Chapter 30

As a writer of drollery and scandal in the _Charivari_, would it have been well if he had used his title as a badge? Later, when contributing to the _Nain Jaune_, the _Soleil_, the _Evénement_, and the _Figaro_, when everyone would have been enchanted to call him _mon cher Comte_, he never displayed his rank, except when on the ground, face to face with the sword or pistol of Prince Achille Murat or Paul de Cassagnac.

A frequenter of _cafés_, living fast, bitter with journalists, hail-fellow with comedians, he lavished his wit for the benefit of minor theatres, and expended the exuberance of his patrician blood in comic odes. Dispensing thus some of his strength in such pieces as the _Vieillesse de Brididi_, the _Foire aux Grotesques_, and _Un Monsieur Bien-Mis_, in 1868 he founded the _Lanterne_, and thenceforth became the most ardent champion of the revolutionary party; and in the brilliant articles we all know, he cast its light on the follies of others under the pretext that they were his own. This satirical production reached the eleventh number, when its author, overstepping all bounds, took Napoleon by the horns and the gendarmes by the nose, and committed other extravagances, until the Government fined him to the amount of ten thousand francs penalties, and ordered him a short repose in the prison of Sainte-Pélagie. The notoriety attaching to his name dates from that period, and the events which accompanied the violent death of Victor Noir tended to augment his popularity and to convert him into the leader of a party, or the bearer of a flag, around which rallied all the elements of the struggle against established authority. He escaped to Belgium, and studied socialism, which he expounded later to an admiring audience of seventeen to eighteen thousand electors at Belleville. Elected deputy by the 20th Arrondissement, M. de Rochefort became, in 1869, a favourite representative of that class of the Parisian population whose bad instincts he had flattered and whose tendencies to revolt against authority he had encouraged, and in virtue of these claims he was chosen to form part of the Government of the National Defence. As President of the Commission of Barricades, after the 4th of September, during the siege of Paris, in the midst of the difficulties of all sorts caused to the Government of the National Defence by the investment of the capital, M. De Rochefort, making more and more common cause with the revolutionary party, separated himself from his colleagues in the Government who refused to permit the establishment of a second Government, the Commune, within a besieged city. By this act he openly declared himself a partisan of the Commune, and immediately after the acceptance of the preliminaries of peace he resigned his position as a deputy, alleging that his commission was at an end, and retired to Arcachon.

His wildly sanguinary articles in the _Marseillaise_, and the compacts sealed with blood, with Flourens and his associates, now had so exhausted our poor Rochefort that at the moment of flourishing his handkerchief as the standard of the _canaille_, he dropped pale and fainting to the ground, attacked by a severe illness. He was hardly convalescent when the events of the 18th of March occurred. But early in April, he exerted himself to assume the direction of the _Mot d’Ordre_, which, after having been suppressed by order of General Vinoy, the military commandant of Paris, had reappeared immediately upon the establishment of the Commune. He arrived on the scene of contest about the 8th or 10th of April. The daily report of military operations states the movements of the enemy, and points out what should be done to meet and resist him most advantageously (12th, 13th, and 14th of April; 10th; 16th, and 20th of May). Imaginary successes, the inaccuracy of which must in most instances have been known to the chief editor of the _Mot d’Ordre_, encouraged the hopes of the insurgents, while the announcement of unsuccessful combats was delayed with evident intention; the most ridiculous stories, the falsity of which was evident to the plainest common sense, and which could not escape the intelligence of M. Rochefort, were published in his journal, and kept up the popular excitement (12th, 15th, 19th, 26th, 27th, and 28th of April; 6th and 7th of May). It was in this manner that the pretended Pontifical Zouaves were brought upon the scene, with emblazoned banners, which were seized by the soldiers of the Commune (18th and 19th of April, 8th and 10th of May); that the Government of Versailles was furnished with war material given by, or purchased from the Prussians (27th and 28th of April, 6th and 17th of May); that it was again accused of making use of explosive bullets (18th and 19th of May), and of petroleum bombs (20th of April, and 2nd, 5th, 17th, and 19th of May); and that the best-known and most respected generals had been guilty of the grossest acts of cruelty and barbarity. Incitement to civil war (2nd and 26th of April and 14th and 24th of May) followed, as did also the oft-repeated accusation against the Government of wishing to reduce Paris by famine; indescribable calumnies directed against the Chief of the Executive Power (2nd, 16th, 20th, and 30th of April, and 8th of May), against the minister, the Chambers (16th of April and 14th of May), and the generals (12th, 16th, and 26th of April). The director of the _Mot d’Ordre_ then finding that men’s minds were prepared for all kinds of excesses, started the idea of the demolition of M. Thiers’s house by way of reprisal (6th of April); he mentioned the artistic wealth which it contained. He also referred to the dwellings of other ministers. He returned persistently to this idea, and on the 17th of May he invited the people, in the name of justice, to burn off-hand that other humiliating monument which is styled the History of the Consulate and of the Empire—in short, he insists on the execution of these acts of Vandalism. He did not call for the destruction of the Column Vendôme, but approved of the decree. He demands the destruction of the Expiatory Chapel of Louis XVI. (20th of April), and suggests the seizure of the crown jewels, which were in the possession of the bank (14th of April). In short, M. Rochefort, having entered upon a road which must naturally lead to extremes, finally arrives at a proposition for assassination. In the same way as he pointed out to the demolishers the house of M. Thiers, and to the bandits released by the Commune the treasures of the Church, so he points out to the assassins the unfortunate hostages.

