For two days the captain kept Count Orsi in his office and encouraged him to write to any friends he might have in Versailles. Count Orsi named M. Grevy (afterwards president) as having been for years his legal adviser, and he wrote a few lines to various other persons. But there were no posts, and in the confusion of Versailles at that moment there seemed little chance that his notes would reach their destination. Two days later an order came to Satory to send all prisoners to Versailles, and the kind-hearted captain was forced to return Count Orsi to the column of his fellow-prisoners.

At Versailles they were shut up in the wine-cellars of the palace, forty-five feet underground. The prisoners confined there were the very dregs and scum of the insurrection. The cellars had only some old straw on the floors, left there by the Prussians. There were six hundred men confined in this place, and the torture they endured from the close air, the filth, and the impossibility of lying down at night was terrible.

Count Orsi was ten days in this horrible prison. At last one evening he heard his name called. His release had come. On going to the door he was taken before a superior officer, who expressed surprise and regret at the mistake that had been committed, and at once set him at liberty. A brave little boy, charged with one of his notes, had persevered through all kinds of difficulties in putting it into the hands of the English lady to whom it was addressed. This lady and the Italian ambassador had effected Count Orsi's release. He was ill with low fever for some weeks in consequence of the bad air he had breathed during his confinement. Subsequently he discovered that personal spite had caused his arrest as a friend of the Commune.

My next account of those days is drawn from the experience of the Marquis de Compiegne,[1] one of the Versailles officers. He was travelling in Florida when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, but hastened home at once to join the army. He fought at Sedan and was taken prisoner to Germany, but returned in time to act against the Commune. Afterwards he became an explorer in the Soudan, and in 1877 was killed in a duel.

[Footnote 1: His narrative was published in the "Supplement Litteraire du Figaro."]

On the 20th of May, news having reached Versailles that the first detachment of regular troops had made their way into Paris, M. de Compiegne hastened to join his battalion, which he had that morning quitted on a few hours' leave. As they approached the Bois de Boulogne at midnight, the sky over Paris seemed red with flame. They halted for some hours, the men sleeping, the officers amusing themselves by guessing conundrums; but as day dawned, they entered Paris through a breach in the defences. The young officer says,—

"I shall never forget the sight. The fortifications had been riddled with balls; the casemates were broken in. All over the ground were strewn haversacks, packets of cartridges, fragments of muskets, scraps of uniforms, tin cans that had held preserved meats, ammunition-wagons that had been blown up, mangled horses, men dying and dead, artillerymen cut down at their guns, broken gun-carriages, disabled siege-guns, with their wheels splashed red from pools of blood, but still pointed at our positions, while around were the still smoking walls of ruined private houses. A company of infantry was guarding about six hundred prisoners, who with folded arms and lowering faces were standing among the ruins. They were of all ages, grades, and uniforms,—boys of fifteen and old men, general officers covered with gold lace, and beggars in rags: Avengers of Flourens, Children of Pere Duchene, Chasseurs and Zouaves, Lascars, Turcos, and Hussars. We halted a little farther in the city. We were very hungry, but all the shops were closed. I got some milk, but some of my comrades, who wanted wine, made a raid into the cellar of an abandoned house, and were jumped upon by an immense negro dressed like a Turco, whom they took for the devil. Glad as we all were to be in Paris, the sight as we marched on was most melancholy. Fighting seemed going on in all directions, especially near the Tuileries and the Place de la Concorde. The Arch of Triumph was not seriously injured. On the top of it were two mortars, and the tricolored flag had been replaced by the drapeau rouge. Detachments were all the time passing us with prisoners. They were thrust for safe-keeping wherever space could be found. I am sorry to say that they were cruelly insulted, and, as usual, those who had fought least had the foulest tongues. There was one party of deserters still in uniform, with their coats turned inside out. I saw one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, among the prisoners. She was about fourteen, dressed as a cantiniere, with a red scarf round her waist. A smile was on her lips, and she carried herself proudly.

"That morning, May 22, I saw nobody shot. I think they wanted to take all the prisoners they could to Versailles as trophies of victory. About one o'clock we received orders to march, and went down the Boulevard Malesherbes. All the inhabitants seemed to be at their windows, and in many places we were loudly welcomed. It was strange to me to be marching with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure.

"On the march we passed the Carmelite Convent, where my sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a moment and see her. Only an hour or two before; the nuns had had a Communist picket in their yard.

"We marched on to the Parc Monceau [once Louis Philippe's private pleasure-garden]. There our men were shooting prisoners who had been taken with arms in their hands. I saw fifteen men fall,—and then a woman.

"That night volunteers were called for to defend an outlying barricade which had been taren from the insurgents, and of which they were endeavoring to regain possession. Our captain led a party to this place, and in a tall house that overlooked the barricade he stationed three of us. There, lying flat on our faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the enemy. A number of National Guards came up and surrendered to us as prisoners. As soon as one presented himself with the butt of his musket in the air, we made him come under the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant. In the course of the night I was slightly wounded in the ear. A surgeon pinned it up with two black pins.

"It was now May 23,—an ever-memorable day. We were pushing on into Paris, and were to attack Montmartre; but first we had to make sure of the houses in our rear. Then began that terrible fighting in the streets, when every man fights hand to hand, when one must jump, revolver in hand, into dark cellars, or rush up narrow staircases with an enemy who knows the ground, lying in wait. Two or three shots, well aimed, come from one house, and each brings down a comrade. Exasperated, we break in the door and rush through the chambers. The crime must be punished, the murderers are still on the spot; but there are ten men in the house. Each swears that he is innocent. Then each soldier has to take upon himself the office of a judge. He looks to see if the gun of each man has been discharged recently, if the blouse and the citizen's trousers have not been hastily drawn over a uniform. Death and life are in his hands; no one will ever call him to account for his decision. Women and children fall at his feet imploring pity; through all the house resound sobs, groans, and the reports of rifles. At the corner of every street lie the bodies of men shot, or stand prisoners about to be executed.

"I was thankful when the moment came to attack the heights of Montmartre, and to engage in open warfare. General Pradie, our brigadier-general, marched at our head, greatly exposed, because of the gold lace on his uniform. An insurgent, whom we had taken prisoner, suddenly sprang from his guards, seized the general's horse, and presented at him a revolver that he had hidden in his belt. The general, furious, cried, 'Shoot him! shoot him!' But we dared not, they were too close together. Suddenly the man sprang back, gained the street, and though twenty of us fired in haste at once, every ball missed him. Leaping like a goat, he made his escape. The general was very angry. Step by step we made our way, slowly, it is true, but never losing ground. About two hundred yards from Montmartre were tall houses and wood-yards where many insurgents had taken refuge. These sent among us a shower of balls. We had sharp fighting in this place, but succeeded in gaining the position. Then we halted for about two hours, to make preparations for an attack upon the heights. Some of us while we halted, fired at the enemy, some raided houses and made prisoners; some went in search of something to eat, but seldom found it. I was fortunate, however, while taking some prisoners to the provost-marshal, to be able to buy a dozen salt herrings, four pints of milk, nine loaves of bread, some prunes, some barley-sugar, and a pound of bacon. I took all I could get, and from the colonel downward, all my comrades were glad to get a share of my provisions. The heights of Montmartre had been riddled by the fire from Mont Valerien. Sometimes a shell from our mortars would burst in the enemy's trenches, when a swarm of human beings would rush out of their holes and run like rabbits in a warren."

The punishment of the unfortunate, as well as of the guilty, was very severe. Their imprisonment in the Great Orangery at Versailles, where thousands of orange-trees are stored during the winter, involved frightful suffering. A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, but its work was necessarily slow. It was more than a year before some of the captured leaders of the Commune met their fate. Those condemned were shot at the Buttes of Satory,—an immense amphitheatre holding twenty thousand people, where the emperor on one of his fetes, in the early days of his marriage, gave a great free hippodrome performance, to the intense gratification of his lieges.

