Paris under the Commune Part 21

Who would think it? They are voting. When I say "they are voting," I mean to say "they might vote;" for as for going to the poll, Paris seems to trouble itself but little about it. The Commune, too, seems somewhat embarra.s.sed. You remember Victor Hugo's song of the Adventurers of the Sea:

"En partant du golfe d'Otrente Nous etions trente, Mais en arrivant a Cadix Nous n'etions que dix."[59]

The gentlemen of the Hotel de Ville might sing this song with a few slight variations. The Gulf of Otranto was not their starting point, but the b.u.t.tes Montmartre; though to make up for it they were eighty in number. On arriving at C----, no, I mean, the decree of the Colonne Vendome, they were a few more than ten, but not many. What charming stanzas in imitation of Victor Hugo might Theodore de Banville and Albert Glatigny write on the successive desertions of the members of the Commune. The first to withdraw were the _maires_ of Paris, frightened to death at having been sent by the votes of their fellow-citizens into an a.s.sembly which was not at all, it appears, their ideal of a munic.i.p.al council. And upon this subject Monsieur Desmarest, Monsieur Tirard, and their _adjoints_ will perhaps permit me an unimportant question. What right had they to persuade their electors and the Friends of Order, to vote for the Commune of Paris if they were resolved to decline all responsibility when the votes had been given them? Their presence at the Hotel de Ville, would it not have infused--as we hoped--a powerful spirit of moderation even in the midst of excesses that could even then be foretold? When they have done all they can to persuade people to vote, have they the right to consider themselves ineligible? In a word, why did they propose to us to elect the Commune of Paris if the Commune were a bad thing? and if it were a good thing, why did they refuse to take their part in it? Whatever the cause, no sooner were they elected than they sent in their resignations. Then the hesitating and the timid disappeared one after another, not having the courage to continue the absurdity to the end. Add to all this the arrests made in its very bosom by the a.s.sembly of the Hotel de Ville itself, and you will then have an idea of the extent of the dilemma. A few days more and the Commune will come to an end for want of Communists, and then we shall cry, "Haste to the poll, citizens of Paris!" And the white official handbills will announce supplementary elections for Sunday, 16th of April.

But here comes the difficulty; there may be elections, but not the shadow of an elector. Of candidates there are enough, more than enough, even to spare; Toting lists where the electors' names are inscribed; ballot-urns-no, ballot-boxes this time-to receive the lists; these are all to be found, but voters to put the lists into the ballot-boxes, to elect the candidates, we seek them in vain. The voting localities may be compared to the desert of Sahara viewed at the moment when not a caravan is to be seen on the whole extent of the horizon, so complete is the solitude wherever the eager crowd of voters was expected to hasten to the poll. Are we then so far from the day when the Commune of Paris, in spite of the numerous absentees, was formed--thanks to the strenuous efforts of the few electors left to us? Alas! At that time we had still some illusions left to us, whilst now.... Have you ever been at the second representation of a piece when the first was a failure? The first day there was a cram, the second day only the claque remained. People had found oat the worth of the piece, you see. Nevertheless, though the place is peopled only with silence and solitude, the claque continues to do its duty, for it receives its pay. For the same reason one sees a few battalions marching to the poll, all together, in step, just as they would march to the fighting at the Porte Maillot; and as they return they cry, "Oh! citizens, how the people are voting! Never was such enthusiasm seen!" But behind the scenes,--I mean in the Hotel de Ville,--authors and actors whisper to each other: "There is no doubt about it, it is a failure!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59:

On leaving the gulf of Otranto There were thirty of us there, But on arriving at Cadiz There were no more than ten.

LIV.

And what has become of the Bourse? What are the brokers and jobbers saying and doing now? I ask myself this question for the first time, as in ordinary circ.u.mstances, the Bourse is of all sublunary things that which occupies me the least. I am one of those excessively stupid people, who have never yet been able to understand how all those black-coated individuals can occupy three mortal hours of every day, in coming and going beneath the colonnade of the "temple of Plutus." I know perfectly well that stockbrokers and jobbers exist; but if I were asked what these stockbrokers and jobbers do, I should be incapable of answering a single word. We have all our special ignorances. I have heard, it is true, of the _Corbeille_,[60] but I ingeniously imagined, in my simple ignorance, that this famous basket was made in wicker work, and crammed with sweet-scented leaves and flowers, which the gentlemen of the Bourse, with the true gallantry of their nation, made up into emblematical bouquets to offer to their lady friends. I was shown, however, how much I was deceived by a friend who enlightened me, more or less, as to what is really done in the Bourse in usual times, and what they are doing there now.

I must begin by acknowledging that in using the worn metaphor of the "temple of Plutus" just now, I knew little of what I was talking about.