A few days before the end of the reign of the Commune he judged it prudent, “seeing the gravity of events,” to suspend the publication of his journal and to quit Paris.

He was arrested at Meaux. It was the “_Meaux de la fin_,”[113] said a friend and fellow-writer.

He arrived at Versailles on the twenty-first of May, at two o’clock, the same day on which the troops entered Paris. On Sept. 20 Rochefort was tried with the Communists before the military tribunal of Versailles. Physically he seemed to have suffered much during his three months of incarceration. He is reported to have made anything but a brilliant defence, and to have restricted himself to pleading past actions and good services. He said that he suppressed _The Marseillaise_ at a loss of 20,000 francs per month, when he had no other private means of support, because he thought the effect of its articles would weaken the plan of Trochu for the defence of Paris, and that when he (M. Rochefort) held the _forces populaires_, and had an _occasion unique_, he chose to play a subordinate part. He stated himself a journalist _under_ the reign of the Commune, and not an active power _in_ the Commune from which in the end he had to fly. Rochefort owned that his articles in the _Mot d’Ordre_ had been more or less violent, but he pleaded the cause his “_façon plus ou moins nerveuse à écrire_” and that from illness he did not sometimes see his own journal. When pandering to a vulgar audience, Rochefort seemed to have lost his rich vein of satire, and to have lost himself in vile abuse. On the 21st he was sentenced to transportation for life within the enceinte of a French fortress.

NOTES:

[113] “_Le mot de la fin_,” the final word—the finale.

II. (Page 27.)

THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH.

