France in the Nineteenth Century Part 33

One of the warders of the prison, Henrion by name, made some attempt to expostulate with the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, who had been told off for the execution. "What would you have?" was the answer. "Killing is not at all amusing. We were killing this morning at the Prefecture of Police. But they say this is reprisal. The Versaillais have been killing our generals."

Soon Henrion was called upon to open the fourth corridor. "I must go and get the keys," he answered. He had them in his hand at the moment. He went rapidly away, flung the keys into a heap of filth, and rushed out of the prison. By means of a twenty-franc gold piece that he had with him, he pa.s.sed out of the gates of Paris, and sought refuge with the Bavarians at Vincennes.

Meantime another bunch of keys was found, and the executioners, led by Ferre, Lolive, and Megy,--that member of the Commune whom none of them seemed to know,--hurried upstairs. In the crowd were _gamins_ and women, National Guards, Garibaldians, and others, but chiefly the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, a corps of which an Englishman who served the Commune said: "They were to a man all blackguards."

Up the prison stairs they swarmed, shouting threats and curses, especially against the archbishop, who was erroneously believed by the populace of Paris to have had provisions hidden in the vaults of Notre Dame and in his palace during the siege. A turnkey was ordered to summon the six prisoners; but when he found whom he was to call, he refused, and the officer in command had to call them himself.

The archbishop's name was first. He came out of his cell at once, wearing his purple ca.s.sock. Then Gaspard Duguerrey was summoned.

He was eighty years old. He did not answer immediately, and was called a second time. Next, Leon Ducoudray was called,--a Jesuit father, head of a college, a tall, fine-looking man. He came forth with a proud smile. Alexis Clerc, also a Jesuit father, stepped forth briskly, almost gayly. Then came Michel Allard, the hospital chaplain,--a gentle, kindly-looking man. The three weeks before his arrest had been spent by him in attending upon the wounded of the Commune. Finally the judge, Senator Louis Bonjean, was called.

"In a moment," he replied; "I am putting my coat on." At this, one of the leaders seized him. "You will want no coat where you are going," he cried; "come as you are."

The only one of the party who seemed to tremble was the aged _cure_ of the Madeleine; but his nervous tremor soon pa.s.sed off, and he was calm like the others. As they went down the winding stairs, the archbishop (being first) stepped rapidly before the rest, and turning at the bottom, raised his hand and p.r.o.nounced the absolution. After this there was silence among the prisoners. "The chaplain Allard alone," said one of the Commune, "kept on muttering something." He was reciting, half aloud, the service for the dying.

Pere Ducoudray had his breviary in his hand. He gave it, as he pa.s.sed, to the concierge of the prison. The captain of the firing party s.n.a.t.c.hed it, and flung it on the fire.

When the spot was reached where the shooting was to take place, the archbishop addressed some words of pity and forgiveness to the murderers. Two of the firing party knelt at his feet; but he had not time to bless them before, with threats and blows, they were forced to rise, and the archbishop was ordered to go and place himself against the wall.

But here, when the bitterness of death was almost pa.s.sed, occurred a difficulty. Two of the leaders wanted to have the execution in a little inner courtyard, shut in by blank walls. So the procession was again formed, marched through long pa.s.sages and up stairways, and halted while keys were searched for, before it came to the spot.

On the way, a man crept up to the archbishop, uttering blasphemies into his ear. The good man's mild look of reproof and pain so moved one of the sub-officers that he drove the man off, saying: "We are here to shoot these men, not to insult them."

The six victims were at last placed in a line, with their backs to the wall. As Ferre was giving the order to fire, the archbishop raised his right hand in order to give, as his last act, his episcopal blessing. As he did so, Lolive exclaimed: "That's your benediction is it?--now take mine!" and shot the old man through the body with a revolver. All were shot dead at once, save M. Bonjean.

