Illustration:General La Cécilia.[89]
General La Cécilia.[89]
Ha! ha! Worthless hypocrites and inquisitors, who for the last eighteen hundred years have crushed, degraded, and tortured the poor; you thought our turn was never to come, you monks, priests, and archbishops! Thanks to the Commune you now preach in the prisons of the Republic; you may confess, if you like, the spiders of your dungeons, and give the holy viaticum to the rats which play around your legs! You can no longer do any harm to patriots. No more churches, no more convents! Those who have not houses in the Champs Elysées shall lodge in your convents; in your churches shall be held honest assemblies, which will give the people their rights; as to their duties, that is an invention of reactionists. No more of your sermons or speeches: after Bossuet, Napoléon Gaillard!
Illustration:The Church of Saint Eustache. Used As a Red Club. Partly destroyed by fire.
The Church of Saint Eustache. Used As a Red Club. Partly destroyed by fire.
On entering the church of Saint Eustache yesterday, I was agreeably surprised to find the font full of tobacco instead of holy-water, and to see the altar in the distance covered with bottles and glasses. Some one informed me that was the counter. In one of the lateral chapels, a statue of the Virgin had been dressed out in the uniform of a vivandière, with a pipe in her mouth. I was, however, particularly charmed with the amiable faces of the people I saw collected there. The sex to which we owe thetricoteuseswas decidedly in the majority. It was quite delightful not to see any of those elegant dresses and frivolous manners, which have for so long disgraced the better half of the human race. Thank heaven! my eyes fell with rapture on the heroic rags of those ladies who do us the honour of sweeping our streets for us. Many of these female patriots were proud to bear in the centre of their faces a rubicund nose, that rivalled in colour the Communal flag on the Hôtel de Ville. Oh, glorious red nose, the distinguished sign of Republicanism! As to the men, they seemed to have been chosen among the first ranks of the new aristocracy. It was charming to note the military elegance with which their caps were slightly inclined over one ear; their faces, naturally hideous, were illuminated with the joy of freedom, and certainly the thick smoke which emanated from their pipes, must have been more agreeable as an offering, than the faint vapours of incense that used to arise from the gilded censers. “Marriage, citoyennes, is the greatest error of ancient humanity. To be married is to be a slave. Will you be slaves?”—“No, no!” cried all the female part of the audience, and the orator, a tall gaunt woman with a nose like the beak of a hawk, and a jaundice-coloured complexion, flattered by such universal applause, continued, “Marriage, therefore, cannot be tolerated any longer in a free city. It ought to be considered a crime, and suppressed by the most severe measures. Nobody has the right to sell his liberty, and thereby to set a bad example to his fellow citizens. The matrimonial state is a perpetual crime against morality. Don’t tell me that marriage may be tolerated, if you institute divorce. Divorce is only an expedient, and if I may be allowed to use the word, an Orleanist expedient!” (Thunders of applause.) “Therefore, I propose to this assembly, that it should get the Commune of Paris to modify the decree, which assures pensions to the legitimate or illegitimate companions of the National Guards, killed in the defence of our municipal rights. No half measures. We, the illegitimate companions, will no longer suffer the legitimate wives to usurp rights they no longer possess, and which they ought never to have had at all. Let the decree be modified. All for the free women, none for the slaves!”
Illustration:Interior of the Church Of St. Eustache—communist Club.
Interior of the Church Of St. Eustache—communist Club.
The orator descends from the pulpit amidst the most lively congratulations. I am told by some one standing near me, that the orator is a monthly nurse, who used to be a somnambulist in her youth. But the crowd opens now to give place to a male orator, who mounts the spiral staircase, passes his hand through his hair, and darts a piercing glance on the multitude beneath. It is Citizen Lullier.
This young man has really a very agreeable physiognomy; his forehead is intelligent, his eyes pleasant. Looking on M. Lullier’s sympathetic face, one is sorry to remember his eccentricities. But what is all this noise about? What has he said? what has he done? I only heard the words “Dombrowski,” and “La Cécilia.” Every one starts to his feet, exasperated, shouting. Several chairs are about to be flung at the orator. He is surrounded, hooted. “Down with Lullier! Long live Dombrowski!” The tumult increases. Citizen Lullier seems perfectly calm in the midst of it all, but refuses to leave the pulpit; he tries in vain to speak and explain. Two women, two amiable hags, throw themselves upon him; several men rush up also; he is taken up bodily and carried away, resisting to the utmost and shouting to the last. The people jump up on the chairs, Lullier has disappeared, and I hear him no more; what have they done with him!
What do you think of all this, gentlemen and Catholics! Do you still regret the priests and choristers who used awhile ago to preach and chant in the Parisian churches? Where is the man, who at the very sight of this new congregation, so tolerant, so intelligent, listening with such gratitude to these noble lessons of politics and morality; where is the man, who could any longer blind himself to the admirable influence of the present revolution? Innumerable are the benefits that the Paris Commune showers upon us! As I leave the church, a little vagabond walks up to the font, and taking a pinch of tobacco,—“In the name of the...!” says he, then fills his pipe; “In the name of the ...!” proceeding to strike a lucifer, adds, “In the name of the ...!”—“Confound the blasphemous rascal!” say I, giving him a good box on the ears. After having written these lines I felt inclined to erase them; on second thoughts I let them remain—they belong to history!
