I managed to reach the Rue du Debarcadere, which is situated close to the ramparts. An acquaintance of mine lives there. I knew he was away, but I thought the porter would recognise and allow me to take up a position at one of the windows. Next door, the corner house, I found a shell had gone into a wine-merchant's shop there, who could very well have dispensed with such a visitor, and had behaved in the most unruly fashion, breaking the glass, smashing the tables and counter, but neither killing nor wounding anybody. The porter knew me quite well, and invited me to walk upstairs to the apartments of my friend, situated on the third floor. From the windows I could not see the bastion, which was hidden by the station; but to the left, in the distance, beyond the Bois de Boulogne, wherein I fancied I perceived troops moving between the branches, but whether Versaillais or Parisians I could not tell, arose the tremendous Mont Valerien bathed in sunlight. The flashes from the cannon, which in daylight have a pale silver tint, succeeded each other rapidly; the explosions were formidable, and the fort was crowned with a wreath of smoke. They appeared to be firing in the direction of Levallois, rather than on the Porte Maillot. The Federals did not seem to attempt to reply. Turning myself towards the right I could scan nearly the whole length of the Avenue de Neuilly. The bare piece of ground which constitutes the military zone was completely deserted; several shells fell there that had been aimed doubtless at the Porte Maillot or the bastion. The position I had taken up at the window was rather a perilous one. I was just behind the bastion. Beyond the military zone most of the houses seemed uninhabited, but I saw distinctly the National Guards in front of the Restaurant Gilet, making their soup on the side-walk. I was too far away to judge of the extent of the mischief done by the cannonading, but I was told that several roofs had fallen in and many walls had been thrown down in that quarter. All that I could see of the market-place was empty; but the sound of musketry, and the smoke which issued from the houses on one side of it, told me that the Federals were there in sufficient numbers. A little further on I saw the barrels of the rifles sticking out of the windows, with little wreaths of smoke curling out of them; small knots of armed men every now and then marched hurriedly across the avenue, and disappeared into the opposite houses. Partly on account of the distance, and partly on account of the blinding sun, and partly, perhaps, on account of the emotion I experienced, which made me desire and yet fear to see, I could distinguish the bridge but indistinctly, with the dark line of a barricade in front of it. What surprised me most in the battle which I was busily observing, was the extraordinarily small number of combatants that were visible, when suddenly—it was about two o'clock in the afternoon—the Versailles batteries at Courbevoie, which had been silent for some time, began firing furiously. The horrid screech of the mitrailleuse drowned the hissing of the shells; the whole breadth of the long avenue was covered by a kind of white mist. The bastion in front of me replied energetically. It seemed to me as if the interior part of my ear was being rent asunder, when suddenly I heard a dull heavy sound, such as I had not heard before, and I felt the house tremble beneath me. Loud cries arose from the National Guards on the ramparts. I fancied that a rain of shot and shell had destroyed the drawbridge of the Porte Maillot; but it was not so; in the distance I saw that the clouds of smoke were rolling nearer and nearer, and that the roar of the musketry, which had greatly increased, sounded close by. I felt sure that a rush was being made from Courbevoie—that the Versaillais were advancing. The shells were flying over our heads in the direction of the Champs Elysees. I began to distinguish that a tumultuous mass of human beings were marching on in the smoke, in the dust, in the sun. The guns on the bastion now thundered forth incessantly. There was no mistaking by this time, there were the Versaillais; I could see the red trowsers of the men of the line. The Federals were shooting them down from the windows. Then I saw the advanced guard stop, hesitate beneath the balls which seemed to rain on them from the Place du Marche, and presently retire. Whereupon a large number of Federals poured forth from the houses, and, walking close to the walls, to be as much as possible out of the way of the projectiles, hurried after the retreating enemy. But suddenly, when they had arrived a little too far for me to distinguish anything very clearly, they in their turn came to a standstill, and then retraced their steps, and returned to their positions within the houses. The fire from the Versaillais then sensibly diminished, but that of the bastions continued its furious attack. It was thus that I witnessed one of those chasse-croises under fire, which have become so frequent since this dreadful civil war was concentrated at Neuilly.



As it would have been most imprudent to follow the railway cutting, or to have gone back by the Avenue de la Grande Armee, where the Versailles shells were still falling, I walked up the Rue du Debarcadere, and then turned into the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, and soon found myself in the Place des Ternes, in front of the church. There was a most dismal aspect about the whole of this quarter. Situated close to the ramparts, it is very much exposed, and had suffered greatly. Nearly all the shops were shut; some of the doors, however, of those where wine or provisions, are sold, were standing open, while on the shutters of others were inscribed in chalk, "The entrance is beneath the gateway." I was astonished to see that the church was open, a rare sight in these days. Why, is it possible that the Commune has committed the unqualifiable imprudence of not arresting the cure of Saint-Ferdinand, and that she is weak enough—may she not have to regret it!—to permit the inhabitants of Ternes to be baptised, married, and buried according to the deplorable rites and ceremonies of Catholicism, which has happily fallen into disuse in the other quarters of Paris? I can now understand why the shells fall so persistently in this poor arrondissement: the anger of the goddess of Reason (shall we not soon have a goddess of Reason?) lies heavily on this quarter, the shame of the capital, where the inhabitants still try to look as if they believed in heaven! In spite of everything, however, I entered the church; there were a great many women on their knees, and several men too. The prayers of the dead were being said over the coffin of a woman who, I was told, was killed yesterday by a ball in the chest, whilst crossing the Avenue des Ternes, just a little above the railway bridge. A ball, how strange! yet I was assured such was the case. It is pretty evident, then, that the Versaillais were considerably nearer to Paris, on this side at least, than the official despatches lead us to suppose.

On returning to the street I directed my steps in the direction of the Place d'Eylau. Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them.—"Oh, you can look if you like," said one. So I drew back the checked curtain. On the mattress was stretched a woman, decently dressed, with a child of two or three years lying on her breast. They both looked very pale; one of the woman's arms was hanging down; her sleeve was stained with blood; the hand had been carried away.—"Where were they wounded?" I asked.—"Wounded! they are dead. It is the wife and child of the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram; if you will go and break the news to him you will do us a good service."

It was therefore quite true, certain, incontestable. The balls and shells of the Versaillais were not content with killing the combatants and knocking down the forts and ramparts. They were also killing women and children, ordinary passers-by; not only those who were attracted by an imprudent curiosity to go where they had no business, but unfortunates who were necessarily obliged to venture into the neighbouring streets, for the purpose of buying bread. Not only do the shells of the National Assembly reach the buildings situated close to the city walls, but they often fall considerably farther in, crushing inoffensive houses, and breaking the sculpture on the public monuments. No one can deny this. I have seen it with my own eyes. Anyhow, the projectiles fall nearer and nearer the centre. Yesterday they fell in the Avenue de la Grande Armee; to-day they fly over the Arc de Triomphe, and fall in the Place d'Eylau and the Avenue d'Uhrich. Who knows but what to-morrow they will have reached the Place de la Concorde, and the next day perhaps I may be killed by one on the Boulevard Montmartre? Paris bombarded! Take care, gentlemen of the National Assembly! What the Prussians did, and what gave rise to such a clamour of indignation on the part of the Government of the 4th September, it will be both infamous and imprudent for you to attempt. You kill Frenchmen who are in arms against their countrymen,—alas! that is a horrible necessity in civil war,—but spare the lives and the dwellings of those who are not arrayed against you, and who are perhaps your allies. It is all very well to argue that guns are not endowed with the gifts of intelligence and mercy, and that one cannot make them do exactly what one likes; but what have you done with those marvellous marksmen who, during the siege, continually threw down the enemy's batteries and interrupted his works with such extraordinary precision, and who pretended that at a distance of seven thousand metres they could hit the gilded spike of a Prussian helmet? Wherefore have they become so clumsy since they changed places with their adversaries? Joking apart, in a word, you are doing yourself the greatest injury in being so uselessly cruel; every shell overleaping the fortifications is not only a crime, but a great mistake. Remember, that in this horrible duel which is going on, victory will not really remain with that party which shall have triumphed over the other, by the force of arms (yours undoubtedly), but to the one who, by his conduct, shall have succeeded in proving to the neutral population, which observes and judges, that right was on his side. I do not say but what your cause is the best; for although we may have to reproach you with an imprudent resistance, unnecessary attacks, and a wilful obstinacy not to see what was legitimate and honourable in the wishes of the Parisians, still we must consider that you represent, legally, the whole of France. I do not say, therefore, but what your cause is the best; frankly though, can you hope to bring over to your side that large body of citizens, whose confidence you had shaken, by massacring innocent people in the streets, and destroying their dwellings? If this bombardment continues, if it increases in violence as it seems likely to do, you will become odious, and then, were you a hundred times in the right, you will still be in the wrong. Therefore, it is most urgent that you give orders to the artillerymen of Courbevoie and Mont Valerien, to moderate their zeal, if you do not desire that Paris—neutral Paris—should make dangerous comparisons between the Assembly which flings us its shells, and the Commune which launches its decrees, and come to the conclusion that decrees are less dangerous missiles than cannon-balls. As to the legality of the thing, we do not much care about that; we have seen so many governments, more or less legal, that we are somewhat blases on that point; and a few millions of votes have scarcely power enough to put us in good humour with shot and shell. Certainly the Commune, such as the men at the Hotel de Ville have constituted it, is not a brilliant prospect. It arrests priests, stops newspapers, wishes to incorporate us, in spite of ourselves, in the National Guard; robs us—so we are told; lies inveterately—that is incontestable, and altogether makes itself a great bore; but what does that matter?—human nature is full of weaknesses, and prefers to be bored than bombarded.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: The game of pitch-halfpenny, in, which, in France, a cork (bouchon), with halfpence on the top of it, is placed on the ground.]

