors without judgment; form a court-martial;" textually +the words of Herpin-Lacroix. Of all the accused, he only recognised +Mayer. Another officer gave similar evidence. Verdagnier proved that at +the time of the executions he had been at the huts of Courcelles. The +accusation denied all, but without being able to produce a single +witness. Ribemont proved that he had withstood the assailants in the +room of the Rue des Rosiers. Masselot had against him nothing but the +evidence of some hostile women, pretending that he had boasted of having +shot at the generals. Captain Beugnot, aide-de-camp of the Minister, and +present at the execution, affirmed, on the contrary, that the generals +had been surrounded by the soldiers; M. de Maillefu, that the front of +the platoon was composed of nine soldiers, whose regiments he named. + +There were not even false official witnesses, as in the trial of the +members of the Commune; and yet the accusation, far from letting them +escape its clutches, was most implacable with regard to these very men +who had risked their lives to save the generals. The commissary +threatened to arrest a witness who warmly gave evidence in favour of a +prisoner. After several sittings they discovered that they were judging +one individual for another. The president ordered the press to hush up +the incident. Each sitting, each new evidence, cleared the prisoners +and made a condemnation more impossible. Yet on the 18th November +Verdagnier, Mayer, Herpin-Lacroix, Masselot, Leblond, and Aldenhoff were +condemned to death; the others to penalties varying from hard labour to +imprisonment. One of those condemned to death, Leblond, was only fifteen +and a half years old. + +This satisfaction given the army, the courts, as good courtiers, avenged +the offences against M. Thiers. The functionary Fontaine, charged by the +Commune with the demolition of the hotel of him who had demolished +hundreds of houses, appeared before the fifth court-martial, which did +its utmost to make him appear a thief. Every one knew that M. Thiers' +furniture and silver plate had been sent to the Garde-Meuble, the +objects of art to the museums, the books to the public libraries, the +linen to the ambulances, and that after the entry of the troops the +little man had regained possession of most of these objects. Some having +perished in the conflagration of the Tuileries, the report accused +Fontaine of having abstracted them, although only two valueless medals +had been found in his house. To this accusation, from which he believed +himself secured by a long life of probity and honour, Fontaine could +only reply with tears. The Figarists laughed at it a good deal, and he +was condemned to twenty years' hard labor. + +On the 28th November the Assembly recommenced its fusillade. M. Thiers, +cleverly throwing upon the representatives the right of commuting the +penalties, had a Commission of Pardons named by the Chamber. It was +composed of fifteen members, purveyors of the Mixed Commission of 1852, +great proprietors, inveterate Royalists.[251] One of them, the Marquis +de Quinsonnas, had during the battle in the streets superintended the +executions at the Luxembourg. The president, Martel, was an old satyr, +who sold his pardons to pretty solicitresses. + +The first cases which they took up were those of Rossel and Ferre. The +Liberal press pleaded warmly for the young officer. In his restless +mind, without unsound political opinions, who had so cavalierly turned +his back upon the Commune, the bourgeoisie soon recognised one of her +prodigal children. He had besides made an _amende honorable_. The press +published his memoirs, in which he reviled the Commune and the Federals. +Day by day they recounted the life of the prisoner, his sublime +colloquies with a Protestant clergyman, his heart-rending interviews +with his family. Of Ferre not a word, except to say he was "hideous." +His mother had died mad; his brother was shut up as mad in the dungeons +of Versailles; his father was a prisoner in the citadel of Fouras; his +sister, a young girl of nineteen, silent, resigned, stoical, spent her +days and nights in order to earn the twenty francs that she every week +sent her brother. She had refused the aid of her friends, unwilling to +share with any one the honour of accomplishing her pious duty. Indeed, +one can imagine nothing more "hideous!" + +For twelve weeks death remained suspended above the heads of the +condemned. At last, on the 28th November, at six o'clock in the morning, +they were told that they must die. Ferre jumped out of bed without +showing the slightest emotion, declined the visit of the chaplain, wrote +to ask the military tribunals for the release of his father, and to his +sister that she should have him buried so that his friends would be able +to find him again. Rossel, rather surprised at first, afterwards +conversed with his clergyman. He wrote a letter demanding that his death +should not be avenged--a very useless precaution--and addressed a few +thanks to Jesus Christ. For comrade in death they had a sergeant of the +45th line, Bourgeois, who had gone over to the Commune, and who showed +the same calm as Ferre. Rossel was indignant when they put on the +handcuffs; Ferre and Bourgeois disdained to protest. + +The day was hardly dawning; it was bitterly cold. Before the Butte of +Satory 5,000 men under arms surrounded three white stakes, each one +guarded by twelve executioners. Colonel Merlin commanded, thus uniting +the three functions of conqueror, judge, and hangman. Some curious +lookers-on, officers and journalists, composed the whole public. + +At seven o'clock the carts of the condemned appeared; the drums beat a +salute, the trumpets sounded. The prisoners descended, escorted by +gendarmes. Rossel, on passing before a group of officers, saluted them. +The brave Bourgeois, looking on at the whole drama with an indifferent +air, leant against the middle stake. Ferre came last, dressed in black +and smoking a cigar, not a muscle of his face moving. With a firm and +even step he walked up and leant against the third stake. + +Rossel, attended by his lawyer and his clergyman, asked to be allowed to +command the fire. Merlin refused. Rossel wished to shake hands with him, +in order to do homage to his sentence. This was refused. During these +negotiations Ferre and Bourgeois remained motionless, silent. In order +to put a stop to Rossel's effusions an officer was obliged to tell him +that he was prolonging the torture of the two others. At last they +blindfolded him. Ferre pushed back the bandage, and, fixing his +eyeglass, looked the soldiers straight in the face. + +The sentence read, the adjutants lowered their sabres, the guns were +discharged. Rossel and Bourgeois fell back. Ferre remained standing; he +was only hit in the side. He was again fired at and fell. A soldier +placing his chassepot at his ear blew out his brains. + +On a gesture of Merlin a flourish of trumpets burst forth, and, +emulating the customs of the cannibals, the troops defiled in triumph +before the corpses. What cries of horror the bourgeoisie would have +uttered if before the executed hostages the Federals had paraded to the +sound of music! + +The bodies of Rossel and Ferre were claimed by their families; that of +Bourgeois disappeared in the common grave of the St. Louis Cemetery. The +people will not disassociate his memory from that of Ferre, for they +both died with the same courage for the cause they had served with the +same devotion. + +The Liberal press reserved its tears for Rossel. Some courageous +provincial papers did honour to all the victims, and devoted to the +hatred of France the Commission of Pardons--"the Commission of +Assassins," as a deputy, Ordinaire junior, said in the Assembly. +Prosecuted before juries, all these journals were acquitted. + +Two days after the execution of Satory, the Commission of Pardons +ordered Gaston Cremieux to be killed. Six months had elapsed since his +condemnation, and this long delay seemed to make the murder impossible. +But the rural Commission wanted to avenge his famous speech of Bordeaux. +On the 30th November, at seven o'clock in the morning, Gaston Cremieux +was led to the Prado, a large plain bordering the sea. He said to his +guardians, "I will show how a Republican should die." He was placed +against the same stake where a month before the soldier Paquis had been +shot for going over to the insurrection. + +Gaston Cremieux wished to have his eyes unbandaged and to command the +fire. They consented. Then addressing himself to the soldiers, "Aim at +the chest; do not touch my head. Fire! Vive la Repub...." The last word +was cut short by death. As at Satory, the dance of the soldiers round +the corpse followed. + +The death of this young enthusiast made a deep impression in the town. +Registers placed at the door of his house filled in a few hours with +thousands of signatures. The revolutionists of Marseilles will not +forget his children. + +The same day the sixth court avenged the death of Chaudey. This had been +ordered and superintended by Raoul Rigault alone. The men who formed the +platoon were abroad. Preau de Vedel, the principal accused, then +imprisoned in Ste. Pelagie for a common offence, had only held the +lantern. But the jurisprudence of the officers attributed to simple +agents the same responsibility as to the chiefs. Preau de Vedel was +condemned to death. + +On the 4th December, in the hall of the third court, a kind of phantom, +pale-faced and sympathetic, appeared. It was Lisbonne, who for six +months had dragged about his wounds of the Chateau d'Eau. The same +before the court-martial as during the Commune and at Buzenval, this +bravest of the brave gloried in having fought, and only denied the +accusations of pillage. Other judges would have been proud to spare such +an enemy; the Versaillese condemned him to death. + +Some days after, this same court-martial heard a woman's voice. "I will +not defend myself; I will not be defended," cried Louise Michel. "I +belong entirely to the social revolution, and I declare that I accept +the responsibility of all my acts. I accept it entirely and without +reserve. You accuse me of having participated in the execution of the +generals. To this I answer, yes. If I had been at Montmartre, when they +wished to fire on the people, I should not have hesitated to order fire +myself on those who gave such commands. As to the conflagrations of +Paris, yes, I did participate in them. I wanted to oppose a barrier of +flames to the invaders of Versailles. I have no accomplices; I acted on +my own account." + +The Commissary Dailly demanded the penalty of death. + +_Louise Michel._ What I ask of you, you who style yourselves a +court-martial, who proclaim yourselves my judges, who do not hide +yourselves like the Commission of Pardons, is the field of Satory, where +our brothers have already fallen. I must be cut off from society; you +have been told to do so. Well, the Commissary of the Republic is right. +Since it seems that every heart which beats for liberty has only right +to a little lead, I too demand my part. If you let me live, I shall not +cease to cry vengeance, and I shall denounce to the vengeance of my +brothers the assassins of the Commission of Pardons. + +_The President._ I cannot allow you to go on. + +_Louise Michel._ I have done. If you are not cowards, kill me. + +They had not the courage to kill her at one blow. She was condemned to +transportation to a fortress. + +Louise Michel did not stand alone in her courageous attitude. Many +others, amongst whom must be mentioned Lemel and Augustine Chiffon, +showed the Versaillese what terrible women these Parisians are, even +vanquished, even in chains. + +The affair of the executions of La Roquette came on at the beginning of +1872. There, as in the Clement-Thomas and Chaudey trials, they had none +of the real actors except Genton, who had carried the order. Almost all +the witnesses, former hostages, gave evidence with the rage natural to +people who have trembled. The accusation, refusing to believe in an +outburst of fury, had built up a ridiculous scaffolding of a +court-martial discussing and ordering the death of the prisoners. It +asserted that one of the accused had commanded the fire, and he was +about to be condemned, in spite of the solemn protests of Genton, when +the real chief of the firing-party, who had just been discovered dying +in a prison, was brought in. Genton was condemned to death. His advocate +had odiously slandered him, then fled, and the court refused to allow +him a second defender. + +The most important affair which followed was that of the Dominicans of +Arcueil. No execution had been less premeditated. These monks had fallen +in crossing the Avenue d'Italie, shot down by the men of the 101st. The +report accused Serizier, who at that moment was not even in the Avenue. +The only witness called against him said, "I do not affirm anything +myself; I have heard it said." But we know what close bonds unite army +and clergy. Serizier was condemned to death, as was also one of his +lieutenants, Bouin, against whom not a single witness could be brought +forward. The court took advantage of the occasion to pronounce sentences +of death against Wroblewski, who at that time had been at the +Butte-aux-Cailles, and against Frankel, who had been fighting at the +Bastille. + +On the 12th March the affair of the Rue Haxo came on before the sixth +court, still presided over by Delaporte. The executioners of the +hostages had been no more discoverable than those of the Rue des +Rosiers. The indictment fell back upon the director of the prison, +Francois, who for a long time had disputed the surrender of his +prisoners, and upon twenty-two persons denounced by gossip contradicted +at the trial. Not one of the witnesses recognised the accused. Delaporte +multiplied his menaces with such a cynicism that the Commissary Rustaud, +who had, however, given proofs of his animosity in the preceding trials, +could not refrain from exclaiming, "But do you want to condemn them +all?" He was the next day replaced by the idiot Charriere. In spite of +all this, the indictment frittered away from hour to hour before the +disavowals of the witnesses. Still not one of the prisoners escaped. +Seven were condemned to death, nine to hard labour, and the others to +transportation. + +The Commission of Pardons awaited, chassepot in hand, the prey given up to +them by the courts-martial. On the 22d of February, 1872, it shot three of +the so-called murderers of Clement-Thomas and Lecomte, even those whose +innocence had most clearly come out in the trial--Herpin-Lacroix, +Lagrange, and Verdagnier. Upright at the stake of the 28th November, they +cried "Vive la Commune!" and died, their faces radiant. On the 19th March +Preau de Vedel was executed. On the 30th April it was Genton's turn. The +wounds which he had received in May had reopened, and he dragged himself +to the Butte on his crutches. Arrived at the stake, he threw them from +him, cried "Vive la Commune!" and fell under the fire. On the 25th May the +three stakes were again occupied by Serizier, Bouin, and Boudin, the +latter condemned as chief of the platoon which in front of the Tuileries +had executed a Versaillese who attempted to prevent the erection of the +barricades of the Rue Richelieu. They said to the soldiers of the platoon, +"We are children of the people, and you are too. We shall show you that +the children of Paris know how to die." And they, also, fell, crying "Vive +la Commune!" + +These men who went to the grave so courageously, who with a gesture +defied the musket, who, dying, cried that their cause died not, these +ringing voices, these steadfast looks, disconcerted the soldiers +profoundly. The muskets trembled, and almost within point-blank range +they rarely killed at the first discharge. So at the next execution, the +6th July, the Commander Colin, who presided at these fusillades, ordered +the eyes of the victims bandaged. There were two of them--Baudoin, +accused of setting fire to the St. Eloi Church, and of killing an +individual who had fired at the Federals; and Rouilhac, an insurgent who +had shot at a bourgeois who was potting Federals. Both pushed back the +sergeants who came to blindfold them. Colin gave the order to tie them +to the stake. Three times Baudoin tore asunder the cords; Rouilhac +struggled desperately. The priest who came to assist the soldiers +received some blows in the chest. At last, overwhelmed, they cried, "We +die for the good cause." They were mangled by the balls. After the march +past, an officer of a psychological turn of mind, moving with the tip of +his boot the brains that trickled down, remarked to a colleague, "It is +with this that they thought." + +In June, 1872, all the celebrated cases being disposed of, military +justice avenged the death of a Federal, Captain Beaufort. There is but +one explanation for this strange fact, which is that Beaufort belonged +to the Versaillese. We have received important evidence on this +head.[252] At all events, if Delescluze or Varlin had been shot by the +Federals, Versailles would not have avenged their death. + +Three of those accused out of four were present, Deschamps, Denivelle, +and Madame Lachaise, the celebrated cantiniere of the 66th. She had +followed Beaufort before the council held at the Boulevard Voltaire, +and, having heard explanations, had done her best to protect him. The +indictment none the less made of her the principal instigator of his +death. On the written evidence of a witness who was not to be found, and +who had never been confronted with her, the commissary accused Madame +Lachaise of having profaned Beaufort's corpse. At this abominable +accusation this noble woman burst into tears. She, as well as Denivelle +and Deschamps, were condemned to death. + +The obscene imagination of soldiers with Algerian habits taxed itself to +pollute the accused. Colonel Dulac, judging an intimate friend of +Rigault's, pretended that their friendship had been of an infamous +character. Despite the indignant protests of the prisoner, the wretched +officer persisted. + +The bourgeois press, far from stigmatising, applauded. Without truce, +without lassitude, since the opening of the courts-martial it +accompanied all the trials with the same chorus of imprecations and the +same slanders. Some persons having protested against these executions so +long after the battle, Francisque Sarcey wrote, "The axe ought to be +riveted to the hand of the executioner." + +Till then the Commission of Pardons had only killed three at a time. On +the 24th of July it slaughtered four--Francois, the director of La +Roquette, Aubry, Dalivoust, and De St. Omer, condemned for the affair of +the Rue Haxo. De St. Omer was more than suspected, and in the prison his +comrades kept aloof from him. Before the muskets they cried "Vive la +Commune!" He answered, "Down with it!" + +On the 18th September, Lolive (accused of having participated in the +execution of the Archbishop), Denivelle, and Deschamps were executed. +These last cried, "Long live the Universal and Social Republic! Down +with the cowards!" On the 22nd January, 1873, nineteen months after the +battle in the streets, the Commission of Pardons tied three more victims +to its stakes--Philippe, member of the Council of the Commune, guilty of +having energetically defended Bercy; Benot, who set fire to the +Tuileries; and Decamps, condemned for the conflagration of the Rue de +Lille, although they had not been able to bring forward any evidence +whatever against him. "I die innocent," cried he. "Down with Thiers!" +Philippe and Benot: "Long live the Social Republic! Vive la Commune!" +They fell, not having belied the courage of the soldiers of the +Revolution of the 18th March. + +This was the last execution at Satory. The blood of twenty-five victims +had reddened the stakes of the Commission of Pardons. In 1875 it had a +young soldier shot at Vincennes, accused of the death of the detective +Vizentini, thrown into the Seine by hundreds of hands at the +manifestation of the Bastille.