1 The prefect of police, Pietri, attests it: ‘It is certain that on that day the revolution might have succeeded, for the crowd which surrounded the Corps Législatif on the 9th August was composed of elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th September.’ Enquête sur Le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 253.
2 Let it be understood that I proceed, the words of our adversaries in hand parliamentary inquiries, memoirs, reports, histories: that I do not attribute to them an act or a word which has not been avowed by them, their documents, or their friends. When I say M. Thiers saw, M. Theirs knew, it is that M. Thiers has said, I saw, page 6, I knew, page 11, Vol. I of the Enquête sur let Actes du Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale. It will be the same with all the acts and words of all the official or adverse personages that I quote.
3 See the evidence of the Marquis de Talhouet, reporter of the Commission charged with verifying the famous despatch which precipitated the vote for war. Enquête sur le 4 Septembre Vol. I, p. 121-124.
4 Compte-rendu du 31 Octobre by Millière.
5 Which did not, however, prevent his accepting a secret mission during the Crimean war. He was commissioned by Napoleon III to propose to the English to betray Turkey by limiting the war to the defence of Constantinople.
6 Enquête sur Le 4 Septembre, Jules Brame, Vol.. I, p. 201.
10 In his official report, Jules Favre, to clear the Government, did not neglect to assume the responsibility of this mission, which he said he had undertaken without the knowledge of his colleagues.
11 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Garnier-Pages, vol. i. p. 445.
12 ‘Constantly in relations with the anxious population, which urgently asked what was going on, what the Government thought, what it was doing, we were obliged to screen it; to say that it was acting for the best; that it had given itself up entirely to the defence; that the chiefs of the army were most devoted and working with ardour... We said this without knowing, without believing it. We knew nothing.’ Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Corbon, Vol. I, p. 375.
13 Enquêtes sur le 4 Septembre, Jules Ferry. He even calls the armistice a ‘compensation’.
15 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 395. The deposition of this imbecile, still as naive as ever, is all the more conclusive.
16 ‘We were able to unite 40,000 men by telling the National Guards that Blanqui and Flourens occupied the Hôtel-de-Ville. These two names did not fail to produce their usual effect.’ Enquête sur le 18 Mars, ed. Adam, Vol. II, p. 157. ‘If the name of Blanqui had not been pronounced, the new elections announced by the poster of Dorian and Schoelcher would have taken place the next day.’ Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Jules Ferry, Vol. I, p. 396-431.
17 See the affirmation of Dorian. Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 527-528.
18 He offered a musket of honour to anyone who would kill the King of Prussia, and patronized a Greek-fire that was to roast the German army.
19 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Jules Favre, Vol. II, p. 42.
20 Even Felix Pyat was arrested. He managed to get out of prison through a jest, writing to Emmanuel Arago: ‘What a pity that I should be your prisoner; you might have been my advocate.’ He was set free.
21 The Minister of War, Leflô, who naturally undervalues everything, says, ‘This left us, while assuring the operations of the siege against the Prussians, a disposable force of 230,000 to 240,000 men.’
22 Appendix I.
23 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Cresson, Vol. II, p. 135.
24 Jules Simon, Souvenirs du 4 Septembre. Literally his expressions.
25 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Jules Favre, Vol. II, p. 43.
26 After the disaster of Orleans, which cut our army in two, he wrote: ‘The army of the Loire is far from being annihilated; it is separated into two armies of equal strength.’
27 They avoided drawing up minutes to prevent even the appearance of being a municipality (Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Jules Ferry, Vol. I, p. 406). A dozen of these brave ones met with a few adjuncts at the mairie of the third arrondissement. They confined their whole efforts to seeking someone to replace Trochu. One of them, M. Corbon, has said (Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 613): ‘However displeased they might have been at the manner affairs were conducted by the Defence, they would not for the world overthrow or weaken the Government.’
28 This poster was drawn up by Tridon and Vallès.
29 ‘See,’ said they, ‘what a terrible responsibility we should incur if we consented any longer to remain the passive instruments of a policy condemned by the interests of France and of the Republic.’
30 See the Minutes of the Government of the Defence, evidently arranged for the best by M. Dréo, the son-in-law of Garnier-Pages.
31 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Ducrot, Vol. III, p. xx.
32 See the Minutes of the Government of Defence.
33 Who bears witness to the bravery of the National Guard? Superior officers themselves. See in the Enquête sur le 18 Mars, the depositions of General Leflô, Vice-Admiral Pothuan, Colonel Lambert, and Trochu, speaking from the tribune: ‘If 1 did not fear to appear intrusive, I could show that up to the close of the day the inexperienced National Guards took and retook with the energy of old troops, under terrific fire, the heights that had been abandoned. It was necessary to hold them at any price in order to effect the retreat of the troops engaged in the centre. I had told them so, and they sacrificed themselves without hesitation.’
34 Vinoy’s corps, which took Montretout, had five regiments and one battalion of infantry, nineteen battalions of mobiles, five regiments of National Guards. That of General Bellemare, which took Buzenval, had five regiments of line, seventeen battalions of mobiles, eight regiments of National Guards.
35 ‘We shall give the National Guard a little peppering (écrabouiller un peu la garde nationale) since they wish it,’ said a colonel of infantry, much annoyed at this affair. Enquête sur le 4 Septembre. Colonel Chaper, Vol. II, p. 281.
36 He told them by way of consolation that ‘from the evening of the 4th September he had declared that it would be madness to attempt sustaining a siege by the Prussian army.’ Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Corbon, Vol. IV, p. 389.
37 He has pronounced these words of perfect Jesuitism: To yield to hunger is to die, not to capitulate.’ Jules Simon, Souvenirs do 4 Septembre, p. 299.
38 Deposition of General Soumairs, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. II, p. 215.
39 What disgrace! 175,000 men pretending that they had been add by a single one! In the Seven years War, in Westphalia, at Minden, when General Morangies prepared to capitulate, 1500 men, roused by a corporal, refused to surrender, forced their way and rejoined the army of the Count of Clermont.
40 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Arnaud de l'Ariège, Vol. II, p. 320-321.
41 ‘I return from Versailles. I have come to terms with M. de Bismarck, and it has been agreed upon between us as a matter of honour the firing should cease.’ Order sent by Jules Favre on the 27th, seven o'clock evening. Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune, p. 67.
42 The decree sacrificed fifteen and spared twenty-four.
43 A. Arnaud, Avrail, Beslay, Blanqui, Demay, Dereure, Dupas, E. Dupont, J. Durand, E. Duval, Eudes, Flotte, Frankel, Gambon, Goupil, Granger, Humbert, Jaclard, Jarnigon, Lacambre, Lacord, Langevin, Lefrançais, Leverdays, Longuet, Macdonnel, Maim, Meillet, Minet, Oudet, Pindy, F. Pyat, Ranvier, Rey, Rouillier, Serraillier, Theisz, Tolain, Tridon, Vaillant, Valles, Varlin. The names of those who were elected members of the Commune are in italics.
44 In the Vengeur, which had taken the place of the Combat, he proved, documents in hand, that for years Jules Favre had been guilty of forgery, bigamy, and falsification of papers of legitimation.
45 After the five returned, sixteen candidates of La Corderie obtained from 65,000 votes to 22,000 votes; Tridon 65,707; Duval 22,499.