NOTES:
[89]A political refugee, who left his country in 1869 for Prussia, where he taught mathematics in the University of Ulm, and afterwards accepted service under Garibaldi.
This morning I took a walk in the most innocent manner, having committed no crime that I knew of. It was lovely weather, and the streets looked gay, as they generally do when it is very bright, even when the hearts of the people are most sad. I passed through the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Palais Royal, and finally the Rue Richelieu. I beg pardon for these details, but I am particularly careful in indicating the road I took, as I wish the inhabitants of the places in question, to bear witness that I did not steal in passing a single quartern loaf, or appropriate the smallest article of jewellery. As I was about to turn on to the boulevards, one of the four National Guards who were on duty, I do not know what for, at the corner of the street, cried out, “You can’t pass!” All right, thought I to myself; there is nothing fresh I suppose, only the Commune does not want people to pass; of course, it has right on its side. Thereupon I began to retrace my steps. “You can’t pass,” calls out another sentinel, by the time I have reached the other side of the street.
This is strange, the Commune cannot mean to limit my walk to a melancholy pacing up and down between two opposite pavements. A sergeant came up to me; I recognised him as a Spaniard, who during the siege belonged to my company. “Why are you not in uniform?” he asked me, with a roughness that I fancied was somewhat mitigated by the remembrance of the many cigars I had given him, the nights we were on guard during the siege. I understood in an instant what they wanted with me, and replied unhesitatingly, “Because it is not my turn to be on guard,”—“No, of course it’s not, it never is. You have been taking your ease this long time, while others have been getting killed.” It was evident this Spaniard had not taken the cigars I had given him, in good part, and was now revenging himself.—“What do you want with me?” I said; “let’s have done with this.” Instead of answering, he signed to two Federals standing near, who immediately placed themselves one on each side of me, and cried, “March!” I was perfectly agreeable, although this walk was not exactly in the direction I had intended. On the way I heard a woman say, “Poor young man I They have taken him in the act.” I was conducted to the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and marched into the vestry, where about fiftyréfractaireswere already assembled.
Behind a deal table, on which were placed a small register, an inkstand stuck in a great bung, and two quill pens, sat three young men, almost boys, in uniform. You might have imagined them to be Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, at the age when they played at leap-frog. “Your name?” said Rhadamanthus, addressing me. I did not think twice about it, but gave them a name which has never been mine. Suddenly some one behind me burst out laughing; I turned round and recognised an old friend, whom I had not noticed among the other prisoners. “Your profession?” inquired Minos.—“Prizefighter,” I answered, putting my arms akimbo and looking as ferocious as possible, by way of keeping up the character I had momentarily assumed. To the rest of the questions that were addressed to me, I replied in the same satisfactory manner. When it was over, Minos said to me, “That is enough; now go and sit down, and wait until you are called.”—“Pardon me, my young friend, but I shall not go and sit down, nor shall I wait a moment more.”—“Are you making fun of us? We are transacting most serious business, our lives are at stake. Go and sit down.”—“I have already had the honour to remark, my dear Rhadamanthus, that I did not mean to sit down. Be kind enough to allow me to depart instantly.”—“You askmeto do this?”—“Yes! you!” I shouted in a tremendous voice. The three judges looked at me in great perplexity, and began whispering amongst themselves. A prize fighter, by jingo! I thought the moment had come to strike a decisive blow, so I pulled out of my pocket a little green card, which I desired them to examine. Immediately Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus got up, bowed to me most respectfully, and called out to two National Guards who were at the door, “Allow the citizen to pass.”—“By-the-bye,” said I, pointing, to my friend, “this gentleman is with me.”—“Allow both the citizens to pass,” shouted the lads in chorus.—“This is capital,” cried my friend as soon as we were well outside the door.—“How did you manage?”—“I have a pass from the Central Committee.”—“In your own name?”—“No, I bought it of the widow of a Federal; who was on very good terms with Citizen Félix Pyat.”—“Why, it is just like a romance.”—“Yes, but a romance that allows me to live pretty safely in the midst of this strange reality. Anyhow, I think we had better look out for other lodgings.”
Illustration:House of M. Thiers, Palace Saint-Georges.
House of M. Thiers, Palace Saint-Georges.