Some prisoners were transported to New Caledonia; Cayenne had been given up as too unhealthy, and this lonely island in the far Pacific Ocean had been fixed upon as the Botany Bay for political offenders. Some of the leaders in the Council of the Commune were shot in the streets. Raoul Rigault was of this number. Some were executed at Satory; some escaped to England, Switzerland, and America; some were sent to New Caledonia, but were amnestied, and returned to France to be thorns in the side of every Government up to the present hour; some are now legislators in the French Chamber, some editors and proprietors of newspapers. Among those shot in the heat of vengeance at Satory was Valin, who had vainly tried to save the hostages. Deleschuze, in despair at the cowardice of his associates, quietly sought a barricade when affairs grew desperate, and standing on it with his arms folded, was shot down. Cluseret, who had real talent as an artist, had an exhibition a few years since of his pictures in Paris, and writing to a friend concerning it, speaks thus of himself:[1]

[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]

"You can tell me the worst. When a man has passed through a life full of vicissitudes as I have done, during seventeen years of which I have seen many campaigns, fighting sometimes three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, or marching and counter-marching, without tents or anything; when one has been three times outlawed and under sentence of death; when one has known much of imprisonment and exile; when one has suffered from ingratitude, calumny, and poverty,—one is pretty well seasoned, and can bear to hear the truth."

One thousand and thirty-one women were among the prisoners at Versailles and Satory. Many of them were women of the worst character. Eight hundred and fifty were set at liberty; four were sent to an insane asylum; but doctors declared that nearly every woman who fought in the streets for the Commune was more or less insane.

The most important of all captures was that of Rochefort. He had been a leading man in the Council of the Commune, but was so great a favorite with men of literature, besides having strong friends and an old schoolfellow in Thiers' cabinet, that he escaped with transportation to the Southern Seas. On May 20, when he saw that the end of the Commune was at hand, he procured from the Delegate for Foreign Affairs passports for himself and his secretary. It is thought that the delegate, enraged at Rochefort's purpose of deserting his colleagues, betrayed him to the Prussians who held the fort of Vincennes. The Prussians sent word to the frontier, and there the fugitives were arrested. Rochefort had no luggage, but in his pocket was a great deal of miscellaneous jewelry, a copy of "Monte Cristo," and some fine cigars. Escorted by Uhlans, he was brought to St. Germains, and delivered over to the Versailles Government. For a long time his fate hung in the balance, and it seemed improbable that even the exertions of M. Thiers, the President, and Jules Favre, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, could save him.

Having told of the last days of the Commune as seen by Count Orsi and the Marquis de Compiegne, there remains one more narrative,—the experiences of a man still more intimately connected with the events of that terrible period, though, like a soldier in battle, he seems to have been able to see only what was around him, and could take no general view of what went on in other parts of the field.

The writer was all English gentleman who published his narrative immediately after he returned to England in September and October, 1871, in "Macmillan's Magazine." "The writer," says the editor, "is a young gentleman of good family and position. His name, though suppressed for good reasons, is known to us, and we have satisfied ourselves of the trustworthiness of the narrative." He says:

"I left England very hurriedly for France on March 29, 1871. I had neglected to procure a passport, and had no papers to prove my identity. I travelled from Havre to Paris without trouble, and on the train met two men whom I saw afterwards as members of the Council of the Commune. The first thing that struck me on my arrival in Paris was the extreme quietness of the streets. During the first week of my stay I was absorbed in my own business, and saw nothing; but on Monday, April 10, my own part in the concerns of the Commune began. I was returning home from breakfast about one o'clock in the day, when I met a sergeant and four men in the street, who stopped me, and the sergeant said: 'Pardon, Citizen, but what is your battalion?' I answered that, being an Englishman, I did not belong to any battalion. 'And your passport, Citizen?' On my replying that I had none, he requested me to go with him to a neighboring mairie, and I was accordingly escorted thither by the four men. On my arrival I was shown into a cell, comfortable enough, though it might have been cleaner. Having no evidence of my nationality, I felt it was useless to apply to the Embassy; all the friends I had in Paris who could have identified me as all Englishman had left the city some days before, and as I reflected, it appeared to me that if required to serve the Commune, no other course would be left to me. One thing, however, I resolved,—to keep myself as much in the background as possible. In three or four hours I was conducted before the members of the Commune for that arrondissement. They received me civilly, asked my name, age, profession, etc., and then one of them, taking up a paper, proceeded to say that I must be placed in a battalion for active service, as I was under forty years of age. 'Gentlemen,' I replied, 'your political affairs are of no interest to me, and it is my misfortune to be placed in this unpleasant predicament. But I tell you plainly, you may shoot me if you will, but I absolutely refuse to leave Paris to fight the Versaillais, who are no enemies of mine in particular, and I therefore demand to be set at liberty.' Upon this they all laughed, and told me to leave the room. After a little time I was recalled, and told I should be placed in a compagnie sedentaire. I again remonstrated, and demanded to be set at liberty, when they said I was drunk, and ordered me to be locked into my cell, whence I was transferred to my battalion the next morning. I found my captain a remarkably pleasant man, as indeed were all my comrades in my company, and I can never forget the kindness I met with from them. My only regret is my utter ignorance of their fate. I can scarcely hope they all escaped the miserable fate that overtook so many; but I should rejoice to know that some were spared. On entering the captain's office and taking off my hat, I was told to put it on again, 'as we are all equal here, Citizen;' and after the captain had said a few words to me, I was regaled with bread, sardines, and wine,—the rations for the day. The captain was a young man of six-and-twenty, with a particularly quiet, gentlemanly manner (he was, I believe, a carpet-weaver). He had been a soldier, and had served in Africa with distinction.

"The account of my daily duties as a member of this company from April 10 to May 23 may be here omitted. I became orderly to one of the members of the Commune, and being supplied with a good horse (for as an Englishman I was supposed to be able to ride), I spent much of my time in carrying messages. On the morning of Tuesday, May 23, our colonel told us of the death of Dombrowski, who had been shot during the night, though particulars were not known. I was sorry to hear of his end, for he had been disposed to be kind to me, and I knew then that the cause of the Commune was utterly lost, as he was the only able man among them. The night before, we had seen such a fire as I never saw before, streaming up to the sky in two pillars of flame. I was told it was the Tuileries. The Versaillais were already within the walls of Paris, but this we in the centre of the city did not know. The news spread during the day, however, and there was a great panic in the evening. Everybody began to make preparations for flight, the soldiers being anxious to get home and change their uniforms for plain clothes. No one knew with any degree of certainty where the enemy really was, nor how far he had advanced; only one thing was certain, that the game was played out, and that sauve qui peut must be the order of the day. Men, women, and children were rushing frantically about the streets, demanding news, and repeating it with a hundred variations. The whole scene was lit up by fires which blazed in all directions. At last the night gave place to dawn, and the scene was one to be remembered for a lifetime. The faces of the crowd wore different expressions of horror, amazement, and abject terror.... Early in the morning of Wednesday 24th, I, with some others, was ordered to the barricade of La Roquette.[1] My companions were very good fellows, with one exception,—a grumpy old wretch who had served in Africa, and could talk about nothing but the heat of Algeria and the chances for plunder he had let slip there. Finding nothing to do at the barricade, I tied my horse and fell asleep upon the pavement. I dreamed I was at a great dinner-party in my father's house, and could get nothing to eat, though dishes were handed to me in due course. Many times afterwards my sleeping thoughts took that direction. I really believe that there were times when I and many others would willingly have been shot, if we could have secured one good meal, When I awoke, about mid-day, in the Rue de la Roquette, I found my companions gone to the mairie of the Eleventh Arrondissement, and I followed them. Our uniform was not unlike that of the troops of the line in the French army, so we were taken by the crowd for deserters, and hailed with 'Ah, les bon garcons! Ah, les bons patriotes!' and we shouted back in turn with all our might, 'Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!' Those words were in my mouth the whole of the next three days. The people never saw a horseman without shrieking to him, 'How is all going on at present?' To which the answer was invariably, 'All goes well! Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!' though the enemy might at that moment be within five hundred yards. Indeed, the infatuation and credulity displayed by the French, not only during the insurrection, but the whole war, was absurd. Tell them on good authority that they had lost a battle or been driven back, they would answer that you were joking, and you might think yourself lucky to escape with a whole skin; but say nothing but 'All goes well! We have won!' and without stopping to inquire, they would at once cheer and shout as if for a decisive victory."