There is now a marble slab in the little court inscribed with their names, and headed: "Respect this place, which witnessed the death of n.o.ble men and martyrs." The warder, Henrion, was put in charge of the place, and planted it with beds of flowers.

The execution over, the leaders searched the cells of their victims.

In most of them they found nothing; in two were worn ca.s.socks, and in the archbishop's was his pastoral ring. One of the party said the amethyst in it was a diamond; another contradicted him, and said it was an emerald. The bodies lay unburied until two o'clock in the morning, when four or five of those who had shot them despoiled them, one hanging the archbishop's chain and cross about his own neck, another appropriating his silver shoe-buckles. Then they loaded the bodies on a hand-barrow and carried them to an open trench dug in Pere la Chaise. There, four days later, when the Versaillais had full possession of the city, they were found. The archbishop and the Abbe Duguerrey were taken to the archbishop's house with a guard of honor, and are buried at Notre Dame. The two Jesuit fathers were buried in their own cemetery, and Judge Bonjean and the hospital chaplain sleep in honored graves in Pere la Chaise.

After these executions a large number of so-called "hostages,"--ecclesiastics, soldiers of the line, _sergents de ville_, and police agents remained shut up in La Roquette. It was Sat.u.r.day, May 27, the day before Whit Sunday. Says the Abbe Lamazou,--

"It was a few minutes past three, and I was kneeling in my cell saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling in the corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Suddenly the door of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried: 'Courage! our time has come.' 'Yes, courage!' I answered. 'G.o.d's will be done.' I had on my ecclesiastical habit, and went out into the corridor.

There I found a mixed crowd of prisoners, priests, soldiers, and National Guards. The priests and the National Guards seemed resigned to their fate, but the soldiers, who had fought the Prussians, could not believe it was intended to shoot them. Suddenly a voice, loud as a trumpet, rose above the din. 'Friends,' it cried, 'hearken to a man who desires to save you. These wretches of the Commune have killed more than enough people. Don't let yourselves be murdered!

Join me. Let us resist. Sooner than give you up I will die with you!' The speaker was Poiret, one of the warders of the prison. He had been horrified by what had been done already, and when ordered by his superiors to give up the prisoners in his corridor to a yelling crowd, he had shut the doors on the third story behind him, and was advising us, at the risk of his own life, to organize resistance."

The abbe joined him with, "Don't let us be shot, my friends; let us defend ourselves. Trust in G.o.d; he is on our side!"

But many hesitated. "Resistance is mere madness," they said; and a soldier shouted, "They don't want to kill _us_; they want the priests! Don't let us lose our lives defending _them_!"

"The _sergents de ville_ in the story below you," cried Poiret, "are going to defend themselves, They are making a barricade across the door of their corridor. We have no arms, but we have courage.

Don't let us be shot down by the rabble."

It was proposed to make a hole in the floor, and so to communicate with the _sergents de ville_. The prisoners armed themselves with boards and iron torn from their bedsteads, and in five minutes had made an opening through the floor. A non-commissioned officer from below climbed through it, and arranged with Poiret the plan of defence.

By this time the inner courtyard of the prison was invaded by a rough and squalid crowd, come to take a hand in whatever murder or mischief might be done. The besieged put mattresses before their windows for protection. The man who led the mob was one Pasquier, a murderer who had been in a condemned cell in La Roquette till let out by the general jail-delivery of the Commune.

Two barricades were built like that on the floor below. Pasquier and some of his followers had burst open the outer door, and were endeavoring to burn both the prison and the prisoners. "Never fear,"

cried a corporal who had superintended the hasty erection of the barricades; "I put nothing combustible into them. They can't burn floor tiles and wire mattresses. Bring all the water you can."

The crowd continued to shout threats. The battery from Pere la Chaise, they cried, was coming; and often a voice would shout, "Soldiers of the Loire, surrender! We will not hurt you. We will set you at liberty!" A few soldiers trusted this promise, and as soon as they got into the crowd were ma.s.sacred.

