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Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Appendices I The Central Committee found in 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 cannons into the air, according to Noel’s method. Unbutton — your mouth, of course. Yours, Guiod The Noel mentioned at that time commanded Mount Valerien. II The role of the Central Committee during the day of the 18th March. (Extract from an account addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee) 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 posters. 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 organize 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 school-room, 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 sub-lieutenant, 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 notices transmitted to one of the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organized a sort of prison in the courtyard. I also saw a march past of 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-l�gion the day before. Varlin, who came immediately after me, had set out again in order to organize 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 midday 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 who were 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 is 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 Ch�teau d'Eau. Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being waited for. Duval had established himself at the Panth�on, and waited. Faltot sent us a note in these words: ‘I have five or six battalions in the Rue de S�vres;
Faltot sent us a note in these words: ‘I have five or six battalions in the Rue de S�vres; 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 H�tel-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. III Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this Revolution, M. M�line, 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 M�line 30th March, 1871. IV 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 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 stayed 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 wagon with two horses harnessed to it, whose driver had just been wounded, he mounted the horses and saved the wagon. — Eug�ne L�on Vanvi�re, thirteen and a half years old, contrived to save the guns at the outpost of the Porte-Meillot, in spite of his wound. VI The prefect of police, Valentin, sent the following circular to the commissaries of the different railway stations: Versailles, 15th April 1871 The chief of the executive power has just decided that, dating from today, 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 ... etc. The delegate to the functions of prefect of police. Valentin VII Extract from an account addressed to the author by Theisz: ... 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 recognize 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 Communist 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 employees 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 employees were arriving for the first delivery. A manuscript notice, posted in all the rooms and courts, ordered the employees to abandon their services, and repair to Versailles, under pain of dismissal. I tore down these posters 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 employees 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, threatening. At last I gave the order to each one to return to his respective bureau. Thereupon a valued auxiliary came up, Citizen A — an employee 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 heads of departments 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 heads of departments. Citizen C — was placed at the head of the postal service for Paris. All the divisional offices, 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 commissar 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 offices opened by locksmiths in the presence of the commissars 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 poster. At the end of forty-eight hours A. and B. had reorganized 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 boxes of the offices for ten miles round.
Secret agents went to throw them into 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 offices of Versailles. If the offices 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 disorganize 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. VIII The limits of this Appendix oblige me to make a r�sum� 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 employees, to make up the list, had fled. The collectors were replaced by forty citizens, some working men 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 employees 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 Haur�au came down, tried to negotiate, and then went up again to his apartments. Haur�au took advantage of the occasion to protest his republicanism, said he was a former editor of the National, a friend of Marrast, Arago, etc., and that the movement of the 18th March had no raison d'�tre 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 Deren�mesnil, 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 posted up 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 employees 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 posting up the decrees and proclamations, Debock advised the workmen bill-stickers to organize 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 working men and women, and a week’s to the employees.
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, employees etc. After this date the expenses did not reach 20,000 francs a week, the expenses of postering 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 H�tel-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 posters which appeared on the following days were printed by his order. IX 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 m 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 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 dagger 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, etc. The signatures follow. XI 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 (42nd battalion), Rollin, Verox (seminarist), D'Anthome, Somm�, Cremonaty, Tascher de la Pagerie, Josephine Legros, Jupiter (police agent), the manager of the Caf� de Suede, the proprietor of the Caf� de Madrid, Lucia, Hermance, Am�lie, little Celestine of the Caf� des Princes, Camille and Laura (Caf� Peters), Madame du Valdy (Faubourg Si. Germain), Leynhass (brewer). XII This is what had passed between the Committee of Public Safety and Dombrowski. (Extract from an account addressed to the author by a member of the Committee of Public Safety): 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 Michaudi�re) 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.
XIII 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, etc. 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 sometimes 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. The Parisian insurrection (continued M. Louis Blanc) is legitimate in its motives and in its first aim — the demand for 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 Barb�s 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, Barth�lemy St. Hilaire, Humbert, Victor Lefranc, etc., have spoken to us in the same way, and this unanimity could not but make a deep impression upon us. (Thiers and Jules Favre themselves have calumniated Paris less than Louis Blanc. The first says in the Enqu�te 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 authorize me to accuse either the Bonapartists or Prussia. General Trochu has been mistaken. I have seen nothing that could authorize me to accuse the Bonapartists of having fomented the ]8th March. After the insurrection of the ]8th March, I spent my time in refusing the offers which were made me by the Prussians to assist in the overthrow of the Commune.') XIV 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 commissar 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. Seargeant 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 H�tel des Invalides. The work-women. 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. 1 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.
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 A categorical deposition of this fact was made 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 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 The day before, at five o'clock, at the moment when the baggage of the War Office arrived at the H�tel-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 commissar of police of the H�tel-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 H�tel-de-Ville. A commandant of the same corps entered the hall and saw this officer, and not recognizing 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 Colonel Gaillard, chief of the military prisons, interrogated by the Commision 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 H�tel-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, Vol. 2, p. 246.) XIX 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 settle scores?
246.) XIX 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 settle 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 sangfroid, 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 The death of Milli�re is recounted as follows by M. Louis Mie, Conseiller-General of the Dordogne, Municipal Councillor of Perigeux and deputy of Bordeaux to the Chamber: A picket of soldiers emerged from the Rue de Vaugirard on our left. They marched in two ranks. In the midst of them was Milli�re. 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 Milli�re by the wrist, led him into the corner on the right, and placed him against the wall, then he retired. Milli�re 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 Milli�re, he spoke a few words to him and pointed to heaven. Without ostentation, but with a very firm and calm attitude, Milli�re 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 or voices without understanding the words exchanged, then I heard this command: ‘To the Pantheon!' The picket re-formed round Milli�re, 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 thew 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. Milli�re was led between the two columns of the centre. Arriving at the spot where he was to die, and after having ascended the last step of the stain, 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 Milli�re 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; Milli�re 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, Milli�re 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 le Peuple! Vive l'humanit�’ cried Milli�re. 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 Milli�re fell as if thunder-stricken. 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 Milli�re 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 to behold ... Madame Milli�re 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 2nd 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 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. [The Siecle, in search of attenuating circumstances for the army, had invented this more than phantasmagorial incident. — L.] 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 sympathizing with the members of the Commune, he deplored their fatal errors, and waited with impatience for the re-establishment of order. (Le Siecle.) XXII 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 R�dacteur, etc., 55 Boulevard D'Enfer. Duhamel. 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 f�te-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 The Versaillese journals confessed to 1600 prisoners buried in the P�re Lachaise. The Opinion Nationale of the 10th June said: We do not wish to leave the P�re 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 P�re Lachaise and in the environs.
Let us rectify, in passing, the exaggerated rumours which have been spread on the subject of the executions at the P�re 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 Eug�ne, 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 employee 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 Libert� 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 commissar of police and police security agents 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 onto the nearest heap. All these monsters had the faces of bandits; the exceptions were to be regretted.
the exceptions were to be regretted. XXIV 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 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 detonation s. (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 shooting is permanently heard. It is the settling of accounts with those wretches who openly took part in the struggle. (Libert�, 30th May.) Since morning (Sunday, 28th May) a strong cordon is being formed round the theatre (Ch�telet); 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 by two, escorted by a platoon of chasseurs, who lead and bring up the rear. 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 shootings. (Journal des D�bats, 30th May, 1871) XXVI A journal of the Belgian bourgeoisie, the Erode, 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 Th��tre du Chatelet towards the smoking ruins of the H�tel-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.
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 semicircle formed, and prevented the curious from advancing. XXVII 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 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. Herv� 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 Sainte P�lagie 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 st~ 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. Herv� De Saisy. XXIX From the Echo de la Dordogne, 19th June, 1871: Some journals of Paris 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. H�risson, 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 leaders of the Socialist party, having no 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 tin the Saturday night; ... that on the Saturday evening, the 27th May, 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 du 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 leaders 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 mot 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 to 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 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. (Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 234.) XXXI Account by a Military Surgeon published in the Gaulois. The event took Place on Thursday 25th May, at a few minutes past six in the evening, in the small Rue des Pr�tres-Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Valles was coming out of the Th��tre du Ch�telet, 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 someone 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. XXXII The Radical of the 30th May, 1872, published the following letter from an employee 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 Enqu�te 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 Pr�sident 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 Pr�sident, etc., 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 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 machine-gun. (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 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 wagon, and carried off amid the shouts and execrations of the populace. — (Times, 31st May.) Another prisoner, who had also refused to march, was dragged by the hands and hair of the head along the road. (Times, 30th May.) 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, 29th May.) XXXV The conservative Paper, the Tricolor, 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] �tait entr�e dans toute la maturit� 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-synopante theory which might take us a long way back. The Libert� of Brussels published the following declaration, signed by eyewitnesses, 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. W e 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 la peine de jouer la com�die)...
