Chapter 20

“Reste! Elle est là, le flanc percé de leurs couteaux, Gisante, et sur sa bière Ils ont mis une dalle. Un pan de ton manteau Est pris sous cette pierre.

“Tu ne t’en iras pas! Quoi! quitter leur maison! Et fuir leur destinée! Quoi! tu voudrais trahir jusqu’à la trahison Elle-même indignée!

“Quoi! n’as-tu pas tenu l’échelle à ces fripons En pleine connivence? Le sac de ces voleurs ne fut-il pas, réponds, Cousu par toi d’avance?

“Les mensonges, la haine au dard froid et visqueux, Habitent ce repaire; Tu t’en vas! De quel droit, étant plus renard qu’eux Et plus qu’elle vipère?”

And Monsieur Félix Pyat will remain, in spite of the thousand and one good reasons he would find to make a short tour in Belgium. His colleagues will try persuasion, if necessary—“You are good, you are great, you are pure; what would become of us without you?” and they will hold on to him to the end, like cowards who in the midst of danger cling to their companions, shrieking out, “We will die together!” and embrace them convulsively to prevent their escape.

NOTES:

[68] A writer in the _Vengeur_.

[69] For translation, see Appendix 7.

LXV.

An anonymous writer, who is no other, it is said, than the citizen Delescluze, has just published the following:—

“The Commune has assured to itself the receipt of a sum of 600,000 francs a day—eighteen millions a month.”

There was once upon a time a French forger, named Collé, celebrated for the extent and importance of his swindling, and who possessed, it was said, a very large fortune. When questioned upon the subject, he used to answer: “I have assured to myself a receipt of a hundred francs a day—three thousand francs a month.”