At ten o’clock in the evening I was walking up the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. In these times the streets are quite deserted at that hour. Looking on in front I saw that the Place Saint-Georges was lighted up by long tongues of flame, that the wind blew hither and thither. I hastened on, and was soon standing in front of M. Thiers’ house.[90]At the open gate stood a sentinel; a large fire had been lighted in the court by the National Guards; not that the night was cold, they seemed to have lighted it merely for the pleasure of burning furniture and pictures, that had been left behind by the Communal waggoners. They had already begun to pull down the right side of the house; a pickaxe was leaning against a loosened stone; the roof had fallen in, and a rafter was sticking out of one of the windows. The fire rose higher and higher; would it not be better that the flames should reach the house and consume it in an hour or two, than to see it being gradually pulled down, stone by stone, for many days to come? In the court I perceived several trucks full of books and linen. A National Guard picked up a small picture that was lying near the gate; I bent forward and saw that it was a painting of a satyr playing on a flute. How sad and cruel all this seemed! The men lounging about looked demoniacal in the red light of the fire. I turned away, thinking not of the political man, but of the house where he had worked, where he had thought, of the books that no longer stood on the shelves, of the favourite chair that had been burnt on the very hearth by which he had sat so long; I thought of all the dumb witnesses of a long life destroyed, dispersed, lost, of the relatives, and friends whose traces had disappeared from the rooms empty to-day, in ruins to-morrow; I thought of all this, and of all the links that would be broken by a dispersion, and I trembled at the idea that some day—in these times anything seems possible—men may break open the doors of my modest habitation, knock about the furniture of which I have grown fond, destroy my books which have so long been the companions of my studies, tear the pictures from my walls, and burn the verses that I love for the sake of the trouble they have given me to make,—kill, in a word, all that renders life agreeable to me, more cruelly than if four Federals were to take me off and shoot me at the corner of a street. But I am not a political man. I belong to no party—who would think of doing me any injury? I am perfectly harmless, with my lovesick metaphor. Ah I how egotistical one is! It was of my own home that I thought while I stood in front of the ruin in the Place Saint-Georges. I confess that I was particularly touched by the misfortunes of that house, because it awakened in me the fear of my own, misfortune, most improbable, and most diminutive, it is true, in comparison with that.
Illustration:House of M. Thiers During Demolition and Removal.
House of M. Thiers During Demolition and Removal.
NOTES:
[90]It should be remarked that the destruction of M. Thiers’ house coincided with the first success of the Versailles army; it was the spirit of hatred and mad destructiveness which dictated the following decree, issued by the Committee of Public Safety on the 10th of May:—“Art. 1. The goods and property of Thiers (they even denied him the appellation of citizen) are seized by order of the administration of public domains.“Art. 2. The house of Thiers, situated at the Place Saint-Georges, to be demolished.”“On the following day the National Assembly, in presence of the activity exhibited by M. Thiers, declared that the proscribed, whose house was demolished, had exhibited proofs of an amount of patriotism and political ability which inspired every confidence in the future. On the 12th of the same month works were commenced at Versailles for the formation of a railway-station sufficient for all the wants of an important army, the initiation of which was due to M. Thiers; a conference was opened on the 19th April with the Western Railway Company, the plans were approved on the 22nd of the same month, and the preliminary works were commenced on the 12th of May. When these are terminated, they will consist of thirty-five parallel lines of rails, more than a mile in length. But the principal point in the plan is, that by means of branches to Pontoise and Chevreuse, this immense station may be placed in direct communication with all the lines of railway in France. It is easy enough to draw the following conclusion, namely, that if the necessity should ever again arise, Paris would cease to be the central depot for all commercial movements, and thus the paralysis of the affairs of the whole country would be avoided, in case the Parisian populace should again be bitten by the barricade mania. At one time it was feared that the collections of M. Thiers were destroyed in the conflagration at the Tuileries; but M. Courbet reports that on the 12th of May he asked what he ought to do about the different things taken at the house of M. Thiers, and if they were to be sent to the Louvre or to be publicly sold, and he was then appointed a member of the commission to examine the case. Regarding his conduct at the time of the demolishing of the house of M. Thiers, he arrived too late, he says, to make an inventory; the furniture and effects had been already packed by theemployésof the Garde Meuble; “I made some observations about it, and on going through the empty apartments, I noticed two small figures that I packed in paper, thinking they might be privatesouvenirs, and that I would return them some day to their owner. All the other things were already destroyed or gone.”
An anecdote: Parisian all over; but with such stuff are they amused!
Raoul Rigault, the man who arrests, was breakfasting with Gaston Dacosta, the man who destroys. These two friends are worthy of each other. Rigault has incarcerated the Archbishop of Paris, but Dacosta claims the merit of having loosened the first stone in M. Thiers’ house. But however, Rigault would destroy if Dacosta were not there to do so; and if Rigault did not arrest, Dacosta would arrest for him.
They talked as they ate. Rigault enumerated the list of people he had sent to the Conciergerie and to Mazas, and thought with consternation that soon there would be no one left for him to arrest. Suddenly he stopped his fork on its way to his mouth, and his face assumed a most doleful expression.—“What’s the matter?” cried Dacosta, alarmed.—“Ah!” said Rigault, tears choking his utterance, “Papa is not in Paris.”—“Well, and what does it matter if your father is not here?”—“Alas!” exclaimed Rigault, bursting out crying, “I could have had him arrested!”[91]
NOTES:
[91]The illegality of his conduct, however, was complaint made by Arthur Arnould, to the committee, concerning the arbitrary arrest of a number of persons. Cournet was appointed to the Prefecture in Rigault’s stead, but the amateur policeman and informer did not renounce work; he found the greatest pleasure, as he himself expressed it, in acting the spy over the official spies. This man was a well-known frequenter of the low cafés of the Quartier Latin, and his face bore such evidences of his debauched life, that though only twenty-eight years of age, he looked nearer forty.