The Bourse is not a temple; if it were it would necessarily be a church or something like one, and consequently would have been closed long ago by our most gracious sovereign, the Commune of Paris.

The Bourse, then, is open; but what is the good of that? you will say, for all those who haunt it now, could get in just as well through closed doors and opposing railings; spectres and other supernatural beings never find any difficulty in insinuating themselves through keyholes and slipping between bars. 'Poor phantoms! Thanks to the weakness of our Government, which has neglected to put seals on the portals of the Bourse, they are under the obligation of going in and coming out like the most ordinary individuals; and a Parisian, who has not learned, by a long intimacy with Hoffmann and Edgar Poe, to distinguish the living from the dead, might take these ghosts of the money-market for simple _boursiers_. Thank heaven! I am not a man to allow myself to be deceived by specious appearances on such a subject, and I saw at once with whom I had to do.

On the grand staircase there were four or five of them, spectres lean as vampires who have not sucked blood for three months; they were walking in silence, with the creeping, furtive step peculiar to apparitions who glide among the yew-trees in church-yards. From time to time one of them pulled a ghost of a notebook from his ghost of a waistcoat-pocket, and wrote appearances of notes with the shadow of a pencil. Others gathered together in groups, and one could distinctly hear the rattling of bones beneath their shadowy overcoats. They spoke in that peculiar voice which is only understood by the _confreres_ of the magi Eliphas Levy, and they recall to each other's mind the quotations of former days, Austrian funds triumphant, Government stock at 70 (_quantum mutata ab illa_), bonds of the city of Paris 1860-1869, and the fugitive apotheosis of the Suez shares. They said with sighs: "You remember the premiums? In former times there were reports made, in former times there were settling days at the end of the month, and huge pocket-book's were so well filled, that they nearly burst; but now, we wander amidst the ruins of our defunct splendour, as the shade of Diomedes wandered amid the ruins of his house at Pompeii. We are of those who were; the imaginary quotations of shares that have disappeared, are like vain epitaphs on tombs, and we, despairing ghosts, we should die a second time of grief, if we were not allowed to appear to each other in this deserted palace, here to brood over our past financial glories!" Thus spoke the phantoms of the money market, and then added: "Oh! Commune, Commune, give us back our settling days?" From time to time a phantom, which still retains its haughty air, and in which we recognise a defunct of distinction, pa.s.ses near them. In the days of Napoleon the Third and the Prussians this was a stockbroker; it pa.s.sed along with a ma.s.s of doc.u.ments under its arm,--as the father of Hamlet, rising from the grave, still wore his helmet and his sword. It enters the building, goes towards the _Corbeille_, shouts out once or twice, is answered only by an echo in the solitude, and then returns, saluted on his pa.s.sage by his fellow-ghost. And to think that a little bombardment, followed by a successful attack, seven or eight houses set on fire by the Versailles sh.e.l.ls, seven or eight hundred Federals shot, a few women blown to pieces, and a few children killed, would suffice to restore these desolate spectres to life and joy. But, alas! hope for them is deferred; the last circular of Monsieur Thiers announces that the great military operations will not commence for several days. They must wait still longer yet. The people who cross the Place de la Bourse draw aside with a sort of religious terror from the necropolis where sleep the three per cents and the shares of the _Credit Foncier_; and if the churches were not closed, more than one charitable soul would perhaps burn a candle to lay the unquiet spirits of these despairing jobbers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: A circular s.p.a.ce in the great hall of the Bourse, enclosed with a railing, and in which the stockbrokers stand to take bids. It is nicknamed the basket (_corbeille_).]

LV.

The game is played, the Commune is _au complet_. In the first arrondiss.e.m.e.nt 21260 electors, are inscribed, and there were 9 voters!

Monsieur Vesinier had 2 votes, and Monsieur Vesinier was elected.

Monsieur Lacord--more clever still--has no votes at all, and, triumphing by the unanimity of his electors, Monsieur Lacord will preside over the Commune of Paris in future. A very logical arrangement. It must be evident to all serious minds that the legislators of the Hotel de Ville have promulgated _in petto_ a law which they did not think it necessary to make known, but which exists nevertheless, and most be couched somewhat in the following terms:--"Clause 1st. The elections will not be considered valid, if the number of voters exceed a thousandth part of the electors entered.--Clause 2nd. Every candidate who has less than fifteen votes will be elected; if he has sixteen his election will be a matter of discussion." The poll is just like the game called, "He who loses gains, and he who gains loses!" and the probable advantages of such an arrangement are seen at once. Now let us do a bit of Communal reasoning. By whom was France led within an inch of destruction? By Napoleon the Third. How many votes did Napoleon the Third obtain? Seven millions and more. By whom was Paris delivered into the hands of the Prussians? By the dictators of the 4th September. How many votes did the dictators of the 4th September get for themselves in the city of Paris?

