Who takes Bergeret’s place? Dombrowski.[49] Who had the idea of doing
this? Cluseret. First of all we had the Central Committee, then we had
the Commune, and now we have Cluseret. It looks as if Cluseret had
swallowed the Commune, which had previously swallowed and only half
digested the Central Committee. We are told that Cluseret is a great
man, that Cluseret is strong, that Cluseret will save Paris. Cluseret
issues decrees, and sees that they are executed. The Commune says, “_we
wish_;” but Cluseret says, “_I wish_.” It is he who has conceived and
promulgated the following edict:
“In consideration of the patriotic demands of a large number of
National Guards, who, although they are married men, wish to have the
honour of defending their municipal rights, even at the expense of
their lives ...”
I should like to know some of those National Guards who attach so
little importance to their lives! Show me two, and I will myself
consent to be the third. But I am interrupting Dictator Cluseret.
“The decree of the fifth of April is therefore modified:”
The decree of the fifth of April was made by the Commune, but Cluseret
does not care a straw for that.
“From seventeen to nineteen, service in the marching-companies is
voluntary, but from nineteen to forty it is obligatory for the
National Guards, married or unmarried.
“I recommend all good patriots to be their own police, and to see
that this edict is carried out in their respective quartern, and to
force the refractory to serve.”
As to the last paragraph of Cluseret’s decree it is impossible to joke
about it, it is by far too odious. This exhortation in favour of a
press-gang,—this wish that each man should become a spy upon his
neighbour (he says it in so many words), fills me with anger and
disgust. What! I may be passing in the streets, going about my own
business, and the first Federal who pleases, anybody with dirty hands,
a wretch you may be sure, for none but a wretch would follow the
recommendations of Cluseret,—an escaped convict, may take me by the
collar and say, “Come along and be killed for the sake of my municipal
independence.” Or else I may be in bed at night, quietly asleep, as it
is clearly my right to be, and four or five fellows, fired with
patriotic ardour, may break in my door, if I do not hasten to open it
on the first summons like a willing slave, and, whether I like it or
not, drag me in night-cap and slippers, in my shirt perhaps, if it so
pleases the brave _sans-culottes_, to the nearest outpost. Now I swear
to you, Cluseret, I would not bear this, if I had not, during the last
few hungry days of the siege, sold to a curiosity dealer—your colleague
now in the Commune—my revolver, which I had hoped naïvely might defend
me against the Prussians! Think, a revolver with six balls, if you
please, and which, alas! I forgot to discharge!
We can only hope that even at this moment, when the revolution has
brought out of the darkness into the light, so many rascals and
cowards, just as the sediment rises to the top when the wine is shaken,
we must hope, that there will be found in Paris, nobody to undertake
the mean office of spy and detective; and that the decree of M.
Cluseret will remain a dead-letter, like so many other decrees of the
Commune. I will not believe all I am told; I will not believe that last
night several men, without any precise orders, without any legal
character whatever, merely National Guards, introduced themselves into
peaceful families; waking the wife and children, and carrying off the
husband as one carries off a housebreaker or an escaped convict. I am
told that this is a fact, that it has happened more than fifty times at
Montmartre, Batignolles, and Belleville; yet I will not believe it.[50]
I prefer to believe that these tales are “inventions of Versailles”
than to admit the possibility of such infamy.
Come now, Cluseret, War Delegate, whatever he likes to call himself.
Where does he come from, what has he done, and what services has he
rendered, to give him a right thus to impose his sovereign wishes upon
us?
He is not a Frenchman; nor is he an American; for the honour of France
I prefer his being an American. His history is as short as it is
inglorious. He once served in the French army, and left, one does not
know why; then went to fight in America during the war. His enemies
affirm that he fought for the Slave States, his friends the contrary.
It does not seem very clear which side he was on—both, perhaps. Oh,
America! you had taken him from us, why did you not keep him? Cluseret
came back to us with the glory of having forsworn his country.
Immediately the revolutionists received him with open arms. Only think,
an American! Do you like America? People want to make an America
everywhere. Modern Republics have had formidable enemies to contend
with—America and the revolution of ’98. We are sad parodists. We cannot
be free in our own fashion, but are always obliged to imitate what has
been or what is. But that which is adapted to one climate or country,
is it always that which is the fittest thing for another? I will
return, however, to this subject another time. America, who is so
vaunted, and whom I should admire as much as could reasonably be
wished, if men did not try to remodel France after her image, one must
be blind not to see what she has of weakness and of narrowness, amid
much that is truly grand. It was said to me once by some one, “The
American mind may be compared to a compound liqueur, composed of the
yeast of Anglo-Saxon beer, the foam of Spanish wines, and the dregs of
the _petit-bleu_ of Suresnes, heated to boiling point by the applause
and admiration given by the genuine pale ale, the true sherry, and
authentic Château-Margaux to these their deposits. From time to time
the caldron seethes with a little too much violence, and the bubbling
drink pours over upon the old world, bringing back to the pure source,
to the true vintage, their deteriorated products. Oh! The poor wines of
France! How many adulterations have they been submitted to!” Calumny
and exaggeration no doubt; but I am angry with America for sending
Cluseret back, as I am angry with the Commune for having imposed him on
Paris. The Commune, however, has an admirable excuse: it has not,
perhaps, found among true Frenchmen one with an ambition criminal
enough to direct, according to her wishes, the destruction of Paris by
Paris, and France by France.