Monday, the 3rd of April.[33] A fearful day! I have been hurrying this
way and that, looking, questioning, reading. It is now ten o’clock in
the evening. And what do I know? Nothing certain; nothing except this,
which is awful,—they are fighting.
Yes, at the gates of Paris, Frenchmen against Frenchmen, beneath the
eyes of the Prussians, who are watching the battle-field like ravens:
they are fighting. I have seen ambulance waggons pass full of National
Guards. By whom have they been wounded? By Zouaves. Is this thing
credible, is it possible? Ah! those guns, cannon, and mitrailleuses,
why were they not all claimed by the enemy—all, every one, from
soldiers and Parisians alike? But little hindrance would that have
proved. It had been resolved—by what monstrous will?—that we should be
hurled to the very bottom of the precipice. These Frenchmen, who would
kill Frenchmen, would not be checked by lack of arms. If they could not
shoot each other, they would strangle each other.
[Illustration: The Barricade: Evening Meal—soup and cigars, and a
“petit verre”]
This, indeed, was unlooked for. An insurrection was feared; men thought
of the June days; that evening when the battalions devoted to the
National Assembly camped in the neighbourhood of the Bank, we imagined,
as a horrible possibility, muskets pointed from between the stones of
barricades, blood flowing in the streets, men killed, women in tears.
But who could have foretold that a new species of civil war was
preparing? That Paris, separated from France, would be blockaded by
Frenchmen? That it would once more be deprived of communication with
the provinces; once more starved perhaps? That there would be, not a
few men struggling to the death in one of the quarters of the town, but
two armies in presence, each with chiefs, fortifications and cannon?
That Paris, in a word, would be besieged anew? How abominable a
surprise of fate!
The cannonading has been heard since morning. Ah! that sound, which,
during the siege, made our hearts beat with hope,—yes, with hope, for
it made us believe in a possible deliverance—how horrible it was this
morning. I went towards the Champs Elysées. Paris was deserted. Had it
understood at last that its honour, its existence even, were at stake
in this revolution, or was it only not up yet? Battalions were marching
along the boulevards, with music playing. They were going towards the
Place Vendôme, and were singing. The _cantinières_ were carrying guns.
Some one told me that men had been at work all night in the
neighbourhood of the Hôtel de Ville, and that the streets adjoining it
were blocked with barricades. But in fact no one knows anything, except
that there is fighting in Neuilly, that the “Royalists” have attacked,
and that “our brothers are being slaughtered.” A few groups are
assembled in the Place de la Concorde. I approach, and find them
discussing the question of the rents,—yes, of the rents! Ah! it is
certain those who are being killed at this moment will not have to pay
their landlord. On reaching the Rond Point I can distinctly perceive a
compact crowd round the Triumphal Arch, and I meet some tired National
Guards who are returning from the battle. They are ragged, dusty, and
dreary. “What has happened?”—“We are betrayed!” says one.—“Death to the
traitors!” cries another.
No certain news from the field of battle. A runaway, seated outside a
café amidst a group of eager questioners, recounts that the barricade
at the Neuilly bridge has been attacked by _sergents de ville_ dressed
as soldiers, and Pontifical Zouaves carrying a white flag.—“A
parliamentary flag?” asks some one.—“No! a royalist flag,” answered the
runaway.—“And the barricade has been taken?”—“We had no cartridges; we
had not eaten for twenty-four hours; of course we had to decamp.”
Farther on a soldier of the line affirms that the barricade has been
taken again. The cannon roars still. Mont Valérien is firing, it is
said, on the Courbevoie barracks, where a battalion of Federal guards
was stationed yesterday.—“But they were off before daybreak,” adds the
soldier.
As I continue my road the groups become more numerous. I lift my head
and see a shell burst over the Avenue of the Grande Armée, leaving a
puff of white smoke hanging for a few seconds like a cloud-flake
detached by the wind.
On I go still. The height on which the Arc de Triomphe stands is
covered with people; a great many women and children among them. They
are mounted on posts, clinging to the projections of the Arch, hanging
to the sculpture of the bas-reliefs. One man has put a plank upon the
tops of three chairs, and by paying a few _sous_ the gapers can hoist
themselves upon it. From this position one can perceive a motionless,
attentive crowd reaching down the whole length of the Avenue of the
Grande Armée, as far as the Porte Maillot, from which a great cloud of
white smoke springs up every moment followed by a violent explosion,—it
is the cannon of the ramparts firing on the Rond Point of Courbevoie;
and beyond this the Avenue de Neuilly stretching far out in the
sunshine, deserted and dusty, a human form crossing it rapidly from
time to time; and farthest of all, beyond the Seine, beyond the Avenue
de l’Empereur, deserted too, the hill of Courbevoie, where a battery of
the Versailles troops is established. But stretch my eyes as I may I
cannot distinguish the guns; but a few men, sentinels doubtless, can be
made out. They are _sergents de ville_, says my right-hand neighbour;
but he on my left says they are Pontifical Zouaves. They must have good
eyes to recognise the uniforms at this distance. The most contradictory
rumours circulate as to the barricade on the bridge; it is impossible
for one to ascertain whether it has remained in the possession of the
soldiers or the Federals. There has been but little fighting, moreover,
since I came. A little later, at twelve o’clock, the fusillade ceases
entirely. But the battery on the ramparts continues to fire upon
Courbevoie, and Mont Valérien still shells Neuilly at intervals.
