Part 35 (1/2)
”Personally,” he went on, ”I am not fighting for Communism, but for Communalism, which, I need not tell you, is quite a different thing. I fail to see why Paris and Lyons should be judged incapable of managing their own munic.i.p.al affairs without the interference of the State, while other great provincial centres are considered capable of doing so. The English Government does not interfere with the munic.i.p.al affairs of London on the plea that it is the capital, with those of Manchester on the plea that it has inaugurated a policy of its own, any more than it interferes with those of Liverpool, Leeds, or Bristol. Your lord-lieutenants of counties are virtually decorative officials, something different from our prefects and our sub-prefects, and your Home Secretary has not a hundredth part of the power of our Minister of the Interior. We wish to go a step further than you, without, however, s.h.i.+rking the financial obligations imposed by a federation. What you would call imperial taxes, we are willing to pay in kind as well as money. This is one of the things we do want; what we do not want is the resuscitation of the Empire. I am not speaking at random when I tell you that there are rumours about traitors in our camp, and that, according to these rumours, the struggle against the Versaillese troops would be a mere pretext to sweep the deck for the unopposed entry of an imperial army into Paris. Whence would that army be recruited? From among the prisoners going to leave Germany, who have been worked all the while in the interest of the Napoleonic dynasty. After all, we have as much right to overthrow the Government of Versailles as the Government of Versailles had the right to upset the Empire. Their powers are by no means more valid by virtue of the recent elections, than was the power of Louis-Napoleon by virtue of the plebiscite of 1870. Does M. Thiers really think that he is a better or greater man than Abraham Lincoln, who treated the Southerns as belligerents, not as insurgents?”
So far Cluseret. I am not prepared to say that he was a strictly honourable man, but he was a very intelligent one, probably the most intelligent among the leaders of the Commune. At any rate, his conversation made me anxious to get a nearer sight of some of the latter, and, as they had evidently made the Bra.s.serie Saint-Severin their princ.i.p.al resort of an evening, I returned thither several times.
A few nights afterwards, I was just in time to witness the arrival of Raoul Rigault, on horseback, accompanied by a staff running by the side of his animal. The whole reminded me irresistibly of Decamp's picture, ”La Patrouille Turque.” The Prefect of Police was scarcely less magnificently attired than the rest of his fellow-dignitaries. His uniform, if I remember rightly, was blue with red facings, but it is impossible to say, because it was covered everywhere with gold lace. His myrmidons hustled the crowd in order to make room for their chief, and some one laughed: ”Mais il n'y a rien de change; c'est absolument comme sous l'Empire.” For a moment Rigault sat quite still, surveying the crowd and ogling the women through his double eye-gla.s.ses. Then he alighted, and caught sight of my friend and myself standing on the threshold. ”Quels sont ces citoyens?” he inquired, taking us in from top to toe, and stroking his long beard all the while. Some one told him our names, at which he made a wry face, the more that mine must have been familiar to him, seeing that a very near relative of mine, bearing the same, had been a special favourite with General Vinoy. He did not think fit to molest us; had he done so, it might have fared badly with us, for by the time Lord Lyons could have interfered, we might have been shot.
Ever since, my friend and I have been under the impression that we owed our lives to a dark, ugly little man who, at that moment, whispered something to him, and who, my friend told me, immediately afterwards, was the right hand of Raoul Rigault, Theophile Ferre. That name was also familiar to me, as it was to most Parisians, previous to the outbreak of the war, because Ferre was implicated in the plot against Louis-Napoleon's life, and was tried in the early part of '70 at Blois.
Every one knew how he insulted the President, how he refused to answer, and finally exclaimed, ”Yes, I am an anarchist, a socialist, an atheist, and woe to you when our turn comes.” He kept his word; he was a fiend, and looked one. Whenever there was anything cruel and bloodthirsty going on, he made it a point to be present. He was, though ugly, not half so ugly as Tridon, but one involuntarily recoiled from him.
