The Commune.--Murder of French Generals.--The National Guard of
Order.--It disbands.--The Reasons.--Flight of the Government to
Versailles.--Thiers.--Attempts to reorganize National Guard.--An
American arrested by Commune.--Legation intervenes.--His Discharge.
--His Treatment.--Reign of King Mob.--"_Démonstrations Pacifiques._"
--Absurd Decrees of the Commune.--Destruction of the Vendôme
Column.
But it has rarely been my lot, in the course of my official life,
to enjoy an uninterrupted leave of absence. The present was no
exception. I was scarcely fairly installed in England, and fighting
"my battles o'er again," and showing "how fields were lost", when
there came a telegram from Mr. Washburne telling me that there were
disturbances in Paris, and that I must return immediately. Some of
the National Guard of the Belleville and Montmartre quarters had
taken advantage of the confusion reigning immediately after the
surrender, and seized several field-guns and mitrailleuses, and
carried them off to their fastnesses on Montmartre. They now refused
to surrender them; and when the Government attempted to take them,
the troops fraternized with the mob, and deserted their generals,
Lecompte and Thomas, whom the Communists forthwith shot. It was said
that Count Bismarck had urged the disarming of the National Guard at
the time of the surrender. Trochu's Government had refused. They must
have bitterly regretted it afterward.
On my return I entered Paris by the Gare St. Lazare. That usually
peaceful temple of traffic was thronged by _Gardes Nationaux_--"The
National Guard of Order," they called themselves, or were called, to
distinguish them from the Communists. These gentlemen appeared to be
enjoying themselves. They were comfortably housed in the building,
and lounged and chatted there, not without frequent visits to the
neighboring cafés. I found that they held the Grand Hotel, and the
new Opera-house, both strong positions, and within easy supporting
distance of each other. They also held the Bourse, the Bank of
France, the "Finances," and many other "coignes of vantage." But
"coignes of vantage" are of very little use when the heart to defend
them is lacking. In a very few days these men, outnumbering the
Communists two or three to one, backed by the power of the Government
and the wealth of Paris, and by the moral support of the Germans and
of the civilized world, had disbanded, taken refuge in flight, and
left their families, and their property, and their beautiful city to
the tender mercies of the mob.
It was a matter of the utmost astonishment to me, and to every one
with whom I conversed, that the National Guard of Order should
have behaved as they did. I never understood it till I talked
with my barber just after his battalion had disbanded, and before
he had escaped to London. They got tired of sleeping away from
their families, getting their meals irregularly, and having to pay
restaurant-prices for them. They were in a state of disgust, too,
with the Government, who refused to pass an act to relieve them from
their rents accrued during the siege. My barber was an excellent
representative of his class, the _petite bourgeoisie_; a well-to-do
man, employing two apprentices, making a good livelihood, and laying
by something for a _dot_ for his children--economical, intelligent,
sober. He belonged to the most respectable battalion in the city,
that of the quarter of the "Finances." I expressed my surprise at
their disbanding. He said that the Government would do nothing for
them, so they would do nothing for the Government: it might put down
the _émeute_ itself. So they abandoned their property and their homes
and their idolized Paris, shut up their shops, and ran away.
The relations between the Government and the governed in France are
difficult for an American to understand. In the United States and in
England the Government is _our_ government, its interests are _our_
interests, and we stand by and defend it, not only because it is our
duty to do so, but because it is _ours_. This feeling does not exist
in France among the masses, the _petit commerce_ and the peasantry.
They look upon the Government as a foreign body which has somehow
or other--it matters very little how--got possession of power. As
long as it preserves order, prevents crime, insures prosperity, and
gratifies vanity by foreign conquests, it is firmly seated; but
the moment it ceases to be able to do all this, let it go, and try
another.
It is a strange notion of the duties of a Government that it must
insure prosperity; but it prevails very generally among the masses
in France, and is not unknown among the uneducated classes in other
countries. The theory of the Long Island fisherman is more generally
acted upon than is acknowledged: "He knew Governor Dix, and he liked
Governor Dix, but he hadn't averaged an eel to a pot all summer; and
he thought he would try a new governor."
