Part 35 (1/2)
'Your name?' 'Count Joseph Orsi.' He looked at me again, and having joined his officers, to whom he related what had taken place, he turned round and in a loud voice said to me: 'Come out of the ranks.'
Then, seeing a gendarme close by, he said: 'Do not lose sight of this prisoner.'”
For two days the captain kept Count Orsi in his office and encouraged him to write to any friends he might have in Versailles. Count Orsi named M. Grevy (afterwards president) as having been for years his legal adviser, and he wrote a few lines to various other persons.
But there were no posts, and in the confusion of Versailles at that moment there seemed little chance that his notes would reach their destination. Two days later an order came to Satory to send all prisoners to Versailles, and the kind-hearted captain was forced to return Count Orsi to the column of his fellow-prisoners.
At Versailles they were shut up in the wine-cellars of the palace, forty-five feet underground. The prisoners confined there were the very dregs and sc.u.m of the insurrection. The cellars had only some old straw on the floors, left there by the Prussians. There were six hundred men confined in this place, and the torture they endured from the close air, the filth, and the impossibility of lying down at night was terrible.
Count Orsi was ten days in this horrible prison. At last one evening he heard his name called. His release had come. On going to the door he was taken before a superior officer, who expressed surprise and regret at the mistake that had been committed, and at once set him at liberty. A brave little boy, charged with one of his notes, had persevered through all kinds of difficulties in putting it into the hands of the English lady to whom it was addressed.
This lady and the Italian amba.s.sador had effected Count Orsi's release. He was ill with low fever for some weeks in consequence of the bad air he had breathed during his confinement. Subsequently he discovered that personal spite had caused his arrest as a friend of the Commune.
My next account of those days is drawn from the experience of the Marquis de Compiegne,[1] one of the Versailles officers. He was travelling in Florida when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, but hastened home at once to join the army. He fought at Sedan and was taken prisoner to Germany, but returned in time to act against the Commune. Afterwards he became an explorer in the Soudan, and in 1877 was killed in a duel.
[Footnote 1: His narrative was published in the ”Supplement Litteraire du Figaro.”]
On the 20th of May, news having reached Versailles that the first detachment of regular troops had made their way into Paris, M.
de Compiegne hastened to join his battalion, which he had that morning quitted on a few hours' leave. As they approached the Bois de Boulogne at midnight, the sky over Paris seemed red with flame.
They halted for some hours, the men sleeping, the officers amusing themselves by guessing conundrums; but as day dawned, they entered Paris through a breach in the defences. The young officer says,--
”I shall never forget the sight. The fortifications had been riddled with b.a.l.l.s; the casemates were broken in. All over the ground were strewn haversacks, packets of cartridges, fragments of muskets, sc.r.a.ps of uniforms, tin cans that had held preserved meats, ammunition-wagons that had been blown up, mangled horses, men dying and dead, artillerymen cut down at their guns, broken gun-carriages, disabled siege-guns, with their wheels splashed red from pools of blood, but still pointed at our positions, while around were the still smoking walls of ruined private houses. A company of infantry was guarding about six hundred prisoners, who with folded arms and lowering faces were standing among the ruins. They were of all ages, grades, and uniforms,--boys of fifteen and old men, general officers covered with gold lace, and beggars in rags: Avengers of Flourens, Children of Pere d.u.c.h.ene, Cha.s.seurs and Zouaves, Lascars, Turcos, and Hussars. We halted a little farther in the city. We were very hungry, but all the shops were closed. I got some milk, but some of my comrades, who wanted wine, made a raid into the cellar of an abandoned house, and were jumped upon by an immense negro dressed like a Turco, whom they took for the devil. Glad as we all were to be in Paris, the sight as we marched on was most melancholy. Fighting seemed going on in all directions, especially near the Tuileries and the Place de la Concorde. The Arch of Triumph was not seriously injured. On the top of it were two mortars, and the tricolored flag had been replaced by the _drapeau rouge_.
Detachments were all the time pa.s.sing us with prisoners. They were thrust for safe-keeping wherever s.p.a.ce could be found. I am sorry to say that they were cruelly insulted, and, as usual, those who had fought least had the foulest tongues. There was one party of deserters still in uniform, with their coats turned inside out. I saw one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, among the prisoners.
She was about fourteen, dressed as a _cantiniere_, with a red scarf round her waist. A smile was on her lips, and she carried herself proudly.