Between Collé and the Commune there exists a difference, however: in the first place, Collé affected a particular liking for the clergy, whose various garbs he used frequently to assume, and the Commune cannot endure _curés_ and secondly, while Collé, in assuring himself a receipt of three thousand francs a month, had done all that was possible for him to do, the Commune puts up with a miserable eighteen millions, when it might have ensured to itself a great deal more. It is astounding, and, I may add, little in accordance with its dignity, that it should be satisfied with so moderate an allowance. You show too much modesty; it is not worth while being victorious for so little. Eighteen millions—a mere nothing! Your delicacy might be better understood were you more scrupulous as to the choice of your means. Thank Heaven! you do not err on that score. Come! a little more energy, if you please. “But!” sighs the Commune, “I have done my best, it seems to me. Thanks to Jourde,[70] who throws Law into the shade, and to Dereure,[71] the shoemaker—Financier and Cobbler of La Fontaine’s Fable—I pocket daily the gross value of the sale of tobacco, which is a pretty speculation enough, since I have had to pay neither the cost of the raw materials nor of the manufacture. I have besides this, thanks to what I call the ‘regular income from the public departments,’ a good number of little revenues which do not cost me much and bring me in a good deal. Now there’s the Post, for instance. I take good care to despatch none of the letters that are confided to me, but I manage to secure the price of the postage by an arrangement with my employés. This shows cleverness and tact, I think. Finally, in addition to this, I get the railway companies to be kind enough to drop into my pockets the sum of two millions of francs: the Northern Railway Company will supply me with three hundred and ninety-three thousand francs; the Western, with two hundred and seventy-five thousand; the Eastern, three hundred and fifty-four thousand francs; the Lyons Railway Company, with six hundred and ninety-two thousand francs; the Orleans Railway, three hundred and seventy-six thousand francs. It is the financial delegate, Monsieur Jourde, who has the most brains of the whole band, who planned this ingenious arrangement. And, in truth, I consider that I have done all that is in my power, and you are wrong in trying to humiliate me by drawing comparisons between myself and Collé, who had some good, in him, but who was in no way equal to me.” My dear, good Commune, I do not deny that, you have the most excellent intentions; I approve the tobacco speculation and the funds drawn from the public service money, in which you include, I suppose, the profits made in your nocturnal visits to the public and other coffers, and your fruitful rounds in the churches. As to the tax levied on railways, it inspires me with an admiration approaching enthusiasm. But, for mercy’s sake, do not allow yourself to stop there. Nothing is achieved so long as anything remains to be done. You waste your time in counting up the present sources of your revenues, while so many opportunities remain of increasing them. Are there no bankers, no stock-brokers, no notaries, in Paris? Send a few of these honest patriots of yours to the houses of the reactionaries. A hundred thousand francs from one, two hundred thousand francs from another; it is always worth the taking. From small streams come great rivers. In your place I would not neglect the shopkeepers’ tills either, or the money-chests of the rich. They are of the _bourgeoisie_, those people, and the _bourgeois_ are your enemies. Tax them, _morbleu!_ Tax them by all means. Have you not all your friends and your friends’ friends to look after? Is it false keys that fail you? But they are easily made, and amongst your number you will certainly find one or two locksmiths quite ready to help you. Take Pilotel, for instance: a sane man, that! There were only eight hundred francs in the escritoire of Monsieur Chaudey, and he appropriated the eight hundred francs. Thus, you see, how great houses and good governments are founded. And when there is no longer any money, you must seize hold of the goods and furniture of your fellow-citizens. You will find receivers of stolen goods among you, no doubt. They told me yesterday that you had sent the Titiens and Paul Veroneses of the Louvre to London, in order to be able to make money out of them. A most excellent measure, that I can well explain to myself, because I can understand that Monsieur Courbet must have a great desire to get rid of these two painters, for whom he feels so legitimate and profound a hatred. But, alas! it was but a false report. You confined yourselves to putting up for sale the materials composing the Column of the Place Vendôme; dividing them into four lots, two lots of stone and cement, and two lots of metal. Two lots only? Why! you know nothing about making the best of your merchandise. There is something better than stone and metal in this column. There is that in it which a number of silly people used to call in other times the glory of France. What a pretty spectacle—when the sale by auction is over—to see the buyers carrying away under their arms—one, a bit of Wagram; another, a bit of Jena; and some, who had thought to be buying a pound or two of bronze, having made the acquisition of the First Consul at Arcole or the Emperor at Austerlitz. It is a sad pity that you did not puff up the value and importance of your sale to the bidders. Your speculation would then have turned out better. You have managed badly, my dear Commune; you have not known how to take advantage of your position. Repair your faults, impose your taxes, appropriate, confiscate! All may be yours, disdain nothing, and have no fear of resistance; everyone is afraid of you. Here! I have five francs in my own pocket, will you have them?

NOTES:

[70] Jourde occupied the position of financial Minister under the Commune Government. He is well-educated, and is said to be one of the most intellectually distinguished of the Federal functionaries. He is a medical student, and said to be twenty-seven years of age. See Appendix 8.

[71] A working cobbler, and member of the International Society, which he represented at the Congress of Bâle. He occupied a post on the _Marseillaise_ newspaper, became a Commissary of Police after the fourth of September, and took part on the popular side in the outbreak of the thirty-first of October. He was deprived of his office by General Trochu’s government, and appointed one of the delegates for justice, by the authorities of the Commune.

LXVI.

