[5] Appendix, note 2.
[6] A mark of insult.
[7] This useless artillery was much ridiculed; jokers said that the
notary of General Trochu was working out faithfully the “plan” of his
illustrious client in these tardy fortifications.
[8] How was the Government to act in the presence of these facts; to
await events, or to strike a great blow?
Some think that the resistance of the insurgents was strengthened
by the measures taken by Government, which ought to have been more
diplomatic and skilful. The agitation of these men of Montmartre,
at the entry of the Prussians, had calmed down in a few hours; it
was now the duty of Government to allay the irritation which had
caused the insurgents to form their Montmartre stronghold, and not
to follow the advice of infuriated reactionaries, who make no
allowance for events and circumstances, neither analysing the
elements of that which they are combating, nor weighing the
measures they do not even know how to apply with tact.
The guns had not been re-taken, but Paris was very calm.
Dissensions had broken out in the Montmartre Committee, some of
whose members wished the cannon to be returned (the Committee sat
at No, 8 of the Rue des Rosiers, with a court-martial on one hand,
and military head-quarters on the other). Danger seemed now to be
averted, and the authorities had but one thing to do, to allow all
agitation to die out, without listening to blind or treacherous
counsellors, who advocated a system of immediate repression. It was
said, however, that the greater number of the members of Government
were inclined to temporise, but the provisional appointment of
General Valentin to the direction of the Prefecture of Police,
seemed to contradict this assertion.
During this time, the leaders who held Montmartre, spurred on by
the ambitious around them, and by those desirous of kindling civil
war for the sake of the illicit gains to be obtained from it, were
getting up a manifestation, which was to claim for the National
Guard the right of electing its commander-in-chief; and the post
was to be offered to Menotti Garibaldi. But though the men of
Montmartre declared that all who did not sign the manifestos were
traitors, yet the addresses remained almost entirely blank. The
insurrection had evidently few supporters. According to others, the
insurrection of 1871 was the result of a vast conspiracy, planned
and nurtured under the influence of a six months’ siege. No simple
Paris _émeute_, but a grand social movement, organised by the great
and universal revolutionary power; the Société Internationale,
Garibaldiism, Mazziniism, and Fenianism, have given each other
rendezvous in Paris. Cluseret, the American; Frankel, the Prussian;
Dombrowski, the Russian; Brunswick, the Lithuanian; Romanelli, the
Italian; Okolowitz, the Pole; Spillthorn, the Belgian; and La
Cécilia, Wroblewski, Wenzel, Hertzfel, Bozyski, Syneck, Prolowitz,
and a hundred others, equally illustrious, brought together from
every quarter of the globe; such were these ardent conspirators,
all imbued, like their colleagues the Flourens, the Eudes, the
Henrys, the Duvals, and _tutti quanti_, with the principles of the
French school of democracy and socialism.
This strong and terrible band, we are told, is under the command of
a chief who remains hidden and mute, while ostensibly it obeys the
Pyats, Delescluzes, and Rocheforts, politicians, who not being
generals, never condescend to fight.
In the first days of March all was prepared for a coming explosion,
and in spite of the departure of the Prussians, the Socialist party
determined that it should take place. (_Guerre des Communeux_, p.
61.)
[9] A sign that they refused to fight.
[10] A smooth-bore musket arranged as breech-loader, and called a
snuff-box, from the manner of opening the breech to adjust the charge.