Part 31 (1/2)
”Indeed, profound gravity seemed expressed on all men's faces, and as a body, the patriots looked to me cold, tired, bored, and hungry, to say nothing of dirty, which they looked, to a man. I had expressed a wish to see a barricade, so we turned into a small street apparently closed in by a neatly built wall with holes in it, through which I saw the mouths of cannon. About this wall men were swarming both in and out of uniform. They were all armed, and two or three were members of the Commune, with red sashes and pistols stuck in them, after the fas.h.i.+on of the theatre. As I looked out of my cab window, longing to see more, a cheerful young woman, with a pretty, wan infant in her arms, encouraged me to alight, and a young man to whom she was talking, a clean, trim, fair young fellow, with a military look, stepped forward and saluted me. He seemed pleased at my admiration of the barricade, and having handed a tin can to the young woman, invited me to come inside. Thence I beheld the Place Vendome. I had seen it last on Aug. 15, 1868, on the emperor's fete-day, filled with the glittering Imperial troops.
I saw it again, a wide, empty waste, bounded by four symmetrical barricades, dotted with slouching figures whose clothes and arms seemed to enc.u.mber them.... I thanked my friend for his politeness, and returned to my carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say: 'Is he not a fine fellow?' I thought he was; and there may be other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly ma.s.s with which they are a.s.sociated.
”In the Rue de Rivoli I saw a regiment marching out to engage the enemy. Among them were some villanous-looking faces. They pa.s.sed with little tramp and a good deal of shuffle,--shabby, wretched, silent.
I did not hear a laugh or an oath; I did not see a violent gesture, and hardly a smile, that day. The roistering, roaring, terrible 'Reds,' as I saw them, were weary, dull men, doing ill-directed work with plodding indifference.
”I visited a lady of world-wide reputation, who gave me a history of the past months in Paris so brilliantly and epigrammatically that I was infinitely amused, and carried away the drollest impressions of L'Empire Cluseret; but her manner changed when I asked her what I should say to her friends in England. 'Tell them,' she said, 'to fear everything, and to hope very little. We are a degraded people; we deserve what we have got.'
”In the street I bought some daffodils from a woman who was tying them up in bunches. As she put them into my hand, her face seemed full of horror. Seeing probably an answering sympathy in my face, she whispered: 'It is said that they have shot the archbishop.'
I did not believe it, and I was right. He was arrested, but his doom was delayed for six weeks. That night the churches were all closed. There were no evening services that Easter day.
”I may add that I saw but one _bonnet rouge_, which I had supposed would be the revolutionary headdress. It was worn by an ill-looking ruffian, who sat with his back to the Quai, his legs straddled across the foot-walk, his drunken head fallen forward on his naked, hairy breast, a broken pipe between his knees, his doubled fists upon the stones at either side of him.”
In the story of Louis Napoleon's abortive attempt at Boulogne to incite France against Louis Philippe's Government, we were much indebted to the narrative of Count Joseph Orsi, one of the Italians who from his earliest days had attended on his fortunes. The same gentleman has given us an account of his own experiences during the days of the Commune:--
”One could not help being struck by the contrasts presented at that time in Paris itself: destruction and death raging in some quarters, cannon levelling its beautiful environs, while at the same moment one could see its fas.h.i.+onable Boulevards crowded with well-dressed people loitering and smiling as if nothing were going on. The cafes, indeed, were ordered to close their doors at midnight, but behind closed shutters went on gambling, drinking, and debauchery.
After spending a riotous night, fast men and women considered it a joke to drive out to the Arch of Triumph and see how the fight was going on.”
The troops at Versailles, reinforced by the prisoners of war who had been returned from Prussia, began, by the 9th of April, to make active a.s.saults on such forts as were held by the Federals.
Confusion and despair began to reign in the Council of the Commune.
Unsuccessful in open warfare, the managing committee tried to check the advance of the Versaillais by deeds of violence and retaliation.
They arrested numerous hostages, and the same night the palace of the archbishop was pillaged. The prefect of police, Raoul Rigault, issued a decree that every one suspected of being a _reactionnaire_ (that is, a partisan of the National a.s.sembly) should be at once arrested. The delivery of letters was suspended, gas was cut off, and with the exception of a few places where lamp-posts were supplied with petroleum, Paris was in darkness.
The Commune also issued a decree that while all men under sixty must enter its army, women, children, and aged men could obtain pa.s.ses to leave the city at the prefecture of police for two francs a head. The prefecture was besieged by persons striving to get these pa.s.ses, many of whom camped out for forty-eight hours while waiting their turn.
In the midst of this confused pressure on the prefect of police, Count Orsi took the resolution of visiting him. As a known adherent of the former dynasty and a personal friend of the late emperor, he did not feel himself safe. He therefore took the bull by the horns, and went to call on the terrible Raoul Rigault in his stronghold.
He did not see him, however; but after struggling for three hours in the crowd of poor creatures who were waiting to pay their two francs and receive a pa.s.sport, he was admitted to the presence of his secretary, Ferre. Ferre was writing as his visitor was shown in, and, waving his pen, made him stand where he could see him.
When he learned his name, he said--
”Your opinions are well known to us. We also know that you have taken no active part against us. We fight for what we believe to be just and fair. We do not kill for the pleasure of killing, but we must attain our end, and we _shall_, at any cost. I recommend you to keep quiet. As you are an Italian, you shall not be molested.
