France in the Nineteenth Century Part 34

There was in existence a duplicate copy of the Grand Livre, though this was known only to the higher officials of the Treasury. It was kept in a sort of register's office not far from the Tuileries, and was in the care of a M. Chazal. When the Tuileries and the Treasury were on fire, the object of M. Chazal and of all who knew of the precious duplicate was to save it, in case the building in which it was deposited should share in the conflagration.

Of course the Grand Livre is of vast bulk. This copy was contained in great bundles of loose sheets. Luckily these papers were in stout oaken boxes on the ground-floor of a detached building opening on a courtyard. The Versailles troops had reached the spot, and ninety sappers and miners, with seven brave firemen, were at work with water-buckets attempting to save the main building, which was blazing fiercely when M. Chazal arrived. Already the detached building in which the precious duplicate was stored was on fire.

There was no place to which he could safely remove the precious papers, no means of transport to carry them away.

During the siege orders had been given to have large piles of sand placed in the courtyards of all public buildings, to smother sh.e.l.ls should any fall there. There were three of these sand-piles lying in the yard of this record office. In them deep trenches were rapidly dug; and the boxes were buried. Then the pile was covered with all the incombustible rubbish that could be collected; and had the Grand Livre been really destroyed, as for some days it was believed to have been, every Government creditor would have found his interests safe, through the exertions of M. Chazal and the intrepid band who worked under him.

In somewhat the same manner the gold and silver in the vaults of the Bank of France were saved from pillage. The narrow staircase leading to the vaults, down which only one man could pa.s.s at a time, was by order of the directors filled up with sand during the siege.

Though my readers may be weary of sad tales of ma.s.sacre, that of the Dominicans of Arceuil remains to be told. Their convent was in the suburbs of Paris; it had been turned by them into a hospital during the siege, and it continued to be so used during the Commune.

After the fall of Fort Issy, the insurgent troops made their headquarters not far from the convent. They were commanded by a general of some ability, but of ferocious character, named Serizier.

He was in the habit of saying, as he looked from his window into the garden of the Dominicans, "Those rascals ought to be roasted alive." On May 17 the roof of the building in which he lived caught fire. The Dominicans tucked up their gowns and did their best to put it out. When all was over, they were ordered to wait upon the general. They supposed that they were going to be thanked for their exertions, and were amazed at finding themselves accused of having set the building on fire as a signal to the Versaillais. The next morning a battalion of Communist soldiers surrounded their convent.

The prior, his monks, pupils, and servants, were arrested and marched to a casemate of a neighboring fort. Their convent was stripped of everything. The building, however, was saved by a _ruse_ on the part of an officer of the Commune, one of the better cla.s.s. They were two days without food, and were then driven into Paris like a flock of sheep, their black-and-white dress exposing them to all the insults and ribaldry of the excited mult.i.tude; for the Versaillais were in Paris, and hope, among those who knew the situation, was drawing to an end. That night the Dominicans were confined in a prison on the Avenue d'Italie, where a friend of Serizier's (known as Bobeche) was instructed what to do with them. During the morning, however, Bobeche went to a drinking saloon, and while there the man he left in charge received orders to send the priests to work on a barricade. He affected to misunderstand the order, and sent, instead, fifteen National Guards imprisoned for insubordination.

When Bobeche came back, half-drunk, he was furious. "What! was the blood of priests to be spared, and that of patriots imperilled at a post of danger?" Before long the order was repeated. "We will tend your wounded, General," said the prior, "we will go after them under fire, but we will not do the work of soldiers for you." At this, soldiers were called out to shoot the Dominicans. They were reluctant to obey, and Serizier dared not risk disobedience. The fathers were remanded to prison, but were soon called out one by one. Some volunteers had been found willing to do the shooting, among them two women, the fiercest of the band. As the fathers came into the street, all were shot at, but some were untouched; and soon succeeded a dreadful scene. Round and round the open square, and up side streets, they were hunted. Four of the twenty escaped.

