Illustration:Dupont, Delegate of Trade and Commerce.
Dupont, Delegate of Trade and Commerce.
NOTES:
[77]The affair of the 30th of April signally disappointed the chiefs of the insurrection, who decreed the formation of a Committee of Public Safety, and caused Cluseret to disappear. “The incapacity and negligence of the Delegate of War having,” they said, “almost lost them the possession of Fort Issy, the Executive Commission considered it their duty to propose the arrest of Citizen Cluseret, which was forthwith decreed by the Commune.”
The ParisianOfficial Journalsays: “The members of the Commune are not amenable to any other tribunal than their own” (that of the Commune). Ah! truly, men of the Hôtel de Ville, you imagine that, do you? Have you forgotten that there are such tribunals as court-martials and assizes?
M. Rossel is really very unfortunate! What is M. Rossel?[78]Why, the provisional successor of Citizen Cluseret. It was not a bad idea to put in the wordprovisional. The Commune had confided to him the care of military matters, which he had accepted, but with an air of condescension. This “Communeux” looks to me like an aristocrat. At any rate he has not been fortunate. Scarcely had he taken upon himself the safety of Paris, when the redoubt of Moulin-Saquet was surprised by the Versaillais. This accident was not calculated to enhance the courage of the Federals. The whole affair has been kept as dark as possible, but the porter of the house where I live, who was there, has told me strange things.
“Will you believe, Monsieur, that I had just finished a game of cards with the captain, and was preparing to have a bit of sleep, for it was near upon eleven o’clock, when I thought I heard something like the noise of troops marching. I looked round to see if any one heard it besides myself, but the men were already asleep, and a circular line of boots was sticking out all round the tents. The captain said: ‘I daresay it is the patrol from the Rue de Villejuif.’—‘Oh, yes,’ said I, ‘from the barricade,’ and I fell to sleep without a thought of danger. In fact, there seemed nothing to fear, as the Moulin-Saquet overlooks the whole of the plain which stretches from Vitry to Choisy-le-Roi, and from Villejuif to the Seine. It was impossible for a man to approach the redoubt without being seen by the sentinel. I had, therefore, been asleep a few minutes when I was awoke by the following dialogue:—‘Stop! who goes there?’—‘The patrol.’—‘Corporal, forward!’—Oh! said I to myself, it is our comrades come to see us; there will be some healths drunk before morning, and I got up to go and give them a welcome. The captain was also astir. ‘The password!’ he cried. The chief of the patrol came forward and answered—‘Vengeance!’ I remember wondering at the moment why he spoke so loud in giving the pass-word, when suddenly I saw three men rush forward, seize our captain, and throw him down. At the same time two or three hundred men, dressed as National Guards, threw themselves into the camp, rushed upon the sleeping artillery-men with their bayonets, and then fired several volleys into the tents where our poor comrades were asleep. What I had taken at first for National Guards were only those devils of sergents-de-ville dressed up! So, you see, as it was each man for himself, and the high road for everybody, I just threw myself down on my face, and let myself drop into the trenches. There was no fear of the noise of my fall being heard in the riot. I managed to hide myself pretty well in a hole I found there, and which had doubtless been made by a shell. I could not see anything, but I heard all that was going on. Clic! clac! clic! went the rifles, almost like the cracking of a whip, answered by the most dismal cries from the wounded. I could hear also the grinding of wheels, and made sure they were taking away our guns, the robbers! When all was silent except the groans of the dying men, I crept out of my hiding place. Would you believe it, Monsieur, I was the only one able to stand up; the Versaillais had taken all those who had not run away or were not wounded; I saw them, the pilfering thieves, making off towards Vitry, as fast as their legs could carry them!”
“You have no idea, lieutenant,” I said to the porter, “how the Versaillais got to know the pass-word?”—“No, only the captain, who is an honest fellow enough, but rather too fond of the bottle, went in the evening to the route d’Orléans where there are lots of wine-shops ...”—“And you think he got tipsy, and let the pass-word out to some spy or other?”—“I would not swear he did not; but what I am more sure of, is that we are betrayed!”
Alas! yes, unfortunates, you are betrayed, but not in the way you think. You are being cheated by these madmen and criminals who are busy publishing decrees at the Hôtel de Ville, while you are dying by scores at Issy, Vanves, Montrouge, Neuilly, and the Moulin-Saquet; they betray you when they talk of Royalists and Imperialists; they deceive you when they tell you, that victory is certain, and that even defeat would be glorious. I tell you, that victory is impossible, and that your defeat will be without honour; for when you fell, crying, “Vive la Commune!” “Vive la République!” the Commune is Félix Pyat, and the Republic, Vermorel.