Suddenly a flood of dust, coming from Porte Maillot, thrusts back the
thick of the crowd, and as it flies, widening, and whirling more madly
as it comes, everyone is seized with terror, and rushes away screaming
and gesticulating. A shell has just fallen, it is said, in the Avenue
of the Grande Armée. Not a soul remains about the Triumphal Arch. The
adjoining streets are filled with people who have run to take shelter
there. By little and little, however, the people begin to recover
themselves, the flight is stopped in the middle, and, laughing at their
momentary panic, they turn back again. A quarter of an hour afterwards
the crowd is everywhere as compact as before.
[Illustration: Place de La Concorde and Champs Elysees, from the
Gardens of the Tuileries—Federalists going out to fight the
Versaillais:]
This panorama gives an idea of the theatre of operations of the Second
Siege of Paris. The Prussians closed the eastern enceinte, whilst the
Federals held the southern forts to the last, with the exception of
Issy and Vanves that were abandoned. Point-du-Jour and Porte Maillot
were the parts particularly attacked; the former being defended by the
Federal gunboats on the Seine. Mont Valérien, it will be seen, commands
the whole of the distant plateau. About one mile and a half beyond the
Triumphal Arch the river Seine intersects the space from south to
north, enclosing the Bois de Boulogne and the villages of Neuilly,
Villiers, and Courcelles, being a sort of outer fortification. The
walls of Paris follow the same line, falling about half a mile on the
other side of the Arch, and parallel runs a line of railway within the
fortified wall. This view exhibits the portion the Prussians were
permitted to occupy for two days: all the outlets, except the west,
being barricaded and defended.
This spectacle, however, of combatants and gapers distresses me, and in
despair of learning anything I return into the city.
At some distance from the scene of events one gets better information,
or, at any rate, a great deal more of it. Imagination has better play
when it is farther from the fact. A hundred absurd stories reach me.
What appears tolerably certain is, that the Federals have received a
check, not very important in itself, the Versailles troops having made
but little advance, but at any rate a check which might have some
influence on the resolution of the National Guards. They have been told
that the army would not fight, that the soldiers of the line would turn
the butt-ends of their guns into the air at Neuilly as they had done at
Montmartre. But now they begin to believe that the army will fight, and
those who cry the loudest that it was the _sergents de ville_ and
Charette’s Zouaves who led the attack alone, seem as if they said it to
give themselves courage and keep up their illusions.
But from which side did the first shot come? On this point everyone has
something to say, and no one knows what to believe. Official reports
are looked for with the utmost impatience. The walls, generally so
communicative, are mute up to this hour. The least improbable of the
versions circulated is the following: At break of day some shots are
said to have been exchanged between the Federal advanced guard and the
patrols of the Versailles troops. None dead or wounded; only powder
wasted, happily. A little later, and a few minutes after the arrival of
General Vinoy at Mont Valérien, a messenger with a flag of truce,
preceded by a trumpeter and accompanied by two _sergents de ville_
(inevitably), is said to have presented himself at the bridge of
Courbevoie. The name of the messenger has been given,—Monsieur
Pasquier, surgeon-in-chief to the regiment of mounted _gendarmes_. Two
of the National Guards go to meet him; after some words exchanged, one
of the Federals blows out Monsieur Pasquier’s brains with his revolver,
and ten minutes later Mont Valérien opens a formidable fire, which
continues as fiercely four hours afterwards.
Meanwhile the drams beat to arms, on all sides. A considerable number
of battalions defile along the Boulevard Montmartre; more than twenty
thousand men, some say, who pretend to know. On they march, singing and
shouting “_Vive la Commune! Vive la République!_” They are answered by
a few shouts. These are not the Montmartre and Belleville guards alone;
peaceful faces of citizens and merchants may be seen under the military
_képis_, and many hands are white as no workman’s are. They march in
good order,—they are calm and resolved; one feels that these men are
ready to die for a cause that they believe to be just. I raise my hat
as they pass; one must do honour to those who, even if they be guilty,
push their devotion so far as to expose themselves to death for their
convictions.
But what are these convictions? What is the Commune? The men who sit at
the Hôtel de Ville have published no programme, yet they kill and are
killed for the sake of the Commune. Oh, words! words! What power they
have over you, heroic and most simple people!
In the evening out came a proclamation. There was so great a crowd
wherever it was posted up that I had not the chance of copying it; but
it ran somewhat in these terms:—
“CITIZENS,—This morning the Royalists have ATTACKED.
“Impatient, before our moderation they have ATTACKED.
“Unable to bring French bayonets against us, they have opposed us
with the Imperial Guard and Pontifical Zouaves.
“They have bombarded the inoffensive village of Neuilly.
“Charette’s _chouans_, Cathelineau’s _Vendéens_, Trochu’s
_Bretons_, Valentin’s _gendarmes_, have rushed upon us.
“There are dead and wounded.
“Against this attack, renewed from the Prussians, Paris should rise
to a man.
“Thanks to the support of the National Guard, the victory will be
ours!”
Victory! What victory? Oh, the bitter pain! Paris shedding the blood of
France, France shedding the blood of Paris! From whatever side the
triumph comes, will it not be accursed?