The conduct of the Government, or, rather, that of M. Thiers--for
at that time Thiers was the Government, and he might have said with
perfect truth, "_L'état c'est moi_"--has been much and harshly
criticised. Whether this criticism is just or not, depends upon the
loyalty or disloyalty of the troops. If they were true to their
colors and ready to fight the mob, as they afterward did, there
never was a more cowardly and disgraceful surrender than the retreat
to Versailles, as unwise and unmilitary as it was cowardly, for it
discouraged the respectable citizens, and abandoned to the mob all
the advantages of position, immense war material, and the unbounded
wealth of the capital. It was proceeding upon Artemus Ward's military
plan. Artemus said that if he were in a city with fifty thousand men,
besieged by an enemy with fifty thousand men, he would open the gates
and march out, and let them march in, and then besiege them. Artemus
and M. Thiers appear to have studied in the same military school. But
if, as Thiers alleged, the army could not be relied upon, but were
ready to raise the butts of their muskets "_en air_" and fraternize
with the Communists, then there never was a wiser movement: it was
truly a "masterly retreat." Had what Thiers apprehended happened,
had the troops fraternized with the mob, a movement which was only
an insurrection--a bloody one, it is true, but confined to one
city--would have spread over France, and there would have been
a repetition, with aggravation, of all the horrors of the first
Revolution.
Before the National Guard of Order disbanded, several
well-intentioned efforts were made by officers of rank to effect
an organization among the citizens against the insurgents. Admiral
de Saissy either volunteered, or was sent by the Government, to
take command. He made his head-quarters at the Grand Hôtel, within
a stone's-throw of the Communists intrenched in the Place Vendôme.
Here they were isolated, far from their supports at Belleville and
Montmartre. Why the Admiral did not place a battery in position
in the Tuileries Gardens, commanding the Place Vendôme by the Rue
Castiglione, or why he did not simply starve the Communists out, I
never knew: probably he could not depend upon his men. I am confirmed
in this belief by a circumstance which happened within my own
observation. Two or three French gentlemen called at the Legation one
morning, to say that a young American friend, a Mr. Delpit, of New
Orleans, had been arrested by the Communists, and was then a prisoner
in the Place Vendôme, and would probably be dragged that day before
a Communist court-martial, condemned, and shot. Mr. Washburne was
at Versailles. I immediately sent his private secretary, an attaché
of the Legation, furnished with all the necessary documents, to
his relief. In a very short time Mr. M'Kean returned, after a most
successful mission. He had seen Delpit, he had seen the insurgent
authorities, and they had promised to discharge their prisoner that
very day. They did so. The next day he came up to thank us for our
prompt intervention in his behalf, which had undoubtedly saved his
life. I naturally asked him how he happened to be arrested. He said
that he had gone to see Admiral de Saissy, whom he knew, at the Grand
Hôtel; that the Admiral was very anxious to send a dispatch to a
distant part of the city; that the Admiral's aid was ready to start,
but that there appeared to be a very unanimous indisposition on the
part of the officers of the National Guard to accompany him; that
thereupon he volunteered. The Admiral jumped at the offer, and said,
"_You_ will go, I know; _you_ are an American; _you_ are not afraid."
A French commander must have been very much provoked by the conduct
of the officers about him to use such language in their presence.
Delpit and the aid started, but had gone but a little way, when they
were surrounded by a squad of the insurgents, who ordered them to
halt. Delpit drew his revolver, and threatened to shoot, while he
told his companion to run. The aid escaped. The insurgents leveled
their pieces, and were about to fire, when Delpit, seeing that his
companion had escaped, concluded that discretion was the better part
of valor, and surrendered. They disarmed him, treating him very
roughly, and one of them--a negro--spat in his face. They shut him
up in a cellar in the Place Vendôme, and it was likely to go hard
with him, when M'Kean appeared upon the scene. Delpit told me that
when they found that he was cared for by the Legation, their conduct
changed marvelously. They treated him with the greatest respect, and
the colored brother who had spit in his face was particularly marked
in his attentions. Delpit has since distinguished himself as a poet.
His work on the siege of Paris was crowned by the Academy, and he is
the author of a successful play, which means much in France.