NOTES:
[78]Colonel Rossel was one of the most capable members of the Commune Government. He was born in 1844, and was the son of Commandant Louis Rossel, an officer who acquired a high reputation in the Chinese war. The young Louis Rossel received a sound military education at the Prytanée of La Flèche, and subsequently at the École Polytechnique, at which latter institution he gained high honours. He served as captain of engineers in the army of Metz, and was one of the officers who signed the protestation against the surrender of Bazaine. He succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Prussians, and appeared at Tours to offer his services to the Government of National Defence. Gambetta, then Minister of War, appointed Rossel to the rank of colonel in the so-called auxiliary army. After the signature of the peace preliminaries, the new government refused to ratify the promotion granted by Gambetta, but offered Rossel the rank of major. This seriously offended the ex-Dictator’s ex-colonel, who shortly after the tenth of March, put his sword at the disposition of the Commune. He was at first appointed chief of the staff of General Cluseret, whom he subsequently replaced as delegate for war. On April 16 he became president of the Communist court-martial; he acted with great vigour in all military affairs until the 10th of May, when the Commune ordered his arrest.
Illustration:Chapelle Expiatoire.
Chapelle Expiatoire.
Malediction on the man who imagined this decree; malediction on the assembly that approved it; and cursed be the hand which shall first touch a stone of that tomb! Oh I believe me, I am not among those who regret the times of royal prerogatives, and who believe that everything would have gone well, in the most peaceful country in the world, if Louis XVII had only succeeded to the throne after his father, Louis XVI. The author of the revolution of 1798 knew what he was about in multiplying such terrible catastrophes. The name of that author was Infallible Necessity. Indeed I am quite ready to confess that the indolent husband of Marie Antoinette had none of those qualities which make a great king, and I will even add, if you wish it absolutely, that the solitary fact of being a king is a crime worthy a thousand deaths. As to Marie Antoinette herself—“the Austrian,”Père Duchesnewould call her—I allow that in history she is not quite so amiable as she appears in the novels of Alexandra Dumas, and that her near relationship to the queen Caroline-Marie, whose little suppers at Naples, in company with Lady Hamilton, one is well acquainted with, gives some excuse for the calumnies of which she has been the object. Have I said enough to prevent myself being the recipient, in the event of a Bourbon restoration, of the most modest pension that ever came out of a royal treasury? Well, in spite of what I have said, and in spite of what I think, I repeat, “Do not touch that tomb!” Like the Column Vendôme, which is the symbol of an heroic and terrible epoch in history, the Chapelle Expiatoire[79]is a souvenir of the old monarchical reign, an age which was neither devoid of sorrow, nor of honour for France. Can you not be republican without suppressing history, which was royalist? The last remains of monarchy repose in peace beneath that gloomy monument; may it be respected, as we respect the ashes of those who respected it; and you, breakers of images, profaners of past glory, do you not fear, in executing your decree, to produce an effect diametrically opposed to that which you desire? By persecuting kings even in their last resting-place, are you not afraid to excite the pity, the regret perhaps, of those whose consciences still hesitate? In the interest of the Republic, I say, take care! The memory of the dead stalks forth from open sepulchres!
NOTES:
[79]This chapel was erected by Louis XVIII. upon the spot where, during the Revolution of 1793, the remains of Louis XVI, and his Queen had been obscurely interred.
Rejoice, poor housewives, who, on days of poverty, were obliged to carry to the Mont-de-Piété[80]the discoloured remains of your wedding dress, or your husband’s Sunday coat; rejoice, artisans, who, after a day of toil, thought your bed so hard since your last mattress was taken to the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, to rejoin your last pair of sheets. The Commune has decreed that “all objects in pawn at the Mont-de-Piété, for a sum not exceeding twenty francs, shall be given back gratuitously to all persons who shall prove their legitimate right to the said objects.” Thanks to this benevolent decree, you may now hope that things you have pawned will be restored to you before three or four hundred days!
Count on your fingers; the number of articles to which the decree applies is at least 1,200,000. As there are only three offices for the claimants to apply to, and considering the forms which have to be observed, I do not think more than three thousand objects can be given back daily; the Commune says four thousand, but the Commune does not know what it is talking about. However, even if we calculate four thousand a-day, the whole would take up ten or twelve months.
During this time men and women, whom poverty had long ere this taught the road to the Mont-de-Piété, would have to get up early, neglect the daily work by which they live, and go and stand awaiting their turn at the office, frozen in winter, baked in summer, thankful to obtain a moment’s rest upon one of the wooden benches in the great bare hall; and when they have been there a long, weary time, to see their number, drawn by lot, put off to the next day or the day after, or the week or the month following perhaps.
