Part 36 (1/2)
was the general's reply. All chance was over now, we thought; we should be shot in a few minutes. Our idea was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared, and those about me said: 'It is just. They would not shoot the aged and the wounded!' Alas! we were soon to be undeceived. Again we started, and were ordered to march arm in arm to the Bois de Boulogne. There those picked out of our ranks by General de Gallifet--over eighty in number--were all shot before our eyes; yet so great was our thirst that many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling for water, of which there was only a scant supply. I was not fortunate enough to get any.
”The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that our destination was Versailles. Oh, the misery and wretchedness of that weary march! The sun poured fiercely down on our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting gayly with his comrades.
”Towards eight o'clock in the evening we entered Versailles. If the curses we had endured in Paris were frightful and numerous, here they were multiplied tenfold. We toiled up the hill leading to Satory, through mud ankle deep. 'There stand the _mitrailleuses_, ready for us,' said one of my companions. Then, indeed, for the first time I felt afraid, and wished I had been among those who had been executed in the daytime, rather than be horribly wounded and linger in my misery; for no sure aim is taken by a _mitrailleuse_.
”The order came to halt, and I waited for the whirring sound; but, thank G.o.d! I waited in vain. We set ourselves in motion once more, and soon were in an immense courtyard surrounded by walls, having on one side large sheds in which we were to pa.s.s the night. With what eagerness did we throw ourselves on our faces in the mud, and lap up the filthy water in the pools! There was another Englishman, as well as several Americans, among our number, also some Dutch, Belgians, and Italians. The Englishman had arrived in Paris from Brest on May 14 to 'better himself,' and had been immediately arrested and put in prison by the Commune. Being released on the 21st of May, he was captured the next day by the Versaillais. I remained all the time with him till my release.
”On Wednesday, May 31, we were despatched to Versailles to be examined at the _orangerie_. The _orangerie_ is about seven hundred feet long and forty broad, including two wings at either end. It is flagged with stone, on which the dust acc.u.mulates in great quant.i.ties.
According to my experience, it is bitterly cold at night, and very hot in the daytime. Within its walls, instead of fragrant orange-trees, were four to five thousand human beings, now herded together in a condition too miserable to imagine, a prey to vermin, disease, and starvation.
”The general appearance of the crowd of captives was, I must confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder; the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attainable, and was.h.i.+ng was impossible. I gained some comparative comfort by gathering up dust in a handkerchief and making a cus.h.i.+on of it. Thursday, June 1, dragged on as miserably as its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which gave rise to great antic.i.p.ations, as he said, in my hearing, that our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion of soup ought to be allowed us.
”The terrible scenes and sufferings we had gone through had deprived many of our number of their reason. Some of the madmen were dangerous, and made attempts to take the lives of their companions; others did nothing but shout and scream day and night. The second night we pa.s.sed in the _orangerie_ the Englishman and I thought we had secured a place where we might lie down and sleep in the side gallery; but at midnight we were attacked by one of the most dangerous of the madmen. It was useless to hope to find any other place to lie down in, and we had no more rest that night, for several maniacs persisted in following us wherever we went, and would allow us no repose. I counted that night forty-four men bereft of reason wandering about and attacking others, as they had done ourselves.
”The next day we found ourselves at last in the ranks of those who were to leave the _orangerie_. Our names were inscribed at eleven o'clock, and we stood in rank till seven in the evening, afraid to lose our places if we stirred. What our destination might be, was to us unknown; but there was not a man who was not glad to quit the place where we had suffered such misery.”
Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a hulk lying in the harbor, clean s.h.i.+rts and water to wash with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries. Their treatment was not bad; they had hammocks to sleep in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul air of the _orangerie_, had so broken them down that most of them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a hospital s.h.i.+p moored near them, to be seen no more.
Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this hulk, and then escaped; but by what means he did not, in October, 1871, venture to say.
He concludes his narrative with these words:--
”When I think of those who were with me who still remain in the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release, my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to Almighty G.o.d for my miraculous and providential escape. In conclusion let me say, as one who lived and suffered among them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable creatures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them. The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) were 'pressed men' like myself. But those who had wives and children to support and were without work--nay, even without means of obtaining a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little savings)--were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the National Guard for the sake of their daily pay.