[Footnote 47: General Eudes was the Alcibiades, or rather the Saint Just, of the Commune. He had the face and manners of a fashionable tenorino, the luxurious taste of the Athenian, the cruel inflexibility of Robespierre's protege. He was born at Bonay, in the arrondissement of Coutances. His father was a tradesman of the Boulevard des Italians. In his examination before the Council of War in August, 1870, Eudes called himself a shorthand writer and law student, though his real position was said to be that of a linendraper's clerk. His first notable exploit was the assassination of a fireman at La Villette. For this crime he was brought before the First Council of War at Paris. Here he informed the President, in somewhat unparliamentary terms, that "the betrayers of the country were not the Republicans, and that to destroy the Imperial Government was to annihilate the Prussians." In spite of the eloquent appeal of his counsel, he was condemned to death. The events of the fourth of September prevented the execution of this sentence, and he lived to take an active part in the agitation of the thirty-first of October. He was again tried for this conduct and acquitted, together with Vermorel, Ribaldi, Lefrancais and others. Eudes' name figures in the first decrees of the Commune, and on the last of those of the Committee of Public Safety. On the second of April he was appointed Delegate for War, and, conjointly with Cluseret, organised ten corps of the Enfants Perdus of Belleville. He promised to each of his volunteers an annuity of 300 francs and a decoration. Eudes was an atheist of the most violent type, and sayings are attributed to him which make one shudder.]



XXXIX.

Where is Bergeret? What have they done with Bergeret? We miss Bergeret. They have no right to suppress Bergeret, who, according to the official document, was "himself" at Neuilly; Bergeret, who drove to battle in an open carriage; who enlivened our ennui with a little fun. They were perfectly at liberty to take away his command and give it to whomsoever they chose; I am quite agreeable to that, but they had no right to take him away and prevent him amusing us. Alas! we do not have the chance so often![48]

Rumours are afloat that he has been taken to the Conciergerie. Poor Bergeret! and why is he so treated? Because he got the Federals beaten in trying to lead them to Versailles?



Citizens, if you will allow me to express my humble opinion on the subject, I shall take the opportunity of insinuating that the plan of Citizen Bergeret—which has, I acknowledge, been completely unsuccessful—was the only possible one capable of transforming into a triumphant revolution, the emeute of Montmartre, now the Commune of Paris.

Let us look at it from a logical point of view, if you please. Does it seem possible to you, that Paris can hold its own against the whole of the rest of France? No, most certainly not. Today, especially, after the disasters that have occurred to the communal insurrectionists of Marseilles, Lyons, and Toulouse—disasters which your lying official reports have in vain tried to transform into successes; today, I say, you cannot possibly nourish any delusive hopes of help from the provinces. In a few days, you will have the whole country in array in front of your ramparts and your ruined fortresses, and then you are lost; yes, lost, in spite of all the blinded heroism of those whom you have beguiled to the slaughter. The only hope you could reasonably have conceived was that of profiting by the first moment of surprise and disorder, which the victorious revolt had occasioned among the small number of hesitating soldiery which then constituted the whole of the French army; to surprise Versailles, inadequately defended, and seize, if it were possible, on the Assembly and the Government. Your sudden revolution wanted to be followed up by a brusque attack, there would then have been some hope—a faint one, I confess, but still a hope, and this plan of Bergeret, by the very reason of its audacity, should not have been condemned by you, who have only succeeded through violence and audacity, and can only go on prospering by the same means. Now what do you mean to do? To resist the whole of France? To resist your enemies inside the walls, besides those enemies outside, who increase in numbers and confidence every day? Your defeat is certain, and from this day forth is only a question of time. You were decidedly wrong to put Bergeret "in the shade" as they say at the Hotel de Ville,—firstly, because he amused us; and secondly, because he tried the only thing that could possibly have succeeded—an enterprise worthy of a brilliant madman.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: General Bergeret, Member of the Central Committee, Delegate of War, &c., was a bookseller's assistant. He emerged in 1869 from a printing-office to support the irreconcileable candidates in the election meetings.

Events progressed, and on the 18th of March Victor Bergeret reappeared, resplendent in gold lace and embroidery, happy to have found at last a government, to which Jules Favre did not belong.

When Bergeret, who never had any higher grade than that of sergeant in the National Guard, was made general, he believed himself to be a soldier. A friend of this pasteboard officer said one day, "If Bergeret were to live a hundred years, he would always swear he had been a general."

On the 8th April, Victor Bergeret was arrested by order of the Executive Commission for having refused obedience to Cluseret, a general too, and his superior, and he was incarcerated in the prison of Mazas, where he remained for a short time, until the day when Cluseret was shut up there himself. In fact, Cluseret went into the very cell which Bergeret had just quitted, and found an autograph note written on the wall by his predecessor, and addressed to himself. The words ran thus:—

"CITIZEN CLUSERET,—

"You have had me shut up here, and you will be here yourself before eight days are over.

"GENERAL BERGERET."

On leaving the prison of Mazas, Bergeret was still kept a prisoner for a time in a magnificent apartment of the Hotel de Ville, decorated with gilded panneling and cerise-coloured satin. His wife was allowed to join him here, and he also obtained permission to keep with him a little terrier, of which he was extremely fond. Shortly afterwards he was reinstated, took his place again in the Communal Assembly, and was attached to the commission of war. The beautiful palace of the president of the Corps Legislatif was now his residence, and there he delighted in receiving the friends who had known him when he was poor. His invariable home-dress in palace as in prison, was red from head to foot: red jacket, red trousers, and red Phrygian cap.

One day, a short time after his release from prison, he said to an intimate friend:—"Affairs are going well, but the Commune is in need of money, I know it, and they are wrong not to confide in me. I would lend them ten thousand francs willingly." The generalship had singularly enriched the booksellers assistant, Victor Bergeret.]



XL.

Who takes Bergeret's place? Dombrowski.[49] Who had the idea of doing this? Cluseret. First of all we had the Central Committee, then we had the Commune, and now we have Cluseret. It looks as if Cluseret had swallowed the Commune, which had previously swallowed and only half digested the Central Committee. We are told that Cluseret is a great man, that Cluseret is strong, that Cluseret will save Paris. Cluseret issues decrees, and sees that they are executed. The Commune says, "we wish;" but Cluseret says, "I wish." It is he who has conceived and promulgated the following edict:

"In consideration of the patriotic demands of a large number of National Guards, who, although they are married men, wish to have the honour of defending their municipal rights, even at the expense of their lives ..."

I should like to know some of those National Guards who attach so little importance to their lives! Show me two, and I will myself consent to be the third. But I am interrupting Dictator Cluseret.

"The decree of the fifth of April is therefore modified:"

The decree of the fifth of April was made by the Commune, but Cluseret does not care a straw for that.

"From seventeen to nineteen, service in the marching-companies is voluntary, but from nineteen to forty it is obligatory for the National Guards, married or unmarried.

"I recommend all good patriots to be their own police, and to see that this edict is carried out in their respective quartern, and to force the refractory to serve."

As to the last paragraph of Cluseret's decree it is impossible to joke about it, it is by far too odious. This exhortation in favour of a press-gang,—this wish that each man should become a spy upon his neighbour (he says it in so many words), fills me with anger and disgust. What! I may be passing in the streets, going about my own business, and the first Federal who pleases, anybody with dirty hands, a wretch you may be sure, for none but a wretch would follow the recommendations of Cluseret,—an escaped convict, may take me by the collar and say, "Come along and be killed for the sake of my municipal independence." Or else I may be in bed at night, quietly asleep, as it is clearly my right to be, and four or five fellows, fired with patriotic ardour, may break in my door, if I do not hasten to open it on the first summons like a willing slave, and, whether I like it or not, drag me in night-cap and slippers, in my shirt perhaps, if it so pleases the brave sans-culottes, to the nearest outpost. Now I swear to you, Cluseret, I would not bear this, if I had not, during the last few hungry days of the siege, sold to a curiosity dealer—your colleague now in the Commune—my revolver, which I had hoped naively might defend me against the Prussians! Think, a revolver with six balls, if you please, and which, alas! I forgot to discharge!

We can only hope that even at this moment, when the revolution has brought out of the darkness into the light, so many rascals and cowards, just as the sediment rises to the top when the wine is shaken, we must hope, that there will be found in Paris, nobody to undertake the mean office of spy and detective; and that the decree of M. Cluseret will remain a dead-letter, like so many other decrees of the Commune. I will not believe all I am told; I will not believe that last night several men, without any precise orders, without any legal character whatever, merely National Guards, introduced themselves into peaceful families; waking the wife and children, and carrying off the husband as one carries off a housebreaker or an escaped convict. I am told that this is a fact, that it has happened more than fifty times at Montmartre, Batignolles, and Belleville; yet I will not believe it.[50] I prefer to believe that these tales are "inventions of Versailles" than to admit the possibility of such infamy.

Come now, Cluseret, War Delegate, whatever he likes to call himself. Where does he come from, what has he done, and what services has he rendered, to give him a right thus to impose his sovereign wishes upon us?