More than three hundred thousand. _Ergo_, the candidates who obtain the greatest number of votes are swindlers and fools. The Commune of Paris cannot allow such abuses to exist; the Commune maintains universal suffrage--the grand basis of republican inst.i.tutions--but turns it topsy-turvy. Michon has only had half a vote,--then Michon is our master!

Ah! you do not only make us tremble and weep, you make us laugh too.

What is this miserable parody of universal suffrage? What is this farce of the will of the people being represented by a half a dozen electors?

The unknown individual, who owes his triumph to the kindness of his concierge and his water-carrier, becomes a member of the Commune. I shall be governed by Vesinier, with Briosne and Viard as supporters. Do you not see that the few men, with any sense left, who still support you, have refused to present themselves as candidates, and that even amongst those who were mad enough to declare themselves eligible, there are some who dispute the validity of the elections? No; you see nothing of all this, or rather it suits you to be blind. What are right and justice to you? Let us reign, let us govern, let us decree, let us triumph. All is contained in that. Rogeard pleases us, so we'll have Rogeard. If the people won't have Rogeard, so much the worse for the people. Beautiful! admirable! But why don't you speak out your opinion frankly? There were some honest brigands (_par pari refertur_) in the Roman States who were perhaps no better than you are, but at least they made no pretension of being otherwise than lawless, and followed their calling of brigands without hypocrisy. When, by the course of various adventures, the band got diminished in numbers, they stuck no handbills on the walls to invite people to elect new brigands to fill up the vacant places; they simply chose among the vagabonds and such like individuals those, who seemed to them, the most capable of dealing a blow with a stiletto or stripping a traveller of his valuables, and the band, thus properly reinforced, went about its usual occupations. The devil! _Messieurs_, one must say what is what, and call things by their names. Let us call a cat a cat, and Pilotel a thief. The time of illusions is past; you need not be so careful to keep your masks on; we have seen your faces. We have had the carnival of the Commune, and now Ash-Wednesday is come. You disguised yourselves cunningly, _Messieurs_; you routed out from the old cupboards and corners of history the cast-off revolutionary rags of the men of '98; and, sticking some ornaments of the present fashion upon them,--waistcoats a la Commune and hats a la Federation,--you dressed yourselves up in them and then struck att.i.tudes. People perceived, it is true, that the clothes that were made for giants, were too wide for you pigmies; they hung round your figures like collapsed balloons; but you, cunning that you were, you said, "We have been wasted by persecution." And when, at the very beginning, some stains of blood were seen upon your old disguises; "Pay no attention,"

said you, "it is only the red flag we have in our pockets that is sticking out." And it happened that some few believed you. We ourselves, in the very face of all our suspicions, let ourselves be caught by the waving of your big Scaramouche sleeves, that were a great deal too long for your arms. Then you talked of such beautiful things: liberty, emanc.i.p.ation of workmen, a.s.sociation of the working-cla.s.ses, that we listened and thought we would see you at your task before we condemned you utterly. And now we have seen you at your task, and knowing how you work, we won't give you any more work to do. Down with your mask, I tell you! Come, false Danton, be Rigault again, and let Serailler's[61] face come out from behind that Saint Just mask he has on. You, Napoleon Gaillard, though you are a shoemaker, you are not even a Simon. Drop the Robespierre, Rogeard! Off with the trappings borrowed from the dark, grand days! Be mean, small, and ridiculous,--be yourselves; we shall all be a great deal more at our ease when you are despicable and we are despising you again.

Paris said to you yesterday just what I am telling you now. This almost general abstention of electors, compared with the eagerness of former times, is but the avowal of the error to which your masquerade has given rise. And what does it prove but the resolution to mix in your carnival no more? We see clearly through it now, I tell you, that the saturnalia is wearing to its end. In vain does the orchestra of cannon and mitrailleuses, under the direction of the conductor, Cluseret, play madly on and invite us to the fete. We will dance no more, and there is an end of it!

But it will be fatal to Paris if, after saying this, she sit satisfied.

