Chapter 18

That is so true that since the Commune existed in Paris, the workshops are closed, the factories are idle, and France, for whom the capital sacrifices herself, loses something like fifty millions a day. These are facts, it seems to me; and I don’t see what the traitors of Versailles can say in reply.

“What does Paris demand?”

Ah! yes, what does she ask? Truly we should not be sorry to know. Or rather, what do you ask; for in the same way as Louis le Grand had the right to say, “The State, I am the State,” you may say “Paris, we are Paris.”

“Paris demands the recognition and the consolidation of the Republic, the only form of government compatible with the rights of the people, and the regular and free development of society.”

This once you are right. Paris demands the Republic, and must yearn for it eagerly indeed, since neither your excesses nor your follies have succeeded in changing its mind.

“It demands the absolute entirety of the Commune extended to all the localities of France, ensuring to everyone the integrity of its rights, and to every Frenchman the free exercise of his faculties and abilities as man, citizen, and workman. The rights of the Commune should have no other limit, but the equal rights of all other Communes adhering to the contract, an association which would assure the unity of France.”

This is a little obscure. What I understand is something like this. You would make France a federation of Communes, but what is the meaning of words “adherence to the contract?” You admit then that certain Communes might refuse their adhesion. In that case what would be the situation of these rebels? Would you leave them free? Or would you force them to obey the conventions of the majority? Do you think it would be sufficient, in the case of such a town as Pezenas, for example, refusing to adhere, that the association would be incomplete? That is to say, that French unity would not exist? Are you very sure about Pezenas? Who tells you that Pezenas may not have its own idea of independence, and that, we may not hear presently that it has elected a duke who raises an army and coins money. Duke of Pezenas! that sounds well. Remember, also, that many other localities might follow the example of Pezenas, and perhaps in order to insure the entirety of the Commune, it might have been wise to have asked them if they wanted it. Now, what do you understand by “localities?” Marseilles is a locality; an isolated farm in the middle of a field is also a locality. So France would be divided into an infinite number of Communes. Would they agree amongst themselves, these innumerable little states? Supposing they are agreed to the contract, it is not impossible that petty rivalries should lead to quarrels, or even to blows; an action about a party-wall might lead to a civil war. How would you reduce the recalcitrant localities to reason? for even supposing that the Communes have the right to subjugate a Commune, the disaffected one could always escape you by declaring that it no longer adheres to the social compact. So that if this secession were produced not only by the vanity of one or more little hamlets, but by the pride of one or more great towns, France would find herself all at once deprived of her most important cities. Ah! messieurs, this part of your programme certainly leaves something to be desired, and I recommend you to improve it, unless indeed you prefer to suppress it altogether.

“The inherent rights of the Commune are ‘the vote of the Commmunal budget, the levying and the division of taxes, the direction of the local services, the organisation of the magistrature, of the police, and of education, and of the administration of the property belonging to the Commune.’”

This paragraph is cunning. It does not seem so at first sight, but look at it closely, and you will see that the most Machiavellic spirit has presided over its production. The ability consists in placing side by side with the rights which incontestably belong to the Commune, other rights which do not belong to it the least in the world, and in not appearing to attach more importance to one than to the other, so that the reader, carried away by the evident legitimacy of many of your claims, may say to himself, “Really all that is very just.” Let us unravel if you please this skein of red worsted so ingeniously tangled. The vote of the Communal budget, receipts and expenses, the levying and division of taxes, the administration of the Communal property, are rights which certainly belong to the Commune; if it had not got them it would not exist. And why do they belong to it? Because it alone could know what is good for it in these matters, and could come to such decision upon them, as it thought fit, without injuring the whole country. But it is not the same as regards measures concerning the magistracy, the police, and education. Well, suppose one fine day a Commune should say, “Magistrates? I don’t want any magistrates; these black-robed gentry are no use to me; let others nourish these idlers, who send brave thieves and honest assassins to the galleys; I love assassins and I honour thieves, and more, I choose that the culprits should judge the magistrates of the Republic.” Now, if a Commune were to say that, or something like that, what could you answer in reply? Absolutely nothing; for, according to your system, each locality in France has the right to organise its magistracy as it pleases. As regards the police and education, it would be easy to make out similar hypotheses, and thus to exhibit the absurdity of your Communal pretensions. Should a Commune say, “No person shall be arrested in future, and it is prohibited under pain of death to learn by heart the fable of the wolf and the fox.” What could you say to that? Nothing, unless you admitted that you were mistaken just now in supposing, that the integrity of the Commune ought to have no other limit but the right of equal independence of all the other Communes. There exists another limit, and that is the general interests of the country, which cannot permit one part of it to injure the rest, by bad example or in any other way; the central power alone can judge those questions where a single absurd measure—of which more than one “locality” may probably be guilty—might compromise the honour or the interests of France; the magistracy, the police, and education, are evidently questions of that nature.