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. (Daily News, 8th June, 1871) Yesterday (Sunday 28th May) 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. (Times, 31st May, 1871) XXXVI Here is a copy of a letter addressed to Me Versaillese general staff, and probably still in its possession, bearing the number 28 bis: To the Chief of the General Staff General, I have been mistaken for a M. de Beaufond, and this annoys me all the more in that negligences committed by him are imputed to me. I have certainly not wasted my time during this period of fifteen days. I have organized quite a legion of combatants. Their order is to run away at 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 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 cabinet makers, 1,598 commercial employees, 98 instrument makers, 227 tin-workers, 224 founders, 182 engrave rs, 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 moulers, 766 stone-cutters. XXXVIII Notably in the affair of the spy of the Hautes-Bruy�res, for which several persons had already been condemned. This spy — a young man of twenty, and not a child, as the reactionaries have stated — had attracted the shells of the enemy to the Federal positions. Brought before a court-martial, composed of La C�cilia, 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 C�cilia’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 for his Annus Terrible, as unjust to Johannard as to S�rizier, one of the men shot at Satory. The great poet owes himself a disclaimer. Contents \| Notes \| Glossary The Civil War in France \| Paris Commune Archive
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter VIII Proclamation of the Commune A considerable part of the population and the National Guard of Paris calls on the support of the departments for the re-establishment of order. (Circular from Thiers to the Prefects, 27th March.) 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 caf�s were noisy; the same lad cried out the Paris Journal and the Commune; the attacks against the H�tel-de-Ville, the protestation of a few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the posters 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, filed 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 leisured classes had rushed to the provinces, there to recover 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 role 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 recognized 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 H�tel-de-Ville there to install 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, artillerymen, 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 H�tel-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 square, and piled their bayonets, lit up by the sun, in front of the H�tel-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, symbolizing the advent of the people. While the square was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played the Marseillaise and the Chant du D�part, trumpets sounded the charge, and the cannon of the old Commune thundered on the quay.
While the square was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played the Marseillaise and the Chant du D�part, 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 square evacuated on the one hand, brought in those battalions that were outside, 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 demonstration.’ 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 see. 187,000 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 decentralization 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 fast 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 decentralization 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XVI The Manifesto and 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 by-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 draft, 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 organization 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 organization 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 realization 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, unorganized, 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 centralization,’ 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, in spite of some generous ideas, contribute much to the enlightenment of the provinces.
It was only a draft. 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 H�tel-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 1,100 votes was admitted, another with 2,500 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 Labi�nus,[a book dealing with the abuses of the Second Empire] 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 F�lix Pyat. Since the 1st April, scenting the coming storm and professing the same horror for blows as Panurge, F�lix 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 H�tel-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. If he wanted the journals suppressed, he signed ‘Le Vengeur'; if he wanted to cajole, he signed F�lix Pyat. The defeat of Asni�res 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 F�lix 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 condemned the suppression of several reactionary papers demanded many and many a time by F�lix 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 F�lix 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, 1 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 H�tel-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.
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 F�lix Pyat he knew that impossible — but the death that makes the future fruitful. F�lix 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 hare species called Vermorel a ‘worm.’ 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 F�lix 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 H�tel-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 employees, 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XXXII The Versaillese fury We are honest men: justice will be done in accordance with the ordinary laws. (Thiers to the National Assembly, 22nd May 1871. Honest, honest Iago! (Shakespeare.) 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 camage, 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 Vend�me, 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 Caf� du Helder, recounted the taking of the Ch�teau 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! Today 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 posted up 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 P�re la Chaise 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. It was butchery, nothing more, nothing less. At other places the prisoners were conducted before the prevotal courts, with which Paris swarmed since the Monday. These had not sprung up at random, 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 Ch�telet 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 sabres between their legs, cigars in their mouths. 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 Ch�telet, 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.
From the Ch�telet, 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 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 organized, at the Caserne Dupleix, the Lyc�e 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, enraged 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 p�kins. 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 Vend�me they shot a pseudo-Brunel in the apartments of Madame Fould. The Gaulois published the recital by a military surgeon who knew Vall�s, and was present at his execution ‘[213] an eye-witness declared he had seen Lefran�ais shot on the Thursday in the Rue de la Banque. The real Billioray was tried in the month of August; Brunel, Vall�s, and Lefran�ais 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 recognized 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 did, but to instruct and enfranchise the people. He was the heart and soul of the working men’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;
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 shooting they cried encore. I quote at random, 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 Universal). ‘Come, honest people, an effort to make an end of this international democratic 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 D�bats. ‘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 the 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 arrondissment, 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 recognized, 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-fusilier 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 dishonour 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 sixtythree 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 plague was coming, if pity did not. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The Avenir Lib�ral 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?
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 plagues 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 wagons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid masses. The cemetries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled enormous ditches at the P�re la Chaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where the people in pious rememberance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, Bic�tre, etc. the trenches dug during the first siege were utilized. ‘There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations,’ said La Libert� ‘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 recognize 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter VI Reorganization of the Public Services I thought the Paris insurgents would be unable to steer their own ship. (Jules Favre, Inquiry into the 18th of March.) 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 H�tel-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 today 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 H�tel-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 H�tel-de-Ville was to ask their fives, 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 news posters 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 entrusted 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 H�tel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands.’[93] By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel the deputies and the mayors posted up 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 Ch�tillon and S�vres, and protect the approaches to the Assembly with a few machine-guns. The President, Gr�vy, who during the whole war had cowered in the provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by stigmatizing 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 least delay the elections of Paris, then another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. Milli�re 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 Shakespeare only could depict, the gloomy man who had softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own treason upon the revolutionaries, 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 two generals in uniform in a train arriving from Orl�ans. 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. [94] 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 barque’? 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. Taxes, 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 extemporized. 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.[95] M. Thiers had tried to disorganize 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 lower 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 employees 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 newcomers. 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 today 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. [96] The delegates took away a million francs in bank notes. All the employees 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 organization of the resistance.
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 organization 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, entrusted with this mission, had the forts of Ivry, Bic�tre, Montrouge, Vanves, and Issy occupied on the 19th and 20th. The last to which he sent the National Guard, Mont-Val�rien, 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-Val�rien 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-Val�rien. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XXVIII The street battles continue 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 C�cilia, accompanied by the members of the Council, Lefran�ais, 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 artillery men 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 Dimitriev 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. P�tersbourg and the 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 Carri�res, and Ladmirault, master of the St. Ouen Avenue, turned on their barricade by the Montmartre Cemetery. About twenty guards refused to surrender, and were at once shot by the Versaillese. In the rear, the Des Epinettes district still held out for a time; at last all resistance ceased, and about nine o'clock the entire Batignolles belonged to the army. The H�tel-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 wagons he met Ferr�, and, with the smile familiar to him, said, ‘Well, Ferr�, the members of the minority fight.’ ‘The members of the majority will do their duty,’ answered Ferr�. Generous emulation of these men, who were both devoted to the people, and who were to die so nobly. Vermorel could not take his wagons as far as Montmartre, the Versaillese already surrounding the heights. Masters of the Batignolles, they had but to stretch out their hand to seize upon Montmartre. The Buttes seemed dead; during the night panic had 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 huff. Despite his despatches and the promises of the H�tel-de-Ville, La C�cilia had received neither reinforcements nor munitions. At nine o'clock, no longer hearing the cannon of the Buttes, he hurried up, and found the gunners 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 Chauss�e Clignancourt. From time to time some shots were fired from a few houses; forthwith frightened columns came to a standstill and began regular sieges. These 20,000 men, who completely surrounded Montmartre, helped by the artillery established on the platform 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 afterwards the troops reached the Ch�teau-Rouge.
At eleven o'clock the cemetery was taken, and shortly afterwards the troops reached the Ch�teau-Rouge. In the environs there were some shootings, but the few obstinate men who still fought were soon killed, or withdrew discouraged at their isolation. The Versailles, scrambling up to the Buttes by all the slopes that lead to them, at midday 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 fighters of Lecomte and Cl�ment-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 Place des Batignolles, Place de L'H�tel-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 Elys�e, 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 leader was led before a Versaillese chief of battalion. ‘Who are you?’ asked the officer. ‘L�veque, 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'Universit�, 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 adjoining 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 surrounded 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 machine-guns; 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 Ch�tillon, long since carefully prepared, but still against the ramparts, were taken in the rear by the Chaus�e 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 Chauss�e 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 Panth�on, 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 Panth�on, 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 Panth�on and the forts; he fortified the Boulevards d'Italie, de l'H�pital, 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 chefde-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 P�re la Chaise, 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. Despatch riders 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 H�tel-de-Ville did their best to attend to details. One decree authorized 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 not the 18th March you will do again. Come to us, brothers, come to us; ours are open to receive you. The Central Committee at the same time posted up a similar appeal — a puerile but generous illusion — and on this point the people of Paris entirely agreed with their representatives. In spite of the frenzy of the Assembly, the fusillade of the wounded, the treatment inflicted upon the prisoners for six weeks, the working men 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 H�tel-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 H�tel-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 Chauss�e 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 Lariboisi�re Hospital. His body was taken to the H�tel-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 crossroads; 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 Trinit� Church. Five pieces established under the porch of the church were then directed at the very important barricade that barred the Chauss�e d'Antin at the entrance of the boulevard. A detachment penetrated into the Rues Ch�teaudun and Lafayette, but at the cross-roads of the Faubourg Montmartre a barricade, a yard high at the utmost, defended by twenty-five men, held them up 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 Ch�teau 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 between 13 and the Faubourg St. Honor� 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 Quai d'Orsay, Passy, the Champ-de-Mars, the Barri�re de l'Etoile converged on the terrace of the Tuileries and the barricade St. Florentin. About a dozen Federal pieces bore up against this shower. The Place de la Concorde, taken between these crossfires, 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'Universit�. 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 L�gion 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 Chauss�e d'Antin was lost to us; the enemy advancing by the side streets had occupied the Nouvel Op�ra, entirely dismantled, and from the top of the roofs the marines commanded the barricade. Instead of imitating them, of also occupy ing 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 Vend�me. 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 Vend�me and the Place de la Concorde, passed along the Rue du Bac, the Abbaye-au-Bois, and the Boulevard d'Enfer, ending at Bastion 8 1. 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 Vend�me; 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 supplemen tary 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 flee; 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 L�gion d'Honneur, the Conseil d'Etat, and the Cour des Comptes. Formidable detonations were heard from the palace of the kings, whose walls were failing, its vast cupolas giving way. Flames, now slow, now rapid as darts, flashed from a hundred windows;
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, the Croix-Rouge, dashed luminous columns into the air; the Rue Royale to St. Sulpice 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 H�tel-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 fa�ade of the H�tel-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 wagons, 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 office. 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, harangued 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 posted up 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 H�tel-de-Ville, Bergeret had received the verbal authorization 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 Sainte P�Iagie, and signified to Chaudey that he was to die.