Contempt is not enough, there must be abhorrence too, and actual measures taken against those we abhor. It is not sufficient to neglect the poll, one abstains when one is in doubt, but now that we doubt no longer it is time to act. While wrongful work is being done, those that stand aside with folded arms become accomplices. Think that for more than a fortnight the firing has not ceased; that Neuilly and Asnieres have been turned into cemeteries; that husbands are falling, wives weeping, children suffering. Think that yesterday, the 18th of April, the chapel of Longchamps became a dependance--an extra dead-house--of the ambulances of the Press, so numerous were that day's dead. Think of the savage decrees pa.s.sed upon the hostages and the refractory, those who shunned the Federates; of the requisitions and robberies; of the crowded prisons and the empty workshops, of the possible ma.s.sacres and the certain pillage. Think of our own compromised honour, and let us be up and doing, so that those who have remained in Paris during these mournful hours, shall not have stood by her only to see her fall and die.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: Serailler, a member of the International, intrusted with a commission to London on behalf of the Central Committee to borrow cash for the daily pay of thirty sous to the National Guard.]

LVI.

Paris! for once I defy you to remain indifferent. You have had much to bear, during these latter days; it has been said to you, that you should kneel in your churches no more, and you have not knelt there; that the newspapers that pleased you, should be read no more, and you have not read them. You have continued to smile--with but the tips of your lips, it is true--and to promenade on the boulevards. But now comes stalking on that which will make you shudder indeed! Do you know what I have just read in the _Independance Belge_? Ah! poor Paris, the days of your glory are past, your ancient fame is destroyed, the old nursery rhyme will mock you, "_Vous n'irez plus au Bois, vos lauriers sont coupes._"[62]

This is what has happened; you are supplanted on the throne of fashion.

The world, uneasy about the form of bonnet to be worn this sorrowful year, and seeing you occupied with your internal discords, anxiously turned to London for help, and London henceforth dictates to all the modistes of the universe. City of desolation, I pity you! No more will you impose your sovereign laws, concerning _Suivez-moi-jeune-homme_[63]

and dog-skin gloves. No more will your boots and shirt-collars reach, by the force of their reputation, the sparely-dressed inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands. And, deepest of humiliations, it is your old rival, it is your tall and angular sister, it is the black city of London, who takes your glittering sword and transforms it into a policeman's baton of wood! You are destined to see within your walls--if any walls remain to you--your own wives and daughters clog their dainty tread with enc.u.mbrances of English leather, flatten their heads beneath mushroom-shaped hats, surround themselves with crinoline and flounces, and wear magenta, that abominable mixture of red and blue which always filled your soul with horror. Then, to increase the resemblance of your Parisian women with the Londoners or c.o.c.kneys (for it is time you learnt the fashionable language of England), your dentists will sell them new sets of teeth, called insular sets, which can be fitted over their natural front teeth, and will protrude about a third of an inch beyond the upper lip. And they will have corsets offered them whose aim is to prolong the waist to the farthest possible limits and compress the fairest forms--a fact, for report says they lace in London, whilst here we have nearly abandoned the corset. Well, my Paris, do you tremble and shiver? Oh! when those days of horror come to pa.s.s! when you see that not only have you forfeited your pride, but your vanity too; when you are convinced that the Commune has not only rendered you odious, but ridiculous as well; ah! then, when you wear bonnets that you have not invented, how deeply will you regret that you did not rebel on that day, when some of the best of your citizens were put _au secret_ in the cells of Mazas prison![64]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 62: The refrain of a nursery song,--

"Go no more to the wood, for all the laurels are cut."

[Footnote 63: The long floating ends of the neck ribbons.]

[Footnote 64: The Parisian play-writer's English exhibits all the typical peculiarities noted above. We have our ideal, if not typical, Frenchman, little less truthful perhaps--taken from refugees and excursionists, from the close-cropped, dingy denizen of Leicester Square; our tourist suits, heavy pedestrian toots, "wide-awakes," and faded fashions, used up in travel--all these things are put down to insular peculiarities.]

LVII.

I have just heard or read, a touching story; and here it is as I remember it. In the Faubourg Saint Antoine lives a community of women with whom the aged of the poor find shelter; those who have become infirm, or have dropped into helpless childishness, whether men or women, are received there without question or payment. There they are lodged, fed and clothed, and humbly prayed for.

Last evening, sleep was just beginning to reign in the little community.

The old people had been put to rest, each Little Sister had done her duty and was asleep, when the report of a gun resounded at the house-door. You can imagine the startings and the terror. The Little Sisters of the poor are not accustomed to have such noises in their ears, and there was a tumult and hubbub such as the house had never known, while they hurriedly rose, and the old people stared at each other from their white beds in the long dormitories. When the house-door was got open, a party of men, with a menacing look about them, strode in with their guns and swords, making a horrible racket. One of them was the chief, and he had a great beard and a terrible voice. All the Little Sisters gathered in a trembling crowd about the superior.

"Shut the doors," cried the captain, "and if one of these women attempt to escape--one, two, three, fire!" Then the Good Mother--that is the Little Sisters' name for their superior--made a step forward and said, "What do you wish, messieurs?"

"Citizens, _sacrebleu!_"