Paris under the Commune Part 28

"In the name of virtue against vice, of duty against abuse, of austerity against corruption, we have triumphed; let us not forget the fact.

"Let us be, above all, men of honour and duty; we shall then found an austere Republic, the only one that has or can have reason for its existence.

"I appeal to the good sense of my fellow-citizens: let us have no more tags and lace, no more glitter, no more frippery which costs so little at the shops yet is so dear to our responsibility.

"In future, anyone who cannot deduce proof of his right to wear the insignia of his nominal rank, or, who shall add to the regular uniform of the National Guard, tags, lace, or other vain distinctions, will be liable to be punished.

"I profit by this occasion to remind each of you of the necessity of absolute obedience to the authorities, for in obeying those whom you have elected you are only obeying yourselves.

"The Delegate of War,

"Paris, April 7th, 1871,

(Signed) "E. CLUSERET."]

LXXII.

Suppose that a man in disguise goes into the opera ball intoxicated, rushes. .h.i.ther and thither, gesticulating, insulting the women, mocking the men, turns off the gas, then sets light to some curtains, until such a hue and cry is raised that he is turned out of the place. Whereupon our mask runs off to the nearest costumier's, changes his clown's dress for that of a pantaloon, and returns to the opera to recommence his old tricks, saying, "I have changed my dress, no one will recognise me." But he is wrong, there is no mistaking his way of doing business.

The crowd surrounds him and cries, "We recognise you, _beau masque!_"

and if he has had the imprudence to secure the doors, they throw him out of window.

We recognise you, Executive Commission;[77] it is in vain that you disguise yourself in the b.l.o.o.d.y rags of the Committee of Public Safety, your are still yourself, you are still Felix Pyat, you are still Ranvier, you have never ceased to be Gerardin; you hope to make yourself obeyed more readily under this lugubrious costume, but you mistake. Command us to go and fight, and we will not budge; pursue us, and we will hardly run away; put us in prison, and we will only laugh.

You are no more a Terror, than Gil-Perez the actor is Talma; the knocks you receive have pushed aside your false nose; it is in vain that you decree, that you rob, that you incarcerate; you are too grotesque to be terrible. Even if you carried the parody out to the end, and thought fit to erect a guillotine and sharpen the knife, we should even then decline to look seriously upon you, and were we to see one by one five hundred heads fell into the basket, we should still persist in thinking that your axe was of wood, and your guillotine of cardboard!

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUPONT, DELEGATE OF TRADE AND COMMERCE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: The affair of the 30th of April signally disappointed the chiefs of the insurrection, who decreed the formation of a Committee of Public Safety, and caused Cluseret to disappear. "The incapacity and negligence of the Delegate of War having," they said, "almost lost them the possession of Fort Issy, the Executive Commission considered it their duty to propose the arrest of Citizen Cluseret, which was forthwith decreed by the Commune."]

LXXIII.

The Parisian _Official Journal_ says: "The members of the Commune are not amenable to any other tribunal than their own" (that of the Commune). Ah! truly, men of the Hotel de Ville, you imagine that, do you? Have you forgotten that there are such tribunals as court-martials and a.s.sizes?

LXXIV.

M. Rossel is really very unfortunate! What is M. Rossel?[78] Why, the provisional successor of Citizen Cluseret. It was not a bad idea to put in the word _provisional_. The Commune had confided to him the care of military matters, which he had accepted, but with an air of condescension. This "Communeux" looks to me like an aristocrat. At any rate he has not been fortunate. Scarcely had he taken upon himself the safety of Paris, when the redoubt of Moulin-Saquet was surprised by the Versaillais. This accident was not calculated to enhance the courage of the Federals. The whole affair has been kept as dark as possible, but the porter of the house where I live, who was there, has told me strange things.