46 Which, besides, has been recounted by Marc Dufraisse in the Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. IV, p. 428.
47 Cluseret, an ex-officer, decorated in 1848 for his spirited conduct. ‘I unfortunately displayed too much energy in that disastrous battle,’ he wrote in Fraser’s Magazine of March 1873. Attached to the Arabian Bureaux, he threw up his commission after the Crimean War, and not being able to play a part in Europe, engaged in the American Civil War for a short time, then withdrew to New York, where he campaigned with his pen. Misunderstood by the bourgeoisie of the two worlds, he again took to politics, but from the opposite side; offered himself to the Irish insurgents; landed in Ireland urging them to rise, and one fine night abandoned them. The nascent International also saw this powerful general come and offer his services. He did a good deal in the way of pamphleteering; tried to impress upon the workmen that he was the sword and buckler of Socialism. ‘We or nothing,’ said he to the sons of the massacred of June. The Government of the 4th September having also failed to appreciate his genius, he called Gambetta Prussian, and got himself sent as delegate to Lyons by the Corderie, where Varlin, whom he deceived for a long time, had introduced him. He offered the Lyons council to organize an army of volunteers which was to operate on the flank of the enemy.
48 The working men’s quarters of Lyons.
49 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Gambetta, Vol. I, p. 560.
50 The Jew Cremieux lived with the Ultramontane Archbishop Guibert (since made Archbishop of Paris) in his episcopal palace at Tours, dining every day at his table, and in return rendering him all the little services asked for by the clergy.
52 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Gambetta, Vol. I, p. 561.
53 D'Aurelles de Paladines, La Première Armée de la Loire, p. 93.
54 De Freycinet, La Guerre en Province, p. 86, 87.
56 On the 11th the delegate telegraphed to D'Aurelles: ‘We fully approve of the dispositions you had taken for your troops round Orleans . . . You will receive instructions. In the meantime redouble your vigilance in prevision of a return to the offensive on the part of the enemy.’ D'Aurelles de Paladines, La Premiere Armée de la Loire, p. 120. Thus, far from speaking of attacking, the Delegation only thought of the defensive.
57 ‘It was only when they could not help it that they made up their minds to act,’ Gambetta has said in the Enquête sur le 4 Septembre. The avowal is precious, coming from him.
58 It is most amusing to hear D'Aurelles chaffing Trochu without perceiving that he is just as ridiculous. In his evidence (Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. III, p. 201) he says: ‘I did not deposit either a plan or a testament at a lawyer’s: I confined myself to writing to the Bishop of Orléans: Monsignor, the army of the Loire today sets out on its march to meet the army of General Ducrot. Pray, Monsignor, for the salvation of France.’
59 And what other name is merited by the general who abandoned his post in the field to go and negotiate with the sovereign whom France had expelled?
60 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Rolland, Voo. III, p. 456.
61 Ibid., Dalloz, Vol. IV, p. 398.
62 If General Boyer, who saw the letter, is to be believed, the Delegation of Tours on the 24th October made officious advances to the Empress, and then gave the order to the chargé-d'affaires at London to go and thank her for the patriotism that she had shown in refusing to treat with Bismarck, who trifled with her as well as with Bazaine. See Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. IV, p. 253.
63 Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Admiral Jaureguiberry, Vol. III, p. 297.
64 3rd arrondissement. A. Genotal; 4th, Alavoine; 5th, Manet; 6th, V. Frontier; 7th, Badois; 8th, Morterol; 9th, Mayer; 10th, Arnold; 11th Piconel; 12th, Audoynaud; 13th, Soncial; 14th, Dacosta; 15th, Masson; 16th, Pé; 17th, Weber; 18th, Trouillet; 19th, Lagarde; 20th, A. Bonit. Courty remained president, Ramel secretary.
65 Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune, p. 128.
66 The reactionaries have said that this fear was feigned; that the cannon were safe from the Prussians. This is so false that the general staff itself feared a surprise. See Mortemart, chef d'état-major, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. II, p. 344.
67 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Colonel Lavigne, Vol. II, p. 467.
68 ‘The first cannon were taken, carried away, on the news of the entry of the Prussians. And these, gentlemen, believe me, were carried off by citizens devoted to order, the National Guards of Passy and Auteuil, and taken where? From the Ranelagh.’ Jules Ferry, Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 63.
69 A. Alavoine, A. Bouit, Frontier, Boursier, David, Buisson, Harond, Gritz, Tessier, Ramel, Badois, Arnold, Piconel, Audoynaud, Masson, Weber, Lagarde, J. Laroque, J. Bergeret, Pouchain, Lavalette, Fleury, MaIjournal, Couteau, Cadaze, Gastaud, Dutil, Matté, Mutin. Ten only of those elected on the 15th figure in this document. Various delegations, abstentions, and irregular adhesions had given nearly twenty new names.
70 Roger du Nord, the chief of D'Aurelles’ staff, heard it said in all the fractions of the National Guard, ‘Why place a man of such energy at the head of the National Guard if not to make a coup d'état?’ Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II.
71 The National Guards of each of the twenty arrondissements were formed into a separate legion.
72 Arnold, J. Bergeret, Bouit, Castioni, Chauvière, Chouteau, Courty, Dutil, Fleury, Frontier, H. Fortuné, Lacord, Lagarde, Lavalette, MaIjournal, Matté, Ostyn, Piconel, Pindy, Prudhomme, Varlin, H. Verlet, Viard. Many of these names, those of the representatives elected on the 3rd, were new ones. On the other hand, many of those that had figured in the placard of the 28th were missing, because only those signed who were present at the sitting.
73 He dared to say from the tribune that he only returned on the 3rd ‘to save Paris from any demagogic attempts.’
74 The prefecture of Rennes posted up this despatch of the Government: ‘A criminal insurrection is being organized in Paris. I send forces which, joined to the honest National Guards of Paris and to the other regular troops which are still stationed there, will suppress, I hope, this odious attempt.’
75 Jules Ferry, who had remained at Paris, telegraphed on the 5th to the Government: ‘Never has a Sunday been calmer, notwithstanding sinister reports. The population is enjoying the sun and their promenades as if nothing had happened. I no longer believe in the danger.’
76 ‘The vote of the Assembly’, wrote Jules Favre, ‘was received at Paris with extreme disfavour; not only amongst the fanatics and the agitators; all classes of the population showed themselves almost unanimous. Everyone saw in it an affront and a menace. It was repeated everywhere that this was the first act of a monarchical coup d'état; that the Assembly was ready to name a king, and that, knowing the unpopularity of its work, it sought to accomplish it far from the eyes of those who might oppose it.’
77 This is the Committee which many took for the Central Committee.
78 Some Bourse speculators, in the belief that a campaign of six weeks would give a fresh impulse to the speculations they were living upon, said, ‘It is a disagreeable moment to pass through, some 50,000 men to be sacrificed, after which the horizon will dear and commerce revive.’ M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 4 Septembre, Vol. 1, p. 9.
79 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, M. Thiers, Vol. II, p. 11.
80 In the evening D'Aurelles assembled forty of the most reliable, and asked them if their battalions would march. They all said their men were not to be counted upon. Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 435, 456.