He is not a Frenchman; nor is he an American; for the honour of France I prefer his being an American. His history is as short as it is inglorious. He once served in the French army, and left, one does not know why; then went to fight in America during the war. His enemies affirm that he fought for the Slave States, his friends the contrary. It does not seem very clear which side he was on—both, perhaps. Oh, America! you had taken him from us, why did you not keep him? Cluseret came back to us with the glory of having forsworn his country. Immediately the revolutionists received him with open arms. Only think, an American! Do you like America? People want to make an America everywhere. Modern Republics have had formidable enemies to contend with—America and the revolution of '98. We are sad parodists. We cannot be free in our own fashion, but are always obliged to imitate what has been or what is. But that which is adapted to one climate or country, is it always that which is the fittest thing for another? I will return, however, to this subject another time. America, who is so vaunted, and whom I should admire as much as could reasonably be wished, if men did not try to remodel France after her image, one must be blind not to see what she has of weakness and of narrowness, amid much that is truly grand. It was said to me once by some one, "The American mind may be compared to a compound liqueur, composed of the yeast of Anglo-Saxon beer, the foam of Spanish wines, and the dregs of the petit-bleu of Suresnes, heated to boiling point by the applause and admiration given by the genuine pale ale, the true sherry, and authentic Chateau-Margaux to these their deposits. From time to time the caldron seethes with a little too much violence, and the bubbling drink pours over upon the old world, bringing back to the pure source, to the true vintage, their deteriorated products. Oh! The poor wines of France! How many adulterations have they been submitted to!" Calumny and exaggeration no doubt; but I am angry with America for sending Cluseret back, as I am angry with the Commune for having imposed him on Paris. The Commune, however, has an admirable excuse: it has not, perhaps, found among true Frenchmen one with an ambition criminal enough to direct, according to her wishes, the destruction of Paris by Paris, and France by France.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: There are two versions of Dombrowski's earlier history. By his admirers he was said to have headed the last Polish insurrection: the party of order stigmatise him as a Russian adventurer, who had fought in Poland, but against the Poles, and in the Caucasus, in Italy, and in France—wherever; in fine, blows were to be given and money earned. He entered France, like many other adventurous knights, in Garibaldi's suite, came to Paris after the siege, and immediately after the outbreak of the eighteenth of March was created general by the Commune, and gathered round him in guise of staff the most illustrious, or least ignoble, of those foreign parasites and vagabonds, who have made of Paris a grand occidental Bohemian Babel. These soldiers of fortune, most of whom had been "unfortunate" at home, formed the marrow of the Commune's military strength.

Dombrowski had gained a name for intrepidity even among these men of reckless courage and adventurous lives. He maintained strict discipline, albeit to a not very moral purpose. Whoever dared connect his name with the word defeat was shot. Like many other Communist generals he took the most stringent measures for concealing the truth from his soldiers, and thus staved off total demoralisation until the Versailles troops were in the heart of Paris. His relations with the Federal authorities were not of an uniformly amiable character.]

[Footnote 50: A poor Italian smith told me he had three men seized. They had taken a stove near the fortifications of Ternes, when they were arrested. "But we are Italians!" they cried. It was no excuse, for the Federals replied, "Italians! so much the better; you shall serve as Garibaldians!"]



XLI.

It was not enough that men should be riddled with balls and torn to pieces by shells. The women are also seized with a strange enthusiasm in their turn, and they too fall on the battle-field, victims of a terrible heroism. What extraordinary beings are these who exchange the needle for the needle-gun, the broom for the bayonet, who quit their children that they may die by the sides of their husbands or lovers? Amazons of the rabble, magnificent and abject, something between Penthesilea and Theroigne de Mericourt. There they are seen to pass as cantinieres, among those who go forth to fight. The men are furious, the women are ferocious,—nothing can appal, nothing discourage them. At Neuilly, a vivandiere is wounded in the head; she turns back a moment to staunch the blood, then returns to her post of danger. Another, in the 61st Battalion, boasts of having killed three gardiens de la paix[51] and several gendarmes. On the plain of Chatillon a woman joins a group of National Guards, takes her stand amongst them, loads her gun, fires, re-loads and fires again, without the slightest interruption. She is the last to retire, and even then turns back again and again to fire. A cantiniere of the 68th Battalion was killed by a fragment of shell which broke the little spirit-barrel she carried, and sent the splinters into her stomach. After the engagement of the 3rd of April, nine bodies were brought to the mairie of Vaugirard. The poor women of the quarter crowd there, chattering and groaning, to look for husbands, brothers and son's. They tear a dingy lantern from each other, and put it close to the pale faces of the dead, amongst whom they find the body of a young woman literally riddled with shot. What means the wild rage that seizes upon these furies? Are they conscious of the crimes they commit; do they understand the cause for which they die? Yesterday, in a shop of the Rue de Montreuil, a woman entered with her gun on her shoulder and her bayonet covered with blood. "Wouldn't you do better to stay at home and wash your brats?" said an indignant neighbour. Whereupon arose a furious altercation, the virago working herself into such a fury that she sprang upon her adversary, and bit her violently in the throat, then withdrew a few steps, seized her gun, and was going to fire, when she suddenly turned pale, her weapon fell from her hands, and she sank back dead. In her wild passion she had broken a blood vessel. Such are the women of the people in this terrible year of 1871. It has its cantinieres as '93 had its tricoteuses,[52] but the cantinieres are preferable, for the horrible in them partakes of a savage grandeur. Fighting as they are against brothers and kinsfolk, they are revolting, but against a foreign enemy, they would have been sublime.

Children, even, do not remain passive in this fearful conflict. The children! you cry,—but do not smile; one of my friends has just seen a poor boy whose eye has been knocked in with the point of a nail. It happened thus. It was on Friday evening in the principal street of Neuilly. Two hundred boys—the eldest scarcely twelve years old—had assembled there; they carried sticks on their shoulders, with knives and nails stuck at the end of them. They had their army roll, and their numbers were called over in form, and their chiefs—for they had chiefs—gave the order to form into half sections, then to march in the direction of Charenton; a mite of a child trudged before, blowing in a penny trumpet bought at a toy-shop, and they had a cantiniere, a little girl of six. Soon, they met another troop of children of about the same numbers. Had the encounter been previously arranged? Had it been decided that they should give battle? I cannot tell you this, but at all events the battle took place, one party being for the Versailles troops, the other for the Federals. Such a battle, that the inhabitants of the quarter had the greatest difficulty in separating the combatants, and there were killed and wounded, as the official despatches of the Commune would give it; Alexis Mercier, a lad of twelve, whom his comrades had raised to the dignity of captain, was killed by the blow of a knife in the stomach.

Ah! believe it, these women drunk with hate, these children playing at murder, are symptoms of the terrible malady of the times. A few days hence, and this fury for slaughter will have seized all Paris.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: The Gardiens de la Paix replaced the Sergents de Ville. They carried no sword, and wore a cap with a tricoloured band and cockade; in fact were the policemen of Paris. The Gendarmerie are the country police.]

[Footnote 52: Tricoteuses (knitters), women who attended political clubs—working whilst they listened—1871 refined upon the idea of 1793. The first revolution had its Tricoteuses, that of 1871 its Petroleuses!!!]



XLII.

May conciliation be hoped for yet? Alas! I can scarcely think so. The bloody fight will have a bloody end. It is not alone between the Commune of Paris and the Assembly of Versailles that there lies an abyss which only corpses can fill. Paris itself, at this moment—I mean the Paris sincerely desirous of peace—is no longer understood by France; a few days of separation have caused strange divisions in men's minds; the capital seems to speak the country's language no longer. Timbuctoo is not as far from Pekin, as Versailles is distant from Paris. How can one hope under such circumstances, that the misunderstanding, the sole cause of our misfortunes, can be cleared away? How can one believe that the Government of Monsieur Thiers will lend an ear to the propositions carried there by the members of the Republican Union of the rights of Paris,[53] by the delegates of Parisian trade and by the emissaries of the Freemasons;[54] when the principal object of all these propositions is the definitive establishment of the Republic, and the fall and entire recognition of our municipal liberties. The National Assembly is at the same point as it was on the eve of the 18th of March; it disregards now, as it did then, the legitimate wishes of the population, and, moreover, it will not perceive the fact that the triumphant insurrection—in spite of the excesses that everyone condemns—has naturally added to the validity of our just revendications. The "Communists" are wrong, but the Commune, the true Commune, is right; this is what Paris believes, and, unhappily, this is what Versailles will not understand; it wants to remain, as to the form of its government, weakly stationary; it makes a municipal law that will be judged insufficient; and, as it obstinately persists in errors which were worn out a month ago and are rotten now, they will soon consider the "conciliators" whose ideas have progressed from day to day, as the veritable agents of the insurrection, and send them, purely and simply, about their business.

Nevertheless, the desire of seeing this fratricidal war at an end, is so great, so ardent, so general, that convinced as we are of the uselessness of their efforts, we admire and encourage those who undertake the almost hopeless task of pacification with persistent courage. True Paris has now but one flag, which is neither the crimson rag nor the tricolour standard, but the white flag of truce.



XLIII.

Do you know what the Abbaye de Cinq-Pierres is, or rather what it was? Mind, not Saint-Pierre, but Cinq-Pierres (Five Stones). Gavroche,[55] who loves puns and is very fond of slang, gave this nickname to a set of huge stones which stood before the prison of La Roquette, and on which the guillotine used to be erected on the mornings when a capital punishment was to take place. The executioner was the Abbe de Cinq-Pierres, for Gavroche is as logical as he is ingenious. Well! the abbey exists no longer, swept clean away from the front of the Roquette prison. This is splendid! and as for the guillotine itself, you know what has been done with that. Oh! we had a narrow escape! Would you believe that that infamous, that abominable Government of Versailles, conceived the idea, at the time it sat in Paris, of having a new and exquisitely improved guillotine, constructed by anonymous carpenters? It is exactly as I have the honour of telling you. You can easily verify the fact by reading the proclamation of the "sous-comite en exercice." What is the "active under-committee?" I admit that I am in total ignorance on the subject; but, what does it matter! In these times when committees spring up like mushrooms, it would be absurd to allow oneself to be astonished at a committee—and especially a sub-committee—more or less. Here is the proclamation:—

"CITIZENS,—Being informed that a guillotine is at this moment in course of construction,..." Dear me, yes, while you were fast asleep and dreaming, with no other apprehension than that of being sent to prison by the members of the Commune, a guillotine was being made. Happily, the sub-committee was not asleep. No, not they! "... a guillotine ordered and paid for ...". Are you quite sure it was paid for, good sub-committee? For that Government, you know, had such a habit of cheating poor people out of their rights. "... by the late odious government; a portable and rapid guillotine." Ha! What do you say to that? Does not that make your blood run cold? Rapid, you understand; that is to say, that the guillotining of twelve or fifteen hundred patriots in a morning would have been play to the Abbe of Cinq-Pierres. And portable, too! A sort of pocket guillotine. When the members of the Government had a circuit to make in the provinces, they would have carried their guillotine with their seals of office, and if, at Lyons, Marseilles, or any other great town, they had met a certain number of scoundrels—Snip, snap! In the twinkling of an eye, no more scoundrels left. Oh! how cunning! But let us go on reading. "The sub-committee of the eleventh arrondissement ..." Oh! so there is a sub-committee for each arrondisement, is there? "... has had these infamous instruments of monarchical domination ..." One for you, Monsieur Thiers! "... seized, and has voted their destruction for ever." Very good intentions, sub-committee, but you can't write grammar. "In consequence, they will be burnt in front of the mairie, for the purification of the arrondissement and the preservation of the new liberties." And accordingly, a guillotine was burnt on the 7th of April, at ten o'clock in the morning, before the statue of Voltaire.

