Paris under the Commune Part 34

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BOULEVARDS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLUS DE LUMIeRE!!]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLUS D'OMBRE!]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULLET HOLE--EN FACE]

The cannon had now ceased roaring, and the fight was still going on close at hand--at the Tuileries doubtless. The townspeople were tranquil and the soldiery disdainful. A strange contrast; all these good citizens smiling and chatting, and the soldiers, who had come to save them at the peril of their lives, looking down upon them with the most careless indifference. My friend reached the Boulevard Haussmann; there the corpses were in large numbers. He counted thirty in less than a hundred yards. Some were lying under the doorways; a dead woman was seated on the bottom stair of one of the houses. Near the church of "La Trinite"

were two guns, the reports from which were deafening; several of the sh.e.l.ls fell on a bathing establishment in the Rue Taitbout opposite the Boulevard. On the Boulevard itself, not a person was to be seen. Here and there dark ma.s.ses, corpses doubtless. However, the moment the noise of the report of a gun had died away, and while the gunners were reloading, heads were thrust out from doors to see what damage had been done--to count the number of trees broken, benches torn up, and kiosques overturned. From some of the windows rifles were fired. My friend then reached the street he lived in and went home. He was told that during the morning they had violently bombarded the College Chaptal, where the Zouaves of the Commune had fortified themselves; but the engagement was not a long one, they made several prisoners and shot the rest.

My friend shut himself up at home, determined not to go out. But his impatience to see and hear what was going on forced him into the streets again. The Pepiniere barracks were occupied by troops of the line; he was able to get to the New Opera without trouble, leaving the Madeleine, where dreadful fighting was going on, to the right. On the way were to be seen piled muskets, soldiers sitting and lying about, and corpses everywhere. He then managed, without incurring too much danger, to reach the Boulevards, where the insurgents, who were then very numerous, had not yet been attacked. He worked for some little time at the barricade, and then was allowed to pa.s.s on. It was thus that we had met. Just as we were about to turn up the Faubourg Montmartre a man rushed up saying that three hundred Federals had taken refuge in the church of the Madeleine, followed by gendarmes, and had gone on fighting for more than an hour. "Now," he finished up by saying, "if the _cure_ were to return he would find plenty of people to bury!"

I am now at home. Evening has come at last; I am jotting down these notes just as they come into my head. I am too much fatigued both in mind and body to attempt to put my thoughts into order. The cannonading is incessant, and the fusillade also. I pity those that die, and those that kill! Oh! poor Paris, when will experience make you wiser?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 98: It was known by this time at Versailles in what a desperate condition was the Commune, by the information of persons devoted to order, but who remained amongst the insurgents to keep watch over and restrain them as much as possible.

The Versailles authorities know that, thanks to the well-directed fire of Montretout, the bastions of the Point du Jour were no longer tenable, and that their defenders had abandoned them and had organized new works of defence; nevertheless, the operations were earned on just as systematically as if the fire of the besieged had not ceased for several days, when, on Sunday, the 21st May, about midday, an officer on duty in the trenches, in course of formation in the Bois de Boulogne, perceived a man making signs with a white handkerchief near the military post of Saint Cloud; the officer immediately approached near enough to hear the bearer of the flag of truce, say:--

"My name is Ducatel, and I belong to the service of the Engineers of Roads and Bridges, and I have been a soldier. I declare that your entrance into Paris is easy, and as a guarantee of the truth of what I say, I am about to give myself up;" so saying, he pa.s.sed over the fosse by means of one of the supports of the drawbridge, in spite of several shots fired at him by Federals hidden in the houses at Auteuil, but none of which reached him.

A few resolute men now pa.s.sed over the fosse, and arrived without accident on the other side. A few insurgents, who were still there, made off without loss of time, leaving the invaders to establish themselves, and wait for reinforcements.

A short time after a white flag was exhibited in the neighbouring bastion, which bore the number 62, and the fire from Montretout and Mont Valerien was stopped, the infantry of the Marine took possession of the gate, out the telegraphic wires which were supposed to be in communication with torpedoes, while information was immediately despatched to Versailles of these important events.

The division of General Verge, placed for the time under the orders of General Douay, entered the gate at half-past three in the afternoon, and took possession of Point du Jour, after having taken several barricades; at one of these, Ducatel was sent with a flag of trace towards the insurgents, who offered to surrender, but he received a bayonet wound, was carried off to the ecole Militaire, tried by court-martial and condemned to death, from which he was fortunately s.n.a.t.c.hed by the arrival of the Versailles troops at the Trocadero at two o'clock in the morning.