Still we must not blame the Commune for the sad disappointment of this long delay, it would be impossible to shorten it. One thing, which is less impossible, is to indemnify the administration of the Mont-de-Piété for this gratuitous restitution. Citizen Jourde, delegate of the finances, says, “I will give 100,000 francs a-week.” Without stopping to consider where this able political economist means to get his weekly 100,000 francs, I will be content with remarking that this sum would in no wise cover the loss to the Mont-de-Piété, and that the Commune will only be giving alms out of other people’s purses. If, however, thanks to this decree, some few poor creatures are enabled to get back those goods and chattels which they were obliged to dispose of in the hour of need, there will not be much cause to complain. The Mont-de-Piété usually does a very good business, and there will always be enough misery in Paris for it to grow rich upon. Besides, the Commune owes the poor wounded, mutilated, dying fellows who have been brought from Neuilly and Issy, at least a mattress to die in some little comfort upon.
NOTES:
[80]The governmental pawnbroking establishments. All the pawnbroking is carried on by the Government.
They have put them into the prison of Saint-Lazare. Whom? The nuns of the convent of Picpus. They have put them there because they have been arrested. But why were they arrested? That is what Monsieur Rigault himself could not clearly explain. Some of the nuns are old. They have been living long in seclusion, and have only changed cells; having been the captives of Heaven, they have become the prisoners of Citizen Mouton. In such an abject place too, poor harmless souls! Victor Hugo has said, speaking of that wretched prison, “Saint-Lazare! we must crush that edifice.” Yes, later, when we have the time; we must now pull down the Column Vendôme and the Chapelle Expiatoire. In the meantime these poor ladies are very sad. One of my friends went to see them; they have neither their prayer-books nor their crucifix; they have had even the amulets they wore round their necks taken from them. This seems nothing to you, citizens of the Commune. You are men of advanced opinions. You care as much about a crucifix as a fish for an apple; and perhaps you are right. You have studied the question, and you say in the evening, looking up at the stars, “There is no God.” But you must understand that with these poor nuns it is quite a different matter. They have not read philosophical treatises; they still believe that the Almighty created the world in six days, and that the Son died on the cross for the sake of the world. When they were free, or rather when they were in a prison of their own choosing, they prayed in the morning, they prayed at noon, they prayed at night, and only interrupted this most pernicious occupation for the purpose of teaching poor little girls that it is good to be virtuous, honest, and grateful, and that Heaven rewards those who do rightly. That was their occupation, poor simple souls, and you have sent them to Saint Lazare for that. You should have chosen another prison, for their presence must be disagreeable to the usual female denizens of the place. But there, or elsewhere, they do not complain; they only ask for a prayer-book and a wooden crucifix. Come, Citizen Delegate of the ex-Prefecture, one little concession, and unless the future of the Republic is likely to be compromised by so doing, give them a cross. A cross is only two pieces of wood placed one on the other. I promise you there will be wood enough in the forest the day honest men make up their minds to exercise their muscles on your backs, you bullying slave-drivers!
After Bergeret came Cluseret; after Cluseret, Rossel. But Rossel has just sent in his resignation. My idea is, that we take back Cluseret, that we may have Bergeret, and so on, unless we prefer to throw ourselves into the open arms of General Lullier. The choice of another general for the defence of Paris is however no business of mine; and the Commune, a sultan without a favourite, may throw his handkerchief if he pleases, to the tender Delescluze, as some say he has the intention—I have not the least objection. Why should not Delescluze[81]be an excellent general? He is a journalist, and what journalist does not know more about military matters than Napoleon I., or Von Moltke himself? In the meantime we are in mourning for our third War Delegate, and we shall no longer see Rossel on his dark bay, galloping between the Place Vendôme and the Fort Montrouge. He has just written the following letter to the members of the Commune:—
Illustration:Quelle Gourmande! Paris at Table.
Quelle Gourmande! Paris at Table.
Waiter, two or three more stewed generals. —We are out of them. —Very well, then a dozen colonels in caper sauce. —A dozen? —Yes: directly!!