81 This is the number of pieces given by M. Thiers in the Enquête sur le 18 Mars.
82 This order enjoining the troop to march off in the midst of the National Guards was drawn up in pencil by a captain. Lecomte copied it in ink without changing a word. The court-martial has denied this, in order to glorify this general, who died so pusillanimously.
83 Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers: fourteen men per battalion, says Jules Ferry. Enquête sur le 18 Mars.
84 M. Thiers in the Enquire sur le 18 Mars says, firstly, ‘We let them march off,’ then, twenty lines further, ‘We repulsed them.’ Leflô has not concealed the fright the Council was in: ‘The moment seemed critical to me. And I said, ‘I think we are done for; we shall be carried off,’ and indeed the battalions had only to penetrate into the palace and we were all taken to the last man. But the three battalions marched off without saying anything.’ Vol. II, p. 80.
85 The report of the Enquête sur le 18 Mars said that ‘the Committee did not hesitate on the afternoon of the 18th March to take possession of all the administrations.’ This is if not a lie, intended to palliate the stampede of M. Thiers — one of the grossest proofs of the ignorance of this report, which attributes the demonstration of the 24th of February to an order of the Central Committee,
86 See Appendix II, the details of the proceedings of the Central Committee during this day, told by one of its members.
87 Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book L'Armistice er la Commune: ‘The general assembled his men, and sword in hand he bravely placed himself at the head of his troops.
88 Ten days after he recounted in a crazy letter written in the Conciergerie that he had done everything; taken the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Prefecture of Police, the Place Vendôme, the Tuileries, etc.; and this letter is referred to as an authority by the report of the Enquête sur le 18 Mars! For the future, I shall abstain from pointing out the errors that abound in this report, which is an ignorant and malignant résumé of the lies, inaccuracies, and animosity accumulated in this Inquiry, from which all the vanquished, and even the smallest adversaries, were excluded. Entirely insufficient as a historical source, it may well serve to set forth the intelligence and morality of the French bourgeoisie of the epoch.
89 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Marreille, Vol. II, p. 200.
90 Assi, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, C. Dupont, Yarlin, Boursier, Mortier, Gouhier, Lavalette, F. jourde, Rousseau, C. Lullier, Blanchet, J. Grollard, Barrond, H. Geresme, Fabre, Fougeret, the members present at the morning sitting. The Committee decided later that its publications should bear the names of all its members.
91 The minutes of the first Central Committee have disappeared, but one of its most assiduous members has restored the principal sittings from memory. It is from his notes, checked by several of his colleagues, that we have taken these details. It is superfluous to say that the minutes published by the Paris journal, which have been used by reactionary historians, are incomplete, inexact, drawn up from hearsay, unintelligent indiscretions, and often from pure imagination. Thus, for instance, they make all the sittings presided over by Assi, attributing to him the principal part, because under the Empire he was very incorrectly supposed to have directed the strike of Creuzot. Assi never had any influence in the Committee.
92 Verbatim. It is from the little man of Paris that the little man of Versailles borrowed the phrase, completing it himself.
93 I need not justify the long quotations I shall make. The French proletarian has never been allowed to speak in books of history; at least he should do so in the recital of his own revolution.
94 The two generals have testified to the extreme consideration shown them in their prison. See the Enquête sur le 18 Mars. Two days later, on Chanzy’s simple promise not to serve against Paris, the Central Committee set them free.
95 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Dr. Danet, Vo.. II, p. 531.
96 Of course the Radicals have seen in this a Bonapartist manoeuvre, have written and said from the tribune of the Assembly, ‘The Bonapartist director of the Bank of France saved the Revolution; without the million of the Monday the Central Committee would have capitulated.’ Two facts answer this: From the 19th the Committee had in the Ministry of Finance 4,600,000 francs; the municipal coffers contained 1,200,000 francs, and on the 21st the Octroi had brought in 500,000 more.
97 The aggression was so evident, that not one of the twenty court-martials that searched into every detail of the revolution of the 18th March dared allude to the affair of the Place Vendôme.
98 Their names were published in the Journal Officiel.
99 Here are the names of those who signed the proclamations and nod= of the Committee. We shall restore, as far as possible, their correct orthography, often altered, even in the Officiel, to the extent of giving fictitious names: Andignoux, A. Arnaud, G. Arnold, A. Assi, Babick, Barrond, Bergeret, Billioray, Bouit, Boursier, Blanchet, Castioni, Chouteau, C. Dupont, Eudes, Fabre, Ferrat, Fleury, H. Fortuné, Fougeret, Gaudier, Geresme, Gouhier, Grelier, J. Grollard, Josselin, jourde, Lavalette, Lisbonne, Lullier, Maljournal, Ed. Moreau, Mortier, Prudhomme, Ranvier, Routscan, Varlin, Viard. Notwithstanding the decision of the Committee, all its members did not always sign the proclamations. Finally, some who took part in certain deliberations never signed at all.
100 This order had been given the evening before. The treachery of Du Bisson, nominated chief of the staff by Lullier, had prevented its execution.
101 Tirard: ‘My whole preoccupation and that of my colleagues had been to postpone the elections so as to reach the date of the 3rd April.’ — Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p.340. Vautrain: ‘My colleagues and I thus gained eight days more.’ Ibid., p. 379. J. Favre: ‘For eight days we were the only barricade raised up between the insurrection and the Government.’ Ibid., p. 385. Desmarets: ‘I believed it necessary to remain exposed to danger in order to give the Government of Versailles time for arming.’ Ibid., p. 412.
102 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Tirard, Vol. II, p.342.
103 He then and them inaugurated this incomparable lying campaign, the progress of which we shall closely watch. On the 19th he said, ‘The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated in good order at Versailles.’ There were 23,000 men (the number given by himself in the Enquête) totally disbanded. On the 20th:’ The Government did not want to cater into a bloody struggle, though provoked.’ By the 21st the army had grown to 45,000 men: — the insurrection is disavowed by everybody.’ On the 22nd: ‘From all sides the Government is offered battalions of mobiles to support it against anarchy.’ On the 27th, while the votes were being counted: ‘A considerable proportion of the population and of the National Guard of Paris solicits the help of the provinces to re-establish order.’
104 ‘Considering,’ said they in their declaration, ‘that the Provisional Commune of Lyons, acclaimed by the National Guard, is no longer feeling itself supported by them, the members of the Commune declare themselves released from their engagements towards their electors, and resign all powers they have received.’
105 Certain infamous evidence must be quoted in full in order to give a notion of the delirium tremens of the great bourgeoisie when speaking of the Commune. Four months after these events the Prefect Ducros, the inventor of the famous bridges of the Marne, deposed before the Commission d'Enquête sur le 18 Mars: ‘They did not respect his corpse; they cut off his head. In the night, horrible to say, one of the men who had participated in the assassination, and who has been put on trial, came to a café offering those present pieces of M. De l'Espée’s skull, and cracking under his teeth pieces of the same skull.’ And Ducros dared to add: The man had been arrested, put on his trial, and acquitted.’ Horrible imaginings, which even the Radicals of St. Etienne have stigmatized.
106 The popular quarters of Marseilles.
107 This abdication was revealed before the court-martial by the advocate of one of the accused. Cosnier, fearing that it might be interpreted as an act of cowardice, blew out his brains.
108 Ad. Adam, Mane, Rochard, Barré (1st arrondissement, Louvre); Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Chéon (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat (3rd, Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. Ferry, Nast (9th, Opéra); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Pasty).