“The social revolution could end but in one great catastrophe, of which the immediate effects would be— “To make the land a barren waste: “To put a strait jacket upon society: “And, if it were possible that such a state of things could be prolonged for several weeks— “To cause three or four millions of human beings to perish by horrible famine. “When the Government shall be without resources, when the country shall be without produce and without commerce: “When starving Paris, blockaded by the departments, will no longer discharge its debts and make payments, no longer export nor import: “When workmen, demoralised by the politics taught at the clubs and the closing of the workshops, will have found a means of living, no matter how: “When the State appropriates to itself the silver and ornaments of the citizens for the purpose of sending them to the Mint: “When perquisitions made in the private houses are the only means of collecting taxes: “When hungry bands spread over the country, committing robbery and devastation: “When the peasant, armed with loaded gun, has to neglect the cultivation of his crops in order to protect them: “When the first sheaf shall have been stolen, the first house forced, the first church profaned, the first torch fired, the first woman violated: “When the first blood shall have been spilt: “When the first head shall have fallen: “When abomination and desolation shall have spread over all France— “Oh! then you will know what we mean by a social revolution: “A multitude let loose, arms in hand, mad with revenge and fury: “Soldiers, pikes, empty homes, knives and crowbars: “The city, silent and oppressed; the police in our very homes, opinions suspected, words noted down, tears observed, sighs counted, silence watched; spying and denunciations: “Inexorable requisitions, forced and progressive loans, paper money made worthless: “Civil war, and the enemy on the frontiers: “Pitiless proconsuls, a supreme committee, with hearts of stone— “This would be the fruits of what they call democratic and social revolution.”

Who wrote this admirable page?—Proudhon.

O all-merciful Providence! Take pity on France, for she has come to this.

LXVII.

A balloon! A balloon! Quick! A balloon! There is not a moment to be lost. The inhabitants of Brive-la-Gaillarde and the mountaineers of Savoy are thirsting for news; let us shower manna on them. Write away! Pierre Denis! Pump in your gas, emulators of Godard! And may the four winds of heaven carry our “Declarations” to the four quarters of France! Ah! ah! The Versaillais—band of traitors that they are!—did not calculate on this. They raise soldiers, the simpletons; they bombard our forts and our houses, the idiots! But we make decrees, and distribute our proclamations throughout the country by means of an unlimited number of revolutionary aeronauts. May they be guided by the wind which blows across the mountains! How the honest labourers, the good farmers, the eager workers of the departments will rejoice when they receive, dropping, from the sky, the pages on which are inscribed the rights and duties of the man of the present day! They will not hesitate one single instant. They will leave their fields, their homes, their workshops, and cry, “A musket! a musket!” with no thought that they leave behind them women without husbands, and children without fathers! They will fly to us, happy to conquer or die for the glory of Citizen Delescluze and Citizen Vermorel! What ardour! What patriotism! Already they are on their way; they are coming, they are come! Those who had no fire-arms have seized their pickaxes or pieces of their broken ploughs! Hurrah! Forward! March! To arms, citizens, to arms! Hail to France, who comes to the rescue of Paris!

All to no purpose. I tell you the people of Brive-la-Gaillarde and the mountaineers of Savoy have not once thought of taking up arms. They have never been more tranquil or more resolute on remaining in peace and quiet than now. When they see one of your balloons—always supposing that it has any other end in view than of depositing repentant communists in safe, snug corners, pass the lines of the Versailles troops—when they see one of your balloons, they simply exclaim, “Hulloa! Here’s a balloon! Where in the world can it come from?” If some printed papers fall from the sky, the peasant picks them up, saying, “I shall give them to my son to read, when he returns from school.” The evening comes, the son spells them out, while the father listens. The son cannot understand; the father falls asleep. “Ah! those Parisians!” cries the mother. Can you wonder? These people are born to live and die without knowing all that is admirable in the men of the Hôtel de Ville. They are fools enough to cling to their own lives and the lives of those near them. They do not go to war amongst themselves; they are poor ignorant creatures, and you will never make them believe that when once they have paid their taxes, worked, fed their wives and children, there still remains to them one duty to fulfil, more holy, more imperative than all others,—that of coming to the Porte-Maillot to receive a ball or a fragment of shell in their skulls.

But these balloons might be made of some use, nevertheless. Pick out one, the best made, the largest in size, the best rigged; put in Citizen Félix Pyat—who, you may be sure, will not be the last to sit down—and Citizen Delescluze too, nor must we omit Citizen Cluseret, nor any of the citizens who at the present moment constitute the happiness of Paris and the tranquillity of France! Now inflate this admirable balloon, which is to bear off all your hopes, with the lightest gases. Then blow, ye winds, terrifically, furiously, and bear it from us! Balloons can be capricious at times. Have you read, the story of Hans Pfaal? Good Heavens! if the wind could only carry them away, up to the moon, or even a great deal further still.