Men laughed and women clapped their hands at seeing the priests run.

Then Serizier went back to the prison, and was making preparations to shoot the remaining prisoners, who were laymen, when one of his subordinates leaned over him and whispered that the troops of Versailles were at hand. He dropped his papers and made off. The troops came on, and picked up the bodies of the dead Dominicans.

Serizier was not arrested till some months after, when the wife of one of his victims, who had dogged him constantly after her husband's death, discovered him in disguise and gave him up to justice.

The Prefecture of Police, which stands upon an island in the Seine, in the heart of Paris, had in those days a small prison in its main building, and an annex for women. These prisons were full of prisoners,--_reactionnaires_, as they were called in the last days of the struggle.

On May 26, as has been said, nothing remained for the Commune to do but mischief. Raoul Rigault was busy, with his corps of _Vengeurs de Flourens_, getting through as many executions as possible; Felix Pyat was organizing underground explosions, Ferre, the destruction of public buildings. A gentleman[1] confined in the women's part of the Prefecture, chancing to look down from a high window on the offices of the main building, saw beneath him eight men in the uniform of the Commune, one of them wearing much gold lace, who were saturating the window-frames with something from a bottle, and bedaubing other woodwork with mops dipped in a bucket that he presumed contained petroleum. Their caps were pulled low over their eyes, as if they did not wish to be recognized. At last he saw the officer strike a match and apply it to the woodwork, which caught fire immediately. Then rose frightful shrieks from the prisons both of the men and the women, for many others had seen what was going on. An earnest appeal to a turnkey to go to the director of the prison and represent to him that all his prisoners would be burned, was met by the answer that he did not take orders from prisoners. But all turnkeys were not Communists, though Communist officials were set over them. Some of them took advantage of the confusion to look into the cells, and speak hope and comfort to the prisoners. But as the flames caught the great wooden porch of the Prefecture, the screams of the women were heart-rending; They even disturbed Ferre, who sent orders "to stop their squalling."

One warder, Braquond, ventured to remonstrate. "Bah!" said Ferre, "they are only women belonging to gendarmes and _sergents de ville_; we shall be well rid of them." Then Braquond resolved to organize a revolt, and save the prisoners. He ran to the corridor, and with a voice of authority ordered all the cell-doors to be opened, thus releasing four hundred prisoners. Braquond put himself at their head and led them on. But when they reached the outer gate, they were just in time to witness the departure of the last _Vengeur de Flourens_. Ferre had just received news that the troops of Versailles were close at hand, and he and his subordinates fled, leaving the prisoners to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.

[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]

But though delivered from the Commune, not only was the Prefecture and all in it in peril, but every building and every life upon the island. Quant.i.ties of ammunition had been stored in the Prefecture; if that caught fire, the "Cite" (as that part of Paris is called) and all its inhabitants would be blown into the air. The citizens of the quarter, the turnkeys, and the prisoners had nothing but their hands with which to fight the flames. In the midst of the fire they began to carry out the gunpowder. They had to make all speed, yet to be very careful. One train of powder escaping from a barrel, one sack of cartridges, with a rent in it, falling on the pavement, where sparks were dropping about, might have destroyed the whole "Cite."

There was a brave, stout woman, mistress of a coal and wood yard, named Madame Saint-Chely. She was a native of Auvergne, whence all porters and water-carriers in Paris come. With her sleeves tucked up, and her hair flying, she kept carrying out sack after sack of cartridges, undaunted, though her clothes caught fire.

Bending beneath the weight upon her back, she emptied them into the basin of the fountain that stands in the middle of the Place, then rushed back for more, while the flames poured from the windows of the upper story. Her activity and cheerfulness animated every one.

There was also a barber named Labois, who distinguished himself by his courage and activity in rolling barrels of powder out of the cellar of the prefecture, and plunging them into the Seine.