109 Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lefévre (7th, Palais-Bourbon); A. Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Opéra).
110 Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, D. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. Arnould, Lefrançais, Clémence, E. Gérardin (4th, Hôtel-de-Ville); Régère, Jourde, Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Panthéon); Beslay, Varlin (6th, Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon Raoul Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elysées); Gambon, Félix, Pyat, H. Fortuné, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (110th, Enclos St. Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure (11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Gresme, Theiez, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly); Léo Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray, Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Clément, J. Valles, Langevin (15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Clément, Ch. Girardin, Chalain, Malon (17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Clément, Ferré, VennoreI, P. Grousset (18th, Montmartre); Oudet, Puget, Delescluze, J. Miot, Ostyn, Flourens (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Bergeret, Ranvier, Flourens, Blanqui (20th, Menilmontant). Blanqui had been arrested in the South of France, where he had gone for the sake of his health.
111 See Appendix III.
112 MacMahon, with his coup-d'oeil of Reischoffen and Sedan, saw there 17,000 men. Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 22.
113 ‘To Versailles, if we don’t want again to resort to balloons! To Versailles, if we don’t want to fall back upon pigeons! To Versailles, if we don’t want to be reduced to bran bread,’ etc., etc. — Le Vengeur, 3rd April.
114 These details, related in part by the journals of the time, have been completed by numerous comrades of Duval whom we have questioned. In his mutilated, lying, naively cynical book, Vinoy dared to say: ‘The insurgents threw down their arms and arrendered at discretion; the man called Duval was killed in the affray.’
115 ‘The general commanding the department and the procureur-general, aware that I had for thirty years been the friend of the man who commanded the Commune at Narbonne, came to solicit my intervention to induce him to submit. It was arranged that if I did not succeed I should immediately send a telegram to General Robinet, in order that the military authorities might act in consequence. At midnight 1 sent the telegram ... You do not know me; it is thanks to my personal influence that order was maintained at Carcassone.’ Speech of M. Marcou to the Assembly in answer to M. de Gavardie. Sitting of the 27th January, 1874.
116 M. Barthéemy-St.-Hilaire, Thiers’ secretary, answered Barral de Montaud, who spoke of the possibility of a massacre in the prisons: ‘The hostages! the hostages! But we can do nothing. What should we do? So much the worse for them.’ Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 271.
117 M. Beslay, in his book Mes Souvenirs, Paris, 1873, says: ‘The cash in hand was forty and some odd millions.’ These ‘some odd’ were no less than 203 millions. They presented the good man fictitious statements, with which they gulled him. In his evidence and the annexes (Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. III, errata, p. 438), M. de Ploeuc has given the true statements.
118 These were all the reasons he could ever allege, even in his book written in Switzerland, whither M. de Ploeuc himself went to deposit him after the fall of the Commune. Besides his life being saved, he, later on, received a judicial ordinance to the effect that no further judicial proceedings were to be taken against him.
119 Out of 400 pieces cast by Paris during the siege, the Government of the National Defence only accepted forty, on the pretence that the others were imperfect. Vinoy, Siége de Paris, P. 287.
120 Sometimes even to falsification. In his account of the 9th Thermidor, he makes Barrere say to Billaud-Varennes, ‘Do not attack Robespierre;’ and on the strength of this expatiates on the greatness of his hero. Now, the report of Courtois that he quotes, hoping, no doubt, that no one would examine the accuracy of the statement, says, ‘Attack only,’ and not ‘Do not attack.’
121 It seems there was a split in the League. The Radicals, Floquet, Corbon, etc., disapproved of this semi-commanding attitude, and boasted of it later on before the Committee of Inquiry into the 18th March; but during the Commune they made no public protest against this address.
122 Seventy-three communes have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 108 have from 10,000
to 20,000; 309 from 5,000 to 10,000, 249 from 4,000 to 5,000; and 581 from 3,000 to 4,000. There are then only 1,320 communes having more than 3,000 inhabitants, 800 at most that possess any political life.
123 Vesinier, Cluseret, Pillot, Andrieu (I st arrondissement, Louvre); Pothier, Serraillier, 1. Durand, Johannard (2nd, Bourse); Courbet, Rogeard (6th, Luxembourg); Sicard (7th. Palais-Bourbon); Briosne (9th, Opéra); Philippe, Lonclas (12th, Reuilly); Longuet (16th, Passy); Dupont (17th, Batignolles); Cluseret, Arnold (18th, Montmartre); Menotti Garibaldi (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Viard, Trinquet (20th, Ménilmontant).
124 Appendix IV.
125 And what sublime faith in their naiveté! We heard in an omnibus two women on their return from the trenches. The one wept; the other said to her, ‘Do not distress yourself; our husbands will come back. And then the Commune has promised to take care of us and of our children. But no! it is impossible they should be killed in defending so good a cause. Besides I would rather have my husband dead than in the hands of the Versaillese.’
126 ‘My heart bleeds to see that only those ready to volunteer engage in the combat. This is not, citizen delegate, a denunciation; far from me such a thought; but I fear lest the weakness of the members of the Commune should cause our great projects for the future to miscarry.’ This heroic letter is taken from a book, Le Fond de la Société sous la Commune, which contains documents found by the army in different mairies and administrations. The work in general is an odious caricature, of which the author himself, a Joseph Prudhomme, in the shape of a bloodhound, is certainly the most ridiculous trait.
127 Appendix V.
128 Very approximate numbers. The return of the Officiel of the 6th May is very incomplete. In general, these statements were erroneous, fictitious, especially after the administration of Meyer.
129 The figures which I give have been carefully verified de visu, first during the struggle, afterwards with generals, superior officers, and functionaries of the War Office. General Appert has drawn up merely fantastic returns. He has created imaginary brigades, manufactured effective returns by counting as regular combatants all men who, at any time, might have been told off for active service, and constantly duplicated the items of his accounts. He has thus contrived to give more than 20,000 men to Dombrowski, and as much as 50,000 to the three commanders — quite ridiculous figures. His report swarms with mistakes as to names and functions; he does not even know the names of certain general commanders. It possesses no kind of historical value.
130 A member of the Council discovered him, and presented him at the War Office, where he explained his ideas: ‘But,’ it was remarked to him, ‘this is word for word that Félix Pyat does not cease saying to us.’ ‘A few days ago,’ answered Wroblewski, ‘I sent Felix Pyat a memorandum.’ Rossel went to Pyat’s bureau, and there found the memorandum, For several days this trickster had been making capital of the ideas of Wroblewski without the least allusion to their author, and astounding the Commission by his common sense and technical knowledge.
131 Appendix VI. /p>
132 Appendix VII, report by Thiesz.
133 Appendix VIII.
134 There were five parks: the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, the Ecole Militaire, Monmartre, Vincennes. In all, including the artillery of the forts and that of the open country, the Commune had more than 1100 cannon, howitzers, mortars, and machine-guns.
135 The second Central Committee was composed of forty members, of whom twelve only had formed part of the first Committee.
136 ‘Do you know,’ said he to Delescluze, ‘that Versailles has offered me a million?’ ‘Be silent!’ answered Delescluze, turning his back upon him.
137 He was arrested on the 20th March in his private room in the Palace of Justice, where he had given the procureur-general a rendezvous.