”In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were in general orderly and respectable men; but the irregular regiments, such as the _Enfants Perdus, Cha.s.seurs Federes, Defenseurs de la Colonne de Juillet_, etc., were nothing but troops of blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance which overtook the majority of them.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _PRESIDENT ADOLPH THIERS._]
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
The fall of the Commune took place in the last week of May, 1871.
We must go back to the surrender of Paris, in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the history of France from the election of the National a.s.sembly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of the Third Republic, during which time France was under the dictators.h.i.+p of M. Thiers.
Adolphe Thiers was born in Ma.r.s.eilles, April 16, 1797. He was a poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had fled from France to escape the counter-revolution. The doctor who superintended his entrance into the world recorded that he was a healthy, active child, with remarkably short legs. These legs remained short all his life, but his body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man.
His appearance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen from a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother, on the maternal side, was named Lhommaca, and was of Greek origin. It came from the Levant, and its members spoke Greek among themselves.
Madame Thiers' father was named Arnic, and his descent was also Levantine. Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers, a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge under her father's roof. A writer who obtained materials for a sketch of Thiers from the Thiers himself, says,--
”She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts, charmed by his plausible manners, and regardless of his poverty and his inc.u.mbrance of many children, she insisted on marrying him. Her family was indignant, and cast her off; nor did she long find comfort in her husband. She was a Royalist, and remained so to the end of her days; he was a Jacobin. Moreover, she soon found that his tastes led him to drink and dissipation.”
This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mercurial in temperament, of universal apt.i.tudes, much wit, and a perennial buoyancy of disposition. His weakness, like his son's, was a pa.s.sion for omniscience. Some one said of him: ”He talks encyclopedia, and if anybody asked him, would be at no loss to tell you what was pa.s.sing in the moon.” He had been educated for the Bar, and belonged to a family of the _haute bourgeoisie_ of Provence; but everything was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the docks of Ma.r.s.eilles. His father (the statesman's grandfather) had been a cloth merchant and a man of erudition. He wrote a History of Provence, and died at the age of ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him lived to be ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house at Ma.r.s.eilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was known far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was ruined by speculative ventures in the American colonies.
Thiers' grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist, who brought down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins by inciting the more moderate party in Ma.r.s.eilles to seize the commissioners sent to them by the Convention, and imprison them in the Chateau d'If. His son (Thiers' father), being himself a Jacobin, helped to release the prisoners, and accepted an office under them in Ma.r.s.eilles. This was the reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he bobbed like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal facility sank beneath them. He seems to have been ”everything by turns, and nothing long.” Among other employments he became an _impressario_, and went with an opera _troupe_ to Italy. There for a time he kept a gaming table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte's court at Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and followed him to Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without the domestic affections of his English counterpart, but with far more brilliant chances.
His wife was left to struggle at Ma.r.s.eilles with her own boy to support, and with a host of step-children. What she would have done but for the kindness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard to tell.
Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Madame Arnic. She had provided him from his birth with influential patrons in the persons of two well-to-do G.o.dfathers. The boy was brought up in one of those beautiful _bastides_, or sea-and-country villas, which adorn the sh.o.r.es of Provence. There he ran wild with the little peasant boys, and subsequently in Ma.r.s.eilles with the _gamins_ of the city.
His cousin, the poet Andre Chenier, got him an appointment to one of the _lycees_, or high-schools, established by Napoleon; but his grandmother would not hear of his ”wearing Bonaparte's livery.”
The two G.o.d-fathers had to threaten to apply to the absent Micawber on the subject, if the boy's mother and grandmother stood in the way of his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the appointment offered them. Adolphe pa.s.sed with high marks into the inst.i.tution, and it cost him no trouble to keep always at the head of his cla.s.ses.
But in play hours there was never a more troublesome boy. He so perplexed and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of expelling him, when a new master came to the _lycee_ from Paris, and all was changed. This master had ruined his prospects by writing a pamphlet against the Empire. A warm friends.h.i.+p sprang up between him and his brilliant pupil. The good man was an unbending republican.