Curiously enough, this very Theophile Ferre, whom I then saw for the first time, had been the subject of a conversation I had with Gil-Peres, the actor of the Palais-Royal, on the 25th or 26th of March. I had known Gil-Peres from the moment he made his mark in ”La Dame aux Camelias” as Gaudens. To my great surprise, a day or two after the proclamation of the Commune, I heard that he had been cruelly maltreated in the Rue Drouot, that he had narrowly escaped being killed. Two days later, I paid him a visit in his lodgings at Montmartre; for he had been severely, though not dangerously hurt, and was unable to leave his bed.
”I am very sorry for your mishap,” I said; ”but what, in Heaven's name, induced you to meddle with politics?”
He burst out laughing, in that peculiar laugh of his which I have never heard before or since, on or off the stage. The nearest approach to it was that of Gra.s.sot, but the latter's was like a discharge of artillery, while Gil-Peres was like that of a musketry volley.
”I did not meddle with politics,” he replied; ”but you know how fond I am of going among crowds to study character. This day last week, I was pa.s.sing along the Rue Drouot, when I saw a large group in front of the Mairie. I had left home early in the morning, I knew nothing of what was going on in my neighbourhood, so you may imagine my surprise when I heard them calmly discussing the death of Clement Thomas and Lecomte.
My hair stood positively on end, and I must have pushed a bit in order to get nearer the speakers. I had a long black coat on, and they mistook me for a cure. I did all I could to tell them my name, but, before I could utter a word, I was down, and they began trampling on me. Some one, G.o.d alone knows who, saved me, by telling them my name. I knew nothing more, for I was brought home unconscious. And to think,” he added, ”that I might have been a member of the Commune myself, if I had liked.”
”What do you mean?” I said, for I began to think that he was out of his mind.
”Well, you know that during the siege I tried to do my duty as a National Guard, and in my battalion was this Theophile Ferre of whom you have already heard. A most intelligent creature, but poor as Job and ferocious to a degree. He was a study to me, and, of late, he frequently came to see me in the morning. I generally asked him to stay to breakfast, for I liked to hear him talk of the future Commune, though I had not the slightest faith in his visions. I considered him a downright lunatic. About two or three days before this outbreak, he came, one morning, looking as pale as a ghost, but evidently very much excited.
Before I had time to ask him the cause of his emotion, he exclaimed, 'This time there is no mistake about it; we are the masters.' I suppose my face must have looked a perfect blank, for he proceeded to explain.
'In two days we'll hold our sittings at the Hotel-de-Ville, and the Commune will be proclaimed. And now,' he added, 'what can I do for you, citoyen Gil-Peres? You have always been very kind to me, and I am not likely to forget it when I am at the top of the tree.'
”I told him that I'd feel much obliged to him if he could induce Sardou or Dumas to write me a good part, like the latter had done before, because I wanted to be something more than a comic actor. But I saw that he was getting angry.
”'Do you mean to tell me,' he almost hissed, 'that you do not want to belong to the Commune?'
”'I haven't the slightest ambition that way,' I replied. 'People would only make fun of me, and they would be perfectly right.'
”'Why should people make fun of you?'
”'Because, because----' I stammered.
”He left me no time to finish. 'Because you are a small man,' he said.
'Well, I am a small man, too, and an ugly one into the bargain. I can a.s.sure you that the world will hear as much of me before long as if I had been an Adonis and a Hercules.' With this he disappeared, and I have not seen him since.”
My purpose in reporting this conversation is to show that the Commune, with all its evils, might have been prevented by the so-called government of Versailles, if its members had been a little less eager to get their snug berths comfortably settled.
To return for a moment to Ferre and his companions, who, without exception, were sober to a degree, though many were probably fond of good cheer. The English writers, often very insufficiently informed, have generally maintained the contrary, but I know for a fact that, among the leaders of the movement, drunkenness was unknown. Ferre himself was among the soberest of the lot: the few evenings I saw him he drank either cold coffee or some cordial diluted with water.
Nevertheless, it was he who was directly responsible for the death of Archbishop Darboy, whom he could and might have saved.
