Part 32 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HOSTAGES.
About once in every seventy or eighty years some exceptionally moving tragedy stirs the heart of the civilized world. The tragedy of our own century is the execution of the hostages in Paris, May 24 and 26, 1871.
At one o'clock on the morning of April 6, three weeks after the proclamation of the Commune, a body of the National Guard was drawn up on the sidewalk in the neighborhood of the Madeleine. A door suddenly opened and a man came hastily out, followed by two National Guards shouting to their comrades. The man was arrested at once, making no resistance. It was the Abbe Duguerry, _cure_ of the Madeleine,[1]--the first of the so-called hostages arrested in retaliation for the summary execution of General Duval, who had commanded one of the three columns that marched out of Paris the day before to attack the Versaillais.
[Footnote 1: _Cure_ in France means rector; what we mean by a curate or a.s.sistant minister is there called _vicaire_.]
Both the _cure_ of the Madeleine and his _vicaire_, the Abbe Lamazou, were that night arrested. The latter, who escaped death as a hostage, published an account of his experiences; but he died not long after of heart disease, brought on by his excitement and suffering during the Commune.
The same night Monseigneur Darboy, the archbishop of Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests, were arrested. One was a missionary just returned from China, another was the Abbe Crozes, the admirable chaplain (_aumonier_) of the prison of La Roquette,--a man whose deeds of charity would form a n.o.ble chapter of Christian biography.
When Archbishop Darboy was brought before the notorious ”delegate,”
Raoul Rigault, he began to speak, saying, ”My children--” ”Citizen,”
interrupted Rigault, ”you are not here before children,--we are men!” This sally was heartily applauded in the publications of the Commune.
As it would not be possible to sketch the lives and deaths of all these victims of revolutionary violence, it may be well to select the history of the youngest among them, Paul Seigneret.[1] His father was a professor in the high school at Lyons. Paul was born in 1845, and was therefore twenty-six years old when he met death, as a hostage, at the hands of the Commune. His home had been a happy and pious one, and he had a beloved brother Charles, to whom he clung with the most tender devotion. Charles expected to be a priest; Paul was destined for the army, but he earnestly wished that he too might enter the ministry. Lamartine's ”Jocelyn” had made a deep impression on him, but his father having objected to his reading it, he laid it aside unfinished; what he had read, however, remained rooted in his memory.
[Footnote 1: Memoir of Paul Seigneret, abridged in the ”Monthly Packet.”]
When Paul was eighteen, his father gave his sanction to his entering the priesthood; he thought him too delicate, however, to lead the life of a country pastor, and desired him, before he made up his mind as to his vocation, to accept a position offered him as tutor in a family in Brittany.
Present duties being sanctified, not hampered, by higher hopes and aspirations, Paul gained the love and confidence of the family in which he taught, and also of the neighboring peasantry. ”He was,”
says the lady whose children he instructed, ”like a good angel sent among us to do good and to give pleasure.”
When his time of probation was pa.s.sed, he decided to enter a convent at Solesmes, and by submitting himself to convent rules, make sure of his vocation. But before making any final choice, we find from his letters that ”if France were invaded,” he claimed ”the right to do his duty as a citizen and a son.”
He entered the convent at Solesmes, first as a postulant, then as a novice. ”The Holy Gospels,” said his superior, ”Saint Paul's Epistles, and the Psalms were his favorite studies,--the food on which his piety was chiefly nourished. He also sought Christ in history.”
Still, he was not entirely satisfied with life in a convent; he wished to be more actively employed in doing good. He therefore became a student for the regular ministry,--a Seminarist of Saint-Sulpice. But when the Prussian armies were advancing on Paris, he offered himself for hospital service, as did also his brother.
In a moment of pa.s.sionate enthusiasm, speaking to that dear brother of the dangers awaiting those who had to seek and tend the wounded on the field of battle, he cried: ”Do you think G.o.d may this year grant me the grace of yielding up my life to Him as a sacrifice? For to fall, an expiatory sacrifice beneath the righteous condemnation that hangs over France, would be to die for Him.”
The war being over, he returned to the Seminary, March 15, 1871.
On March 18 the Commune was declared, and Lecomte and Thomas were murdered; shortly after this the Seminary was invaded, the students were dispersed, and the priests in charge made prisoners. Most of the young men thus turned out into the streets left Paris. Paul at first intended to remain; but thinking that his family would be anxious about him, he applied for a pa.s.s, intending to go to Lyons. At the prefecture of police he and a fellow-student found a dense crowd waiting to pay two francs for permission to get away.
They were shown into a room where a man in a major's uniform sat at a table covered with gla.s.ses and empty bottles, with a woman beside him. When he heard what they wanted, he broke into a volley of abuse, and a.s.sured them that the only pa.s.s he would give them was a pa.s.s to prison. Accordingly, Paul and his companion soon found themselves in the prison connected with the prefecture. The cells were so crowded that they were confined in a corridor with six Jesuit fathers and some of their servants and lay brethren. A sort of community life was at once organized, with daily service and an hour for meditation. Paul esteemed it a privilege to enjoy the conversation of the elder and more learned priests. He conversed with them about the Bible, philosophy, and literature; ”He was ready,” says a companion who was saved, ”to meet a martyr's death; but there was one horror he prayed to be spared,--that of being torn in pieces by a mob.”
On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they were to leave the prefecture. ”I fear,” he said, ”that you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge without taking some interest in them.”
On being brought forth from their corridor, they found themselves in a crowd of priests (hostages like themselves) who were being sent to Mazas. The youth of the Seminary students at once attracted attention, and the Vicar-General, Monseigneur Surat, said: ”I can understand that priests and old men should be here, gentlemen, but not that you, mere Seminarists, should be forced to share the troubles of your ecclesiastical superiors.”
The transfer to Mazas was in the _voitures cellulaires_. They were so low and narrow that every jolt threw the occupant against the sides or roof. In one of these cells the venerable and infirm archbishop had been transferred to Mazas a short time before.
Each prisoner on reaching Mazas was shut up in a tiny cell. Paul wrote (for they were allowed writing materials):
”I have a nice little cell, with a bit of blue sky above it, to which my thoughts fly, and a hammock, so that it is possible for me to sleep again. I hardly dare to tell you I am happy, and am trusting myself in G.o.d's hands, for I am anxious about you, and anxious for our poor France. I have my great comfort,--work. I have already written an essay on Saint Paul, which I have been some time meditating. I am expecting a Bible, and with that I think I could defy weariness for years. A few days ago I discovered that one of my friends was next to me. We bid each other good night and good morning by rapping against the wall, and this would make us less lonely, were we oppressed by solitude.”
At the close of this letter he adds,--
”I have at last received the dear Bible. You should have seen how I seized and kissed it! Now the Commune may leave me here to moulder, if it will!”
On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles army began to make its way into Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic and terrible power about to pa.s.s away, tried to startle the world by its excesses.