138 He was recognized as he asked for his passport at the prefecture of police.
139 The correspondent of the Times wrote in the number of 9th May: ‘The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopaedic instruments — a superficial falsehood . The mattress and straps struck me as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of brutal force which no disease at present known would justify.’
140 The nun who filled the post of superior, a big and bold virago, answered Rigault in an easy-going manner. ‘Why have you shut up these women?’ ‘To do their families a service; they were mad. See, gentlemen, you are young men of good families; you'll understand that sometimes one is glad to conceal the madness of one’s relations.’ ‘But do you not know the law?’ ‘No we obey our superiors.’ ‘Whose books are these?’ ‘We know nothing about them.’ Thus affecting simpleness, they sold the simpletons.
141 This negotiation has in part been recounted in the Officiel of the Commune. We add further details. Soon after his arrest the Archbishop wrote to M. Thiers begging him to stop the execution of the prisoners, on which the lives of the hostages depended. M. Thiers did not answer. An old friend of Blanqui’s, Flotte, went to the President to propose an exchange, and said that the Archbishop might incur peril. M. Thiers made a decided gesture: ‘What does it matter to me?’ Flotte again took up the negotiation through Darboy, who named Deguerry as envoy to Versailles. The prefecture, unwilling to give up such a hostage, the Vicar-General Lagarde took Deguerry’s place. The Archbishop furnished him with instructions, and on the 12th April Flotte conducted Lagarde to the station and made him swear to return if he failed in his mission. Lagarde swore, ‘Even if to be shot, I shall return. Can you believe that I could for a single moment harbour the thought of leaving Monseigneur alone here?’ At the moment when the train was about to start, Flotte insisted again, ‘Do not go if you have not the intention of returning.’ The priest again renewed his oath. He went off, and handed over a letter in which the Archbishop solicited the exchange. M. Thiers, pretending to know nothing of this one, answered the first, which one of the Commune papers had just published. His answer is one of his masterpieces of hypocrisy and falsehood: ‘The facts to which you call my attention are absolutely false, and I am really surprised that so enlightened a prelate as you, Monseigneur ... Our soldiers have never shot prisoners nor sought to kill the wounded. That, in the heat of combat, they may have turned their arms against men who assassinate their generals, is possible; but, the combat terminated, they resume the natural generosity of the national character. I therefore spurn, Monseigneur, the calumny that has been told you. I affirm that our soldiers have never shot prisoners.’ On the 17th Flotte received a letter in which Lagarde informed him that his presence was still indispensable at Versailles. Flotte complained to the Archbishop, who could not believe in this desertion. ‘It is impossible,’ said he, ‘that M. Lagarde should remain at Versailles; he will come back; he has sworn it to me myself,’ and he gave Flotte a note for Lagarde. The latter answered that M. Thiers retained him. On the 23rd Darboy wrote to him again: ‘On the reception of this letter, M. Lagarde is immediately to retrace his steps to Paris and to re-enter Mazas. This delay compromises us gravely, and may have the saddest results.’ Lagarde did not answer any more.
His friends thought of rescuing him, and a sum of 50,000 francs was prepared for his release. But much more would have been necessary, and, above all, adroit agents, for the least imprudence would have cost the life of the prisoner. The affair was procrastinated, and part of the funds were still in the coffers of the Committee of Public Safety at the entry of the Versaillese.
142 Georges Duchene began examining the commercial transactions of the Government of National Defence, but he published nothing.
143 Before the Commission of Inquiry at the Assembly he has assumed the attitude of a Daniel in the lions’ den. The meeting, however, contented with hissing him, for Paris let these impotent drones buzz as much as they liked without taking any notice of them.
144 Appendix IX.
145 The minority formed a nucleus of twenty-two members: Andrieu, Anrold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Clémence, V. Clémenrt, Courbet, Frankel, E. Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Vallès, Varlin, Vermorel.
146 Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Clément, who under the Empire had offered his services to the police.
147 La Guerre des Communaux, by a superior officer of the Versaillese army.
148 On the 12th May, at the barricade of Petit-Vanves, an officer of engineers of the Lacretelle division, second corps, Captain Rozhem, was taken prisoner. When brought before the commander of the trenches, ‘I know what is in store for me,’ said he; ‘shoot me.’ The commander shrugged his shoulders and took him to Delescluze. ‘Captain,’ said the delegate, ‘promise that you will not fight against the Commune and you are free.’ The officer promised, and, deeply moved, asked Delescluze for permission to shake hands with him. This is one fact among a hundred such. Is it necessary to add that from the 3rd April to the 23rd May the Federals did not shoot one single prisoner, officer or soldier?
149 Appendix X.
150 This fact was established through the minute inquiry which the Council charged
three of its members to make. Two of these, Gambon and Langevin, are by their characters above all suspicion. They received the declaration of the wounded man, and saw one of the bodies, the two others not having been found.
151 It never appeared in the Officiel, but was announced in the Vengeur; for Félix Pyat abused his functions in order to give his journal the first news of the official decisions. Ilia 6= he was a little too quick.
152 On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be admitted, and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the decree was not executed, although in the Hôtel-de-Ville itself there was the splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few hours.
153 The reports in the Officiel, confided to inexperienced writers, who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret committees, give but a very vogue idea of these sittings.
154 ‘Committee of Public Safety, No. 98 — Paris, 3rd May 1871. — General Wroblewald, — Please repair immediately to the fort of Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering, artillery, etc. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Felix Pyat, Arnaud. Enclosed is a despatch from the commander of the fort.’ Before the public. ignorant of this despatch, Pyat kept up his lie. He said in the Vengeur: ‘The only order given directly to the generals by the Committee of Public Safety to defend Issy, which Road did not defend, was addressed to General Wroblewski, intrusted with the forts of the south. The Committee of Public Safety, in ordering him to watch over Issy, did not displace him.’ ln point of fact, not Wroblewski was charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La Cécilia, who since the reoccupation held the chief post on this side, and commanded Wetzel intrusted with the defence of the approaches. of the fort.
155 The chefs-de-légion have said 10,000. T he truth lies between the two.
156. P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian General Bossack.
157 Heard and reported by Lefrançais, whose veracity is above suspicion. Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste G. Lefrançais, p. 294. Neuchatel, 1870.
158 All the unpublished reports that 1 quote and on which I rely have been copied from the originals.
159 Appendix XI.
160 Appendix XII.
161 ‘It was better to take possession of the town by main force,’ said the apostolic Comte de Mun (Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 277). ‘Thus right manifests itself m peremptory manner’ — the right of carriage, no doubt. ‘It was better that it should not be said that we had got in by the back-door.’
162 It has been stated that a Polish officer of Dombrowski’s staff, killed afterwards during the street fight, was the agent in this attempted treason. I have been unable, in spite of a minute search to discover the least proof of this imputation.
163 See a letter from Colonel Corbin, quoted in the Histoire des conspirations sous la commune, a work by A. J. Dalseme, arranged in the form of a novel, but containing some documents.
164 On the 23rd, Picard telegraphed to the procureur-general of Aix: ‘The Republic was, the day before yesterday, again affirmed in a proclamation of the Assembly. The very proclamation which the Assembly had refused to conclude by the cry ‘Vive la République!’