[Footnote 1: At that time the execution of the hostages was taking place within the prison.]

The next duty of our Englishman was to act as mounted orderly to captains who were ordered to visit and report on the state of the barricades, also to command all citizens to go into their houses and close the doors and windows. There was little enthusiasm at the barricades, and everywhere need of reinforcements. The army of the Commune was melting away. The most energetic officer they saw was a stalwart negro lieutenant,—possibly the man who, as De Compiegne tells us, had scared some Versaillais in a cellar on the 22d of May.

On the night of Thursday, May 25, the Column of July was a remarkable sight. It had been hung with wreaths of immortelles, and those caught fire from an explosive. Elsewhere, except for burning buildings, there was total darkness. There was no gas in Paris, of course. And here our Englishman goes on to say that so far as his experience went, he saw no petroleuses nor fighting women, nor did he believe in their existence.

By Friday, May 26, provisions and fodder were exhausted, and it was hard for the soldiers of the Commune to get anything to eat. Our Englishman, in the general disorganization, became separated from his comrades, and joined himself to a small troop of horsemen wearing the red shirt of Garibaldi, who swept past him at a furious gallop. They were making for the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. "All is lost!" they cried. "To get there is our only chance of safety." Yet they still shouted to the men and women whom they passed, "All goes well! Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!" By help of an order to visit all the posts, which the Englishman had in his pocket, they obtained admittance into Pere la Chaise. There were five Poles in the party, one Englishman, and one Frenchman; "and certainly," adds the narrator, "they were no credit to their respective nations. It was on their faces that I remarked for the first time that peculiar hunted-down look which was afterwards to be seen on every countenance, and I presume upon my own."

Our Englishman rode up to a battery in Pere la Chaise, planted on the spot made famous by a celebrated passage in "Le Pere Goriot," in which Balzac describes Rastignac, on the eve of finally selling himself to Satan, as standing and gazing down on Paris, to conquer a high place in which is to be his reward. The observer who saw the city from the same spot on the 26th of May, 1871, says,—

"Beneath me lay stretched out like a map the once great and beautiful city, now, alas! given over a prey to fire and sword. I could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art. It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actually burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where the body of Dombrowski was lying. He had been shot from behind, and the ball had passed through his body. At the gate of the cemetery I found a man waiting for me with news that Belleville was to be our rendezvous. Words cannot paint the spectacle that Belleville presented. It was the last place left, the only refuge remaining; and such an assemblage as was collected there it would be difficult to find again. There were National Guards of every battalion, Chasseurs Federes in their wonderful uniform,—a sort of cross between Zouave, linesman, and rifleman,—Enfants Perdus in their green coats and feathers (very few of these were to be seen, as they had no claim to quarter, nor did they expect any), Chasseurs a Cheval of the Commune, in their blue jackets and red trousers, leaning idly against the gates of their stables, Eclaireurs de la Commune in blue, Garibaldians in red, hussars, cantinieres, sailors, civilians, women, and children, all mixed up together in the crowded streets, and looking the picture of anxiety. In the afternoon about four o'clock we were ordered to mount and to escort 'ces coquins,'—as the officer called a party of prisoners. They were forty-five gendarmes and six cures, who were to be shot in the courtyard of a neighboring building. We obeyed our orders and accompanied them to their destination. I was told off to keep back the crowd. The men about to die, fifty-one in all, were placed together, and the word was given to fire. Some few, happier than the rest, fell at once, others died but slowly. One gendarme made an effort to escape but was shot through the stomach, and fell, a hideous object, to the ground. One old cure, with long hair white as snow, had the whole of one side of his head shot away, and still remained standing. After I had seen this, I could bear it no longer, but, reckless of consequences, moved away and left the ground, feeling very sick. As I was in the act of leaving, I observed a lad, a mere boy of fourteen or fifteen, draw a heavy horseman's pistol from his belt and fire in the direction of the dead and dying. He was immediately applauded by the mob, and embraced by those who stood near as 'a good patriot.' And here let me remark that those who have thought it cruel and inhuman on the part of the conquerors to arrest and detain as prisoners gamins of from twelve to sixteen, are quite mistaken. Those who remained at the barricades to the last, and were most obstinate in their defence, were the boys of Paris. They were fierce and uncontrollable, and appeared to be veritably possessed of devils. The difference between the irregular corps and the National Guard was that the latter had, with very few exceptions, been forced to serve, like myself, under compulsion, or by the stern necessity of providing bread for their wives and children, while the Irregulars were all volunteers, and had few married men in their ranks."

Later in the day two mounted officers in plain clothes, one of them a captain, whom our friend had served as orderly, called him and an artilleryman out of the ranks, and ordered them to accompany them. After a devious course through obscure streets of Paris, the officers gave them some money, and ordered them to go into the next street and see if they could procure plain clothes. Having done so, they returned to the place where their officers had promised to wait for them; but they had disappeared. This was, in truth, a good-natured ruse to save the lives of the two privates, though at the time it was not so understood. Not knowing what to do, they attempted to return to their regiments, but at the first outpost they were challenged by the sentry. They had been away five hours, and the countersign had been changed. They were arrested, and carried to the nearest mairie. They were led upstairs and taken before a member of the Commune who was sitting at a table covered with papers, busily writing, surrounded by men of all ranks and uniforms. On hearing their story, he turned round, and said, in excellent English, "What are you doing here, an Englishman and in plain clothes?" The Englishman had grown angry. He answered recklessly: "Yes, I am English, and I have been compelled to serve your Commune. I don't know what your name is, or who you are, but I request that you give me a paper to allow me to quit Paris without further molestation." The member of the Commune smiled, and answered: "There is only one thing to be done with you. Here, sergeant!" And the Englishman and the artilleryman were escorted to the guard-room. There everything of value was taken from them. The Englishman lost his watch, his money, and what he valued more, his note-book and papers. He wore a gold ring, the gift of his mother; and as it was difficult to get off, some of the soldiers proposed amputating the finger.

Next, a species of court-martial was held, which in a few minutes passed sentence that they were to be shot at nine the next morning, for "refusing to serve the Commune!" They had been asked no questions, no evidence had been heard, and no defence had been allowed them. Says the Englishman,—

"We were conducted to the Black Hole. There we found nine others who were to suffer the same fate in the morning. I was too tired to do anything but throw myself on a filthy mattress, and in a few minutes I was sleeping what I thought was my last sleep on earth. I was roused at daybreak by a tremendous hammering of my companions on the door of our cell. I was irritated, and asked angrily why they could not allow those who wished to be quiet to remain so. They answered by telling me to climb up to the window and look into the courtyard. I found it strewn with corpses. The mairie had been evacuated during the night, and it was evident we should not be executed. In vain we tried to force the door of our cell; all we could do was to make as much noise as possible to attract attention. At last a sergeant of the National Guard procured the keys, the heavy door was opened, and we were free. I avoided a distribution of rifles and ammunition, and passed out into the street, hoping that my troubles were over. Alas! they were only just begun; for the first sight that met my eyes as I stepped into the street was a soldier of the Government, calling on all those in sight to surrender and to lay down their arms. I gave myself up as a prisoner of war. It was Whit-Sunday, May 28. Happily my name was written down as one of those taken without arms.

