What a quantity of luggage! Even those who had the good fortune of
witnessing the emigration before the siege would never have supposed
that there could be so much luggage in Paris. Well-to-do looking trunks
with brass ornaments, black wooden boxes, hairy trunks, leathern
hat-boxes, and cardboard bonnet-boxes, portmanteaux and carpet bags are
piled up on vehicles of every description, of which more than ten
thousand block up the roads leading to the railway stations. Everybody
is wild to get away; it is whispered about that the Commune, the horrid
Commune, is about to issue a decree forbidding the Parisians to quit
Paris. So all prudent individuals are making off, with their bank-notes
and shares in their pocket-books. I see a man I know, walking very
fast, wearing a troubled expression on his face. I ask him where he is
going.—“you do not know what has happened to me?” he cries. I confess I
do not.—“The most extraordinary thing: I am condemned to death!”—“You!”
I exclaim.—“Yes! by the Commune!”—“And wherefore?” I ask.—“Because I
write on the _Figaro_.”—“Why, I never knew that!”—“Oh! not very often;
but last year I addressed a letter to the Editor, to explain to him
that my new farce called ‘My Aunt’s Garters’ had nothing at all to do
with ‘My Uncle’s Braces,’ which is by somebody else. You understand
that I did not want to change the title, which is rather good of its
kind, so I wrote to the _Figaro_, and as my letter was inserted, and as
the Commune condemns all the contributors.... You see ...!”—“Perfectly!
Why, my dear fellow, you ought to have been off before. Of course you
go to Versailles?”—“Why, yes.”—“By the railway?” I cannot help having a
joke at his expense.—“Yes, of course.”—“Well, if I were you, I would
not, really; the engine might blow up, or you might run into a luggage
train. Such things do happen in the best of times, and I think the
Commune capable of anything to get rid of so dangerous an
adversary.”—“You don’t mean to say,” says the poor little, man in a
tremor, “that they would go to such lengths! Well, at any rate I will
travel by the road.”[29]
A little farther up the Boulevard des Italiens I see another
acquaintance. “What, still in Paris?” I say, shaking hands with him.—“I
am off this evening,” he answers.—“Are you condemned to death?”—“No,
but I shall be tried to-night.”—“The devil! Do you write on the
_Figaro_!”—“No, no, it is quite a long story. Three years ago, I made
the acquaintance of a charming blonde, who reciprocated my advances,
and made herself highly agreeable. In a word, I was smitten.
Unfortunately there was a husband in the case!”—“The devil there
was!”—“He made inquiries, and found out who I was, and ...”—“And
invited you to mortal combat?”—“Oh! no, he is a hosier. But from that
day forth he became my most bitter enemy.”—“Very disagreeable of him, I
am sure, but I do not see how the enmity of this retail dealer obliges
you to quit Paris?”—“Why, you see he has a cousin who is elected a
member of the Commune.”—“I understand your uneasiness; you fear the
latent revenge of this unreasonable hosier.”—“I am to be tried
to-night, but it is not the fear of death which makes me fly. It is
worse than that. Those Hôtel de Ville people are capable of anything,
and I hear they are going to make a law on divorce. I know the
malignity of the lady’s husband—and I believe he is capable of getting
a divorce, and forcing me to marry her!”
So, under one pretext and another, almost everyone is going away. As
for me, I am like a hardened Parisian—my boots have a rooted dislike to
any other pavement than that of the boulevards. Who is right, I, or
those who are rushing off? Is there really danger here for those who
are not ardently attached to the principles of the Commune? I try to
believe not. True there have been arrests—domiciliary visits and other
illegal and tyrannical acts—but I do not think it can last.[30] May we
not hope that the dangerous element in the Commune will soon be
neutralised by the more intelligent portion of the Municipal Council,
if, indeed, that portion exists? I cannot believe that a revolution,
accomplished by one-third of the population of Paris, and tolerated by
another (the remaining fraction having taken flight), can be entirely
devoid of the spirit of generosity and usefulness, capable only of
appropriating the funds of others, and unjustly imprisoning innocent
citizens. Besides, even if the Commune, instead of trying to make us
forget the bloody deeds with which it preceded its establishment, or
seeking to repair the faults of which it has been guilty, on the
contrary continues to commit such excesses, thus harrying to its ruin a
city which has already suffered so much, even then I will not leave it.
I will cling to it to the last, as a sailor who has grown to love the
ship that has borne him gallantly in so many voyages, clings to the
wreck of his favourite, and refuses to be saved without it.