When several tons of powder and twenty millions of cartridges had been carried out, danger from that source was over. The next thing was to fight the flames. Then they discovered that all the fire-engines had been sent away. Every basin, pitcher, bucket, or saucepan on the island was put into requisition. Surrounded by the Seine, they had plenty of water. All worked with a will. At last an engine came, sent in to their help from Rambouillet.

One part of the Prefecture, whose burning caused innumerable sparks, was the depot for lost property. It contained, among other things twenty thousand umbrellas.

It was above all things desirable to remove the straw bedding of the prisoners, stored by day in one large room, and while those busy with powder and cartridges worked below, Pierre Braquond, the turnkey, took this task upon himself, a.s.sisted by some of his late prisoners.

The difficulty of escaping from the island was great, for the insurgents would fire on fugitives from the right bank of the river, the Versailles troops from the left. A warder, at the risk of his life, crept to the water's edge opposite to the Versaillais, and waved a white handkerchief. As soon as he was seen, the troops ceased firing.

Every moment it was expected that the roof of the prison would fall in, when suddenly the reservoir on the top of the building gave way, and the flames were checked by a rush of water. Braquond had said to Judge Bonjean a few days before he was sent from the Prefecture to Mazas, "I can stay here no longer. I am going to escape to Versailles." M. Bonjean replied: "As a magistrate I command you to remain; as a prisoner I implore you. What would become of those under your care if the friends of the Commune were set over them?"

The Ministry of Marine (that is, the Navy Department) is situated in the Rue Saint-Florentin, near the Rue Royale and the Place de la Concorde,--the most beautiful part of the city. The officer who held it for the Commune was Colonel Brunei, an excellent middle-aged man, far too good for his a.s.sociations. There was no stain of any kind on his past life, but he had been disappointed when peace was made with the Germans, and had joined the Commune in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm. Once in its service, there was no way to escape.

On May 23 the Versaillais were gaining every moment. There was a man named Matillion, charged by the Central Committee to do anything or to burn anything to prevent their advance. That night, when houses that he had set on fire were blazing in the Rue Royale (he had had petroleum pumped upon them by fire-engines), there was a fierce orgy held by the light of the flames before the Church of the Madeleine. A wild, demon-like dance was led by three women who had done duty all day as _petroleuses_,--Florence, Aurore, and Marie. Marie had been publicly thanked at the Hotel-de-Ville for sending a cannonball through one of the statues before the Chamber of Deputies.

Three battalions of Communist soldiers stationed in the Ministry of Marine, which had been converted into a hospital, took advantage of the fact that the general attention was fixed upon this orgy to quit their post and steal away, leaving the Ministry undefended.

It was eleven at night; Colonel Brunel was sending to the Central Committee for fresh soldiers and fresh orders, when a paper was given him. He read it, turned pale, and sent for the doctor. "The Central Committee," he said, "orders me to blow up this building immediately." "But my wounded?" cried the doctor. There were one hundred and seven wounded soldiers of the Commune in the hospital.

There was no place to which they could be moved, and no means of transportation. Colonel Brunel sent an orderly to represent the case to the Committee. All he could obtain was a detail of National Guards to a.s.sist in carrying away the wounded, together with a positive order to burn down the building. As the sick men were being very slowly carried out, a party arrived, commanded by a drunken officer, and carrying buckets of coal-oil and other combustibles, which they scattered about the rooms. By this time the fires of the Versaillais gleamed through the trees in the Champs elysees. The Rue Royale, near at hand, was in flames. Across the Seine, the Rue de Lille was burning. The Ministry of Finance and the palace of the Tuileries seemed a sea of flame. In the Ministry of Marine were two clerks, long attached to that branch of the Government service, who had been requested by Admiral Pothereau, the Minister for Naval Affairs, to remain at their post and endeavor to protect the papers and property. Their names were Gablin and Le Sage. M. Le Sage had his wife with him in the building. These men resolved to save the Ministry, or perish. While Le Sage, who was expert in gymnastics, set out to see if he could reach the general in command of the Versaillais, Gablin turned all his energies to prevent the impending conflagration. Putting on an air of haste and terror, he rushed into the room where the soldiers were refres.h.i.+ng themselves, and cried out l.u.s.tily that the Versaillais were upon them, but that if they followed him, he would save them. Under pretence of showing them a secret pa.s.sage, he led them into a chamber and locked the door. Then he turned his attention to their commander.