"I was placed in a party of prisoners, and we were marched to the Buttes de Chaumont, passing in our way many a barricade, or rather the remains of them. Here, the body of a man shot through the head was lying stiff and cold upon the pavement; there, was a pool of coagulated blood; there, the corpse of a gentleman in plain clothes, apparently sleeping, with his head buried in his arms; but a small red stream issuing from his body told that he slept the sleep of death. Some, as we marched on, kept silence, some congratulated themselves that all was over, while some predicted our immediate execution. All had the same hunted-down, wearied look upon their faces that I have before alluded to. At last we were halted and given over to the charge of a regiment of the line. The first order given was, 'Fling down your hats!' Luckily I had a little silk cap, which I contrived to slip into my pocket, and which was afterwards of great comfort to me. We stood bare-headed in the blazing sun some time, till our attention was called to a sound of shooting, and a whisper went round: 'We are all to be shot.' The agonized look on the faces of some, I can never forget; but these were men of the better sort, and few in number: the greater part looked sullen and stolid, shrugged their shoulders, and said, 'It won't take long; a shot, and all is over.'

"A boy about four files behind me was a pitiable object; his cries and his frantic endeavors to attract notice to a document of some sort he held in his hand, were silenced at last by a kick from an officer and a 'Tais-toi, crapaud!' Very different was it with a poor child of nine, who stood next to me. He never cried nor uttered a word of complaint, but stood quietly by my side for some time, looking furtively into my face. At last he ventured to slip his little hand into mine, and from that time till the close of that terrible day we marched hand in hand. Meantime the executions went on. I counted up to twenty, and afterwards I believe some six or seven more took place. Those put to death were nearly all officers of the National Guard. One who was standing near me, a paymaster, had his little bag containing the pay of his men, which he had received the day before, but had not been able to distribute among them. He now gave it away to those standing round him (I among them getting a few francs), saying, 'I shall be shot; but this money may be of use to you, my children, in your sad captivity.' He was led out and shot a few minutes afterwards. They all, without exception, met their fate bravely and like men. There was no shrinking from death, or entreaties to be spared, among those I saw killed.

"After an hour we resumed our march, the mob saluting us with the choicest selection of curses and abusive epithets I ever heard. We passed down the Rue Royale, the bystanders calling on us to look upon the ruin we had caused, through the Champs Elysees to the Arch of Triumph, marching bare-headed, under a burning sun. At length, in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, an order to halt was given. There, weary and footsore, many dropped down on the ground, waiting for death, which we were now convinced was near at hand. For myself, I felt utterly numbed and contented to die, and I think I should have received with equal indifference the news of my release. I remember plotting in my mind how I could possibly get news of my fate conveyed to my parents in England. Could I ask one of the soldiers to convey a message for me? And would he understand what to do? With such thoughts, and mechanically repeating the Lord's Prayer to myself at intervals, I whiled away more than an hour, until an order, 'Get up, all of you,' broke the thread of my meditations. Presently General the Marquis de Gallifet (he who had served the emperor in Mexico) passed slowly down the line, attended by several officers. He stopped here and there, selecting several of our number, chiefly the old or the wounded, and ordered them to step out of the ranks. His commands were usually couched in abusive language. A young man near me called out, 'I am an American. Here is my passport. I am innocent.' 'Silence! We have foreigners and riff-raff more than enough. We have got to get rid of them,' was the general's reply. All chance was over now, we thought; we should be shot in a few minutes. Our idea was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared, and those about me said: 'It is just. They would not shoot the aged and the wounded!' Alas! we were soon to be undeceived. Again we started, and were ordered to march arm in arm to the Bois de Boulogne. There those picked out of our ranks by General de Gallifet—over eighty in number—were all shot before our eyes; yet so great was our thirst that many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling for water, of which there was only a scant supply. I was not fortunate enough to get any.

"The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that our destination was Versailles. Oh, the misery and wretchedness of that weary march! The sun poured fiercely down on our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting gayly with his comrades.

"Towards eight o'clock in the evening we entered Versailles. If the curses we had endured in Paris were frightful and numerous, here they were multiplied tenfold. We toiled up the hill leading to Satory, through mud ankle deep. 'There stand the mitrailleuses, ready for us,' said one of my companions. Then, indeed, for the first time I felt afraid, and wished I had been among those who had been executed in the daytime, rather than be horribly wounded and linger in my misery; for no sure aim is taken by a mitrailleuse.

"The order came to halt, and I waited for the whirring sound; but, thank God! I waited in vain. We set ourselves in motion once more, and soon were in an immense courtyard surrounded by walls, having on one side large sheds in which we were to pass the night. With what eagerness did we throw ourselves on our faces in the mud, and lap up the filthy water in the pools! There was another Englishman, as well as several Americans, among our number, also some Dutch, Belgians, and Italians. The Englishman had arrived in Paris from Brest on May 14 to 'better himself,' and had been immediately arrested and put in prison by the Commune. Being released on the 21st of May, he was captured the next day by the Versaillais. I remained all the time with him till my release.

"On Wednesday, May 31, we were despatched to Versailles to be examined at the orangerie. The orangerie is about seven hundred feet long and forty broad, including two wings at either end. It is flagged with stone, on which the dust accumulates in great quantities. According to my experience, it is bitterly cold at night, and very hot in the daytime. Within its walls, instead of fragrant orange-trees, were four to five thousand human beings, now herded together in a condition too miserable to imagine, a prey to vermin, disease, and starvation.

"The general appearance of the crowd of captives was, I must confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder; the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attainable, and washing was impossible. I gained some comparative comfort by gathering up dust in a handkerchief and making a cushion of it. Thursday, June 1, dragged on as miserably as its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which gave rise to great anticipations, as he said, in my hearing, that our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion of soup ought to be allowed us.

"The terrible scenes and sufferings we had gone through had deprived many of our number of their reason. Some of the madmen were dangerous, and made attempts to take the lives of their companions; others did nothing but shout and scream day and night. The second night we passed in the orangerie the Englishman and I thought we had secured a place where we might lie down and sleep in the side gallery; but at midnight we were attacked by one of the most dangerous of the madmen. It was useless to hope to find any other place to lie down in, and we had no more rest that night, for several maniacs persisted in following us wherever we went, and would allow us no repose. I counted that night forty-four men bereft of reason wandering about and attacking others, as they had done ourselves.

"The next day we found ourselves at last in the ranks of those who were to leave the orangerie. Our names were inscribed at eleven o'clock, and we stood in rank till seven in the evening, afraid to lose our places if we stirred. What our destination might be, was to us unknown; but there was not a man who was not glad to quit the place where we had suffered such misery."

Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a hulk lying in the harbor, clean shirts and water to wash with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries. Their treatment was not bad; they had hammocks to sleep in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul air of the orangerie, had so broken them down that most of them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a hospital ship moored near them, to be seen no more.

Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this hulk, and then escaped; but by what means he did not, in October, 1871, venture to say.

He concludes his narrative with these words:—

"When I think of those who were with me who still remain in the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release, my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to Almighty God for my miraculous and providential escape. In conclusion let me say, as one who lived and suffered among them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable creatures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them. The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) were 'pressed men' like myself. But those who had wives and children to support and were without work—nay, even without means of obtaining a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little savings)—were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the National Guard for the sake of their daily pay.

"In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were in general orderly and respectable men; but the irregular regiments, such as the Enfants Perdus, Chasseurs Federes, Defenseurs de la Colonne de Juillet, etc., were nothing but troops of blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance which overtook the majority of them."



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.

The fall of the Commune took place in the last week of May, 1871. We must go back to the surrender of Paris, in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the history of France from the election of the National Assembly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of the Third Republic, during which time France was under the dictatorship of M. Thiers.

Adolphe Thiers was born in Marseilles, April 16, 1797. He was a poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had fled from France to escape the counter-revolution. The doctor who superintended his entrance into the world recorded that he was a healthy, active child, with remarkably short legs. These legs remained short all his life, but his body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man. His appearance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen from a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother, on the maternal side, was named Lhommaca, and was of Greek origin. It came from the Levant, and its members spoke Greek among themselves. Madame Thiers' father was named Arnic, and his descent was also Levantine. Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers, a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge under her father's roof. A writer who obtained materials for a sketch of Thiers from the Thiers himself, says,—

"She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts, charmed by his plausible manners, and regardless of his poverty and his incumbrance of many children, she insisted on marrying him. Her family was indignant, and cast her off; nor did she long find comfort in her husband. She was a Royalist, and remained so to the end of her days; he was a Jacobin. Moreover, she soon found that his tastes led him to drink and dissipation."