LXVIII.

I’m surprised myself, as I re-read the preceding pages, at the strange contradictions I meet with. During the first few days I was almost favourable to the Commune; I waited, I hoped. To-day all is very different. When I write down in the evening what I have seen and thought in the day, I allow myself to blame with severity men that inspired me formerly with some kind of sympathy. What has taken place? Have my opinions changed? I do not think so. Besides, I have in reality but one opinion. I receive impressions, describing these impressions without reserve, without prejudice. If these stray leaves should ever be collected in a volume, they will at least possess the rare merit of being thoroughly sincere. Is it then, that my nature is modified? By no means. If I were indulgent a month ago, it was that I did not know those of whom I spoke, and that I am of a naturally hopeful and benevolent disposition: if I now show myself severe, it is that—like the rest of Paris—I have learned to know them better.

LXIX.

The Commune has naturally brought an infinite number of journals into existence. Try, if you will, to count the leaves of the forest, the grains of sand on the seashore, the stars in the heavens, but do not, in your wildest dreams, attempt to enumerate the newspapers that have seen the light since the famous day of the 18th of March. Félix Pyat has a journal, _Le Vengeur_; Vermorel has a journal, _Le Cri du People_; Delescluze has a journal, _Le Reveil_; there is not a member of the Commune but indulges in the luxury of a sheet in which he tells his colleagues daily all the evil he thinks of them. It must be acknowledged that these gentlemen have an extremely bad opinion one of the other. I defy even the _Gaulois_ of Versailles—yes, the _Gaulois_ itself—to treat Félix Pyat as Vermorel treats him, and if it be remembered on the other hand what Félix Pyat says of Vermorel, the _Gaulois_ will be found singularly good-natured. Napoleon cautioned us long ago “to wash our dirty linen at home,” but good patriots cannot be expected to profit by the counsels of a tyrant. So the columns of the Commune papers are devoted to the daily and mutual pulling to pieces of the Commune’s members. But where will these ephemeral sheets be in six months, in one month, or in a week’s time perhaps? The wind which wafts away the leaves of the rose and the laurel, will be no less cruel for the political leaves. Let us then, for the sake of posterity, offer a specimen of what is—or as we shall soon say, what was—the Communalist press of to-day. Be they edited by Marotteau, or Duchesne, or Paschal Grousset, or by any other emulator of Paul-Louis Courier, these worthy journals are all much alike, and one example will suffice for the whole.

First of all, and generally in enormous type, stand the LATEST NEWS, the news from the Porte Maillot where the friends of the Commune are fighting, and the news from Versailles where the enemies of the country are sitting. They usually run somewhat in this style:—

“It is more and more confirmed that the Assembly of Versailles is surrounded and made prisoner by the troops returned from Germany. The generals of the Empire have newly proclaimed Napoleon: the Third, Emperor. After a violent quarrel about two National Guards whom Marshal MacMahon had had shot, but had omitted to have cooked for his soldiers, Monsieur Thiers sent a challenge to the Marshal, by his two seconds. These seconds were no other than the Comte de Chambord and the Comte de Paris. Marshal MacMahon chose the ex-Emperor and Paul de Cassagnac. The duel took place in the Rue des Reservoirs, in the midst of an immense crowd. The Marshal was killed, and was therefore obliged to renounce the command of the troops. But the Assembly would not accept his resignation. “We are in the position to assert that a company of the 132nd Battalion has this morning surrounded fifteen thousand gendarmes and sergents-de-ville, in the park of Neuilly. Seeing that all resistance was useless, the supporters of Monsieur Thiers surrendered without reserve. Among them were seventeen members of the National Assembly, who, not content with ordering the assassination of our brothers, had wished also to be present at the massacre. “A person worthy of credit has related to us the following fact:—A _cantinière_ of the 44th Battalion (from the Batignolles quarter), was in the act of pouring out a glass of brandy for an artilleryman of the Fort of Vanves, when suddenly the artilleryman was out in two by a Versailles shell; the brave _cantinière_ drank off the contents of the glass just poured out for the dead man who lay in bits at her feet, and took his place at the guns. She performed her new part of artilleryman so bravely, that ten minutes later there was not a single gun uninjured in the Meudon battery. As to those who were serving the pieces there, they were all hurled to a distance of several miles, and amongst them were said to have been recognised—we give this news however with great reserve—Monsieur Ollivier, the ex-minister of the ex-Emperor, and Count von Bismarck, who wished to verify for himself the actual range of the guns that he had lent to his good friends of Versailles.”