At the same time, the first corps d'armee (that of General L'Admirault), made its way into the city by the Portes d'Auteuil and Pa.s.sy, and took up a strong position in the streets of Pa.s.sy.]

[Footnote 99: At ten o'clock at night, the army had taken possession of the region comprised between the _ceinture_, or circular railway, and the fortifications, the streets of Auteuil to the viaduct, and the bridge of Grenelle.

At midnight, the movement which had been suspended for a time to rest the troops, was recommenced all along the line.

At two o'clock in the morning, General Douay occupied the Trocadero; and at about four o'clock his soldiers, after a short struggle, captured the chateau of La Muette, making about six hundred prisoners, and then, advancing in the direction of Porte Maillot, they joined the troops of General Clinchant, who had got within the ramparts on that side.

At the break of day, the tricolour floated over the Arc de Triomphe, without the Versailles forces having sustained sensible loss. All this pa.s.sed on the right bank of the Seine.]

[Footnote 100: The insurrectionists followed a decided and pre-conceived plan. The barricades, which intersected the streets of Paris in every direction, were arranged on a general system which showed considerable skill. Was this ensemble a conception of Cluseret? or a plan of Gaillard, or Eudes, or Rossel? No one now could say which, but at any rate we are able to deduce the plan from the facts and set it out as follows:--

Within the line of the fortifications the insurgents had formed a second line of defence, which runs on the right bank of the river, by the Trocadero, the Triumphal Arch, the Boulevard de Courcelles, the Boulevard de Batignolles, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart; and on the left across the bridge of Iena, the Avenue de la Bourdonnaye, the ecole Militaire, the Boulevard des Invalides, the Boulevard Montparna.s.se, and the Western Railway Station. Along the whole extent of this circuit the entrances of the streets were barricades, and the "Places" turned into redoubts.

From this double _enceinte_ of fortifications the lines of defence converged along the great boulevards, the Rue Royale, by the Ministry of Marine, the terrace of the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the Palace of the Corps Legislatif, the Rue de Bourgogne, and the Rue de Varenne. This third _enceinte_ of defence was the pride of the insurgents; they were never tired of admiring their celebrated barricade of the Rue St. Florentin, and that which intercepted the quay at the corner of the Tuileries Gardens on the Place de la Concorde.

This is not all. Supposing that the third line were forced, the insurgents would not even then be without resource. On the left bank of the Seine they fell back successively on the Rue de Grenelle, Rue Saint Dominique, and Rue de Lille, all three closed by barricades; on the right bank they could carry on the struggle by the Rue Neuve-des-Pet.i.ts-Champs, the Rue de la Paix, and the Place Vendome, and even when beaten back from these last retreats, they could still defend the Rue St. Honore and operate a retreat by the Palace of the Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.]

[Footnote 101: In the following proclamation, published on the 21st May, Delescluze stimulated the Communist party, which felt its power melting away on all sides:

"TO THE PEOPLE OF PARIS, TO THE NATIONAL GUARD.

"CITIZENS,--We have had enough of militaryism; let us have no more stuffs embroidered and gilt at every seam!

"Make room for the people, the real combatants, the bare arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck!

"The people know nothing of scientific manoeuvres, but with a rifle in hand and the pavement beneath their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school.

"To arms, citizens! To arms! You must conquer, or, as you well know, fall again into the pitiless hands of the _reactionaires_ and clericals of Versailles; those wretches who with intention delivered France up to Prussia, and now make us pay the ransom of their treason!

"If you desire the generous blood which you have shed like water during the last six weeks not to have been shed in vain, if you would see liberty and equality established in France, if you would spare your children sufferings and misery such as you have endured, you will rise as one man, and before your formidable bands the enemy who indulges the idea of bringing you again under his yoke, will reap nothing but the harvest of the useless crimes with which he has disgraced himself during the past two months.

"Citizens! your representatives will fight and die with you, if fall we must; but, in the name of our glorious France, mother of all the popular revolutions, the permanent source of ideas of justice and unity, which should be and which will be the laws of the world, march to the encounter of the enemy, and let your revolutionary energy prove to him that Paris may he sold, but can never be delivered up or conquered.

"The Commune confides in you, and you may trust the Commune!

"The civil delegate at the Ministry of War,

"(Signed)

"CH. DELESCLUZE.

"Countersigned by the Committee of Public Safety:--Antoine Arnauld, Billioray, E. Eudes, F. Gambon, G. Ranvier."