In the midst of the tumult came a sudden lull; the besieged could see that something strange had taken place. The crowd had been informed that the Government, alarmed by the advance of the Versailles troops, had abandoned its headquarters at the _mairie_ of the Eleventh Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and had gone to Belleville. Amazed and confused by this intelligence, the mob followed its leaders. Only a few minutes before it left, two guns and a mortar had been brought to fire on the prison; they were now dragged away in the wake of the Government.

The criminal prisoners at La Roquette were in a state of great excitement. They had been liberated, and such weapons as could be found were put into their hands; but they were not inclined either to kill their fellow-captives or to fight for the Commune. They hastily made off, shouting, "Vive la Commune! Vive la Republique!"

By this time the prison director and his officials had disappeared.

The prison doors were open. Then came another danger: soldiers of the Commune, fleeing from the vengeance of the Versaillais, might seek refuge in the prison. With much difficulty the Abbe Lamazou persuaded Poiret and some other warders who had stood with him, to close the gates till the arrival of troops from Versailles.

It was still more difficult, now that a way was open to escape, to persuade his fellow-captives to remain in prison. Some priests would not take his advice, among them Monseigneur Surat, the vicar-general. He had secured a suit of citizen's clothes, and hoped to escape in safety. In vain the Abbe Lamazou called out to him, "To go is certain death; to stay is possible safety." He was killed most cruelly, together with two' priests and a layman.

At eleven o'clock at night, firing seemed to cease in the city, but outside of the prison the maddened crowd continued all night howling insults and curses. Hours seemed ages to the anxious and now famished captives, shut up in the great building. The barricade of the Rue de la Roquette was near them, still defended by insurgents; but in the early dawn it was abandoned, and shortly after, a battalion of marines took possession of La Roquette. The resistance of the prisoners, which had seemed at first so desperate, had proved successful.

Innumerable other anecdotes have found their way into print concerning the last hours of the Commune; but I will rather tell of Megy, the member of the Council who, in his scarf of office, animated the party that slew the archbishop and his, five companions.

He reached New York in 1878, and, as I said, was received with an ovation by a colony of escaped Communists who had settled on our sh.o.r.es. A reporter connected with the New York "World" called upon Megy, and here is his account of the interview:--

"'I was born in Paris, in 1844,' said the ex-member of the Commune, lighting a cigar; 'I went through a primary school, and learned but little. I was apprenticed to a machinist. When I was twenty I found work on the Suez Ca.n.a.l. I was already a member of a secret society organized against the Empire, with Blanqui at its head.

In 1866 I came back to Paris, and persuaded all my fellow-workmen in the establishment where I was employed to become conspirators.

We waited for a good opportunity to commence an insurrection. Some of us wanted to begin when Pierre Bonaparte murdered Victor Noir; but it was put off till February 7, when about three thousand of us rushed into the streets, began raising barricades, and proclaimed a Republic. The next day two thousand republicans were arrested.

On February 11 six police agents came to my house at a quarter past five in the morning. I had a pistol, and when the first one entered my room to arrest me, I shot him dead. You should have seen how the others scampered downstairs. I am glad I killed him.

But five minutes after, I was overpowered, bound, and taken to prison. I was condemned to twenty years in New Caledonia, with hard labor. I was sent to Toulon, but before my embarkation the Republic was proclaimed, and a decree of the Government set me at liberty. I came to Paris, and was named a member of the Munic.i.p.al Council. In October, 1870, during the siege, an order was pa.s.sed for my arrest because I endeavored to deprive General Trochu of his command. I hid myself, enlisted under a false name, and fought the Prussians. Then I went to the South of France, and waited to see what would happen. I was there when the Commune was proclaimed.

