[81] PARIS AT DINNER.—An ogress, gentleman! A famished creature,
faring sumptuously; her face flushed with wine, her eyes bright, her
hands trembling. Madame Lutetia is a strapping woman still, with a
queenly air about her, in spite of the red patches on her tunic;
somewhat shorn of her ornaments, it is true, as she has had to pawn
the greater part of her jewelry, but the orgie once over she will be
again what she was before.
For the time being she is wholly absorbed in her gastronomic
exertions. She has already devoured a Bergeret with peas, a Lullier
with anchovy sauce, an Assy and potatoes, a Cluseret with tomatos,
a Rossel with capers, besides a large quantity of small fry, and
she is not yet appeased. The _maître-d’hôtel_ Delescluze waits upon
her somewhat in trepidation, with a sickly smile on his face. What
if, after such a meal of generals and colonels, the ogress were to
devour the waiter!—_Fac simile of design from the “Grelot,” 17th
May, 1871_.
[82] He was convinced of the hopelessness of any further struggle
after the capture of Fort Issy; gave in his resignation, and hid
himself to escape the vengeance of his former colleagues. He was
supposed to be in England or Switzerland, whereas, in fact, he had
fled no farther than the Boulevard Saint Germain. He was arrested by
the police on the ninth of June, disguised as an employé of the
Northern Railway. He was first interrogated at the Petit Luxembourg,
and afterwards conducted handcuffed to Versailles, where three mouths
after he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to military
degradation and death.
[83] Delescluze’s wild life began at Dreux, in 1809. Driven from home
on account of his bad conduct, he came to Paris, and obtained
employment in an attorney’s office, from which he was very soon
afterwards, it is said, discharged for robbery. In 1834, he underwent
the first of his long list of imprisonments, for the part he took in
the April revolution, and in the following year, being compromised in
a conspiracy against the safety of the state, he took refuge in
Belgium, Where he obtained the editorship of the _Courrier de
Charleroi_. In 1840 he returned to Paris, where he founded a journal
called the _Révolution Démocratique et Sociale_, which brought him
fifteen months’ imprisonment and twenty thousand francs fine. After a
long period of liberty of nearly eight years, he was condemned to
transportation by the High Court of Justice, but the condemnation was
given in his absence, for he had slipped over to England, where he
remained until 1853. On his returning in that year to France he was
immediately imprisoned at Mazas, transferred afterwards to Belle-Isle,
and then successively to the hulks of Corte, Ajaccio, Toulon, Brest,
and finally to Cayenne. These sojourns lasted until 1868, when the
amnesty permitted him to return to France, where he made haste to
bring out another new journal, _Le Réveil_, which of course earned him
fines and imprisonments with great rapidity, three of each within the
twelvemonth.
In the month of February, 1871, he was elected deputy by a large
number of votes; and later, when the Assembly went to Bordeaux, sat
there for some time, and then gave in his resignation, in order to
take part with the Commune.
By the Commune he was made delegate at the Ministry of War, after
the pretended flight of Rossel, and in a sitting of the 20th of
April, in which the project of burning Paris was discussed,
Delescluze ended his speech with the words—“If we must die, we will
give to Liberty a pile worthy of her.”
[84] “A plot had just been discovered between Bourget of the
Internationale, Billioray, member of the Commune, and Cérisier,
captain of the 101st Battalion of the insurgent National Guard. For a
certain sum of money they were to deliver Port Issy into the hands of
General Valentin, of the Versailles army. The succession of Rossel to
the Ministry of War frustrated the whole project.
“In the night of the 17th of May another attempt of the same kind
met with failure. The Communists Bourget, Billioray, Mortier,
Cérisier, and Pilotel, the artist, traitors to their own
treacherous cause, were to open the gates to the soldiers of
Versailles, an hour after midnight, at the Point du Jour; the
soldiers to be disguised as National Guards. But, at the appointed
hour, Cérisier took fright, and contented himself with the money he
had received on account (twenty-five thousand francs) in payment
for his treachery, and did no more. When the Versailles troops
presented themselves at the gates, they had to beat a retreat under
a heavy fire of mitrailleuses.” _Guerre des Communeux_.]