165 The same day — it was that of the Marseilles insurrection — Dufaure telegraphed to the same procureur-general: ‘Read the name République Française at the head of all the despatches I send you.’
166 1 have in my possession about twenty proclamations of prefects or magistrates. They am all on this point identically the same.
167 A great speech of the President of the Council has been applauded by the Extreme left.’ The speech of the 21st Much against Paris. Dufaure to the procureur-general at Aix, 23rd March.
168 He confessed his trickery in a speech pronounced at Bordeaux in 1875: ‘I was enabled with the remains of the defeated army to unit a military force of 150,000 men, but if this force was sufficient to tear Paris from the Commune, it could not have kept down the large towns of France, keenly bent on the maintenance of the Republic, and coming to ark me with distrust and irritation if it were the monarchy that we combated for.’
169 1 should say ‘resuscitated’, if it were not doing these eunuchs too much honour to compare them to Robespierre, who by their side appears a hero. But how prevent one’s thoughts from wandering to the pontiff declaring inopportune the Republican outburst of June-July 1791; inopportune the cries of Paris famished by engrossers; inopportune the people asking for a single article in their favour in the Constitution of 1793; inopportune the commissars, without whom France would have been dismembered; inopportune the great movement against the Church; inopportune the Socialists and Jacques Roux, whom he did to death; inopportune the popular societies closed by him, and after the disappearance of which Paris expired; inopportune Clootz, yearning to rally round France an the revolutionary forces of the world; inopportune Hébert, who, nevertheless, had helped him to stifle the socialists; inopportune, in fine, all that was not cut out after his own amiable day when he was himself declared inopportune by the great bourgeoisie, who found it as easy as opportune to swallow him at a mouthful as soon as he had purged, bled, muzzled for them the revolutionary lion.
170 Appendix XIII.
171 The workmen’s quarter in Lyons.
172 These were what General Appert calls the Brunel brigade, 7882 strong.
173 Appendix XIV.
174 During the first siege, the Journal Officiel of the mairie of Paris had inserted a letter from Courbet demanding the overthrow of the column.
175 Thus Courbet was not as yet a member of the Council. Nevertheless he was considered as the principal author of the M of the column.
176 Funeral of Lieutenant Chatelet, of the 61st.
177 See the evidence of the chief of police, M. Claude, Enquête sur le 18th Mars, Vol. II, p. 106.
178 The original of this document has been lost, but we have been able to re-establish the text with the evidence of Dombrowski’s brother and of a great number of members of the Council present at this sitting.
179 ‘Seventeen hours were required to get in 130,000 men and our numerous artillery.’ — M. Thiers, Enquête sur le 18 Mars.
180 ‘From this unexpected obstruction there resulted a confusion that lasted till after the passage of the troops, and might have had serious consequences. If the insurgents had then opened fire upon the Trocadero, from the batteries of Montmartre, their shells would have harassed us a great deal. But the cannon of Montmartre still kept silent. It was only a little after nine o'clock that they commenced firing; the passage was then already cleared.’ — Vinoy, La Commune, p. 130.
181 The first conflagration of the days of May, and the Versaillese have admitted that they themselves kindled it. — Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune, p. 309.
182 No deputy protested either on this day or after, or declared he had abstained from voting, neither those of the extreme Left nor those of the extreme Right. They are then, all of them equally answerable for this vote.
183 ‘At the Place Blanche,’ wrote G. Maroteau in the Salut Public of the next day, ‘there was a barricade perfectly constructed and defended by a battalion of women, about 120. At the moment when 1 arrived, a dark form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It was a young M with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, a cartridge-box by her side. ‘Stand, citizen! no one panes here!’ I stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed me to go to the foot of the barricade.’
184 Appendix XV.
185 Appendix XVI.
186 Appendix XVII.
187 One of the commanders of the German troops.
188 Appendix XVIII.
189 At half-past eight o'clock in the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement the delegate Genton made this recital, which we heard, and reproduce verbatim.
190 Appendix XIX.
191 ‘Bum everything! I have heard these words from the most wise, the most virtuous men.’ — Jules Favre, Enquête sur le Mars Vol. II, p. 42. ‘Rather Moscow than Sédan,’ wrote one of these wise and virtuous men during the first siege — M. Jules Simon.
193 Summoned several times to surrender, the Federals answered, ‘Vive la Commune!’ They were thrown against the wall of the prison and fell with the same cry, one of them still clasping the red flag of the barricade. Before such faith the Versaillese officer felt a little ashamed. He turned to the people who had hurried up from the neighbouring houses, and several times repeated by way of excuse, ‘It is their fault! Why did they not surrender!’ As though all Federals were not regularly and mercilessly massacred by them.
194 Minister of War from 187 1, he was in 1876, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of MacMahon, expelled from the Ministry, partly because of irregularities discovered in his budget, partly for having let his mistress, a German, take the plan of one of the new forts round Paris, which was transmitted to Berlin.
195 Since promoted to a higher grade.
196 Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 239.
197 Appendix XX.
198 Heard and reported by the author of the book Le Fond de la Société sous la Commune. The author wittily adds, ‘What the devil was this imbecile solicitous about?’
199 Appendix XXI.
200 The Versaillese calumniators, pursuing him even to his last hour, spread abroad that he had confessed to a Jesuit, and had disavowed his writings ‘in presence of the gendarmes and nuns.’
201 ‘Marshal MacMahon to General Vinoy, 29th May, 10.5 morning. — Our propositions to enter the fort, Prince of Saxony has given the order to enlarge the blockade, in order to leave the French authorities free to act as they think fit. He has promised to preserve the blockade.’ — Vinoy, L'Armistice et la Commune, p. 430.
202 In the Boulevard des Italiens women kissed the boots of the mounted officers who escorted the convoys. A journalist, Francisque Sarcey, wrote: ‘With what serene joy the eye rested on the loyal faces of those brave gendarmes, who marched with a sprightly step by the sides of the hideous column, forming a martial and severe framework!’
203 Appendix XXII.
204 Appendix XXIII.
205 Appendix XXIV.
206 Later on all the names will be known. Let us cite from amongst a hundred. At the mairie of the fifth arrondissement the colonel of the National Guard, Galle; at the seventh, M. Gabriel Ossude and M. Blamont; at the College Bonaparte, M. de Soulanges, chief of the 69th battalion; at the mairie of the ninth arrondissement, M. Charpentier; at the Elysée, M. de St. Geniez, chief of the 3rd battalion; at the Luxembourg, MM. Gosselin, Parfait, Daniel; at the mairie of the thirteenth arrondissement, MM. D'Avril, chief of the 4th battalion, Lascol, chief of the 17th Thierce; at the Chatelet, Vabre in a few hours achieved an atrocious celebrity.
207 Appendix XXV
208 Appendix XXVI.
209 Appendix XXVII.
210 Appendix XXVIII.
211 Appendix XXIX.
212 Appendix XXX.
213 Appendix XXXI.
214 The journal L'Ariégeois has published the text of the report addressed to the colonel of the 67th of the line by Lieutenant Sicre, a native of the department of Ariège who had taken part in the arrest of Varlin, and commanded the firing-party. We extract the following passage: ‘Amongst the objects found on him were a pocket-book bearing his name, a purse containing 284 francs 15 centimes, a penknife, a silver watch, and a card of the man Tridon.’