Illustration:Cournet, Member of Committee Of General Safety.
Cournet, Member of Committee Of General Safety.
The horrible cracking sound that is heard at sea when a vessel splits upon a rock, is not a surer sign of peril to the terrified crew, than are the vain efforts, contradictions and agitation at the Hôtel de Ville, the forerunners of disaster to the men of the Commune. Listen! the vessel is about to heave asunder. Everybody gives orders, no one obeys them. One man looks defiantly at another; this man denounces that, and Rigault thinks seriously of arresting them both. There is a majority which is not united, and a minority that cannot agree amongst themselves. Twenty-one members retire, they do well.[92]I am glad to find on the list the names of the few that Paris’ still believes in, and whom, thanks to this tardy resignation, it will not learn to despise. For instance, Arthur Arnould. But why should they take the trouble to seek out a pretext? Why did they not say simply: “We have left them because we find them full of wickedness; we were blinded as you were at first, but now we in our turn see clearly; a good cause has been lost by madmen or worse, and we have abandoned it because, if we were to stay a moment longer, now that we are no longer blinded, we should be committing a criminal act” Such words as these would have opened the eyes of so many wretched beings, who are going to their deaths and think they do well to die! As to those who remain, they must feel that their power is slipping from them. They did not arrest or detain Rossel; it would seem as if they dared not touch him because he was right in thinking what he said, although he was very wrong to say it as he did. While the Commune hesitates, the military plans of the Versaillais are being carried out. Vanves taken, Montrouge in ruins, breaches opened at the Point-du-Jour, at the Porte-Maillot, at Saint-Ouen; the Communists have only to choose now, between flight and the horrors of a terrible death struggle! May they fly, far, far away, beyond the reach of vengeance, despised, forgotten if that be possible! I am told that the Central Committee is trying now to substitute itself for the Commune, which was elected by its desire.[93]One born of the other, they will die together.
Illustration:Arthur Arnould, Commissioner of Foreign Affairs.[94]
Arthur Arnould, Commissioner of Foreign Affairs.[94]
Illustration:Foundered Craft on the Seine.Porte Maillot et Avenue de la Grande Armée
Foundered Craft on the Seine.Porte Maillot et Avenue de la Grande Armée
NOTES:
[92]An important document has just made the round of the Communal press—the manifesto of the minority of the Commune, in which twenty-one members declare their refusal to take any farther part in the deliberations of the body, which they accuse of having delivered its powers into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and thus rendering itself null. This declaration is signed by:—Arthur Arnould, Avrial, Andrieux, Arnold, Clémence, Victor Clément, Courbet, Franckel, Eugène Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, Sérailler, Tridon, Theisz, Varlin, Vermorel, Jules Vallès.Adding to these twenty-one secessionists, twenty-one members who have resigned:—Adam, Barré, Brelay, Beslay, De Bouteiller, Chéron, Desmarest, Ferry, Fruneau, Goupil, Loiseau-Pinson, Leroy, Lefèvre, Méline, Murat, Marmottan, Nast, Ulysse Parent, Robineat, Rane, Tirard;Three who have not sat: Briosne, Menotti Garibaldi, Rogeard;Two dead: Duval, Flourens;One captured: Blanqui;One escaped: Charles Gérardin;Five incarcerated: Allix, Panille dit Blanchet, Brunel, Emile Clément, Cluseret;—Out of 101 members elected to the Commune on the 26th of March and the 16th of April, only forty-seven now remain:—Amouroux, Ant. Arnaud, Assy, Babick, Billioray, Clément, Champy, Chardon, Chalain, Demay, Dupont, Decamp, Dereure, Durant, Delescluze, Eudes, Henry Fortuné, Ferré, Gambon, Geresme, Paschal Grousset, Johannard, Ledroit, Langevin, Lonclas, Mortier, Léo Meiller, Martelet, J. Miot, Oudet, Protot, Paget, Pilotel, Félix Pyat, Philippe, Parisel, Pottier, Régère, Raoul Rigault, Sicard, Triquet, Urbain, Vaillant, Verdure, Vésmier, Viart.
[93]“REPUBLICAN FEDERATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.
“Central Committee.“To the People of Paris! To the National Guard!
“Rumours of dissensions between the majority of the Commune and the Central Committee have been spread by our common enemies with a persistency which, once for all, must be crushed by public compact.“The Central Committee, appointed to the administration of military affairs by the Committee of Public Safety, will enter upon office from this day.“This Committee, which has upheld the standard of the Communal revolution, has undergone no change and no deterioration. It is today what it was yesterday, the legitimate defender of the Commune, the basis of its power, at the same time as it is the determined enemy of civil war; the sentinel placed by the people to protect the rights that they have conquered,“In the name, then, of the Commune, and of the Central Committee, who sign this pact of good faith, let these gross suspicions and calumnies be swept away. Let hearts beat, let hands be ready to strike in the good cause, and may we triumph in the name of union and fraternity.“Long live the Republic!“Long live the Commune!“Long live the Communal Federation!
