THE HOSTAGES.
About once in every seventy or eighty years some exceptionally
moving tragedy stirs the heart of the civilized world. The tragedy
of our own century is the execution of the hostages in Paris, May
24 and 26, 1871.
At one o'clock on the morning of April 6, three weeks after the
proclamation of the Commune, a body of the National Guard was drawn
up on the sidewalk in the neighborhood of the Madeleine. A door
suddenly opened and a man came hastily out, followed by two National
Guards shouting to their comrades. The man was arrested at once,
making no resistance. It was the Abbé Duguerry, _curé_ of the
Madeleine,[1]--the first of the so-called hostages arrested in
retaliation for the summary execution of General Duval, who had
commanded one of the three columns that marched out of Paris the
day before to attack the Versaillais.
[Footnote 1: _Curé_ in France means rector; what we mean by a curate
or assistant minister is there called _vicaire_.]
Both the _curé_ of the Madeleine and his _vicaire_, the Abbé Lamazou,
were that night arrested. The latter, who escaped death as a hostage,
published an account of his experiences; but he died not long after
of heart disease, brought on by his excitement and suffering during
the Commune.
The same night Monseigneur Darboy, the archbishop of Paris, his
chaplain, and eight other priests, were arrested. One was a missionary
just returned from China, another was the Abbé Crozes, the admirable
chaplain (_aumônier_) of the prison of La Roquette,--a man whose
deeds of charity would form a noble chapter of Christian biography.
When Archbishop Darboy was brought before the notorious "delegate,"
Raoul Rigault, he began to speak, saying, "My children--" "Citizen,"
interrupted Rigault, "you are not here before children,--we are
men!" This sally was heartily applauded in the publications of
the Commune.
As it would not be possible to sketch the lives and deaths of all
these victims of revolutionary violence, it may be well to select
the history of the youngest among them, Paul Seigneret.[1] His
father was a professor in the high school at Lyons. Paul was born
in 1845, and was therefore twenty-six years old when he met death,
as a hostage, at the hands of the Commune. His home had been a
happy and pious one, and he had a beloved brother Charles, to whom
he clung with the most tender devotion. Charles expected to be a
priest; Paul was destined for the army, but he earnestly wished
that he too might enter the ministry. Lamartine's "Jocelyn" had
made a deep impression on him, but his father having objected to
his reading it, he laid it aside unfinished; what he had read,
however, remained rooted in his memory.
[Footnote 1: Memoir of Paul Seigneret, abridged in the "Monthly
Packet."]
When Paul was eighteen, his father gave his sanction to his entering
the priesthood; he thought him too delicate, however, to lead the
life of a country pastor, and desired him, before he made up his
mind as to his vocation, to accept a position offered him as tutor
in a family in Brittany.
Present duties being sanctified, not hampered, by higher hopes and
aspirations, Paul gained the love and confidence of the family in
which he taught, and also of the neighboring peasantry. "He was,"
says the lady whose children he instructed, "like a good angel
sent among us to do good and to give pleasure."
When his time of probation was passed, he decided to enter a convent
at Solesmes, and by submitting himself to convent rules, make sure
of his vocation. But before making any final choice, we find from
his letters that "if France were invaded," he claimed "the right
to do his duty as a citizen and a son."
He entered the convent at Solesmes, first as a postulant, then
as a novice. "The Holy Gospels," said his superior, "Saint Paul's
Epistles, and the Psalms were his favorite studies,--the food on
which his piety was chiefly nourished. He also sought Christ in
history."
Still, he was not entirely satisfied with life in a convent; he
wished to be more actively employed in doing good. He therefore
became a student for the regular ministry,--a Seminarist of
Saint-Sulpice. But when the Prussian armies were advancing on Paris,
he offered himself for hospital service, as did also his brother.
In a moment of passionate enthusiasm, speaking to that dear brother
of the dangers awaiting those who had to seek and tend the wounded
on the field of battle, he cried: "Do you think God may this year
grant me the grace of yielding up my life to Him as a sacrifice? For
to fall, an expiatory sacrifice beneath the righteous condemnation
that hangs over France, would be to die for Him."