“CITIZENS, MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNE,—Having been charged by you with the War Department, I feel myself no longer capable of bearing the responsibility of a command wherein every one deliberates, and no one obeys.“When it was necessary to organise the artillery, the Central Committee of Artillery deliberated, but nothing was done. After a month’s revolution, that service is only carried on, thanks to the energy of a very small number of volunteers.“On my nomination to the Ministry, I wanted to further the search for arms, the requisition of horses, and the pursuit of refractory citizens; I asked help of the Commune.“The Commune deliberated, but passed no resolutions.“Later, the Central Committee came and offered its services to the War Department; I accepted them in the most decisive manner, and delivered up to its members all the documents I had concerning its organisation. Since then the Central Committee has been deliberating, and has done nothing. During this time the enemy multiplied its venturesome attacks on Fort Issy; had I had the smallest military force at my command, I would have punished them for it.“The garrison, badly commanded, took flight; the officers deliberated, and sent away from the fort Captain Dumont, an energetic man, who had been ordered to command them. Still deliberating, they evacuated the fort, after having stupidly talked of blowing it up,—as difficult a thing for them to do as to defend it.“Even that was not enough. Yesterday, when every one ought to have been at work or fighting, the chiefs were deliberating upon another system of organisation from that which I had adopted, so as to make up for their want of forethought and authority. The results of their council were a project, when we want men, and a declaration of principles, when we wanted acts.“My indignation brought them back to other thoughts, and they promised me for to-day the largest force they could possibly muster,—an organised one of not more than 12,000 men. With these I undertook to march on the enemy. These men were to muster at eleven o’clock: it is now one, and they are not ready, and the promised 12,000 has dwindled to about 7,000, which is not at all the same thing.“Thus, the utter uselessness of the artillery committee prevented the organization of the artillery; the hesitation of the Central Committee stopped all arrangements; the petty discussions of the officers, paralyses the concentration of the troops.“I am not a man to mind having recourse to violence. Yesterday, while the chiefs discussed, a company of men with loaded rifles awaited in the court. But I did not want to take upon myself the initiative of so energetic a measure, or draw upon myself the odium of such executions as would have been necessary to extricate obedience and victory from such a chaos. Even if I had been protected by the publicity of my acts, I need not have given up my position.“But the Commune has not had the courage to confront publicity. Twice I wished to give some necessary explanations, and twice, in spite of me, it insisted on a secret council.“My predecessor was wrong to remain in so absurd a position.“Enlightened by his example, and knowing that the strength of a revolutionary, only consists in the clearness of his position, I have only two alternatives, either to break the chains which impede my actions, or to retire.“I will not break the chains, because those chains are you, and your weakness,—I will not touch the sovereignty of the people.“I retire; and have the honour to beg for a cell at Mazas.
“ROSSEL.”[82]
Illustration:Delescluze, Delegate of War.[83]
Delescluze, Delegate of War.[83]
Most certainly I do not like the Paris Commune, such as the men of the Hôtel de Ville understand it. Deceived at first by my own delusive hopes, I now am sure that we have nothing to expect from it but follies upon follies, crimes upon crimes. I hate it on account of the suppressed newspapers, of the imprisoned journalists, of the priests shut up at Mazas like assassins, of the nuns shut up at Saint-Lazare like courtesans; I hate it because it incites to the crime of civil war those who would have been ready to fight against the Prussians, but who do not wish to fight against Frenchmen; I hate it on account of the fathers of families sent to battle and to death; on account of our ruined ramparts, our dismantled forts, each stone of which as it falls wounds or destroys; on account of the widowed women and the orphaned children, all of whom they can never pension in spite of their decrees; I cannot pardon them the robbing of the banks, nor the money extorted from the railway companies, nor the loan-shares sold to a money-changer at Liège; I hate it on account of Clémence the spy, and Allix the madman. I am sorry to think that two or three intelligent men should be mixed up with it, and have to share in its fall. I hate it particularly on account of the just principles it at one time represented, and of the admirable and fruitful ideas of municipal independence, which it, was not able to carry out honestly, and which, because of the excesses that have been committed in their name, will have lost for ever, perhaps, all chance of triumphing. Still, great as is my horror of this parody of a government to which we have had to submit for nearly two months, I could not forbear a feeling of repulsion on reading the letter of Citizen Rossel. It is a capitally written letter, firm, concise, conclusive, differing entirely from the bombastic, unintelligible documents to which the Commune has accustomed us; and besides, it brings to light several details at which I rejoice, because it permits me to hope that the reign of our tyrants is nearly at an end. I am glad to hear that the Commune, if it possesses artillery, is short of artillerymen. It delights me to learn that they can only dispose of seven thousand combatants. I had feared that it would be enabled to kill a great many more; and as to what Citizen Rossel says of the committees and officers who deliberate but do not act, it is most pleasant news, for it convinces me, that the Commune has not the power to continue much longer a war, which can but result in the death of Paris; and yet I highly disapprove of the letter of Citizen Rossel, because it is on his part an act of treachery, and it is not for the friends and servants of the Commune to reveal its faults and to show up its weaknesses. Who obliged Rossel, commander of the staff, to take the place of his general, disgraced and imprisoned? Did he not accept willingly a position, the difficulties of which he had already recognised? He says himself that his predecessor was wrong to have stayed in so absurd a position, and why did he voluntarily put himself there, where he blamed another for remaining? If the new delegate hoped by his own cleverness to modify the position, he ought not, the position remaining the same, accuse anything but his own incapacity. In a word, the conclusion at which we arrive is, that he only accepted power to be able to throw it off with effect, like Cato, who only went to the public theatres for the purpose of fussily leaving the place, at the moment when the audience called the actors before the curtain. Not being able or perhaps willing to save the Commune, M. Rossel desired to save himself at its expense. There is something ungentlemanly in this. Do not, however, imagine for a moment that I believe in M. Rossel having been bought by M. Thiers. All those ridiculous stories of sums of money having been offered to the members of the Commune, are merely absurd inventions.[84]What do you think they say of Cluseret? That he was in the habit of taking his breakfast at the Café d’Orsay, and afterwards playing a game of dominoes. One day his adversary is reported to have said to him, “If you will deliver the fort of Montrouge to the Versaillais, I will give you two millions.” What fools people must be to believe such absurdities! Rossel has not sold himself, for the very good reason that nobody ever thought of buying him. It was his own idea to do what he did. For the pleasure of being insolent and showing his boldness, he has pulled down from its pedestal what he adored, consequently the most criminal among the members of the Commune, once a swindler, now a pilferer, is free to say to M. Rossel, who is, I am told, a man of intelligence and honesty, “You are worse than I am, for you have betrayed us!”