“The Commission of the Commune, BERGERET, CHAMPY, GERESME, LEDROIT, LONGLAS, URBAIN.“The Central Committee.“Paris, 18th May, 1871.”
[94]Arnould is a man of about forty-seven years of age, small in stature, lively and intelligent. He has written in many of the Democratic journals of Paris and the provinces; and his literary talents are of a good kind. Being connected with Rochefort’s journal, theMarseillaise, he was sent by the latter to challenge Pierre Bonaparte, and was a witness at the trial which followed the murder of Victor Noir.Although naturally drawn by his connections into the movement of the eighteenth of March, he always protested loudly against the arbitrary acts of the Commune, and it is surprising that he did not fall under accusation, by his colleagues. He opposed particularly the proposals for the suppression of newspapers. “It is prodigious to me,” he said, in full meeting of the committee, “that people will still talk of arresting others for expressing their opinions.”He voted against the organisation of the Committee of Public Safety on the ground:—“That such an institution would be directly opposed to the political opinions of the electoral body, of which the Commune is the representative.”He protested most energetically against secret imprisonment—“Secret incarceration has something immoral in it; it is moral torture substituted for physical.“I cannot understand men who have passed their life in combating the errors of despotism, falling into the same faults when they arrive at power. Of two things one: either secret imprisonment is an indispensable and good thing; or, it is odious. If it was good it was wrong to oppose it, and if it be odious and immoral, we ought not to continue it.”What on earth had he then to do in the Commune?“Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?”
It was five o’clock in the afternoon. The day had been splendid and the sun shone brilliantly on Caesar still standing on the glorious pedestal of his victories. Outside the barricades of the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione, the crowd was standing in a compact mass, as far as the Tuileries on one side and the New Opera House on the other. There must have been from twenty to twenty-fire thousand people there. Strangers accosted each other by the title of Citizen, I heard some talking about an eccentric Englishman who had paid three thousand francs for the pleasure of being the last to climb to the summit of the column. Nearly every one blamed him for not having given the money to the people. Others said that Citizen Jourde would not manage to cover his expenses; Abadie[95]the engineer had asked thirty-two thousand francs to pull down the great trophy, and that the stone and plaster was after all, not covered with more than an inch or two of bronze, that it was not so many metres high, and would not make a great many two-sous pieces after all. These sous seemed to occupy the public mind exceedingly, but the principal subjects of conversation, were the fears concerning the probable effects of the fall.
Illustration:Barricade of the Rue Castiglione, from The Place Vendôme.
Barricade of the Rue Castiglione, from The Place Vendôme.
The event was slow in accomplishment. The wide Place was thinly sprinkled with spectators, not more than three hundred in all, privileged beings with tickets, or wearing masonic badges; or officers of the staff. Bergeret at one of the windows was coolly smoking a cigarette; military bands were assembled at the four angles of the Place; the sound of female laughter reached us from the open windows of the Ministère de la Justice. The horses of the mounted sentinels curvetted with impatience; bayonets glittered in the sun; children gaped wearily, seated on the curbstone. The hour of the ceremony was past; a rope had broken. Around the piled faggots on which the column was to fall, great fascines of flags of the favourite colour were flying.
The crowd did not seem to enjoy being kept in suspense, and proclaimed their impatience by stamping with measured tread, and crying “Music!”
At half-past five there was a sudden movement and bustle around the barricade of the Rue Castiglione. The members of the Commune appeared with their inevitable red scarfs.[96]Then there was a great hush. At the same instant the windlass creaked; the ropes which hung from the summit of the column tightened; the gaping hole in the masonry below, gradually closed; the statue bent forward in the rays of the setting sun, and then suddenly describing in the air a gigantic sweep, fell among the flags with a dull, heavy thud, scattering a whirlwind of blinding dust in the air.
Then the bands struck up the “Marseillaise,” and cries of “Vive la Commune” were re-echoed on all sides by the terror or the indifference of the multitude. In a marvellously short time, however, all was quiet again, so quiet, indeed, that I distinctly heard a dog bark as it ran frightened across the Place.
I daresay the members of the Commune, who presided over the accomplishment of this disgraceful deed, exclaimed in the pride of their miserable hearts, “Caesar, those whom you salute shall live!”
Everybody of course wished to get a bit of the ruin, as visitors to Paris eagerly bought bits of siege bread framed and glazed, and there was a general rush towards the place; but the National Guards crossed, their bayonets in front of the barricade, and no one was allowed to pass. So that the crowd quickly dispersed to its respective dinners. “It is fallen!” said some to those who had not been fortunate enough to see the sight. “The head of the statue came off—no one was killed.” The boys cried out, “Oh, it was a jolly sight all the same!” But the greater part of the people were silent as they trudged away.
Then night came on, and next day a land-mark and a finger-post seemed missing in our every-day journey. Until we lose a familiar object we hardly appreciate its existence.
NOTES:
[95]Abadie arranged to demolish the Colonne Vendôme for 32,000 or 38,000 francs, forfeiting 600 francs for every day’s delay after the fourth of May. This reduced the sum to be paid to him by 6000 francs.