The war being over, he returned to the Seminary, March 15, 1871.
On March 18 the Commune was declared, and Lecomte and Thomas were
murdered; shortly after this the Seminary was invaded, the students
were dispersed, and the priests in charge made prisoners. Most of
the young men thus turned out into the streets left Paris. Paul
at first intended to remain; but thinking that his family would
be anxious about him, he applied for a pass, intending to go to
Lyons. At the prefecture of police he and a fellow-student found a
dense crowd waiting to pay two francs for permission to get away.
They were shown into a room where a man in a major's uniform sat
at a table covered with glasses and empty bottles, with a woman
beside him. When he heard what they wanted, he broke into a volley
of abuse, and assured them that the only pass he would give them
was a pass to prison. Accordingly, Paul and his companion soon
found themselves in the prison connected with the prefecture. The
cells were so crowded that they were confined in a corridor with
six Jesuit fathers and some of their servants and lay brethren. A
sort of community life was at once organized, with daily service
and an hour for meditation. Paul esteemed it a privilege to enjoy
the conversation of the elder and more learned priests. He conversed
with them about the Bible, philosophy, and literature; "He was
ready," says a companion who was saved, "to meet a martyr's death;
but there was one horror he prayed to be spared,--that of being
torn in pieces by a mob."
On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they were to
leave the prefecture. "I fear," he said, "that you are to be taken
to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man cannot have such good prisoners
as you are in his charge without taking some interest in them."
On being brought forth from their corridor, they found themselves
in a crowd of priests (hostages like themselves) who were being
sent to Mazas. The youth of the Seminary students at once attracted
attention, and the Vicar-General, Monseigneur Surat, said: "I can
understand that priests and old men should be here, gentlemen,
but not that you, mere Seminarists, should be forced to share the
troubles of your ecclesiastical superiors."
The transfer to Mazas was in the _voitures cellulaires_. They were
so low and narrow that every jolt threw the occupant against the sides
or roof. In one of these cells the venerable and infirm archbishop
had been transferred to Mazas a short time before.
Each prisoner on reaching Mazas was shut up in a tiny cell. Paul
wrote (for they were allowed writing materials):
"I have a nice little cell, with a bit of blue sky above it, to
which my thoughts fly, and a hammock, so that it is possible for
me to sleep again. I hardly dare to tell you I am happy, and am
trusting myself in God's hands, for I am anxious about you, and
anxious for our poor France. I have my great comfort,--work. I
have already written an essay on Saint Paul, which I have been
some time meditating. I am expecting a Bible, and with that I think
I could defy weariness for years. A few days ago I discovered that
one of my friends was next to me. We bid each other good night
and good morning by rapping against the wall, and this would make
us less lonely, were we oppressed by solitude."
At the close of this letter he adds,--
"I have at last received the dear Bible. You should have seen how I
seized and kissed it! Now the Commune may leave me here to moulder,
if it will!"
On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles army began to make its way into
Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic and terrible power
about to pass away, tried to startle the world by its excesses.
Orders were sent at once to Mazas to send the archbishop, the priests,
Senator Bonjean, suspected spies, and _sergents de ville_ to that
part of the prison of La Roquette reserved for condemned criminals.
Paul and his friend the other Seminarist were of the number.
Before the gates of La Roquette they found a fierce crowd shouting
insults and curses. Many were women and children. "Here they come!"
the mob yelled. "Down with the priests! shoot them! kill them!"
Paul preserved his composure, and looked on with a smile of serene
hope upon his face. "The scene was like that horror from which he
had prayed to be saved. His terror was gone. His prayer had been
answered."
The prisoners on reaching La Roquette were first passed into a
hall, where they found the archbishop and several priests. The
former was calm, but he was ill, and his features bore marks of
acute suffering. After an hour's delay the prisoners were locked
into separate cells, from which real malefactors had been removed
to make room for them.