He represented to him that the Versaillais were close at hand, and promised him safety and a handsome reward if he would not set fire to the building. "But I have my orders!" objected the half-tipsy officer. "I have the order you had better obey," replied Gablin, pointing a pistol at his head. "Now, shall I fire, or shall I reward you?" The officer gave in. He helped M. Gablin to pour the buckets of coal-oil into the gutters in the courtyard, to clear away the powder, and to drench the floors with water. Then Gablin took him to a chamber, gave him plain clothes, and locked him in. He fell asleep upon the bed in a moment.

Le Sage meanwhile had made his way over the roofs of neighboring houses, and then descended to the Champs elysees. He was arrested several times by sentries, but at last made his way to General Douai. The general heard his story, and then put a paper into his hand, saying, "The Ministry of Marine is already ours." Admiral Pothereau himself, at three o'clock in the morning, was looking towards his old offices and residence from the Champs elysees.

He remarked to an aide-de-camp and to another officer: "All looks very quiet. Suppose we go and reconnoitre, and see how near we can approach my official home." They held their swords in their hands, and, followed by three gendarmes, cautiously drew near the Ministry. They met with no opposition, and finally walked in. "Where's Le Sage?" was the admiral's first question. "He is out looking for you, M. le Ministre," cried Le Sage's wife, shedding tears of anxiety.

Thus the Ministry of Marine was captured by the minister; but the building itself and all its valuable doc.u.ments had been preserved by the fidelity of two young men.

As for the Communist officer, when he came to himself he sincerely repented his connection with the Commune. He was pardoned, became a respectable citizen, and found a true friend in M. Gablin.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GREAT REVENGE.

The Commune cost Paris fourteen thousand lives. Eight thousand persons were executed; six thousand were killed in open fight.

Before the siege Paris had contained two million and a quarter of inhabitants: she had not half that number during the Commune, notwithstanding the mult.i.tude of small proprietors and peasants who had flocked thither from devastated homes.

Monday, May 29, found the city in the hands of the Versaillais.

The Provisional Government and its Parliament were victorious. The army, defeated at Sedan, had conquered its insurgent countrymen.

All that remained of the Commune was wreck and devastation. The Tuileries, the Column of the Place Vendome, the Treasury, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, and the Hotel-de-Ville, or City Hall, were destroyed, besides two theatres, the Law Courts, or Palais de Justice, the offices of the Council of State and the Court of Accounts, the State Safe Deposit (Caisse des Depots et de Consignations), the Library of the Louvre, the manufactory of Gobelin's tapestry, the Prefecture of Police, eight whole streets, and innumerable scattered private houses. The vengeance of the soldiers as they made their way from street to street, from barricade to barricade, was savage and indiscriminate. Every man arrested whose hands were black with powder was carried to a street corner or a courtyard, and summarily shot. Of course many wholly innocent persons perished, for the troops of the Commune had been of two kinds,--the National Guard and the Volunteers. Most of the latter were devils incarnate.

Among them were the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, who were foremost in executions, and bands called by such names as _Les Enfants du Pere d.u.c.h.ene_ and _Les Enfants Perdus_. The National Guards were of three cla.s.ses,--genuine Communists, workmen whose pay was their only resource for the support of their families, and pressed men, forced to fight, of whom there were a great many.

I have before me three narratives written by gentlemen who either suffered or partic.i.p.ated in the Great Revenge. One was a resident in Paris who had taken no part either for or against the Commune; one had served it on compulsion as a soldier; and one was an officer of the Versailles army, who on May 21 led his troops through a breach into the city, and fought on till May 27, when all was over.