[253] + +The movements of the provinces were judged by courts-martial or assize +courts, according to the department being or not being in a state of +siege. Everywhere the issue of the Parisian struggle had been waited +for. Immediately after the defeat of Paris the reaction ran riot. +Espivent's courts-martial initiated these trials. He had his Gaveau in +Commander Villeneuve, one of the bombarders of the 4th April, his +Merlin, and his Boisdenemetz in the colonels Thomassin and Douat. On the +12th June Gaston Cremieux, Etienne, Pelissier, Roux, Bouchet, and all +those who could be connected with the movement of the 23rd March +appeared before the soldiers. The pretentious blockheadedness of +Villeneuve served as type of the military prosecutor's addresses with +which France was inundated. Cremieux, Etienne, Pelissier, and Roux were +condemned to death. This was not enough for the jesuitical bourgeois +reaction. Espivent had declared through the Court of Cassation that the +department of the Bouches-du-Rhone was in a state of siege since the 9th +August, 1870, in virtue of a decree by the Empress, which had neither +been published in the bulletin of laws, nor been sanctioned by the +Senate, nor even promulgated. Provided with this arm, he persecuted all +marked out by the hand of the Congregation. The municipal councillor, +David Bosc, ex-delegate to the Commission, a millionaire shipowner, +accused of having stolen a silver watch from a police agent, was only +acquitted by a small majority of voices. The next day the +colonel-president was replaced by the lieutenant-colonel of the 4th +Chasseurs, Donnat, half-mad with absinthe-drinking. A workingman, aged +seventy-five, was condemned to ten years' hard labour and twenty years' +deprivation of civil and political rights for having on the 4th +September arrested for half an hour a police agent who had sent him to +Cayenne in 1852. A crazy old woman, purveyor of the Jesuits, arrested +for a few moments on the 4th September, accused the former commander of +the Civil Guard of her arrest. Her accusation was contradicted by +herself and quite overthrown by alibis and numberless proofs. The +ex-commander was condemned to five years' of prison and ten years' +privation of civil rights. One of the soldier-judges, coming out after +committing this crime, said, "One must have very profound political +convictions to condemn in similar affairs." With these cynical +collaborators Espivent could satisfy all his hatred. He asked the courts +of Versailles to deliver up to him the member of the Council of the +Commune, Amourox, delegate for a time at Marseilles. "I am prosecuting +him for tampering with soldiers," wrote Espivent, "a crime punished by +death; and I am persuaded that this punishment will be applied to him." + +The court-martial of Lyons was not very inferior. Forty-four persons +were prosecuted for the movement of the 22nd March, and thirty-two +condemned to penalties varying from transportation to imprisonment. The +insurrection of the 30th April furnished seventy prisoners, taken at +hazard at Lyons, as was the custom at Versailles. The mayor of the +Guillotiere, Crestin, called as witness, did not recognise amongst them +any of those he had seen on that day in his mairie. Presidents of the +courts, the Colonels Marion and Rebillot. + +At Limoges, Dubois and Roubeyrol, democrats esteemed by the whole town, +were condemned in default to death, as the principal actors in the +movement of the 4th April; two were condemned to twenty years' +imprisonment for having boasted of knowing who had shot at Colonel +Billet. Another got ten years for having distributed munitions. + +The verdicts of the jury varied. That of the Basses-Pyrenees on the 8th +August acquitted Duportal and the four or five persons accused of the +movement of Toulouse. The same acquittal took place at Rhodez, where +Digeon and the accused of Narbonne appeared after a preliminary +imprisonment of eight months. A sympathetic public filled the hall and +the approaches of the tribunal and cheered the accused at their +departure. The energetic attitude of Digeon once more showed the strong +cast of his character. + +The jury of Riom condemned for the affairs of St. Etienne twenty-one +prisoners, among whom was Amouroux, who had only sent two delegates. A +young workingman, Caton, distinguished himself by his intelligence and +firmness. + +The jury of Orleans was severe upon the accused of Montargis, all of +whom they condemned to prison, and atrocious to those of Cosnes and +Newry-sur-Loire, where there had been no resistance. There were +twenty-three altogether, of whom three were women. Their whole crime had +been carrying about a red flag and crying "Vive Paris! Down with +Versailles!" Malardier, a former representative of the people, who only +arrived on the eve of the manifestation, and who had taken no part in +it, was condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment. None of the accused +was spared. The proprietors of the Loiret avenged the fright of their +fellow-proprietors of the Nievre. + +The movements of Coulommiers, Nimes, Dordives, and Voiron gave rise to +some convictions. + +In the month of June, 1872, the greater part of the work of repression +was done. Of the 36,309[254] prisoners, men, women, and children, +without counting the 5,000 military prisoners, to whom the Versaillese +have confessed, 1,179, said they, had died in their prisons; 22,326 had +been liberated after long winter months in the pontoons, the forts, and +the prisons; 10,488 brought before the courts-martial, who had +condemned 8,525 of them. The persecutions did not cease. On the advent +of MacMahon, the 24th May, 1873, there set in a recrudescence. On the +1st January, 1875, the general resume of Versaillese justice gave 10,137 +condemnations pronounced in presence of the accused, and 3,313 in +default. The sentences passed were distributed thus:-- + + Condemnations to death 270 of whom 8 women. + Hard labour 410 " 29 " + Transportation in a fortress 3989 " 20 " + Simple transportation 3507 " 16 women and 1 + child. + Detention 1269 " 8 women. + Confinement 64 " 10 " + Hard labour at public works 29 + Imprisonment from three + months and upwards 432 + Imprisonment from three + months to one year 1622 " 50 women and 1 + child. + Imprisonment for more than + one year 1344 " 15 women and 4 + children. + Banishment 322 + Surveillance of the police 117 " 1 woman. + Fines 9 + Children under sixteen sent + to houses of correction 56 + -------- --- -- + Total 13,440 of whom 157 were women and + 62 children. + +This resume contained neither the sentences pronounced by the +courts-martial beyond the jurisdiction of Versailles nor those of the +courts of assizes. We must therefore add 15 condemnations to death, 22 +to hard labour, 28 to transportation in a fortress, 29 to simple +transportation, 74 to detention, 13 to confinement, and a certain number +to imprisonment. The total figure of the condemned of Paris and the +provinces exceeds 13,700, among whom were 170 women and 62 children. + +Three-fourths of the 10,000 condemned while present--7,418 out of +10,137--were simple guards or non-commissioned officers, 1,942 subaltern +officers. There were only 225 superior officers, 29 members of the +Council of the Commune, 49 of the Central Committee. Despite their +savage jurisprudence, the inquiries, and the false witnesses, the +courts-martial had been unable to bring forward against nine-tenths of +the condemned--9,285--any other crime than the bearing of arms or the +exercise of public functions. Of the 766 condemned for so-called common +crimes, 276 were for simple arrests, 171 for the battle in the streets, +132 for crimes classed as "others" by the report, all evidently for acts +of war.[255] Notwithstanding the great number of ticket-of-leave men +designedly included in these prosecutions, nearly three-fourths of the +condemned--7,119--had no judiciary antecedents; 524 had incurred +condemnation for misdemeanor against public order (political or simple +police cases); 2,381 for crimes or misdemeanours, which the report took +care not to specify. Finally, this insurrection, provoked and conducted +by the foreigner according to the bourgeois press, furnished in all but +396 prisoners of foreign origin. + +This is the balance-sheet of 1874. The following years added new +condemnations. The number of the courts was reduced, but their +institution was maintained and the prosecutions are going on. Even now, +six years after the defeat, the arrests and convictions have not ceased. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[247] Let us cite Dupont de Bussac, and above all Leon Bigot, who +defended Maroteau, Lisbonne, and a great number of obscure prisoners. +For a year he gave them his time, his labour, his money, publishing +memoirs, exhausting himself in applications. He died in harness, +falling, struck by apoplexy, even at the bar. The friends of the Commune +will not forget this noble devotion. + +[248] He was condemned in 1876 to five years' imprisonment for +embezzlement. + +[249] In the law-schools is there no one to undertake it? What finer +cause to begin with for a young man? What noble occasion to efface the +great wrongs of the schools during the Commune, to bring nearer the +proletarian this part of our youth, which is drifting further from them +every day? + +[250] "To this demand of the communication of judicial evidence," said +the tribunal of Buda-Pesth in its judgment, "the French Government has +answered by purely and simply transmitting the sentence of the +court-martial. In this sentence there exists no trace of proof, nor any +precise evidence establishing culpability. Considering that this verdict +is totally destitute of evidence and legal proofs, and that it indicates +no means of procuring them, this tribunal exonerates Frankel from the +charges brought against him." + +[251] Here are their names, which truly belong to the history of the +people:--Martel, president; Piou, vice-president; the Count Octave de +Bastard, Felix Voisin, secretaries; Batbie, the Count de Maille, the +Count Duchatel, Peltereau-Villeneuve, Francois Sacaze, Tailhaud, the +Marquis de Quinsonnas, Bigot, Merveilleux-Duvignan, Paris, Corne. + +[252] Appendix XXXVII. + +[253] According to reactionary journals this agent had been first bound +to a board, an odious invention, which nothing that came out during the +trial could justify. Vizentini, seized in a spontaneous outburst of +fury, and thrown immediately into the Seine, might even have been saved, +if a board to which he clung had not in tipping over struck him on the +head. + +[254] Report of General Appert. + +[255] Thus the seizures made during the house-searches, in virtue of +regular mandates, were classed among the acts of theft with violence, +pillage, &c., as though these acts had had any personal motive. Now it +is necessary to point out that no one gave evidence of theft against the +prisoners before the courts-martial; no one could say that the +conflagrations had been taken advantage of for pillage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + "Les deportes sont plus heureux que nos soldats, car nos + soldats ont des factions a faire ... tandis que le deporte + vit au milieu des fleurs de son jardin."--_Discours de + l'Amiral Fourichon, Ministre de la Marine, contre + l'Amnistie, Seance du 17 Mai 1876._ + + "Ce sont surtout les republicains qui ne doivent pas vouloir + l'amnistie."--_Victor Lefranc, Seance du 18 Mai 1876._ + + NEW CALEDONIA--EXILE--BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS + VENGEANCE--THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY. + + +Two days' journey from France there is a colony eager for hands, rich +enough to enrich thousands of families. After every victory over +Parisian workmen the bourgeoisie has always preferred throwing its +victims to the antipodes to fecundating Algeria with them. The Republic +of 1848 had Nouka-Hiva; the Versaillese Assembly, New Caledonia. It is +to this rock, six thousand leagues from their native land, that it +decided to transport those condemned for life. "The Council of the +Government," said the reporter on the law, "gives the transported a +family and a home." The mitrailleuse was more honest. + +Those condemned to transportation were huddled together into four +depots, Fort Boyard, St. Martin de Re, Oleron, and Quelern, where for +long months they languished between despair and hope, which never +abandon political victims. One day, when they believed themselves almost +forgotten, a brutal call resounded. To the surgery! A doctor looked at +them, questioned them, did not listen to their answers, and said, "Fit +for departure!"[256] And then farewell family, country, society, human +life, _en route_ for the sepulchre of the antipodes. And happy he who +was condemned to transportation only. He could for a last time press a +friendly hand, see tears in kindly eyes, give a last kiss. But the +galley-slave of the Commune will only see the taskmaster. At the call of +the whistle he must undress, be searched, then have the livery of the +voyage thrown him, and, without a farewell, ascend the floating bagnio. + +The transport ship was a moving pontoon. Large cages built on the +gun-deck shut in the prisoners. In the night these became centres of +infection. In the daytime, the uncaged people had but one-half hour to +come up on the deck and breathe a little fresh air. Around the cages the +jailers stood grumbling, punishing with the blackhole the slightest +infringement of the rules. Some unhappy beings made the whole voyage at +the bottom of the hold, sometimes almost naked, for having refused to +comply with a caprice. The women, like the men, were sent to the +blackhole; the nuns who watched them were worse than the jailers. For +five months they had to live in this promiscuous fashion in the cage, in +the filth of their neighbours, fed upon biscuits often musty, on bacon, +on almost salt water; now burnt by the tropics, now frozen by the cold +of the South, or by the spray dashing over the gun-deck. And what +spectres arrived! When the _Orne_ dropped anchor off Melbourne there +were 360 sick of scurvy out of 588 prisoners.[257] They inspired even +the rough colonials of Australia with pity. The inhabitants of Melbourne +came to succour them, collecting in a few hours 40,000 francs. The +commander of the _Orne_ refused to transmit the sum to the prisoners, +even in the shape of clothes, tools, and simple necessaries. + +The _Danae_ was the first ship that set sail, on the 3rd May, 1872; the +_Guerriere_, _Garonne_, _Var_, _Sibylle_, _Orne_, _Calvados_, +_Virginie_, &c., followed. By the 1st July, 1875, 3,859 prisoners had +landed in New Caledonia.[258] + +This Caledonian sepulchre has three circles: the peninsula Ducos, not +far from Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, for those condemned to +transportation in a fortress--805 men and 6 women; the Ile des Pins, +thirty miles south-east of the principal island, for those condemned to +simple transportation--2,795 men and 13 women; and, quite in the +background, worse than death, the bagnio of the Ile Nou, for 240 +galley-slaves. + +The peninsula Ducos, a narrow neck of land commanded by cannon, with its +mouth guarded by soldiers, without a watercourse, without verdure, is +traversed by arid hills and swampy valleys. For all shelter the +condemned found a few dilapidated hovels; for all furniture, a saucepan +and a hammock. The Ile des Pins, a tableland, its centre perfectly +desolate, is bounded by fertile plains, but in the hands of the Marist +monks, who exploit the labour of the natives. Nothing was prepared for +the reception of the condemned. The first who arrived wandered about in +the woods; only very long after did they receive bad tents and hammocks. +The natives, incited by the missionaries, fled from them, or sold them +provisions at enormous prices. + +The administration was to have provided the indispensable clothing. None +of the prescribed rules was observed. The kepis and boots were soon worn +out, and the immense majority of the condemned having no means whatever, +had to bear the sun and the rainy season bare-headed and bare-footed. +They had neither tobacco nor soap; there was no brandy to mix with the +brackish water. + +The prisoners did not lose heart at this beginning. Laborious, active, +with that universal aptitude of the Parisian workman, they felt +themselves equal to overcoming the first difficulties. The reporter on +the law had extolled the thousand revenues of New Caledonia--fisheries, +cattle-breeding, the working of mines--and represented this compulsory +emigration as the founding of a new French Empire in the Pacific. The +condemned hoped to make themselves a home in this far-off land. These +proletarians were free of the false dignity affected by the proscribed +bourgeois; far from refusing work, they sought for it. In the Ile des +Pins there were an hospital, an aqueduct, administrative warehouses to +be finished, a large road to be constructed; 2,000 condemned presented +themselves; 800 only were employed, and their wages never exceeded 85 +centimes a day. Some of those rebuffed by the Administration then +demanded concessions of territory; they were granted a few yards of +land,[259] and at exorbitant prices some seeds and tools. With the +greatest efforts they could hardly make the soil yield a few vegetables. +The others, who possessed nothing, applied to private industry, offering +their services to the tradespeople of Noumea. But the colony, stifled +by the military regime, hampered by bureaucratic officials, and of very +limited resources besides, could only furnish work to about 500 at the +most. Moreover, many of them who had undertaken farming were obliged to +give it up very soon and return to the Ile des Pins. + +This was the golden age of the transportation. Towards the middle of +1873 a despatch of the Minister of Marine reached Noumea. The +Versaillese Government suspended all administrative credits in support +of the state works. "If one admitted," said he, "the right to labour of +the convict, one would soon see the renewal of the scandalous example of +the national workshops of 1848." Perfectly logical this. Versailles owes +no means of labour to those it has deprived of their liberty to labour. +So the workshops were closed. The woods of the Ile des Pins offered +valuable supplies to the cabinetmakers, and some of the condemned +manufactured furniture much in request at Noumea. They were ordered to +discontinue. And on the 13th December the Minister of Marine dared to +pronounce from the tribune that the majority of the condemned refused +every kind of work.