The ceremony was not without a certain weirdness. In the midst of a compact crowd of men, women, and children, who shook their fists at the odious instrument, some National Guards of the 187th Battalion fed the huge flames with broken pieces of the guillotine, which crackled, blistered, and blazed, while the statue of the old philosopher, wrapped in the smoke, must have sniffed the incense with delight. When nothing remained but a heap of glowing ashes, the crowd shouted with joy; and for my own part, I fully approved of what had just been done as well as of the approbation of the spectators. But, between you and me, do you not think that many of the persons there had often stationed themselves around the guillotine with rather different intentions than that of seeing it burnt? And then, if in reducing this instrument of death to ashes, they wished to prove that the time is past when men put men to death, it seems to me that they ought not to stop at this. While we are at it, let us burn the muskets too,—what say you?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 53: The citizens, united under the denomination of the League of Republican Union of the Rights of Paris, had adopted the following programme, which seemed to them to express the wishes of the population:—

"Recognition of the Republic.

"Recognition of the rights of Paris to govern itself, to regulate its police, its finances, its public charities, its public instruction, and the exercise of its religious liberty by a council freely elected and all-powerful within the scope of its action.

"The protection of Paris exclusively confided to the National Guard, formed of all citizens fit to serve.

"It is to the defence of this programme that the members of the League wish to devote their efforts, and they appeal to all citizens to aid them in the work, by making known their adhesion, so that the members of the League, thereby strengthened and supported, may exercise a powerful mediatory influence, tending to bring about the return of peace, and to secure the maintenance of the Republic.

"Paris, 6th April, 1871."

Here follow the signatures of former representatives, maires, doctors, lawyers, literary men, merchants, and others.]

[Footnote 54: MANIFESTO OF THE FREEMASONS.

"In the presence of the fearful events which make all France shudder and mourn, in the sight of the precious blood that flows in streams, the Freemasons, who represent the sentiments of humanity and have spread them through the world, come once more to declare before you, government and members of the Assembly, and before you, members of the Commune, these great principles which are their law and which ought to be the law of every one who has the heart of a man.

"The flag of the Freemasons bears inscribed upon it, the noble device—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Union. The Freemasons uphold peace among men, and, in the name of humanity, proclaim the inviolability of human life. The Freemasons detest all wars, and cannot sufficiently express grief and horror at civil warfare. Their duty and their right are to come between you and to say:

"'In the name of humanity, in the name of fraternity, in the name of the distracted country, put a stop to this effusion of blood; we ask of you, we implore of you, to listen to our appeal.'"]

[Footnote 55: Gavroche is a street boy of Paris, a gamin immortalized by Victor Hugo in "Les Miserables," a master of Parisian argot (slang).]



XLIV.

I have just witnessed a horrible scene. Alas! what harrowing spectacles meet our eyes on every side, and will still before all this comes to an end. I accompanied a poor old woman to a cemetery in the east of Paris. Her son, who had engaged himself in a battalion of Federal guards, had not been home for five days. He was most likely dead, the neighbours said, and one bade her "go and look at the Cimetiere de l'Est, they have brought in a load of bodies there." Imagine a deep trench and about thirty coffins placed side by side. Numbers of people came there to claim their own among the dead. To avoid crowding, the National Guards made the people walk in order, two or three abreast, and thus they were marshalled among the tombs and crosses. The poor woman and I followed the others. From time to time I heard a burst of sobs; some one amongst the dead had been recognised. On we go slowly, step by step, as if we were at the doors of a theatre. At last we arrive before the first coffin. The poor mother I have come with is very weak and very sad; it is I who lift up the thin lid of the coffin. A grey-haired corpse is lying within it, from the shoulders downwards nothing but a heap of torn flesh, and clothes, and congealed blood. We continue on. The second coffin also contains the body of an old man; no wounds are to be seen; he was probably killed by a ball. Still we advance. I observe that the old men are in far greater number than the young. The wounds are often fearful. Sometimes the face is entirely mutilated. When I had closed the lid of the last coffin the poor mother uttered a cry of relief; her son was not there! For myself, I was stupefied with horror, and only recovered my senses on being pushed on by the men behind me, who wanted to see in their turn. "Well! when will he have done?" said one. "I suppose he thinks that it is all for him."



XLV.

What is absolutely stupefying in the midst of all this, is the smiling aspect of the streets and the promenades. The constantly increasing emigration is only felt by the diminution in the number of depraved women and dissipated men; enough, however, remain to fill the cafes and give life to the boulevards. It might almost be said that Paris is in its normal state.

Every morning, from the Champs Elysees, Les Ternes, and Vaugirard, families are seen removing into the town, out of the way of the bombardment, as at the time when Jules Favre anathematised the barbarity of the Prussians. Some pass in cabs, others on foot, walking sadly, with their bedding and household furniture piled on a cart. If you question these poor people, they will all tell you of the shells from the Versailles batteries, destroying houses and killing women and children. What matters it? Paris goes her usual round of business and pleasure. The Commune suppresses journals and imprisons journalists. Monsieur Richardet, of the National, was marched off to prison yesterday, for the sole crime of having requested a passport of the savage Monsieur Rigault; the Commune thrusts the priests into cells, and turns out the young girls from the convents, imprisons Monsieur O'yan, one of the directors of the Seminary of St. Sulpice; hurls a warrant of arrest at Monsieur Tresca, who escapes; tries to capture Monsieur Henri Vrignault, who however, succeeds in reaching a place of safety; the Commune causes perquisitions to be made by armed men in the banking houses, seizes upon title deeds and money; has strong-boxes burst open by willing locksmiths; when the locksmiths are tired, the soldiers of the Commune help them with the butt-ends of their muskets. They do worse still, these Communists—they do all that the consciousness of supreme power can suggest to despots without experience; each day they send honest fathers of families to their death, who think they are suffering for the good cause, when they are only dying for the good pleasure of Monsieur Avrial and Monsieur Billioray. Well! and what is Paris doing all this time? Paris reads the papers, lounges, runs after the last news and ejaculates: "Ah! ah! they have put Amouroux into prison! The Archbishop of Paris has been transferred from the Conciergerie to Mazas! Several thousand francs have been stolen from Monsieur Denouille! Diable! Diable!" And then Paris begins the same round of newspaper reading, lounging, and gossiping again. Nothing seems changed. Nothing seems interrupted. Even the proclamation of the famous Cluseret, who threatens us all with active service in the marching regiments, has not succeeded in troubling the tranquillity and indifference of the greater number of Parisians. They look on at what is taking place, as at a performance, and only bestow just enough interest upon it to afford them amusement. This evening the cannonading has increased; on listening attentively, we can distinguish the sounds of platoon-firing; but Paris takes its glass of beer tranquilly at the Cafe de Madrid and its Mazagran at the Cafe Riche. Sometimes, towards midnight, when the sky is clear, Paris goes to the Champs Elysees, to see things a little nearer, strolls under the trees, and smoking a cigar exclaims: "Ah! there go the shells." Then leisurely compares the roar of the battle of to-day to that of yesterday. In strolling about thus in the neighbourhood of the shells, Paris exposes itself voluntarily to danger; Paris is indifferent, and use is second nature. Then bed-time comes, Paris looks over the evening papers, and asks, with a yawn, where the devil all this will end? By a conciliation? Or the Prussians perhaps? And then Paris falls asleep, and gets up the next morning, just as fresh and lusty as if Napoleon the Third were still Emperor by the grace of God and the will of the French nation.



XLVI.

An insertion in the Journal Officiel of Versailles has justly irritated the greater part of the French press. This is the paragraph. "False news of the most infamous kind has been spread in Paris where no independent journal is allowed to appear." From these few lines it may be concluded, that in the eyes of the Government of Versailles the whole of the Paris newspapers, whose editors have not deserted their posts, have entirely submitted to the Commune, and only think and say what the Commune permits them to think and say. This is an egregious calumny. No, thank heaven! The Parisian press has not renounced its independence, and if no account is taken (as is perfectly justifiable) of a heap of miserable little sheets which no sooner appear than they die, and of some few others edited by members of the Commune, one would be obliged to acknowledge, on the contrary, that since the 18th of March the great majority of journals have exhibited proofs of a proud and courageous independence. Each day, without allowing themselves to be intimidated, either by menaces of forcible suppression or threats of arrest, they have fearlessly told the members of the Commune their opinion without concealment or circumlocution. The French press has undoubtedly committed many offences during the last few years, and is not altogether irresponsible for the troubles which have overwhelmed the unhappy country; but reparation is being made for these offences in this present hour of danger, and the fearless attitude which it has maintained before these men of the Hotel de Ville, atones nobly for the past. It has constituted itself judge; condemns what is condemnable, resists violence, endeavours to enlighten the masses. Sometimes too—and this is perhaps its greatest crime in the eyes of the Versailles Government—it permits itself to disapprove entirely of the acts of the National Assembly; some journals going as far as to insinuate that the Government is not altogether innocent of the present calamities. But what does this prove? That the press is no more the servant of the Assembly than it is the slave of the Commune; in a word, that it is free.

