Paris under the Commune Part 17

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 Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 const.i.tuted the whole of the French army; to surprise Versailles, inadequately defended, and seize, if it were possible, on the a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sistant. 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sistant, Victor Bergeret.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL DOMBROWSKI.]

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 munic.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sing 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 munic.i.p.al 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 navely might defend me against the Prussians! Think, a revolver with six b.a.l.l.s, 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, n.o.body 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 _pet.i.t-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 ill.u.s.trious, or least ign.o.ble, 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 b.a.l.l.s and torn to pieces by sh.e.l.ls. 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 pa.s.s 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 sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sive 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 princ.i.p.al street of Neuilly. Two hundred boys--the eldest scarcely twelve years old--had a.s.sembled 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 c.o.c.kade; 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 b.l.o.o.d.y fight will have a b.l.o.o.d.y end. It is not alone between the Commune of Paris and the a.s.sembly 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 princ.i.p.al object of all these propositions is the definitive establishment of the Republic, and the fall and entire recognition of our munic.i.p.al liberties. The National a.s.sembly 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 munic.i.p.al 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.