[260] + +At the very moment that the Administration thus curtailed the life of +the transported, it summoned their wives to the Ministry of Marine, +where the most charming picture of New Caledonia was exhibited to them. +They were to find there, on their arrival, a house, a piece of land, +seeds, and tools. Most of them, suspecting some snare, refused to set +out unless invited by their husbands. Sixty-nine, however, were +inveigled, and embarked on board the _Fenelon_, with women sent forth by +the Public Assistance Office as helpmates for the colonials. These +unfortunate wives of the convicts, on landing, found only the despair +and misery of their husbands. The Government refused to send them back +again. + +Thus there are thousands of men accustomed to work, to activity of mind, +penned up, idle and miserable, some in the narrow peninsula, others in +the Ile des Pins, without clothes, ill-fed, under orders executed by +brutes,[261] revolver in hand, hardly in connection with the world, save +for a few rare letters, and these are even delayed for three weeks at +Noumea. In the beginning endless reveries, then discouragement and +sombre despair; cases of madness occurred, at last death. The first one +set free was the teacher Verdure, member of the Council of the Commune. +The commissary of the court-martial had accused him of but one crime. +"He was a philanthropic Utopist." He wanted to open a school in the +peninsula; permission was refused him. Useless, far from his wife and +daughter, he languished and died. One morning in 1873 the jailers and +the priests saw in the winding pathway that leads to the cemetery a +coffin covered with flowers carried by some of the condemned. Behind +them walked 800 friends in a deep silence. "The coffin," one of them has +told us, "was lowered into the grave. A friend spoke a few words of +farewell; each one threw in his little red flower, cried, 'Vive la +Republique! Vive la Commune!' and all was over." In November, in the Ile +des Pins, Albert Grandier, one of the staff of the _Rappel_, died. His +heart had remained in France, with a sister whom he adored. Every day he +went to the sea-shore to wait for her; so he became mad. The +Administration refused to admit him into an asylum. He escaped from the +friends who guarded him, and one morning was found dead of cold in the +swamps, not far from the road that leads to the sea.[262] + +These at least have the consolation of suffering with their equals. But +the convicts chained in the sink of the scoundrels! "I know but one +bagnio," replied the republican Minister, Victor Lefranc, to a mother +begging for her son. And there is indeed but one bagnio, where heroes +like Trinquet and Lisbonne, men all compact of devotion and probity like +Fontaine, Roques, the mayor of Puteaux (so many names press forward that +I am ashamed to mention a few), journalists of high character like +Brissac and Humbert, some whose sole crime was to have carried out a +warrant of arrest, have been chained for five years to assassins and +thieves, enduring their insults, and bound at night to the same +camp-bed. The Versaillese want more than the body; they must attaint the +rebellious mind, surround it with an atmosphere of stench and vice, in +order to make it fail and founder. The "felons" of the Commune, +assimilated to criminals, subjected to the same labour, to the same rule +of the stick and whip, are beset by the special hatred of the jailers, +who incite the convicts against them. From time to time a letter +escapes, and even reaches us. Thus writes a member of the Council of the +Commune, a man of thirty-three, at one time in robust health:-- + + "ST. LOUIS. + + "... The work of the camp is considered the most severe. It + includes the digging up of stones, earthworks, &c. It is + only interrupted on the Sunday morning for the religious + service. For nourishment we have coffee without sugar at + five o'clock in the morning, 700 grammes of bread, and 100 + grammes of beans; in the evening a small piece of beef; and, + finally, 69 centilitres of wine a week. When I am able to + buy a quarter of a pound of bread, my health leaves less to + be desired. Already several of ours are no more. Many are + attacked with anaemia. Fifteen out of sixty in St. Louis are + at the hospital. All this would be nothing if there were not + that commingling with men of infamous passions. There are + fifty of us in one compartment. As to the employments, + shops, and offices, the Communards are excluded from these." + +Another writes: + + "ILE NOU, _15th February_. + + "I isolate myself as much as I can, but there are hours when + I must be in the bagnio on pain of death. There are hours + when I must defend my rations from the voracity of my + companions, when I must submit to the familiarity of a Mano + or of a Lathauer.[263] This is horrible, and I blush with + shame when I think that I have become almost insensible to + all this infamy. These wretches are cowards, and are not the + least of our tormentors. It is enough to drive one mad, and + I believe that many amongst us will become so. Berezowski, + this unfortunate man,[264] who has suffered so much for + eight years, is almost demented, and it is painful to look + upon him. It is terrible, and I dare not think of this. How + many months, years, are we still to pass in this bagnio? I + tremble at the thought. Despite all, believe that I shall + not allow myself to be crushed; my conscience is tranquil, + and I am strong. My health alone could betray me and be + vanquished, but of myself I am sure, and shall never + swerve." + +A third:-- + + "I have suffered much; the bagnio of Toulon, the chains, the + convicts' dress, and, what is still worse, the ignoble + contact of the criminals--all this I have had to bear with. + I have, it is true, one consolation for so much + suffering--my tranquil conscience, the love of my old + parents, and the esteem of men such as you.... How many + times have I been discouraged! What despair, what doubts + have seized me! I believed in mankind, and all my illusions + have been lost one by one; a great change has come over me, + and I have almost failed to resist so many disillusions." + +Yet another:-- + + "I do not deceive myself; these years are entirely lost for + me; not only is my health undermined, but I feel myself + getting lower every day. This life is really too hard to + bear, without books (save those of the Mame library), in + this filthy bagnio, exposed to all insults, to all blows; + shut up in grated caves; in the workshops treated as beasts; + insulted by our jailers and our comrades of the chain, we + must submit to it all without a murmur, the slightest + infringement entailing terrible punishments--the cell, + quarter ration of bread, irons, thumbscrews, the lash. It is + ignominious, and I shudder at the thought of it. Many of our + comrades are in double chains in the correction platoon, + subjected to the hardest labour, dying of hunger, driven on + with blows of a cane, often with revolver-shots, unable to + communicate with us, who cannot even pass them a mouthful of + bread. It is terrible, and I am afraid all this will not end + very soon. But protestations will be made; we shall not be + abandoned; it would be horrible if we were left here. I am + unable to work, so I am right in saying that these years are + completely lost, and this drives me to despair; yet I was + willing to learn; but what is to be done without books and + without a guide? We are almost without news. Still we know + that the Republic is affirming itself from day to day; our + hope is there, but I dare not believe it; we have had so + many deceptions." + +How many live to-day? It is not known. Maroteau left in March, 1875. The +Commission of Pardons had aggravated his sentence; commuted Satory to +the Ile Nou. At twenty-five years of age he died in the bagnio for two +articles, when the jackals of the Versaillese press, whose every line +has demanded and obtained carnage, sway our Paris. To the last moment +his courage did not forsake him. "It is not a great affair to die," said +he to the friends who surrounded his deathbed; "but I should have +preferred the stake of Satory to this filthy pallet. My friends, think +of me! What will become of my mother?" + +Hear this knell tolled by one of the convicts:-- + + "ILE NOU (LIMEKILN WORKS), _18th April_. + + "I cannot help saying that many friends are dying, and that + this month five have succumbed." + + "_15th May._ + + "Old Audant, one of the transported of the 2nd December, has + been for ever released from his chain. He was sickly, old + (fifty-nine), and our labour had overcome him. One day, + tired out, attacked by acute bronchitis, he was unable to + get up; still he was obliged to recommence his work. Two + days after he asked for the visit of the doctor. He got the + dungeon. Five days after he died in the hospital; and a few + days later on, another, Gobert, followed him to the tomb." + + "CANALA, _25th December_. + + "... Add to that the death of old and good friends. After + Maroteau, Morten, Mars, Lecolle, whom we buried a month + ago." + +They die, but none have faltered. The political convicts are men; they +succeed in remaining in the pitch without being defiled. It is the +general inspector Raboul who has allowed this avowal to escape him. What +is the Christian martyr's vaunted heroism of an hour in comparison with +these men, who each day, in the indefatigable, merciless clutches of the +jailers, maintain unbent their revolutionary faith and their dignity? + +And do we even know all their sufferings? Chance alone has raised a +corner of the veil. On the 19th March, 1874, Rochefort, Jourde, Paschal +Grousset, and three others, condemned to transportation, succeeded in +escaping on board an Australian ship.[265] They landed safely in +Australia, and the information they brought with them has thrown a +little light upon the den. It was then we learnt that the convicts of +the Commune had suffered additional tortures; that the torture of the +thumbscrews, which mutilated the hands, is still in use at the bagnio; +that four convicts had been shot in the Ile des Pins for a simple +assault, which would have been punished by a few months' imprisonment by +ordinary tribunals; that the severity and insults of the jailers seemed +intended to cause a rising, which would permit of all those condemned to +transportation being sent to the bagnio. The convicts had to pay dearly +for these revelations. The Versaillese Government immediately sent out +the Rear-Admiral Ribourt, and the torture-screw was turned more tightly +than ever. Those who had obtained permission to sojourn in the principal +island were again shut up in the peninsula Ducos or the Ile des Pins; +fishing was interdicted; every sealed letter confiscated; the right to +fetch wood in the forest for cooking food suppressed. The jailers +redoubled their brutality, fired at the convicts who went beyond bounds, +or who had not returned to their huts at the regulation hour. Some +merchants of Noumea, accused of having facilitated the escape of +Rochefort and his friends, were expelled from the isle. + +Ribourt had brought the dismissal of the governor, La Richerie, former +governor of Cayenne, who by dint of rapine had made a great fortune in +New Caledonia. Of course it was not for his dishonesty, but for the +escape of the 19th March that he was punished. The provisional +government was confided to Colonel Alleyron, who had become famous by +the massacres of May. Alleyron decreed that every prisoner was to give +the State half-a-day's labour, on pain of receiving only the strictly +indispensable food, 700 grammes of bread, 1 centilitre of oil, and 60 +grammes of dried vegetables. As the prisoners protested, he began by +applying the decree to fifty-seven persons, of whom four were women. + +For the women were subjected to the same rigorous treatment as the men, +and they had courageously revindicated the right of sharing the common +lot of all. Louise Michel and Lemel, whom they had wanted to separate +from their comrades, declared that they would kill themselves if the law +were violated. Insulted by the jailers, abused sometimes in the order +of the day of the commander of the peninsula, scarcely provided with +dresses, more than once they had been obliged to put on men's clothes. + +The arrival at the beginning of 1876 of the new governor, De Pritzbuer, +terminated the short but brilliant career of Alleyron. Pritzbuer, a +renegade of Protestantism turned arrant Jesuit, and sent to New +Caledonia through the Jesuitical tendencies of the Ministry, found ways +and means with his mawkish airs to even aggravate the misery of the +convicts. He was guided in this task by Colonel Charriere, general +director of the New Caledonian Penitentiary, who declared the criminals +of the bagnio much more honourable than the political convicts. +Pritzbuer renewed the order of his predecessor, adding that those of the +convicts who in one year should not have been able to create for +themselves sufficient resources would no longer receive full rations; +and, finally, that the Administration intended exonerating itself at the +end of a certain time of all expenses with regard to the convicts. An +agent was appointed to act as intermediary between them and the traders +of Noumea. But all the decrees in the world cannot extend the commerce +or industry of a country without natural resources. It had been said, +been proved a hundred times, that New Caledonia has no employment for +these thousands of men, who would prosper in a vital and flourishing +colony. Those few who could be employed have proved their intelligence, +and have carried off several medals or been honourably mentioned at the +exhibition of Noumea. The less favoured--hundreds of them--suffer under +the blow of the decree of 1875. In reality, the immense majority of +those condemned to transportation are now subjected to hard labour. The +regulations put into force since the escape of Rochefort have never been +mitigated. The wives, the mothers of the convicts, are only allowed to +communicate with them at rare intervals, and under the eye of the +jailers. More than one has been expelled from the colony. + +Despite so many efforts to break them, the honour of the majority of the +prisoners has not yielded; far more, it is an example to others. +Although the courts-martial have mixed up with the condemned of the +Commune a bad element, totally foreign to this revolution, common +misdemeanours are very rare. Their condemnation for political +misdemeanour, the contact with the best workmen, has even re-made the +conscience of many men with but sorry antecedents. The majority of the +condemned are punished only for infringements of the rules or for +attempts to escape; attempts almost always condemned to failure +beforehand. How fly without money and without confederates? There have +been but fifteen successful escapes. Towards the middle of March, 1875, +twenty prisoners of the Ile des Pins, amongst whom were the member of +the Council of the Commune, Rastoul, fled in a bark which they had +secretly constructed. Their fate has never been known, but a few days +after their flight the wreck of a craft was found amongst the reefs. In +November, 1876, Trinquet and some of his comrades managed to abscond in +a steamboat. They were pursued, overtaken. Two threw themselves into the +sea to escape their pursuers. One died; the other, Trinquet, was +restored to life and the bagnio. + + * * * * * + +Before such abysses of misery the exiles must not speak of their +sufferings, but they may say in a word that they have not sullied the +honour of the Cause. Thousands of workmen, with their families, thrown +helpless, without resources, into a strange country, speaking a foreign +language, employees, professors, still more forlorn, have succeeded by +dint of energy in gaining a livelihood. The workmen of the Commune of +Paris have won an honourable place in the workshops of foreign +countries. They have even, especially in Belgium, rendered prosperous +industries till then languishing; they have imparted to certain +manufactures the secret of Parisian taste. The proscription of the +Communards, like that of the Protestants formerly, has thrown across the +frontiers a part of the national wealth. The exiles of the so-called +liberal professions, often more unfortunate than the workmen, have not +shown less courage. Some fill posts of confidence; one perhaps condemned +to death as an incendiary or to hard labour for pillage, is a teacher in +a large college or examines the candidates for Government schools. +Despite the difficulty at the commencement, sickness, slackness of work, +not one exile has given way, and not a single condemnation before the +police court has occurred. Not a single woman has fallen. Yet it is the +women who bear the greater share of the common misery. Amongst these +thousands of exiles there have been discovered but two or three spies; +and there was only one, Landeck, to get up a journal of denunciations +more vile than the _Figaro_. Justice was soon done, for no proscription +has been more careful of its dignity. One ex-member of the Council of +the Commune had to defend himself before the refugees for having +received money from the deputies of the Extreme Left. Never was the +commemorative meeting of the 18th March better attended than that of +1876 during the debate on the amnesty, for one and all would have +blushed to hide their colours at such a moment. No doubt, like any other +proscription, that of 1871 has its groups and its animosities, but all +these opinions disappear behind the red flag escorting the coffin of a +comrade. No doubt there have been virulent manifestoes, which, however, +only affect their authors. Finally, these exiles have not forgotten +their brothers of New Caledonia, and they have opened a permanent +subscription for them, which has its centre in London. Poor help, no +doubt; but this mite from the exiles goes and says to the unfortunate +convict of the Commune, "Courage, brother! thy comrades do not forget +thee; they honour thee." It is the hand of the wounded held out to the +dying. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-five thousand men, women, and children killed during the battle +or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the +forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity; +thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; +seventy thousand women, children, and old men deprived of their natural +supporters or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand +victims at least;--that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance +for the solitary insurrection of the 18th March. + +What a lesson of revolutionary vigour given to the workingmen! The +governing classes shoot in the lump without taking the trouble to select +the hostages. Their vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor +victims appease it; they make of it an administrative function, +methodical and continuous. + +For four years the Rural Assembly allowed the courts-martial to work, +and the Liberal element, which so many elections had sent up in great +force, at once followed the track of the Rurals. One or two motions for +amnesty were burked by the previous question. In the month of January, +1876, when the Rural Assembly broke up, it had removed a few convicts +from one part of New Caledonia to another, shortened a few terms of +imprisonment, and given full pardon to six hundred persons, condemned to +the lightest penalties. The Caledonian reservoir remained intact. + +But at the general elections the people did not forget the vanquished. +In all the large towns _Amnesty_ was the watchword; it was inscribed at +the head of all the democratic programmes; at all the public meetings +the question was put to the candidates. The Radicals, tears in their +eyes and their hands on their fraternal hearts, pledged themselves to +ask for a free and complete amnesty; even the Liberals promised "to wipe +out the last traces of our civil discords," as the bourgeoisie is wont +to say when it condescends to have the paving-stones cleaned which +itself has reddened with blood. + +The elections of February, 1876, were Republican. The famous Gambettist +layers had come to the surface. A crowd of lawyers, Liberal landlords, +had carried away the provinces in the name of liberty, reforms, +appeasement. The Minister of the reaction, Buffet, was beaten along the +whole line, even in Rural corners. The Radical papers declared the +democratic Republic once for all founded; and one of these in its +enthusiasm cried, "May we be cursed if we do not close the era of +revolutions!" + +The hopes for amnesty became now a certainty. No doubt this was the boon +by which the reparative Chamber would signalise its joyous advent. A +convoy of convicts was about to set sail for New Caledonia. Victor Hugo +summoned the President, MacMahon, to adjourn the departure until the +discussion and the certainly favourable decision of the two Chambers. A +petition, hurriedly organised, in a few days had over a hundred thousand +signatures. Soon the question of the amnesty effaced all others, and the +Ministry insisted upon an immediate discussion. + +Five propositions had been laid on the table. One only demanded the full +and complete amnesty. The others excepted the crimes qualified as common +crimes, and amongst which were classed newspaper articles. The Chamber +appointed a commission to draw up a report. Seven commissioners out of +ten declared against all the propositions. + +The new layers were manifesting themselves. It was always this same +middle-class, bare of ideas and courage, hard to the people, timid +before Caesar, pettifogging and jesuitical. The workmen already shot down +in June, 1848, by an Assembly of Republicans were to see in 1876 a +Republican Assembly rivet the chain forged by the Rurals. + +The motion for a full and complete amnesty was supported by those same +Radicals who had combated the Commune or abetted M. Thiers. They were +now the democratic lions of a Paris without a Socialist press, without +popular tribunes, without a history of the Commune, watched by the +courts-martial, always on the look-out for more victims, bereft of all +revolutionary electors. In this town which he had helped to bleed, there +were arrondissements which disputed the honour of electing Louis Blanc. +The deputy of Montmartre was the same man who, on the 18th March, had +congratulated Lecomte on the capture of the cannon, M. Clemenceau. + +He made a jejune, garbled, timid expose of the immediate causes of the +18th March, but took good care not to touch upon the veritable causes. +Other Radicals, in order to make the vanquished more interesting, strove +to lower them. "You are absolutely mistaken as to the character of this +revolution," said M. Lockroy very grandly. "You see in it a social +revolution, where there has really been only a fit of hysterics and an +attack of fever." M. Floquet, nominated in the most revolutionary +arrondissement, the one in which Delescluze had fallen, called the +movement "detestable." M. Marcou wisely declared that the Commune was +"an anachronism." + +No one even in the Extreme Left dared courageously to tell the country +the truth. "Yes, they were right to cling to their arms, these +Parisians, who remembered June and December; yes, they were right to +maintain that the monarchists were plotting for a revolution; yes, they +were right to struggle to the death against the advent of the priest." +No one dared to speak of the massacres, to call the Government to +account for the bloodshed. They were even less outspoken than the +Enquete Parlementaire. It is evident from this weak and superficial +discussion that they only wanted to redeem their word given to their +electors. + +To advocates who stooped so low the answer was easy enough. As M. Thiers +and Jules Favre had done on the 21st March, 1871, the Minister Dufaure +pertinently set forth the true question at issue. "No, gentlemen," said +he, "this was not a communal movement; this was in its ideas, its +thoughts, and even in its acts, the most Radical revolution which has +ever been undertaken in the world." And the reporter of the Commission: +"There have been hours in our contemporary history when amnesty may have +been a necessity, but the insurrection of the 18th March cannot from any +point of view be compared with our civil wars. I see a formidable +insurrection, a criminal insurrection, an insurrection against all +society. No, nothing obliges us to give back to the condemned of the +Commune the rights of citizens." The immense majority applauded Dufaure, +singing the praises of the courts-martial, and not a Radical had the +courage to protest, to defy the Minister to produce a single document, a +single regular judgment. It would be easy to retort to this Extreme +Left: "Silence, pharisees, who allow the people to be massacred and then +come supplicating for them; mute or hostile during the battle, +grandiloquent after their defeat." Admiral Fourichon denied that the +convicts of the Commune are put on the same footing as the others; +denied their ill-treatment; said the convicts lived in a very garden of +flowers. Some intransigents having stated that "The torture has been +re-established," this delicious answer was vouchsafed them, "It is we +whom you put to the torture." + +On the 18th May, 1876, 396 noes against 50 ayes rejected the full and +complete amnesty. Gambetta did not vote. The next day they discussed one +proposition of amnesty, which excluded those condemned for acts +qualified as common crimes by the courts-martial. The Commission again +rejected this motion, saying that it must be left to the mercy of the +Government, which had promised a considerable number of pardons. The +Radicals discussed a little to save appearances. M. Floquet said, "It is +not on a question of generosity and mercy that we should ever doubt of +the intentions of the Government;" and the proposition was thrown over. + +Two days after, in the Senate, Victor Hugo asked for the amnesty in a +speech in which he drew a comparison between the defenders of the +Commune and the men of the 2nd December. His proposition was not even +discussed. + +Two months after, MacMahon completed this hypocritical comedy by writing +to the Minister-at-War, "Henceforth no more prosecutions are to take +place unless commanded by the unanimous sentiment of honest people." The +honest officers understood. The condemnations continued. Some persons +condemned by default, who had ventured to return to France on the +strength of the hopes of the first days, had been captured; the +sentences against them were confirmed. The organisers of workingmen's +groups were mercilessly struck when their connection with the Commune +could be established.[266] In November, 1876, the courts-martial +pronounced sentences of death.[267] + +This merciless tenacity alarmed public opinion to such an extent that +the Radicals were again obliged to bestir themselves a little. Towards +the end of 1876 they demanded that the Chamber should put a stop to the +prosecutions, or at least limit them. An illusory law was voted; the +Senate threw it out; our Liberals reckoned upon that. + +The mercy of MacMahon was on a par with the rest. The day after the +rejection of the motion for an amnesty, Dufaure had installed a +consulting Commission of Pardons, composed of functionaries and +reactionists carefully culled by himself. The penitentiary +establishments in France then contained 1,600 persons condemned for +participation in the Commune, and the number of the transports rose to +about 4,400. The new Commission continued the system of the former one, +commuted some penalties, granted pardons of a few weeks or a few months, +even liberated two or three condemned who were dead. A year after its +institution it had recalled from New Caledonia a hundred at the utmost +of the least interesting of the prisoners. + +Thus the Liberal Chamber continued the vengeance of the Rural Assembly; +thus the bourgeois Republic appeared to the workingmen as hostile to +their rights, more implacable perhaps than the Monarchists, justifying +the remark of one of M. Thiers' Ministers, "It is above all the +Republicans who must be adverse to the amnesty." Once again there was +justified the instinct of the people on the 18th March, when they +perceived in the conservative republic held out to them by M. Thiers an +anonymous oppression worse than the Imperialist yoke. + + * * * * * + +At the present time, six years after the massacres, near fifteen +thousand men, women, and children are maintained in New Caledonia or in +exile.[268] + +What hope remains? None. The bourgeoisie has been too much frightened. +The cries for amnesty, the blazoned-forth elections, will not disquiet +the conservative republicans or monarchists. All the apparent +concessions will only be so many snares. The most valiant, the most +devoted, will die in the bagnio, in the Peninsula Ducos, in the Ile des +Pins. + +It belongs to the workmen to do their duty so far as it is possible +to-day. + +The Irish, after the Fenian insurrection, opened hundreds of public +subscriptions for the benefit of the victims. Near L1,200 were devoted +to their defence before the tribunals. The three men hanged at +Manchester received on the morning of their death the formal promise +that their families should want for nothing. This promise was kept. The +parents of the one, the wife of the other, were provided for, the +children were educated, dowered. In Ireland alone the donations, for the +families exceeded L5,000. When the partial amnesty was granted, all +Irish people rushed forward to help the amnestied. The single journal, +the _Irishman_, in a few weeks received L1,000, for the most part in +penny and sixpenny subscriptions. In one single donation the Irish of +America sent them L4,000, and the poorest of the poor Irish, the +emigrants of New Zealand, over L240. And this was not the outburst of +one day. In 1874 the Political Prisoners' Family Fund still received +L425. The total of the subscriptions exceed L10,000. Finally, in 1876, a +few Fenians chartered a vessel and carried off some of their comrades +still retained in Australia. + +In France all the subscriptions for the families of the condemned of the +Commune have not exceeded L8,000. The Irish victims numbered only a few +hundreds; those of Versailles must be counted by thousands. + +Nothing has been done for the transported "convicts." The Greppos, Louis +Blancs & Co., who, without mandate, without any surveillance, have +arrogated to themselves the right of centralising the subscriptions, of +distributing them at pleasure, have thus formed themselves a retinue out +of the families of those whom they had betrayed. They have refused to +transmit anything to the convicts, that is to say, to the most +necessitous, who, six thousand leagues from France, pine away without +resources and with no possibility of work. + +Do you understand, workingmen, you who are free? You now know what the +whole situation is and what the men are. Remember the vanquished not for +a day, but at all hours. Women, you whose devotion sustains and elevates +their courage, let the agony of the prisoners haunt you like an +everlasting nightmare. Let all workshops every week put something aside +from their wages. Let the subscriptions no longer be sent to the +Versaillese committee, but made over to loyal hands. Let the Socialist +party attest its principles of international solidarity and its power by +saving those who have fallen for it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[256] "We all recollect one of our comrades, Corcelles, who had +contracted pulmonary phthisis of the gravest form. He could scarcely +keep himself on his legs when crawling before the Commission. To the +President's usual question he answered by a pitiful smile only, and +while one of the younger members of the Commission, moved probably to +pity at the sight of the walking corpse, bent himself towards the ear of +the old surgeon, doubtless with the view of begging a respite, the +latter retorted, loud enough to be heard by the patient and several +other prisoners, 'Bah! the sharks will want something to eat.' And the +sharks did have something to eat; less than three weeks after we were +out at sea our friend Corcelles was dead, and we committed his remains +to the last common reservoir." We must give the name of this friend of +sharks; his name is Dr. Chanal. "Out of the four thousand condemned who +passed in file before him, ten cases of exemption are not known. And +perhaps the motives which dictated this may be better judged when the +following facts are known. M. Edmond Adam, deputy of the Seine, having +come to the Ile de Re in order to visit M. H. Rochefort, who was shut up +there, had a young woman present herself at his hotel, who proposed to +him, for the modest sum of 1000 francs, to procure from the +chief-surgeon a respite for his friend on his departure. She had but one +word to say, remarked she, and the old man was under her +orders."--_Account by two escaped prisoners from New Caledonia, Paschal +Grousset and Jourde, published by the Times, 27th June 1874._ + +[257] The Australian and English journals having revealed these +sufferings, the Versaillese Government answered in its journal: "The +news of the convict ship the _Orne_, transmitted through the English +press, is inexact in all points. Far from counting 420 cases of scurvy, +this vessel had hardly 360 cases." + +[258] Report of the Commission of Pardons, presented in January 1876, by +MM. Martel and F. Voisin. + +[259] In the Ile des Pins, 900 condemned received between them all 500 +hectares (about 100 acres). "We have been mistaken as to the resources +offered by the Ile des Pins," philosophically remarked the Minister of +Marine in 1876. "I said so three years ago," answered M. Georges Perin. + +[260] "Admiral Ribourt, in his Inquiry, declares that during the year +1873 the engineering department had paid the condemned in the peninsula +110,525 francs. We must then leave off saying that the convicts won't +work."--_Speech of M. Georges Perin in favour of an amnesty, Sitting of +the 17th May 1876._ + +[261] An overlooker of the first class had been condemned for an attempt +to murder; another, decorated with the cross of the Legion d'Honneur, +sentenced to seven years' hard labour for attempting to murder his wife. +Many of them were every day condemned for drunkenness. + +[262] Details taken from the very correct and by no means exaggerated +relation which Paschal Grousset and Jourde published in the _Times_ +after their escape. It has since been republished as a pamphlet. + +[263] Two notorious murderers. + +[264] The Pole condemned for having in Paris shot at the Czar. + +[265] One of them has given a complete account of their escape, together +with some interesting details on New Caledonia: "Un Voyage de +Circumnavigation," by A. Baillere. + +[266] On the 22nd December 1876, Baron, ex-delegate of the accountants +of Paris to the Workmen's Congress, was summoned before the third +court-martial, which accused him of having been one of the secretaries +of the delegation of war during the Commune. Baron was condemned to +transportation in a fortress. During the examination the president said, +"The Court will take notice that the accused still has the same +sentiments as those which animated him in 1871, for in 1876 we have seen +that he took part in the Workmen's Congress." + +[267] Appendix XXXVIII. + +[268] Even in the month of April 1877 another ship, having 506 condemned +to transportation, has been despatched from France to New Caledonia. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + +I.--(Page 29.) + +The Central Committee found in the bureau of the War-Office, and the +_Officiel_ of the Commune published on the 25th April, the following +letter from the supreme commander of the artillery of the army to +General Suzanne:-- + + "PARIS, _12th December 1870_. + +"My dear Suzanne--I have not found among the young auxiliaries your +protege Hetzel, but only a M. Hessel. Is it he who is meant? "Tell me +frankly what you desire, and I will do it. I will attach him to my +staff, where he will be bored, having nothing to do, or else I will send +him to Mont Valerien, where he will run less risk than at Paris (this +for the parents), and where he will have the air of firing the cannons +into the air, according to Noel's method. + +"Unbutton--your mouth, of course.--Yours, + + GUIOD" + +The Noel mentioned at that time commanded Mont Valerien. + + +II.--(Page 83.) + +_The role of the Central Committee during the day of the 18th March._ + +"I would remind you that the members of the Committee had separated at +about half-past three in the morning of the 17th to the 18th. Before +raising the sitting it had been decided that the meeting of the +following day should take place at eleven o'clock in the evening, at a +school requisitioned for the purpose in the Rue Basfroi. + +"Despite the lateness of the hour, nothing had transpired as to the +movements which the Government had decided upon, and the Committee +having only just constituted itself for the examination of its powers +and the distribution of the commissions, had received no information +which might have led it to suppose the imminence of the peril. Its +military commission had not yet begun to work; it had taken possession +of the documents, notes, and minutes of the former one, and that was +all. + +"You know how Paris woke up on the morning of the 18th. The members of +the Committee heard of the events of the night through public rumours +and the official placards. For my own part, aroused at about eight +o'clock, I hurried on my clothes, and repaired to the Rue Basfroi, +crossing the Place de la Bastille, occupied by the Guard of Paris. I had +hardly entered the Rue de la Roquette when I saw that the people were +beginning to organise the defence. A barricade was being commenced at +the corner of the Rue Neuve de Lappe. A little higher up I was refused +passage, in spite of the declaration which I made of my quality of +member of the Central Committee. I was obliged to go up the Rue de +Charonne, the faubourg, and come back in the direction of the Rue St. +Bernard. No work was going on as yet in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, +but the excitement there was great. At last, towards half-past ten +o'clock, I reached the Rue Basfroi, which was barricaded at both +outlets, with the exception of an opening reserved for the cannon drawn +up in the open grounds of this street, which were taken away one by one +to the different barricades in course of erection. + +"I succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting into a schoolroom, +where some of my colleagues were gathered. Citizens Assi, Prudhomme, +Rousseau, Gouhier, Lavalette, Geresme, Bouit, and Fougeret were there. +Just as I entered, a staff sublieutenant, arrested in the Rue St. Maur, +was being led in. He was examined. Next a gendarme was brought, but the +only papers found in his possession were placards transmitted to one of +the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organised a sort of +prison in the courtyard. I also saw defiling about fifteen individuals, +military and civil, arrested by the people. In the meantime I learnt +that Bergeret had been sent to take the command of Montmartre, where he +had been named _chef-de-legion_ the day before. Varlin, who came +immediately after me, had set out again in order to organise the defence +of the Batignolles. Arnold also put in his appearance for a moment, and +then went to place himself at the head of his battalion. The Committee +had added Citizens Audoyneau, Ferrat and Billioray to its numbers. + +"At mid-day the course events would take was still waited for, and +nothing was decided upon. I begged some of my colleagues to leave X. to +his useless interrogations, and to come and to deliberate in another +room, the one we occupied having by degrees been invaded by persons +strangers to the Committee. As soon as we were installed, we asked for +some citizens willing to serve as our general staff, and to inform us as +to the situation in the different quarters. A great number presented +themselves. We sent them in all directions, to tell our colleagues to +hurry on as much as possible the construction of the barricades, to +muster the National Guard, to take the command of it, and to specify the +points whither we were to forward our communications. + +"Of our messengers only four returned. He whom we had sent to the +twentieth arrondissement informed us that the rallying point was in the +Rue de Paris and at Menilmontant, in front of the new mairie. Varlin had +great trouble in grouping the National Guards of the Batignolles. One +staff had mustered forces at the Place du Trone, and had repaired to the +Neuilly Barracks, but the soldiers had closed the gates, and assumed a +menacing attitude. Brunel, together with Lisbonne, was preparing to +threaten the barracks of the Chateau d'Eau. + +"Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being +waited for. Duval had established himself at the Pantheon, and waited. +Faltot sent us a note in these words: 'I have five or six battalions in +the Rue de Sevres; what am I to do?' Pindy had taken possession of the +Mairie of the third arrondissement, and was mustering the battalions +devoted to the Committee. As soon as we had got this intelligence some +dispositions for the attack were taken. + +"While these resolutions were being discussed Lullier had come to place +himself at the disposal of the Committee. The Committee had given him no +formal order, and confined itself to telling him that all forces +available for the taking of the Hotel-de-Ville were being mustered. + +"In order to assure the transmission of the orders, each one of the +members then present--others had come up, but I could not say +who--undertook to carry them to a designated point. So at three o'clock +the Committee broke up, leaving Assi and two other members as a +permanent sub-committee at the Rue Basfroi."