In the next cell to Paul was the Abbé Planchet. By standing at
the window they could hear each other's voices. The abbé could
read Thomas à Kempis to his fellow prisoner, and they daily recited
together the litany for the dying.
One of the imprisoned priests was a missionary lately returned
from China; and when they met at the hours allowed for fresh air in
the courtyard, Paul was eager to hear his accounts of the martyrdom
and steadfastness of Chinese converts. "M. Paul," said an old soldier
who was one of the hostages, "seemed to look on martyrdom as a
privilege, regretting only the pain it would cause his family."
On Wednesday, May 24, the execution of the archbishop and five
others took place, Paul saw them pass by his window; one of the
escort shook his gun at him, and pointing it at the archbishop,
gave him to understand what they were going to do.
The next day, Thursday, May 25, the order came. "Citizens," said
the messenger who brought it, "pay attention, and answer when your
names are called. Fifteen of you are wanted." As each was named,
he stepped out of the ranks and took his place in the death-row.
Paul Seigneret was one of them. He seemed perfectly calm, and gently
pressed the hand of his Seminary friend who was not summoned.
In the courtyard they were joined by thirty-five ex-policemen,
so-called hostages like themselves. The execution was to take place
in the Rue Haxo, at the farthest extremity of Belleville, and the
march was made on foot, so that the victims were exposed to all the
insults of the populace. It has been said that when they reached
the Rue Haxo, where they were placed against a wall, Paul was thrown
down while attempting to defend an aged priest, and was maltreated
by the crowd; but this account was not confirmed when, four days
later, the bodies were taken from the trench into which they had
been thrown: Paul's showed no sign of violence. His eyes were closed,
his face was calm. His cassock was pierced with balls and stained
with blood. He is buried at Saint-Sulpice.
His father received the news of his death calmly. He wrote: "Let
us bear our poor child's death as much like Christians and as much
like men as we can. May his blood, joined to that of so many other
innocent victims, finally appease the justice of God," But when,
shortly afterwards, Charles died of an illness brought on by excessive
fatigue in serving the ambulances, the father sank under the double
stroke, and died fifteen days after his last remaining son.
From the death of the youngest and the humblest of these ecclesiastical
hostages, we will turn now to that of the venerable archbishop, and
to his experiences during the forty-eight hours that he passed at
La Roquette, after having been transferred to it from Mazas.
With studied cruelty and insolence, a cell of the worst description
was assigned to the chief of the clergy in France. It had been
commonly appropriated to murderers on the eve of their execution.
There was barely standing-room in it beside the filthy and squalid
bed. The beds and cells of the other priests were at least clean,
but this treatment of the archbishop had been ordered by the Commune.
On the morning of May 23 the prisoners had been permitted to breathe
fresh air in a narrow paved courtyard; but the archbishop was too
weak and ill for exercise; he lay half fainting on his bed. In
addition to his other sufferings he was faint from hunger, for
the advance of the Versailles troops had cut off the Commune's
supplies, and the hostages were of course the last persons they
wished to care for. Père Olivariet (shot three days later in the
same party as Paul Seigneret, in the Rue Haxo) had had some cake
and chocolate sent him before he left Mazas; with these he fed the
old man by mouthfuls. This was all the nourishment the archbishop
had during the two days he spent at La Roquette. Mr. Washburne,
the American minister, had with difficulty obtained permission to
send him a small quantity of strengthening wine during his stay
at Mazas. But a greater boon than earthly food or drink was brought
him by Père Olivariet, who had received while at Mazas, in a common
pasteboard box, some of the consecrated wafers used by the Roman
Catholic Church in holy communion; and he had it in his power to
give the archbishop the highest consolation that could have been
offered him.
It had been intended to execute the hostages on the 23d; but the
director of the prison, endeavoring to evade the horrible task of
delivering up his prisoners, pronounced the first order he received
informal.