However, I must tell you that you have taken a very bold step in calling on me in this place. Your visit might have taken a different turn. You may go. Your frank declaration has saved you.”
On Easter Sunday, as the English lady to whom allusion has been made, was leaving Paris, the population in the neighborhood of the Place de Greve was amusing itself by a public burning of the guillotine. It was brought forth and placed beneath a statue of Voltaire, where it was consumed amid wild shouts of enthusiasm.
The Freemasons and trades unions sent deputies to Versailles to endeavor to negotiate between the contending parties. M. Thiers promised amnesty to all Communists who should lay down their arms, except to those concerned in the deaths of Generals Lecomte and Thomas, and he was also willing to give pay to National Guards till trade and order should be restored; but no persuasions would induce him to confer on Paris munic.i.p.al rights that were not given to other cities. On the 12th of May the Commune issued the following decree:--
”_Whereas_, the imperial column in the Place Vendome is a monument of barbarism, a symbol of brute force and of false glory, an encouragement to the military spirit, a denial of international rights, a permanent insult offered to the conquered by the conquerors, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the French Republic,--namely, Fraternity,--the Commune decrees thus: The column of the Place Vendome shall be destroyed.”
Four days later, this decree was carried into effect. Its execution was intrusted to the painter Courbet, who was one of the members of the Commune. He was a man who, up to the age of fifty, had taken no part in politics, but had been wholly devoted to art. His most celebrated pictures are the ”Combat des Cerfs” and the ”Dame au Perroquet.” He was a delightful companion, beloved by artists, and a personal friend of Cluseret, who had caused his name to be put upon the list of the members of the Commune.
The column of the Place Vendome was one hundred and thirty-five feet high. It was on the model of Trajan's column at Rome, but one twelfth larger. It was erected by Napoleon I. to celebrate the victories of the Grand Army in the campaign of 1805. He had caused it to be cast from cannon taken from the enemy. When erected, it was surmounted by a statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes; this, at the Restoration, gave place to a white flag. Under Louis Philippe, Napoleon was replaced, but in his c.o.c.ked hat and his _redingote_, but Louis Napoleon restored the imperial statue.
”On May 16,” says Count Orsi, ”a crowd collected at the barricades which separated the Place Vendome from the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione. To the Place Vendome itself only a few persons had been admitted by tickets. At the four corners of the square were placed military bands. Ropes were fastened to the upper part of the column, and worked by capstans. The monument fell with a tremendous crash, causing everything for a few moments to disappear in a blinding cloud of dust. To complete the disgrace of this savage act, the Commune advertised for tenders for the purchase of the column, which was to be sold in four separate lots. This injudicious and anti-national measure inspired the regular army at Versailles with a spirit of revenge, which led them on entering Paris to lose all self-possession, so that they dealt with the insurrection brutally and without discrimination.”
It would be curious to trace the history of the various members of the Council of the Commune. A few have been already alluded to; but the majority came forth out of obscurity, and their fate is as obscure. Eight were professional journalists. Among these were Rochefort, Arnould, and Vermorel. Arnould was probably the most moderate man in the Commune, and Vermorel was one of the very few who, when the Commune was at its last gasp, neither deserted nor disgraced it. He sprang on a barricade, crying: ”I am here, not to fight, but to die!” and was shot down. Four were military men, of whom one was General Eudes, a draper's a.s.sistant, and one had been a private in the army of Africa. Five were genuine working-men, three of whom were fierce, ignorant cobblers from Belleville; the other two were a.s.sy, a machinist, and Thiez, a silver-chaser,--one of the few honest men in the Council. Three were not Frenchmen, although generals; namely, Dombrowski, La Cecilia, and Dacosta, besides Cluseret, who claimed American citizens.h.i.+p. Rochefort was the son of a marquis who had been forced to write for bread. Deleschuze was an ex-convict. Blanqui had spent two thirds of his life in prison, having been engaged from his youth up in conspiracy. He was also at one period a Government spy. Raoul Rigault also had been a spy and an informer from his boyhood. Megy and a.s.sy were under sentence for murder. Jourde was a medical student, one of the best men in the Commune, and faithful to his trust as its finance minister. Flourens, the scientist, a genuine enthusiast, we have seen was killed in the first skirmish with the Versaillais. Felix Pyat was an arch conspirator, but a very spirited and agreeable writer. He was elected in 1888 a deputy under the Government of the Third Republic. Lullier had been a naval officer, but was dismissed the service for insubordination.
To such men (the best of them wholly without experience in the art of government) were confided the destinies of Paris, and, as they hoped, of France; but their number dwindled from time to time, till hardly more than fifty were left around the Council Board, when about two weeks before the downfall of the Commune twenty-two of this remainder resigned,--some because they could not but foresee the coming crash, others because they would no longer take part in the violence and tyranny of their colleagues. In seven weeks the Commune had four successive heads of the War Department. General Eudes was the first: his rule lasted four days. Then came Cluseret; the Empire Cluseret lasted three weeks. Then Cluseret was imprisoned, and Rossel was in office for nine days, when he resigned. On May 9 Deleschuze, the ex-convict, became head of military affairs.