--Extract from an account +addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee. + + +III.--(Page 160.) + +Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this +Revolution, M. Meline, general secretary of the Ministry of Justice, +written on the 30th March, to the president of the Council of the +Commune: + + "VILLE DE PARIS (_First Arrondissement, Mairie of the Louvre_). + +"Citizen President--I no longer possess sufficient physical strength +after prolonged fatigues to combat in the midst of our Assembly, which +is destined to discuss so many grave questions. I beg you then to accept +my resignation, and my sincere hopes that the Assembly may consolidate +the Republic.--Receive, Citizen President, the expression of my +fraternal sentiments, + + "JULES MELINE. + "_30th March 1871._" + + +IV.--(Page 207.) + +Here is a letter addressed to the Delegate at War:-- + +"Citizen--Excuse my addressing you these lines, and be so kind as to +take into consideration the request which I address to you. + +"I have three sons in the ranks of the National Guard--the eldest in the +197th battalion, the second in the 126th, and the third in the 97th. As +to myself, I am in the 177th. + +"However, there yet remains to me one son, who is the youngest. He will +soon be sixteen years old, and desires with all his heart to be enrolled +in no matter what battalion; for he has sworn to his brothers and to me +that he will take arms to sustain our young Republic against the hangmen +of Versailles. + +"We have all agreed, and we have sworn an oath to revenge him who should +fall under the fratricidal balls of our enemies. + +"Citizen, take then the last of my sons. I offer him with all my heart +to the Republican fatherland. Do with him as you wish, place him in a +battalion of your choice, and you will make me a thousand times +happy.--Accept, citizen, my fraternal salutation, + + AUGUSTE JOULON, + "_Guard of the 177th Battalion_. + + "18 AVENUE D'ITALIE, PARIS, + _12th May 1871_." + + +V.--(Page 209.) + +Instances of their courage abound in the journals of the time. One +quotation taken at hazard from _La Commune_ of the 12th April:-- + +"On Thursday, the 6th, at the moment when the 26th battalion of St. Ouen +defended the barricade of the cross-roads, a child, V. Thiebault, +fourteen years old, ran up amidst the balls in order to give the +defenders something to drink. The shells having forced the Federals to +fall back, they were about to sacrifice the victuals of the battalion, +when the child, in spite of the shells, sprang towards a barrel of wine, +which he staved in, crying, 'At any rate they shall not drink our wine.' +At the same instant, seizing the rifle of a Federal who had just fallen, +he charged it, took aim, and killed an officer of gendarmes. Then +perceiving a waggon with two horses harnessed to it, whose driver had +just been wounded, he mounted the horses and saved the waggon.--Eugene +Leon Vanviere, thirteen and a half years old, contrived to save the guns +at the outpost of the Porte-Maillot, in spite of his wound." + + +VI.--(Page 217.) + +The prefect of police, Valentin, sent the following circular to the +commissaries of the different railway stations:-- + + "VERSAILLES, _25th April 1871_. + +"The chief of the executive power has just decided that, dating from +to-day, all victualling trains and all supplies of provisions directed +to Paris shall be stopped. + +"I beg you to take all measures you may deem needful for the execution +of this decree at once. You are to examine with the most vigilant +attention all the railway trains, all the carriages destined for Paris, +and you will send back to the purveyors all the provisions you may +discover. + +"You will for this purpose concert with ... &c. + +"The delegate to the functions of prefect of police. + + "VALENTIN." + + +VII.--(Page 219.) + +"... Accompanied by Frankel and one of my brothers, I proceeded to the +General Post-Office, which was still occupied by the National Guards of +order. I was immediately received by M. Rampont, surrounded by the Board +of Administration. M. Rampont at first declared that he did not +recognise the authority of the Central Committee, which had appointed +me; but I think this was a merely formal precaution, for he began to +parley immediately. I told him that the Government of the 4th September, +which had named him, was also born of a revolutionary movement, and that +notwithstanding this he had accepted his post. During this discussion he +told us that he was a Mutualist-Socialist, a partisan of Proudhon's +ideas, and consequently hostile to Communistic ideas, which had just +triumphed with the Revolution of the 18th March. I answered that the +Revolution of the 18th March was not the triumph of a Socialist school, +but the prelude of a social transformation fettered by no particular +school, and that I myself belonged to the mutualist school. After a long +conversation, in which he declared himself ready to acknowledge the +authority of the Commune, which was to be named in two or three days, he +proposed to me to submit the following undertaking to the Central +Committee. Till the day when the Commune should have decided, he engaged +to remain at the head of the Post-Office; he accepted the control of two +delegates of the Committee. I communicated this proposal to Vaillant and +A. Arnaud (who had made over to me my nomination), in order that they +might inform the Committee. I waited in vain for an answer. + +"The Commune met. The second day, perhaps, I broached the question of +the Post-Office. It was to be comprised in the order of the day, but +always in the confused way which one finds in the order of these +debates, when, on the 30th March, a workman came to apprise Pindy that +the administration of the Post-Office was deserting. The Commune +immediately voted my nomination, and gave me the order to have the +office occupied. Chardon set out at the head of a battalion, accompanied +by Vermorel and myself. It was seven or eight o'clock in the evening. +The work was done, and only a small number of employes remained. Some +gave us a sympathetic welcome, others seemed indifferent. Chardon left a +guard, and I spent the night alone in the office. + +"The next day, at three o'clock in the morning, I walked through the +rooms and courts where the employes were arriving for the first +delivery. A manuscript placard, posted in all the rooms and courts, +ordered the employes to abandon their services, and repair to +Versailles, under pain of dismissal. I tore down these placards and +exhorted the men to remain true to their posts. There was at first some +indecision, then a few made up their minds to rally round me. + +"At eight o'clock other employes came; at nine o'clock still more. They +formed groups in the large court, talked, discussed, some beat a +retreat, and their example was about to be followed. + +"I had the doors closed, and militarily occupied by guards; and I went +from group to group, discussing, menacing. At last I gave the order to +each one to return to his respective bureau. Thereupon a precious +auxiliary came up, Citizen A----, an employe at the Post-Office, a +Socialist, for whom I had a letter from a friend. There was a momentary +hesitation. The father of a family, much respected, sure of an early +promotion, he was about to risk an advantageous place. But his +hesitation lasted only a few seconds. He promised me his assistance, and +he gave it me faithfully up to the last day. He brought me into relation +with Citizen B----, who soon became my second. Both of them furnished me +with information of the greatest utility concerning this department, of +which I did not know the most simple details. + +"All the chiefs of bureaux had abandoned their posts; so, too, had the +second head-clerks, save one, who immediately had himself put on the +sick-list. A---- and B---- got together some friends, head-clerks, who +for a long time had done all the work of the chiefs of the bureaux. +Citizen C---- was placed at the head of the postal service for Paris. + +"All the divisional bureaux, save two, had been closed and abandoned. +The stock had been carried off, the cash-box emptied, as was proved by +the minutes drawn up by a commissary of the Commune, with the assistance +of several well-known people of the quarter, amongst whom was M. Brelay, +since named deputy of Paris. Postage stamps were wanting. The carts had +set off for Versailles. + +"A., B., and some others of an indefatigable zeal, had the divisional +bureaux opened by locksmiths in the presence of the commissaries of the +quarter, and installed well-meaning citizens, whose apprenticeship they +superintended. But there was a stoppage of two days in the delivery of +letters, which gave rise to public grumbling, and I was obliged to +explain the facts in a placard. At the end of forty-eight hours A. and +B. had reorganised the collection and delivery of letters. + +"All the citizens whose services had been accepted as auxiliaries +received provisionally, till their capacities could be judged of, a +salary of five francs a day. + +"By chance we found some postage-stamps of ten centimes at the bottom of +a chest. Camelinat, appointed the director of the Mint, sent for the +plates and the stock, and forthwith began manufacturing stamps. + +"During the first days bundles of letters from Paris destined for the +provinces were taken in by the receiving officer of Sceaux, who no doubt +was without precise instructions; then the blockade was completed. The +sending of letters to the provinces became the object of a daily +struggle. Secret agents went to throw them into the boxes of the offices +for ten miles round. The letters of Paris for Paris alone were stamped +with date-marks. Those sent to the provinces by our smugglers only had +the postage-stamp, which did not permit of their being distinguished +from the others. When Versailles found out the manoeuvre, it changed +the dotting of the stamps. We were quits at Paris by sending off the +letters of importance without prepayment, and procuring stamps from the +bureaux of Versailles. + +"If the bureaux for the letters to be sent out of Paris could still +work, those for the collection of the letters from abroad were at a +stand-still. The letters from the provinces accumulated at Versailles. +Some men of business set up agencies, where, for a very high fee, the +letters which they went to fetch at Versailles might be obtained. These +people exploited the population, but we could not supersede them, and we +were obliged to shut our eyes. We contented ourselves with reducing the +profits somewhat, by deducting from each letter the postage of Paris for +Paris, without their being able on that account to raise the sum fixed +by their advertisements. + +"The efforts of Versailles to disorganise the reconstituted postal +services were several times baffled, thanks to the vigilance of our two +inspectors. However, we could not prevent the success of all their +attempts at subornation. + +"From the first days of April we instituted a council at the +post-office, composed of the delegate, his secretary, the general +secretary, all the heads of services, two inspectors, and two head +postmen. The postmen, _gardiens de bureaux_, and sorters had their wages +raised, very little, alas! for our receipts, considerably reduced, did +not allow us to be very liberal. + +"We decided upon the suppression, if not absolute, at least partial, of +the time for serving as supernumerary, which was reduced to the strictly +necessary time. The aptness of the workmen had henceforth to be proved +by tests and examinations, as also the quantity and quality of their +labour."--Extract from an account addressed to the author by Theisz. + + +VIII.--(Page 220.) + +The limits of this Appendix oblige me to make a resume of the extremely +interesting accounts by Faillet and Louis Debock on the direct taxes and +the National Printing Office:-- + +"In the evening of the 24th March Faillet and Combault (of the +International) presented themselves at the administration of the direct +taxes. On the written declaration that he yielded to menaces, the +director handed them over the keys. Citizen X., who was thoroughly +acquainted with the administrative movement, placed himself very +promptly at their disposal. + +"The original register and other materials for the collection of taxes +had disappeared. It was decided that the taxes should be gathered +according to the list of 1869. The _personnel_ of the forty +collectorships, the valuers, the employes, to make up the list, had +fled. The collectors were replaced by forty citizens, some workingmen +belonging to the International, the others clerks of commercial houses +or government offices. Some of the old officials who had not withdrawn +were retained, but under the superintendence of a safe man. The presence +of Citizen X. decided a great number of employes to come and work under +the new directors. + +"The service of the direct taxes was composed--for the _interior_, of a +director, a general administrator, a general secretary, two +sub-secretaries, one chief of the bureaux of taxes and lists, a head +accountant, five other accountants, and two inspectors of the collecting +offices; for the _exterior_, of forty tax-gatherers, each one assisted +by two or three clerks, a bearer of summonses, and an agent with his +accountants at the bonded warehouse for wine. + +"Once or twice a week the director made a round in all the collector's +offices, which the inspectors visited every day. Each tax-gatherer +brought the cashier of the direction the receipts of the day before. The +cashier every evening laid the returns before the administration, and +made over to the Central Pay-Office of the Finance Department all that +was not needed for the general expenses of the service. + +"The service ceased on the Saturday evening, 25th May. A hundred clerks, +not thinking their whole duty to the Commune done, formed a corps of +scouts, whose post was established in the presbytery of the Temple des +Billettes." + +"On the 18th March, at five o'clock in the evening, Pindy and Louis +Debock presented themselves with a battalion at the National +Printing-Office, and established themselves there. The director Haureau +came down, tried to negotiate, and then went up again to his apartments. +During the evening Debock went to ask him for the list of workmen. +Haureau took advantage of the occasion to protest his republicanism, +said he was a former editor of the _National_, a friend of Marrast, +Arago, &c., and that the movement of the 18th March had no _raison +d'etre_ whatever. A few days were allowed him for removing. + +"The whole _personnel_ was maintained, with the exception of the +director, the sub-director, the overseer, and the chief of the works, +Felix Derenemesnil, who was cordially detested for his brutality and +injustice. These spread abroad that the Central Committee had no money, +and that the workmen would not be paid. Debock answered by an order of +the day placarded in the workshops, guaranteeing the wages in the name +of the Central Committee. + +"At the end of March, on the injunction of Versailles, all the employes +and heads of the services, with very few exceptions, abandoned the +printing-office after having received their salaries. The new director +took advantage of this to have the new foremen of the workshops +appointed by the workmen themselves. The places of managers of the +printing-press were put up for competition. As the administration of the +Rue Pagevin threw obstacles into the way of placarding the decrees and +proclamations, Debock advised the workmen bill-stickers to associate +themselves. They did so; their wages increased by 25 per cent., and the +printing-office saved 200 francs a day. + +"The bulk of the salaries was greatly reduced; that of the lower clerks +and workmen increased. On the 18th March a fortnight's salary was due to +the workingmen and women, and a week's to the employes. The Commune +discharged these arrears. Versailles, victorious, refused to pay the few +days' wages due to the workmen. Yet the Versailles administration found +the stock intact and in perfect order. + +"The budget of monthly expenses before the 18th March rose to 120,000 +francs, of which 23,000 were absorbed by the salaries of the +functionaries, employes, &c. After this date the expenses did not reach +20,000 francs a week, the expenses of placarding included. + +"After the Commune the Union Republicaine announced in the journals that +it had saved the Archives and the National Printing-Office from the +flames. This was a lie, as proved by the order sent on the 24th May to +the Archives at the request of Debock. + + "_Order.--The Archives not to be burnt.--The Colonel + commanding the Hotel-de-Ville, Pindy._ + +"As to the printing-office, it was occupied by Debock up to the invasion +of the quarter. In the night of the 24th he sent to ask the Committee of +Public Safety for the documents, papers, and articles necessary for the +composition of the _Journal Officiel_. The next day, having received no +answer, and the Versaillese pressing forward, he repaired to Belleville, +where the three proclamations or placards which appeared on the +following days were printed by his order." + + +IX.