Chapter 24

On entering the church of Saint Eustache yesterday, I was agreeably surprised to find the font full of tobacco instead of holy-water, and to see the altar in the distance covered with bottles and glasses. Some one informed me that was the counter. In one of the lateral chapels, a statue of the Virgin had been dressed out in the uniform of a vivandière, with a pipe in her mouth. I was, however, particularly charmed with the amiable faces of the people I saw collected there. The sex to which we owe the _tricoteuses_ was decidedly in the majority. It was quite delightful not to see any of those elegant dresses and frivolous manners, which have for so long disgraced the better half of the human race. Thank heaven! my eyes fell with rapture on the heroic rags of those ladies who do us the honour of sweeping our streets for us. Many of these female patriots were proud to bear in the centre of their faces a rubicund nose, that rivalled in colour the Communal flag on the Hôtel de Ville. Oh, glorious red nose, the distinguished sign of Republicanism! As to the men, they seemed to have been chosen among the first ranks of the new aristocracy. It was charming to note the military elegance with which their caps were slightly inclined over one ear; their faces, naturally hideous, were illuminated with the joy of freedom, and certainly the thick smoke which emanated from their pipes, must have been more agreeable as an offering, than the faint vapours of incense that used to arise from the gilded censers. “Marriage, citoyennes, is the greatest error of ancient humanity. To be married is to be a slave. Will you be slaves?”—“No, no!” cried all the female part of the audience, and the orator, a tall gaunt woman with a nose like the beak of a hawk, and a jaundice-coloured complexion, flattered by such universal applause, continued, “Marriage, therefore, cannot be tolerated any longer in a free city. It ought to be considered a crime, and suppressed by the most severe measures. Nobody has the right to sell his liberty, and thereby to set a bad example to his fellow citizens. The matrimonial state is a perpetual crime against morality. Don’t tell me that marriage may be tolerated, if you institute divorce. Divorce is only an expedient, and if I may be allowed to use the word, an Orleanist expedient!” (Thunders of applause.) “Therefore, I propose to this assembly, that it should get the Commune of Paris to modify the decree, which assures pensions to the legitimate or illegitimate companions of the National Guards, killed in the defence of our municipal rights. No half measures. We, the illegitimate companions, will no longer suffer the legitimate wives to usurp rights they no longer possess, and which they ought never to have had at all. Let the decree be modified. All for the free women, none for the slaves!”

The orator descends from the pulpit amidst the most lively congratulations. I am told by some one standing near me, that the orator is a monthly nurse, who used to be a somnambulist in her youth. But the crowd opens now to give place to a male orator, who mounts the spiral staircase, passes his hand through his hair, and darts a piercing glance on the multitude beneath. It is Citizen Lullier.

This young man has really a very agreeable physiognomy; his forehead is intelligent, his eyes pleasant. Looking on M. Lullier’s sympathetic face, one is sorry to remember his eccentricities. But what is all this noise about? What has he said? what has he done? I only heard the words “Dombrowski,” and “La Cécilia.” Every one starts to his feet, exasperated, shouting. Several chairs are about to be flung at the orator. He is surrounded, hooted. “Down with Lullier! Long live Dombrowski!” The tumult increases. Citizen Lullier seems perfectly calm in the midst of it all, but refuses to leave the pulpit; he tries in vain to speak and explain. Two women, two amiable hags, throw themselves upon him; several men rush up also; he is taken up bodily and carried away, resisting to the utmost and shouting to the last. The people jump up on the chairs, Lullier has disappeared, and I hear him no more; what have they done with him!

What do you think of all this, gentlemen and Catholics! Do you still regret the priests and choristers who used awhile ago to preach and chant in the Parisian churches? Where is the man, who at the very sight of this new congregation, so tolerant, so intelligent, listening with such gratitude to these noble lessons of politics and morality; where is the man, who could any longer blind himself to the admirable influence of the present revolution? Innumerable are the benefits that the Paris Commune showers upon us! As I leave the church, a little vagabond walks up to the font, and taking a pinch of tobacco,—“In the name of the...!” says he, then fills his pipe; “In the name of the ...!” proceeding to strike a lucifer, adds, “In the name of the ...!”—“Confound the blasphemous rascal!” say I, giving him a good box on the ears. After having written these lines I felt inclined to erase them; on second thoughts I let them remain—they belong to history!

NOTES:

[89] A political refugee, who left his country in 1869 for Prussia, where he taught mathematics in the University of Ulm, and afterwards accepted service under Garibaldi.

LXXXII.