NOTES:
[81]PARIS AT DINNER.—An ogress, gentleman! A famished creature, faring sumptuously; her face flushed with wine, her eyes bright, her hands trembling. Madame Lutetia is a strapping woman still, with a queenly air about her, in spite of the red patches on her tunic; somewhat shorn of her ornaments, it is true, as she has had to pawn the greater part of her jewelry, but the orgie once over she will be again what she was before.For the time being she is wholly absorbed in her gastronomic exertions. She has already devoured a Bergeret with peas, a Lullier with anchovy sauce, an Assy and potatoes, a Cluseret with tomatos, a Rossel with capers, besides a large quantity of small fry, and she is not yet appeased. Themaître-d’hôtelDelescluze waits upon her somewhat in trepidation, with a sickly smile on his face. What if, after such a meal of generals and colonels, the ogress were to devour the waiter!—Fac simile of design from the “Grelot,” 17th May, 1871.
[82]He was convinced of the hopelessness of any further struggle after the capture of Fort Issy; gave in his resignation, and hid himself to escape the vengeance of his former colleagues. He was supposed to be in England or Switzerland, whereas, in fact, he had fled no farther than the Boulevard Saint Germain. He was arrested by the police on the ninth of June, disguised as an employé of the Northern Railway. He was first interrogated at the Petit Luxembourg, and afterwards conducted handcuffed to Versailles, where three mouths after he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to military degradation and death.
[83]Delescluze’s wild life began at Dreux, in 1809. Driven from home on account of his bad conduct, he came to Paris, and obtained employment in an attorney’s office, from which he was very soon afterwards, it is said, discharged for robbery. In 1834, he underwent the first of his long list of imprisonments, for the part he took in the April revolution, and in the following year, being compromised in a conspiracy against the safety of the state, he took refuge in Belgium, Where he obtained the editorship of theCourrier de Charleroi. In 1840 he returned to Paris, where he founded a journal called theRévolution Démocratique et Sociale, which brought him fifteen months’ imprisonment and twenty thousand francs fine. After a long period of liberty of nearly eight years, he was condemned to transportation by the High Court of Justice, but the condemnation was given in his absence, for he had slipped over to England, where he remained until 1853. On his returning in that year to France he was immediately imprisoned at Mazas, transferred afterwards to Belle-Isle, and then successively to the hulks of Corte, Ajaccio, Toulon, Brest, and finally to Cayenne. These sojourns lasted until 1868, when the amnesty permitted him to return to France, where he made haste to bring out another new journal,Le Réveil, which of course earned him fines and imprisonments with great rapidity, three of each within the twelvemonth.In the month of February, 1871, he was elected deputy by a large number of votes; and later, when the Assembly went to Bordeaux, sat there for some time, and then gave in his resignation, in order to take part with the Commune.By the Commune he was made delegate at the Ministry of War, after the pretended flight of Rossel, and in a sitting of the 20th of April, in which the project of burning Paris was discussed, Delescluze ended his speech with the words—“If we must die, we will give to Liberty a pile worthy of her.”
[84]“A plot had just been discovered between Bourget of the Internationale, Billioray, member of the Commune, and Cérisier, captain of the 101st Battalion of the insurgent National Guard. For a certain sum of money they were to deliver Port Issy into the hands of General Valentin, of the Versailles army. The succession of Rossel to the Ministry of War frustrated the whole project.“In the night of the 17th of May another attempt of the same kind met with failure. The Communists Bourget, Billioray, Mortier, Cérisier, and Pilotel, the artist, traitors to their own treacherous cause, were to open the gates to the soldiers of Versailles, an hour after midnight, at the Point du Jour; the soldiers to be disguised as National Guards. But, at the appointed hour, Cérisier took fright, and contented himself with the money he had received on account (twenty-five thousand francs) in payment for his treachery, and did no more. When the Versailles troops presented themselves at the gates, they had to beat a retreat under a heavy fire of mitrailleuses.”Guerre des Communeux.]
