France in the Nineteenth Century Part 30

When it was made known that the German army was to enter Paris, the National Guard of Belleville and Montmartre stole cannon from the fortifications, and placed them in position in their own quarter on the heights, so that they could fire into the city.

On March 18 General Vinoy, who had succeeded Trochu as military commander of Paris, demanded that these cannon should be given back to the city. Many of them had been purchased by subscription during the siege, but they were not the property of the men of Belleville and Montmartre, but of the whole National Guard. A regiment of the line was ordered to take possession of them, and they did so.

But immediately after, the soldiers fraternized with the National Guard of Belleville, and surrendered their prize. An officer of cha.s.seurs had been killed, and General Lecomte twice ordered his men to fire on the insurgents.[1] They refused to obey him. "General Lecomte is right," said a gentleman who was standing in a crowd of angry men at a street-corner near the scene of action. He was seized at once, and was soon recognized as General Clement Thomas, formerly commander of the National Guard of Paris. He had done gallant service during the siege; but that consideration had no weight with the insurgents. General Lecomte had been already arrested. "We will put you with him," cried the mob,--"you, who dare to speak in defence of such a scoundrel." Both the unfortunate generals were immediately imprisoned.

[Footnote 1: Leighton, Paris under the Commune.]

At four P. M. they were brought forth by about one hundred insurgent National Guards; Lecomte's hands were tied, those of General Thomas were free. They were marched to an empty house, where a mock trial took place. No rescue was attempted, though soldiers of the line stood by. The two prisoners were then conducted to a walled enclosure at the end of the street. As soon as the party halted, an officer of the National Guard seized General Thomas by the collar and shook him violently, holding a revolver to his head, and crying out, "Confess that you have betrayed the Republic!" The general shrugged his shoulders. The officer retired. The report of twenty muskets rent the air, and General Thomas fell, face downward. They ordered Lecomte to step over his body, and to take his place against the wall. Another report succeeded, and the butchery was over.

By evening the National Guard had taken possession of the Hotel-de-Ville, and the outer Boulevards were crowded by men shouting that they had made a revolution. On this day the insurgents a.s.sumed the name of "Federes," or Federals, denoting their project of converting the communistic cities of France into a Federal Republic.

In vain the Government put forth proclamations calling on all good citizens, and on the Old National Guard, to put down insurrection and maintain order and the Republic. The Old Battalions of the National Guard, about twenty thousand strong, had been composed chiefly of tradesmen and gentlemen; these, as soon as the siege was over, had for the most part left the city. Bismarck's proposition to Jules Favre had been to leave the Old National Guard its arms, that it might preserve order, but to take advantage of the occasion to disarm the New Battalions. As we have seen, all were permitted to retain their arms; but the chancellor told Jules Favre he would live to repent having obtained the concession.

The friends of order, in spite of the Government's proclamations, could with difficulty be roused to action. There were two parties in Paris,--the Pa.s.sives, and the Actives; and the latter party increased in strength from day to day. Indeed, it was hard for peaceful citizens to know under whom they were to range themselves.

The Government had left the city. One or two of its members were still in Paris, but the rest had rushed off to Versailles, protected by an army forty thousand strong, under General Vinoy.

A species of Government had, however, formed itself by the morning of March 19 at the Hotel-de-Ville. It called itself the Central Committee of the National Guard, and issued proclamations on _white_ paper (white paper being reserved in Paris for proclamations of the Government). It called upon all citizens in their sections at once to elect a commune. This proclamation was signed by twenty citizens, only one of whom, M. a.s.sy, had ever been heard of in Paris. Some months before, he had headed a strike, killed a policeman, and had been condemned to the galleys for murder. The men who thus const.i.tuted themselves a Government, were all members of the International,--that secret a.s.sociation, formed in all countries, for the abolition of property and patriotism, religion and the family, rulers, armies, upper cla.s.ses, and every species of refinement. Another proclamation decreed that the people of Paris, whether it pleased them or not, must on Wednesday, March 22, elect a commune.

In a former chapter I have tried to explain the nature of a commune.

