I was told the following by an eye-witness of the scene. In a small
room at the Hôtel de Ville five personages were seated round a table at
dinner. The repast was of the most modest kind, and consisted of soup,
one dish of meat, one kind of vegetable, cheese, and a bottle of vin
ordinaire each. One would have thought, oneself in a restaurant at two
francs a head, if it had not been that the condiments had got musty
during the siege; besides, there was something solemn and official in
the very smell of the viands which took away one’s appetite. However,
our five personages swallowed their food as fast as they could. At the
head of the table sat Citizen Jourde. Jourde looks about eight and
twenty; he has a delicate looking, mathematical head, with brown curly
hair and sallow complexion, a kind of Henri Heine of the Finance. Tall
and thin, with his red scarf tied round his waist, he reminds us of one
of the old Convention of ’89. They sat for some time in silence, as if
they were observing each other. At the end of the first course, Jourde
took up a spoon and examined it, saying, “Silver! true there is silver
at the Hôtel de Ville, I will send for it to-morrow!” One of the other
guests said, “Pardon me, I have to answer for it, and shall not give it
up.”—“Oh, yes you will,” answered Jourde, “I will have an order sent to
you from the Domaine,”[85] and then, as if he were thinking aloud, goes
on to express his satisfaction at having found an unexpected sum of
three hundred thousand francs, as it were on the dinner-table. A whole
day’s pay! He will be able to put by four millions at the end of the
week; he tries to be economical, but the war runs away with everything.
“You must at least give me three days’ notice for the payment of sums
amounting to more than a hundred thousand francs,” says he, with a
shrug of the shoulders, particularly addressed to Beslay. Then he
speaks of his hopes of reducing the Prussian debt before the year is
out, if the Commune lives so long; touches on subjects connected with
the taxes, patents and duties, “or else bank-notes worth fire hundred
francs in the morning, will only be worth twenty sous in the evening;
money is scarce, it is leaving the city. I do not see much copper
about, but if you leave me alone, I promise to succeed.” All this was
said in a tone of the most sincere conviction. When the dinner was
over, he hastily bowed and rushed off, without having taken any notice
of what was said to him. Every now and then cries arose in the streets,
and made the members of the Commune start as they sat there behind
their sombre curtains. “Do you think they can come in?” asked some one
of Johannard, to which he replies, “What a wild idea! Delescluze knows
it is impossible, and Dombrowski, a cold unexcitable fellow, only
laughs when people mention it; does he not, Rigault?” Thereupon the
personage addressed, who has not yet spoken, bows his head in sign of
acquiescence. He looks young in spite of his thick, black beard; his
eyes are weak, his expression is sly and disagreeable, and looks as if
he might sometimes have his hours of coarse joviality. Then a portière
was lowered, or a door shut, and the person who had overheard the
preceding heard and saw no more.
[Illustration: Fontaine, Director of Public Domains And
Registration[86]]