And what false news is this of which the Journal Officiel of Versailles complains, and against which it seems to warn us? Does it think it likely that we should be silly enough to give credence to the shouts of victory that are recorded each morning, on the handbills of the Commune? Does it suppose that we look upon the deputies as nothing but a race of anthropophagi who dine every day off Communists and Federals at the tables d'hote of the Hotel des Reservoirs? Not at all. We easily unravel the truth, from the entanglement of exaggerations forged by the men of the Hotel de Ville; and it is precisely this just appreciation of things that we owe to those papers which the Journal Officiel condemns so inconsiderately.

But it is not of fake news alone, probably, that the Versailles Assembly is afraid. It would not perhaps be sorry that we should ignore the real state of things, and I wager that if it had the power it would willingly suppress ill-informed journals—although they are not Communist the least in the world—who allow themselves to state that for six days the shells of Versailles have fallen upon Les Ternes, the Champs Elysees and the Avenue Wagram, and have already cost as many tears and as much bloodshed, as the Prussian shells of fearful memory.



XLVII.

Wednesday, 12th April.—Another day passed as yesterday was, as to-morrow will be. The Versaillais attack the forts of Vanves and Issy and are repulsed. There is fighting at Neuilly, at Bagneux, at Asnieres. In the town requisitions and arrests are being made. A detachment of National Guards arrives before the Northern railway-station. They inquire for the director, but director there is none. Embarrassing situation this. The National Guards cannot come all this way for nothing. Determined on arresting some one, they carry off M. Felix Mathias, head of the works, and M. Coutin, chief inspector. An hour later other National Guards imprison M. Lucien Dubois, general inspector of markets, in the depot of the ex-Prefecture of Police. Here and there a few journalists are arrested without cause, to serve as examples; some priests are despatched to Mazas, among others M. Lartigues, cure of Saint Leu. Yesterday the following was placarded on the shut doors of the church at Montmartre:

"Since priests are bandits and churches retreats where they have morally assassinated the masses, causing France to cower beneath the clutches of the infamous Bonapartes, Favres, and Trochus, the delegates of the stone masons at the ex-Prefecture of Police give orders that the church of Saint-Pierre (not Cinq-Pierres this time) shall be closed, and decrees the imprisonment of its priests and its Freres Ignorantins. Signed by Le Mousau."

To-day it is the turn of the church of Notre Dame de Lorette. A considerable number of worshippers had assembled in the holy place. The National Guards arrive, headed by men in plain clothes. Under the Empire such men were called spies. The women found praying are turned out, those who do not obey promptly enough, with blows. This done, the guards retire. What they had come there for is not known. But what we are certain of is, that they will begin again to-morrow in this same church, or in another. The days resemble each other as the children of an accursed family. What frightful catastrophe will break this shameful monotony?



XLVIII.

Eh! What? It is impossible! Are your brains scattered? I speak figuratively, awaiting the time when they will be scattered in earnest. It must be some miserable jester who has worded, printed, and placarded this unconscionable decree. But no, it is in the usual form, the usual type. This is rather too much, Gentlemen of the Commune; it outsteps the bounds of the ridiculous; you count a little too much this time on the complicity of some of the population, and on the patience of others. Here is the decree:



"THE COMMUNE OF PARIS,

"Considering that the Imperial column of the Place Vendome is a monument of barbarian, a symbol of brute force, of false glory, an encouragement of military spirit, a denial of international rights, a permanent insult offered by the conquerors to the conquered, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the French Republic, namely: Fraternity,

"Decrees:

"Sole article.—The Colonne Vendome is to be demolished."

Now I must tell you plainly, you are absurd, contemptible, and odious! This sorry farce outstrips all one could have imagined, and all that the Versailles papers said of you must have been true; for what you are doing now is worse than anything they could ever have dared to imagine. It was not enough to violate the churches, to suppress the liberties,—the liberty of writing, the liberty of speaking, the liberty of free circulation, the liberty of risking one's life or not. It was not enough that blood should be recklessly spilled, that women should be made widows and children orphans, trade stopped and commerce ruined; it was not enough that the dignity of defeat—the only glory remaining—should be swallowed up in the shameful disaster of civil war; in a word, it was not sufficient to have destroyed the present, compromised the future; you wish now to obliterate the past! Funereal mischief! Why, the Colonne Vendome is France, and a trophy of its past greatness,—alas, at present in the shade—is not the monument, but the record of a victorious race who strode through the world conquering as they went, planting the tricolour everywhere. In destroying the Colonne Vendome, do not imagine that you are simply overthrowing a bronze column surmounted by the statue of an emperor; you disinter the remains of your forefathers to shake their fleshless bones, and say to them, "You were wrong in being brave and proud and great; you were wrong to conquer towns, to win battles; you were wrong to astound the universe by raising the vision of France glorified. It is scattering to the wind the ashes of heroes! It is telling those aged soldiers, seen formerly in the streets (where are they now? Why do we meet them no longer? Have you killed them, or does their glory refuse to come in contact with your infamy?) It is telling the maimed soldiers of the Invalides, "You are but blockheads and brigands. So you have lost a leg, and you an arm! So much the worse for you idle scamps. Look on these rascals crippled for their country's honour!" It is like snatching from them the crosses they have won, and delivering them into the hands of the shameless street urchins, who will cry, "A hero! a hero!" as they cry "Thief! thief!" There is certainly purer and less costly grandeur than that which results from war and conquests. You are free to dream for your country a glory different to the ancient glory; but the heroic past, do not overthrow it, do not suppress it, now especially, when you have nothing with which to replace it, but the disgraces of the present. Yet, no! Complete your work, continue in the same path. The destruction of the Colonne Vendome is but a beginning, be logical and continue; I propose a few decrees:

"The Commune of Paris, considering that the Church of Notre Dame de Paris is a monument of superstition, a symbol of divine tyranny, an affirmation of fanaticism, a denial of human rights, a permanent insult offered by believers to atheists, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the Commune, namely, the convenience of its members,

"Decrees:

"The Church of Notre Dame shall be demolished."

What say you to my proposition? Does it not agree with your dearest desire? But you can do better and better: believe me you ought to have the courage of your opinions.

"The Commune of Paris, considering that the Museum of the Louvre contains a great number of pictures, of statues, and other objects of art, which, by the subjects they represent, bring eternally to the mind of the people the actions of gods, and kings, and priests; that these actions indicated by flattering brush or chisel are often delineated in such a way as to diminish the hatred that priests, kings, and gods should inspire to all good citizens; moreover, the admiration excited by the works of human genius is a perpetual assault on one of the great principles of the Commune, namely, its imbecility,

"Decrees:

"Sole article.—The Museum of the Louvre shall be burned to the ground."

Do not attempt to reply that in spite of the recollections of religion and despotism attached to these monuments you would leave Notre Dame and the Museum of the Louvre untouched for the sake of their artistic importance. Beware of insinuating that you would have respected the Colonne Vendome had it possessed some merit as a work of art. You! respect the masterpieces of human art! Wherefore? Since when, and by what right? No, little as you may have been known before you were masters, you were yet known enough for us to assert that one of you—whom I will name: M. Lefrancais—wished in 1848 to set fire to the Salon Carre; there is another of you—whom I will also name: M. Jules Valles—asserts that Homer was an old fool. It is true that M. Jules Valles is Minister of Public Instruction. If you have spared Notre Dame and the Museum of the Louvre up to this moment, it is that you dared not touch them, which is a proof, not of respect but of cowardice.

Ah! our eyes are open at last! We are no longer dazzled by the chimerical hopes we nourished for a moment, of obtaining, through you communal liberties. You did but adopt those opinions for the sake of misleading us, as a thief assumes the livery of a house to enter his master's room and lay hands on his money. We see you now as you are. We had hoped that you were revolutionists, too ardent, too venturous perhaps, but on the whole impelled by a noble intention: you are nothing but insurgents, insurgents whose aim is to sack and pillage, favoured by disturbances and darkness. If a few well-intentioned men were among you, they have fled in horror. Count your numbers, you are but a handful. If there still remain any among you, who have not lost all power of discriminating between justice and injustice, they look towards the door, and would fly if they dared. Yet this handful of furious fools governs Paris still. Some among us have been ordered to their death, and they have gone! How long will this last? Did we not surrender our arms? Can we not assemble, as we did a month ago near the Bank, and deal justice ourselves without awaiting an army from Versailles? Ah I we must acknowledge that the deputies of the Seine and the Maires of Paris, misled like ourselves, erred in siding with the insurrectionists. They wished to avert street fighting. Is the strife we are witnessing not far more horrible than that we have escaped? One day's struggle, and it would have ended. Yes, we were wrong to lay down our arms; but who could have believed—the excesses of the first few days seemed more like the sad consequences of popular effervescence than like premeditated crimes—who could have believed that the chiefs of the insurrection lied with such impudence as is now only too evident, and that before long the Commune would be the first to deprive us of the liberties it was its duty to protect and develope? The "Rurals" were right then,—they who had been so completely in the wrong in refusing to lend an attentive ear to the just prayers of a people eager for liberty, they were right when they warned us against the ignorance and wickedness of these men. Ah! were the National Assembly but to will it, there would yet be time to save Paris. If it really wished to establish a definite Republic, and concede to the capital of France the right, free and entire, of electing an independent municipality, with what ardour should we not rally round the legitimate Government! How soon would the Hotel de Ville be delivered from the contemptible men who have planted themselves there. If the National Assembly could only comprehend us! If it would only consent to give Paris its liberty, and France its tranquillity, by means of honourable concessions!



XLIX.

The delegates of the League of the Republican Union of the Rights of Paris returned from Versailles to-day, the 14th April, and published the following reports:—

"CITIZENS,—The undersigned, chosen by you to present your programme to the Government of Versailles, and to proffer the good offices of the League to aid in the conclusion of an armistice, have the honour of submitting you an account of their mission.

