Communal fraternity is decidedly in the ascendant; it is putting into
practice this admirable precept, “Arrest each other.” They say M.
Delescluze has been sent to the Conciergerie. Yesterday Lullier was
arrested, to-day Assy. It was not sufficient to change Executive
Committees—if I may be allowed to say so—with no more ceremony than one
would change one’s boots; the Commune conducts itself, in respect to
those members that become obnoxious to it, absolutely as if they were
no more than ordinary archbishops.
[Illustration: Placing the Red Flag on the Pantheon. (The hole in the
dome was occasioned by a Prussian shell.)]
What! Assy—Assy[42] of Creuzot—who signed before all his comrades the
proclamations of the Central Committee, in virtue, not only of his
ability, but in obedience to the alphabetical order of the thing—Assy
no longer reigns at the Hôtel de Ville!—publishes no more decrees,
discusses no longer with F. Cournet, nor with G. Tridon. Wherefore this
fall after so much glory? It is whispered about that Assy has thought
it prudent to put aside a few rolls of bank notes found in the drawers
of the late Government. What, is that all? How long have politicians
been so scrupulous? Members of the Commune, how very punctilious you
have grown. Now if the Citizen Assy were accused of having in 1843 been
intimately acquainted with a lady whose son is now valet to M. Thiers’
first cousin, or if he had been seen in a church, and it were clearly
proved that he was there with any other intention than that of
delicately picking the pockets of the faithful, then I could understand
your indignation. But the idea of arresting a man because he has
appropriated the booty of the traitors, is too absurd; if you go on
acting in that way people will think you are growing conscientious!
As to Citizen Lullier,[43] who was one of the first victims of
“fraternity,” he is imprisoned because he did not succeed in capturing
Mont Valérien. I think with horror that if I had been in the place of
Citizen Lullier I should most certainly have had to undergo the same
punishment, for how in the devil’s name I could have managed to
transport that impregnable fortress on to the council-table at the
Hôtel de Ville I have not the least conception. It is as bad as if you
were in Switzerland, and asked the first child you met to go and fetch
Mont Blanc; of course the child would go and have a game of marbles
with his companions, and come back without the smallest trace of Mont
Blanc in his arms, thereupon you would whip the youngster within an ace
of his life. However, it appears that M. Lullier objected to being
whipped, or rather imprisoned, and being as full of cunning as of
valour he managed to slip out of his place of confinement, without drum
or trumpet. “Dear Rochefort,” he writes to the editor of _Le Mot
d’Ordre_, “you know of what infamous machinations I have been the
victim.” I suppose M. Rochefort does, but I am obliged to confess that
I have not the least idea, unless indeed M. Lullier means by
“machinations” the order that was given him to bring Mont Valérien in
his waistcoat pocket. “Imprisoned without motive,” he continues, “by
order of the Central Committee, I was thrown ...” (Oh! you should not
have _thrown_ M. Lullier) “into the Prefecture of Police,” (the
ex-Prefecture, if you please), “and put in solitary confinement at the
very moment when Paris was in want of men of action and military
experience.” Oh, fie! men of the Commune, you had at your disposal a
man of action—who does not know the noble actions of Citizen Lullier? A
man of military experience—who does not know what profound experience
M. Lullier has acquired in his numerous campaigns—and yet you put him,
or rather throw him, into the Prefecture! This is bad, very bad. “The
Prefecture is transformed into a state prison, and the most rigorous
discipline is maintained.” It appears then that the Communal prison is
anything but a fool’s paradise. “However, in spite of everything, I and
my secretary managed to make our escape calmly ...”—the calm of the
high-minded—“from a cell where I was strictly guarded, to pass two
court-yards and a dozen or two of soldiers, to have three doors opened
for me while the sentinels presented arms as I passed ...” What a
wonderful escape: the adventures of Baron Munchausen are nothing to it.
What a fine chapter poor old Dumas might have made of it. The door of
the cell is passed under the very nose of the jailer, who has doubtless
been drugged with some narcotic, of which M. Lullier has learnt the
secret during his travels in the East Indies; the twelve guards in the
court-yards are seized one after another by the throat, thrown on the
ground, bound with cords, and prevented from giving the alarm by twelve
gags thrust into their twelve mouths; the three doors are opened by
three enormous false keys, the work of a member of the Commune,
locksmith by trade, who has remained faithful to the cause of M.
Lullier; and last, but not least, the sentinels, plunged in ecstasy at
the sight of the glorious fugitive, present arms. What a scene for a
melodrama! The most interesting figure, however, in my opinion, is the
secretary. I have the greatest respect for that secretary, who never
dreamt one instant of abandoning his master, and I can see him, while
Lullier is accomplishing his miracles, calmly writing in the midst of
the danger, with a firm hand, the faithful account of these immortal
adventures. “I have now,” continues the ex-prisoner of the
ex-Prefecture, “two hundred determined men, who serve me as a guard,
and three excellent revolvers, loaded, in my pocket. I had foolishly
remained too long without arms and without friends; now I am resolved
to blow the brains out of the first man who tries to arrest me!” I
heard a bourgeois who had read this exclaim, that he wished to Heaven
each member of the Commune would come to arrest him in turn. Oh!
blood-thirsty bourgeois! Then Lullier finishes up by declaring that he
scorns to hide, but continues to show himself freely and openly on the
boulevards. What a proud, what a noble nature! Oh, ye marionettes, ye
fantoccini! Yet let me not be unjust; I will try and believe in you
once more, in spite of armed requisitions, in spite of arrests, of
robberies—for there have been robberies in spite of your decrees—I will
try and believe that you have not only taken possession of the Hôtel de
Ville for the purpose of setting up a Punch and Judy show and playing
your sinister farces; I want to believe that you had and still have
honourable and avowable intentions; that it is only your natural
inexperience joined to the difficulties of the moment which is the
cause of your faults and your follies; I want to believe that there are
among you, even after the successive dismissal of so many of your
members, some honourable men who deplore the evil that has been done,
who wish to repair it, and who will try to make us forget the crimes
and forfeits of the civil war by the benefits which revolution
sometimes brings in its train. Yes, I am naturally full of hope, and
will try and believe this; but, honestly, what hope can you have of
inspiring confidence in those who are not prejudiced as I am in favour
of innovators, when they see you arrest each other in this fashion, and
know that you have among you such generals as Bergeret, such honest
citizens as Assy, and such escaped lunatics as Lullier?