But Admiral de Saissy had had enough of it. He gave it up, and went
back to Versailles. The National Guard of Order disbanded, and King
Mob reigned triumphant.
At first King Mob was a good-natured monarch. He collected a lot of
pitch-pine torches, and lighted them on top of the Vendôme Column.
The effect was good. He made bonfires, fired off guns, organized
processions, made speeches; in fact, behaved like any first-class
American city on the Fourth of July. This did not last long, however.
The tiger soon showed his claws. The party of order, having given
up their arms and disbanded, proceeded to organize what they called
a "_démonstration pacifique_," designed to produce a moral effect
upon a horde of savages. They paraded the streets in large numbers
unarmed. The first day's procession was rather a success. It was
a novelty, and took. The second day's was not so successful. They
marched up the Rue de la Paix, intending, in the grandeur of their
moral strength, to pass straight through the Place Vendôme, the
tiger's lair. The barricades were to disappear at their approach,
the insurgents were to throw themselves into their arms, and there
was to be one huge kiss of peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately,
things did not turn out as set down in the bills. The barriers did
not melt away, and the insurgents refused to kiss and make friends.
On the contrary, they opened fire on the procession, and several of
its numbers were killed. It was a well-meant effort, but Quixotic to
the last degree.
And now the tiger had tasted blood, and his appetite grew by what
it fed on. But his rage increased by degrees, advancing from one
atrocity to another, till it culminated in the slaughter of the
hostages.
There was a mixture of the ridiculous with the infamous in the
early acts of the Commune. Its members were very numerous; so, for
working purposes they appointed a "Committee of Public Safety,"
which very soon belied its name. These men appointed the ministers.
To call a man "Minister of War" was not democratic, so they called
him "_citoyen délégué au Ministère de la Guerre_." The title of
"General" they found inconsistent with the simplicity of republican
institutions, and so suppressed it. "Colonel" could pass muster,
but "General" was too aristocratic for their dainty ears. Then they
found that, like other mere mortals, they must live and provide for
their families. It was so much easier to pillage a shop than to work!
The shop-keeper should be proud to contribute to the well-being of
the brave defenders of the Republic! Then they published a decree
seizing all the workshops, that they might be occupied by Communist
workmen on the co-operative system. A jury was to be appointed--by
the Commune, of course--to assess the value of the property, and
compensation was to be made to the owner. As a practical measure,
this was not a success. The workmen found it pleasanter to play
soldier, and to take what they wanted, than to work even on the
co-operative system. So the workshops generally remained in the hands
of their owners. Next they commenced the work of demolition, and
almost equaled the great Haussmann in this respect. They pulled down
the house of M. Thiers (the Assembly has since built him a better
one); and they passed decrees to tear down the houses of Jules Favre
and other members of the Government, and confiscate their property.
Happily the patriots to whom the execution of these decrees was
intrusted were not perfectly immaculate; they could generally _be
seen_. In this way much less irreparable injury was done than might
have been expected.
One of their follies was the destruction of the Colonne Vendôme. An
eminent artist--Courbet--who was a member of the Commune, said that
it offended his artistic taste. Others of this band of brothers said
that it perpetuated the victory of war over peace; that it kept alive
a feeling of triumph in the conquerors and revenge in the conquered;
that the peoples should be brothers, etc., etc. So they pulled it
down; and the present Government forthwith rebuilt it, and the courts
have condemned M. Courbet to pay the expense.
When the Column was pulled down, all the shop-windows within half a
mile were pasted over with strips of paper to prevent their being
broken by the shock. It fell, and people two hundred yards off did
not know that any thing unusual had happened. It was a question much
discussed how far the prostrate Column would reach. Its length was
generally much overestimated. It was thought that it would extend at
least one hundred feet into the Rue de la Paris. It did not enter
the street, nor even cross the Place Vendôme. The bronze plates
were nearly all saved. Some few were disposed of by the Communist
soldiers. One was sold by a sailor to a lady for five hundred francs.
He afterward denounced her to the Government, and got five hundred
francs more for doing so. A profitable transaction! One was sold to
an American, and made the voyage to New York, where it was found by
the French Consul, reclaimed, and returned to Paris.