It was on the day of the 18th of March, exactly six months after the appearance of Prussians beneath the walls of Paris, that the Government had chosen for the repression of the rebellion. At four o’clock in the morning, the troops of the army of Paris received orders to occupy the positions that had been assigned to them. All were to take part in the action, but it is just to add here that the most arduous and fatiguing part fell to the share of the Lustielle division, composed of the Paturel brigade (17th battalion of Chasseurs), and of the Lecomte brigade (18th battalion of Chasseurs). Three regiments of infantry were entrusted with the guard of the Hôtel de Ville; another, the 89th, mounted guard at the Tuileries. The Place de la Bastille was occupied by a battalion of the 64th, and two companies of the 24th. Three other battalions remained confined to barracks on the Boulevard du Prince Eugene. The Rue de Flandre, the Rue de Puebla, and the Rue de Crimée were filled with strong detachments of Infantry; a battalion of the Republican Guard and the 35th Regiment of Infantry were drawn up in the neighbourhood of the Buttes Chaumont. The whole quarter around the Place Clichy was occupied by the Republican Guard, foot Chasseurs, mounted gendarmes, Chasseurs d’Afrique, and a half battery of artillery. Other troops, starting from this base-line of operation, were led up the heights of Montmartre, together with companies of Gardiens de la Paix (the former Sergents-de-Ville converted into soldiers). At six o’clock in the morning the first orders were executed; the Gardiens de la Paix surrounded a hundred and fifty or two hundred insurgents appointed to guard the park of artillery, and the troops made themselves masters of all the most important points. The success was complete. Nothing remained to be done but to carry off the guns. Unhappily, the horses which had been ordered for this purpose did not arrive at the right moment. The cause of this fatal delay remains still unknown, but it is certain that they were still on the Place de la Concorde at the time when they ought to have been harnessed to the guns at Montmartre. Before they arrived, agitation had broken out and spread all over the quarter. The turbulent population, complaining in indignant tones of circulation being stopped, insulted the sentinels placed at the entrances of the streets, and threatened the artillerymen who were watching them. At the same time, the Central Committee caused the rappel to be beaten, and towards seven o’clock in the morning ten or twelve thousand National Guards from the arrondissements of Batignolles, Montmartre, La Villette, and Belleville poured into the streets. Crowds of lookers-on surrounded the soldiers who were mounting guard by the recaptured pieces, the women and children asking them pleadingly if they would have the heart to fire upon their brothers.

Meanwhile, about a dozen tumbrils, with their horses, had arrived on the heights of the Buttes, the guns were dragged off, and were quietly proceeding down hill, when, at the corner of the Rue Lepic and the Rue des Abbesses, they were stopped by a concourse of several hundred people of the quarter, principally women and children. The foot soldiers, who were escorting the guns, forgetting their duty, allowed themselves to be dispersed by the crowd, and giving way to perfidious persuasion, ended by throwing up the butt ends of their guns. These soldiers belonged to the 88th Battalion of the Lecomte brigade. The immediate effect of their disaffection was to abandon the artillerymen to the power of the crowd that was increasing every moment, rendering it utterly impossible for them either to retreat or to advance. And the result was, that at nine o’clock in the morning the pieces fell once more into the hands of the National Guards.

Judging that the enterprise had no chance of succeeding by a return to the offensive, Général Vinoy ordered a retreat, and retired to the quarter of Les Ternes. This movement had been, moreover, determined by the bad news arriving from other parts of Paris. The operations at Belleville had succeeded no better than those at Montmartre. A detachment of the 35th had, it is true, attacked and taken the Buttes Chaumont, defended only by about twenty National Guards; but as soon as the news of the capture had spread in the quarter, the drums beat to arms, and in a short time the troops were found fraternising with the National Guards of Belleville, who got possession again of the Buttes Chaumont, and not only retook their own guns, but also those which the artillery had brought up to support the manoeuvre of the infantry of the line. At the same time, the 120th shamefully allowed themselves to be disarmed by the people, and the insurgents became masters of the barracks of the Prince Eugène.

At about four o’clock in the afternoon, two columns of National Guards, each composed of three battalions, made their way towards the Hôtel de Ville, where they were joined by a dozen other battalions from the left bank of the river; at the same hour, the insurgent guards of Belleville took and occupied the Imprimerie Nationale, the Napoleon Barracks, the staff-quarters of the Place Vendôme, and the railway stations; the arrest of Général Chanzy completed the work of the day, which had been put to profitable account by the insurgents.—“_Guerre de Comunneux de Paris._”

III. (Page 77.)

THE PRUSSIANS AND THE COMMUNE.

The enemies of yesterday, the Prussians, did not disdain to enter into communication with the Central Committee on the 22nd of March. This was an additional reason for the new masters of Paris to regard their position as established, and the _Official Journal_ took care to make known to the public the following despatch received from Prussian head-quarters:—

“To the actual Commandant of Paris, the Commander-in-Chief of the third corps d’armée. “Head-quarters, Compiègne, “21st March, 1871.