--(Page 241.) + +"Certainly the Communal principle must have been very strong in itself +to have held sixty days against such fools."--_Behind the Scenes at the +Commune_, _"Fraser's Magazine,"_ December, 1872. + +"To conquer was so easy and simple, that it needed the double dose of +vanity and ignorance with which the feeble brains of the majority of the +Commune were stuffed to baulk the people of its victory."--_The Paris +Commune of 1871, "Fraser's Magazine,"_ March, 1873. + +"He (Delescluze) had only once dared to attack me to my face, but it +resulted in so much discomfiture to himself, and he came out of the +affair so crestfallen, that for the future he confined himself to +plotting against us behind my back, while to my face he was as civil as +possible."--_Behind the Scenes at the Commune, "Fraser's Magazine,"_ +December, 1872. + + +X.--(Page 250.) + +At the trial of the members of the Commune, the advocate of Assi read a +letter which the prisoners in Germany had sent his client:-- + +"Citizen Assi--So you no longer think, with the Central Committee of the +crapulous, that we are tired of your farces and evolutions without an +aim and without limits.... Woe to you, sink of the people! All possible +reverses will accumulate upon you, and give you, as the whole result of +your acts deprived of common-sense and capacity, the hatred of the +prisoners confined in Germany, and the severe punishment which the +admired representatives of all France will mercilessly inflict upon you. +Once over the frontier, the last of the prisoners will go and plunge +into the heart of the guilty the poniard which is to give back security +to the legal government. Be prepared for the sentence which all the +prisoners in Germany have in store for you.... Death to the insurgents! +Death to the infernal Committee! Tremble, brigands! + +"Seen and approved by all the prisoners of Magdebourg, Erfurt, Coblentz, +Mayence, Berlin," &c. + +The signatures follow. + + +XI.--(Page 267.) + +One of Laroque's reports concluded thus: + +"I send you the names of the friends of order and of the agents who have +rendered the greatest service. Jules Masse, P. Verdier, Sigismond, +Galle, Tarjest, Honobede, Toussaint, Arthur Sellion, Jullia Francisque +Baltead, E. Philips, Salowhicht, Maniel, Dolsand (42d battalion), +Rollin, Verox (seminarist), D'Anthome, Somme, Cremonaty, Tascher de la +Pagerie, Josephine Legros, Jupiter (police agent), the manager of the +Cafe de Suede, the proprietor of the Cafe de Madrid, Lucia, Hermance, +Amelie, little Celestine of the Cafe des Princes, Camille and Laura +(Cafe Peters), Madame du Valdy (Faubourg St. Germain), Leynhass +(brewer). + + +XII.--(Page 268.) + +This is what had passed between the Committee of Public Safety and +Dombrowski:-- + +"The latter came to us one evening and informed us that through the +instrumentality of one of his officers (Hutzinger), Versailles had made +overtures to him, and asked him to appoint a rendezvous. He demanded of +us whether something could not be got out of this for the Commune. We +resolved to let him try the interview on condition that he should tell +us all that passed. That evening we charged somebody to follow and +arrest him if he yielded. From this time Dombrowski was closely +watched--it is thanks to this surveillance that he was not carried off +by the Versaillese who made use of a woman to allure him to the +neighbourhood of the Luxembourg--and I declare we learnt nothing that +was of a nature to weaken our confidence in him. + +"He came the next day, and told us that a million was offered him on +condition that he would betray one of the gates. He gave us the names of +those he had seen; amongst others, there was a confectioner of the Place +de la Bourse, the address of the suborners (8 Rue de la Michaudiere) and +announced another rendezvous for the next day.... He explained to us how +he would entice a few thousand Versaillese into Paris to make them +prisoners. Pyat and I opposed this attempt. He did not insist, but +demanded that the next day 20,000 men and some howitzers should be +provided for him. He had decided on attracting the Versaillese troops by +a surprise within reach of the fortifications.... Of the 20,000 men, +3,000 or 4,000 only could be mustered, and instead of 500 artillerists, +there came only fifty."--_Extract from an account addressed to the +author by a member of the Committee of Public Safety._ + + +XIII.--(Page 274.) + +Here is an extract from the report addressed to the Municipal Council of +Toulouse by the delegates sent to Versailles to M. Thiers and the +deputies of the Extreme Left to inquire into the situation:-- + +"We went then for information to the members of the Extreme Left; Martin +Bernard, the companion and friend of Barbes, Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, +&c. + +"M. Louis Blanc gave us the most precise information. It is useless, +said he to us, to again attempt conciliation; there is too much +animosity on both sides. Besides, with whom could one treat in Paris? +These different and hostile forces dispute for power. + +"First there is the _Commune_, the result of an election at which only a +small number of electors took part, composed chiefly of unknown men, of +doubtful capacities, and some times even of doubtful honour. + +"In the second place, a _Committee of Public Safety_ named by the +Commune, but soon coming to a violent rupture with it because it wanted +to direct dictatorially. + +"In the third place, the _Central Committee_, formed during the siege, +and principally composed of agents of the International, solely occupied +with cosmopolitan interests, and caring very little for Parisian or +French interests; it is this Central Committee which disposes of the +cannon and the munitions, in one word, of almost all the material +forces. + +"To all this must be added the Bonapartist and Prussian influences, +whose more or less apparent action it is easy to trace in all three +powers.[269] + +"The Parisian insurrection," continued M. Louis Blanc, "is legitimate in +its motives and in its first aim--the revindication of the municipal +franchise of Paris. But the intervention of the Central Committee and +the pretension manifested of governing all the other Communes of the +Republic, have quite altered its character. Finally, the insurrection in +the presence of the Prussian army, ready to enter Paris if the Commune +is victorious, is altogether condemnable, and must be condemned by every +true Republican. This is why the mayors of Paris, the Left of the +Assembly, and the Extreme Left, have not hesitated to protest against an +insurrection which the presence of the Prussian army and other +circumstances might render criminal. + +"M. Martin Bernard held the same language, and spoke almost in the same +terms. 'If Barbes still lived,' cried he, 'his heart would have been +rent, and he too would have condemned this fatal insurrection.' + +"All the other persons whom we have been able to see--MM. Henri Martin, +Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Humbert, Victor Lefranc, &c., have spoken to us +in the same way, and this unanimity could not but make a deep impression +upon us." + + +XIV.--(Page 290.) + +This is the textual copy of a report addressed to the Versaillese +general staff:-- + +"The _mot d'ordre_ has been tampered with on the 17th, 18th, and 19th. + +"We had that of Versailles (General Douai's corps). + +"There has been an explosion at the Rapp powder magazine, as I have +already reported to you. There were some dead, and many wounded. + +"A commissary of police of the Commission of Safety has made about forty +arrests. Those made on account of the explosion are estimated to be +about 125. + +"Sergeant Toussaint (3rd battery, 2nd squadron) has been arrested by the +Commune. It is said that this brave officer is shot. + +"The sick, according to our information, had been taken away either the +day before or on the morning of the day of the catastrophe to the Hotel +des Invalides. The workwomen, and not the men, were sent home earlier +that day. + +"The official of the Audit Office of the Hospital du Gros-Caillou, M. +Bernard, has behaved very well. + +"I recommend to the good-will of M. le Ministre, MM. Janvier, Bertalon +(?), Mauduit, Morelli, and Sigismond, men enjoying an excellent +reputation. + +"They desire the cross or an important collectorship. + +"Signal services have been rendered by Madame Brosset, and by +Mademoiselle Gigaud. It is at the latter's house that I hid for eight +days when Rigault's people were searching for me. + +"This woman is very devoted; she lives in the Quartier du Gros Caillou, +Rue Dominique St. Germain. She is the daughter of an ex-officer. She +would be glad to have a tobacconist's shop."--_Report of Commander +Jerriait, Ex-Chief of Squadron._ + + +XV.--(Page 325.) + +This fact was categorically deposed to by M. E. Belgrand, Director of +the Service of Public Roads, before the Commission of Inquiry into the +18th March (vol. iii., p. 352-353). + +"The insurgents attempted nothing with the sewers. In short, I may +affirm that from the 18th March up to the entry of the troops into Paris +there was no attempt at all as to the sewers; that no chambers had been +established there; that no incendiary, or explosive matters had been +introduced, nor wires destined to set fire to mines or to incendiary +matters." + + +XVI.--(Page 329.) + +The _Bien Public_, M. Thiers' organ, directed by Vrignault, published in +its number of the 23rd June, 1871:-- + +"All Paris has preserved the souvenir of that terrible cannonade +directed from Montmartre during the last three days of the civil war +against the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, and the Pere Lachaise. Here are +some very correct details of what was happening then at the summit of +the Butte, behind the batteries at No. 6 Rue des Rosiers. + +"There had been installed in this house, so sadly celebrated, a +provostship, presided over by a captain of Chasseurs. As the inhabitants +of the quarter rivalled each other in zeal in denouncing the insurgents, +the arrests were numerous. As the prisoners arrived they were +questioned. + +"They were forced to kneel down, bare-headed, in silence, before the +wall at the foot of which the unfortunate Generals Lecomte and +Clement-Thomas had been assassinated. They remained thus a few hours, +till others came to take their place. Soon, to lessen what might be +cruel in this _amende honorable_, the prisoners were allowed to sit down +in the shade, but always opposite the wall, the aspect of which prepared +them for death, and shortly after the principal culprits amongst them +were shot. + +"They were taken a few steps from there to the slope of the hill, at the +spot where during the siege a battery overlooked the St. Denis route. It +is there too that Varlin was conducted, whom they had great trouble in +protecting from the violence of the crowd. Varlin had confessed his +name, and made no efforts to escape the fate that awaited him; he died +game. + + V. B." + + +XVII.--(Page 338.) + +The day before, at five o'clock, at the moment when the baggage of the +War Office arrived at the Hotel-de-Ville, in the Avenue Victoria, two +guards, carrying a chest, were assailed with a hatchet, by an individual +dressed in a blouse and wearing a cap. One of the Federals fell dead. +The assassin, immediately seized hold of, cried, 'You are done for! you +are done for! Give me back my hatchet and I shall recommence.' On this +madman the commissary of police of the Hotel-de-Ville found papers and +the _livret_, proving that he had served in the _sergents-de-ville_. + +During the evening of Tuesday, an individual, wearing the uniform of an +officer of a free corps, came to ask for orders at the Hotel-de-Ville. A +commandant of the same corps entered the hall and saw this officer, and +not recognising him, asked his name. The latter grew confused: 'But no, +you are not one of my men,' said the commandant. The individual was +arrested, and found to be the bearer of Versaillese instructions and +orders. + +Treason assumed all shapes. The same morning at Belleville, Place des +Fetes, Ranvier and Frankel heard a drummer reading the Federal Guards +the order not to leave their arrondissements. Ranvier, interrogating the +drummer, learned that the order emanated from General du Bisson. + + +XVIII.--(Page 348.) + +"Colonel Gaillard, chief of the military prisons, interrogated by the +_Commission d'Enquete_ as to the objects of value found on the +insurgents, answered: 'I can give you no information on this head. There +were valuables which have not been sent to Versailles. A few days ago I +saw a minister of Denmark. He came to inquire what had become of a sum +of 100,000 francs seized on one of his compatriots who had been shot +near the Hotel-de-Ville. His minister told me he had been unable to +obtain any information. Many things happened in Paris of which we know +nothing.'"--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars, Colonel Gaillard_, v. 2, p. 246. + + +XIX.--(Page 351.) + +Shall we ever know of all the spurious speculators, the commercial men +with no resources left, the men at the brink of bankruptcy, who made use +of the conflagrations in order to quit scores? How many cried 'Death!' +who had themselves just set the petroleum on fire. + +On the 10th March, 1877, the assize court of the Seine sentenced to ten +years' hard labour a ruined Bonapartist, Prieur de la Comble, found +guilty of having set fire to his house, with the object of getting a +heavy premium from the companies where he was insured. He had prepared +his crime with the greatest _sang froid_, painted the walls, saturated +the hangings with petroleum, made sure of nine different centres of +fire. His father, a former mayor of the first arrondissement, had +failed to the amount of 1,800,000 francs, and at the end of the Empire +there had been proceedings of bankruptcy instituted against him. Now, on +the 24th May, 1871, the house of the accused in the Rue du Louvre, that +of his father in the Rue de Rivoli, that of the assignee of the failure +in the Boulevard Sebastopol, were consumed, and owing to these triple +conflagrations the account-books and vouchers disappeared. This fact was +only mentioned before the assize court, and the president confined +himself to saying that it was odd. He took good care not to interrogate +Prieur; and one knows that the presidents of assize courts are not +usually chary of sifting the antecedents of the accused. + +The motive of this extraordinary reticence is that no blame was to be +thrown upon the army and the courts-martial, which had shot or condemned +some _petroleuses_ for the burning of these very houses set on fire by +Prieur de la Comble. + + +XX.--(Page 368.) + +"... A picket of soldiers debouched from the Rue de Vaugirard on our +left. They marched in two ranks. In the midst of them was Milliere. + +"He was dressed exactly as I had seen him some months before at Bordeaux +on the tribune of the Assembly and in the Republican Circle--black +trousers, dark-blue overcoat, tight and buttoned up, a high black hat. + +"The picket stopped before the door of the Luxembourg. One of the +soldiers, who held his rifle by the end of the barrel, cried, 'It is I +who took him! it is I who am entitled to shoot him!' There were about a +hundred persons there of both sexes and of all ages. Many cried, 'Death +to him! shoot him!' + +"A National Guard, wearing a tricolor armlet, seized hold of Milliere by +the wrist, led him into the corner on the right, and placed him against +the wall, then he retired.... Milliere uncovered himself, placed his hat +on the pedestal of the column, crossed his arms on his breast, and calm +and cool looked at the troops. He waited. + +"Round us the soldiers were being questioned. 'Who is it?' one of them +was asked, and I heard him answer, 'It is Mayer.' + +"A priest came out of the Luxembourg; he wore a straight-cut cassock and +a high hat. Advancing towards Milliere, he spoke a few words to him and +pointed to heaven. + +"Without ostentation, but with a very firm and calm attitude, Milliere +appeared to thank him, and shook his head in sign of refusal. The priest +retired. + +"Two officers came out from the palace and addressed themselves to the +prisoner. One of them, whom the first seemed to guide, spoke to him for +a minute or two. We heard the sound of voices without understanding the +words exchanged, then I heard this command: 'To the Pantheon!' + +"The picket re-formed round Milliere, who put on his hat, and the +cortege remounted the Rue de Vaugirard in the direction of the Pantheon. + +"We reached the rails at the same time as the picket. The door opened +and shut upon them. Placing my feet on the stone balustrade, I passed my +two arms round the top of the bars; my head overlooked them, for these +railings are low. By my side a soldier, the sentry of the interior, +answered some prostitutes who were questioning him; his elbow, leaning +against the rails, touched mine. + +"The picket of the troop had stopped and almost leant against the closed +door. Milliere was led between the two columns of the centre. Arrived at +the spot where he was to die, and after having ascended the last step of +the stairs, he exchanged a few words with the officer. Searching in the +pocket of his overcoat, which he had just unbuttoned, he took out an +object, which I believed to be a letter, and handed it over to him, as +also a watch and a locket. The officer took them, then seized hold of +Milliere and placed him in such a manner that he should be shot from +behind. The latter turned round with a brusque movement, and, his arms +crossed, faced the troop. This is the only movement of indignation or of +anger that I saw him make. + +"Some more words were exchanged; Milliere seemed to be refusing to obey +an order. The officer came down. The instant after, a soldier seized him +who was to be shot by the shoulder and forced him to bend his knee upon +the flagstone. + +"Half the rifles of the platoon only were levelled at him; the others +remained in the arms of the soldiers. During this time, believing his +last moment come, Milliere three times uttered the cry, 'Vive la +Republique!' + +"The officer approaching the picket of the troop, ordered the rifles, +which had been too hurriedly lowered, to be raised again, and then he +pointed out with his sword how the order to fire would be given. + +"'Vive le peuple! Vive l'humanite,' cried Milliere. + +"The soldier on sentry, whose elbow touched my arm, answered the last +words by these: 'On va t'en foutre de l'humanite!' I had hardly heard +them when Milliere fell as if thunderstricken. + +"A military man, whom I believe to have been a non-commissioned officer, +went up the steps, approached the corpse, lowered his rifle, and fired +point-blank near the left temple. The explosion was so violent that the +head of Milliere bounded, and appeared as if twisted back. The rain for +three-quarters of an hour had beaten against his face; the cloud of +powder fixed itself there. + +"Lying on his side, his hands joined, his clothes open and thrown into +disorder by the fall, his head blackened, as if burst open, seeming to +look at the frontispiece of the monument, his corpse was something +terrible...."