"The delegates, having made known to Monsieur Thiers the programme of the League, he replied that as chief of the sole legal government existing in France he had not to discuss the basis of a treaty, but notwithstanding he was quite ready to treat with such persons whom he considered as representing Republican principles, and to acquaint them with the intentions of the chief of the executive power.

"It is in accordance with these observations, which denote, in fact, the true character of our mission, that Monsieur Thiers has made the following declarations on different points of our programme.

"Respecting the recognition of the Republic, Monsieur Thiers answers for its existence as long as he remains in power. A Republican state was put into his hands, and he stakes his honour on its conservation."

Ay! it is precisely that which will not satisfy Paris—Paris sighing for peace and liberty. We have all the most implicit faith in Thiers' honour. We are assured that the words, "French Republic" will head the white Government placards as long as he remains in power. But when Thiers is withdrawn from power—National Assemblies can be capricious sometimes—what assures us that we shall not fall victims to a monarchical or even an imperial restoration? Ghosts can appear in French history as well as in Anne Radcliffe's novels. To attempt to consider the elected members who sit at Versailles as sincere Republicans is an effort beyond the powers of our credulity. You see that Thiers himself dares not speak his thoughts on what might happen were he to withdraw from power. Thus we find ourselves, as before, in a state of transition, and this state of transition is just what appals us. We address ourselves to the Assembly, and ask of it, "We are Republican; are you Republican?" And the Assembly pretends to be deaf, and the deputies content themselves with humming under their breaths, some the royal tune of "The White Cockade," and others the imperial air of "Partant pour la Syrie." This does not quite satisfy us. It is true that Thiers says he will maintain the form of government established in Paris as long as he possibly can; but he only promises for himself, and it results clearly from all this that we shall not keep the Republic long, since its definite establishment depends in fact on the majority in the Assembly, while the Assembly is royalist, with a slight sprinkle of imperialism here and there. But let us continue the reading of the reports.

"Respecting the municipal franchise of Paris, Monsieur Thiers declares that Paris will enjoy its franchise on the same conditions as those of the other towns, according to a common law, such as will be set forth by the Assembly of the representatives of all France. Paris will have the common right, nothing less and nothing more."

This again is little satisfactory. What will this common right be? What will the law set forth by the representatives of all France be worth? Once more we have the most entire confidence in Thiers. But have we the right to expect a law conformable to our wishes from an assembly of men who hold opinions radically opposed to ours on the point which is in fact the most important in the question—on the form of government?

"Concerning the protection of Paris, now exclusively confided to the National Guards, Monsieur Thiers declares that he will proceed at once to the organization of the National Guard, but that cannot be to the absolute exclusion of the army."

In my personal opinion, the President is perfectly right here; but from the point of view which it was the mission of the delegates of the Republican Union to take, is not this third declaration as evasive as the preceding?

"Respecting the actual situation and the means of putting an end to the effusion of blood, Monsieur Thiers declares that not recognising as belligerents the persons engaged in the struggle against the National Assembly, he neither can nor will treat the question of an armistice; but he declares that if the National Guards of Paris make no hostile attack, the troops of Versailles will make none either, until the moment, yet undetermined, when the executive power shall resolve upon action and commence the war."

Oh, words! words! We are perfectly aware that Thiers has the right to speak thus, and that all combatants are not belligerents. But what! Is it as just as it is legal to argue the point so closely, when the lives of so many men are at stake; and is a small grammatical concession so serious a thing, that sooner than make it one should expose oneself to all the horrible feelings of remorse that the most rightful conqueror experiences at the sight of the battle-field?

"Monsieur Thiers adds: 'Those who abandon the contest, that is to say, who return to their homes and renounce their hostile attitude, will be safe from all pursuit.'"

Is Thiers quite certain that he will not find himself abandoned by the Assembly at the moment when he enters upon this path of mercy and forgiveness?

"Monsieur Thiers alone excepts the assassins of General Lecomte and General Clement Thomas, who if taken will be tried for the crime."

And here he is undoubtedly right. We must have been blind indeed the day that this double crime failed to open our eyes to the true characters of the men who, if they did not commit it or cause it to be committed, made at least no attempt to discover the criminals!

"Monsieur Thiers, recognising the impossibility for a great part of the population, now deprived of work, to live without the allotted pay, will continue to distribute that pay for several weeks longer.

"Such, citizens, is, etc., etc."

This report is signed by A. Dessonnaz, A. Adam, and Donvallet. Alas! we had foreseen what the result of the honourable attempt made by the delegates of the Republican Union would be. And this result proves that not only is the National Guard at war with the regular troops, but that a persistent opposition is also made by the National Assembly of Versailles to the most reasonable portion of the people of Paris. And yet the Assembly represents France, and speaks and acts only as she is commissioned to speak and act. The truth then is this,—Paris is republican and France is not republican; there is division between the capital and the country. The present convulsion, brought about by a group of madmen, has its source in this divergence of feeling. And what will happen? Will Paris, once more vanquished by universal suffrage, bend her neck and accept the yoke of the provincials and rustics? The right of these is incontestable; but will it, by reason of superiority of numbers, take precedence of our right, as incontestable as theirs? These are dark questions, which hold the minds of men in suspense, and which, in spite of our desire to bring the National Assembly over to our side, the greater part of whose members could not join us without betraying their trust, cause us to bear the intolerable tyranny of the men of the Hotel de Ville, even while their sinister lucubrations inspire us with disgust.



L.

During this time the walls resound with fun. Paris of the street and gutter—Paris, Gavroche and blackguard, rolls with laughter before the caricatures which ingenious salesmen stick with pins on shutters and house doors. Who designed these wild pictures, glaringly coloured and common, seldom amusing and often outrageously coarse? They are signed with unknown names—pseudonyms doubtless; their authors, amongst whom it is sad to think that artists of talent must be counted, are like women, high born and depraved, mixing with their faces masked in hideous orgies.

These vile pictures with their infamous calumnies keep up and even kindle contempt and hatred in ignorant minds. Laughter is often far from innocent. But the passers-by think little of this, and are amused enough when they see Jules Favre's head represented by a radish, or the embonpoint of Monsieur Picard by a pumpkin. Where will all this unwholesome stuff be scattered in a few days? Flown away and dispersed. Eccentric amateurs will tear their hair at the impossibility of obtaining for their collections these frivolous witnesses of troubled times. I will make a few notes so as to diminish their despair as far as I am able.

A green soil and a red sky—In a black coffin is a half-naked woman, with a Phrygian cap on her head, endeavouring to push up the lid with all her might. Jules Favre, lean, small, head enormous, under lip thick and protruding, hair wildly flying like a willow in a storm, wearing a dress coat, and holding a nail in one hand and a hammer in the other, with his knee pressed upon the coffin-lid, is trying to nail it down, in spite of the very natural protestations of the half-naked woman. In the distance, and running towards them, is Monsieur Thiers, with a great broad face and spectacles, also armed with a hammer. Below is written: "If one were to listen to these accursed Republics, they would never die." Signed, Faustin. Same author—Same woman. But this time she lies in a bed hung with red flags for curtains. Her shoulders a little too bare, perhaps, for a Republic, but she must be made attractive to her good friends the Federals. At the head of the bed a portrait of Rochefort; Rochefort is the favoured one of this lady, it seems. Were I he, I should persuade her to dress a little more decently. Three black men, in brigands' hats, their limbs dragging, and their faces distorted, approach the bed, singing like the robbers in Fra Diavolo: "Ad.... vance ... ad ... vance ... with ... pru ... dence ...!" The first, Monsieur Thiers, carries a heavy club and a dark lantern; Jules Favre, the second, brandishes a knife, and the third, carries nothing, but wears a peacock's feather in his hat, and.... I have never seen Monsieur Picard, but they tell me that it is he.

The young Republic again, with shoulders bare and the style of face of a petite dame of the Rue Bossuet. She comes to beg Monsieur Thiers, cobbler and cookshop-keeper, who "finds places for pretenders out of employ, and changes their old boots for new at the most reasonable prices," to have her shoes mended. "Wait a bit! wait a bit!" says the cobbler to himself, "I'll manage 'em so as to put an end to her walking."

Here is a green monkey perched on the extreme height of a microscopic tribune. At the end of his tail he wears a crown; on his head is a Phrygian cap. It is Monsieur Thiers of course. "Gentlemen," says he, "I assure you that I am republican, and that I adore the vile multitude." But underneath is written: "We'll pluck the Gallic cock!" The author of this is also Monsieur Faustin. I have here a special reproach to add to what I have already said of these objectionable stupidities. I do not like the manner in which the author takes off Monsieur Thiers; he quite forgets the old and well-known resemblance of the chief of the executive power to Monsieur Prud'homme, or what is the same thing, to Prud'homme's inventor, Henri Monnier. One day Gil Perez the actor, met Henri Monnier on the Boulevard Montmartre. "Well, old fellow!" cried he, "are you back? When are you and I going to get at our practical jokes again?" Henri Monnier looked profoundly astonished; it was Monsieur Thiers!

The next one is signed Pilotel. Pilotel, the savage commissioner! He who arrested Monsieur Chaudey, and who pocketed eight hundred and fifteen francs found in Monsieur Chaudey's drawers. Ah! Pilotel, if by some unlucky adventure you were to succumb behind a barricade, you would cry like Nero: "Qualis artifex pereo!" But let us leave the author to criticise the work. A Gavroche, not the Gavroche of the Miserables, but the boy of Belleville, chewing tobacco like a Jack-tar, drunk as a Federal, in a purple blouse, green trousers, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the nape of his neck; squat, violent, and brutish. With an impudent jerk of the head he grumbles out: "I don't want any of your kings!" This coarse sketch is graphic and not without merit.