“The undersigned Commander-in-Chief takes the liberty of informing you that the German troops that occupy the forts on the north and east of Paris, as well as the neighbourhood of the right bank of the Seine, have received orders to maintain a pacific and friendly attitude, so long as the events of which the interior of Paris is the theatre, do not assume towards the German forces a hostile character, or such as to endanger them, but keep within the terms settled by the treaty of peace. “But should these events assume a hostile character, the city of Paris will be treated as an enemy.

“For the Commandant of the third corps of the Imperial armies, “(Signed) Chief of the Staff, VON SCHLOSHEIM, “Major-General.”

Paschal Grousset, the delegate of the Central Committee for Foreign Affairs, who had succeeded Monsieur Jules Favre, but who instead of minister was called delegate, which was much more democratic, replied as follows:—

“Paris, 22nd March, 1871. “To the Commandant-in-Chief of the Imperial Prussian Armies.

“The undersigned, delegate of the Central Committee for Foreign Affairs, in reply to your despatch dated from Compiègne the 21st instant, informs you that the revolution, accomplished in Paris by the Central Committee, having an essentially municipal character, has no aggressive views whatever against the German armies. “We have no authority to discuss the preliminaries of peace voted by the Assembly at Bordeaux.

“The member of the Central Committee, Delegate for Foreign Affairs. “(Signed) PASCHAL GROUSSET.”

It was very logical of you, Monsieur Grousset, to avow that you had no authority to discuss the preliminaries of peace voted by the Assembly. What right had you then to substitute yourselves for it? He did not, however, thus remain midway in his diplomatic career, for after the election of the Commune he thought it his duty to address the following letter to the German authorities:—

“COMMUNE OF PARIS. “To the Commander-in-chief of the 3rd Corps.

“GENERAL,

“The delegate of the Commune of Paris for Foreign Affairs has the honour to address to you the following observations:— “The city of Paris, like the rest of France, is interested in the observance of the conditions of peace concluded with Prussia; she has therefore a right to know how the treaty will be executed. I beg you, in consequence, to have the goodness to inform me if the Government of Versailles has made the first payment of five hundred millions, and if in consequence of such payment, the chiefs of the German army have fixed the date for the evacuation of the part of the territory of the department of the Seine, and also of the forts which form an integral portion of the territory of the Commune of Paris. “I shall be much obliged, General, if you will be good enough to enlighten me in this respect.

“The Delegate for Foreign Affairs, “(Signed) PASCHAL GROUSSET.”

The German general did not think fit, as far as we know, to send any answer to the above.

IV. (Page 88.)

GAMBON.

There are certain legendary names which when spoken or remembered evoke a second image and raise a double personality, Castor implies Pollux; Ninos, Euryalus; Damon, Pythias. An inferior species of union connects Saint Anthony with his pig, Roland with his mare, and the infinitely more modern Gambon with his historic cow. He was “the village Hampden” of the Empire. By withstanding the tyranny of Caesar’s tax-gatherer and refusing to pay the imperial rates, he obtained a popularity upon which he existed until the Commune gave him power. His history is brief. About a year before the fall of the Second Empire, he declared that he would pay no more taxes imposed by the Government. Thereupon, all his realizable property, consisting of one cow, was seized by the authorities and sold for the benefit of the State. This procured him the commiseration of the entire party of _irréconciliables_. A subscription was opened in the columns of the _Marseillaise_ to replace the sequestrated animal, and “La vache à Gambon”—“Gambon’s cow”—became a derisive party cry. Gambon had been a deputy in 1848, and when the Commune came into power took a constant though not remarkable part in its deliberations. He was appointed member of the Delegation of Justice on the twentieth of April.

V. (Page 120.).

LULLIER.