It seems to me that such accounts of personal experience in troubled times give a far more vivid picture of events than a mere formal narration. I therefore quote them in this chapter in preference to telling the story in my own words.

The first is by Count Joseph Orsi,[1] whose visit to Raoul Rigault's office at the Prefecture of Police has already been told. He was left unmolested by the Commune, most probably because in early life he had been a member of those secret societies in Italy to which Louis Napoleon himself belonged. He says,--

[Footnote 1: Published in Fraser's Magazine, 1879.]

"On May 22 Paris was entering the last stage of its death struggle.

The army of Versailles had entered it from four different points.

The fight was desperate. Barricades were erected in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were shot in scores at the street-corners. Three of the largest houses in the Rue Royale, where I lived, were on fire. Soldiers of the regular army were beginning to appear in our quarter, and early on Thursday, May 25, I heard the bell of my apartment ring violently. I opened it, and found myself face to face with twelve _voltigeurs_ of the Versailles army; commanded by a lieutenant, who ordered the soldiers to search the house and shoot any one wearing a uniform. He told me that he must occupy my drawing-room, which looked on the Rue Royale, for the purpose of firing on the insurgents, who were holding a barricade where the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore joins the Rue Royale. My wife was seated on her sofa. He ordered her to leave the room. She resisted, and was removed by force. The soldiers then began firing on the insurgents from the windows. The insurgents had possession of the upper floors of some houses facing mine, and fired with such effect that the soldiers were driven from their position. The officer withdrew his men from the drawing-room and asked for a map of Paris, for he did not know exactly where he was. I made a friend of him by pointing to my pictures, everyone of which proved me to be a friend and follower of the emperor. He asked me if I had any wine to give his men, who had had nothing to eat or drink since the previous night. While they were partaking of bread and wine in the kitchen, and I was talking with the officer in the dining-room, a shot fired from across the street struck the officer on the temple. He fell as if struck dead. His soldiers rushed in and seized me. They were about to shoot me on the spot, when luckily my servant, with water and vinegar, brought the officer to his senses, so that he could raise his hand and make a sign to the soldiers, who had me fast by both my arms, to keep quiet. By G.o.d's mercy the officer had only been stunned. He had been hit, not by a bullet, but by a piece of brick forced out of the wall by a shot. I was released, but the soldiers were far from satisfied, believing their officer had accepted this explanation only to spare my life. They left my house at nightfall, and afterwards the fire of the insurgents became so hot that the front wall of the house fell in, and everything I had was smashed to pieces.

"The next morning, May 26, as I was searching for some valuable papers among the ruins, two men in plain clothes entered and ordered me to follow them to the Prefecture of Police, temporarily located on the Quai d'Orsay. As Paris was by this time completely under military rule I was examined by an officer. I told him that, not knowing for what purpose I was wanted, I had left my papers at home, and was sent under charge of two men to fetch them. I was also given to understand that I had better make any arrangements I thought necessary for my wife, which led me to think it probable I should be shot or imprisoned. It was a reign of terror of a new kind, of which I could never have expected to be a victim. As we were crossing the Place de la Concorde we saw half a dozen soldiers who had seized four Federals on the barricade close by. A struggle was going on for life or death. The soldiers, having at last the upper hand, strove to drag the Federals to the wall of the Ministry of Marine to be shot. The poor wretches were imploring for mercy, and refused to stand erect. Seeing this, the soldiers shot them one after the other as they lay upon the ground.

"I was finally disposed of, in company with other prisoners, in some large stables and carriage houses. Some of us were in plain clothes, some in uniform. We were all packed together so closely that there was not even the possibility of lying down upon the stones. Bread and water alone were given us. On the approach of night we were shut in like cattle, with the intimation that any attempt to revolt or escape would be followed by instant execution.