[96]Regarding Courbet and the destruction of the Column, he rejects the accusation on the ground that this decree had been voted previously to his admission in the Commune, and on the request he had made under the Government of the 4th of May of removing the column to the esplanade of the Invalides. He affirms that the official paper has altered his own words at the Commune, and he pretends having proposed to the Government to rebuild the column at his own expense, if it can be proved that he has been the cause of its destruction.
On the sixteenth, I received a prospectus through my concierge. There was to be a concert, mixed with speeches—a sort of popular fête at the Tuileries. The places varied in price from ten sous to five francs. Five francs the Salle des Maréchaux; ten sous the garden, which was to be illuminated with Venetian lamps among the orange-trees; the whole to be enlivened by fireworks from the Courbevoie batteries.
I had tact enough not to put on white gloves, and set out for the palace.
It was not a fairy-like sight; indeed, it was a most depressing spectacle. A crowd of thieves and vagabonds, of dustmen and rag-pickers, with four or five gold bands on their sleeves and caps, (the insignia of officers of the National Guard), were hurrying along down the grand staircase, chewing “imperiales,” spitting, and repeating the old jokes of ’93. As to the women—they were sadly out of place. They simpered, and gave themselves airs, and some of them even beat time with their fans, as Mademoiselle Caillot was singing, to look as if they knew something about music.
Illustration:The Palace of the Tuileries, from The Garden.
The Palace of the Tuileries, from The Garden.
The Last concert held in the Tuileries by the Commune took place on Sunday, the 21st March, when Auteuil and Passy had been in the power of the army for several hours. Two days later the old palace was in flames. Citizen Félix Pyat had advocated the preservation of the Tuileries in the “Vengeur”, proposing to convert it into an “asylum” for the victims of work and the martyrs of the Republic. “This residence”, he wrote, “ought to be devoted to people, who had already taken possession of it.”
The concert took place in the Salle des Maréchaux: a platform had been erected for the performers. The velvet curtains with their golden bees still draped the windows. From the gallery above I could see all that was going on. The Imperial balcony opens out of it; I went there, and leaned on the balustrade with a certain feeling of emotion. Below were the illuminated gardens, and far away at the end of the Champs Elysées, almost lost in the purple of the sky, rose the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile.
The roaring of the cannon at Vanves and Montrouge reached me where I stood. When the duet of the “Maître de Chapelle” was over, I returned into the hall; the distant crashing of the mitrailleuse at Neuilly, borne towards us on the fresh spring breeze, in through the open windows, joined its voice to the applause of the audience.
Oh! what an audience! The faces in general looked fit subjects for the gibbet; others were simply disgusting: surprise, pleasure, and fear of Equality were reflected on every physiognomy. The carpenter, Pindy, military governor of the Hôtel de Ville, was in close conversation with a girl from Philippe’s. The ex-spy Clémence muttered soft speeches into the ear of a retiredchiffonnière, who smiled awkwardly in reply. The cobbler Dereure was intently contemplating his boots; while Brilier, late coachman, hissed the singers by way of encouragement, as he would have done to his horses. They were going to recite some verses: I only waited to hear—
“PUIS, QUEL AVEUGLEMENT! QUEL NON-SENS POLITIQUE!”
an Alexandrine, doubtless, launched at the National Assembly, and made my way to the garden as quickly as I could.
There, in spite of the Venetian lamps, all was very dull and dark. The walks were almost deserted, although it was scarcely half-past nine. I took a turn beneath the trees: the evening was cold; and I soon left the gardens by the Rue de Rivoli gate. A good many people were standing there “to see the grand people come from the fête”—a fête given by lackeys in a deserted mansion!
I was busy writing, when suddenly I heard a fearful detonation, followed by report on report. The windows rattled: I thought the house was shaking under me. The noise continued: it seemed as if cannon were roaring on all sides. I rushed down into the street; frightened people were running hither and thither, and asking questions. Some thought that the Versaillais were bombarding Paris on all sides. On the Boulevards I was told it was the fort of Vanves that had been blown up. At last I arrived on the Place de la Concorde: there the consternation was great, but nothing was known for certain. Looking up, I saw high up in the sky what looked like a dark cloud, but which was not a cloud. I tried again and again to obtain information. It appeared pretty certain that an explosion had taken place near the Ecole Militaire-doubtless at the Grenelle powder-magazine, I then turned into the Champs Elysées. A distant cracking was audible, like the noise of a formidable battery of mitrailleuses. Puffs of white smoke arose in the air and mingled with the dark cloud there. I no longer walked, I ran: I hoped to be able to see something from the Rond Point de l’Etoile. Once there, a grand and fearful sight met my eyes. Vast columns of smoke rolled over one another towards the sky. Every now and then the wind swept them a little on one side, and for an instant a portion of the city was visible beneath the rolling vapours. Then in an instant a flame burst out—only one, but that gigantic, erect, brilliant, as one that might dart forth from a Tolcano suddenly opened, up through the smoke which was reddened, illumined by the eruption of the fire. At the same moment there were explosions as of a hundred waggons of powder blown up one after another. All this scene, in its hideous splendour, blinded and deafened me. I wanted to get nearer, to feel the heat of the burning, to rush on. I had the fire-frenzy!