--_The death of Milliere recounted by M. Louis Mie, +Conseiller-General of the Dordogne, Municipal Counciller of Perigueux, +deputy of Bordeaux to the Chamber._ + + * * * * * + +Madame Milliere having instituted judiciary proceedings against +Staff-Captain Garcin, the murderer of her husband, the trial was cut +short by the following letter:-- + + "VERSAILLES, _30th June 1873_. + +"Captain Garcin of the General Staff attached to the 2d corps, has +during the second siege of Paris only executed the orders given him by +his superiors. He can thus in no way be made responsible for deeds which +were the result of these orders. The responsibility rests exclusively +upon those who have given the orders. + + "The Minister at War, + "DE CISSEY." + + +XXI.--(Page 371.) + +To the number of the innocent victims of our civil discords we have the +sorrow to add the name of a young man, twenty-seven years old, M. +Faneau, a doctor of medicine. + +"Dr. Faneau had worked from the beginning of the war in the +International ambulances. During the whole siege of Paris he did not +cease tending the wounded with zealous devotion. + +"After the revolution of the 18th March he remained in Paris, and +resumed his service in the ambulances. + +"On the 25th May he was on duty at the Grand Seminaire de St. Sulpice, +where the Federals had established an ambulance. + +"When the army had taken possession of the cross-roads of the Croix +Rouge, it advanced as far as the Place. + +"A company of line soldiers came up to the door of the seminary, where +floated the flag of Geneva. + +"The officer who commanded asked to speak to the chief of the ambulance. +Dr. Faneau, who filled this function, presented himself. + +"'Are there any Federals here?' the officer asked him. + +"'I have only wounded,' answered M. Faneau, 'they are Federals, but they +have been in my ambulance for several days.' + +"At the moment when he was concluding these words, a shot was fired from +one of the windows of the first storey, and struck a soldier. + +"This shot was discharged by one of the wounded Federals, who had +dragged himself from his bed to the window.[270] + +"Immediately the officer, exasperated, threw himself upon Dr. Faneau, +crying to him, 'You lie, you have set a snare for us; you are the friend +of these rascals; you are going to be shot.' + +"Dr. Faneau understood that it would be in vain to attempt to justify +himself; also, he offered no resistance to the firing-party. + +"Some minutes after the unfortunate young man fell, struck by ten +bullets. + +"We knew Dr. Faneau, and we can affirm that, far from sympathising with +the members of the Commune, he deplored their fatal errors, and waited +with impatience for the re-establishment of order."--_Le Siecle._ + + +XXII.--(Page 383.) + +In the _National_ of the 29th May appeared the following:-- + + "PARIS, _28th May 1871_. + +"Sir,--Last Friday, at the time when corpses were being picked up in the +Boulevard St. Michel, some individuals of nineteen to twenty-five years +old, dressed as well-to-do people, were seated with gay women inside, +and at the doors of certain cafes of this boulevard, indulging with +these in scandalous merrymaking.--Accept, Monsieur le redacteur, &c., + + "DUHAMEL. + 55 BOULEVARD D'ENFER." + +The facts mentioned above were repeated every day. + +The _Journal de Paris_, a Versaillese journal suppressed by the Commune, +wrote:-- + +"The manner in which the population of Paris manifested its satisfaction +yesterday was rather more than frivolous, and we fear it will grow worse +as time progresses. Paris has now a fete-day appearance, which is sadly +out of place; and unless we are to be called the Parisians of the +decline, this sort of thing must come to an end." Then he quoted the +passage from Tacitus: "Yet on the morrow of that horrible struggle, even +before it was completely over, Rome, degraded and corrupt, began once +more to wallow in the voluptuous slough which was destroying its body +and polluting its soul--_alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi balnea +popinaeque_--'here fights and wounds, there baths and restaurants.'" + + +XXIII.--(Page 384.) + +The Versaillese journals confessed to 1600 prisoners buried in the Pere +Lachaise. The _Opinion Nationale_ of the 10th June said:-- + +"We do not wish to leave the Pere Lachaise without saluting with a look +of Christian compassion these deep trenches, where lie entombed +pell-mell the insurgents taken under arms, and those who would not +surrender. + +"They have expiated their criminal folly by an act of summary justice. +May God pity and have mercy upon them! + +"Let us rectify, in passing, the exaggerated rumours which have been +spread on the subject of the executions at the Pere Lachaise and in the +environs. + +"It appears from certain information--we might almost venture to say +official statements--that there have only been buried in that cemetery, +_shot_ or killed fighting, _sixteen hundred men in all_." + +But the following account of the executions of La Roquette has been +given me by an eye-witness, who barely escaped death:-- + +"I had returned to my house on the Saturday evening. Sunday morning, on +crossing the Boulevard du Prince Eugene, I was taken in a razzia. We +were conducted to La Roquette. A chief of battalion was standing at the +entrance. He surveyed us; then, with a nod of the head, said, 'To the +right,' or 'To the left.' I was sent to the left. 'Your affair is +settled,' the soldiers said to us; 'you are going to be shot, +_canailles!_' We were ordered to throw away our matches if we had any +about us, and then the signal was given to march on. + +"I was the last of the file, and by the side of the sergeant who +conducted us. He looked at me. 'Who are you?' he asked me. 'A professor. +I was taken this morning as I came out of my house.' No doubt my accent, +the elegance of my clothes, struck him, for he added, 'Have you any +papers?' 'Yes.' 'Come!' and he took me back before the chief of +battalion. 'Commander,' said he, 'there is a mistake. This young man +has his papers.' 'All right,' answered the officer, without looking at +me, 'to the right.' + +"The sergeant led me off. As we went along, he explained to me that the +prisoners taken to the left were shot. We had already got to a door on +the right, when a soldier ran after us: 'Sergeant, the commandant says +you are to take back this man to the left.' + +"Fatigue, despair at the defeat, the enervation caused by so much +anguish, deprived me of all strength to dispute my life. 'Well, shoot +me,' said I to the sergeant, 'for you it will be but a crime the more! +only return these papers to my family,' and I turned to the left. + +"I already perceived a long file of men drawn up against a wall, others +lying on the ground. Opposite them three priests read in their +breviaries the prayers of the dying. A few steps more and I was dead, +when suddenly I was seized hold of by the arm. It was my sergeant. He +took me back by force to the officer. 'Commandant,' said he, 'we cannot +shoot this man. He has his papers!' 'Let me see,' said the officer. I +handed over my pocket-book, which contained a card as employe at the +Ministry of Commerce during the first siege. 'To the right,' said the +commandant. + +"There were soon more than 3,000 prisoners on the right. All Sunday and +part of the night detonations resounded by the side of us. On Monday +morning a platoon came in. 'Fifty men,' said the sergeant. We thought we +were going to be shot by parties, and no one stirred. The soldiers took +the first fifty they came across. I was of the number. We were taken to +the famous left side. + +"On a space which seemed to us endless we saw heaps of corpses. 'Pick up +all this rubbish,' said the sergeants to us, 'and put them into these +carts.' We raised up these corpses covered with blood and mud. The +soldiers made frightful jokes; 'See what grimaces they cut,' and with +their heels crushed some face. It seemed to me that some were still +living. We told the soldiers so, but they answered, 'Come, come! get +on!' Certainly some died under the earth. We put 1,907 corpses into +these carts." + +The _Liberte_ of the 4th June said:-- + +"The governor of La Roquette during the Commune, and his acolytes, were +shot on the very scene of their exploits. + +"For the other National Guards arrested in this neighbourhood, and whose +number exceeded 4,000, a provisional court-martial was installed in the +Roquette itself. A commissary of police and police agents of safety were +charged with the first examination. Those appointed to be shot were +sent into the interior; they were killed from behind while they were +walking along, and their bodies were thrown on to the nearest heap. All +these monsters had the faces of bandits; the exceptions were to be +regretted." + + +XXIV.--(Page 384.) + +"At the time of the trial of the members of the Council of the Commune +before the third court-martial sitting at Versailles, a certain M. +Gabriel Ossude came to give evidence as witness against Jourde, in whose +arrest he was concerned, he said, in his quality of provost of the +seventh arrondissement, and as Colonel Merlin, president of the court, +seemed astonished that such a function should have devolved upon a +civilian, M. Ossude entered into very precise explanations, which I +remember perfectly. + +"He declared that towards the end of the Commune the prevotal courts had +been instituted by the Government of Versailles in view of the early +entry of the troops into Paris; that the number and the seats of the +exceptional tribunals had been arranged beforehand, as well as the +topographical limits of their jurisdictions; that he (M. Gabriel Ossude) +had received his nomination from the hands of M. Thiers, although he +held no rank in the army, but as captain of the seventeenth battalion of +the National Guard."--_Letter of Ulysse Parent, Rappel, March 19, 1877._ + + +XXV.--(Page 385.) + +"Near the Ecole Militaire the scene is at this moment very affecting; +prisoners are continually being led there, and their trial is +_terminated_ beforehand. It consists only in detonations."--_Siecle, +28th May._ + +"The courts-martial functioned in Paris with unheard-of activity at +several special points. At the Lobau Barracks, at the Ecole Militaire, +the fusillade is permanently heard. It is the settling of accounts with +those wretches who openly took part in the struggle."--_Liberte, 30th +May._ + +"Since morning (Sunday, 28th May) a strong cordon is being formed round +the theatre (Chatelet), where a court-martial is permanently +established. From time to time one sees a band of fifteen to twenty +individuals coming out, composed of National Guards, civilians, _women +and children fifteen to sixteen years old_. + +"These individuals are condemned to death. They march two and two, +escorted by a platoon of chasseurs, who lead and bring up the +procession. This cortege goes up the Quai de Gevres and enters the +Republican Barracks in the Place Lobau. A minute after one hears from +within the fire of platoons and successive musketry discharges; it is +the sentence of the court-martial which has just been executed. + +"The detachment of chasseurs returns to the Chatelet to fetch other +prisoners. The crowd seems deeply impressed on hearing the noise of the +fusillades."--_Journal des Debats, 30th May, 1871._ + + +XXVI.--(Page 385.) + +A journal of the Belgian bourgeoisie, the _Etoile_, one of the most +violent against the Commune, allowed this avowal to escape it:-- + +"The majority have met death like the Arabs after battle, with +indifference, with contempt, without hatred, without anger, without +insult to their executioners. + +"All the soldiers who took part in these executions, and whom I have +questioned, have been unanimous in their accounts. + +"One of them said to me, 'We shot about forty of these _canailles_ at +Passy. They all died like soldiers. Some crossed their arms, and stood +head erect. Others opened their tunics and cried to us 'Fire! we are not +afraid of death.' + +"Not one of those whom we have shot trembled. I especially remember an +artillerist, who by himself did us more harm than a whole battalion. He +was alone serving a piece of cannon. During three-quarters of an hour he +peppered us with grape shot, and he killed and wounded not a few of my +comrades. At last he was overwhelmed. We had turned his barricade. + +"I still see him. He was a strongly-built man. He was bathed in +perspiration from the service he had done during three-quarters of an +hour. 'Your turn now,' said he to us. 'I have merited shooting, but I +shall die game.' + +"Another soldier of General Clinchant's corps told me how his company +had led to the ramparts eighty-four insurgents taken bearing arms. + +"They all placed themselves in a line, he said to me, as if they were +going to exercise. Not one faltered. One of them who had a handsome +face, wore trousers in fine cloth tucked into his boots, and a Zouave's +belt round his waist, said to us calmly, 'Try to aim at my chest; be +careful not to touch my head.' We all fired, but the poor fellow had +half of his head carried away." + +A functionary of Versailles made me the following recital:-- + +"During the day, Sunday, I made an excursion to Paris. I went by the +Theatre du Chatelet towards the smoking ruins of the Hotel-de-Ville, +when I was surrounded and carried along by the stream of a crowd which +was following a convoy of prisoners. + +"I found among them the same men whom I had seen in the battalions of +the siege of Paris. Almost all seemed to me to be working-men. + +"Their faces betrayed neither despair nor despondency nor emotion. They +walked on with a firm, resolute step, and they seemed to me so +indifferent to their fate that I thought they expected to be released. I +was entirely mistaken. These men had been taken in the morning at +Menilmontant, and knew whither they were being led. Arrived at the Lobau +Barracks, the cavalry officers who preceded the escort had a semi-circle +formed, and prevented the curious from advancing." + + +XXVII.--(Page 385.) + +One of the most ignoble barkers of Versailles, Francisque Sarcey, wrote +in the _Gaulois_ of the 13th June:-- + +"Men who are quite cool, of whose judgment and word I cannot doubt, have +spoken to me with an astonishment mingled with horror of the scenes they +had seen, seen with their own eyes, and which rendered me rather +meditative. + +"Young women, pretty of face, and dressed in silk dresses, came down +into the street, and a revolver in their hands, fired at random, and +then said with proud mien, elevated voice, eyes full of hatred, 'Shoot +me at once!' One of them, who had been taken in a house whence they had +fired from the windows, was about to be bound in order to be taken to +Versailles and judged there. + +"'Come,' said she, 'save me the trouble of the journey!' And placing +herself against a wall, her arms spread open, her breast bare, she +seemed to solicit--to provoke death. + +"All those who have been seen executed thus summarily by furious +soldiers have died, insults on their tongues, with a laugh of contempt, +like martyrs, who in sacrificing themselves accomplish a great duty." + + +XXVIII.--(Page 386.) + +At the time of an action entered against M. Raspail, _fils_, in 1876, +for his pamphlet in favour of an amnesty, the following letter, +addressed to him by M. Hervey de Saisy, senator, was read in court:-- + +"I cannot, for motives of discretion bearing on divers persons, repeat +in this letter the recital which I made you _viva voce_ on the occasion +of which you remind me. However, I wish to answer your courteous appeal +by repeating here the words which served as a reason for the iniquitous +order by which the life of M. Cernuschi was menaced, during the day on +which the troops took possession of the prison of Ste. Pelagie and the +Jardin des Plantes. + +"These are the words pronounced by the general of division who gave the +order of summary execution. Learning that Cernuschi had repaired to the +prison, at the door of which I saw his carriage, he said to some one, +whom I cannot mention, 'Ah! it is Cernuschi, the man of the 100,000 +francs of the plebiscite. Return to the prison, and let him be shot +within five minutes.' + +"Five minutes represented the time that would be required by the bearer +of the order in going to the prison from the Cedre du Jussieu, whence +the general watched the phases of the combat. + +"At first I did not understand this strange phrase, but some moments +after I remembered that it was the expression of a political vengeance +which was about to be exercised against M. Cernuschi for having offered +100,000 francs for the propaganda which the Opposition was to make +during the final plebiscite of the Empire. + +"Profoundly indignant at what I had just heard, I was fortunate enough +to bring about a fortuitous incident to which the already condemned +victim owed his salvation. + +"Such are the details I am able to furnish you with. + + "HERVE DE SAISY." + + +XXIX.--(Page 386.) + +"Some journals of Paris," wrote the _Echo de la Dordogne_, on the 19th +June, 1871, "have repeated that Tony Moilin had been condemned and shot +for having been taken arms in hand on the 27th May. This report is +incorrect. + +"One single fact was Tony Moilin reproached with: that of having on the +18th March taken possession of the mairie of his arrondissement, and +having thus had a share in giving the signal for the insurrection. He +was shown a kind of dismissal given by him on that day to M. Herisson, +the mayor whom he had replaced. No witness was heard. + +"Moilin admitted the fact; then he added that he had exercised the +function of mayor during hardly two days; that at the end of this time, +little in accord with the men of the Commune, he had voluntarily ceased +to appear at the mairie, where he had been immediately replaced. + +"The court-martial asked Moilin to account for his time and his acts +since the day of the entry of the army of Versailles into Paris. He +answered that, known for a long time, especially through the Blois trial +and by his writings, as one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, having +to answer for taking possession of the mairie of the eighth +arrondissement on the 18th March, fearing a too summary justice and the +fury of the first moments, he had sought and found shelter at a +friend's, and that, from the Monday morning till the Saturday night; ... +that on the Saturday evening, the 27th March, this friend had asked his +guest to leave his retreat, and that on leaving this inhospitable house, +discouraged, not seeking any longer to defend his liberty, nor even his +life, he had returned to his home, where, on the denunciation of his +porter and his neighbours, he had been almost directly afterwards +arrested and taken before the court-martial at the Luxembourg. + +"To this recital was confined the defence of Tony Moilin, who was +immediately condemned to death. The court-martial _condescended to tell +him that the fact of the mairie, the only one he could be reproached +with, had in itself not much importance, and did not merit death, but +that he was one of the chiefs of the Socialist party, dangerous through +his talents, his character, and his influence over the masses; one of +those men, in short, of whom a prudent and wise Government must rid +itself when it finds a legitimate occasion to do so_. + +"Tony Moilin could only be satisfied with the urbanity (_sic_) of the +members of the court. Without any difficulty a respite of twelve hours +was granted him in order that he might make his testament, write a few +words of farewell to his father, and finally give his name to the woman +who had, during the Blois trial and since, shown him the greatest +devotion. These duties fulfilled, on the 28th May, in the morning, Tony +Moilin was led into the garden a few steps from the palace and shot. His +body, which his widow claimed, the surrender of which had been at first +promised, was refused her." + + +XXX.