I was told the following by an eye-witness of the scene. In a small room at the Hôtel de Ville five personages were seated round a table at dinner. The repast was of the most modest kind, and consisted of soup, one dish of meat, one kind of vegetable, cheese, and a bottle of vin ordinaire each. One would have thought, oneself in a restaurant at two francs a head, if it had not been that the condiments had got musty during the siege; besides, there was something solemn and official in the very smell of the viands which took away one’s appetite. However, our five personages swallowed their food as fast as they could. At the head of the table sat Citizen Jourde. Jourde looks about eight and twenty; he has a delicate looking, mathematical head, with brown curly hair and sallow complexion, a kind of Henri Heine of the Finance. Tall and thin, with his red scarf tied round his waist, he reminds us of one of the old Convention of ’89. They sat for some time in silence, as if they were observing each other. At the end of the first course, Jourde took up a spoon and examined it, saying, “Silver! true there is silver at the Hôtel de Ville, I will send for it to-morrow!” One of the other guests said, “Pardon me, I have to answer for it, and shall not give it up.”—“Oh, yes you will,” answered Jourde, “I will have an order sent to you from the Domaine,”[85]and then, as if he were thinking aloud, goes on to express his satisfaction at having found an unexpected sum of three hundred thousand francs, as it were on the dinner-table. A whole day’s pay! He will be able to put by four millions at the end of the week; he tries to be economical, but the war runs away with everything. “You must at least give me three days’ notice for the payment of sums amounting to more than a hundred thousand francs,” says he, with a shrug of the shoulders, particularly addressed to Beslay. Then he speaks of his hopes of reducing the Prussian debt before the year is out, if the Commune lives so long; touches on subjects connected with the taxes, patents and duties, “or else bank-notes worth fire hundred francs in the morning, will only be worth twenty sous in the evening; money is scarce, it is leaving the city. I do not see much copper about, but if you leave me alone, I promise to succeed.” All this was said in a tone of the most sincere conviction. When the dinner was over, he hastily bowed and rushed off, without having taken any notice of what was said to him. Every now and then cries arose in the streets, and made the members of the Commune start as they sat there behind their sombre curtains. “Do you think they can come in?” asked some one of Johannard, to which he replies, “What a wild idea! Delescluze knows it is impossible, and Dombrowski, a cold unexcitable fellow, only laughs when people mention it; does he not, Rigault?” Thereupon the personage addressed, who has not yet spoken, bows his head in sign of acquiescence. He looks young in spite of his thick, black beard; his eyes are weak, his expression is sly and disagreeable, and looks as if he might sometimes have his hours of coarse joviality. Then a portière was lowered, or a door shut, and the person who had overheard the preceding heard and saw no more.
Illustration:Fontaine, Director of Public Domains And Registration[86]
Fontaine, Director of Public Domains And Registration[86]
NOTES:
[85]The Commune occupied the Mint, and directed Citizen Camelinat, bronze-fitter, to manufacture gold and silver coin to the amount of 1,500,000 francs. Of that sum, 76,000 francs only was saved by the Versailles troops on their entry. The different articles of gold and silver found at the Hôtel des Monnaies represented a total weight of 1,186 lbs., and consisted of objects taken from the churches, religious houses, and government offices, Imperial plate, and presents to the city of Paris. All these objects have been sent to the repository of the Domaine, where they maybe claimed on identification by their owners.
[86]Fontaine was nominated on the 18th of March director of the public domains and of registration. His name figures in the history of the revolutions, émeutes, and insurrections of Paris from 1848. He was a professional insurgent.
I am beginning to regret Cluseret. He was impatient, especially in speech. He used to say “Every man a National Guard!” But with Cluseret, as with one’s conscience, there were possible conciliations. You had only to answer the decrees of the war-delegate by an enthusiastic “Why I am delighted, indeed I was just going to beg you to send me to the Porte-Maillot;” which having done, one was free to go about one’s business without fear of molestation. As to leaving Paris, in spite of the law which condemned every man under forty to remain in the city; nothing was easier. You had but to go to the Northern Railway Station, and prefer your request to a citizen, seated at a table behind a partition in the passport office.[87]When he asked you your age you had only to answer “Seventy-eight,” passing your hand through your sable locks as you spoke—“Only that? I thought you looked older,” the accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign. One day I had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my pass bore the strange word “Carnivolus” written on it. Provided with this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ticket and jump into the next train that started. I was free, and nothing could have prevented my going, if such had been my wish, to proclaim the Commune at Mont Blanc or Monaco.