Illustration:Razoua, Governor of the Ecole militaire[97]
Razoua, Governor of the Ecole militaire[97]
Going down to the Quai de Passy, I found a dense crowd there. Some one screamed out: “Go back! go back! the fire will soon reach the cartridge-magazine.” The words had scarcely been uttered, when a storm of balls fell like hail amongst us. Each person thought himself wounded, and many took to their heels. It did not enter into my head to run away. From where I was then, the sight was still more terribly beautiful, and the crowd that had withdrawn from the spot soon re-assembled again. Dreadful details were passed from mouth to mouth. Four five-storied houses had fallen; no one dared to think even of the number of the victims. Bodies had been seen to fall from the windows, horribly mutilated; arms and legs had been picked up in different places. Near the powder-magazine is a hospital, which was shaken from foundation to roof: for an instant it had trembled violently as if it were going to fall. The nurses, dressers, and even the sick had rushed from the wards, shrieking in an agony of fear; the frightened horses, too, with blood streaming down their sides, pranced madly among the fugitives, or galloped away as fast as they could from the awful scene.
As to the cause of the explosion, opinions varied much. Some said it was owing to the negligence of the overseers or the imprudence of the workwomen; others, that the fire was caused by a shell. A woman rushed up to us, screaming out that she had just seen a man arrested in a shed in the Champ de Mars, who acknowledged having blown up the powder-magazine, by order of the Versailles government. Of course this was inevitable. The Commune would not let such a good opportunity pass for accusing its enemies. A few innocent people will be arrested, tried with more or less form, and shot; when they are so many corpses, the Commune will exclaim, “You see they must have been guilty: they have been shot!”
As evening came on I turned home, thinking that the cup was now filled to overflowing, and that the devoted city had had to suffer defeat, civil war, infamy, and death; but that this last disaster seemed almost more than divine justice. Ever and anon I turned my head to gaze again. In the gathering gloom, the flames looked blood-red, as if the Commune had unfurled its sinister banner over that irreparable disaster.
NOTES:
[97]Razoua served in a regiment of Spahis in Africa. Becoming acquainted with the journalists who used to frequent the Café de Madrid, he was a constant attendant there. He took up literature, and in 1867 published some violent articles in thePiloriof Victor Noir. He afterwards went with Delescluze to theRéveil, where his revolutionary principles were manifested. In the month of February, 1871, he was elected a member of the National Assembly by the people of Paris. After having sat for some time at Bordeaux, he gave his resignation, and became one of the Communal council.Appointed governor of the École Militaire, he distinguished himself in no way in his position, except by the sumptuous dinners and déjeûners with which he regaled his friends.
I have gazed so long on what was passing around me that my eyes are weary. I have watched the slow decline of joy, of comfort and luxury, almost without knowing how everything has been dying around me, as a man in a ball-room where the candles are put out, one by one, may not perceive at first the gathering gloom. To see Paris, as it is at the present moment, as the Commune has made it, requires an effort. Let me shut my eyes, and evoke the vision of Paris as it was, living, joyous, happy even in the midst of sadness. I have done so—I have brought it all back to me; now I will open my eyes and look around me.
In the street that I inhabit not a vehicle of any kind is visible. Men in the uniform of National Guards pass and repass on the pavement; a lady is talking with herconciergeon the threshold of one of the houses. They talk low. Many of the shops are closed; some have only the shutters up; a few are quite open. I see a woman at the bar of the wine-shop opposite, drinking.
Some quarters still resist the encroachments of silence and apathy. Some arteries continue to beat. Some ribbons here and there brighten up the shop-windows: bare-headed shopgirls pass by with a smile on their lips; men look after them as they trip along. At the corner of the Boulevards a sort of tumult is occasioned by a number of small boys and girls, venders of Communal journals, who screech out the name and title of their wares at the top of their voices. But even there where the crowd is thickest, one feels as if there were a void. The two contrary ideas of multitude and solitude seem to present themselves at once in one’s mind. A weird impression! Imagine a vast desert with a crowd in it.
The Boulevards look interminable. There used to be a hundred obstacles between you and the distance; now there is nothing to prevent your looking as far as you like. Here and there a cab, an omnibus or two, and that is all. The passers-by are no longer promenaders. They have come out because they were obliged: without that they would have remained at home. The distances seem enormous now, and people who used to saunter about from morning till night will tell you now that “the Madeleine is a long way off.” Very few men in black coats or blouses are to be seen; only very old men dare show themselves out of uniform. In front of the café’s are seated officers of the Federal army, sometimes seven or eight around a table. When you get near enough, you generally find they are talking of the dismissal of their last commander. Here and there a lady walks rapidly by, closely veiled, mostly dressed in black, with an unpretending bonnet. The gallop of a horse is distinctly audible—in other times one would never have noticed such a thing; it is an express with despatches, a Garibaldian, or one of theVengeurs de Flourens, who is hoisted on a heavy cart-horse that ploughs the earth with its ponderous forefeet. Several companies of Federals file up towards the Madeleine, their rations of bread stuck on the top of their bayonets. Look down the side-streets, to the right or the left, and you will see the sidewalks deserted, and not a vehicle from one end to the other of the road. Even on the Boulevards there are times when there is no one to be seen at all. However, beneath it all there is a longing to awaken, which is crushed and kept down by the general apathy.