--(Page 386.) + +This assassination also stands to the debit account of Garcin. Let us +again allow him to speak. + +"Billioray at first attempted to deny his identity. He wanted to rush +upon a soldier; he was a man of athletic strength.... He defended +himself, he foamed with rage. There was hardly time to interrogate him. +He began some tale about money, whose place of concealment he could +indicate. He spoke of 150,000 francs; then he interrupted himself, in +order to say to me, 'I see you are going to have me shot. It is useless +for me to say any more.' I said to him, 'You persist?' 'Yes.' He was +shot."--_Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 234. + + +XXXI--(Page 386.) + +"The event took place on Thursday, 25th May, at a few minutes past six +in the evening, in the small Rue des Pretres-Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. +Valles was coming out of the Theatre du Chatelet, led off by the +firing-party charged to shoot him. He wore a black coat, and light +trousers of a yellowish shade. He wore no hat; and his beard, which he +had shaved but lately, was very short, and already getting grey. + +"On entering the lane where the ominous sentence was to be carried out, +the sentiment of self-preservation gave him back the energy which seemed +to have abandoned him. He wanted to fly; but, held back by the soldiers, +he got into a horrible fury, crying 'Murder!' writhing, seizing his +executioners by the throat, biting them, offering, in one word, a +desperate resistance. + +"The soldiers were beginning to be embarrassed and a little moved at +this horrible struggle, when one of them passing behind gave him such a +furious blow in the loins with the butt-end of his gun that the +unfortunate man fell with a low groan. + +"No doubt the spinal column was broken. They then fired some shots with +their revolvers straight into his body, and pierced him with bayonet +thrusts. As he was still breathing, one of the executioners approached +and discharged his chassepot into his ear. Part of the skull burst open; +his body was abandoned in the gutter till some one came to pick it up. + +"It is then that the spectators of this scene approached, and despite +the wounds that disfigured him, were able to establish his +identity."--_Account by a Military Surgeon published in the Gaulois._ + + +XXXII.--(Page 392.) + +The _Radical_ of the 30th May, 1872, published the following letter from +an employe at St. Thomas d'Acquin, who during the Commune had rendered +the Versaillese the service of preventing the firing of the cannons of 8 +cm. breechloaders:-- + +"_To Monsieur le Comte Daru, President of the Committee of Inquiry into +the Insurrection of the 18th March, Versailles._ + +"Monsieur le President,--I have just read in a book, which is entitled +_Enquete Parlementaire sur l'Insurrection du 18 Mars_, under the head, +_Evidence of witnesses_, the following evidence by the Staff-Captain +Garcin:-- + +"'All those who were arrested under arms were shot during the first +moments, that is to say, during the combat. But when we were masters of +the left bank there were no more executions.' + +"In the report of Marshal MacMahon on the operations of the army of +Versailles against insurgent Paris, I find the following declaration:-- + +"'In the evening of the 25th May the whole left bank was in our power, +as also the bridges of the Seine.' + +"The evidence of Captain Garcin is unfortunately contrary to the truth. +Four days after the 25th May my son and fourteen other unhappy victims +were killed at the Dupleix Barracks, situated on the left bank, near the +Ecole Militaire. + +"On the 31st August I addressed the Minister of Justice a complaint on +this subject, of which I send you a correct copy. After having related +the facts with regard to my son, I demanded that the law should search +for and punish the culprits. + +"Up to the present time the law has remained deaf to my claims, +notwithstanding the publicity I have given this complaint, in order to +prove the disappearance of my child. + +"If it were true, as Captain Garcin declares, that orders had been given +by the general commander-in-chief of the troops of the left bank to put +an end to these executions after the evening of the 25th May; if again +it were true that Marshal MacMahon had by his despatch of the 28th May +given the order to suspend all executions, as the Colonel presiding over +the court-martial at the trial of the members of the Commune +declared--the officer of the gendarmerie, named Roncol, who ordered the +massacres at the Dupleix Barracks, and his accomplices should have been +prosecuted for having, in contempt of the orders of the chief of the +army, had unfortunate people killed who had taken no part in the +combat. + +"Thus, horrible fact, in the morning of the 29th May, while I was giving +up the cannon at St. Thomas d'Acquin, which my son and I had sworn on +our honour to preserve for the state, and for which we had risked our +lives, my son was being massacred at the end of a stable by those who +ought to have protected him. + +"In consequence of these facts, which I have just made public, I beg +Monsieur le President to be so obliging as to have the evidence of +Captain Garcin rectified, which is on this point of the executions +entirely contrary to truth.--I have the honour, Monsieur le President, +&c., + + (Signed) "G. LAUDET." + +"The correct copy of this was addressed in a registered letter of the +28th March, 1872, under the number 158, to M. le Comte Daru, who has +acknowledged the receipt of it. + + "G. LAUDET." + "PARIS, _23rd May 1872_." + + +XXXIII.--(Page 393.) + +"It is in the Bois de Boulogne that those condemned to death by the +court-martial will for the future be executed. Whenever the number of +the condemned shall exceed ten men the execution platoons will be +replaced by a mitrailleuse."--_Paris Journal, 9th June._ + +"All circulation is forbidden in the Bois de Boulogne. + +"One is forbidden to enter there, unless accompanied by a platoon of +soldiers, and still more forbidden to come out again."--_Paris Journal, +15th June._ + + +XXXIV.--(Page 395.) + +"One man, a swarthy, burly fellow, with a shock head of black hair, sat +down at the corner of the Rue de la Paix and declined to go any further, +shaking his fist at the people and grinding his teeth. After several +attempts at coercive measures, one of the soldiers lost all patience, +and drove his bayonet twice into his body, telling him to get up and +walk on like the rest. As might have been expected, this method was not +successful, and so he was seized and placed on a horse, from which he +speedily threw himself, and was then tied to its tail, and dragged along +the ground after the manner of Brunhilda. He soon became faint from loss +of blood, and having thus been reduced to a quiescent state, was bundled +into an ambulance waggon, and carried off amid the shouts and +execrations of the populace."--_Times, May 31st._ + +"Another prisoner, who had also refused to march, was dragged by the +hands and hair of the head along the road."--_Times, May 30th._ + +"Near the Parc Monceaux a husband and wife were seized, and ordered to +march forward towards the Place Vendome, a distance of a mile and a +half. They were both of them invalids and unable to walk so far. The +woman sat down on the kerbstone, and declined to move a step in spite of +her husband's entreaties that she would try. She persisted in her +refusal, and they both knelt down together, begging the gendarmes who +accompanied them to shoot them at once if shot they were to be. Twenty +revolvers were fired, but they still breathed, and it was only at the +second discharge that they finally sank down dead. The gendarmes then +rode away, leaving the bodies as they had fallen."--_Times, May 29th._ + + +XXXV.--(Page 396.) + +The conservative paper, the _Tricolore_, said on the 31st May:-- + +"Sunday morning, the 24th, out of more than _two thousand_ Federals, one +hundred and eleven of them have been shot in the ditches of Passy, and +that under circumstances which show that the victory [the conclusion of +this nonsensical phrase must be given in the original] _etait entree +dans toute la maturite de la situation_. + +"'Let those who have white hairs step out from the ranks!' said General +Gallifet, who presided at the execution, and the number of grey-headed +Federals amounted to one hundred and eleven! + +"For these the aggravating circumstance was having been contemporaries +of June, 1848. + +"There is here a new _retro-syncopante_ theory which might take us a +long way back." + +The _Liberte_ of Brussels published the following declaration, signed by +eve-witnesses, of the facts which had occurred at La Muette on the 26th +May, 1871:-- + +"On the 26th of last May we formed part of the column of prisoners who +had left the Boulevard Malesherbes at eight o'clock in the morning in +the direction of Versailles. We stopped at the Chateau of La Muette, +where General Gallifet, after having dismounted from his horse, passed +into our ranks, and then making a choice, he pointed out to the troops +eighty-three men and three women. They were taken away along the talus +of the fortifications and shot before us. After this exploit the General +said to us: '_My name is Gallifet. Your journals in Paris have sullied +me enough. I take my revenge._' + +"Thence we were directed to Versailles, where during the journey we were +again obliged to assist at frightful executions of two women and three +men, who, falling down exhausted and being unable to keep up with the +column, were killed with bayonet-thrusts by the _sergents de ville_ +forming our escort." + +The names followed, with the professions and addresses of the signers, +to the number of eleven. + + * * * * * + +"The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich and was drawn up +four or five deep on the footway facing to the road. General the Marquis +de Gallifet and his staff, who had preceded us there, dismounted, and +commenced an inspection from the left of the line and near where I was. +Walking down slowly, and eyeing the ranks as if at an inspection, the +General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or +beckoning him out of the rear-ranks. In most cases, without further +parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of +the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed.... +They evidently knew too well that their last hour had come, and it was +fearfully interesting to see their different demeanours. One, already +wounded, his shirt soaked with blood, sat down in the road and howled +with anguish; ... others wept in silence; two soldiers, presumed +deserters, pale but collected, appealed to all the other prisoners as to +whether they had ever seen them amongst their ranks; some smiled +defiantly.... It was an awful thing to see one man thus picking out a +batch of his fellow-creatures to be put to a violent death in a few +minutes without further trial.... A few paces from where I stood, a +mounted officer pointed out to General Gallifet a man and woman for some +particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself +on her knees and with outstretched arms implored mercy, and protested +her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and +then, with most impassable face and unmoved demeanour, said: 'Madame, I +have visited every theatre in Paris; your acting will have no effect on +me' (ce n'est pas la peine de jouer la comedie).... I followed the +General closely down the line, still a prisoner, but honoured with a +special escort of two chasseurs-a-cheval, and endeavoured to arrive at +what guided him in his selections. The result of my observations was +that it was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, +dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one's neighbour. One individual +in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the +ills of this world to his having a broken nose on what might have been +otherwise an ordinary face, and being unable from his height to conceal +it. Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the +column resumed its marching, leaving them behind. In a few minutes +afterwards, a dropping fire in our rear commenced and continued for over +a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily convicted +wretches."--_The Daily News, June 8, 1871._ + +"Yesterday (Sunday, 28th), about one o'clock, General Gallifet appeared +at the head of a column of 6,000 prisoners.... Upon their haggard +countenances and in their downcast eyes there was no ray of hope to be +seen. They were evidently prepared for the worst fate, and dragged +listlessly along, as though it were not worth while to walk to +Versailles to be shot when an immediate execution might save them the +trouble. M. de Gallifet seemed to be of the same opinion, and a little +beyond the Arc-de-Triomphe he halted the column, selected eighty-two, +and had them shot there and then. A little after this a band of twenty +Pompiers were marched into the Parc Monceaux and executed."--_The Times, +May 31, 1871._ + + +XXXVI.--(Page 438.) + +Here is a copy of a letter addressed to the Versaillese general staff, +and probably still in its possession, and bearing the number 28 ibis:-- + +"_To the Chief of the General Staff._ + +"General--I have been mistaken for a M. de Beaufond, and this annoys me +all the more, that negligences committed by him are imputed to me. + +"I have certainly not wasted my time during this period of fifteen days. +I have organised quite a legion of combatants. Their order is to run +away on the approach of the troops, and thus to throw the ranks of the +Federals into disorder. + +"The means indicated by the Committee of A---- seems to be practicable. I +will make use of it. With only one hundred drunkards one can do many a +thing." + + +XXXVII.--(Page 444.) + +This, according to the, of course, very approximate report of General +Appert, is the contingent furnished by the different professions:--528 +jewellers, 124 pasteboard makers, 210 hatters, 328 carpenters, 1,065 +clerks, 1,491 shoemakers, 206 dressmakers, 172 gilders, 636 +cabinetmakers, 1,598 commercial employes, 98 instrument makers, 227 +tin-workers, 224 founders, 182 engravers, 179 watchmakers, 819 +compositors, 159 stained paper printers, 106 teachers, 2,901 day +labourers, 2,293 bricklayers, 1,659 joiners, 193 lace-makers, 863 +house-painters, 106 bookbinders, 283 sculptors, 2,664 locksmiths and +mechanicians, 681 tailors, 347 tanners, 157 moulders, 766 stone-cutters. + + +XXXVIII.--(Page 463.) + +Notably in the affair of the spy of the Hautes-Bruyeres, for which +several persons had already been condemned. This spy--a young man of +twenty, and not a child, as the reactionists have stated--had attracted +the shells of the enemy to the Federal positions. Brought before a +court-martial, composed of La Cecilia, commander of the army corps, of +Johannard, delegate of the Commune, and of all the chiefs of battalions, +he admitted having taken the Versaillese the plan of the Federal +positions, and having received twenty francs as reward. He was +unanimously condemned to death. At the moment of the execution, +Johannard and Grandier, La Cecilia's aide-de-camp, explained to the +condemned man that he would be pardoned if he would reveal the name of +his accomplice, an inhabitant of Montrouge. He replied, "You are +brigands. _Je vous emm...._" This fact, odiously travestied, has +furnished Victor Hugo, very ill informed as to this civil war, with a +verse for his "Annee Terrible," as unjust to Johannard as to Serizier, +one of the men shot at Satory. The great poet owes himself a disclaimer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[269] Thiers and Jules Favre themselves have calumniated Paris less than +Louis Blanc. The first says in the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. +15: "_It is not true, as has been asserted, that I had great +difficulties with the Prussian Government concerning the Commune, or +that it had any predilection for the latter._" Jules Favre, vol. ii. p. +49; "_I have seen nothing that could authorise me to accuse either the +Bonapartists or Prussia. General Trochu has been mistaken. I have seen +nothing that could authorise me to accuse the Bonapartists of having +fomented the 18th March. After the insurrection of the 18th March, I +spent my time in refusing the offers which were made me by the Prussians +to assist in the overthrow of the Commune._" + +[270] The _Siecle_, in search of attenuating circumstances for the army, +had invented this more than phantasmagorial incident. + + +THE END. + + + + + +---------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page xii CREUSOT changed to CREUZOT | + | Page xii ANSNIERES changed to ASNIERES | + | Page 10 wantel changed to wanted | + | Page 10 Strasburg changed to Strasbourg | + | Page 12 unheard-off changed to unheard-of | + | Page 13 phrenzy changed to frenzy | + | Page 16 Lafrancais changed to Lefrancais | + | Page 29 seing changed to seeing | + | Page 39 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 51 D'Aurelle's changed to D'Aurelles's | + | Page 75 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 78 posession changed to possession | + | Page 81 baracks changed to barracks | + | Page 81 Champs changed to Champ | + | Page 82 Brunei changed to Brunel | + | Page 85 Dou changed to Do | + | Page 85 obstain changed to abstain | + | Page 106 VEMDOME changed to VENDOME | + | Page 109 oppresion changed to oppression | + | Page 116 Arnand changed to Arnaud | + | Page 116 Beuit changed to Bouit | + | Page 134 Commisssion changed to Commission | + | Page 141 curassiers changed to cuirassiers | + | Page 147 motionles changed to motionless | + | Page 161 Thiesz changed to Theisz | + | Page 167 Molineaux changed to Moulineaux | + | Page 169 kepis changed to kepis | + | Page 171 COMMUME changed to COMMUNE | + | Page 180 battailons changed to battalions | + | Page 181 seing changed to seeing | + | Page 190 ASNIERES changed to ASNIERES | + | Page 192 Slaav changed to Slav | + | Page 202 is changed to it | + | Page 204 Bourdeaux changed to Bordeaux | + | Page 213 Offiee changed to Office | + | Page 224 themelves changed to themselves | + | Page 244 aut changed to out | + | Page 246 Galiffet changed to Gallifet | + | Page 250 haid changed to said | + | Page 254 Aout changed to Aout | + | Page 261 Gamlon changed to Gambon | + | Page 270 Afer changed to After | + | Page 277 Montargies changed to Montargiss | + | Page 280 Sebastien changed to Sebastien | + | Page 302 voll. changed to vol. | + | Page 309 batallion changed to battalion | + | Page 319 de changed to the | + | Page 323 Sarragossa changed to Saragossa | + | Page 329 Pigale changed to Pigalle | + | Page 330 carefuly changed to carefully | + | Page 333 Hausman changed to Hausmann | + | Page 332 run changed to ran | + | Page 397 und changed to and | + | Page 408 sergeants changed to sergents | + | Page 435 Verdagner changed to Verdagnier | + | Page 440 Boidenemetz changed to Boisdenemetz | + | Page 443 Quinsonnaz changed to Quinsonnas | + | Page 462 intransigeants changed to intransigents | + | Page 465 fvom changed to from | + | Page 465 Committe changed to Committee | + | Page 471 Meillot changed to Maillot | + | Page 485 Perigeux changed to Perigueux | + | Page 487 proclia changed to proelia | + | Page 487 cemetry changed to cemetery | + +---------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's History of the Commune of 1871, by P. 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