"The next morning, May 27, at dawn, ten soldiers, with an officer at their head, began calling by name eight or ten prisoners at a time from one of our places of confinement, and they were dragged away, G.o.d knows where. Utter dejection and despair were depicted on the face of every man, especially on those who had been seized on the barricades or in uniform. That afternoon I was called out, being part of a batch of nine prisoners, mostly in plain clothes.

On that day rain fell incessantly. We thought as we marched through the mud and drizzle that we were going to be shot _en ma.s.se_ without any further trial; but on reaching the Champ de Mars, our escort was ordered to take us to the barracks that are near it. There our names were taken down by an officer, and we were locked up in a room where seven other prisoners had already been confined.

It would be too horrible to relate the filth and closeness of that place, which might have held seven or eight people, and we were sixteen! There was a board fitted between two walls where seven people could lie. This was appropriated before we got there. We were forced to stand up or to lie down on the stones, which were damp and inexpressibly dirty. We remained thus for two days. On the 29th the door opened at seven A. M. Eight soldiers were drawn up outside. The sergeant called out one of the prisoners named Lefevre, who wore a National Guard's uniform. The poor fellow stepped out between the two lines of soldiers, and the door closed on him.

He was taken before the colonel, who was instructed to examine the prisoners, and had the discretionary power of ordering them to be shot on the spot, or of sending them to Versailles to appear before the superior commission, by whom they were either set at liberty or sentenced to transportation. Poor Lefevre was not heard of again. We thought we heard a brisk volley of musketry in the large courtyard, but we had been so accustomed to such noises that it did not attract general attention. Later in the day another prisoner was called out in the same manner, and he came back no more; this time the noise of the discharge was distinct, and made us alive to the imminence of our fate. On the third prisoner being called out, he refused to go. Two soldiers had to take him by force.

He fought desperately for his life. The door was shut. We had not long to wait; the discharge of musketry re-echoed in our cell, and caused within it such a scene of despair as baffles description.

"Next day four men were taken out and executed, which reduced our number to nine. By this time we had recovered from the shots and heeded little what was going to take place, as every one of us had bidden adieu to this world and made his peace with G.o.d.

"On May 31 our door was opened again. Twelve soldiers were drawn up before it. We were all ordered out. We thought we were going to be shot _en ma.s.se_, to make quicker work of us. To my amazement, we saw a large column of about four hundred prisoners, four abreast, between two lines of grenadiers. Evidently we were intended to form the last contingent to it. The soldiers having been drawn up in two long lines on both sides of the column, an officer drew his sword, and standing up on a wine-hogshead, shouted: 'Soldiers, load arms.' This being done, he added: 'Fire on any prisoner who attempts to revolt or escape.'

"We then took the road to the Western Railroad, where we were put into cattle vans and goods vans, with scarcely room to breathe, and reached Versailles about six P. M. A detachment of soldiers escorted us to Satory. The column marched in to the artillery depot, and the gates were closed. I happened to be the right-hand man of the four last prisoners in the column, so that I stood only three or four yards from the officer in command of the place, who stood looking at the prisoners, with his arms folded and his officers beside him. I saw him staring at me, which I attributed to my being the best-dressed man of the party. Presently he walked slowly up to me, and measuring me from head to foot with what I took to be a diabolical sneer, cried, 'Ho! Ho! the ribbon of the Legion of Honor! You got it, I suppose, on the barricades!' With that I felt a sharp pull at my coat. Quick as thought, I brought my hand down, and caught his firmly as he was trying to tear the ribbon from my breast. In my agitated state of mind I had not been aware I was wearing a coat that had it on. 'You may shoot me, Captain,'

I said, 'but you shall not wrest that ribbon from me.' 'Where did you get it?' 'The prince president of the Republic, Louis Napoleon, gave it me.' 'When?' 'On September 23, 1853.' 'How is it, then, that you were arrested? Was it on a barricade?' 'No, Captain, in my own apartment. It is not likely I should fight for the Commune after having been a devoted friend of the emperor for forty years.'