The other rights of the Commune are, always be it understood, according to the declaration made to the French people:

“The choice by election or competition; with the responsibility and the permanent right of control over magistrates and communal functionaries of every class; “The absolute guarantee of individual liberty, of liberty of conscience, and of liberty of labour; “The permanent participation of the citizens in Communal affairs by the free manifestations of their opinions, and the free defence of their interests: guarantees to this effect to be given by the Commune, the only power charged with the surveillance and the protection of the full and just exercise of the rights of meeting and publicity; “The organisation of the city defences and of the National Guard, which elects its own officers, and alone ensures the maintenance of order in the city.”

With regard to the affirmation of these rights we may repeat that which we have said above, that some of them really belong to the Commune, but that the greater part of them do not.

“Paris desires nothing more in the way of local guarantees, on condition, let it be understood, of finding in the great central administration ...” “... In the great central administration appointed by the federated Commune the realisation and the practice of the same principles.”

That is to say, in other words, that Paris will consent willingly to be of the same opinion as others, if all the world is of the same opinion as itself.

“But, thanks to its independence, and profiting by its liberty of action, Paris reserves to itself the right of effecting, as it pleases, the administrative and economic reforms demanded by the population; to create proper institutions for the development and propagation of instruction, production, commerce, and credit; to universalize power and property,...”

Whew! Universalize property! Pray what does that mean, may I ask? Communalism here presents a singular likeness to Communism!

“... According to the necessities of the moment, the desire of those interested, and the lessons famished by experience: “Our enemies deceive themselves or the country when they accuse Paris of wishing to impose its will or its supremacy on the rest of the nation, and to pretend to a dictatorship which would be a positive offence against the independence and the sovereignty of the other Communes: “They deceive themselves, or they deceive the country, when they accuse Paris of desiring the destruction of French unity, constituted by the Revolution amid the acclamations of our fathers hurrying to the Festival of the Federation from all points of ancient France: “Political unity as imposed upon us up to the present time by the empire, the monarchy, and parliamentarism, is nothing more than despotic centralization, whether intelligent, arbitrary, or onerous. “Political unity, such as Paris demands, is the voluntary association of all local initiatives, the spontaneous and free cooperation of individual energies with one single common object—the well-being and the security of all. “The Communal revolution, inaugurated by the popular action of the 18th of March, ushers in a new era of experimental, positive, and scientific politics.”

Do you not think that during the last paragraphs the tone of the declaration is somewhat modified? It would seem as though Felix Pyat had become tired, and handed the pen to Pierre Denis or to Delescluze,—after Communalism comes socialism.

“Communal revolution is the end of the old governmental and clerical world, of militarism, of officialism (this new editor seems fond of words ending in ism), of exploitation, of commission, of monopolies, and of privileges to which the proletariat owes his thralldom, and the country her misfortunes and disasters.”

Of course there is nothing in the world that would please me better; but if I were very certain that Citizen Rigault did not possess an improved glass enabling him to observe me from a distance of several miles, without leaving his study or his armchair, if I were very certain that Citizen Rigault could not read over my shoulder what I am writing at this moment, I might perhaps venture to insinuate, that the revolution of the 18th of March appears to me to be, at the present moment, the apotheosis of most of the crimes which it pretends to have suppressed.

“Let then our grand and beloved country, deceived by falsehood and calumnies, be reassured!”

Well, in order that she may be reassured there is only one thing to be done,—be off with you!

“The struggle going on between Paris and Versailles is one of those which can never be terminated by deceitful compromises. There can be no doubt as to the issue. (Oh, no! there is no doubt about it.) Victory, pursued with indomitable energy by the National Guard, will remain with principle and justice. We ask it of France.”

Where is the necessity, since you have the indomitable energy of the National Guard?”.

“Convinced that Paris under arms possesses as much calmness as bravery ...”

You will find that a very difficult thing to persuade France to believe.

“... That it maintains order with equal energy and enthusiasm ...”

Order? No doubt, that which reigned at Warsaw; the order that reigned on the day after the 2nd of December.