”That morning, May 22, I saw n.o.body shot. I think they wanted to take all the prisoners they could to Versailles as trophies of victory. About one o'clock we received orders to march, and went down the Boulevard Malesherbes. All the inhabitants seemed to be at their windows, and in many places we were loudly welcomed. It was strange to me to be marching with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure.
”On the march we pa.s.sed the Carmelite Convent, where my sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a moment and see her. Only an hour or two before; the nuns had had a Communist picket in their yard.
”We marched on to the Parc Monceau [once Louis Philippe's private pleasure-garden]. There our men were shooting prisoners who had been taken with arms in their hands. I saw fifteen men fall,--and then a woman.
”That night volunteers were called for to defend an outlying barricade which had been taren from the insurgents, and of which they were endeavoring to regain possession. Our captain led a party to this place, and in a tall house that overlooked the barricade he stationed three of us. There, lying flat on our faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the enemy. A number of National Guards came up and surrendered to us as prisoners. As soon as one presented himself with the b.u.t.t of his musket in the air, we made him come under the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant. In the course of the night I was slightly wounded in the ear. A surgeon pinned it up with two black pins.
”It was now May 23,--an ever-memorable day. We were pus.h.i.+ng on into Paris, and were to attack Montmartre; but first we had to make sure of the houses in our rear. Then began that terrible fighting in the streets, when every man fights hand to hand, when one must jump, revolver in hand, into dark cellars, or rush up narrow staircases with an enemy who knows the ground, lying in wait. Two or three shots, well aimed, come from one house, and each brings down a comrade. Exasperated, we break in the door and rush through the chambers. The crime must be punished, the murderers are still on the spot; but there are ten men in the house. Each swears that he is innocent. Then each soldier has to take upon himself the office of a judge. He looks to see if the gun of each man has been discharged recently, if the blouse and the citizen's trousers have not been hastily drawn over a uniform. Death and life are in his hands; no one will ever call him to account for his decision. Women and children fall at his feet imploring pity; through all the house resound sobs, groans, and the reports of rifles. At the corner of every street lie the bodies of men shot, or stand prisoners about to be executed.
”I was thankful when the moment came to attack the heights of Montmartre, and to engage in open warfare. General Pradie, our brigadier-general, marched at our head, greatly exposed, because of the gold lace on his uniform. An insurgent, whom we had taken prisoner, suddenly sprang from his guards, seized the general's horse, and presented at him a revolver that he had hidden in his belt. The general, furious, cried, 'Shoot him! shoot him!' But we dared not, they were too close together. Suddenly the man sprang back, gained the street, and though twenty of us fired in haste at once, every ball missed him. Leaping like a goat, he made his escape. The general was very angry. Step by step we made our way, slowly, it is true, but never losing ground. About two hundred yards from Montmartre were tall houses and wood-yards where many insurgents had taken refuge. These sent among us a shower of b.a.l.l.s.
We had sharp fighting in this place, but succeeded in gaining the position. Then we halted for about two hours, to make preparations for an attack upon the heights. Some of us while we halted, fired at the enemy, some raided houses and made prisoners; some went in search of something to eat, but seldom found it. I was fortunate, however, while taking some prisoners to the provost-marshal, to be able to buy a dozen salt herrings, four pints of milk, nine loaves of bread, some prunes, some barley-sugar, and a pound of bacon. I took all I could get, and from the colonel downward, all my comrades were glad to get a share of my provisions. The heights of Montmartre had been riddled by the fire from Mont Valerien. Sometimes a sh.e.l.l from our mortars would burst in the enemy's trenches, when a swarm of human beings would rush out of their holes and run like rabbits in a warren.”
The punishment of the unfortunate, as well as of the guilty, was very severe. Their imprisonment in the Great Orangery at Versailles, where thousands of orange-trees are stored during the winter, involved frightful suffering. A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, but its work was necessarily slow. It was more than a year before some of the captured leaders of the Commune met their fate. Those condemned were shot at the b.u.t.tes of Satory,--an immense amphitheatre holding twenty thousand people, where the emperor on one of his fetes, in the early days of his marriage, gave a great free hippodrome performance, to the intense gratification of his lieges.
Some prisoners were transported to New Caledonia; Cayenne had been given up as too unhealthy, and this lonely island in the far Pacific Ocean had been fixed upon as the Botany Bay for political offenders.