This morning I took a walk in the most innocent manner, having committed no crime that I knew of. It was lovely weather, and the streets looked gay, as they generally do when it is very bright, even when the hearts of the people are most sad. I passed through the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Palais Royal, and finally the Rue Richelieu. I beg pardon for these details, but I am particularly careful in indicating the road I took, as I wish the inhabitants of the places in question, to bear witness that I did not steal in passing a single quartern loaf, or appropriate the smallest article of jewellery. As I was about to turn on to the boulevards, one of the four National Guards who were on duty, I do not know what for, at the corner of the street, cried out, “You can’t pass!” All right, thought I to myself; there is nothing fresh I suppose, only the Commune does not want people to pass; of course, it has right on its side. Thereupon I began to retrace my steps. “You can’t pass,” calls out another sentinel, by the time I have reached the other side of the street.

This is strange, the Commune cannot mean to limit my walk to a melancholy pacing up and down between two opposite pavements. A sergeant came up to me; I recognised him as a Spaniard, who during the siege belonged to my company. “Why are you not in uniform?” he asked me, with a roughness that I fancied was somewhat mitigated by the remembrance of the many cigars I had given him, the nights we were on guard during the siege. I understood in an instant what they wanted with me, and replied unhesitatingly, “Because it is not my turn to be on guard,”—“No, of course it’s not, it never is. You have been taking your ease this long time, while others have been getting killed.” It was evident this Spaniard had not taken the cigars I had given him, in good part, and was now revenging himself.—“What do you want with me?” I said; “let’s have done with this.” Instead of answering, he signed to two Federals standing near, who immediately placed themselves one on each side of me, and cried, “March!” I was perfectly agreeable, although this walk was not exactly in the direction I had intended. On the way I heard a woman say, “Poor young man I They have taken him in the act.” I was conducted to the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and marched into the vestry, where about fifty _réfractaires_ were already assembled.

Behind a deal table, on which were placed a small register, an inkstand stuck in a great bung, and two quill pens, sat three young men, almost boys, in uniform. You might have imagined them to be Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, at the age when they played at leap-frog. “Your name?” said Rhadamanthus, addressing me. I did not think twice about it, but gave them a name which has never been mine. Suddenly some one behind me burst out laughing; I turned round and recognised an old friend, whom I had not noticed among the other prisoners. “Your profession?” inquired Minos.—“Prizefighter,” I answered, putting my arms akimbo and looking as ferocious as possible, by way of keeping up the character I had momentarily assumed. To the rest of the questions that were addressed to me, I replied in the same satisfactory manner. When it was over, Minos said to me, “That is enough; now go and sit down, and wait until you are called.”—“Pardon me, my young friend, but I shall not go and sit down, nor shall I wait a moment more.”—“Are you making fun of us? We are transacting most serious business, our lives are at stake. Go and sit down.”—“I have already had the honour to remark, my dear Rhadamanthus, that I did not mean to sit down. Be kind enough to allow me to depart instantly.”—“You ask _me_ to do this?”—“Yes! you!” I shouted in a tremendous voice. The three judges looked at me in great perplexity, and began whispering amongst themselves. A prize fighter, by jingo! I thought the moment had come to strike a decisive blow, so I pulled out of my pocket a little green card, which I desired them to examine. Immediately Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus got up, bowed to me most respectfully, and called out to two National Guards who were at the door, “Allow the citizen to pass.”—“By-the-bye,” said I, pointing, to my friend, “this gentleman is with me.”—“Allow both the citizens to pass,” shouted the lads in chorus.—“This is capital,” cried my friend as soon as we were well outside the door.—“How did you manage?”—“I have a pass from the Central Committee.”—“In your own name?”—“No, I bought it of the widow of a Federal; who was on very good terms with Citizen Félix Pyat.”—“Why, it is just like a romance.”—“Yes, but a romance that allows me to live pretty safely in the midst of this strange reality. Anyhow, I think we had better look out for other lodgings.”

LXXXIII.