"Will you believe, Monsieur, that I had just finished a game of cards with the captain, and was preparing to have a bit of sleep, for it was near upon eleven o'clock, when I thought I heard something like the noise of troops marching. I looked round to see if any one heard it besides myself, but the men were already asleep, and a circular line of boots was sticking out all round the tents. The captain said: 'I daresay it is the patrol from the Rue de Villejuif.'--'Oh, yes,' said I, 'from the barricade,' and I fell to sleep without a thought of danger. In fact, there seemed nothing to fear, as the Moulin-Saquet overlooks the whole of the plain which stretches from Vitry to Choisy-le-Roi, and from Villejuif to the Seine. It was impossible for a man to approach the redoubt without being seen by the sentinel. I had, therefore, been asleep a few minutes when I was awoke by the following dialogue:--'Stop!

who goes there?'--'The patrol.'--'Corporal, forward!'--Oh! said I to myself, it is our comrades come to see us; there will be some healths drunk before morning, and I got up to go and give them a welcome. The captain was also astir. 'The pa.s.sword!' he cried. The chief of the patrol came forward and answered--'Vengeance!' I remember wondering at the moment why he spoke so loud in giving the pa.s.s-word, when suddenly I saw three men rush forward, seize our captain, and throw him down. At the same time two or three hundred men, dressed as National Guards, threw themselves into the camp, rushed upon the sleeping artillery-men with their bayonets, and then fired several volleys into the tents where our poor comrades were asleep. What I had taken at first for National Guards were only those devils of sergents-de-ville dressed up! So, you see, as it was each man for himself, and the high road for everybody, I just threw myself down on my face, and let myself drop into the trenches. There was no fear of the noise of my fall being heard in the riot. I managed to hide myself pretty well in a hole I found there, and which had doubtless been made by a sh.e.l.l. I could not see anything, but I heard all that was going on. Clic! clac! clic! went the rifles, almost like the cracking of a whip, answered by the most dismal cries from the wounded. I could hear also the grinding of wheels, and made sure they were taking away our guns, the robbers! When all was silent except the groans of the dying men, I crept out of my hiding place. Would you believe it, Monsieur, I was the only one able to stand up; the Versaillais had taken all those who had not run away or were not wounded; I saw them, the pilfering thieves, making off towards Vitry, as fast as their legs could carry them!"

"You have no idea, lieutenant," I said to the porter, "how the Versaillais got to know the pa.s.s-word?"--"No, only the captain, who is an honest fellow enough, but rather too fond of the bottle, went in the evening to the route d'Orleans where there are lots of wine-shops ..."--"And you think he got tipsy, and let the pa.s.s-word out to some spy or other?"--"I would not swear he did not; but what I am more sure of, is that we are betrayed!"

Alas! yes, unfortunates, you are betrayed, but not in the way you think.

You are being cheated by these madmen and criminals who are busy publis.h.i.+ng decrees at the Hotel de Ville, while you are dying by scores at Issy, Vanves, Montrouge, Neuilly, and the Moulin-Saquet; they betray you when they talk of Royalists and Imperialists; they deceive you when they tell you, that victory is certain, and that even defeat would be glorious. I tell you, that victory is impossible, and that your defeat will be without honour; for when you fell, crying, "Vive la Commune!"

"Vive la Republique!" the Commune is Felix Pyat, and the Republic, Vermorel.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: Colonel Rossel was one of the most capable members of the Commune Government. He was born in 1844, and was the son of Commandant Louis Rossel, an officer who acquired a high reputation in the Chinese war. The young Louis Rossel received a sound military education at the Prytanee of La Fleche, and subsequently at the ecole Polytechnique, at which latter inst.i.tution he gained high honours. He served as captain of engineers in the army of Metz, and was one of the officers who signed the protestation against the surrender of Bazaine. He succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Prussians, and appeared at Tours to offer his services to the Government of National Defence. Gambetta, then Minister of War, appointed Rossel to the rank of colonel in the so-called auxiliary army. After the signature of the peace preliminaries, the new government refused to ratify the promotion granted by Gambetta, but offered Rossel the rank of major. This seriously offended the ex-Dictator's ex-colonel, who shortly after the tenth of March, put his sword at the disposition of the Commune. He was at first appointed chief of the staff of General Cluseret, whom he subsequently replaced as delegate for war. On April 16 he became president of the Communist court-martial; he acted with great vigour in all military affairs until the 10th of May, when the Commune ordered his arrest.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAPELLE EXPIATOIRE.]

LXXV.

Malediction on the man who imagined this decree; malediction on the a.s.sembly that approved it; and cursed be the hand which shall first touch a stone of that tomb! Oh I believe me, I am not among those who regret the times of royal prerogatives, and who believe that everything would have gone well, in the most peaceful country in the world, if Louis XVII had only succeeded to the throne after his father, Louis XVI.