This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mercurial in temperament, of universal aptitudes, much wit, and a perennial buoyancy of disposition. His weakness, like his son's, was a passion for omniscience. Some one said of him: "He talks encyclopedia, and if anybody asked him, would be at no loss to tell you what was passing in the moon." He had been educated for the Bar, and belonged to a family of the haute bourgeoisie of Provence; but everything was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the docks of Marseilles. His father (the statesman's grandfather) had been a cloth merchant and a man of erudition. He wrote a History of Provence, and died at the age of ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him lived to be ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house at Marseilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was known far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was ruined by speculative ventures in the American colonies.

Thiers' grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist, who brought down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins by inciting the more moderate party in Marseilles to seize the commissioners sent to them by the Convention, and imprison them in the Chateau d'If. His son (Thiers' father), being himself a Jacobin, helped to release the prisoners, and accepted an office under them in Marseilles. This was the reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he bobbed like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal facility sank beneath them. He seems to have been "everything by turns, and nothing long." Among other employments he became an impressario, and went with an opera troupe to Italy. There for a time he kept a gaming table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte's court at Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and followed him to Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without the domestic affections of his English counterpart, but with far more brilliant chances. His wife was left to struggle at Marseilles with her own boy to support, and with a host of step-children. What she would have done but for the kindness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard to tell.

Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Madame Arnic. She had provided him from his birth with influential patrons in the persons of two well-to-do godfathers. The boy was brought up in one of those beautiful bastides, or sea-and-country villas, which adorn the shores of Provence. There he ran wild with the little peasant boys, and subsequently in Marseilles with the gamins of the city.

His cousin, the poet Andre Chenier, got him an appointment to one of the lycees, or high-schools, established by Napoleon; but his grandmother would not hear of his "wearing Bonaparte's livery." The two god-fathers had to threaten to apply to the absent Micawber on the subject, if the boy's mother and grandmother stood in the way of his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the appointment offered them. Adolphe passed with high marks into the institution, and it cost him no trouble to keep always at the head of his classes. But in play hours there was never a more troublesome boy. He so perplexed and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of expelling him, when a new master came to the lycee from Paris, and all was changed. This master had ruined his prospects by writing a pamphlet against the Empire. A warm friendship sprang up between him and his brilliant pupil. The good man was an unbending republican. When Thiers became Prime Minister of France under Louis Philippe, he wrote to his old master and offered him an important post in the Bureau of Public Instruction; but the old man refused it. He would not accept Louis Philippe as "the best of republics," and ended his letter by saying: "The best thing I can wish you is that you may soon retire from office, and that for a long time."

The influence of this new teacher roused all Thiers' faculties and stimulated his industry. From that time forward he became the most industrious man of his age. The bulletins and the victories of Napoleon excited his imagination. He would take a bulletin for his theme, and write up an account of a battle, supplementing his few facts by his own vivid imagination. His idea was that France must be the strongest of European powers, or she would prove the weakest; she could not hold a middle place in the federation of European nations.

When Thiers had finished his school course his grandmother mortgaged her house to supply funds for his entrance into the college at Aix. He could not enter the army on account of his size, and he aspired to the Bar. His family was very poor at that period. Thiers largely supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said he did remarkably well.

At Aix he found good literary society and congenial associations. His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet, began in their college days. At Aix, too, where he was given full liberty to enjoy the Marquis d'Alberta's gallery of art and wonderful collection of curiosities and bronzes, he acquired his life-long taste for such things. Aix was indeed a place full of collections,—of antiquities, of cameos, of marbles, etc.

Thiers' first literary success was the winning a prize at Nimes for a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of the eighteenth century, called by Voltaire the master-mind of his period. He won this prize under remarkable circumstances. The commission to award it was composed, largely of Royalists, who did not like to assign it to a competitor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist. Thiers had read passages from his essay to friends, and the commissioners were aware of its authorship. They therefore postponed their decision. Meantime Thiers wrote another essay on the same subject. Mignet had it copied, and forwarded to Nimes from Paris, with a new motto. This essay won the first prize; and Thiers' other essay won the second prize, greatly to his amusement and delight, and to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of Decision.

With six hundred francs in his pocket ($120), he went up to Paris, making the journey on foot. Having arrived there, he made his way to his friend Mignet's garret, weary and footsore, carrying his bundle in his hand. Mignet was not at home; but in the opposite chamber, which Thiers entered to make inquiries for his friend, was a gay circle of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel. The traveller who broke in upon their mirth is thus described:—

"He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow, tight buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and glossy from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a hat worthy of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary. His face was tanned a deep brown, and a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles covered half his face."

That was about 1821. Thiers was then not a profound politician, nor was he very clear as to theories about republicanism; but he was an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthusiast for France. He employed his leisure in making notes in the public libraries on the events between 1788 and 1799,—the year of the 18th Brumaire. His future History of the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously to himself, to grow under his hand. He had hoped to be called to the Bar in Paris; but as his want of height had prevented his entering the army, so his want of money prevented his entrance to the ranks of the lawyers of the capital. The council which recommends such admissions required at that period that the person seeking admittance should show himself possessed of a well-furnished domicile and a sufficient income. Thiers' resources fell far short of this. For a while he supported himself in Paris as best he could, partly by painting fans; he then returned to Aix, where he was admitted to the Bar. But he could not stay long away from Paris. He returned, and again struggled with poverty, painting and making applications for literary and newspaper work in all directions. At last, about the time of Louis XVIII.'s death, Manuel, the semi-republican deputy from Marseilles, took him up. He was then engaged upon his History, and was private secretary to the Duc de Liancourt, to whose notice he had been brought by Talleyrand in a letter which said: "Two young men have lately brought me strong recommendations. One is gentlemanly and appears to have the qualifications you desire in a secretary; the other is uncouth to a degree, but I think I can discern in him sparks of the fire of genius." The duke's reply was brief: "Send me the second one."

In 1826 Thiers began to attract public notice as a clever and somewhat turbulent opponent of the priest party under Charles X. He got his first journalistic employment from the editor of a leading paper in Paris, the "Constitutionnel." He had a letter of introduction to the editor, who, nowise impressed by his appearance, and wishing to get rid of him, politely said he had no work vacant on the paper except that of criticising the pictures in the Salon, which he presumed M. Thiers' could not undertake. On the contrary, Thiers felt sure he could do the work, which the editor, confident of his failure, allowed him to try. The result was a review that startled all Paris, and Thiers was at once engaged on the "Constitutionnel" as literary, dramatic, and artistic critic. He proved to have a perfect genius for journalism, and all his life he considered newspaper work his profession. Before long he aspired to take part in the management of his paper, and to that end saved and scraped together every cent in his power, assisted by a German bookseller named Schubert, the original of Schmuke, in Balzac's "Cousin Pons." The "Constitutionnel" grew more and more popular and more and more powerful; but still Thiers' means were very small, and he was bent on saving all he could to establish a new newspaper, the "National." He was engaged to be married to a young lady at Aix, whose father thought he was neglecting her, and came up to Paris to see about it. Thiers pleaded for delay. He had not money enough, he said, to set up housekeeping. A second time the impatient father came to Paris on the same errand, and on receiving the same answer, assaulted Thiers publicly and challenged him. The duel took place. Thiers fired in the air, and his adversary's ball passed between his little legs. Nobody was hurt, but the match was broken off, and the young lady died of the disappointment. Thiers kept every memorial he had of her sacredly to the day of his death, and in the time of his power sought out and provided for the members of her family.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about M. Thiers was the unusual care he took to prepare himself fully before writing or speaking. He had every subject clearly and fully in his own mind before he put pen to paper, and when he began to write, he did so with extraordinary rapidity; nor would he write any account of anything, either in a newspaper or in his history, till he had visited localities, conversed with eye-witnesses, and picked up floating legends.

By an accident he became acquainted before other Parisian journalists with the signing of the Ordinances by Charles X., July 26, 1830. He had also good reason to think that Louis Philippe, if offered the crown of France or the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, would accept it. While fighting was going on in Paris, he and Ary Scheffer, the artist, were the two persons deputed to go to Neuilly and sound the Duke of Orleans. As we have seen, Marie Amelie, the duke's wife, indignantly refused their overtures in the absence of her husband, while Madame Adelaide, his sister, encouraged them.

Thiers, Laffitte, and Lafayette became the foremost men in Paris at this crisis, and at the end of some days Louis Philippe became king of the French. He wanted to make Thiers one of his ministers, but Thiers characteristically declined so high an office until he should have served an apprenticeship to ministerial work in an under secretary-ship, and knew the machinery and the working of all departments of government.

Thus far I have not spoken of Thiers' "History of the Revolution." It appeared first in monthly parts. Up to the publication of the first number, in 1823, no writer in France had dared to speak well of any actor in the Revolution. Thiers' History, as it became known, created a great sensation. Thiers himself was supposed by the general public (both of his own country and of foreign nations) to be a wild revolutionist. At first the critics knew not how to speak of a book that admired the States-General and defended the Constitutional Convention; but by the time the third volume was completed, in 1827, it was bought up eagerly. The work was published afterwards in ten volumes, and the "History of the Consulate and Empire," which appeared between 1845 and 1861, is in twenty volumes; but it is only fair to say that the print is very large and the illustrations are very numerous, and that the portraits especially are beyond all praise.

From 1831 to 1836, Thiers was one of Louis Philippe's ministers, and from 1836 to 1840 he was Prime Minister, or President of the Council.

As soon as Thiers rose to power his mercurial father made his appearance in Paris. Thiers was disposed to receive him very coldly. "What have you ever done for me that you have any claim on me?" he asked. "My son," replied the prodigal parent, "if I had been an ordinary father and had stayed by my family and brought up a houseful of children in obscurity, do you suppose you would have been where you are now?" At this Thiers laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in a small town in the South of France called Carpentras. There the old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to the last, surrounded by a large family of dogs.

Thiers provided at the earliest possible moment for his mother and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little property which she had always coveted, near Aix, and taking his mother to preside over his own home. But Madame Thiers felt out of place in her son's life, and preferred to return to the property given to Madame Arnic, where she spent the rest of her days with the old lady. Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining together at a friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was already a cabinet officer. On leaving together after dinner, they found in the ante-room an elderly woman plainly and roughly dressed. She was asking for M. Thiers, who, as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in his arms, kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to the poet, cried joyously: "Lamartine, this is my mother!"

In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from her pension, Mademoiselle Dosne, who was co-heiress with her mother and her father to a great fortune. Unhappily Thiers had fallen first in love with the mother; but he accepted the daughter instead. The early married life of Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge of this state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her husband, and watched over him as a mother might have watched over a child. She was an accomplished woman and most careful housekeeper, and had received an excellent education. She knew many languages, and turned all English or German documents required by her husband into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived under the shadow of a great sorrow.

When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve thousand francs (about $2,500) for the legal parental consent which is necessary in a French marriage; but he was by no means anxious to have his irrepressible parent at his wedding. For three weeks before the event he hired all the places in all the stage-coaches running through Carpentras to Lyons.

In 1840 M. Thiers went out of office, in consequence of a dispute with England about the Eastern Question. The only charge that his enemies ever brought against him affecting his honor as a politician was that of employing the Jew Deutz to act the part of Judas towards the Duchesse de Berri; but for that he could plead that it solved a difficulty, and probably saved many lives.

During the Second Empire he kept much in retirement. At first he had thought that Prince Louis Napoleon, seeing in him the historian and panegyrist of the Great Emperor, would call him to his councils. But he was quite mistaken. He could not—nor would he—have served Louis Napoleon's turn as did such men as Persigny, Saint-Arnaud, De Maupas, and De Morny. When the coup d'etat came, Thiers was imprisoned with the other deputies, the only favor allowed him being a bed, while the other deputies had no couch but the floor.

In 1869 there was a general election in France, which was carefully manipulated by the Government, in order that, if possible, no deputy might be sent to the Chamber who would provoke discussion on the changes in the Constitution submitted by the emperor. Thiers thought it time for him to re-enter public life and to speak out to his countrymen. At this time one of the gentlemen attached to the English embassy in Paris had a conversation with him. "For a man," he says, "of talents, learning, and experience, I never met one who impressed me as having so great an idea of his own self-importance;" but the visitor was at the same time impressed by his frankness and sincerity. Speaking of the Emperor Napoleon III., and foreseeing his downfall, he said: "What will succeed him, I know not. God grant it may not be the ruin of France!... For a long time I kept quiet. It was no use breaking one's head against the wall; but now we have revolution staring us in the face as an alternative with the Empire; and do you think I should be doing well or rightly by my fellow-citizens, were I to keep in the background? If I am wanted, I shall not fail." As he spoke, the fire in his eyes sparkled right through the glass of his spectacles, and all the time he talked, he was walking rapidly up and down. When greatly animated, he seemed even to grow taller and taller, so that on some great occasion a lady said of him to Charles Greville: "Did you know, Thiers is handsome! and is six feet high!"

When the fall of the Empire occurred, in September, 1870, M. Thiers was in Paris; but when the Committee of Defence was formed, he quitted the capital, before the arrival of the Prussians, to go from court to court,—to London, St. Petersburg, Vienna,—to implore the intervention of diplomacy, and to prove how essential to the balance of power in Europe was the preservation of France. His feeling was that France ought promptly to have made peace after Sedan, that her cause then was hopeless for the moment, and that by making the best terms she could, and by husbanding her resources, she might rise in her might at a future day. These views were not in the least shared by Gambetta, who believed—as, indeed, most Frenchmen and most foreigners believed in 1870—that a general uprising in France would be sufficient to crush the Prussians. Thiers knew better; his policy was to save France for herself and from herself at the same time.



We already know the story. Gambetta escaped from Paris in a balloon, and joined Cremieux and Garnier-Pages, the other two members of the Committee of Defence who were outside of Paris. At Tours they had set up a sort of government, and there, in virtue of being the War Minister of the Committee of Defence, Gambetta proceeded to take all power into his own hands, and to become dictator of masterless France. It was like a shipwreck in which, captain and officers being disabled, the command falls to the most able seaman. Gambetta had no legal right to govern France, but he governed it by right divine, as the only man who could govern it.

This is how a newspaper writer speaks—and justly—of Gambetta's government:—

"From the moment when he dropped, tired out with his journey by balloon, into his chair in the archiepiscopal palace at Tours, and announced that he was invested with full powers to defend the country, no one throughout France seriously disputed his authority. His colleagues became his clerks. The treasury was empty, but he re-filled it. The arsenal was half empty, but in six weeks one great army, and almost two, were supplied with artillery, horses, gunners, and breech-loaders. The Lyons Reds had been told that they were wicked fools, and Communists and Anarchists ripe for revolt in Toulouse, Lyons, and Marseilles had been put down. The respectables everywhere rose at his summons, anarchy and military disobedience quailed."

The fortunes of war forced Gambetta and his Government from the banks of the Loire to Bordeaux. There, at the close of January, 1871, Jules Favre arrived from the Central Committee in Paris to announce, with shame and grief, that resistance was over: Paris had capitulated to the Prussians; and it only remained to elect a General Assembly which should create a regular government empowered to make peace with the enemy.

For a few hours that night the fate of France hung trembling in the scales. Thiers was in Bordeaux. He was known to think that France could only save what was left by accepting the armistice. Gambetta was known to be for No Surrender! Which should prevail? Would the dictator lay aside his power without a struggle?

Gambetta rose to the occasion during the night; but here the histories of Thiers and Gambetta run together; therefore, before I tell of what happened the next day, let me say a few words about the personal history of Leon Gambetta. He was only thirty-three years old at this time, having been born in 1838, when Thiers was forty-one years of age.

