I am beginning to regret Cluseret. He was impatient, especially in
speech. He used to say “Every man a National Guard!” But with Cluseret,
as with one’s conscience, there were possible conciliations. You had
only to answer the decrees of the war-delegate by an enthusiastic “Why
I am delighted, indeed I was just going to beg you to send me to the
Porte-Maillot;” which having done, one was free to go about one’s
business without fear of molestation. As to leaving Paris, in spite of
the law which condemned every man under forty to remain in the city;
nothing was easier. You had but to go to the Northern Railway Station,
and prefer your request to a citizen, seated at a table behind a
partition in the passport office.[87] When he asked you your age you
had only to answer “Seventy-eight,” passing your hand through your
sable locks as you spoke—“Only that? I thought you looked older,” the
accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into
your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign. One day I
had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my
pass bore the strange word “Carnivolus” written on it. Provided with
this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ticket
and jump into the next train that started. I was free, and nothing
could have prevented my going, if such had been my wish, to proclaim
the Commune at Mont Blanc or Monaco.
How the times are changed! The Committee of Public Safety and the
Central Committee now join together in making the lives of the poor
_réfractaires_[88] a burthen to them. I do not speak of the
disarmaments, which have nothing particularly disagreeable about them,
for an unarmed man may clearly nourish the hope that he is not to be
sent to battle. But there are other things, and I really should not
object to be a little over eighty for a few days. Domiciliary visits
have become very frequent. Four National Guards walk into the house of
the first citizen they please, and politely or otherwise, explain to
him that it is his strict duty to go into the trenches at Vanves and
kill as many Frenchmen as he can. If the citizen resists he is carried
off, and told that on account of his resistance he will have the honour
of being put at the head of his battalion at the first engagement.
These visits often end in violence. I am told that in the Rue Oudinot a
young man received a savage bayonet thrust because he resisted the
corporal’s order; and as these occurrences are not uncommon, the
_réfractaires_ cannot be said to live in peace and comfort. They are
subject to continual terror, the sour visage of their _concierge_ fills
them with misgivings, he may be one of the Commune. As to going to bed,
it must not be thought of; it is during the hours of night that the
Communal agents are particularly active. This necessity of changing
domicile has lead to certain Amélias and Rosalines and other ladies of
that description having the words “Hospitality to _Réfractaires_”
written in pencil on their cards. Men who decline to take advantage of
such opportunities have to go about from hôtel to hôtel, giving
imaginary names, suspicious of the waiters, and awaking at the least
sound, thinking it is the noise of feet ascending the stairs, or the
rattle of muskets on the landing. The day before yesterday a number of
_réfractaires_, having the courage of despair, walked to the Porte
Saint-Ouen—“Will you let us out?” asked they of the commanding officer,
who answered in a decided negative; whereupon the party, which was
three hundred strong, fell upon the captain and his men, whom they
disarmed, and five minutes afterwards they were running free across the
fields.
Others employ softer means of corruption; resort to the wine-shops of
Belleville, where they make themselves agreeable in every way, and soon
succeed in entering into friendly conversation with some of the least
ferocious among the Federals of the place.
[Illustration: Réfractaires Escaping from Paris]
“You are on duty, Tuesday, at the Porte de la Chapelle?”—“Why,
yes.”—“So that you might very easily let a comrade out who wants to go
and pay a visit at Saint-Denis?”—“Quite out of the question; the others
would prevent me, or denounce me to the captain.”—“You think there is
nothing to be done with the captain?”—“Oh! no; he is a staunch patriot,
he is!”—“How very tiresome; and I wanted most particularly to go to
Saint-Denis on Tuesday evening. I would gladly give twenty francs out
of my own pocket for the sake of a little walk outside the
fortifications.”—“There is only one way.”—“And how is that?”—“You don’t
care much about going out by the door, do you?”—“Well, no; what I want
is to get outside.“—“Oh! then listen to me; come to La-Chapelle early
on Tuesday evening, and walk up and down the rampart. I will try and be
on duty at eight o’clock, and look out for you. When I see you I will
take care not to say _qui vive_.”—“That’s easy enough; and what
then?”—“Why, then I will secure around you a thick rope which of course
you will have with you!”—“The devil!”—“And I will throw you into the
trench.”—“By Jove! That will be a leap.”—“Oh! I will do it very
carefully, without hurting you. I will let you slip softly down the
wall.”—“Humph!”—“When you reach the ground below, in an instant you can
be up and off into the darkness. Do you accept? Yes or no?”—“I should
certainly prefer to drive out of the city in a coach and six, but
nevertheless I accept.”
Generally, this plan answers admirably. They say that the Federals of
Belleville and Montmartre make a nice little income with this kind of
business. Sometimes, however, the plan only half succeeds, and either
the rope breaks, or the Federal considers, he may manage capitally to
reconcile his interest with his duty, by sending a ball after the
escaped _réfractaire_.
Disguises are also the order of the day. A poet, whose verses were
received at the Comédie Française with enthusiasm during the siege,
managed to get away, thanks to an official on the Northern Railway, who
lent him his coat and cap. Another poet—they are an ingenious
race—conceived a plan of greater boldness. One day on the Boulevard he
called a fiacre, having first taken care to choose a coachman of
respectable age, “_Cocher_, drive to the Rue Montorgueil, to the best
restaurant you can find.” On the way the poet reasoned thus to himself:
“This coachman has in his pocket, as they all have, a Communal
passport, which allows him to go out and come into Paris as he pleases;
let me remember the fourth act of my last melodrama, and I am saved.”
The cab stopped in front of a restaurant of decent exterior not far
from Philippe’s. The young man went in, asked for a private room, and
told the waiter to send up the coachman, as he had something to say to
him, and to procure a boy to hold the horse. The coachman walked into
the room, where the breakfast was ready served.
“Now, coachman, I am going to keep you all day, so do not refuse to
drink a glass with me to keep up your strength.”
An hour after the poet and the coachman had breakfasted like old
friends; six empty bottles testified that neither one nor the other
were likely to die of thirst. The poet grumbled internally to himself
as he thought of the three bottles of Clos-Vougeot, one of Léoville,
two of Moulin-au-Vent, that had been consumed, and the fellow not drunk
yet. Then he determined to try surer means, and called to the waiter to
bring champagne. “It is no use, young fellow,” laughed the coachman,
who was familiar at least, if he was not drunk; “champagne won’t make
any difference; if you counted on that to get my passport, you reckoned
without your host!”—“The devil I did,” cried the poor young man,
horrified to see his scheme fall through, and to think of the
prodigious length of the bill he should have to pay for
nothing.—“Others, have tried it on, but I am too wide awake by half,”
said the coachman, adding as he emptied the last bottle into his glass,
“give me two ten-franc pieces and I will get you through.”—“How can I
be grateful enough?” cried the poet, although in reality he felt rather
humiliated to find that the grand scene in his fourth act had not
succeeded.—“Call the waiter, and pay the bill.” The waiter was called,
and the bill paid with a sigh. “Now give me your jacket.”—“My
jacket?”—“Yes, this thing in velvet you have on your back.” The poet
did as he was bid. “Now your waistcoat and trousers.”—“My trousers! Oh,
insatiable coachman!”—“Make haste will you, or else I shall take you to
the nearest guard-room for a confounded _réfractaire_, as you are.” The
clothes were immediately given up. “Very well; now take mine, dress
yourself in them, and let’s be off.” While the young man was putting on
with decided distaste the garments of the _cocher_, the latter managed
to introduce his ponderous bulk into those of the poet. This done, out
they went. “Get up on the box.”—“On the box?”—“Yes, idiot,” said the
coachman, growing more and more familiar; “I am going to get into the
cab, now drive me wherever you please.” The plan was a complete
success. At the Porte de Châtillon the disguised poet exhibited his
passport, and the National Guard who looked in at the window of the
carriage cried out, “Oh, he may pass; he might be my grandfather.” The
cab rolled over the draw-bridge, and it was in this way that M ...,—ah!
I was just going to let the cat out of the bag—it was in this way that
our young poet broke the law of the Commune, and managed to dine that
same evening at the Hôtel des Réservoirs at Versailles, with a deputy
of the right on his left hand, and a deputy of the left on his right
hand.
Shall I go away? Why not? Do I particularly wish to be shut up one
morning in some barrack-room, or sent in spite of myself to the
out-posts? My position of _réfractaire_ is sensibly aggravated by the
fact of my being in rather a dangerous neighbourhood. For the last few
days, I have felt rather astonished at the searching glances that a
neighbour always casts upon me, when we met in the street. I told my
servant to try and find out who this man was. Great heavens! this
scowling neighbour of mine is Gérardin—Gérardin of the Commune! Add to
this the perilous fact, that our _concierge_ is lieutenant in a Federal
battalion, and you will have good reason to consider me the most
unfortunate of _réfractaires_. However, what does it matter? I decide
on remaining; I will stay and see the end, even should the terrible
Pyat and the sweet Vermorel both of them be living under the same roof
with me, even if my _concierge_ be M. Delescluze himself!