Some of the leaders in the Council of the Commune were shot in the streets. Raoul Rigault was of this number. Some were executed at Satory; some escaped to England, Switzerland, and America; some were sent to New Caledonia, but were amnestied, and returned to France to be thorns in the side of every Government up to the present hour; some are now legislators in the French Chamber, some editors and proprietors of newspapers. Among those shot in the heat of vengeance at Satory was Valin, who had vainly tried to save the hostages. Deleschuze, in despair at the cowardice of his a.s.sociates, quietly sought a barricade when affairs grew desperate, and standing on it with his arms folded, was shot down. Cluseret, who had real talent as an artist, had an exhibition a few years since of his pictures in Paris, and writing to a friend concerning it, speaks thus of himself:[1]
[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]
”You can tell me the worst. When a man has pa.s.sed through a life full of vicissitudes as I have done, during seventeen years of which I have seen many campaigns, fighting sometimes three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, or marching and counter-marching, without tents or anything; when one has been three times outlawed and under sentence of death; when one has known much of imprisonment and exile; when one has suffered from ingrat.i.tude, calumny, and poverty,--one is pretty well seasoned, and can bear to hear the truth.”
One thousand and thirty-one women were among the prisoners at Versailles and Satory. Many of them were women of the worst character. Eight hundred and fifty were set at liberty; four were sent to an insane asylum; but doctors declared that nearly every woman who fought in the streets for the Commune was more or less insane.
The most important of all captures was that of Rochefort. He had been a leading man in the Council of the Commune, but was so great a favorite with men of literature, besides having strong friends and an old schoolfellow in Thiers' cabinet, that he escaped with transportation to the Southern Seas. On May 20, when he saw that the end of the Commune was at hand, he procured from the Delegate for Foreign Affairs pa.s.sports for himself and his secretary. It is thought that the delegate, enraged at Rochefort's purpose of deserting his colleagues, betrayed him to the Prussians who held the fort of Vincennes. The Prussians sent word to the frontier, and there the fugitives were arrested. Rochefort had no luggage, but in his pocket was a great deal of miscellaneous jewelry, a copy of ”Monte Cristo,” and some fine cigars. Escorted by Uhlans, he was brought to St. Germains, and delivered over to the Versailles Government. For a long time his fate hung in the balance, and it seemed improbable that even the exertions of M. Thiers, the President, and Jules Favre, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, could save him.
Having told of the last days of the Commune as seen by Count Orsi and the Marquis de Compiegne, there remains one more narrative,--the experiences of a man still more intimately connected with the events of that terrible period, though, like a soldier in battle, he seems to have been able to see only what was around him, and could take no general view of what went on in other parts of the field.
The writer was all English gentleman who published his narrative immediately after he returned to England in September and October, 1871, in ”Macmillan's Magazine.” ”The writer,” says the editor, ”is a young gentleman of good family and position. His name, though suppressed for good reasons, is known to us, and we have satisfied ourselves of the trustworthiness of the narrative.” He says:
”I left England very hurriedly for France on March 29, 1871. I had neglected to procure a pa.s.sport, and had no papers to prove my ident.i.ty. I travelled from Havre to Paris without trouble, and on the train met two men whom I saw afterwards as members of the Council of the Commune. The first thing that struck me on my arrival in Paris was the extreme quietness of the streets. During the first week of my stay I was absorbed in my own business, and saw nothing; but on Monday, April 10, my own part in the concerns of the Commune began. I was returning home from breakfast about one o'clock in the day, when I met a sergeant and four men in the street, who stopped me, and the sergeant said: 'Pardon, Citizen, but what is your battalion?' I answered that, being an Englishman, I did not belong to any battalion. 'And your pa.s.sport, Citizen?' On my replying that I had none, he requested me to go with him to a neighboring _mairie_, and I was accordingly escorted thither by the four men.
On my arrival I was shown into a cell, comfortable enough, though it might have been cleaner. Having no evidence of my nationality, I felt it was useless to apply to the Emba.s.sy; all the friends I had in Paris who could have identified me as all Englishman had left the city some days before, and as I reflected, it appeared to me that if required to serve the Commune, no other course would be left to me. One thing, however, I resolved,--to keep myself as much in the background as possible. In three or four hours I was conducted before the members of the Commune for that arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.