Charles Ernest Lullier was born in 1838, admitted into the Naval School in 1854, and appointed cadet of the second class in 1856. He was expelled the Naval School for want of obedience and for his irascible character. When on board the Austerlitz he was noted for his quarrelsome disposition and his violent behaviour to his superiors as well as his equals, which led to his removal from the ship and to his detention for a month on board the Admiral’s ship at Brest. He was first brought into notoriety by his quarrel with Paul de Cassagnac, the editor of the _Pays_, whom he challenged, and who refused his cartel. Lullier is celebrated for several acts of the most violent audacity. He struck one of the Government counsel in the Palais de Justice, and openly threatened the Minister of Marine. He was condemned several times for political offences and breaches of discipline. On the fourth of September he left Sainte-Pélagie at the same time as Rochefort. He attacked the new government in every possible way; and when the events of the 18th March occurred, M. Lullier—the man of action, the man recommended by Flourens—seized the opportunity to justify the hopes formed of him by his political associates, who had not lost sight of him, and who elected him military chief of the insurrection. As General of the National Guard, he has given us the history of his deeds during the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd March. He has since complacently described the energy with which he executed his command, has explained the means he used, and the points occupied by the insurgents; and has described in the same style the occupation of the Paris forts by the National Guard.

When, on the 18th of March, the Central Committee offered him the command in chief of the National Guard, he would only accept it on the following conditions:—

1. The raising of the state of siege.

2. The election by the National Guard of all its officers, including the general.

3. Municipal franchises for Paris—that is to say, the right of the citizens to meet—to appoint magistrates for the city, and to tax themselves by their representatives.

On being appointed he made it a condition that the initiative should rest with him, and then he began to execute his duties with a zeal which never relaxed till his arrest on the 22nd March. By his orders, barricades were erected in the Rue de Rivoli, where he massed the insurgent forces. He ordered the occupation of the Hôtel de Ville and the Napoleon Barracks by Brunel, the commander of the insurgents. At midnight he took possession of the Prefecture of Police, at one o’clock of the Tuileries, at two o’clock of the Place du Palais Royal, and at four o’clock he was informed that the Ministry were to meet at the Foreign Office.—“I would have surrounded them,” he said, “but Jules Favre’s presence withheld me. I contented myself therefore with occupying the Place Vendôme, the Hôtel de Ville, and ordering strategical points on the right bank of the river and four on the left.”

He was subsequently accused of having sold Mont Valérien to the Versailles authorities, arrested, and thrown into the Conciergerie. He reappeared, however, on the 14th April as commander of the flotilla of the Commune. Furious with the Central Committee and the Commune he opposed them and was arrested, but contrived to escape from Mazas. From that moment the general of the Commune put himself in communication with Versailles through the mediation of M. Camus and Baron Dathiel de la Tuque, who agreed with him to organise a counter revolution. Lullier was now busily employed in endeavouring to make people forget the part he had taken in the insurrection of the 18th March. He had made it a condition that neither he nor his accomplices, Gomez d’Absin and Bisson, should be prosecuted. The expenses were calculated at 30,000 francs; of which M. Camus gave 2000 francs to Lullier, but the scheme did not succeed. Lullier undertook to have all the members of the Commune arrested, and to send the hostages to Versailles. Lullier is a man of courage, foolhardy even, who never hesitated to fight, and if at the end of the Commune he tried to serve the legitimate government, it was from a spirit of revenge against the men who had refused his dictation, and in his own interest.

VI. (Page 220.)

PROTOT.

Citizen Protot, appointed Delegate of Justice by a decree of the twentieth of April, 1871, was born in 1839.

As an advocate, he defended Mégy, the famous Communist general of the fort of Issy, when he was accused of the assassination of a police agent on the eleventh of April, 1870. This trial, and the ability he displayed, drew public attention for a moment upon him. Compromised as a member of secret societies, he managed to escape the police, but was condemned in his absence to fines and imprisonment. Having been himself a victim of the law, his attention was first given to the drawing up of a decree, thus worded:—

“The notaries and public officers in general shall draw up legal documents which fall within their duty without charge.”