"Prisoner," said the President of the Council of War, "have you anything
to add in your defence?"
"Yes, colonel," replied the prisoner. "The little lawyer you assigned me
defended me according to his idea; I want to defend myself according to
mine.
"My name is Martin (Lewis Joseph). I am fifty-five years old. My father
was a locksmith. He had a little shop in the upper part of the
Saint-Martin Quarter, and had a fair business. We just existed. I
learned to read in the _National_, which was, I believe, the paper of M.
Thiers.
"On the 27th of July, 1830, my father went out very early. That evening,
at ten o'clock, he was brought back to us on a litter, dying. He had
received a bullet in the chest. Beside him on the litter was his musket.
"'Take it,' he said to me. 'I give it to you; and every time there is a
riot, be against the Government--always, always, always!'
"An hour later he was dead. I went out in the night. At the first
barricade I stopped and offered myself; a man examined me by the light
of a lantern. 'A child!' he exclaimed. I was not fifteen. I was very
slight and undersized. I answered: 'A child, maybe, but my father was
killed two hours ago. He gave me his musket. Teach me how to use it.'
"From that moment I became what I have always been for forty years, an
insurgent! If I fought during the Commune, it was not because I was
forced, nor for the thirty sous; it was from taste, from pleasure, from
habit, from routine.
"In 1830 I behaved rather bravely at the attack on the Louvre. The
urchin who first scaled the gate beneath the bullets of the Swiss was I.
I received the Medal of July. But the shopkeepers gave us a king. It had
all to be done over. I joined a secret society; I learned to melt
bullets, to make powder--in short, I completed my education, and I
waited.
"I had to wait nearly two years. On June 5, 1832, at noon, in front of
the Madeleine, I was the first to unharness one of the horses of the
hearse of General Lamarque. I passed the day in shouting, 'Long live
Lafayette!' and I passed the night in making barricades. The next
morning we were attacked by the regulars. In the evening, towards four
o'clock, we were blocked, cannonaded, swept with grape-shot, and crushed
back into the Church of Saint-Méry. I had a bullet and three
bayonet-stabs in my body when I was picked up by the soldiers from the
stone floor of a little chapel to the left--the Chapel of St. John. I
have often gone back to that little chapel--not to pray, I wasn't
brought up with such ideas--but to see the stains of my blood which
still remain on the stones.
"On account of my youth I received a ten-year sentence. I was sent to
Mont Saint-Michel. That was why I didn't take part in the riots of 1834.
If I had been free I should have fought in Rue Transnonian as I had
fought in Rue Saint-Méry--'against the Government--always, always,
always!' It was my father's last word; it was my gospel, my religion. I
call that my catechism in six words. I came out of prison in 1842, and I
again began to wait.
"The revolution of '48 was made without effort. The shopkeepers were
stupid and cowardly. They were neither for nor against us. The municipal
guards alone defended themselves. We had a little trouble in taking the
guard-house of the Château d'Eau. On the evening of February 24th I
remained three or four hours on the square before the Hôtel de Ville.
The members of the Provisional Government, one after another, made
speeches to us--said that we were heroes, great citizens, the foremost
nation in the world, that we had broken the bonds of tyranny. After
having fed us on these fine speeches, they gave us a republic which
wasn't any better than the monarchy we had overthrown.
"In June I took up my musket again, but on that occasion we were not
successful. I was arrested, sentenced, and sent to Cayenne. It seems
that I behaved well there. One day I saved a captain of marines from
drowning. Observe that I should most certainly have shot at that captain
if he had been on one side of a barricade and I on the other; but a man
who is drowning, dying--in short, I received my pardon, I came back to
France in 1852, after the Coup d'État; I had missed the insurrection of
1851.
"At Cayenne I had made friends with a tailor named Barnard. Six months
after my departure for France, Barnard died. I went to see his widow.
She was in want. I married her. We had a son in 1854--you will
understand presently why I speak to you of my wife and my son. But you
must already suspect that an insurgent who marries the widow of an
insurgent does not have royalist children.
"Under the Empire there was nothing to do. The police were very strict.
We were dispersed, disarmed. I worked, I brought up my son with the
ideas that my father had given me. The wait was long. Rochefort,
Gambetta, public reunions--all that put us in motion again.
"On the first important occasion I showed myself. I was one of that
little band who assaulted the barracks of the firemen of Villette. Only
there we made a mistake. We killed a fireman, unnecessarily, I was
caught and thrown into prison, but the Government of the Fourth of
September liberated us, from which I concluded that we did right to
attack those barracks and kill the fireman, even unnecessarily.
"The siege began. I immediately opposed the Government, on the side of
the Commune. I marched against the Hôtel de Ville on the 31st of October
and on the 22d of January. I liked revolt for revolt's sake. An
insurgent--I told you in the beginning I am an insurgent. I cannot hear
a discussion without taking part, nor see a riot without running to it,
nor a barricade without bringing my paving-stone. It's in the blood.
"And then, besides, I wasn't quite ignorant, and I said to myself, It is
only necessary to succeed thoroughly some day, and then, in our turn, we
shall be the Government, and it will be better than with all these
lawyers, who place themselves behind us during the battle, and pass
ahead after the victory.'
"The 18th of March came, and naturally I was in it. I shouted 'Hurrah
for the regulars!' I fraternized with the army. I went to the Hôtel de
Ville. I found a government already at work. It was absolutely the same
as on the 24th of February.
"Now you tell me that that insurrection was not lawful. That is
possible, but I don't quite see why not. I begin to get muddled--about
these insurrections which are a duty and those which are a crime! I do
not clearly see the difference.
"I shot at the Versailles troops in 1871, as I had shot at the royal
guard in 1830 and on the municipals in 1848. After 1830 I received the
Medal of July; after 1848 the compliments of M. de Lamartine. This time
I am going to get transportation or death.
"There are insurrections which please you. You raise columns to them,
you give their names to streets, you give yourselves the offices, the
promotions, and the big salaries, and we folks, who made the revolution,
you call us great citizens, heroes, a nation of brave men, etc. That's
the coin we are paid with.
"And then there are other insurrections which displease you. As a
result, transportation, death. Well, you see, if you hadn't complimented
us so after the first ones, perhaps we wouldn't have made the last. If
you hadn't raised the Column of July at the entrance of our
neighborhood, we wouldn't perhaps have gone and demolished the Vendôme
Column in your neighborhood. Those two penny trumpets didn't agree. One
had to upset the other, and that is what happened.
"Now, why I threw away my captain's uniform on the 26th of May, why I
was in a blouse when I was arrested, I will tell you. When I learned
that the gentlemen of the Commune, instead of coming to shoot with us
behind the barricades, were at the Hôtel de Ville distributing among
themselves thousand-franc notes, were shaving their beards, dyeing their
hair, and hiding themselves in caves, I did not wish to keep the
shoulder-straps they had given me.
"Besides, shoulder-straps embarrassed me. 'Captain Martin' sounded
idiotic. 'Insurgent Martin'--why, that's well and good. I wanted to end
as I had begun, die as my father had died, as a rioter in a riot, as a
barricader behind a barricade.
"I could not get killed. I got caught. I belong to you. But I wish to
beg a favor of you. I have a son, a child of seventeen; he is at
Cherbourg, on the hulks. He fought, it is true, and he does not deny it;
but it is I who put a musket in his hand, it is I who told him that his
duty was there. He listened to me. He obeyed me. That is all his crime.
Do not sentence him too harshly.
"As for me, you have got me; do not let me go, that's the advice I give
you. I am too old to mend; and then, what can you expect? Nothing can
change it. I was born on the wrong side of the barricade."