Gambetta's birthplace was Cahors, that city in the South of France stigmatized by Dante as the abode of usurers and scoundrels. His family was Italian and came from Genoa, but he was born a Frenchman, though his Italian origin, temperament, and complexion were constantly cast up against him. In his infancy he had been intended for the priesthood, and was sent, when seven years old, to some place where he was to be educated and trained for it. He soon wrote to his father that he was so miserable that if he were not taken away he would put out one of his eyes, which would disqualify him for the priestly calling. His father took no notice of the childish threat, and Gambetta actually plucked out one of his own eyes.

In 1868 he was a young lawyer in Paris; but his eloquence and ability were known only at the Cafe Procope to a circle of admiring fellow-Bohemians. On All Saints Day, 1868, the Press, presuming on the recent relaxation of personal government by the emperor, applauded the crowds who went to cover with funeral wreaths the grave of Baudin at Pere la Chaise. Baudin had been the first man killed on Dec. 2, 1851, when offering resistance to the coup d'etat. The Press was prosecuted for its utterances on this occasion. Gambetta defended one of the journals. Being an advocate, he could say what he pleased without danger of prosecution, and all Paris rang with the bitterness of his attack upon the Empire. From that moment he was a power in France. In person he was dark, short, stout, and somewhat vulgar, nor was there any social polish in his manners.

Not long after his great speech in defence of the Press, in the matter of Baudin, Gambetta was elected to the Chamber by the working-men of Belleville, and at the same time by Marseilles. He entered the Chamber as one wholly irreconcilable with the Empire or the emperor. His eloquence was heart-stirring, and commanded attention even from his adversaries.

When, on Sept. 4, 1870, the downfall of the Empire was proclaimed, Gambetta was made a member of the Council of Defence, and became Minister of the Interior. He remained in Paris until after the siege had begun; but he burned to be where he could act, and obtained the consent of his colleagues to go forth by balloon and try to stir up a warlike spirit in the Provinces. He was made Minister of War in addition to being Minister of the Interior. From Nov. 1, 1870, to Jan. 30, 1871, his efforts were almost superhuman; and but for Bazaine's surrender at Metz, they might have been successful.

Gambetta raised two armies,—one under General Aurelles des Paladines and General Chanzy; the other under Bourbaki and Garibaldi. The first was the Army of the Loire, the second of the Jura.

When the plan of co-operation with Bazaine's one hundred and seventy-five thousand well-trained troops had failed, and the Army of the Loire had been repulsed at Orleans, Gambetta with his Provisional Government moved to Bordeaux. Thither came Thiers, returned from his roving embassy,—a mission of peace whose purpose had been defeated by the warlike movements of Gambetta's armies.

Gambetta in the early days of his dictatorship wrote to Jules Favre: "France must not entertain one thought of peace." He sincerely believed any effort at negotiation with the Prussians an acknowledgment of weakness, and he fondly fancied that a little more time and experience would turn his raw recruits into armies capable of driving back the Prussians, when the experienced generals and soldiers of France had failed.

And now we have reached that terrible hour when news was received at Bordeaux that all Gambetta's efforts had been useless; that Paris had consented to an armistice; that an Assembly was to be elected, a National Government to be formed; and that to resist these things or to persist longer in fighting the Prussians would be to provoke civil war.

No wonder that Gambetta and Thiers, both devoted Frenchmen, both leaders of parties with opposing views,—the one resolved on No surrender, the other urging Peace on the best terms now procurable,—passed a terrible night after Jules Favre's arrival at Bordeaux, Gambetta debating what was his duty as the idol of his followers and as provisional dictator, Thiers dreading lest civil war might be kindled by the decision of his rival.

Hardly less anxious were the days while a general election was going on. Bordeaux remained feverish and excited till February 13, when deputies from all parts of France met to decide their country's fate in the Bordeaux theatre. Notabilities from foreign countries were also there, to see what would be done at that supreme moment.

Seven hundred and fifty deputies had been sent to the Assembly, and it was clear from the beginning that that body was not Republican. But the Anti-Republicans were divided into three parties,—Imperialists, Legitimists, and Orleanists, each of which preferred an orderly and moderate republic to the triumph of either of the other two. Moreover, that was not the time for deliberations concerning a permanent form of government. The deputies were met to make a temporary or provisional government, qualified to accept or to refuse the hard terms of peace offered by the Prussians. The two leaders of the Assembly were Thiers and Gambetta,—the one in favor of peace, the other of prolonging the war. We can see now how much wiser were the views of the elder statesman than those of the younger; but we see also what a bitter pang Gambetta's patriotic spirit must have suffered by the downfall of his dictatorship.

The Assembly had been three days in session, clamorous, riotous, and full of words, when in the middle of the afternoon of Feb. 16, 1871, two delegates from Alsace and Lorraine appeared, supported by Gambetta. The Speaker—that is, the president of the Assembly—was M. Jules Grevy, who had held the same office in 1848; he found it hard to restrain the excitement of the deputies. The delegates came to implore France not to deliver them over to the Germans; to remember that of all Frenchmen the Alsatians had been the most French in the days of the Revolution, and that in all the wars of France for more than a century they had suffered most of all her children. No wonder the hearts of all in the Assembly were stirred.

"At this moment there appeared in the midde aisle of the theatre a small man, with wrinkled face and stubbly white hair. He seemed to have got there by magic, for no one had seen him spring into that place. He looked around him for an instant, much as a sailor glances over the sky in a storm, then, stretching out his short right arm, he made a curious downstroke which conveyed an impression of intense vitality and will. Profound silence was established in a moment. The elderly man then made another gesture, throwing his arm up, as if to say: 'Good! Now you will listen.' He then, in a thin, piping, but distinctly audible voice, began a sharp practical address. Everyone listened with the utmost attention; none dared to interrupt him. He spoke for five minutes, nervously pounding the air from time to time, and sometimes howling his words at the listeners in a manner that made them cringe. He counselled moderation, accord, decency, but above all, instant action. 'The settlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,' said he, 'will virtually decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.' Then, with an imperious gesture of command, he turned away. 'Come,' he said, 'let us to our committee-rooms, and let us say what we think.'"

Two hours later, the committee appointed to recommend a chief of the executive power announced that its choice had fallen on this orator, M. Thiers. At once he was proclaimed head of the French Republic, but not before he had hurried out of the theatre. Then the session closed, and a quarter of an hour after, Lord Lyons, the English ambassador, had waited on M. Thiers to inform him that Her Majesty's Government recognized the French Republic.

From that moment, for more than two years, M. Thiers was the supreme ruler of France. His work was visible in every department of administration. Ministers, while his power lasted, simply obeyed his commands.

There were some amusing, gossipy stories told in Bordeaux of Thiers' entrance into possession of Gambetta's bachelor quarters at the Prefecture. "Pah! what a smell of tobacco!" he is said to have cried, as he strutted into his deposed rival's study. All his family joined him in bewailing the condition of the house; and until it could be cleansed and purified they were glad to accept an invitation to take refuge in the archbishop's palace. In a few days all was put to rights, and a guard of honor was set to keep off intruders on the chief's privacy. On the first day of this arrangement, M. Thiers addressed some question to the sentinel. The man was for a moment embarrassed how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time the chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not formally its president. The soldier's answer, "Oui, mon Executif," caused much amusement.

At this time there was no suspicion in men's minds that it was the intention of M. Thiers to form a permanent republic. The feeling of the country was Royalist. The difficulty was what royalty? It seemed to all men, and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de Chambord.

Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to San Sebastian, just over the Spanish frontier. There he lived in two small rooms over a crockery-shop. "He is jaded for want of sleep," writes a friend, "and distressed by money matters." Much of his time he spent in fishing, no doubt meditating deeply on things present, past, and future.

No pains were spared to induce him to give in his adhesion to one of the candidates for royalty. His best friend wrote thus to him:—

"Those wretches the Communists have destroyed all my illusions, but perhaps I could have forgiven them but for their ingratitude to you. See how their newspapers have reviled you! A time may come when a republic may be possible in France; but that day is not with us yet. Let us acknowledge that we have both made a mistake. As for you, with your unrivalled genius you have now a patriotic career open before you, if you will cast in your lot with the men who are now going to try and quell anarchy."[1]

[Footnote 1: Clement Laurier, Cornhill Magazine, 1883.]