The accursed 24th of May dawned, brilliant and beautiful. The archbishop
went down in the early morning to obtain the breath of fresh air
allowed him. Judge Bonjean, who had never professed himself a believer,
came up to him and prayed him for his blessing, saying that he had
seen the truth, as it were on the right hand of Death, and he too
was about to depart in the true faith of a Christian.
By this time the insurgents held little more of Paris than the
heights of Belleville, Père la Chaise, and the neighborhood of La
Roquette, which is not far from the Place de la Bastille. The Communal
Government had quitted the Hôtel-de-Ville and taken refuge not far
from La Roquette, in the _Mairie_ of the Eleventh Arrondissement.
At six in the morning of May 24th,[1] a second order came to the
director of the prison to deliver up all hostages in his hands. He
remonstrated, saying he could not act upon an order to deliver up
prisoners who were not named. Finally, a compromise was effected;
six were to be chosen. The commander of the firing party asked for
the prison register. The names of the hostages were not there.
Then the list from Mazas was demanded. The director could not find
it. At last, after long searching, they discovered it themselves.
Genton, the man in command, sat down to pick out his six victims.
He wrote Darboy, Bonjean, Jecker, Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray. Then
he paused, rubbed out Jecker, and put in Duguerrey. Darboy, as we
know, was the archbishop; Bonjean, judge of the Court of Appeals;
Allard, head-chaplain to the hospitals, who had been unwearied
in his services to the wounded; Clerc and Ducoudray were Jesuit
fathers; Duguerrey was pastor of the Madeleine. Jecker was a banker
who had negotiated Mexican loans for the Government. The next day
the Commune made a present of him to Genton, who, after trying
in vain to get a few hundred thousand francs out of him for his
ransom, shot him, assisted by four others, one of whom was Ferré,
and flung his body into the cellar of a half-built house upon the
heights of Belleville.
[Footnote 1: Macmillan's Magazine, 1873.]
When the order drawn up by Genton had been approved at headquarters,
the director of the prison had no resource but to deliver up his
prisoners.
Another man, wearing a scarf of office, had now joined the party.
He was very impatient, and accused the others roundly of a want
of revolutionary spirit. He landed afterwards in New York, where
his fellow-Communists gave him a public reception.
One of the warders of the prison, Henrion by name, made some attempt
to expostulate with the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, who had been told off
for the execution. "What would you have?" was the answer. "Killing is
not at all amusing. We were killing this morning at the Prefecture
of Police. But they say this is reprisal. The Versaillais have
been killing our generals."
Soon Henrion was called upon to open the fourth corridor. "I must
go and get the keys," he answered. He had them in his hand at the
moment. He went rapidly away, flung the keys into a heap of filth,
and rushed out of the prison. By means of a twenty-franc gold piece
that he had with him, he passed out of the gates of Paris, and
sought refuge with the Bavarians at Vincennes.
Meantime another bunch of keys was found, and the executioners,
led by Ferré, Lolive, and Mégy,--that member of the Commune whom
none of them seemed to know,--hurried upstairs. In the crowd were
_gamins_ and women, National Guards, Garibaldians, and others, but
chiefly the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, a corps of which an Englishman
who served the Commune said: "They were to a man all blackguards."
Up the prison stairs they swarmed, shouting threats and curses,
especially against the archbishop, who was erroneously believed by
the populace of Paris to have had provisions hidden in the vaults
of Notre Dame and in his palace during the siege. A turnkey was
ordered to summon the six prisoners; but when he found whom he
was to call, he refused, and the officer in command had to call
them himself.
The archbishop's name was first. He came out of his cell at once,
wearing his purple cassock. Then Gaspard Duguerrey was summoned.
He was eighty years old. He did not answer immediately, and was
called a second time. Next, Léon Ducoudray was called,--a Jesuit
father, head of a college, a tall, fine-looking man. He came forth
with a proud smile. Alexis Clerc, also a Jesuit father, stepped
forth briskly, almost gayly. Then came Michel Allard, the hospital
chaplain,--a gentle, kindly-looking man. The three weeks before
his arrest had been spent by him in attending upon the wounded of
the Commune. Finally the judge, Senator Louis Bonjean, was called.