‘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 Sainte P�Iagie, 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 H�tel-de-Ville. His protestations were of no avail against Rigault’s resolution. Led into the exerciseground of Sainte P�Iagie, Chaudey was shot, as were also three gendarmes taken prisoner on the 18th March. During the first seige he had said to some partisans of the Commune, ‘The strongest will shoot the others.’ He died perhaps for those words. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Author’s Notes 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 L�gislatif on the 9th August was composed of elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th September.’ Enqu�te sur Le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 253. 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. Theirs knew, it is that M. Thiers has said, I saw, page 6, I knew, page 11, Vol. I of the Enqu�te sur let 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 with verifying the famous despatch which precipitated the vote for war. Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre Vol. I, p. 121-124. 4 Compte-rendu du 31 Octobre by Milli�re. 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 Enqu�te sur Le 4 Septembre, Jules Brame, Vol.. I, p. 201. 7 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 194. 8 Ibid., p. 313. 9 Ibid., 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 Enqu�te 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.’ Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Corbon, Vol. I, p. 375. 13 Enqu�tes sur le 4 Septembre, Jules Ferry. He even calls the armistice a ‘compensation’. 14 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 432. 15 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 395. The deposition of this imbecile, still as naive as ever, 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 H�tel-de-Ville. These two names did not fail to produce their usual effect.’ Enqu�te 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 poster of Dorian and Schoelcher would have taken place the next day.’ Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Jules Ferry, Vol. I, p. 396-431. 17 See the affirmation of Dorian. Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 527-528. 18 He offered a musket of honour to anyone who would kill the King of Prussia, and patronized a Greek-fire that was to roast the German army.
18 He offered a musket of honour to anyone who would kill the King of Prussia, and patronized a Greek-fire that was to roast the German army. 19 Enqu�te 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, Lefl�, 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 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Cresson, Vol. II, p. 135. 24 Jules Simon, Souvenirs du 4 Septembre. Literally his expressions. 25 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Jules Favre, Vol. II, p. 43. 26 After the disaster of Orleans, which cut our army in two, he wrote: ‘The army of the Loire is far from being annihilated; it is separated into two armies of equal strength.’ 27 They avoided drawing up minutes to prevent even the appearance of being a municipality (Enqu�te 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 someone to replace Trochu. One of them, M. Corbon, has said (Enqu�te 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 poster was drawn up by Tridon and Vall�s. 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. Dr�o, the son-in-law of Garnier-Pages. 31 Enqu�te 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 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, the depositions of General Lefl�, Vice-Admiral Pothuan, Colonel Lambert, and Trochu, speaking from the tribune: ‘If 1 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 (�crabouiller un peu la garde nationale) since they wish it,’ said a colonel of infantry, much annoyed at this affair. Enqu�te 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.’ Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Corbon, Vol. IV, p. 389. 37 He has pronounced these words of perfect Jesuitism: To yield to hunger is to die, not to capitulate.’ Jules Simon, Souvenirs do 4 Septembre, p. 299. 38 Deposition of General Soumairs, Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. II, p. 215. 39 What disgrace! 175,000 men pretending that they had been add 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 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Arnaud de l'Ari�ge, 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.
42 The decree sacrificed fifteen and spared twenty-four. 43 A. Arnaud, Avrail, Beslay, Blanqui, Demay, Dereure, Dupas, E. Dupont, J. Durand, E. Duval, Eudes, Flotte, Frankel, Gambon, Goupil, Granger, Humbert, Jaclard, Jarnigon, Lacambre, Lacord, Langevin, Lefran�ais, Leverdays, Longuet, Macdonnel, Maim, 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 Enqu�te 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 1873. 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 organize an army of volunteers which was to operate on the flank of the enemy. 48 The working men’s quarters of Lyons. 49 Enqu�te 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 See above. 52 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Gambetta, Vol. I, p. 561. 53 D'Aurelles de Paladines, La Premi�re Arm�e de la Loire, p. 93. 54 De Freycinet, La Guerre en Province, p. 86, 87. 55 Ibid., p. 91. 56 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 Arm�e de la Loire, p. 120. Thus, far from speaking of attacking, the Delegation only thought of the defensive. 57 ‘It was only when they could not help it that they made up their minds to act,’ Gambetta has said in the Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre. The avowal is precious, coming from him. 58 It is most amusing to hear D'Aurelles chaffing Trochu without perceiving that he is just as ridiculous. In his evidence (Enqu�te 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 Orl�ans: Monsignor, the army of the Loire today sets out on its march to meet the army of General Ducrot. Pray, Monsignor, for the salvation of France.’ 59 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? 60 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Rolland, Voo. III, p. 456. 61 Ibid., Dalloz, Vol. IV, p. 398. 62 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 charg�-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.
62 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 charg�-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 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. IV, p. 253. 63 Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Admiral Jaureguiberry, Vol. III, p. 297. 64 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, P�; 17th, Weber; 18th, Trouillet; 19th, Lagarde; 20th, A. Bonit. Courty remained president, Ramel secretary. 65 Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune, p. 128. 66 The reactionaries 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'�tat-major, Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. II, p. 344. 67 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Colonel Lavigne, Vol. II, p. 467. 68 ‘The first cannon 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, Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 63. 69 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, MaIjournal, Couteau, Cadaze, Gastaud, Dutil, Matt�, 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. 70 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'�tat?’ Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II. 71 The National Guards of each of the twenty arrondissements were formed into a separate legion. 72 Arnold, J. Bergeret, Bouit, Castioni, Chauvi�re, Chouteau, Courty, Dutil, Fleury, Frontier, H. Fortun�, Lacord, Lagarde, Lavalette, MaIjournal, Matt�, 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. 73 He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on the 3rd ‘to save Paris from any demagogic attempts.’ 74 The prefecture of Rennes posted up this despatch of the Government: ‘A criminal insurrection is being organized in Paris.
73 He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on the 3rd ‘to save Paris from any demagogic attempts.’ 74 The prefecture of Rennes posted up this despatch of the Government: ‘A criminal insurrection is being organized 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.’ 75 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.’ 76 ‘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. Everyone saw in it an affront and a menace. It was repeated everywhere that this was the first act of a monarchical coup d'�tat; 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.’ 77 This is the Committee which many took for the Central Committee. 78 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 dear and commerce revive.’ M. Thiers, Enqu�te sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. 1, p. 9. 79 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, M. Thiers, Vol. II, p. 11. 80 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. Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 435, 456. 81 This is the number of pieces given by M. Thiers in the Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars. 82 This order enjoining the troop to march 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. 83 Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers: fourteen men per battalion, says Jules Ferry. Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars. 84 M. Thiers in the Enquire sur le 18 Mars says, firstly, ‘We let them march off,’ then, twenty lines further, ‘We repulsed them.’ Lefl� 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. 85 The report of the Enqu�te 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 demonstration of the 24th of February to an order of the Central Committee, 86 See Appendix II, the details of the proceedings of the Central Committee during this day, told by one of its members. 87 Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book L'Armistice er la Commune: ‘The general assembled his men, and sword in hand he bravely placed himself at the head of his troops. 88 Ten days after he recounted in a crazy letter written in the Conciergerie that he had done everything; taken the H�tel-de-Ville, the Prefecture of Police, the Place Vend�me, the Tuileries, etc.; and this letter is referred to as an authority by the report of the Enqu�te 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 r�sum� 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. 89 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Marreille, Vol. II, p. 200. 90 Assi, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, C. Dupont, Yarlin, 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 that its publications should bear the names of all its members. 91 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 reactionary 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. 92 Verbatim. It is from the little man of Paris that the little man of Versailles borrowed the phrase, completing it himself. 93 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. 94 The two generals have testified to the extreme consideration shown them in their prison. See the Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars. Two days later, on Chanzy’s simple promise not to serve against Paris, the Central Committee set them free. 95 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Dr. Danet, Vo.. II, p. 531. 96 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. 97 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 Vend�me. 98 Their names were published in the Journal Officiel. 99 Here are the names of those who signed the proclamations and nod= 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, Barrond, Bergeret, Billioray, Bouit, Boursier, Blanchet, Castioni, Chouteau, C. Dupont, Eudes, Fabre, Ferrat, Fleury, H. Fortun�, Fougeret, Gaudier, Geresme, Gouhier, Grelier, J. Grollard, Josselin, jourde, Lavalette, Lisbonne, Lullier, Maljournal, Ed. Moreau, Mortier, Prudhomme, Ranvier, Routscan, 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. 100 This order had been given the evening before. The treachery of Du Bisson, nominated chief of the staff by Lullier, had prevented its execution. 101 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.’ — Enqu�te 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. 102 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Tirard, Vol. II, p.342. 103 He then and them 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 Enqu�te) totally disbanded. On the 20th:’ The Government did not want to cater 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.’ 104 ‘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.’ 105 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'Enqu�te 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 trial, came to a caf� offering those present pieces of M. De l'Esp�e’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 stigmatized. 106 The popular quarters of Marseilles. 107 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. 108 Ad.
