Paris under the Commune - John Leighton
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"No more jury!"
"Yes! yes! a jury! a jury!"
"Out with the reactionist!"
"Down with Cabanel!"
"And the women? Are the women to be on the jury?"
"Neither the women, nor the infirm."
And all the time there is Monsieur Gustave Courbet, the chairman,
desperately ringing his bell for order, and launching some expressive
exclamation from time to time. And the result of all this? Absolutely
nothing at all! No! stop! There were a few statutes proposed--and every
one amused himself immensely. "Well! so much the better," said
one. "Every one laughed, and no harm was done to anybody."
We beg your pardon! There was a great deal of harm done--to Monsieur
Courbet.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 57: Gaillard Senior (a sort of Odger), cobbler of Belleville
and democratic stump orator. Appointed, April 8, to the Presidency of
the Commission of Barricades.]
[Footnote 58: As a painter Courbet has been very diversely judged. He
was the chief of the ultra-realistic school, and therefore a natural
subject for the contempt and abuse of the admirers of "legitimate art."
But his later use of the political power entrusted to him has drawn down
upon him the wrath of an immense majority of the French public, which
his artistic misdemeanours had scarcely touched. On the sixteenth of
April he was elected a member of the Commune by the 6th arrondissement
of Paris, and forthwith appointed Director of the Beaux Arts. Until this
time his life had been purely professional, and consequently of mediocre
interest for the general public. He was born at Ornans, department of
the Doubs, in 1819, and received his primary instructions from the Abbe
Gousset, afterwards Archbishop of Rheims. He first applied himself to
the study of mathematics, painting the while, and apparently aiming at a
fusion of both pursuits. He subsequently read for the bar for a short
time, and, finally, adopting art as his sole profession, threw himself
heart and soul into a Renaissance movement as the apostle of a new
style. The peculiarities of his manner soon brought him into notoriety,
and a school of imitators grouped itself around him. His pride became a
proverb. In 1870 he was offered the cross of the Legion of Honour, and
refused it, arrogantly declaring that he would have none of a
distinction given to tradesmen and ministers. The part he took in the
destruction of the Colonne Vendome is familiar to all readers of the
English press. Three weeks after the fall of the Commune he was
denounced by a Federal officer, and discovered at the house of a friend
hiding in a wardrobe, and in September was condemned by the tribunal at
Versailles to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 600 francs--a
slight penalty that astonished everyone.]
LII.
It is forbidden to cross the Place Vendome, and naturally, walking there
is prohibited too. I had been prowling about every afternoon for the
last few days, trying to pass the sentinels of the Rue de la Paix,
hoping that some lucky chance might enable me to evade the military
order; all I got for my pains was a sharply articulated "_Passes au
large!_" and I remained shut out.
To-day, as I was watching for a favourable opportunity, a _petite dame_
who held up her skirts to show her stockings, which were as red as the
flag of the Hotel de Ville--out upon you for a female Communist!
--approached the sentinel and addressed him with her most
gracious, smile. And oh, these Federals! The man in office forgot his
duty, and at once began with the lady a conversation of such an intimate
description, that for discretion's sake I felt myself obliged to take a
slight turn to the left, and a minute later I had slipped into the
forbidden Place.
A Place?--no, a camp it might more properly be called. Here and there,
are seen a crowd of little tents, which would be white if they were
washed, and littered about with straw. Under the tents lie National
Guards; they are not seen, but plainly heard, for they are snoring. You
remember the absurd old bit of chop-logic often repeated in the classes
of philosophy? One might apply it thus: he sleeps well who has a good
conscience; the Federals sleep well; ergo, the Federals have a good
conscience. Guards walk to and fro with their pipes in their mouths. If
I were to say that these honourable Communists show by their easy
manner, gentlemanly bearing, and superior conversation, that they belong
to the cream of Parisian society, you would perhaps be impertinent
enough not to believe one word of what I said. I think it, therefore,
preferable in every way to assert the direct contrary. There is a group
of them flinging away their pay at the usual game of _bouchon_. "The
Soldier's Pay and the Game of Cork" is the title that might be given by
those who would write the history of the National Guard from the
beginning of the siege to the present time. And if to the cork they
added the bottle, they might pride themselves upon having found a
perfect one. This is how it comes to pass. The wife is hungry, and the
children are hungry, but the father is thirsty, and he receives the pay.
What does he do? He is thirsty, and he must drink; one must think of
oneself in this world. When he has satisfied his thirst, what remains? A
few sous, the empty bottle, and the cork. Very good. He plays his last
sou on the famous game, and in the evening, when he returns home, he
carries to his family--what?--the empty bottle!
On the Place two barricades have been made, one across the Rue de la
Paix, and the other before the Rue Castiglione. "Two formidable
barricades," say the newspapers, which may be read thus: "A heap of
paving stones to the right, and a heap of paving stones to the left." I
whisper to myself that two small field-pieces, one on the place of the
New Opera-house, and the other at the Rue de Rivoli, would not be long
before they got the better of these two barricades, in spite of the guns
that here and there display their long, bright cylinders.
The Federals have decidedly a taste for gallantry. About twenty women--I
say young women, but not pretty women--are selling coffee to the
National Guards, and add to their change a few ogling smiles meant to be
engaging.
As to the Column, it has not the least appearance of being frightened by
the decree of the Commune which threatens it with a speedy fall. There
it stands like a huge bronze I, and the emperor is the dot upon it. The
four eagles are still there, at the four corners of the pedestal, with
their wreaths of immortelles, and the two red flags which wave from the
top seem but little out of place. The column is like the ancient honour
of France, that neither decrees nor bayonets can intimidate, and which
in the midst of threats and tumult, holds itself aloft in serene and
noble dignity.
LIII.
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
embarrassed. 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 Buttes 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
assembly which was not at all, it appears, their ideal of a municipal
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 Assembly 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 circumstances, 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, passes
near them. In the days of Napoleon the Third and the Prussians this was
a stockbroker; it passed along with a mass of documents 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 passage 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
shells, 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 space 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
arrondissement 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 institutions--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
attitudes. 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,
emancipation of workmen, association of the working-classes, 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 passed 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 massacres 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
encumbrances 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 Cockneys (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 pass! 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]