How the times are changed! The Committee of Public Safety and the Central Committee now join together in making the lives of the poorréfractaires[88]a burthen to them. I do not speak of the disarmaments, which have nothing particularly disagreeable about them, for an unarmed man may clearly nourish the hope that he is not to be sent to battle. But there are other things, and I really should not object to be a little over eighty for a few days. Domiciliary visits have become very frequent. Four National Guards walk into the house of the first citizen they please, and politely or otherwise, explain to him that it is his strict duty to go into the trenches at Vanves and kill as many Frenchmen as he can. If the citizen resists he is carried off, and told that on account of his resistance he will have the honour of being put at the head of his battalion at the first engagement. These visits often end in violence. I am told that in the Rue Oudinot a young man received a savage bayonet thrust because he resisted the corporal’s order; and as these occurrences are not uncommon, theréfractairescannot be said to live in peace and comfort. They are subject to continual terror, the sour visage of theirconciergefills them with misgivings, he may be one of the Commune. As to going to bed, it must not be thought of; it is during the hours of night that the Communal agents are particularly active. This necessity of changing domicile has lead to certain Amélias and Rosalines and other ladies of that description having the words “Hospitality toRéfractaires” written in pencil on their cards. Men who decline to take advantage of such opportunities have to go about from hôtel to hôtel, giving imaginary names, suspicious of the waiters, and awaking at the least sound, thinking it is the noise of feet ascending the stairs, or the rattle of muskets on the landing. The day before yesterday a number ofréfractaires, having the courage of despair, walked to the Porte Saint-Ouen—“Will you let us out?” asked they of the commanding officer, who answered in a decided negative; whereupon the party, which was three hundred strong, fell upon the captain and his men, whom they disarmed, and five minutes afterwards they were running free across the fields.
Others employ softer means of corruption; resort to the wine-shops of Belleville, where they make themselves agreeable in every way, and soon succeed in entering into friendly conversation with some of the least ferocious among the Federals of the place.
Illustration:Réfractaires Escaping from Paris
Réfractaires Escaping from Paris
“You are on duty, Tuesday, at the Porte de la Chapelle?”—“Why, yes.”—“So that you might very easily let a comrade out who wants to go and pay a visit at Saint-Denis?”—“Quite out of the question; the others would prevent me, or denounce me to the captain.”—“You think there is nothing to be done with the captain?”—“Oh! no; he is a staunch patriot, he is!”—“How very tiresome; and I wanted most particularly to go to Saint-Denis on Tuesday evening. I would gladly give twenty francs out of my own pocket for the sake of a little walk outside the fortifications.”—“There is only one way.”—“And how is that?”—“You don’t care much about going out by the door, do you?”—“Well, no; what I want is to get outside.“—“Oh! then listen to me; come to La-Chapelle early on Tuesday evening, and walk up and down the rampart. I will try and be on duty at eight o’clock, and look out for you. When I see you I will take care not to sayqui vive.”—“That’s easy enough; and what then?”—“Why, then I will secure around you a thick rope which of course you will have with you!”—“The devil!”—“And I will throw you into the trench.”—“By Jove! That will be a leap.”—“Oh! I will do it very carefully, without hurting you. I will let you slip softly down the wall.”—“Humph!”—“When you reach the ground below, in an instant you can be up and off into the darkness. Do you accept? Yes or no?”—“I should certainly prefer to drive out of the city in a coach and six, but nevertheless I accept.”
Generally, this plan answers admirably. They say that the Federals of Belleville and Montmartre make a nice little income with this kind of business. Sometimes, however, the plan only half succeeds, and either the rope breaks, or the Federal considers, he may manage capitally to reconcile his interest with his duty, by sending a ball after the escapedréfractaire.
Disguises are also the order of the day. A poet, whose verses were received at the Comédie Française with enthusiasm during the siege, managed to get away, thanks to an official on the Northern Railway, who lent him his coat and cap. Another poet—they are an ingenious race—conceived a plan of greater boldness. One day on the Boulevard he called a fiacre, having first taken care to choose a coachman of respectable age, “Cocher, drive to the Rue Montorgueil, to the best restaurant you can find.” On the way the poet reasoned thus to himself: “This coachman has in his pocket, as they all have, a Communal passport, which allows him to go out and come into Paris as he pleases; let me remember the fourth act of my last melodrama, and I am saved.”
The cab stopped in front of a restaurant of decent exterior not far from Philippe’s. The young man went in, asked for a private room, and told the waiter to send up the coachman, as he had something to say to him, and to procure a boy to hold the horse. The coachman walked into the room, where the breakfast was ready served.
“Now, coachman, I am going to keep you all day, so do not refuse to drink a glass with me to keep up your strength.”