Adam, Mane, Rochard, Barr� (1st arrondissement, Louvre); Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Ch�on (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat (3rd, Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. Ferry, Nast (9th, Op�ra); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Pasty). 109 Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lef�vre (7th, Palais-Bourbon); A. Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Op�ra). 110 Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, D. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. Arnould, Lefran�ais, Cl�mence, E. G�rardin (4th, H�tel-de-Ville); R�g�re, Jourde, Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Panth�on); Beslay, Varlin (6th, Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon Raoul Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elys�es); Gambon, F�lix, Pyat, H. Fortun�, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (110th, Enclos St. Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure (11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Gresme, Theiez, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly); L�o Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray, Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Cl�ment, J. Valles, Langevin (15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Cl�ment, Ch. Girardin, Chalain, Malon (17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Cl�ment, Ferr�, VennoreI, 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. 111 See Appendix III. 112 MacMahon, with his coup-d'oeil of Reischoffen and Sedan, saw there 17,000 men. Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 22. 113 ‘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,’ etc., etc. — Le Vengeur, 3rd April. 114 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 and arrendered at discretion; the man called Duval was killed in the affray.’ 115 ‘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 1 sent the telegram ... You do not know me; it is thanks to my personal influence that order was maintained at Carcassone.’ Speech of M. Marcou to the Assembly in answer to M.
Marcou to the Assembly in answer to M. de Gavardie. Sitting of the 27th January, 1874. 116 M. Barth�emy-St.-Hilaire, Thiers’ secretary, answered Barral de Montaud, 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.’ Enqu�te 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 (Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. III, errata, p. 438), 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. 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, Si�ge 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, etc., 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. 122 Seventy-three communes have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 108 have from 10,000 to 20,000; 309 from 5,000 to 10,000, 249 from 4,000 to 5,000; and 581 from 3,000 to 4,000. There are then only 1,320 communes having more than 3,000 inhabitants, 800 at most that possess any political life. 123 Vesinier, Cluseret, Pillot, Andrieu (I st arrondissement, Louvre); Pothier, Serraillier, 1. Durand, Johannard (2nd, Bourse); Courbet, Rogeard (6th, Luxembourg); Sicard (7th. Palais-Bourbon); Briosne (9th, Op�ra); Philippe, Lonclas (12th, Reuilly); Longuet (16th, Passy); Dupont (17th, Batignolles); Cluseret, Arnold (18th, Montmartre); Menotti Garibaldi (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Viard, Trinquet (20th, M�nilmontant). 124 Appendix IV. 125 And what sublime faith in their naivet�! 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 Soci�t� 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.
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 that F�lix 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. 131 Appendix VI. /p> 132 Appendix VII, report by Thiesz. 133 Appendix VIII. 134 There were five parks: the H�tel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, the Ecole Militaire, Monmartre, 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 machine-guns. 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 recognized 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 one of the Commune papers 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 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. His friends thought of rescuing 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. 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, Anrold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Cl�mence, V. Cl�menrt, Courbet, Frankel, E. G�rardin, Jourde, Lefran�ais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Vall�s, Varlin, Vermorel. 146 Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Cl�ment, who under the Empire had offered his services to the police. 147 La Guerre des Communaux, 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 F�lix Pyat abused his functions in order to give his journal the first news of the official decisions. Ilia 6= he was a little too quick. 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 H�tel-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 vogue idea of these sittings. 154 ‘Committee of Public Safety, No. 98 — Paris, 3rd May 1871. — General Wroblewald, — Please repair immediately to the fort of Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering, artillery, etc. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Felix Pyat, 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 Road 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.’ ln point of fact, not Wroblewski was charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La C�cilia, 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-l�gion have said 10,000. T he truth lies between the two. 156. P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian General Bossack. 157 Heard and reported by Lefran�ais, whose veracity is above suspicion. Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste G. Lefran�ais, p. 294. Neuchatel, 1870. 158 All the unpublished reports that 1 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 (Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p.
II, p. 277). ‘Thus right manifests itself m peremptory manner’ — the right of carriage, 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. 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 R�publique!’ 165 The same day — it was that of the Marseilles insurrection — Dufaure telegraphed to the same procureur-general: ‘Read the name R�publique Fran�aise at the head of all the despatches I send you.’ 166 1 have in my possession about twenty proclamations of prefects or magistrates. They am 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 Much 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 unit 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 ark me with distrust and irritation if it were the monarchy that we combated for.’ 169 1 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 1793; inopportune the commissars, 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 an the revolutionary forces of the world; inopportune H�bert, who, nevertheless, had helped him to stifle the socialists; inopportune, in fine, all that was not cut out after his own amiable 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. 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 M of the column. 176 Funeral of Lieutenant Chatelet, of the 61st. 177 See the evidence of the chief of police, M. Claude, Enqu�te sur le 18th Mars, Vol. II, p. 106. 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. 179 ‘Seventeen hours were required to get in 130,000 men and our numerous artillery.’ — M. Thiers, Enqu�te 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. 309. 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 1 arrived, a dark form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It was a young M with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, a cartridge-box by her side.
‘Stand, citizen! no one panes here!’ I stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed me to go to the foot of the barricade.’ 184 Appendix XV. 185 Appendix XVI. 186 Appendix XVII. 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 ‘Bum everything! I have heard these words from the most wise, the most virtuous men.’ — Jules Favre, Enqu�te sur le Mars Vol. II, p. 42. ‘Rather Moscow than S�dan,’ wrote one of these wise and virtuous men during the first siege — M. Jules Simon. 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. 194 Minister of War from 187 1, 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 Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 239. 197 Appendix XX. 198 Heard and reported by the author of the book Le Fond de la Soci�t� 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. — 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. 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 the Elys�e, 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'Ari�geois 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 Ari�ge 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-fusiliers of the 1871 class.
They were marine-fusiliers of the 1871 class. ‘And are there 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 thee fires they would not have been served thus; but as they set on fire, we must kin’. (verbatim) 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 Mar�chal MacMahon. 218 This is the exact number of the hostages executed: four at Sainte P�lagie,, 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 (Enqu�te 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 Libert� of the 31st May. 221 Appendix XXXII. 222 Appendix XXXIII. 223 This is the figure given by General Appert in the Enquire 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 1 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. Several 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.’ 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 D�bats had just written, ‘What an inestimable victory!’ 228 These facts are borne witness to be 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, machine-guns 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 machine-gun volleys, and, as you may suppose, the number of dead and wounded must have been rather considerable.’ (Versailles, May 28). 229 Among others, one Thierce, Leiutenant-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 he 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 win be arrived at. The members of the Commune, the chiefs of the insurrection, the members of the committees, courtsmartial and revolutionary tribunals, the foreign generals and officers, the deserters, the assassins of Montmartre, La Roquette, and Mazas, the p�troleurs and the p�troleuses, 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 General Appert, Table I, pp. 215,262. 235 Report of Captain Guichard, Enqu�te sur le 18 Mars, Vol. III, p. 313. 236 The Journal des D�bats 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 WorkingMen’s Association. 239 These details are extracted from very numerous notes furnished not only by the prisoners, among others by Elis�e Reclus, but by persons entire strangers to the Commune, municipal councillors of seaport towns, foreign journalists, etc. 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 today compiled their histories. 241 Letter addressed to the Libert� of Brussels. 242 Besides the 27,837 prisoners officially recognized at the pontoons, 8472 others wore 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 Libert�; ‘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 scat, whence the hypocritical prudery of the men of the 4th September had expelled him. 247 Let us cite Dupont de Bussac, and above au L�on 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 forge 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 proletariat 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 Budapest 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 Maill�, the Count Duchatel, Peltereau-Villeneuve, Francois Sacaze, Tailhaud, the Marquis de Quinsonnas, Bigot, Merveilleux-Duvignan, Paris, (;Orne. 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 Apport. 255 Thus the seizures nude during the house-searches, in virtue of regular mandates, were classed among the acts of theft with violence, pillage, etc., 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. 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 R� 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 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 hectaries (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. ‘1 said so three years ago,’ answered M. Georges P�rin. 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 P�rin 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 L�gion 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 shot at the Tsar in Paris. 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 187 1, 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. Glossary \| Contents \| Appendix
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XIII The commune is defeated 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 doze, when, on the 26th, Espivent beat the r�veille, placed the department in a state of siege, and issued a proclamation � la Thiers. The municipal council began to tremble, and on the 27th withdrew their delegates from the prefecture. Gaston Cr�mieux 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. Cr�mieux, 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 suspect 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 Cr�mieux’s 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 H�tel-de-Ville and the prefecture. But these delegates represented only the revolutionary element of the battalions, and the H�tel-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 with a proclamation from the leaders 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 reactionaries 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 were even so loose 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 patrol boat Le Renard coming to show its cannon at the Canebi�re, 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. The Commission inferred 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 organize everything. The Commission thanked them, said that the troops would not come, and that even if they did, they would fraternize 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 have stolen away from Marseilles like thieves,’ they told the messenger; ‘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 leaders 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, still in the clouds, sent an embassy to Espivent. Cr�mieux and P�lissier 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 commander of the 6th Chasseurs, Villeneuve, came forward towards the delegates. ‘What are your intentions?’ asked Cr�mieux. ‘We want to re-establish order. “What! you would dare fire on the people?’ cried Cr�mieux, and commenced haranguing, when the Versaillese threatened to order their infantry 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. Cr�mieux on his return found the infantry men 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 leaders, 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 infantry men emerged from the Rues de Rome and De l'Arm�ny. 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 infantry men followed. The volleys of the National Guards of order and the infantry men 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 shooting had lasted two hours, and no reinforcement arrived in support of the Federals. Untouchable in the prefecture, a solid square building, they were none the less vanquished, having neither provisions nor sufficient ammunation, and it would have sufficed to wait with arms shouldered till they had exhausted their cartridges. But the general of the Sacr� Coeur would not put up with such a half-triumph. This was his first campaign;
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 Notre-Dame-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 unconditional surrender. 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 firing shells till night-fall. 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 random, and dragged their victims into the lamp-stores of the station. There an officer scrutinized 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 Ch�teau d'If and of the Fort St. Nicolas. Cr�mieux was arrested at the porter’s of the Israelite Cemetery. He voluntarily gave himself up 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 reactionaries. But from the further ranks of the crowd cries and hisses rose against the murderers. At the Place St. Ferr�ol 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 J�sus! Vive le Sacr� 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 poster, ‘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 serious resistance, sent M. Marcou to his friend Digeon. The Brutus of Carcassonne strode through the H�tel-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.[115] 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 fraternize, 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, 1 shall have the three prisoners who are in my power shot.’ Zentz answered by arresting 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 caf�s. 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.