Victor Hugo wrote his opinion of it, when the idea of a commune was first started, after the fall of Louis Philippe in 1848. His words read like a prophecy:--

"It would tear down the tricolor, and set up the red flag of destruction; it would make penny-pieces out of the Column of the Place Vendome; it would hurl down the statue of Napoleon, and set up that of Marat in its place; it would suppress the Academie, the ecole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honor. To the grand motto of 'Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,' it would add the words, 'or death.' It would bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching the poor. It would destroy labor, which gives each of us his bread. It would abolish property, and break up the family. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them by ma.s.sacre. It would convert France into a country of gloom. It would destroy liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, and deny G.o.d. It would supply work for two things fatal to prosperity,--the press that prints a.s.signats, and the guillotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in the ravings of fever; and after the great horrors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in every form that is low and base."

The party of the Commune has been divided into three cla.s.ses,--the rascals, the dupes, and the enthusiasts. The latter in the last hours of the Commune (which lasted seventy-three days) put forth in a manifesto their theory of government; to wit, that every city in France should have absolute power to govern itself, should levy its own taxes, make its own laws, provide its own soldiers, see to its own schools, elect its own judges, and make within its corporate limits whatever changes of government it pleased. These Communistic cities were to be federated into a Republic. It was not clear how those Frenchmen were to be governed who did not live in cities; possibly each city was to have territory attached to it, as in Italy in the Middle Ages.

The weather during March of the year 1871 was very fine, and fine weather is always favorable to disturbances and revolutions.

The very few men of note still left in Paris desirous of putting an end to disorder without the shedding of blood, proposed to go out to Versailles and negotiate with M. Thiers, the provisional president, and the members of his Government. They were the twelve deputies of the Department of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, headed by Louis Blanc, and the _maires_, with their a.s.sistants, from the twenty arrondiss.e.m.e.nts. They proposed to urge on the Government of Versailles the policy of giving the Parisians the right to elect what in England would be called a Lord Mayor, and likewise a city council; also to give the National Guard the right to elect its officers.

This deputation went out to Versailles on the 20th of March,--two days before the proposed election for members of a commune. On the 21st, while all Paris was awaiting anxiously the outcome of the mission, there was a great "order" demonstration in the streets, and hopes of peace and concord were exchanged on all sides. The next day, the order demonstration, which had seemed so popular, was repeated, when a ma.s.sacre took place on the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. Nurses, children, and other quiet spectators were killed, as also old gentlemen and reporters for the newspapers.

One of the victims was a partner in the great banking house of Hottinguer, well known to American travellers.

The most popular man at that moment in Paris seemed to be Admiral Seisset, who had commanded the brigade of sailors which did good service in the siege. He went out to Versailles to unite his efforts to those of the _maires_ and the deputies in favor of giving Paris munic.i.p.al rights; but M. Thiers and his ministers were firm in their refusal.

When this was known in Paris, great was the fury and indignation of the people. In vain had Louis Blanc entreated the a.s.sembly at Versailles to approve conciliatory measures; and when that body utterly refused to make terms with a Parisian mob, M. Clemenceau said, as he quitted their chamber: "May the responsibility for what may happen, rest upon your heads."

The mission to Versailles having been productive of no results, the election for a commune was held. The extremest men were chosen in every quarter of the city, and formed what was called the Council of the Commune. It held its sittings in the Hotel-de-Ville, and consisted at first of eighty members, seventy of whom had never been heard of in Paris before. Its numbers dwindled rapidly, from various causes, especially in the latter days of the Commune. Among them were Poles, Italians, and even Germans; two of the eighty claimed to be Americans.

The first act of the Council of the Commune was to take possession of the Hotel-de-Ville and to celebrate the inauguration of the new government by a brilliant banquet; its first decree was that no tenant need pay any back rent from October, 1870, to April, 1871,--the time during which the siege had lasted. It lost no time in inviting Garibaldi to a.s.sume the command of the National Guard.

This Garibaldi declined at once, saying that a commandant of the National Guard, a commander-in-chief of Paris, and an executive committee could not act together. "What Paris needs," he said, "is an honest dictator, who will choose honest men to act under him. If you should have the good fortune to find a Was.h.i.+ngton, France will recover from s.h.i.+pwreck, and in a short time be grander than ever."

On April 3 the civil war broke out,--Paris against Versailles; the army under the National a.s.sembly against the National Guard under the Commune. The Prussians from the two forts which they still held, looked grimly on.

At the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon had been landed thirty years before, a flag of truce was met by two National Guards. Its bearer was a distinguished surgeon, Dr.