At ten o’clock in the evening I was walking up the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. In these times the streets are quite deserted at that hour. Looking on in front I saw that the Place Saint-Georges was lighted up by long tongues of flame, that the wind blew hither and thither. I hastened on, and was soon standing in front of M. Thiers’ house.[90] At the open gate stood a sentinel; a large fire had been lighted in the court by the National Guards; not that the night was cold, they seemed to have lighted it merely for the pleasure of burning furniture and pictures, that had been left behind by the Communal waggoners. They had already begun to pull down the right side of the house; a pickaxe was leaning against a loosened stone; the roof had fallen in, and a rafter was sticking out of one of the windows. The fire rose higher and higher; would it not be better that the flames should reach the house and consume it in an hour or two, than to see it being gradually pulled down, stone by stone, for many days to come? In the court I perceived several trucks full of books and linen. A National Guard picked up a small picture that was lying near the gate; I bent forward and saw that it was a painting of a satyr playing on a flute. How sad and cruel all this seemed! The men lounging about looked demoniacal in the red light of the fire. I turned away, thinking not of the political man, but of the house where he had worked, where he had thought, of the books that no longer stood on the shelves, of the favourite chair that had been burnt on the very hearth by which he had sat so long; I thought of all the dumb witnesses of a long life destroyed, dispersed, lost, of the relatives, and friends whose traces had disappeared from the rooms empty to-day, in ruins to-morrow; I thought of all this, and of all the links that would be broken by a dispersion, and I trembled at the idea that some day—in these times anything seems possible—men may break open the doors of my modest habitation, knock about the furniture of which I have grown fond, destroy my books which have so long been the companions of my studies, tear the pictures from my walls, and burn the verses that I love for the sake of the trouble they have given me to make,—kill, in a word, all that renders life agreeable to me, more cruelly than if four Federals were to take me off and shoot me at the corner of a street. But I am not a political man. I belong to no party—who would think of doing me any injury? I am perfectly harmless, with my lovesick metaphor. Ah I how egotistical one is! It was of my own home that I thought while I stood in front of the ruin in the Place Saint-Georges. I confess that I was particularly touched by the misfortunes of that house, because it awakened in me the fear of my own, misfortune, most improbable, and most diminutive, it is true, in comparison with that.

NOTES:

[90] It should be remarked that the destruction of M. Thiers’ house coincided with the first success of the Versailles army; it was the spirit of hatred and mad destructiveness which dictated the following decree, issued by the Committee of Public Safety on the 10th of May:— “Art. 1. The goods and property of Thiers (they even denied him the appellation of citizen) are seized by order of the administration of public domains. “Art. 2. The house of Thiers, situated at the Place Saint-Georges, to be demolished.” “On the following day the National Assembly, in presence of the activity exhibited by M. Thiers, declared that the proscribed, whose house was demolished, had exhibited proofs of an amount of patriotism and political ability which inspired every confidence in the future. On the 12th of the same month works were commenced at Versailles for the formation of a railway-station sufficient for all the wants of an important army, the initiation of which was due to M. Thiers; a conference was opened on the 19th April with the Western Railway Company, the plans were approved on the 22nd of the same month, and the preliminary works were commenced on the 12th of May. When these are terminated, they will consist of thirty-five parallel lines of rails, more than a mile in length. But the principal point in the plan is, that by means of branches to Pontoise and Chevreuse, this immense station may be placed in direct communication with all the lines of railway in France. It is easy enough to draw the following conclusion, namely, that if the necessity should ever again arise, Paris would cease to be the central depot for all commercial movements, and thus the paralysis of the affairs of the whole country would be avoided, in case the Parisian populace should again be bitten by the barricade mania. At one time it was feared that the collections of M. Thiers were destroyed in the conflagration at the Tuileries; but M. Courbet reports that on the 12th of May he asked what he ought to do about the different things taken at the house of M. Thiers, and if they were to be sent to the Louvre or to be publicly sold, and he was then appointed a member of the commission to examine the case. Regarding his conduct at the time of the demolishing of the house of M. Thiers, he arrived too late, he says, to make an inventory; the furniture and effects had been already packed by the _employés_ of the Garde Meuble; “I made some observations about it, and on going through the empty apartments, I noticed two small figures that I packed in paper, thinking they might be private _souvenirs_, and that I would return them some day to their owner. All the other things were already destroyed or gone.”

LXXXIV.

An anecdote: Parisian all over; but with such stuff are they amused!

Raoul Rigault, the man who arrests, was breakfasting with Gaston Dacosta, the man who destroys. These two friends are worthy of each other. Rigault has incarcerated the Archbishop of Paris, but Dacosta claims the merit of having loosened the first stone in M. Thiers’ house. But however, Rigault would destroy if Dacosta were not there to do so; and if Rigault did not arrest, Dacosta would arrest for him.

They talked as they ate. Rigault enumerated the list of people he had sent to the Conciergerie and to Mazas, and thought with consternation that soon there would be no one left for him to arrest. Suddenly he stopped his fork on its way to his mouth, and his face assumed a most doleful expression.—“What’s the matter?” cried Dacosta, alarmed.—“Ah!” said Rigault, tears choking his utterance, “Papa is not in Paris.”—“Well, and what does it matter if your father is not here?”—“Alas!” exclaimed Rigault, bursting out crying, “I could have had him arrested!”[91]

NOTES:

[91] The illegality of his conduct, however, was complaint made by Arthur Arnould, to the committee, concerning the arbitrary arrest of a number of persons. Cournet was appointed to the Prefecture in Rigault’s stead, but the amateur policeman and informer did not renounce work; he found the greatest pleasure, as he himself expressed it, in acting the spy over the official spies. This man was a well-known frequenter of the low cafés of the Quartier Latin, and his face bore such evidences of his debauched life, that though only twenty-eight years of age, he looked nearer forty.