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 amnesty had just been promised. The procureur drowned the discussion in a roll of drums, read the legal sommation in front of the H�tel-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 H�tel-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 H�tel-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 Soci�t� Populaire centralized 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 working men’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 commissar 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 Soci�t� 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, fraternized and surrendered their arms, many of which were taken to the Soci�t� Populaire, and hidden there. The call-up 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 R�publique!’ At five o'clock the whole National Guard was in arms on the Place de la Mairie. The officers met in the H�tel-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! � bas Versailles!’ Soon after, the battalions, filing off before the H�tel-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 arrived from the Rue des Prisons, and several citizens urged the officers not to commence a civil war. These hesitated, retired, when Colonel Billet, at the head of about fifty cuirassiers, came out on to 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, the Federals thus remained masters of the field. But lacking organization, 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 revolutionaries of the provinces showed themselves everywhere completely disorganized, 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 working men to the ‘upper’ classes.
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 working men to the ‘upper’ classes. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XIV The weaknesses of the Council 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 like 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 Val�rien vomiting death, here men living as brothers — in a few hours caught the Parisian malady. It 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; a precinct covering Montmartre, Belleville, the Panth�on 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 H�tel-de-Ville who did not boast of possessing it. The sitting of the 3rd April during the battle was stormy. Many loudly opposed this mad sortie. Lefran�ais, 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 H�tel-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. 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 childishness. It was this military pamphlet-monger, with no pledge but the decoration he had 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.
The Council had just decided to keep on the defensive. To guard the lines, regularize 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 Monmartre, the Panth�on, 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 H�tel-de-Ville. The Committee had installed itself in the Rue de l'Entrep�t, 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 care for 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 proclamation 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 and, breaking through the political facade, pointed out behind the struggle for municipal liberties 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 in 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 themselves, 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 it had 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 reactionaries 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 march 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 so 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 the 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 deputy governor, De Ploeue, replaced him. From his first interview with the delegates of the H�tel-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 was realized, 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 coffers in the Rue de la Vrilli�re. 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, acting 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 H�tel-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 H�tel-de-Ville. If someone 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 office, even persuading him to sleep at the bank, made him his hostage, and once more breathed freely. Thus from the first week the Assembly of the H�tel-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. 0 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XII The Versaillese beat back the Commune patrols and massacre prisoners That very day, the 2nd April, at one o'clock, without warning, without summons, the Versaillese opened fire and launched their shells into Paris. For several days their cavalry had exchanged shots with our advance 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 halffinished barricade on the St. Germain road. 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 renegades. Meanwhile the 113th of the line outflanked Courbevoie on the right, and the infantry of the marines turned 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-Val�rien. 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 foot crying, ‘To Versailles!’ The women excited the battalions, and spoke of marching in the vanguard. The Executive Commission met and posted up 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 F�lix Pyat, confronted with his rant and vapourings of the morning. His buffoonery stood him in the stead of a life-preserver. ‘One does not start,’ said he, ‘at random, without cannon, with cadres, and without leaders;’ 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 rebuked him: ‘Why, then, for three days have you shouted, “To Versailles"?’ The most energetic opponent of the sortie was Lefran�ais. 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, anyway received no formal order to the contrary. F�lix 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 the chefs-de-l�gion the order to form columns. The battalions of the right bank were to concentrate at the Place Vend�me 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 F�lix Pyat, always pertinent, demanded the abolition of the budget of public worship. The majority immediately satisfied him.
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 leaders 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-wagons 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 leader he liked best. Many had no cartridges, and believed the sortie to be a simple demonstration. The Executive Commission had just posted up a despatch from the Place Vend�me, 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 Rued. 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-Val�rien had opened fire. A terrible panic broke up the battalions, amidst thousandfold cries of ‘Treason!’ the whole National Guard believing that we occupied Mont-Val�rien. Many members of the Commune, of the Central Committee, at the Place Vend�me, 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 his chief-of-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 Asni�res, bringing hardly a thousand men.[112] The rest had lagged behind in Paris or on the way. Flourens, pressing forward all the same, arrived at the Malmaison, put Gallifet’s chasseurs to flight, and the Parisian vanguard pushed on 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 Asni�res, 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. As he prepared 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, beloved 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 commenc d. The m en 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 Pell� division, 8,000 men.
The unfortunate Duval , totally abandoned, was assailed by the Derroja brigade and the whole Pell� 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 armed with machine-guns. 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 Molineaux. 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. F�lix Pyat, again become bellicose, six times cried in his Vengeur, ‘To Versailles!’ [113] Despite the runaways of the morning, the popular enthusiasm did not flag. A battalion of 300 women marched up the Champs-Elys�es, the red flag at their head, demanding to sally forth against the enemy. The evening papers 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 Chatillon plateau. 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 Derroja brigade and Pell�’s division. ‘Surrender and your lives will be spared,’ General Pell� 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 braid torn off, were put at the head of the convoy. At Petit-Bicetre they met the general-in-Chief, Vinoy. He commanded that the officers be shot, but the leader of the escort reminding him of General Pell�’s promise, Vinoy said, ‘Is there a commander?’ ‘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, leant against a wall on which were inscribed the words, ‘Duval, gardener.’ They disrobed, and, crying ‘Vive la Commune!’ died for it. A horseman tore off Duval’s boots and carried them about as a trophy, [114] and an editor of the Figaro took possession of his bloodstained 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, dandies, women of the world and of the streets, all came with the rage of hyenas to strike the Federals with their fists, with canes and parasols, pushing off their k�pis and cloaks, crying, ‘Down with the assassins! To the guillotine!’ Amongst these ‘assassins’ was the geographer Elis�e 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 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 pimply-looking Falstaff, ‘have baser countenances of a base demagogy met the afflicted gaze of honest men.’ Already, the evening before, after the assassinations of Mont-Val�rien 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.’ Ali! 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.’ Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 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 modern history, who has panted on thy boulevards and wept in thy faubourgs, who has sung to the morning 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 truth is there in all the rumours spread 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 P�re Duch�ne, Jules Vall�s’ Cri du Peuple, F�lix 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 Vall�s 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 P�re Duch�ne once, though its circulation is more than 60,000. Take F�lix 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 Duch�ne takes the young men and the old of the H�tel-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 mackerel, 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 Si�cle, become very hostile since the arrest of Gustave Chaudey; and La V�rit�, the Yankee Portalis’s paper, are piled up, melancholy and intact. Many reactionary 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 P�re la Chaise cemetery. All those who die for Paris are entombed with funerals 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. Here 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 R�publique! 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 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 Vend�me. 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 banks with turf. Many people walking by 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-Elys�es unrolls its long-deserted line, cut by the dismal bursting of the shells from Mont-Val�rien and Courbevoie. These reach as far as the Palais de I'Industrie, whose treasures the employees of the Commune courageously protect. In the distance rises the mighty bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. The sightseers of the first days have disappeared, for the Place de I'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 launched against it. Behind this barricade they are getting ready to mount some pieces on the platform, which is almost as high as Mont-Val�rien. By the Faubourg St. Honor� we pass along the Champs-Elys�es. In the right angle comprised between the Avenue de la Grande Arm�e, 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 poster 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 P�reire 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-Val�rien, Courbevoie, and B�con 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 artillery men only complain of the want of ammunition, for the wagons no longer dare approach. The Versaillese have very often attempted, and may attempt, surprise attacks. 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 k�pi toward the Bois de Boulogne; the balls are whistling around him. It is Dombrowski, who amusing himself with inveighing against the Versaillese of the trenches. A member of the Council who is with him succeeds in king 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;
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, Lefran�ais, 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 sang-froid 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, 1,500 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 L�gislatif, transformed into a work-shop. 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 Op�ra-Comique is preparing another. The Op�ra promises us a special performance for the following Monday, when we shall hear Gossec’s revolutionary hymn. The artists of the Gaiet�, abandoned by their manager, themselves direct their theatre. The Gymnase, Ch�telet, Th�atre-Fran�ais, Ambigu-Comique, D�Iassements, 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 declamations, 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.