Horror of horrors! "Council of Revision of the Amazons of Paris," this next is called. Oh! if the brave Amazons are like these formidable monstrosities, it would be quite sufficient to place them in the first rank, and I am sure that not a soldier of the line, not a guardian of the peace, not a gendarme would hesitate a moment at the sight, but all would fly without exception, in hot haste and in agonised terror, forgetting in their panic even to turn the butt ends of their muskets in the air. One of these Amazons—but how has my sympathy for the amateurs of collections led me into the description of these creatures of ugliness and immodesty?—one of them.... but no, I prefer leaving to your imagination those Himalayan masses of flesh, and pyramids of bone—these Penthesileas of the Commune of Paris that are before me.

Ah! Here is choleric old "Father Duchesne" in a towering passion, with short legs, bare arms, and rubicund face, topped with an immense red cap. In one hand he holds a diminutive Monsieur Thiers and stifles him as if he were a sparrow. Here, the drawing is not only vile, but stupid too.

This time we have the nude, and it is not the Republic, but France that is represented. If the Republic can afford to bare her shoulders, France may dispense with drapery entirely. She has a dove which she presses to her bosom. On one side is a portrait of Monsieur Rochefort. Again! Why this unlovely-looking journalist is a regular Lovelace. Finally, two cats (M. Jules Favre and M. Thiers) are to be seen outside the garret window with their claws ready for pouncing. "Poor dove!" is the tame inscription below the sketch.[56]



Next we find a Holy Family, by Murillo. Jules Favre, as Joseph, leads the ass by the reins, and a wet-nurse, who holds the Comte de Paris in her arms instead of the infant Jesus, is seated between the two panniers, trying to look at once like Monsieur Thiers and the Holy Virgin. The sketch is called "The Flight.... to Versailles." Oh! fie! fie! Messieurs the Caricaturists, can you not be funny without trenching on sacred ground?

We might refer to dozens more. Some date from the day when Paris shook off the Empire, and are so infamous that, by a natural reaction of feeling, they inspire a sort of esteem for those they try to make you despise; others, those which were seen by everyone during the siege, are less vile, because, of the patriotic rage which originated them, and excused them; but they are as odious as they can be nevertheless. But the amateurs of collections who neglected to buy fly-sheets one by one as they appeared, must be satisfied with the above.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: As a power for the encouragement of virtue and the suppression of vice, caricature cannot be too highly estimated, though often abused. It is doubtful which exercises the greater influence, poem or picture. In England, perhaps, picture wields the greater power; in France, song. Yet, "let me write the ballads and you may govern the people," is an English axiom which was well known before pictures became so plentiful or so popular, or the refined cartoons of Mr. Punch were ever dreamt of. In Paris, where art-education is highly developed, fugitive designs seems to have, with but few exceptions, descended into vile abuse and indecent metaphor, the wildest invective being exhausted upon trivial matters—hence the failure.

The art advocates of the Commune, with but few exceptions, seem to have been of the most humble sort, inspired with the melodramatic taste of our Seven Dials or the New Out, venting itself in ill-drawn heroic females, symbols of the Republic, clad in white, wearing either mural crowns or Phrygian caps, and waving red flags. They are the work of aspiring juvenile artists or uneducated men. I allude to art favourable to the Commune, and not that coeval with it, or the vast mass of pictorial unpleasantly born of gallic rage during the Franco-Prussian war, including such designs as the horrible allegory of Bayard, "Sedan, 1870," a large work depicting Napoleon III. drawn in a caleche and four, over legions of his dying soldiers, in the presence of a victorious enemy and the shades of his forefathers', and the well-known subject, so popular in photography, of "The Pillory," Napoleon between King William and Bismarck, also set in the midst of a mass of dead and dying humanity. Paper pillories are always very popular in Paris, and under the Commune the heads of Tropmann and Thiers were exhibited in a wooden vice, inscribed Pantin and Neuilly underneath. And, again, in another print, entitled "The Infamous," we have Thiers, Favre, and MacMahon, seen in a heavenly upper storey, fixed to stakes, contemplating a dead mother and her child, slain in their happy home, the wounds very sanguine and visible, the only remaining relict being a child of very tender years in an overturned cradle; beneath is the inscription "Their Works." Communal art seems also to have been very severe upon landlords, who are depicted with long faces and threadbare garments, seeking alms in the street, or flying with empty bags and lean stomachs from a very yellow sun, bearing the words "The Commune, 1871." Whilst as a contrast, a fat labourer, with a patch on his blouse, luxuriates in the same golden sunshine. As a sample of the better kind of French art, we give two fac-similes, by Bertal, from The Grelot, a courageous journal started during the Commune; it existed unmolested, and still continues. We here insert a fac-simile of a sketch called "Paris and his Playthings."

"What destruction the unhappy, spoiled, and ill-bred child whose name is Paris has done, especially of late!

"France, his strapping nurse, put herself in a passion in vain, the child would not listen to reason. He broke Trochu's arms, ripped up Gambetta, to see what there was inside. He blew out the lantern of Rochefort; as to Bergeret himself, he trampled him under foot.

"He has dislocated all his puppets, strewed the ground with the debris of his fancies, and he is not yet content,—'What do you want, you wretched baby?'—'I want the moon!' The old woman called the Assembly was right in refusing this demand,—'The moon, you little wretch, and what would you do with it if you had it?'—'I would pull it to bits, as I did the rest.'"

Further on will be found "Paris eating a General a day" (Chapter LXXVIII). Early in June, 1871 there appeared in the same journal "The International Centipede," "John Bull and the Blanche Albion." The Queen of England, clad in white, holding in her hands a model of the Palace of Westminster, and sundry docks, resists the approach of an interminable centipede, on which she stamps, vainly endeavouring to impede the progress of the coil of fire and blood approaching to soil and fire her fair robe; beside her stands John Bull, in a queer mixed costume, half sailor, with the smalls and gaiters of a coalheaver. He bears the Habeas Corpus Act under his arm, but stands aghast and paralysed, it never seeming to have occurred to the artist that this "Monsieur John Boule, Esquire," was well adapted by his beetle-crushers to stamp out the vermin. Perhaps, it is needless to add, that the snake-like form issues from a hole in distant Prussia, meandering through many nations, causing great consternation, and that M. Thiers is finishing off the French section in admirable style.]



LI.

What has Monsieur Courbet to do among these people? He is a painter, not a politician. A few beery speeches uttered at the Hautefeuille Cafe cannot turn his past into a revolutionary one, and an order refused for the simple reason that it is more piquant for a man to have his button-hole without ornament than with a slip of red ribbon in it, when it is well known that he disdains whatever every one else admires, is but a poor title to fame. To your last, Napoleon Gaillard![57] To your paint-brushes, Gustave Courbet! And if we say this, it is not only from fear that the meagre lights of Monsieur Courbet are insufficient, and may draw the Commune into new acts of folly,—(though we scarcely know, alas! if there be any folly the Commune has left undone,)—but it is, above all, because we fear the odium and ridicule that the false politician may throw upon the painter. Yes! whatever may be our horror for the nude women and unsightly productions with which Monsieur Courbet[58] has honoured the exhibitions of paintings, we remember with delight several, admirably true to nature, with sunshine and summer breezes playing among the leaves, and streams murmuring refreshingly over the pebbles, and rocks whereon climbing plants cling closely; and, besides these landscapes, a good picture here and there, executed, if not by the hand of an artist—for the word artist possesses a higher meaning in our eyes—at least by the hand of a man of some power, and we hate that this painter should be at the Hotel de Ville at the moment when the spring is awakening in forest and field, and when he would do so much better to go into the woods of Meudon or Fontainebleau to study the waving of the branches and the eccentric twists and turns of the oak-tree's huge trunk, than in making answers to Monsieur Lefrancais—iconoclast in theory only as yet—and to Monsieur Jules Valles, who has read Homer in Madame Dacier's translation, or has never read it at all. That one should try a little of everything, even of polities, when one is capable of nothing else, is, if not excusable, at any rate comprehensible; but when a man can make excellent boots like Napoleon Gaillard, or good paintings like Gustave Courbet, that he should deliberately lay himself open to ridicule, and perhaps to everlasting execration, is what we cannot admit. To this Monsieur Courbet would reply: "It is the artists that I represent; it is the rights and claims of modern art that I uphold. There must be a great revolution in painting as in politics; we must federate too, I tell you; we'll decapitate those aristocrats, the Titians and Paul Veroneses; we'll establish, instead of a jury, a revolutionary tribunal, which shall condemn to instant death any man who troubles himself about the ideal—that king whom we have knocked off his throne; and at this tribunal I will be at once complainant, lawyer, and judge. Yes! my brother painters, rally around me, and we will die for the Commune of Art. As to those who are not of my opinion, I don't care the snap of a finger about them." By this last expression the friends of Monsieur Gustave Courbet will perceive that we are not without some experience of his style of conversation. Courbet, my master, you don't know what you are talking about, and all true artists will send you to old Harry, you and your federation. Do you know what an artistic association, such as you understand it, would result in? In serving the puerile ambition of one man—its chief, for there will be a chief, will there not, Monsieur Courbet?—and the puerile rancours of a parcel of daubers, without name and without talent. Artist in our way we assert, that no matter, what painter, even had he composed works superior in their way to Courbet's "Combat de Cerfs" and "Femme au Perroquet," who came and said, "Let us federate," we would answer him plainly: "Leave us in peace, messieurs of the federation, we are dreamers and workers; when we exhibit or publish and are happy enough to meet with a man who will buy or print a few thousand copies of our work without reducing himself to beggary, we are happy. When that is done, we do not trouble ourselves much about our work; the indulgence of a few friends, and the indignation of a few fools, is all we ask or hope for. We federate? Why? With whom? If our work is bad, will the association with any society in the world make it good? Will the works of others gain anything by their association with ours? Let us go home, messieurs les artistes, let us shut our doors, let us say to our servants—if we have any—that we are at home to no one, and, after having cut our best pencil, or seized our best pen, let us labour in solitude, without relaxation, with no other thought than that of doing the best we can, with no higher judge than that of our own artistic conscience; and when the work is completed, let us cordially shake hands with those of our comrades who love us; let us help them, and let them bring help to us, but freely, without obligation, without subscriptions, without societies, and without statutes. We have nothing to do with these free-masonries, absurd when brought into the domain of intelligence, and in which two or three hundred people get together to do that, which some new-comer, however unknown his budding fame, would accomplish at a blow, in the face of all the associations in the world." This is what I should naively reply to Monsieur Courbet if he took it into his head to offer me any advice or compact whatsoever to sign.