Pasquier. After a brief parley, one of the National Guards blew out the doctor's brains. When news of this outrage was brought to General Vinoy, he commanded the guns of Fort Valerien to be turned upon the city.

At five A. M. the next morning five columns of Federals marched out to take the fort. They were under the command of three generals, Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes. With Bergeret rode Lullier, who had been a naval officer, and Flourens, the popular favorite among the members of the Commune. The three divisions marched in full confidence that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them.

They were wholly mistaken; the guns of Fort Valerien crashed into the midst of their columns, and almost at the same time Flourens, in a hand-to-hand struggle, was slain.

Flourens had begun life with every prospect of being a distinguished scientist. His father had been perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences and a professor in the College de France, in which his son succeeded him when he was barely twenty-one. His first lecture, on the "History of Man," created a great impression; but in 1864 he resigned his professors.h.i.+p, and thenceforward devoted all his energies to the cause of the oppressed. In Crete he fought against the Turks. He was always conspiring when at home in Paris; even when the Prussians were at its gates, he could not refrain.

He was the darling of the Belleville population, whom in times of distress and trial he fed, clothed, and comforted. Sometimes he was in prison, sometimes in exile. "He was a madman, but a hero, and towards the poor and the afflicted as gentle as a sister of charity," said one who knew him.

Of the three generals who led the attack on Mont Valerien, Duval was captured and shot; Eudes and Bergeret got back to Paris in safety. But the latter, in company with Lullier, was at once sent to prison by the Central Committee, and a decree was issued that Paris should be covered with barricades. As the insurgents had plenty of leisure, these barricades were strong and symmetrical, though many of them were injudiciously placed.

Whilst the fight of the 4th of April was going on without the gates, the Central Committee was occupied in issuing decrees, by which Thiers, Favre, Simon,--in short, all the legitimate ministers,--were summoned to give themselves up to the Commune to be tried for their offences, or else all their property in Paris would be confiscated or destroyed.

The failure of the expedition under Bergeret made the Parisians furiously angry. In less than a week some of the best-known priests in Paris were arrested as hostages. The churches were all closed after the morning services on Easter Day; the arms were cut off from the crosses, and red flags were hung up in their stead. No one could be buried with Christian decency, or married with the Church's blessing.

"The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity of that sort,"

said a resident in Paris, "which means arrest each other." Before the Commune had been established two weeks, many of its leading members, besides Lullier and Bergeret, had found their way to prison.

A personage who rose to great importance at this period was General Cluseret. He called himself an American, but he had had many aliases, and it is not known in what country he was born. At one time he had been a captain in the Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique, but was convicted of dishonesty in the purchase of horses, and dismissed from the army. Then he came to the United States, and entered the service of the Union, by which he became a naturalized citizen. He got into trouble, however, over a flock of sheep which mysteriously disappeared while he had charge of them. Next he enlisted in the Papal Zouaves. After the Commune he escaped from Paris, and the Fenians chose him for their general. In their service he came very near capturing Chester Castle. The Fenians, however, soon accused him of being a traitor. Again he escaped, fearing a secret dagger, and was thought to have found refuge in a religious community.

Subsequently he served the Turks; and lastly, during the presidency of M. Grevy, at a time of great dissatisfaction in France, he was elected a deputy from one of the Southern cities.

By April 7, Cluseret had, as some one expresses it, "swallowed up the Commune." He became for three weeks absolute dictator; after which time he found himself in prison at Mazas, occupying the very cell to which he had sent Bergeret.

Cluseret was a soldier of experience; but Bergeret had been a bookseller's a.s.sistant, and his highest military rank had been that of a sergeant in the National Guard. He could not ride on horseback, and he drove out from Paris to the fight in which Flourens was killed.

The official t.i.tle of Cluseret and others, who were heads of the War Office during the Commune, was War Delegate, the committee refusing to recognize the usual t.i.tle of Minister of War.

Probably the best general the Commune had was a Pole named Dombrowski, an adventurer who came into France with Garibaldi. He was not only a good strategist, but a dare-devil for intrepidity. Some said he had fought for Polish liberty, others, that he had fought against it; at any rate, he was an advanced Anarchist, though in military matters he was a strict disciplinarian, and kept his men of all nations in better order than any other commander.