"In a moment," he replied; "I am putting my coat on." At this,
one of the leaders seized him. "You will want no coat where you
are going," he cried; "come as you are."
The only one of the party who seemed to tremble was the aged _curé_
of the Madeleine; but his nervous tremor soon passed off, and he
was calm like the others. As they went down the winding stairs, the
archbishop (being first) stepped rapidly before the rest, and turning
at the bottom, raised his hand and pronounced the absolution. After
this there was silence among the prisoners. "The chaplain Allard
alone," said one of the Commune, "kept on muttering something." He
was reciting, half aloud, the service for the dying.
Père Ducoudray had his breviary in his hand. He gave it, as he
passed, to the concierge of the prison. The captain of the firing
party snatched it, and flung it on the fire.
When the spot was reached where the shooting was to take place,
the archbishop addressed some words of pity and forgiveness to
the murderers. Two of the firing party knelt at his feet; but he
had not time to bless them before, with threats and blows, they
were forced to rise, and the archbishop was ordered to go and place
himself against the wall.
But here, when the bitterness of death was almost passed, occurred
a difficulty. Two of the leaders wanted to have the execution in a
little inner courtyard, shut in by blank walls. So the procession
was again formed, marched through long passages and up stairways,
and halted while keys were searched for, before it came to the spot.
On the way, a man crept up to the archbishop, uttering blasphemies
into his ear. The good man's mild look of reproof and pain so moved
one of the sub-officers that he drove the man off, saying: "We
are here to shoot these men, not to insult them."
The six victims were at last placed in a line, with their backs
to the wall. As Ferré was giving the order to fire, the archbishop
raised his right hand in order to give, as his last act, his episcopal
blessing. As he did so, Lolive exclaimed: "That's your benediction
is it?--now take mine!" and shot the old man through the body with
a revolver. All were shot dead at once, save M. Bonjean.
There is now a marble slab in the little court inscribed with their
names, and headed: "Respect this place, which witnessed the death
of noble men and martyrs." The warder, Henrion, was put in charge
of the place, and planted it with beds of flowers.
The execution over, the leaders searched the cells of their victims.
In most of them they found nothing; in two were worn cassocks, and
in the archbishop's was his pastoral ring. One of the party said
the amethyst in it was a diamond; another contradicted him, and
said it was an emerald. The bodies lay unburied until two o'clock in
the morning, when four or five of those who had shot them despoiled
them, one hanging the archbishop's chain and cross about his own
neck, another appropriating his silver shoe-buckles. Then they
loaded the bodies on a hand-barrow and carried them to an open
trench dug in Père la Chaise. There, four days later, when the
Versaillais had full possession of the city, they were found. The
archbishop and the Abbé Duguerrey were taken to the archbishop's
house with a guard of honor, and are buried at Notre Dame. The
two Jesuit fathers were buried in their own cemetery, and Judge
Bonjean and the hospital chaplain sleep in honored graves in Père
la Chaise.
After these executions a large number of so-called
"hostages,"--ecclesiastics, soldiers of the line, _sergents de
ville_, and police agents remained shut up in La Roquette. It was
Saturday, May 27, the day before Whit Sunday. Says the Abbé Lamazou,--
"It was a few minutes past three, and I was kneeling in my cell
saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling in the
corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Suddenly the door
of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried: 'Courage! our time
has come.' 'Yes, courage!' I answered. 'God's will be done.' I
had on my ecclesiastical habit, and went out into the corridor.
There I found a mixed crowd of prisoners, priests, soldiers, and
National Guards. The priests and the National Guards seemed resigned
to their fate, but the soldiers, who had fought the Prussians, could
not believe it was intended to shoot them. Suddenly a voice, loud as
a trumpet, rose above the din. 'Friends,' it cried, 'hearken to a
man who desires to save you. These wretches of the Commune have
killed more than enough people. Don't let yourselves be murdered!