LXXXV.

The horrible cracking sound that is heard at sea when a vessel splits upon a rock, is not a surer sign of peril to the terrified crew, than are the vain efforts, contradictions and agitation at the Hôtel de Ville, the forerunners of disaster to the men of the Commune. Listen! the vessel is about to heave asunder. Everybody gives orders, no one obeys them. One man looks defiantly at another; this man denounces that, and Rigault thinks seriously of arresting them both. There is a majority which is not united, and a minority that cannot agree amongst themselves. Twenty-one members retire, they do well.[92] I am glad to find on the list the names of the few that Paris’ still believes in, and whom, thanks to this tardy resignation, it will not learn to despise. For instance, Arthur Arnould. But why should they take the trouble to seek out a pretext? Why did they not say simply: “We have left them because we find them full of wickedness; we were blinded as you were at first, but now we in our turn see clearly; a good cause has been lost by madmen or worse, and we have abandoned it because, if we were to stay a moment longer, now that we are no longer blinded, we should be committing a criminal act” Such words as these would have opened the eyes of so many wretched beings, who are going to their deaths and think they do well to die! As to those who remain, they must feel that their power is slipping from them. They did not arrest or detain Rossel; it would seem as if they dared not touch him because he was right in thinking what he said, although he was very wrong to say it as he did. While the Commune hesitates, the military plans of the Versaillais are being carried out. Vanves taken, Montrouge in ruins, breaches opened at the Point-du-Jour, at the Porte-Maillot, at Saint-Ouen; the Communists have only to choose now, between flight and the horrors of a terrible death struggle! May they fly, far, far away, beyond the reach of vengeance, despised, forgotten if that be possible! I am told that the Central Committee is trying now to substitute itself for the Commune, which was elected by its desire.[93] One born of the other, they will die together.

NOTES:

[92] An important document has just made the round of the Communal press—the manifesto of the minority of the Commune, in which twenty-one members declare their refusal to take any farther part in the deliberations of the body, which they accuse of having delivered its powers into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and thus rendering itself null. This declaration is signed by:—Arthur Arnould, Avrial, Andrieux, Arnold, Clémence, Victor Clément, Courbet, Franckel, Eugène Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, Sérailler, Tridon, Theisz, Varlin, Vermorel, Jules Vallès. Adding to these twenty-one secessionists, twenty-one members who have resigned:—Adam, Barré, Brelay, Beslay, De Bouteiller, Chéron, Desmarest, Ferry, Fruneau, Goupil, Loiseau-Pinson, Leroy, Lefèvre, Méline, Murat, Marmottan, Nast, Ulysse Parent, Robineat, Rane, Tirard; Three who have not sat: Briosne, Menotti Garibaldi, Rogeard; Two dead: Duval, Flourens; One captured: Blanqui; One escaped: Charles Gérardin; Five incarcerated: Allix, Panille dit Blanchet, Brunel, Emile Clément, Cluseret;— Out of 101 members elected to the Commune on the 26th of March and the 16th of April, only forty-seven now remain:—Amouroux, Ant. Arnaud, Assy, Babick, Billioray, Clément, Champy, Chardon, Chalain, Demay, Dupont, Decamp, Dereure, Durant, Delescluze, Eudes, Henry Fortuné, Ferré, Gambon, Geresme, Paschal Grousset, Johannard, Ledroit, Langevin, Lonclas, Mortier, Léo Meiller, Martelet, J. Miot, Oudet, Protot, Paget, Pilotel, Félix Pyat, Philippe, Parisel, Pottier, Régère, Raoul Rigault, Sicard, Triquet, Urbain, Vaillant, Verdure, Vésmier, Viart.

[93] “REPUBLICAN FEDERATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.

“Central Committee. “To the People of Paris! To the National Guard!

“Rumours of dissensions between the majority of the Commune and the Central Committee have been spread by our common enemies with a persistency which, once for all, must be crushed by public compact. “The Central Committee, appointed to the administration of military affairs by the Committee of Public Safety, will enter upon office from this day. “This Committee, which has upheld the standard of the Communal revolution, has undergone no change and no deterioration. It is today what it was yesterday, the legitimate defender of the Commune, the basis of its power, at the same time as it is the determined enemy of civil war; the sentinel placed by the people to protect the rights that they have conquered, “In the name, then, of the Commune, and of the Central Committee, who sign this pact of good faith, let these gross suspicions and calumnies be swept away. Let hearts beat, let hands be ready to strike in the good cause, and may we triumph in the name of union and fraternity. “Long live the Republic! “Long live the Commune! “Long live the Communal Federation!

“The Commission of the Commune, BERGERET, CHAMPY, GERESME, LEDROIT, LONGLAS, URBAIN. “The Central Committee. “Paris, 18th May, 1871.”