“... That it sacrifices itself with as much judgment as heroism ...”

Yes; the judgment of a man who throws himself out of a fourth-floor window to prove that his head is harder than the paving-stones.

“... That it is only armed through devotion for the glory and liberty of all—let France cause this bloody conflict to cease!”

She’ll cause it to cease, never fear, but not in the way you understand it.

“It is for France to disarm Versailles ...”

Up to the present time she has certainly done precisely the contrary.

“... by the manifestations of her irresistible will. As she will be partaker in our conquests, let her take part in our efforts, let her be our ally in this conflict, which can only finish by the triumph of the Communal idea, or the ruin of Paris.”

The ruin of Paris! That is only, I suppose, a figurative expression.

“For ourselves, citizens of Paris, it is our mission to accomplish the modern revolution, the grandest and most fruitful of all those that have illuminated history. “Our duty is to struggle and to conquer! “THE COMMUNE OF PARIS.”

Such is this long, emphatic, but often obscure declaration. It is not wanting, however, in a certain eloquence; and, although frequently disfigured by glaring exaggerations, it contains here and there some just ideas, or at least, such as conform to the views of the great majority. Will it destroy the bad effect produced by the successive defeats of the Federals at Neuilly and at Asnières? Will it produce any good feeling towards the Commune in the minds of those who are daily drawing farther and farther from the men of the Commune? No; it is too late. Had this proclamation been placarded fifteen or twenty days sooner, some parts of it might have been approved and the rest discussed. Today we pass it by with a smile. Ah! many things have happened during the last three days. The acts of the Commune of Paris no longer allow us to take its declarations seriously, and we look upon its members as too mad—if not worse—to believe that by any accident they can be reasonable. These men have finished by rendering detestable whatever good there originally was in their idea.

NOTES:

[65] He was born in 1841, in the department of the Rhône. His education was completed very early. At the age of twenty he was engaged on two journals of the opposition, _La Jeune France_, and _La Jeunesse_. Those papers were soon suppressed, and their young contributor was imprisoned for three months. In 1864 he became one of the staff of the _Presse_, whence he passed to the _Liberté_ in 1866. Two years later he founded the _Courrier Français_; but from the multiplicity of fines imposed upon it, and from the imprisonment of its founder, the new journal expired very shortly. After a year’s incarceration at Sainte-Pélagie, Vermorel was engaged on the _Réforme_, which continued to appear until the fall of the Empire. During the siege he served as a private in the National Guard. He became a member of the Committee of Justice under the Commune, and was one of those who, at its fall, neither deserted nor disgraced it. He is reported to have mounted a barricade armed only with a cane, crying “I come here to die and not to fight.” His mother obtained permission to transport his remains to Venice.

LIX.

We have a court-martial; it is presided over by the citizen Rossel, chief of the grand staff of the army. It has just condemned to death the Commandant Girod, who refused to march against the “enemy.” The Executive Committee, however, has pardoned Commandant Girod. Let us look at this matter a little. If the Executive Committee occupies its time in undoing what the court-martial has done, I can’t quite understand why the executive has instituted a court-martial at all. If I were a member of the latter I should get angry. “What! I should say, they instal me in the hall where the courts-martial are held, they appoint guards to attend upon me, and my president has the right to say, ‘Guards, remove the prisoner.’ In a word, they convert me into something which resembles a judge as much as a parody can resemble the work burlesqued, and when I, a member of the court-martial, desire to take advantage of the rights that have been conferred upon me, and order the Commandant Girod to be shot, they stand in the way of justice, and save the life of him I have condemned. This is absurd! I had a liking for this commandant, and I wished him to die by my hands.”

Never mind, court-martial, take it coolly; you will have your revenge before long. At this moment there are at least sixty-three ecclesiastics in the prisons of Mazas, the Conciergerie, and La Santé. Although they are not precisely soldiers, they will be sent before you to be judged, and you may do just what you like with them, without any fear of the executive commission interposing its veto. The refractory also will give you work to do, and against them you can exercise your pleasure. As to the Commandant Girod, his is a different case, you understand. He is the friend of citizen Delescluze. The members of the Commune have not so many friends that they can afford to have any of them suppressed. But don’t be downcast; a dozen priests are well worth a major of the National Guard.

LX.