215 Some foreign journals uttered the same cry. The Naval and Military Gazette of the 27th May said, ‘We are deliberately of opinion that hanging is too good a death for such villains to die, and if medical science could be advanced by operating upon the living body of the malefactors who have crucified their country, we at least should find no fault with the experiment.’
216 At a wineshop of the Place Voltaire we met some quite young soldiers on the Sunday morning. They were marine-fusiliers of the 1871 class. ‘And are there many dead?’ said we. ‘Ah! answered one of them in a stupefied tone, ‘we have the order to make no prisoners; it is the general who told us’ (they could not tell us the name of their general). ‘If they had not lighted thee fires they would not have been served thus; but as they set on fire, we must kin’. (verbatim) Then he went on talking to his comrade. ‘This morning there’ (and he pointed to the barricade of the mairie), ‘one came up in a blouse. We led him off. “You are not going to shoot me?” said he. “Oh, I should think not!” We made him pass in front of us, and then, pan, pan; and didn’t he kick about funnily!’
217 Sixty-three officers killed and 430 wounded, 794 soldiers dead and 6024 wounded — in all, 877 dead and 6454 wounded. Rapport du Maréchal MacMahon.
218 This is the exact number of the hostages executed: four at Sainte Pélagie,, six at the Roquette, forty-eight at the Rue Haxo, four at the Petite Roquette, and the banker Jecker.
219 The Count de Mun said (Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. II, p. 276), ‘When they were shot, they all died with a kind of insolence which cannot be attributed to a moral sentiment’ (the sentiment of the executioner, Monsieur de Mun, no doubt), ‘and can only be attributed to the resolution to come to an end by death rather than live by working.’ It is true that MacMahon had said (p. 28), ‘They seemed to think they were defending a sacred cause, the independence of Paris. In their intentions some of them may have been of good faith.’ Who is more odious, he who believes he is killing an ‘insolent’, or he who knows that he is killing a martyr?
220 ‘On the Seine may be seen a long trail of blood following the course of the water and passing under the second arch from the side of the Tuileries. This trail never stopped.’ La Liberté of the 31st May.
221 Appendix XXXII.
222 Appendix XXXIII.
223 This is the figure given by General Appert in the Enquire sur le 18 Mars. MacMahon has said, ‘When men surrender their arms they must not be shot; that was admitted. Unhappily, on certain points, the instructions 1 had given were forgotten. I can, however, affirm that the number of executions has been very restricted.’ Admire the logic of this reasoning. No doubt a list has been kept of all, oblivious as to the victims of the prevotal courts; the ‘loyal soldier’ ignores them completely.
Several days after the battle the Nationale, a Liberal-conservative paper, said, ‘In official circles it is estimated that 20,000 is the number of Federals killed, shot, or dead in consequence of wounds received during the days of May. We should not have dared to give this figure, which seems to us considerable, if we had not got this information from officers who have declared that this estimate is very probably correct.’
224 Appendix XXXIV.
225 This fact and the following one are not only attested by the prisoners, but by the journals of order and the correspondents of the conservative foreign newspapers speaking as eye-witnesses. Appendix XXXV.
226 ‘I observed a slender figure walking alone, in the costume of the National Guard, with long fair hair floating over the shoulders, a bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold young face, that seemed to know neither shame nor fear. When the spectators detected at a glance that this seeming young National Guardsman was a woman, their indignation found vent in strong language; but the only response of the victim was to glare right and left with heightened colour and flashing eyes. If the French nation were composed only of Frenchwomen, what a terrible nation it would be!’ The Times, 29th May, 1871.
227 They treated in this manner M. Ratisbonne, he who in the Débats had just written, ‘What an inestimable victory!’
228 These facts are borne witness to be several conservative journals, among others the Siecle. We cite this paper in preference to the Figarist journals, which might be suspected of having amplified the glory of the army. ‘The day before yesterday there has been (at Satory) an attempt at revolt. The soldiers began by aiming at the most mutinous; but as this procedure did not seem sufficiently expeditious, machine-guns were advanced, which fired into the crowd. Order was re-established, but at what a price!’ (Versailles, 27th May). ‘Towards four o'clock in the morning a new rising took place amongst the prisoners of Satory. There were several machine-gun volleys, and, as you may suppose, the number of dead and wounded must have been rather considerable.’ (Versailles, May 28).
229 Among others, one Thierce, Leiutenant-colonel, who had presided at the executions in the thirteenth arrondissement.
230 At the Beaujon Hospital there was a wounded Federal whom all the staff wanted to save. Only one person refused, the doctor Delbeau, head-surgeon and professor in the faculty of medicine. He sent up the soldiers of the neighbouring post and had the poor fellow taken away. Be it said to the honour of the students that they forced him some months after to suspend his lectures.
231 The numbers of the registers where the denunciations were inscribed enabled the proof of this statistic of infamy, published by the spy journals of the time, to he ascertained.
232 One of these orders, which commanded Milliere to set fire to the left bank, was signed Billioray, who had fled on the 21st, and Dombrowski, already dead at this time.
233 ‘General Enterprise of Parisian Sweeping. — The repression must equal the crime. These are the means by which this result win be arrived at. The members of the Commune, the chiefs of the insurrection, the members of the committees, courtsmartial and revolutionary tribunals, the foreign generals and officers, the deserters, the assassins of Montmartre, La Roquette, and Mazas, the pétroleurs and the pétroleuses, the ticket-of-leave men, are to be shot. Martial law must be applied in all its rigour to the journalists who have placed the torch and the chassepot in the hands of fanatic imbeciles. A part of these measures have already been put into practice. Our soldiers have simplified the work of the courts-martial of Versailles by shooting on the spot; but it must not be overlooked that a great many culprits have escaped chastisement.’ Le Figaro of the 8th June.
234 Report of General Appert, Table I, pp. 215,262.
235 Report of Captain Guichard, Enquête sur le 18 Mars, Vol. III, p. 313.
236 The Journal des Débats estimated that ‘the losses by the party of the insurrection in dead and prisoners reached the figure of 100,000 individuals.’
237 In the Figaro of the 8th June — the same number which contained the plan of massacre — might be read, ‘We have received the following letter from M. Louis Blanc:
“To Monsieur Philippe Gille.
“Sir, — I read in an article signed by you that the honest Republican party has the right to expect a protestation from me against the abominations of which Paris has been the theatre and the victim. This observation surprises me.
“What honest man could, without lacking self-respect, believe himself obliged to warn the public that incendiarism, pillage, and assassination horrify him? I esteem myself enough to judge that, on my part, a declaration is perfectly useless.
"When, too, public indignation is so legitimate and so great, are you aware, sir, that in the tribunals the silence of the assistants is obligatory; so true is it that the duty of everybody is to remain silent when the judge is about to speak. Receive, sir, the assurance of my regard.
Louis Blanc.” ‘
238 The Civil War in France. Address of the Council of the International WorkingMen’s Association.
239 These details are extracted from very numerous notes furnished not only by the prisoners, among others by Elisée Reclus, but by persons entire strangers to the Commune, municipal councillors of seaport towns, foreign journalists, etc.