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 in the court. Three orchestras are playing in the galleries, but the soul of the fete is in the Salle des Mar�chaux, where Mademoiselle Agar recites from ‘Les Ch�timents’ 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-Elys�es, 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 Caf�-Peters there is a scandalous gathering of staffofficers and prostitutes. Suddenly a detachment of National Guards appears and leads them off. We follow them to the H�tel-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 recognize 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 H�tel-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.’ Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XIX Formation 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 prided himself upon playing the soldier before the Prussians. In order to appease his colleagues, eager for the assault on Paris, he was haughty in receiving the conciliators, who multiplied their advances and their lame combinations. Everybody intermeddled, from the good and visionary Consid�rant 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 posted up in Paris. On the 26th they met at the Ch�telet, 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 Cl�menceau, protested against this co-operation of the 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 H�tel-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 Vall�s, 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 put up posters protesting, 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 H�tel-de-Ville through the midst of the crowd and an avenue 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 H�tel-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 middle class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled and brightened up even the most downcast. F�lix 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 Pers�v�rance, 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, fraternize with us, come and embrace us.” If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war.’ When the delegates left the H�tel-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-Elys�es. The shells of Mont-Val�rien obliged them to take the side-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 demonstration, 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 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 R�publicaine des D�partements made an act of adhesion to the Commune. Milli�re, who had quite joined the movement without being able to gain the confidence of the H�tel-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 Milli�re, went to the H�tel-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. M�gy 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 C�cilia 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 H�tel-de-Ville to question 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-Val�rien. 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 H�tel-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 reformed; 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’. F�lix 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 Public Safety 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 galvanize 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 stigmatized beforehand, gave a power without authority; there were only 37 votes. Ranvier, A. Arnaud, Leo Meillet, Charles Gerardin, F�lix 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 H�tel-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 over-heated atmosphere ruffled the temper. The discussions grew bitter, and F�lix Pyat turned them into attacks. Delescluze never spoke but for union, concord.
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 against, and he hated whoever smiled at his craziness. He did not mind discrediting the Council, casting aspersions on its most devoted members, so much did he resent 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 Barr�re 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 flight, he picked up twenty-four votes 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 vote 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XVII Women of the Commune and the opposing armies 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 sc�ne 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 cantini�res, simply dressed as workwomen, not fancy costumes, fell by dozens. On the 3rd April, at Meudon, the Citoyenne Lachaise, cantinere 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 1 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 Andr� L�o, 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 Demitriev, was the Th�roigne de M�ricourt 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 organized 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, demand 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 Arm�e and the Ternes were continually lighting up with conflagrations. Asni�res and Levallois were filling with ruins, the inhabitants of Neuilly starving in their cellars. The Versaillese threw against these points alone 1,500 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 Asni�res 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 authorized their ally 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 reestablished. 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 Asni�res. 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 semicircle 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-Val�rien. 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, Asni�res, 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.
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 4,000 officers for the active National Guard; for the reserve, 100,000 men and 3,500 officers. [128] Thirty-six free corps claimed to number 3,450 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 wagons and to mount the officers and despatch-riders. The engineer department remained in a rudimentary state, the finest decrees notwithstanding. Of the 1,200 cannon possessed by Paris, only 200 were utilized. There were never more than 500 artillerymen, while the returns stated 2,500. Dombrowski occupied the bridge of Asni�res, Levallois, and Neuilly with 4,000 or 5,000 men at the utmost.[129] To protect his positions he had at Clichy and Asni�res 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, rearmed, fired on Breteuil, Sevres, Brimborion, even daring to push as far as Chatillon, and, unsheltered, cannonaded Meudon. A few hundred riflemen 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 40 pieces. The intermediate villages, Gentilly, Cachan, and Arcueil, were occupied by 2,000 to 2,500 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 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-l�gions with the reorganization of the National Guard. Not one of these mechanisms functioned methodically; the Council had not even thought of organizing Paris by sections; the Central Committee intrigued; the chefs-de-l�gions 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 artillerymen 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 outlets. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XXVI The enemy enters Paris The St. Cloud gate has just been breached. General Douai has thrown himself at it. (Thiers to the Prefects, 21st May.) The great attack approached; the Assembly drew up in battlearray. On the 16th May it refused to recognize the Republic as the Government of France, and voted public prayers by 417 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 Ch�teau de Br�con ruined the Montmartre cemetry, 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. May 19th: — Despite the Versaillese approaches, our defence did not become more vigorous. 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 Dauphin� 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 Panth�on, the Buttes Montmartre, where two or three pieces had been fired off on the 14th, only to kill our own men at Lavallois. At the terrace of the Tuileries about twelve navvies sadly dug away at a useless trench. 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 absorbed 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 identity 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 Ansieres to Neuilly, 4,000 perhaps from La Muette to PetitVanves. 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 bastions 36 to 70, precisely at the point of attack, there were not twenty artillerymen; 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 Vend�me, 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, Henri 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, Lefran�ais, 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 Bastion 64, waving a white handkerchief, and cried to the soldiers in 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 nearby penetrated by small platoons into the enceinte. M. Thiers, MacMahon, and Admiral Pothuan , who were just then at Mont-Val�rien, 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 a 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 batallion of volunteers to occupy the gate of Auteuil. At five o'clock, National Guards, without k�pis, 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 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 Bil lioray 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 am taking 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;
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 H�tel-de-Ville, and not in their respective arrondissements. Thus the Council of the Commune disappeared from history and the H�tel-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 posted up: ‘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 office, 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 twofold 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 office 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 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. P�rine 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 it 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 La 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 caf�s 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, if 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 Ch�teau, 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-Elys�es. 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 encountering a sentinel, and opened the Sevres and Versailles gates. 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; all Passy and the heights of the Trocadero were taken, and 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 L�gion d'Honneur. As on the morning of the 2nd December, Paris was asleep. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter VI The mayors and the Assembly combine against Paris The thought of witnessing a massacre filled me with anguish. (Jules Favre, Inquiry into the 4th of September.) 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 lower 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 H�tel-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 working men, 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 suppositious. 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, na�vely 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 H�tel-de-Ville. Illegality! Thus the question was put by the Legitimists, twice imposed on us by foreign bayonets; by the Orl�anists, 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?
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 caf�s 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 working men marched round the Stock Exchange, banners flying, and advancing along the boulevards to the cries of ‘Vive l’Assembl�e!’ came to the Place Vend�me, 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 Milli�re 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 R�publique!’ 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. Cl�menceau, ‘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 H�tel-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 3 1st 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 now what bloody and rapacious ideal.’ Then, humbly supplicating monarchists and Catholics: ‘What they want,’ cried he, ‘what they have realized, 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 temporizing. 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, emphasising 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, ‘0h, 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 Prussians, 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, petty squires, 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 Vend�me 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 H�tel-de-Ville. Admiral Saisset followed them. Before the Rue Neuve St. Augustin these pacific demonstrationmen disarmed and ill-treated two detached sentries of the National Guard. Seeing this, the Federals of the Place Vend�me 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 and 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 demonstration 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; [97] two guards were killed and seven wounded;[98] 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 square, a ball in the back of his head. On his body was found a dagger fixed by a small chain. An adroit ball struck in the rear the chief editor of the Paris Journal, the Bonapartist De P�ne, 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 reactionary 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 dumb-founded. 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 them selves solidly in the mairie of the ninth arrondissement and reoccupying that of the sixth, dislodging the Federals of the St. Lazare station, 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chaper VII The Central Committee forces 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.[99] By its order the Place Vend�me was provided with barricades; the battalions of the H�tel-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. Cl�menceau 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 Battignolles 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 gauntlet that has been flung down to us.’ And, without deigning to take any notice of the swash-bucklers 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 H�tel-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 reactionaries 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. Authorized 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-working man, 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 — Milli�re, 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, extemporized 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 R�publique!’ The Larnourettes returned the compliment. But the Right and the Centre cried ‘Vive la France! Order! Order!’ and with clenched hands they challenged 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.
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 block 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 us to 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 — Brunei, 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 H�tel. 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, [100] ordered Brunei to seize the mairies of the first and second arrondissements. Brunei, 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. Brunei had his cannon advanced, when the passage was at once opened to him. He declared to the adjuncts, Meline and 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 authorization to treat. Dubail answered that they might promise the elections for the 3rd April. Brunei 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, marched 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 H�tel-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,[101] 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.
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 machine-guns. 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 mob, 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 machine-guns 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 in 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 fraternization 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 H�tel. 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 poster 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, posted up 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 poster advised the electors to vote; for M. Thiers that same morning had given him the hint, ‘Do not continue a useless resistance. I am reorganizing the army. I hope that in a fortnight or three weeks we shall have a sufficient force to relieve Paris.’[102] Five deputies only signed the address for the election, MM. Lockroy, Floquet, Cl�menceau, 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 fisherman 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 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 working man 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 H�tel-de-Ville head erect,’ these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the 18th March. Named only to organize the National Guard, thrown up 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.