I arrested the prefect of Ma.r.s.eilles on my own responsibility, and put myself in his place. I was prefect of Ma.r.s.eilles for eight days. Early in April I made my way to Paris, was made a general, and put in charge of Fort Issy.[l] When Fort Issy fell, I was made commander-in-chief on the left bank of the Seine. I ordered the Palace of the Legion of Honor to be set on fire; I defended the barricades on the Boulevard of Magenta; and when I left them on May 24, I found that Ferre and Deleschuze had given orders to shoot the hostages because the troops of Thiers had shot eight of our officers.'"

[Footnote 1: General Rossel gave his opinion of the officers in command at Fort Issy in his letter to the Commune.]

"'Did you approve that order?'" asked the "World's" reporter.

"'Yes; why not? Of course I approved it. I went at once to La Roquette, to be present at the execution. We were one hundred and fifty men, but one hundred and twenty of them slunk away, and only thirty remained for the work we came for.'

"'And what did you do?'

"'_Ma foi!_ I don't particularly care to say what I did; it might injure me here where I have got work. We called out the men we came to shoot, and we shot them as that kind of thing is generally done. We took them down into a courtyard, put them against a wall, and gave the order to fire; that was all.'

"After a minute's silence, Megy added: 'It was all M. Thiers' fault.

We offered to give him up the hostages if he would give us Blanqui; but he refused, and so we shot them. After the execution I fought to the last. I escaped from Paris in a coal-cart, and went to Geneva.

I have had work in London and in Birmingham, and now I have got work in New York.'"

He went on to affirm that there was a large colony of Communists in that city; that America needed revolutionizing as much as France; that Cardinal McCloskey might find himself in the same position as Monseigneur Darboy; and so on.

I have quoted this interview with Megy at some length, because it shows the Communists painted by one of their own number. Before the reporter left him, he chanced to p.r.o.nounce the name of Mr.

Washburne. "Washburne is a liar and a cur," cried Megy, angrily.

"Before the Commune ended, some of our people asked him what the Versailles Government would do with us if we surrendered or were conquered. 'I a.s.sure you,' he said, 'you would be shot.' During the siege of Paris, Washburne was a German spy. He is a villanous old rascal."

In studying the history of the Commune, it is desirable to remember dates. The whole affair lasted seventy-three days. On March 18 the guns on Montmartre were taken by the populace, Generals Lecomte and Thomas were shot, and the Commune was proclaimed. Military operations were begun April 4. On April 9 Fort Valerien began to throw sh.e.l.ls into Paris. From that day forward, the Versailles troops continued to advance, taking possession one by one of the forts and the positions of the Federals. On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles troops began to enter Paris, and fought their way steadily from street to street till Sunday, May 27, when all was over. The hostages were not hostages in the true sense of the word; they had not been given up in pledge for the performance of any promise. They were persons seized for purposes of intimidation and retaliation, as in 1826 the Turks seized the most prominent Christians in Scio.

During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski, its only general with military capacity, was killed,--it is supposed, by one of his own men. The Tuileries, the Hotel-de-Ville, and numerous other buildings were fired, the Dominican Brothers were ma.s.sacred, and the executions in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in other parts of Belleville and at the Prefecture. One of the most diabolical pieces of destruction attempted was that of the Grand Livre.

The Grand Livre is the book kept in the French Treasury in which are inscribed the names and accounts of all those who hold Government securities; and as the French Government is the proprietor of all railroads, telegraph systems, and many other things that in England and the United States are left to private enterprise, the loss of the Grand Livre would have involved thousands upon thousands of families in ruin. For a man to have his name on the Grand Livre is to const.i.tute him what is called a _rentier_, _rentes_ being the French word for dividends from the public funds.

The Grand Livre is kept at the Ministry of Finance; that building Ferre ordered to be summarily destroyed, uttering the words, "Flambez Finances." The building was accordingly set on fire the day before the Commune fell; and for some days after, it was thought throughout all France that the Grand Livre had perished. By heroic exertions some of it was saved, the officials in charge of it rushing into the flames and rescuing that portion of it which contained the names of living property-holders, I while they let the records of past generations burn.