An hour after the poet and the coachman had breakfasted like old friends; six empty bottles testified that neither one nor the other were likely to die of thirst. The poet grumbled internally to himself as he thought of the three bottles of Clos-Vougeot, one of Léoville, two of Moulin-au-Vent, that had been consumed, and the fellow not drunk yet. Then he determined to try surer means, and called to the waiter to bring champagne. “It is no use, young fellow,” laughed the coachman, who was familiar at least, if he was not drunk; “champagne won’t make any difference; if you counted on that to get my passport, you reckoned without your host!”—“The devil I did,” cried the poor young man, horrified to see his scheme fall through, and to think of the prodigious length of the bill he should have to pay for nothing.—“Others, have tried it on, but I am too wide awake by half,” said the coachman, adding as he emptied the last bottle into his glass, “give me two ten-franc pieces and I will get you through.”—“How can I be grateful enough?” cried the poet, although in reality he felt rather humiliated to find that the grand scene in his fourth act had not succeeded.—“Call the waiter, and pay the bill.” The waiter was called, and the bill paid with a sigh. “Now give me your jacket.”—“My jacket?”—“Yes, this thing in velvet you have on your back.” The poet did as he was bid. “Now your waistcoat and trousers.”—“My trousers! Oh, insatiable coachman!”—“Make haste will you, or else I shall take you to the nearest guard-room for a confoundedréfractaire, as you are.” The clothes were immediately given up. “Very well; now take mine, dress yourself in them, and let’s be off.” While the young man was putting on with decided distaste the garments of thecocher, the latter managed to introduce his ponderous bulk into those of the poet. This done, out they went. “Get up on the box.”—“On the box?”—“Yes, idiot,” said the coachman, growing more and more familiar; “I am going to get into the cab, now drive me wherever you please.” The plan was a complete success. At the Porte de Châtillon the disguised poet exhibited his passport, and the National Guard who looked in at the window of the carriage cried out, “Oh, he may pass; he might be my grandfather.” The cab rolled over the draw-bridge, and it was in this way that M ...,—ah! I was just going to let the cat out of the bag—it was in this way that our young poet broke the law of the Commune, and managed to dine that same evening at the Hôtel des Réservoirs at Versailles, with a deputy of the right on his left hand, and a deputy of the left on his right hand.
Shall I go away? Why not? Do I particularly wish to be shut up one morning in some barrack-room, or sent in spite of myself to the out-posts? My position ofréfractaireis sensibly aggravated by the fact of my being in rather a dangerous neighbourhood. For the last few days, I have felt rather astonished at the searching glances that a neighbour always casts upon me, when we met in the street. I told my servant to try and find out who this man was. Great heavens! this scowling neighbour of mine is Gérardin—Gérardin of the Commune! Add to this the perilous fact, that ourconciergeis lieutenant in a Federal battalion, and you will have good reason to consider me the most unfortunate ofréfractaires. However, what does it matter? I decide on remaining; I will stay and see the end, even should the terrible Pyat and the sweet Vermorel both of them be living under the same roof with me, even if myconciergebe M. Delescluze himself!
NOTES:
[87]The decree which rendered obligatory the service in the marching companies of the National Guard, and the establishment of courts-martial, spread terror among the population, and thousands of people thronged daily to the Prefecture of Police. Sometimes, the queue extended from the Place Dauphine to beyond the Pont Neuf. But soon afterwards, stratagems of every kind were put into requisition to escape from the researches of the Commune, which became more eager and determined, from day to day, after the publication of the following decree, the chef-d’oeuvre of the too famous Raoul Rigault:—
“EX-PREFECTURE OF POLICE.“Delivery of Passports.
“Considering that the civil authority cannot favour the non-execution of the decrees of the Commune, without failing in its duty, and that it is highly necessary that all communications with those who carry on this savage war against us should be prevented,“The member of the Committee of Public Safety, Delegate at the Prefecture of Police,“Decrees:—“Art. 1. Passports can only be delivered on the production of satisfactory documents.“Art. 2. No passport will be delivered to individuals between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five years, as such fall within the military law.“Art. 3. No passport will be issued to any member of the old police, or who are in relation with Versailles.“Art. 4. Any persons who come within the conditions of Articles 2 or 3, and apply for passports, will be immediately sent to the dépôt of the ex-Prefecture of Police.
(Signed) “RAOUL RIGAULT,“Member of the Committee of Public Safety.”]
[88]Those who decline to join the Commune.
Glorious news! I have seen Lullier again. We had lost Cluseret, lost Rossel; Delescluze does not suffice, and except for Dombrowski and La Cécilia with his prima-donna-like name, the company of the Commune would be sadly wanting in stars. Happily! Lullier has been restored to us. What had become of him? he only wrote seven or eight letters a day to Rochefort and Maroteau, that I can find out. How did he manage to employ that indomitable activity of his, and that of his two hundred friends, who with their red Garibaldis and blue sailor trousers made him the most picturesque escort you can imagine? Was he meditating some gigantic enterprises the dictatorship that Cluseret had dreamed of and Rossel disdained, was he about to assume it for the good of the Republic? I have no idea; but whatever he has been doing, I have seen him again at the club held in the church of Saint Jacques.