After the LATEST NEWS come the reports of the day, the _bulletin du jour_ as it is called now, and it is in this that the editor, a member of the Commune, reveals his talent. We trust that the following example is not quite unworthy of the pen of Monsieur Félix Pyat, or the signature of Monsieur Vermorel:—

“Paris, 29th April, 1871.

“They are lying in wait for us, these tigers athirst for blood. “They are there, these Vandals, who have sworn that in all Paris not a single man shall be spared, nor a single stone, left standing. “But we are not in their power yet. No, nor shall we ever be. “The National Guard is on the watch; victorious and sublime, their soldierly breasts are not of flesh and blood, but of bronze, from which the balls rebound as they stand, dauntless, before the enemy. “Ah! so these lachrymose Jules Favres, these fat Picards, these hungry Jules Ferrys, said amongst themselves, ‘We will take Paris, we will tear it up, and its soil shall be divided after the victory between the wives of the _sergents de ville!_’ “They are beginning to understand all the insanity of their plan. Why, it is Paris that will take Versailles, that will take all those blear-eyed old men who, because they cannot look steadily at Monsieur Thiers’ face, fancy that it is the sun. “It is in vain that they gorge with blood and wine their deceived soldiers; the moment is approaching when these men will no longer consent to march against the city which is fighting for them. Already, yesterday, the mêlée of a battle could be distinguished from the fort of Vanves; the line had come to blows with the _gendarmes_ of Valentin and Charette’s Zouaves. Courage, Parisians! A few more days and you will have triumphed over all the infamy that dares to stop the march of the victorious Commune! “But it is not enough to vanquish the enemies without, we must get rid also of the enemies that are within. “No more pity! no more vacillation! The justice of the people is wearied of formalities, and cries out for vengeance. Death to spies! Death to the _réactionaires_! Death to the priests! Why does the Commune feed this collection of malefactors in your prisons, while the money they cost us daily would be so useful to the women and children of those who are fighting for the cause of Paris? We are assured that one of the prisoners ate half a chicken for his dinner yesterday; how many good patriots might have been saved from suffering with the sum which was taken from the chests of the Republic for this orgie! There is no longer time to hesitate; the Versaillais are shooting and mutilating the prisoners; we must revenge ourselves! We must show them such an example, that in perceiving from afar the heads of their infamous accomplices, the traitors of Versailles, stuck upon our ramparts, confounded by the magnanimity of the Commune, they will lay down their arms at last, and deliver themselves up as prisoners. “As to the refractory of Paris, we cannot find words to express the astonishment we experience at the weakness that has been shown with regard to them. “What! we permit that there should still be cowards in Paris? I thought they were all at Versailles. We allow still to remain amongst us men who are not of our opinion? This state of things has lasted too long. Let them take their muskets or die. Shoot them down, those who refuse to go forward. They have wives and children, they are fathers of families, they say; a fine reason indeed! The Commune before everything! And, besides, there must be no pity for the wives of _réactionaires_ and the children of spies!”

The _bulletins du jour_ are sometimes set forth in gentler terms; but we have chosen a fair average specimen between the lukewarm and the most violent.