When, after the first attack of the Communist forces on those of the Versailles Government, the guns of Fort Valerien opened on Paris, the second bombardment began. It was far more destructive than that of the Prussians, the guns from the forts being so much nearer to the centre of the city. The sh.e.l.ls of the Versaillais fell on friend and foe alike, on women and on children, on homes, on churches, and on public buildings. Three shots struck the Arch of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared.

Such scenes as the following one, related by an American, might be seen daily:--

"Two National Guards pa.s.sed me, bearing a litter between them. 'Oh, you can look if you like,' cried one; so I drew back the checked curtain. On a 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 hand had been carried away. 'Where are they wounded?' I asked.

'Wounded! they are dead,' was the reply. 'They are 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 kindness.'"

The velocipede-maker may have been--probably was--a good, peaceable citizen, with no sympathy for disorder or anarchy; but doubtless from the moment that news was broken to him, he became a furious Communist.

By order of General Cluseret every man in Paris was to be forced to bear arms for the Commune. His neighbors were expected to see that he did so, and to arrest him at once if he seemed anxious to decline. "Thus, every man walking along the street was liable to have the first Federal who pa.s.sed him, seize him by the collar and say: 'Come along, and be killed on behalf of my munic.i.p.al independence.'"

It would be hardly possible to follow the details of the fighting, the arrests, the bombardment, or even the changes that took place among those high in office in the Council of the Commune during the seventy-three days that its power lasted; the state of things in Paris will be best exhibited by detached sketches of what individuals saw and experienced during those dreadful days.

Here is the narrative of an English lady who was compelled to visit Paris on Easter Sunday, April 9, while it was under the administration of Cluseret.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Catholic lady in "Red" Paris. London Spectator, April, 1871 (Living Age, May 13, 1871).]

The streets she found for the most part silent and empty. There were a few omnibuses, filled with National Guards and men _en blouse_, and heavy ammunition-wagons under the disorderly escort of men in motley uniforms, with guns and bayonets. Here and there were groups of "patriots" seated on the curbstones, playing pitch-farthing, known in France by the name of "bouchon." Their guns were resting quietly against the wall behind them, with, in many instances, a loaf of bread stuck on the bayonet. The sky was gray, the wind piercingly cold. The swarming life of Paris was hushed. There was no movement, and scarcely any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many were boarded up; from a few hung shabby red flags, but the very buildings looked dead. She says,--

"I felt bewildered. I could see no traces of the siege, and all my previous ideas of a revolution were dispersed. I pa.s.sed several churches, not then closed, and being a Catholic, I entered the Madeleine. The precious articles on the altar had been removed by the priests, but except the words 'Liberte,' 'egalite,' 'Fraternite,'

deeply cut in the stone over the great door, the church had not, so far, been desecrated. I went also to ma.s.s at Notre Dame des Victoires; but before telling my cabman to drive me there, I hesitated, believing it to be in a bad part of the city. 'There are no bad parts,' he said, 'except towards the Arch of Triumph and Neuilly.

The rest of Paris is as quiet as a bird's nest.' The church was very full of men as well as women. It was a solemn, devout crowd; every woman wore a plain black dress, every face was anxious, grave, and grieved, but none looked frightened. As the aged priest who officiated read the first words of the Gospel for the day, 'Be not afraid, ye seek Jesus who was crucified,' the bombardment recommenced with a fearful roar, shaking the heavy leathern curtain over the church door, and rattling the gla.s.s in the great painted windows. I started, but got used to it after a while, and paid no more attention to it than did others. While I was in church, the citizen patriot who was my cab-driver, had brought me three newspapers, one of them the journal edited by M. Rochefort, which said that it was earnestly to be hoped that the 'old a.s.sa.s.sin'

M. Thiers would soon be disposed of; that all men of heart were earnestly demanding more blood, and that blood must be given them.

I also learned that the Commune would erect a statue to Robespierre out of the statues of kings, which were to be melted down for that purpose. In the Rue Saint-Honore I met a lady whom I knew, returning from the flower-market with flowers in her hands. 'Then no one,'

I said, pointing to these blossoms, 'need be afraid in Paris?'

'No woman,' she answered, 'except of sh.e.l.ls; but the men are all afraid, and in danger. They are suspected of wanting to get away, but they will be made to stay and to fight for the Commune.'