The artists have done still better than we should; they have not answered at all, for one cannot call the "General Assembly of all the Artists in Design," presided over by Monsieur Gustave Courbet, and held on the 13th of April, 1871, in the great amphitheatre of the Ecole de Medecine, a real meeting of French artists. We know several celebrated painters, and we saw none of them there. The citizens Potier and Boulaix had been named secretaries. We congratulate them; for this high distinction may, perhaps, aid in founding their reputation, which was in great want of a basis of some kind. But there were some sculptors there, perhaps? We saw some long beards, beards that were quite unknown to us, and their owners may have been sculptors, perhaps. For Paris is a city of sculptors. But if artists were wanting, there were talkers enough. Have you ever remarked that there are no orators so indefatigable as those who have nothing to say? And the interruptions, the clamour, the apostrophising, more highly coloured than courteous! Such an overwhelming tumult was never heard:—

"No more jury!"

"Yes! yes! a jury! a jury!"

"Out with the reactionist!"

"Down with Cabanel!"

"And the women? Are the women to be on the jury?"

"Neither the women, nor the infirm."

And all the time there is Monsieur Gustave Courbet, the chairman, desperately ringing his bell for order, and launching some expressive exclamation from time to time. And the result of all this? Absolutely nothing at all! No! stop! There were a few statutes proposed—and every one amused himself immensely. "Well! so much the better," said one. "Every one laughed, and no harm was done to anybody."

We beg your pardon! There was a great deal of harm done—to Monsieur Courbet.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 57: Gaillard Senior (a sort of Odger), cobbler of Belleville and democratic stump orator. Appointed, April 8, to the Presidency of the Commission of Barricades.]

[Footnote 58: As a painter Courbet has been very diversely judged. He was the chief of the ultra-realistic school, and therefore a natural subject for the contempt and abuse of the admirers of "legitimate art." But his later use of the political power entrusted to him has drawn down upon him the wrath of an immense majority of the French public, which his artistic misdemeanours had scarcely touched. On the sixteenth of April he was elected a member of the Commune by the 6th arrondissement of Paris, and forthwith appointed Director of the Beaux Arts. Until this time his life had been purely professional, and consequently of mediocre interest for the general public. He was born at Ornans, department of the Doubs, in 1819, and received his primary instructions from the Abbe Gousset, afterwards Archbishop of Rheims. He first applied himself to the study of mathematics, painting the while, and apparently aiming at a fusion of both pursuits. He subsequently read for the bar for a short time, and, finally, adopting art as his sole profession, threw himself heart and soul into a Renaissance movement as the apostle of a new style. The peculiarities of his manner soon brought him into notoriety, and a school of imitators grouped itself around him. His pride became a proverb. In 1870 he was offered the cross of the Legion of Honour, and refused it, arrogantly declaring that he would have none of a distinction given to tradesmen and ministers. The part he took in the destruction of the Colonne Vendome is familiar to all readers of the English press. Three weeks after the fall of the Commune he was denounced by a Federal officer, and discovered at the house of a friend hiding in a wardrobe, and in September was condemned by the tribunal at Versailles to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 600 francs—a slight penalty that astonished everyone.]



LII.

It is forbidden to cross the Place Vendome, and naturally, walking there is prohibited too. I had been prowling about every afternoon for the last few days, trying to pass the sentinels of the Rue de la Paix, hoping that some lucky chance might enable me to evade the military order; all I got for my pains was a sharply articulated "Passes au large!" and I remained shut out.

To-day, as I was watching for a favourable opportunity, a petite dame who held up her skirts to show her stockings, which were as red as the flag of the Hotel de Ville—out upon you for a female Communist! —approached the sentinel and addressed him with her most gracious, smile. And oh, these Federals! The man in office forgot his duty, and at once began with the lady a conversation of such an intimate description, that for discretion's sake I felt myself obliged to take a slight turn to the left, and a minute later I had slipped into the forbidden Place.

A Place?—no, a camp it might more properly be called. Here and there, are seen a crowd of little tents, which would be white if they were washed, and littered about with straw. Under the tents lie National Guards; they are not seen, but plainly heard, for they are snoring. You remember the absurd old bit of chop-logic often repeated in the classes of philosophy? One might apply it thus: he sleeps well who has a good conscience; the Federals sleep well; ergo, the Federals have a good conscience. Guards walk to and fro with their pipes in their mouths. If I were to say that these honourable Communists show by their easy manner, gentlemanly bearing, and superior conversation, that they belong to the cream of Parisian society, you would perhaps be impertinent enough not to believe one word of what I said. I think it, therefore, preferable in every way to assert the direct contrary. There is a group of them flinging away their pay at the usual game of bouchon. "The Soldier's Pay and the Game of Cork" is the title that might be given by those who would write the history of the National Guard from the beginning of the siege to the present time. And if to the cork they added the bottle, they might pride themselves upon having found a perfect one. This is how it comes to pass. The wife is hungry, and the children are hungry, but the father is thirsty, and he receives the pay. What does he do? He is thirsty, and he must drink; one must think of oneself in this world. When he has satisfied his thirst, what remains? A few sous, the empty bottle, and the cork. Very good. He plays his last sou on the famous game, and in the evening, when he returns home, he carries to his family—what?—the empty bottle!

On the Place two barricades have been made, one across the Rue de la Paix, and the other before the Rue Castiglione. "Two formidable barricades," say the newspapers, which may be read thus: "A heap of paving stones to the right, and a heap of paving stones to the left." I whisper to myself that two small field-pieces, one on the place of the New Opera-house, and the other at the Rue de Rivoli, would not be long before they got the better of these two barricades, in spite of the guns that here and there display their long, bright cylinders.

The Federals have decidedly a taste for gallantry. About twenty women—I say young women, but not pretty women—are selling coffee to the National Guards, and add to their change a few ogling smiles meant to be engaging.

As to the Column, it has not the least appearance of being frightened by the decree of the Commune which threatens it with a speedy fall. There it stands like a huge bronze I, and the emperor is the dot upon it. The four eagles are still there, at the four corners of the pedestal, with their wreaths of immortelles, and the two red flags which wave from the top seem but little out of place. The column is like the ancient honour of France, that neither decrees nor bayonets can intimidate, and which in the midst of threats and tumult, holds itself aloft in serene and noble dignity.



LIII.

Who would think it? They are voting. When I say "they are voting," I mean to say "they might vote;" for as for going to the poll, Paris seems to trouble itself but little about it. The Commune, too, seems somewhat embarrassed. You remember Victor Hugo's song of the Adventurers of the Sea:

"En partant du golfe d'Otrente Nous etions trente, Mais en arrivant a Cadix Nous n'etions que dix."[59]

The gentlemen of the Hotel de Ville might sing this song with a few slight variations. The Gulf of Otranto was not their starting point, but the Buttes Montmartre; though to make up for it they were eighty in number. On arriving at C——, no, I mean, the decree of the Colonne Vendome, they were a few more than ten, but not many. What charming stanzas in imitation of Victor Hugo might Theodore de Banville and Albert Glatigny write on the successive desertions of the members of the Commune. The first to withdraw were the maires of Paris, frightened to death at having been sent by the votes of their fellow-citizens into an assembly which was not at all, it appears, their ideal of a municipal council. And upon this subject Monsieur Desmarest, Monsieur Tirard, and their adjoints will perhaps permit me an unimportant question. What right had they to persuade their electors and the Friends of Order, to vote for the Commune of Paris if they were resolved to decline all responsibility when the votes had been given them? Their presence at the Hotel de Ville, would it not have infused—as we hoped—a powerful spirit of moderation even in the midst of excesses that could even then be foretold? When they have done all they can to persuade people to vote, have they the right to consider themselves ineligible? In a word, why did they propose to us to elect the Commune of Paris if the Commune were a bad thing? and if it were a good thing, why did they refuse to take their part in it? Whatever the cause, no sooner were they elected than they sent in their resignations. Then the hesitating and the timid disappeared one after another, not having the courage to continue the absurdity to the end. Add to all this the arrests made in its very bosom by the Assembly of the Hotel de Ville itself, and you will then have an idea of the extent of the dilemma. A few days more and the Commune will come to an end for want of Communists, and then we shall cry, "Haste to the poll, citizens of Paris!" And the white official handbills will announce supplementary elections for Sunday, 16th of April.

But here comes the difficulty; there may be elections, but not the shadow of an elector. Of candidates there are enough, more than enough, even to spare; Toting lists where the electors' names are inscribed; ballot-urns-no, ballot-boxes this time-to receive the lists; these are all to be found, but voters to put the lists into the ballot-boxes, to elect the candidates, we seek them in vain. The voting localities may be compared to the desert of Sahara viewed at the moment when not a caravan is to be seen on the whole extent of the horizon, so complete is the solitude wherever the eager crowd of voters was expected to hasten to the poll. Are we then so far from the day when the Commune of Paris, in spite of the numerous absentees, was formed—thanks to the strenuous efforts of the few electors left to us? Alas! At that time we had still some illusions left to us, whilst now.... Have you ever been at the second representation of a piece when the first was a failure? The first day there was a cram, the second day only the claque remained. People had found oat the worth of the piece, you see. Nevertheless, though the place is peopled only with silence and solitude, the claque continues to do its duty, for it receives its pay. For the same reason one sees a few battalions marching to the poll, all together, in step, just as they would march to the fighting at the Porte Maillot; and as they return they cry, "Oh! citizens, how the people are voting! Never was such enthusiasm seen!" But behind the scenes,—I mean in the Hotel de Ville,—authors and actors whisper to each other: "There is no doubt about it, it is a failure!"