Such was the despairing cry of the insurrection at bay.]

[Footnote 102: See Appendix, No. 9.]

[Footnote 103: There are no private undertakers and funeral furnishers in Paris. It is all done by a company, under the supervision of Government, a very large concern, called the _Pompes Funebres_.]

[Footnote 104: Jules Valles was one of the most conspicuous among the men of the 18th of March. He had been journalist, working printer, a clerk at the Hotel de Ville, editor of a newspaper, pamphleteer, and cafe orator in turn, but always noisy and boastful. Andre Gill, the caricaturist, once drew him as an undertaker's dog, dragging a saucepan behind him, and the caricature told Valles' story well enough. In face he was ugly, but energetic in expression, almost to ferociousness.

He was born at Puy, in 1833, and on leaving the college of Nantes, came to study law in Paris, but politics occupied him chiefly, and he soon got himself shut up in Mazas as a political prisoner. After some time spent in confinement, he obtained his liberty, and published at Nantes, a pamphlet under the t.i.tle of "Money: by a literary man become a journalist;" and the pamphlet, having gained him some slight popularity, he was engaged, later, on the _Figaro_, to write the reports of the Bourse, and in the meantime he eked out his slender salary by working as a clerk at the Hotel de Ville. When Ernest Feydeau brought out the _Epoque_, in 1864, Jules Valles published a few articles in its columns, and a little later became a writer on the _Evenement_, with the magnificent salary of eighteen thousand francs a year. A month afterwards, he was without occupation again, but he soon re-appeared with a new journal of his own, _La Rue, La Sue_, in its turn, however, only lived during a few numbers, and Jules Valles now took up cafe politics, and practised table oratory at the _Estaminet de Madrid_, where he fostered and expounded the projects which he has since brought to so fearful a result.

In 1869, he became one of the most inveterate speakers at election meetings, and presented himself as a candidate for the Corps Legislatif.

He was not elected, but the profession of opinions that he then made was certain to obtain him a seat in the Communal a.s.sembly. One of the last articles in the _Cri du People_ of Jules Valles announced the fatal resolution of defending Paris by all possible means. An article finis.h.i.+ng with this prophetic sentence, "M. Thiers, if he is chemist enough will understand us."]

XCI.

It is imprudent to go out; the night was almost peaceable, the morning is hideous. The roar of musketry is intense and without interruption. I suppose there must be fighting going on in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. I start back, the noise is so fearful. In the Cour Trevise not a person to be seen, the houses are closely shut and barred. On a second floor I hear a great moving of furniture, and hear quite distinctly the sound of sobbing, of female sobbing. I hear that the second floor of the house is inhabited by a member of the Commune and his family. I am about to go up and see if I can be of any help to the women in case of danger, when I see a man precipitately enter the Court.

He wears a uniform of lieutenant; I recognise him, it is the porter. He stops, looks around him, and seeing that he is alone, takes his rifle in both hands and throws it with all his strength over the high wall which is on the left hand of the Court. That done, he rushes into the house.

There I distinctly hear him say to his wife, "The barricade is taken, give me a _blouse_, they are at Montmartre. We are done for!" I think, the porter must have made a mistake, and that the battery is not taken yet, for I hear the whistling of a sh.e.l.l that, seems to come from Montmartre. The deafening clamour on all sides redoubles, all the separate noises seem to confound themselves in one ceaseless roar, like the working of a million of hammers on a million of anvils. I can scarcely bear it; my hands clutch the door-posts convulsively. I lean out as far as I can, but see nothing but a company of soldiers preceded by two gendarmes, who are entering the Court. They stop before the door of the house. Several of them go in, and then I hear the sound of a door suddenly opened and shut, and heavy steps on the wooden floor. I feel myself trembling; this man they have come to arrest--are they going to shoot him here, in his own apartment, before his wife? Thank G.o.d, no!

The two gendarmes reappear in the street holding the prisoner between them; his hands are bound; the soldiers surround them, and they are going to march away, when the man, lifting up his arms, cries fiercely, "I have but one regret, that I did not blow up the whole of the quarter." At this instant the window above is opened, and a woman with grey hair leans out, crying, "Die in peace, I will avenge you!" At these words the soldiers arrest their steps, and the two gendarmes re-enter the house. They are going to take the wife prisoner after having taken the husband. I fall back into a chair horrified; I shut my eyes not to see, and I press my hands on my ears, not to hear the dreadful sound of the musketry, but the horrible shrill noise is triumphant, and I hear it all the same.