In every modern tragedy there is a comic element, and in that of the Commune the comic parts were, to a certain extent, sustained by Gambon, Jourde, and a few others whom it is not necessary to mention. Gambon was one of the mildest of creatures, and somewhat of a ”communard malgre lui.” He would have willingly ”left the settlement of all these vexed questions to moral force,” and he proposed once or twice a mission to Versailles to that effect. He was about fifty, and a fine specimen of a robust, healthy farmer. His love of ”peaceful settlement” arose from an experiment he had made in that way during the Empire, though it is very doubtful whether strictly logical reasoners would have looked upon it as ”peaceful.” Gambon had been a magistrate and a member of the National a.s.sembly during the Second Republic, and voted with the conservative side. The advent of the Empire made an end of his parliamentary career, and, in order to mark his disapproval of the Coup-d'etat and its sequel, Gambon refused to pay his taxes. The authorities seized one of his cows, and were proceeding to sell it by auction, when Gambon, accompanied by a good many of his former const.i.tuents, appeared on the scene. ”This cow,”
he shouts, ”has been stolen from me by the Imperial fisc, and whosoever buys it is nothing more than a thief himself.” Result: not a single bid for the cow, and the auctioneer was compelled to adjourn the sale for a week. The auctioneer deemed it prudent to transport the cow to a neighbouring commune, but Gambon had got wind of the affair, and adopted the same expedient of moral persuasion. For nearly three months the auctioneer transported the cow from one commune to another, and Gambon followed him everywhere, until they reached the limits of the department. Gambon apprehended that moral persuasion would have no effect among strangers, and he let things take their course. The cost of selling the cow amounted to about ten times its worth. As a matter of course, the whole affair was revived by ”les journaux bien pensants” at the advent of the Commune, and Gambon was elected a member by the 10th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. Gambon managed to escape into Switzerland; but when the amnesty was proclaimed, he returned, and solicited once more the suffrages of his former const.i.tuents. At the Bra.s.serie Saint-Severin, Gambon was generally to be found at the ladies' table, about the occupants of which I cannot speak, seeing that I was not introduced to them.
Jourde was one of two ”financial delegates” of the Commune. He had been a superior employe at the Bank of France, and was considered an authority on financial affairs. It was he to whom the Marquis de Ploeuc, the governor of the Bank, had handed the first million for the use of the Commune. My friend, the doctor, had known him in his former capacity, and often invited him to our table, to which invitation the ”paymaster-general” always eagerly responded. One evening, the conversation turned upon the events which had preceded the request for funds. ”On the second day of the Commune,” he said, ”the want of money began to be horribly felt. Eudes proposed that I should go and fetch some from the Bank of France. To be perfectly candid, I did not care about it. Had I been a soldier, I might have invaded the Bank at the head of a regiment; but, to go and ask my former chief for a million or so as a matter of course, was a different thing, and I had not the moral courage. The director of the Bank of France is very little short of a G.o.d to his subordinates, and, in spite of our boasted 'Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality,' there is no nation so ready to bow down before its governors as the French. Seeing that I hung back, Eudes proposed to go himself, and did, refusing to take a single soldier with him. But he did not want the responsibility of handling the million of francs the governor placed at our disposal, so I was, after all, obliged to beard my former chief in his own den. He was very polite, and called me 'Monsieur le delegue aux finances,' but I would have preferred his calling me all the names in the world, for I caught sight of a very ironical smile at the corners of his mouth when, on taking leave of him, he said, 'You may be my successor one day, Monsieur le delegue, and I hope you will profit by the lessons I have always endeavoured to teach my subordinates: obedience to the powers that be.'”
Jourde was by no means a fool or a braggart; he was a very good administrator, and exceedingly conscientious. Like most men who have had the constant handling of important sums of money, he was absolutely indifferent to it; and I feel certain that he did not feather his own nest during the two months he had the chance. But he vainly endeavoured to impress upon the others the necessity for economy. Every now and then he tore his red hair and beard at the waste going on at the Hotel-de-Ville, where, in the beginning, a.s.si was keeping open table.
Not that they were feasting, but every one who had a mind could sit down, and, though the sum charged by the steward was moderate, two francs for breakfast and two francs fifty centimes for dinner, the number of self-invited guests increased day by day, and the paymaster-general was at his wits' end to keep pace with the expenses.