Besides this, offers were made him of the prime minister-ship, a dukedom, a Grand Cordon, and other preferment; but Gambetta only laughed at these proposals. He was a man who had many faults, but he was always honest and true. Both he and M. Thiers were devoted Frenchmen, patriots in the truest sense of the word, and each took opposite views. That Thiers was right has been proved by time.

On March 16 the Government of the Provisional Republic removed from Bordeaux to Versailles. Nobody dreamed of the pending outbreak of the Commune; all the talk was of fusion between the elder Bourbon branch and the House of Orleans.

Thiers was decidedly opposed to taking the seat of government to Paris, nor did he wish a new election for an Assembly; he preferred Fontainebleau for the seat of government, but fortunately (looking at the matter in the light of events) Versailles was chosen.

Then, to the great indignation of Madame Thiers, the Royalists at once took measures to prevent M. Thiers from installing himself in Louis XIV.'s great bedchamber. "The Chateau," they said, "was to become the abode of the National Legislature, the state rooms must be devoted to the use of members, and the private apartments should be occupied by M. Grevy, the president of the Assembly."

"M. Thiers would no doubt have liked very much to sleep in Louis XIV's bed, and to have for his study that fine room with the balcony from which the heralds used to announce in the same breath the death of one king and the accession of another. His secretary could not help saying that it seemed fit that the greatest of French national historians should be lodged in the apartments of the greatest of French kings; but as this idea did not make its way, M. and Madame Thiers yielded the point, saying that the chimneys smoked, and that the rooms were too large to be comfortable."

On seeing a caricature in which some artist had represented him as a ridiculous pigmy crowned with a cotton night-cap and lying in an enormous bed, surrounded by the majestic ghosts of kings, Thiers was at first half angry; then he said: "Louis XIV. was not taller than I, and as to his other greatness, I doubt whether he ever would have had a chance of sleeping in the best bed of Versailles if he had begun life as I did."[1]

[Footnote 1: Temple Bar.]

So M. Thiers went to reside where the Emperor William had had his quarters, at the Prefecture of Versailles, and soon the palace was filled with refugees from Paris. Many of the state apartments were turned into hospital wards. Louis XIV.'s bedchamber was given up to the finance committee.

The thing to be done, with speed and energy, as all men felt, was to re-besiege Paris and put down the Commune. All parties united in this work; but the conservatives confidently believed that when this was done, Thiers and the moderate Republicans would join them in giving France a stable government under the Comte de Chambord.

On Sept. 19, 1821, when that young prince was a year old, a public subscription throughout France had presented him with the beautiful old Chateau de Chambord, built on the Loire by Francis I., and from which he adopted his title when in exile.

After the young prince had been removed from his mother's influence, he was carefully brought up in the most Bourbon of Bourbon traditions. When he became a man he travelled extensively in Europe. In 1841 he broke his leg by falling from his horse, and was slightly lame for the rest of his life. In 1846 he married Marie Therese Beatrix of Modena, who was even more strictly Bourbon than himself. He and his wife retired to Froehsdorf, a beautiful country seat not very far from Vienna. There they were constantly visited by travelling Frenchmen of all parties, and on no one did the prince fail to make a favorable impression. He was good, upright, cultivated, kindly, but inflexibly wedded to the traditions of his family. He loved France with his whole soul, and was glad of anything that brought her good and glory. But France was his,—his by divine right; and this right France must acknowledge. After that, there was not anything he would not do for her.



But France was not willing to efface all her history from 1792 to 1871, with the exception of the episode of the Restoration, when school histories were circulated mentioning Marengo, Austerlitz, etc., as victories gained under the king's lieutenant-general, M. de Bonaparte.

During the Empire, under Napoleon III., the Comte de Chambord had remained nearly passive at Froehsdorf. His life was passed in meditation, devotion, the cultivation of literary tastes, and a keen interest in all the events that were passing in his native country. During the Franco-Prussian war he sent words of encouragement to his suffering countrymen, and nobly refrained from embarrassing the affairs of France by any personal intrigues; but when the war and the Commune were over, and his chances of the throne grew bright, he issued a proclamation which has been called "an act of political suicide."

On May 8, three weeks before the downfall of the Commune, he put forth his first manifesto. Here is what an English paper said of it a few days before his next—the suicidal—proclamation appeared:—

"The Comte de Chambord does not, of course, surrender his own theory of his own place on earth, but he does offer some grave pledges intended to diminish suspicion as to the deduction he draws from his claim to be king by right divine. He renounces formally and distinctly any intention of exercising absolute power, and pledges himself, as he says, 'to submit all acts of his government to the careful control of representatives freely elected.' He declares that if restored he will not interfere with equality, or attempt to establish privileges. He promises complete amnesty, and employment under his government to men of all parties; and finally he pledges himself to secure effectual guarantees for the Pope [then trembling on his temporal throne in Italy]."

The English journalist continues,—

"The tone of this whole paper is that of a man who believes that a movement will be made in his favor which may succeed, if only the factions most likely to resist can be temporarily conciliated. There is no especial reason that we can see that he should not be chosen. He has neither sympathized with the Germans, nor received support from them. He has not bombarded Paris. He is not more hated than any other king would be,—perhaps less; for Paris has no gossip to tell of his career. Indeed, there are powerful reasons in favor of the choice. His restoration, since the Comte de Paris is his heir, would eliminate two of the dynastic parties which distract France, and would relink the broken chain of history. And to a people so weary, so dispirited, so thirsty for repose, that of itself must have a certain charm."

But all these advantages he destroyed for himself by a new proclamation issued five weeks later. In it he said,—

"I can neither forget that the monarchical right is the patrimony of the nation, nor decline the duties which it imposes on me. I will fulfil these duties, believe me, on my word as an honest man and as a king."

So far was good; but proceeding to announce that thenceforward he assumed the title of Henri V., he goes on to apostrophize the "White Flag" of the Bourbons. He says,—

"I received it as a sacred trust from the old king my grandfather when he was dying in exile. It has always been for me inseparable from the remembrance of my absent country. It waved above my cradle, and I wish to have it shade my tomb. Henri V. cannot abandon the 'White Flag' of Henri IV."

This manifesto, written without consulting those who were working for his cause in France, settled the question of his eligibility. France was not willing, for the sake of Henri V., to give up her tricolor,—the flag of so many memories. Its loss had been the bitterest humiliation that the nation had had to suffer at the Restoration.

The Comte de Chambord's own friends were cruelly disappointed; the moderate Republicans, who had been ready to accept him as a constitutional monarch, said at once that he was far too Bourbon. There was no longer any hope, unless he could be persuaded, on some other convenient occasion, to renounce the "White Flag."

This matter being settled by the Comte de Chambord himself, all M. Thiers' attention was turned to two things,—the disposal of the Communist prisoners, and the payment of the indemnity demanded by the Germans, the five milliards.

We are glad to know that Thiers disapproved of the revengeful feeling that pervaded politicians and society, regarding the Communist prisoners. He tried to save General Rossel, and failed. Rochefort and others he protected. He wished for a general amnesty, excluding only the murderers of Thomas, Lecomte, and the hostages. He said, when some one was speaking to him of the sufferings of those Communists (or supposed Communists) who were confined at Satory and in the Orangerie at Versailles: "It was dreadful, but it could not be avoided. We had twenty thousand prisoners, and not more than four hundred police to keep guard over them. We had to depend on the rough methods of an exasperated soldiery."

As to the indemnity, the promptness with which it was paid was marvellous. The great bankers all over Europe, especially those of Jewish connection, came forward and advanced the money. In eighteen months the five milliards of francs were in the coffers of the Emperor William, and the last Prussian soldier had quitted the soil of France. The loan raised by the Government for the repayment of the sums advanced for the indemnity was taken up with enthusiasm by all classes of the French people.