240 General Appert’s report is not only silent with regard to these ignominious proceedings, but lies with a placidity that is frightful. He says, for instance, ‘The prisoners of the pontoons were treated like the sailors, with this difference, that they did no work and got frequent distributions of wine.’ Of the cages, the vermin, the blows, not a word. In the same manner he recounts, in the style of a pretentious quartermaster, the history of the Commune and of the last struggles. It would be doing him too much honour to point out how his absurd statements contradict each other. And yet it is from these official lies that all bourgeois historians have till today compiled their histories.
241 Letter addressed to the Liberté of Brussels.
242 Besides the 27,837 prisoners officially recognized at the pontoons, 8472 others wore admitted as being dispersed at Satory, L'Orangerie, Les Chautiers, the houses of justice and correction of Rouen-Clermont and St. Cyr. On the 15th of October there were still 3500 in the prisons of Versailles.
243 The former resort of all sorts of criminals.
244 The great political hecatombs have taken place in France since the decree of the Provisional Government of 1848.
245 Here is a sample, and not one of the most emphatic: ‘We must make no mistake,’ said La Liberté; ‘we must, above all, not stand on niceties; this is certainly a band of scoundrels, assassins, thieves, and incendiaries whom we have before our eyes. To argue from their situation of accused in order to exact for them the respect and benefit of the law which supposes them innocent would be a want of faith. No, no! a thousand times no! These are not ordinary accused; they were taken, some in the very act, and the others have so surely signed their culpability by authentic and solemn acts that it suffices to establish their identity in order to cry with the full and sonorous. voice of conviction, “Yes, yes! they are guilty!”
‘The detained witnesses are, for the most part, sinister bandits, with atrocious faces, repulsive types, especially the youngest, and whom one would not like to meet even in broad daylight at the corner of a wood.’
246 Family and morality were triumphing along the whole line. Some days after the fall of the Commune, the first president of the Court of Cassation, the official go-between of the amours of Napoleon III, solemnly reoccupied, before all the courts united, his scat, whence the hypocritical prudery of the men of the 4th September had expelled him.
247 Let us cite Dupont de Bussac, and above au Léon Bigot, who defended Maroteau, Lisbonne, and a great number of obscure prisoners. For a year he gave them his time, his labour, his money, publishing memoirs, exhausting himself in applications. He died in harness, falling, struck by apoplexy, even at the bar. The friends of the Commune will not forge this noble devotion.
248 He was condemned in 1876 to five years’ imprisonment for embezzlement.
249 In the law-schools is there no one to undertake it? What finer cause to begin with for a young man? What noble occasion to efface the great wrongs of the schools during the Commune, to bring nearer the proletariat this part of our youth, which is drifting further from them every day?
250 ‘To this demand of the communication of judicial evidence,’ said the tribunal of Budapest in its judgment, ‘the French Government has answered by purely and simply transmitting the sentence of the court-martial. In this sentence there exists no trace of proof, nor any precise evidence establishing culpability. Considering that this verdict is totally destitute of evidence and legal proofs, and that it indicates no means of procuring them, this tribunal exonerates Frankel from the charges brought against him.’
251 Here are their names, which truly belong to the history of the people:-Martel, president; Piou, vice-president; the Count Octave de Bastard, Felix Voisin, secretaries; Batbie, the Count de Maillé, the Count Duchatel, Peltereau-Villeneuve, Francois Sacaze, Tailhaud, the Marquis de Quinsonnas, Bigot, Merveilleux-Duvignan, Paris, (;Orne.
252 Appendix XXXVII.
253 According to reactionary journals this agent had been first bound to a board, an odious invention, which nothing that came out during the trial could justify. Vizentini, seized in a spontaneous outburst of fury and thrown immediately into the Seine, might even have been saved, if a board to which he clung had not in tipping over struck him on the head.
255 Thus the seizures nude during the house-searches, in virtue of regular mandates, were classed among the acts of theft with violence, pillage, etc., as though these acts had had any personal motive. Now it is necessary to point out that no one gave evidence of theft against the prisoners before the courts-martial; no one could say that the conflagrations had been taken advantage of for pillage.
256 ‘We all recollect one of our comrades, Corcelles, who had contracted pulmonary phthisis of the gravest form. He could scarcely keep himself on his legs when crawling before the Commission. To the President’s usual question he answered by a pitiful smile only, and while one of the younger members of the Commission, moved probably to pity at the sight of the walking corpse, bent himself towards the ear of the old surgeon, doubtless with the view of begging a respite, the latter retorted. loud enough to be heard by the patient and several other prisoners, ‘Bah! the sharks will want something to eat.’ And the sharks did have something to eat; less than three weeks after we were out at sea our friend Corcelles was dead, and we committed his remains to the last common reservoir.’ We must give the name of this friend of sharks; his name is Dr. Chanal. ‘Out of the four thousand condemned who passed in file before him, ten cases of exemption are not known. And perhaps the motives which dictated this may be better judged when the following facts are known. M. Edmond Adam, deputy of the Seine, having come to the Ile de Ré in order to visit M. H. Rochefort, who was shut up there, had a young woman present herself at his hotel, who proposed to him, for the modest sum of 1000 francs, to procure from the chief-surgeon a respite for his friend on his departure. She had but one word to say, remarked she, and the old man was under her orders.’ (Account by two escaped prisoners from New Caledonia, Paschal Grousset and Jourde, published by The Times, 27th June 1874.)
257 The Australian and English journal: ‘The news of the convict ship the Orne, transmitted through the English press, is inexact in all points. Far from counting 420 cases of scurvy, this vessel had hardly 360 cases.’
258 Report of the Commission of Pardons, presented in January 1876, by MM. Martel and F. Voisin.
259 In the Ile des Pins, 900 condemned received between them all 500 hectaries (about 100 acres). ‘We have been mistaken as to the resources offered by the Ile des Pins.’ philosophically remarked the Minister of Marine in 1876. ‘1 said so three years ago,’ answered M. Georges Périn.
260 ‘Admiral Ribourt, in his Inquiry, declares that during the year 1873 the engineering department had paid the condemned in the peninsula 110,525 francs. We must then leave off saying that the convicts won’t work.’ (Speech of M. Georges Périn in favour of an amnesty, Sitting of the 17th May 1876.)
261 An overlooker of the first class had been condemned for an attempt to murder; another, decorated with the cross of the Légion d'Honneur, sentenced to seven years’ hard labour for attempting to murder his wife. Many of them were every day condemned for drunkenness.
262 Details taken from the very correct and by no means exaggerated relation which Paschal Grousset and Jourde published in The Times after their escape. It has since been republished as a pamphlet.
264 The Pole condemned for having shot at the Tsar in Paris.
265 One of them has given a complete account of their escape, together with some interesting details on New Caledonia: Un Voyage de Circumnavigation, by A. Baillere.
266 On the 22nd December 1876, Baron, ex-delegate of the accountants of Paris to the Workmen’s Congress, was summoned before the third court-martial, which accused him of having been one of the secretaries of the delegation of war during the Commune. Baron was condemned to transportation in a fortress. During the examination the president said, ‘The Court will take notice that the accused still has the same sentiments as those which animated him in 187 1, for in 1876 we have seen that he took part in the Workmen’s Congress.’
267 Appendix XXXVIII.
268 Even in the month of April 1877 another ship, having 506 condemned to transportation, has been despatched from France to New Caledonia.