The author of the revolution of 1798 knew what he was about in multiplying such terrible catastrophes. The name of that author was Infallible Necessity. Indeed I am quite ready to confess that the indolent husband of Marie Antoinette had none of those qualities which make a great king, and I will even add, if you wish it absolutely, that the solitary fact of being a king is a crime worthy a thousand deaths.

As to Marie Antoinette herself--"the Austrian," _Pere d.u.c.h.esne_ would call her--I allow that in history she is not quite so amiable as she appears in the novels of Alexandra Dumas, and that her near relations.h.i.+p to the queen Caroline-Marie, whose little suppers at Naples, in company with Lady Hamilton, one is well acquainted with, gives some excuse for the calumnies of which she has been the object. Have I said enough to prevent myself being the recipient, in the event of a Bourbon restoration, of the most modest pension that ever came out of a royal treasury? Well, in spite of what I have said, and in spite of what I think, I repeat, "Do not touch that tomb!" Like the Column Vendome, which is the symbol of an heroic and terrible epoch in history, the Chapelle Expiatoire[79] is a souvenir of the old monarchical reign, an age which was neither devoid of sorrow, nor of honour for France. Can you not be republican without suppressing history, which was royalist?

The last remains of monarchy repose in peace beneath that gloomy monument; may it be respected, as we respect the ashes of those who respected it; and you, breakers of images, profaners of past glory, do you not fear, in executing your decree, to produce an effect diametrically opposed to that which you desire? By persecuting kings even in their last resting-place, are you not afraid to excite the pity, the regret perhaps, of those whose consciences still hesitate? In the interest of the Republic, I say, take care! The memory of the dead stalks forth from open sepulchres!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 79: This chapel was erected by Louis XVIII. upon the spot where, during the Revolution of 1793, the remains of Louis XVI, and his Queen had been obscurely interred.]

LXXVI.

Rejoice, poor housewives, who, on days of poverty, were obliged to carry to the Mont-de-Piete[80] the discoloured remains of your wedding dress, or your husband's Sunday coat; rejoice, artisans, who, after a day of toil, thought your bed so hard since your last mattress was taken to the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, to rejoin your last pair of sheets. The Commune has decreed that "all objects in p.a.w.n at the Mont-de-Piete, for a sum not exceeding twenty francs, shall be given back gratuitously to all persons who shall prove their legitimate right to the said objects."

Thanks to this benevolent decree, you may now hope that things you have p.a.w.ned will be restored to you before three or four hundred days!

Count on your fingers; the number of articles to which the decree applies is at least 1,200,000. As there are only three offices for the claimants to apply to, and considering the forms which have to be observed, I do not think more than three thousand objects can be given back daily; the Commune says four thousand, but the Commune does not know what it is talking about. However, even if we calculate four thousand a-day, the whole would take up ten or twelve months.

During this time men and women, whom poverty had long ere this taught the road to the Mont-de-Piete, would have to get up early, neglect the daily work by which they live, and go and stand awaiting their turn at the office, frozen in winter, baked in summer, thankful to obtain a moment's rest upon one of the wooden benches in the great bare hall; and when they have been there a long, weary time, to see their number, drawn by lot, put off to the next day or the day after, or the week or the month following perhaps.

Still we must not blame the Commune for the sad disappointment of this long delay, it would be impossible to shorten it. One thing, which is less impossible, is to indemnify the administration of the Mont-de-Piete for this gratuitous rest.i.tution. Citizen Jourde, delegate of the finances, says, "I will give 100,000 francs a-week." Without stopping to consider where this able political economist means to get his weekly 100,000 francs, I will be content with remarking that this sum would in no wise cover the loss to the Mont-de-Piete, and that the Commune will only be giving alms out of other people's purses. If, however, thanks to this decree, some few poor creatures are enabled to get back those goods and chattels which they were obliged to dispose of in the hour of need, there will not be much cause to complain. The Mont-de-Piete usually does a very good business, and there will always be enough misery in Paris for it to grow rich upon. Besides, the Commune owes the poor wounded, mutilated, dying fellows who have been brought from Neuilly and Issy, at least a mattress to die in some little comfort upon.

FOOTNOTES: