France in the Nineteenth Century Part 32

CHAPTER XVI.

THE HOSTAGES.

About once in every seventy or eighty years some exceptionally moving tragedy stirs the heart of the civilized world. The tragedy of our own century is the execution of the hostages in Paris, May 24 and 26, 1871.

At one o'clock on the morning of April 6, three weeks after the proclamation of the Commune, a body of the National Guard was drawn up on the sidewalk in the neighborhood of the Madeleine. A door suddenly opened and a man came hastily out, followed by two National Guards shouting to their comrades. The man was arrested at once, making no resistance. It was the Abbe Duguerry, _cure_ of the Madeleine,[1]--the first of the so-called hostages arrested in retaliation for the summary execution of General Duval, who had commanded one of the three columns that marched out of Paris the day before to attack the Versaillais.

[Footnote 1: _Cure_ in France means rector; what we mean by a curate or a.s.sistant minister is there called _vicaire_.]

Both the _cure_ of the Madeleine and his _vicaire_, the Abbe Lamazou, were that night arrested. The latter, who escaped death as a hostage, published an account of his experiences; but he died not long after of heart disease, brought on by his excitement and suffering during the Commune.

The same night Monseigneur Darboy, the archbishop of Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests, were arrested. One was a missionary just returned from China, another was the Abbe Crozes, the admirable chaplain (_aumonier_) of the prison of La Roquette,--a man whose deeds of charity would form a n.o.ble chapter of Christian biography.

When Archbishop Darboy was brought before the notorious "delegate,"

Raoul Rigault, he began to speak, saying, "My children--" "Citizen,"

interrupted Rigault, "you are not here before children,--we are men!" This sally was heartily applauded in the publications of the Commune.

As it would not be possible to sketch the lives and deaths of all these victims of revolutionary violence, it may be well to select the history of the youngest among them, Paul Seigneret.[1] His father was a professor in the high school at Lyons. Paul was born in 1845, and was therefore twenty-six years old when he met death, as a hostage, at the hands of the Commune. His home had been a happy and pious one, and he had a beloved brother Charles, to whom he clung with the most tender devotion. Charles expected to be a priest; Paul was destined for the army, but he earnestly wished that he too might enter the ministry. Lamartine's "Jocelyn" had made a deep impression on him, but his father having objected to his reading it, he laid it aside unfinished; what he had read, however, remained rooted in his memory.

[Footnote 1: Memoir of Paul Seigneret, abridged in the "Monthly Packet."]

When Paul was eighteen, his father gave his sanction to his entering the priesthood; he thought him too delicate, however, to lead the life of a country pastor, and desired him, before he made up his mind as to his vocation, to accept a position offered him as tutor in a family in Brittany.

Present duties being sanctified, not hampered, by higher hopes and aspirations, Paul gained the love and confidence of the family in which he taught, and also of the neighboring peasantry. "He was,"

says the lady whose children he instructed, "like a good angel sent among us to do good and to give pleasure."

When his time of probation was pa.s.sed, he decided to enter a convent at Solesmes, and by submitting himself to convent rules, make sure of his vocation. But before making any final choice, we find from his letters that "if France were invaded," he claimed "the right to do his duty as a citizen and a son."

He entered the convent at Solesmes, first as a postulant, then as a novice. "The Holy Gospels," said his superior, "Saint Paul's Epistles, and the Psalms were his favorite studies,--the food on which his piety was chiefly nourished. He also sought Christ in history."

Still, he was not entirely satisfied with life in a convent; he wished to be more actively employed in doing good. He therefore became a student for the regular ministry,--a Seminarist of Saint-Sulpice. But when the Prussian armies were advancing on Paris, he offered himself for hospital service, as did also his brother.

In a moment of pa.s.sionate enthusiasm, speaking to that dear brother of the dangers awaiting those who had to seek and tend the wounded on the field of battle, he cried: "Do you think G.o.d may this year grant me the grace of yielding up my life to Him as a sacrifice? For to fall, an expiatory sacrifice beneath the righteous condemnation that hangs over France, would be to die for Him."

The war being over, he returned to the Seminary, March 15, 1871.

On March 18 the Commune was declared, and Lecomte and Thomas were murdered; shortly after this the Seminary was invaded, the students were dispersed, and the priests in charge made prisoners. Most of the young men thus turned out into the streets left Paris. Paul at first intended to remain; but thinking that his family would be anxious about him, he applied for a pa.s.s, intending to go to Lyons. At the prefecture of police he and a fellow-student found a dense crowd waiting to pay two francs for permission to get away.

They were shown into a room where a man in a major's uniform sat at a table covered with gla.s.ses and empty bottles, with a woman beside him. When he heard what they wanted, he broke into a volley of abuse, and a.s.sured them that the only pa.s.s he would give them was a pa.s.s to prison. Accordingly, Paul and his companion soon found themselves in the prison connected with the prefecture. The cells were so crowded that they were confined in a corridor with six Jesuit fathers and some of their servants and lay brethren. A sort of community life was at once organized, with daily service and an hour for meditation. Paul esteemed it a privilege to enjoy the conversation of the elder and more learned priests. He conversed with them about the Bible, philosophy, and literature; "He was ready," says a companion who was saved, "to meet a martyr's death; but there was one horror he prayed to be spared,--that of being torn in pieces by a mob."

On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they were to leave the prefecture. "I fear," he said, "that you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge without taking some interest in them."

On being brought forth from their corridor, they found themselves in a crowd of priests (hostages like themselves) who were being sent to Mazas. The youth of the Seminary students at once attracted attention, and the Vicar-General, Monseigneur Surat, said: "I can understand that priests and old men should be here, gentlemen, but not that you, mere Seminarists, should be forced to share the troubles of your ecclesiastical superiors."

The transfer to Mazas was in the _voitures cellulaires_. They were so low and narrow that every jolt threw the occupant against the sides or roof. In one of these cells the venerable and infirm archbishop had been transferred to Mazas a short time before.

Each prisoner on reaching Mazas was shut up in a tiny cell. Paul wrote (for they were allowed writing materials):

"I have a nice little cell, with a bit of blue sky above it, to which my thoughts fly, and a hammock, so that it is possible for me to sleep again. I hardly dare to tell you I am happy, and am trusting myself in G.o.d's hands, for I am anxious about you, and anxious for our poor France. I have my great comfort,--work. I have already written an essay on Saint Paul, which I have been some time meditating. I am expecting a Bible, and with that I think I could defy weariness for years. A few days ago I discovered that one of my friends was next to me. We bid each other good night and good morning by rapping against the wall, and this would make us less lonely, were we oppressed by solitude."

At the close of this letter he adds,--

"I have at last received the dear Bible. You should have seen how I seized and kissed it! Now the Commune may leave me here to moulder, if it will!"

On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles army began to make its way into Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic and terrible power about to pa.s.s away, tried to startle the world by its excesses.

Orders were sent at once to Mazas to send the archbishop, the priests, Senator Bonjean, suspected spies, and _sergents de ville_ to that part of the prison of La Roquette reserved for condemned criminals.

Paul and his friend the other Seminarist were of the number.

Before the gates of La Roquette they found a fierce crowd shouting insults and curses. Many were women and children. "Here they come!"

the mob yelled. "Down with the priests! shoot them! kill them!"

Paul preserved his composure, and looked on with a smile of serene hope upon his face. "The scene was like that horror from which he had prayed to be saved. His terror was gone. His prayer had been answered."

The prisoners on reaching La Roquette were first pa.s.sed into a hall, where they found the archbishop and several priests. The former was calm, but he was ill, and his features bore marks of acute suffering. After an hour's delay the prisoners were locked into separate cells, from which real malefactors had been removed to make room for them.

In the next cell to Paul was the Abbe Planchet. By standing at the window they could hear each other's voices. The abbe could read Thomas a Kempis to his fellow prisoner, and they daily recited together the litany for the dying.

One of the imprisoned priests was a missionary lately returned from China; and when they met at the hours allowed for fresh air in the courtyard, Paul was eager to hear his accounts of the martyrdom and steadfastness of Chinese converts. "M. Paul," said an old soldier who was one of the hostages, "seemed to look on martyrdom as a privilege, regretting only the pain it would cause his family."

On Wednesday, May 24, the execution of the archbishop and five others took place, Paul saw them pa.s.s by his window; one of the escort shook his gun at him, and pointing it at the archbishop, gave him to understand what they were going to do.

The next day, Thursday, May 25, the order came. "Citizens," said the messenger who brought it, "pay attention, and answer when your names are called. Fifteen of you are wanted." As each was named, he stepped out of the ranks and took his place in the death-row.

Paul Seigneret was one of them. He seemed perfectly calm, and gently pressed the hand of his Seminary friend who was not summoned.

In the courtyard they were joined by thirty-five ex-policemen, so-called hostages like themselves. The execution was to take place in the Rue Haxo, at the farthest extremity of Belleville, and the march was made on foot, so that the victims were exposed to all the insults of the populace. It has been said that when they reached the Rue Haxo, where they were placed against a wall, Paul was thrown down while attempting to defend an aged priest, and was maltreated by the crowd; but this account was not confirmed when, four days later, the bodies were taken from the trench into which they had been thrown: Paul's showed no sign of violence. His eyes were closed, his face was calm. His ca.s.sock was pierced with b.a.l.l.s and stained with blood. He is buried at Saint-Sulpice.

His father received the news of his death calmly. He wrote: "Let us bear our poor child's death as much like Christians and as much like men as we can. May his blood, joined to that of so many other innocent victims, finally appease the justice of G.o.d," But when, shortly afterwards, Charles died of an illness brought on by excessive fatigue in serving the ambulances, the father sank under the double stroke, and died fifteen days after his last remaining son.

From the death of the youngest and the humblest of these ecclesiastical hostages, we will turn now to that of the venerable archbishop, and to his experiences during the forty-eight hours that he pa.s.sed at La Roquette, after having been transferred to it from Mazas.

With studied cruelty and insolence, a cell of the worst description was a.s.signed to the chief of the clergy in France. It had been commonly appropriated to murderers on the eve of their execution.

There was barely standing-room in it beside the filthy and squalid bed. The beds and cells of the other priests were at least clean, but this treatment of the archbishop had been ordered by the Commune.

On the morning of May 23 the prisoners had been permitted to breathe fresh air in a narrow paved courtyard; but the archbishop was too weak and ill for exercise; he lay half fainting on his bed. In addition to his other sufferings he was faint from hunger, for the advance of the Versailles troops had cut off the Commune's supplies, and the hostages were of course the last persons they wished to care for. Pere Olivariet (shot three days later in the same party as Paul Seigneret, in the Rue Haxo) had had some cake and chocolate sent him before he left Mazas; with these he fed the old man by mouthfuls. This was all the nourishment the archbishop had during the two days he spent at La Roquette. Mr. Washburne, the American minister, had with difficulty obtained permission to send him a small quant.i.ty of strengthening wine during his stay at Mazas. But a greater boon than earthly food or drink was brought him by Pere Olivariet, who had received while at Mazas, in a common pasteboard box, some of the consecrated wafers used by the Roman Catholic Church in holy communion; and he had it in his power to give the archbishop the highest consolation that could have been offered him.

It had been intended to execute the hostages on the 23d; but the director of the prison, endeavoring to evade the horrible task of delivering up his prisoners, p.r.o.nounced the first order he received informal.

The accursed 24th of May dawned, brilliant and beautiful. The archbishop went down in the early morning to obtain the breath of fresh air allowed him. Judge Bonjean, who had never professed himself a believer, came up to him and prayed him for his blessing, saying that he had seen the truth, as it were on the right hand of Death, and he too was about to depart in the true faith of a Christian.

By this time the insurgents held little more of Paris than the heights of Belleville, Pere la Chaise, and the neighborhood of La Roquette, which is not far from the Place de la Bastille. The Communal Government had quitted the Hotel-de-Ville and taken refuge not far from La Roquette, in the _Mairie_ of the Eleventh Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.

At six in the morning of May 24th,[1] a second order came to the director of the prison to deliver up all hostages in his hands. He remonstrated, saying he could not act upon an order to deliver up prisoners who were not named. Finally, a compromise was effected; six were to be chosen. The commander of the firing party asked for the prison register. The names of the hostages were not there.

Then the list from Mazas was demanded. The director could not find it. At last, after long searching, they discovered it themselves.

Genton, the man in command, sat down to pick out his six victims.

He wrote Darboy, Bonjean, Jecker, Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray. Then he paused, rubbed out Jecker, and put in Duguerrey. Darboy, as we know, was the archbishop; Bonjean, judge of the Court of Appeals; Allard, head-chaplain to the hospitals, who had been unwearied in his services to the wounded; Clerc and Ducoudray were Jesuit fathers; Duguerrey was pastor of the Madeleine. Jecker was a banker who had negotiated Mexican loans for the Government. The next day the Commune made a present of him to Genton, who, after trying in vain to get a few hundred thousand francs out of him for his ransom, shot him, a.s.sisted by four others, one of whom was Ferre, and flung his body into the cellar of a half-built house upon the heights of Belleville.

[Footnote 1: Macmillan's Magazine, 1873.]

When the order drawn up by Genton had been approved at headquarters, the director of the prison had no resource but to deliver up his prisoners.

Another man, wearing a scarf of office, had now joined the party.

He was very impatient, and accused the others roundly of a want of revolutionary spirit. He landed afterwards in New York, where his fellow-Communists gave him a public reception.