It is precisely because the men that the Commune sends to the front, fight and die so gloriously, that we feel exasperated against its members. A curse upon them, for thus wasting the moral riches of Paris! Confusion to them, for enlisting into so bad a service, the first-rate forces which a successful revolt leaves at their disposal. I will tell you what happened yesterday, the 22nd of April, on the Boulevard Bineau; and then I think you will agree with me that France, who has lost so much, still retains some of the bright, dauntless courage which was her. pride of old.

A trumpeter, a mere lad of seventeen, was marching at the head of his detachment, which had been ordered to take possession of a barricade that the Versailles troops were supposed to have abandoned. When I say, “he marched,” I am making a most incorrect statement, for he turned somersets and executed flying leaps on the road, far in advance of his comrades, until his progress was arrested by the barricade; this he greeted with a mocking gesture, and then, with a bound or two, was on the other side. There had been some mistake, the barricade had not been abandoned. Our young trumpeter was immediately surrounded by a pretty large number of troops of the line, who had lain hidden among the sacks of earth and piles of stones, in the hope of surprising the company which was advancing towards them. Several rifles were pointed at the poor boy, and a sergeant said: “If you move a foot, if you utter a sound, you die!” The lad’s reply was to leap to the highest part of the barricade and cry out, with all the strength of his young voice, “Don’t come on! They are here!” Then he fell backwards, pierced by four balls, but his comrades were saved!

LXI.

Another, and a sadder scene happened in the Avenue des Ternes. A funeral procession was passing along. The coffin, borne by two men, was very small, the coffin of a young child. The father, a workman in a blouse, walked behind with a little knot of other mourners. A sad sight, but the catastrophe was horrible. Suddenly a shell from Mont Valérien fell on the tiny coffin, and, bursting, scattered the remains of the dead child upon the living father. The corpse was entirely destroyed, with the trappings that had surrounded it. Massacring the dead! Truly those cannons are a wonderful, a refined invention!

LXII.

At last the unhappy inhabitants of Neuilly are able to leave their cellars. For three weeks, they have been hourly expecting the roofs of their houses to fall in and crush them; and with much difficulty have managed during the quieter moments of the day to procure enough to keep them from dying of starvation. For three weeks they have endured all the terrors, all the dangers of battle and bombardment. Many are dead—they all thought themselves sure to die. Horrible details are told. A little past Gilet’s restaurant, where the omnibus office used to be, lived an old couple, man and wife. At the beginning of the civil war, two shells burst, one after another, in their poor lodging, destroying every article of furniture. Utterly destitute, they took refuge in the cellar, where after a few hours of horrible suspense, the old man died. He was seventy, and the fright killed him; his wife was younger and stronger, and survived. In the rare intervals between the firing she went out and spoke to her neighbours through the cellar gratings—“My husband is dead. He must be buried; what am I to do?”—Carrying him to the cemetery was of course out of the question; no one could have been found to render this mournful duty. Besides, the bearers would probably have met a shell or a bullet on the way, and then others must have been found to carry them. One day, the old woman ventured as far as the Porte Maillot, and cried out as loud as she could, “My husband is dead in a cellar; come and fetch him, and let us both through the gates!”—The sentinel facetiously (let us hope it was nothing worse) took aim at her with his rifle, and she fled back to her cellar. At night, she slept by the side of the corpse, and when the light of morning filtered into her dreary place of refuge, and lighted up the body lying there, she sobbed with grief and terror. Her husband had been dead four days, when putrefaction set in, and she, able to bear it no longer, rushed out screaming to her neighbours: “You must bury him, or I will go into the middle of the avenue and await death there!”—They took pity on her, and came down into her cellar, dug a hole there and put the corpse in it. During three weeks she continued there, resting herself on the newly-turned earth. To-day, when they went to fetch her she fainted with horror; the grave had been dug too shallow, and one of the legs of the corpse was exposed to gaze.

This morning, the 25th of April, at nine o’clock, a dense crowd moved up the Champs Elysées: pedestrians of all ages and classes, and vehicles of every description. The truce obtained by the members of the _Republican Union of the rights of Paris_ was about to begin, and relief was to be carried to the sufferers at Neuilly. However, some precautions were necessary, for neither the shooting nor the cannonade had ceased yet, and every moment one expected to see some projectile or other fall among the advancing multitude. In the Avenue de la Grande Armée a shell had struck a house, and set fire to it. Gradually the sound of the artillery diminished, and then died away entirely; the crowd hastened to the ramparts.

The chapel was erected by Louis Philippe in memory of the Duke of Orleans, killed on the spot, July 18th, 1842.