Named only to organize the National Guard, thrown up 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 H�tel-de-Ville the flame. In the H�tel-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 the Mont-Val�rien 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Chapter XXXV The executions At Versailles, every means was used to ensure that the cases were heard with the utmost attention and seriousness ... I think therefore that the verdicts given are not only unquestionably right, according to all our laws, but that for the most scrupulous consciences, they are verdicts which speak the truth. ('Hear, hear!') (Dufaure’s speech against the amnesty, session of 18th May, 1876.) The verdict of the military tribunals was, I must admit, for the best. (Allain-Targ�, pro-Gambetta deputy, session of 19th May, 1876.) Twenty-six courts-martial, twenty-six judicial machine-guns, were at work at Versailles, Mont-Val�rien, 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 cornmission. With such janissaries and a penal code comprising everything in its elastic obscurity, there was no need for emergency 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 Elis�e 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 their heads 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 penal colony.’ 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 martyrdom of the thousands who marched past 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 did your duty in obscurity. 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 chassep�t. 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 the P�re la Chaise in the darkness of the night? The newspapers 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 Vend�ens. 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 commisars. How select amongst this pick of bestiality? When I mention a few presidents at random — Merlin, Boisdenernetz, 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 commissars communicated to each other their means of attack or defence; the officers announced the verdicts beforehand. The advocate Rich� 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, *ere worthily seconded by the commissar. 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. Charri�re, 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 Versailles 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 courtsmartial, 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 P�re 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 papers 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 Cl�ment-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.
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.’ HerpinLacroix 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 commissar, 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 courtmartial’ , literally the words of Herpin-Lacroix. Of all the accused. he only recognized Mayer. Another officer gave similar evidence. Verdagnier proved that at the time of the executions he had been at the huts of Courcelles. The prosecution 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 prosecution, 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 commissar 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 house 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 labour. On the 28th November the Assembly recommenced its shootings. 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 Ferr�. 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 recognized 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 Ferr� 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 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 earning 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. Ferr� 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 Ferr�. Rossel was indignant when they put on the handcuffs; Ferr� 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. Ferr� 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 Ferr� 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. Ferr� 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. Ferr� remained standing; he was only hit in the side. He was again fired at and fell. A soldier placing his chassep�t 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 marched past 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 Ferr� 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 Ferr�, 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 Cr�mieux 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 Cr�mieux 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.
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 Cr�mieux 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 R�publique!’ 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 revolutionaries 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. Pr�au de V�del, the principal accused, then imprisoned in Sainte P�lagie 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. Pr�au de V�del 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 Chiteau 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.’ Commissar 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 Commissar 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 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 Cl�ment-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 prosecution, 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.
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 S�rizier, 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. S�rizier 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 recognized the accused. Delaporte multiplied his menaces with such a cynicism that the Commissar 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 Charri�re. 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, chassep�t in hand, the prey given up to them by the courts-martial. On the 22nd of February, 1872, it shot three of the so-called murderers of Cl�ment-Thomas and Lecomte, even those whose innocence had most clearly come out in the trial — Herpin-Lacroix, Lagrange, and Verdagner. Upright at the stake of the 28th November, they cried ‘Vive la Commune!’ and died, their faces radiant. On the 19th March Pr�au de V�del 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 S�rizier, 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 Richeli eu. 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 shootings, 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 assunder 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 Versailles. 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 cantini�re 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 commissar 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 stigmatizing, 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 five 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 demonstration 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 court-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 Cr�mieux, Etienne, P�Iissier, Roux, Bouchet, and all those who could be connected with the movement of the 23rd March appeared before the soldiers. The pretentious block-headedness of Villeneuve served as type of the military prosecutor’s addresses with which France was inundated. Cr�mieux, Etienne, P�lissier, 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-Rh�ne 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, exdelegate 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 votes. The next day the colonel-president was replaced by the lieutenant-colonel of the 4th Chasseurs, Donnat, half-mad with absinthe-drinking. A working man, 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 hated. He asked the courts of Versailles to deliver up to him the member of the Council of the Commune, Amouroux, 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 random at Lyons, as was the custom at Versailles. The mayor of the Guilloti�re, Crestin, called as witness, did not recognize amongst them any of those he had seen on that day in his mairie.
Presidents of the courts, the Colonels Marion and R�billot. 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 ammunition. The verdicts of the jury varied. That of the Basses-Pyr�n�es on the 8th August acquitted Duportal, and the four or five persons accused of the movement of Toulouse. The same aquittal 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 twentyone prisoners, among whom was Amouroux, who had only sent two delegates. A young working man, Caton, distinguished himself by his intelligence and firmness. The jury of Orl�ans was severe upon the accused of Montargis, all of whom they condemned to prison, and atrocious to those of Cosnes and Neury-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 ‘Vivre Paris! Down with Versailles!’ Malardier, a former representative of the people, who only arrived on the eve of the demonstration, 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 Versailles 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 r�sum� of Versaillese justice gave 10,137 condemnations pronounced in presence of the accused, and 3,313 in default. The sentences passed were distributed thus: TotalWomenChildren Condemnations to death2708 Hard labour1029 Transportation in a fortress 3989 Simple transportation3507161 Detention12698 Confinement6410 Hard labour at public works29 Imprisonment from three months or less432 Imprisonment from three months to one year1622501 Imprisonment for more than one year1344154 Banishment322 Surveillance of the police1171 Fines9 Children under 16 sent to houses of correction 56 Total13,44015762 This r�sum� 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 misdemeanour 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. Glossary \| Contents \| next chapter
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Introduction The following translation of Lissagaray’s Histoire de la Commune was made many years ago, at the express wish of the author, who, besides making many emendations in his work, wrote nearly a hundred pages especially for this English version. The translation, in fact, was made from the Histoire de la Commune as prepared for a second edition — an edition which the French Government would not allow to be published. This explanation is necessary in view of the differences between the translation and the first edition of Lissagaray’s book. Written in 1876, there are necessarily passages in this history out of date today; as, for example, the references to the prisoners in New Caledonia, the exiles, and the amnesty. But for two reasons I prefer leaving this translation as it was originally. To have it ‘written up to date’ would only be making patchwork of it. Secondly, I am loath to alter the work in any way. It had been entirely revised and corrected by my father. I want it to remain as he knew it. Lissagaray’s Histoire de la Commune is the only authentic and reliable history as yet written of the most memorable movement of modern times. It is true Lissagaray was a soldier of the Commune, but he has had the courage and honesty to speak the truth. He has not attempted to hide the errors of his party, or to gloss over the fatal weaknesses of the Revolution; and if he has erred, it has been on the side of moderation, in his anxiety not to make a single statement that could not be corroborated by overwhelming proofs of its truth. Wherever it was possible, the statements of the Versaillese in their Parliamentary Inquiries, in their press, and in their books are used in preference to the statements of friends and partisans; and whenever the evidence of Communards is given, it is invariably sifted with scrupulous care. And it is this impartiality, this careful avoidance of any assertion that could be considered doubtful, which should recommend this work to English readers. In England especially most persons are still quite ignorant of the events which led up to and forced the people of Paris into making that revolution which was to save France from the shame and disgrace of a fourth Empire. To most English people the Commune still spells ‘rapine, fear and lust’, and when they speak of its ‘atrocities’ they have some vague idea of hostages ruthlessly massacred by brutal revolutionises, of houses burnt down by furious petroleuses. Is it not time that English people at last learnt the truth? Is it not time they were reminded that for the sixty-five hostages shot, not by the Commune, but by a few people made mad by the massacre of prisoners by the Versaillese, the troops of law and order shot down thirty thousand men’ women, and children, for the most part long after all fighting had ceased? If any Englishman, after reading Lissagaray’s History of the Commune, still has any doubt as to what the ‘atrocities’ of the Commune really were, he should turn to the Parisian correspondence for May and June, 1871, of the Times, Daily News, and Standard.[NB] There he can learn what kind of ‘order reigned in Paris’ after the glorious victory of Versailles. Nor is it enough that we should be clear as to the ‘atrocities’ of the Commune. It is time people understood the true meaning of this Revolution; and this can be summed up in a few words. It meant the government of the people by the people. It was the first attempt of the proletariat to govern itself. The workers of Paris expressed this when in their first manifesto they declared they ‘understood it was their imperious duty and their absolute right to render themselves masters of their own destinies by seizing upon governmental power’. The establishment of the Commune meant not the replacing of one form of class rule by another, but the abolishing of all class rule. It meant the substitution of true co-operative, i.e., communist, for capitalistic production, and the participation in this Revolution of workers of all countries meant the internationalizing, not only the nationalising, of the, land and of private property. And the same men who now cry out against the use of force used force — and what force! — to vanquish the people of Paris. Those who denounce Socialists as mere firebrands and dynamitards used fire and sword to crush the people into submission. And what has been the result of these massacres, of this slaying of thousands of men, women, and children? Is Socialism dead? Was it drowned in the blood of the people of Paris? Socialism today is a greater power than it has ever been. The bourgeois Republic of France may join hands with the Autocrat of Russia to blot it out; Bismarck may pass repressive laws, and democratic America may follow in his wake — and still it moves! And because Socialism is today a power, because in England even it is ‘in the air’, the time has come for doing justice to the Commune of Paris. The time has come when even the opponents of Socialism will read, at least with patience if not with sympathy, an honest and truthful account of the greatest Socialist movement — thus far — of the century. Eleanor Marx Aveling June (Whit Week) 1886 NB I need but refer readers to The Times’ account of the murders at Moulin Saquet and Clamart, long before the entry of the Versaillese into Paris, and to the accounts in the English press of the wholesale massacres after their entry. Here are a few extracts taken at random: ‘The shambles have been established at the end of the Boulevard Malesherbes, and it is a lugubrious spectacle to see each man and women, of all ages and conditions of life, defile past at intervals in that fatal direction. A party of three hundred moved across the boulevard only a few moments ago ... At Satory, on Wednesday, a thousand of the captured insurgents revolted and got rid of their handcuffs ... The soldiers fired into the crowd, and three hundred insurgents were shot... In one of the convoys of prisoners ... a woman was being driven on by a gendarme, who goaded her with the point of his sabre till the blood ran ... M. Galliret halted the column, selected eighty-two [prisoners], and had them shot there and then ... As many as one thousand Communists were shot after their capture (June 1) . . . Huma n life has become so cheap, that a man is shot more readily than a dog. Summary executions are still [long after the fighting had ceased] going on wholesale.’ The Times, May-June 1871. ‘Several hundred insurgents who took refuge in the Madeleine were, it is said, bayoneted in the church ... Eleven wagon-loads of dead bodies of insurgents have been buried in the common ditch of Issy ... No quarter was given to any man, woman, or child . . . Batches of as many as fifty and one hundred at a time are shot.’ Daily News, May-June 1871. ‘The wholesale executions continue indiscriminately. Prisoners are taken down in batches to certain ... places where firing-parties are stationed, and deep trenches dug beforehand ... At one of these, the Caserne Napol�on, since last night five hundred persons have been shot... There are invariably women and boys among them ... Prisoners are soon disposed of by a volley and tumbled into a trench, when, if not killed by the shots, death from suffocation must soon put an end to their pain. Two court-martials alone are shooting at the rate of five hundred a day. Two thousand dead bodies are collected round the Panth�on.’ Standard, June, 1871. Glossary \| Contents \| The Civil War in France \| Paris Commune Archive
Lissagaray: History of the Paris Commune of 1871 Prologue How the Prussians got Paris and the Rurals France Daring — this word sums up all the politics of the day. (St. Just’s Report to the Convention) August 9, 1870 — In six days the Empire has lost three battles. Douai, Frossart, MacMahon have allowed themselves to be isolated, surprised, crushed. Alsace is lost, the Moselle laid bare. The dumb-founded Ministry has convoked the Chamber. Ollivier, in dread of a demonstration, denounces it 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 L�gislatif. Paris is waiting for the word from the deputies of the Left. Since the announcement of the defeat 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 L�gislatif are greatly excited, ready to turn tail in spite of the decorated and grumbling Marshal y d'Hilliers. The people cry, ‘To the frontier’. Officers answer aloud, ‘Our is not here’. In the Salle des Pas Perdus well-known Republicans, the men of the clubs, who have forced their way in, roughly challenge the Imperial deputies, speak loudly of proclaiming the Republic. The pale-faced Mamelukes [originally a militia of Egyptian slave-soldiers, here used to mean the Right.] 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 ‘Resign!’ 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 honourable gentlemen seem confounded, stupefied. ‘Are there enough of you? Is it not better to put it off till tomorrow?’ There are indeed only 1 00,000 men ready. Someone arrives and tells Gambetta, ‘There are several thousand of us at the Place Bourbon.’ Another, the writer of this history, says, ‘Make sure of the situation today, when it may ‘Still. be saved. Tomorrow, 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 threatening looks. The Mamelukes, who know their Left, recover their self-assurance. throw Ollivier overboard and form a coup d'�tat 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 Byzantium 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.
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 challenge 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 puts it 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 [the Hundred Days of 1815 between Napoleon I’s return from exile on the island of Elba until his defeat at Waterloo] pales before this superior cowardice; for here Tartuffe [symbol of hypocrisy, from a play by Moli�re] is grafted upon Trimalcion. [Nero-like character in a play by Petronius] Thirteen months later, at Versailles, I hear, amidst enthusiastic applause, the Empire apostrophized, ‘Varus [Roman general, he committed suicide after his legions had been destroyed], 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 centralization 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, in 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, vulgarize 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 desires of the eunuch. At the first sign of the impotent master they kiss the rod that smote them on 2nd December, making room for the plebiscite which rebaptizes the Empire. Bismarck prepared the war, Napoleon Ill 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 lower 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, [or hijrrah, a Muslim term meaning ‘emigration’, but used for the start of a new era] 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 tomorrow.
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 wig 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 revolutionise. 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 moderates 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 lower 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, Cr�mieux, Arago, Pelletan guarded the pure principles. lie 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 lower 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 galvanized it into life, but only for a moment. At the bidding of the deputies to keep quiet, the lower middle class, the mother of the 10th August, docilely bent its head and let the foreigner plunge his 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 are part of 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 labour. 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 demonstration at the tomb of Manin [Daniel Manin (1804-1857), an Italian nationalist leader who died an exile in France], and, despite the bludgeons of the sbirri, protest against Mentana. [village where Garibaldi’s troops were defeated by the French in 1867] 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 L�gislatif; 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 desperados 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 rumours 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 working men 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 - The people are our brothers And the tyrants our enemies. From the Ch�teau 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 lower 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 fight from them, but even the right to enlighten themselves? By an internal Machiavellianism 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, workingmen’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 Milli�re, Lefran�ais, 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 Cr�mieux’s. They found them stupefied, more afraid of a coup-d'�tat than of the Prussian victories. Cr�mieux, pressed to act, answered naively, ‘Let us wait for a new disaster, as, for instance, the fall of Strasburg.’ It was indeed necessary to wait, for without these shadows nothing could be done. The Parisian lower 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, Vtve la R�publique! 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 over-reached, 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 L�gislatif, crying: Vive la R�publique. 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 L�gislatif 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 before hand. 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 H�tel-de-Ville. This was already in the hands of the people. In the Salle du Tr�ne 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 Milli�re 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, Cr�mieux, Emmanuel Arago, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Gamier-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 ne ‘ w regime; secondly, for himself the presidency of the council.
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 H�tel-de-Ville. They had on the same day sent a new address to the German working men. Their fraternal duty fulfilled, the French workmen gave themselves up 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 H�tel-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-Elys�es 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 evacuating 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 Camp-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 of September, wishing to centralize 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, employees and 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 trade unions. These had almost suspended their work, the service of the National Guard absorbing all their activity. Some of their members again met m 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, Milli�re, Longuet, Vall�s, Lafran�ais, Mallon, etc. Their posters 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 H�tel-de-Ville to demand war ‘to the end’ 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 later 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, ‘Ale resistance is a heroic madness;’ Picard, ‘We shall defend ourselves for honour’s sake, but all hope is chimerical;’ the elegant Cr�mieux, ‘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 store 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 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 Ferri�res. 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 amid to have affected Trochu, who announced that it would perhaps be possible to hold the ramparts. Such was the maximum of his enthusiasm: to hold out — not to open the gates. As to or g these 250,000 men, uniting them with the 2403000 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 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 organized 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, ‘To Berlin!’ believed in a success. The revolutionists only were not taken in. The capitulation of Toul and of Strasbourg was to theft a solemn warning. Flourens, chief of the 63rd battalion, but who was the real commander of Bellevine, 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 H�tel-de-Ville, demanded the mass mobilization, sorties, municipal elections, and 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 H�tel-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 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 Ch�teaudun. The mayors encouraged this pleasant confidence. They sat at the H�tel-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 F�lix Pyat, the plan of the men of the H�tel-de-Ville is exposed. What is the meaning of 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 make room for those that believe in the Defence; let Paris ion of herself; let the Commune of 1792 be revived to save the city and France. Every day this resolution sinks more deeply into virile minds. On the 27th the Combat, which preached the e in high-flown phraseology whose musical rhythm struck the muses more than the nervous dialectics of Blanqui, hurls a terrific thunderbolt. ‘Bazaine is about to surrender Metz, to treat for peace m the name of Napoleon III; his aide-de-camp is at Versailles.’ The H�tel-de-Ville immediately contradicted this news, ‘as infamous as it is false. lie glorious soldier Bazaine has not ceased harassing the besieging army with brilliant sorties.’ The Government called down the upon 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 north-east 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 posted up the armistice side by side with 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 H�tel-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 H�tel-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 H�tel-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. Cal 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 Tr�ne, 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'H�tel-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 militia. The delegates who entered the H�tel-de-Ville brought no answer. About three o'clock, the crowd, growing impatient, rushed forward, breaking through the militia, and forcing F�lix Pyat, come to the H�tel-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 Tr�ne, 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 tables 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, Delescluse, F�lix Pyat. Blanqui and Milli�re were received with acclamation. Had this Commission seized on authority, cleared the H�tel-de-Ville, posted up a proclamation convoking the electors with the briefest delays the day’s work would have been beneficially concluded. But Dorian refused. Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Ledru-Rollin. Raspail, F�lix 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 office 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 announcement 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.” 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'H�tel-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 Vend�me, 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 H�tel-de-Ville again found their faithful flock. The H�tel-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 Milli�re, Flourens and Blanqui. Milli�re and Dorian went to communicate this document to the members of the Defence. Milli�re proposed to them to leave the H�tel-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 Milli�re 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 Milli�re 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 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'H�tel-de-Ville.

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