[49] There are two versions of Dombrowski’s earlier history. By his
admirers he was said to have headed the last Polish insurrection: the
party of order stigmatise him as a Russian adventurer, who had fought
in Poland, but against the Poles, and in the Caucasus, in Italy, and
in France—wherever; in fine, blows were to be given and money earned.
He entered France, like many other adventurous knights, in Garibaldi’s
suite, came to Paris after the siege, and immediately after the
outbreak of the eighteenth of March was created general by the
Commune, and gathered round him in guise of staff the most
illustrious, or least ignoble, of those foreign parasites and
vagabonds, who have made of Paris a grand occidental Bohemian Babel.
These soldiers of fortune, most of whom had been “unfortunate” at
home, formed the marrow of the Commune’s military strength.
Dombrowski had gained a name for intrepidity even among these men
of reckless courage and adventurous lives. He maintained strict
discipline, albeit to a not very moral purpose. Whoever dared
connect his name with the word defeat was shot. Like many other
Communist generals he took the most stringent measures for
concealing the truth from his soldiers, and thus staved off total
demoralisation until the Versailles troops were in the heart of
Paris. His relations with the Federal authorities were not of an
uniformly amiable character.
[50] A poor Italian smith told me he had three men seized. They had
taken a stove near the fortifications of Ternes, when they were
arrested. “But we are Italians!” they cried. It was no excuse, for the
Federals replied, “Italians! so much the better; you shall serve as
Garibaldians!”