In the evening one’s impulses burst forth; one must move about; one must live. Passengers walk backwards and forwards, talking in a loud voice. But the crowd condenses itself between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Solitude has something terrible about it just now. People congregate together for the pleasure of elbowing each other, of trying to believe they are in great force. Quite a crowd collects round a little barefooted girl, who is singing at the corner of a street. A man seated before a low table is burningpastilles; another offers barley-sugar for sale; another has portraits of celebrities. Everybody tries hard to be gay; but the shops are closed, and the gas is sparingly lighted, so that broad shadows lie between the groups.
Some few persons go to the theatres; the playbills, however, are not seductive. If you go in, you will find the house nearly empty; the actors gabble their parts with as little action as possible. You see they are bored, and they bore us. Sometimes when some actor, naturally comic, says or does something funny, the audience laughs, and then suddenly leaves off and looks more serious than before. Laughter seems out of place. One does not know how to bear it; so one walks up and down the corridors, then instead of returning to the play, wanders out again on to the Boulevard. It is ten o’clock—dreadfully late. Many of the cafés are already closed for the night. At Tortoni’s and the Café Anglais, not a glimmer is visible. The crowd has nearly disappeared. Only a few officers remain, who have been drinking all the evening in anestaminet. They call to each other to hurry on; perhaps one of them is drunk, but even he is not amusing. Let us go home. Scarcely anyone is left in the street. A bell is rung here and there, as the last of us reach our respective homes.
That, Commune de Paris, is what you have made of Paris! The Prussians came, Paris awaited them quietly with a smile; the shells fell on its houses, it ate black bread, it waited hours in the cold to obtain an ounce of horse-flesh or thirty pounds of green wood; it fought, but was vanquished; it was told to surrender, and “it was given up,” as they say at the Hôtel de Ville; and yet through all, Paris had not ceased to smile. And this, they say, constitutes its greatness; it was the last protestation against unmerited misfortunes; it was the remembrance of having once been proud and happy, and the hope of becoming so again; it was, in a word, Paris declaring it was Paris still. Well, what neither defeats, nor famine, nor capitulation could do, thou hast done! And accursed be thou, O Commune; for, as Macbeth murdered sleep, thou hast murdered our smiles!
The roaring of cannon close at hand, the whizzing of shells, volleys of musketry! I hear this in my sleep, and awake with a start. I dress and go out. I am told the troops have come in. “How? where? when?” I ask of the National Guards who come rushing down the street, crying out, “We are betrayed!” They, however, know but very little. They have come from the Trocadero, and have seen the red trousers of the soldiers in the distance. Fighting is going on near the viaduct of Auteuil, at the Champ de Mars. Did the assault take place last night or this morning? It is quite impossible to obtain any reliable information. Some talk of a civil engineer having made signals to the Versaillais; others say a captain in the navy was the first to enter Paris.[98]Suddenly about thirty men rush into the streets crying, “We must make a barricade.” I turn back, fearing to be pressed into the service. The cannonading appears dreadfully near. A shell whistles over my head. I hear some one say, “The batteries of Montmartre are bombarding the Arc de Triomphe;” and strange enough, in this moment of horror and uncertainty, the thought crosses my mind that now the side of the arch on which is the bas-relief of Rude will be exposed to the shells. On the Boulevard there is only here and there a passenger hurrying along. The shops are closed; even the café’s are shut up. The harsh screech of the mitrailleuse grows louder and nearer. The battle seems to be close at hand, all round me. A thousand contradictory suppositions rush through my brain and hurry me along, and here on the Boulevard there is no one that can tell me anything. I walk in the direction of the Madeleine, drawn there by a violent desire to know what is going on, which silences the voice of prudence. As I approach the Chaussée d’Antin I perceive a multitude of men, women, and children running backwards and forwards, carrying paving-stones. A barricade is being thrown up; it is already more than three feet high. Suddenly I hear the rolling of heavy wheels; I turn, and a strange sight is before me—a mass of women in rags, livid, horrible, and yet grand, with the Phrygian cap on their heads, and the skirts of their robes tied round their waists, were harnessed to a mitrailleuse, which they dragged along at full speed; other women pushing vigorously behind. The whole procession, in its sombre colours, with dashes of red here and there, thunders past me; I follow it as fast as I can. The mitrailleuse draws up a little in front of the barricade, and is hailed with wild clamours by the insurgents. The Amazons are being unharnessed as I come up. “Now,” said a younggamin, such as one used to see in the gallery of the Théâtre Porte St. Martin, “don’t you be acting the spy here, or I will break your head open as if you were a Versaillais.”—“Don’t waste ammunition,” cried an old man with a long white beard—a patriarch of civil war—“don’t waste ammunition; and as for the spy, let him help to carry paving-stones. Monsieur,” said he, turning to me with much politeness, “will you be so kind as to go and fetch those stones from the corner there?”