Join me. Let us resist. Sooner than give you up I will die with
you!' The speaker was Poiret, one of the warders of the prison. He
had been horrified by what had been done already, and when ordered
by his superiors to give up the prisoners in his corridor to a
yelling crowd, he had shut the doors on the third story behind
him, and was advising us, at the risk of his own life, to organize
resistance."
The abbé joined him with, "Don't let us be shot, my friends; let
us defend ourselves. Trust in God; he is on our side!"
But many hesitated. "Resistance is mere madness," they said; and
a soldier shouted, "They don't want to kill _us_; they want the
priests! Don't let us lose our lives defending _them_!"
"The _sergents de ville_ in the story below you," cried Poiret,
"are going to defend themselves, They are making a barricade across
the door of their corridor. We have no arms, but we have courage.
Don't let us be shot down by the rabble."
It was proposed to make a hole in the floor, and so to communicate
with the _sergents de ville_. The prisoners armed themselves with
boards and iron torn from their bedsteads, and in five minutes
had made an opening through the floor. A non-commissioned officer
from below climbed through it, and arranged with Poiret the plan
of defence.
By this time the inner courtyard of the prison was invaded by a
rough and squalid crowd, come to take a hand in whatever murder or
mischief might be done. The besieged put mattresses before their
windows for protection. The man who led the mob was one Pasquier,
a murderer who had been in a condemned cell in La Roquette till
let out by the general jail-delivery of the Commune.
Two barricades were built like that on the floor below. Pasquier
and some of his followers had burst open the outer door, and were
endeavoring to burn both the prison and the prisoners. "Never fear,"
cried a corporal who had superintended the hasty erection of the
barricades; "I put nothing combustible into them. They can't burn
floor tiles and wire mattresses. Bring all the water you can."
The crowd continued to shout threats. The battery from Père la
Chaise, they cried, was coming; and often a voice would shout,
"Soldiers of the Loire, surrender! We will not hurt you. We will
set you at liberty!" A few soldiers trusted this promise, and as
soon as they got into the crowd were massacred.
In the midst of the tumult came a sudden lull; the besieged could see
that something strange had taken place. The crowd had been informed
that the Government, alarmed by the advance of the Versailles troops,
had abandoned its headquarters at the _mairie_ of the Eleventh
Arrondissement, and had gone to Belleville. Amazed and confused
by this intelligence, the mob followed its leaders. Only a few
minutes before it left, two guns and a mortar had been brought
to fire on the prison; they were now dragged away in the wake of
the Government.
The criminal prisoners at La Roquette were in a state of great
excitement. They had been liberated, and such weapons as could be
found were put into their hands; but they were not inclined either
to kill their fellow-captives or to fight for the Commune. They
hastily made off, shouting, "Vive la Commune! Vive la République!"
By this time the prison director and his officials had disappeared.
The prison doors were open. Then came another danger: soldiers
of the Commune, fleeing from the vengeance of the Versaillais,
might seek refuge in the prison. With much difficulty the Abbé
Lamazou persuaded Poiret and some other warders who had stood with
him, to close the gates till the arrival of troops from Versailles.
It was still more difficult, now that a way was open to escape,
to persuade his fellow-captives to remain in prison. Some priests
would not take his advice, among them Monseigneur Surat, the
vicar-general. He had secured a suit of citizen's clothes, and
hoped to escape in safety. In vain the Abbé Lamazou called out
to him, "To go is certain death; to stay is possible safety." He
was killed most cruelly, together with two' priests and a layman.
At eleven o'clock at night, firing seemed to cease in the city,
but outside of the prison the maddened crowd continued all night
howling insults and curses. Hours seemed ages to the anxious and now
famished captives, shut up in the great building. The barricade of
the Rue de la Roquette was near them, still defended by insurgents;
but in the early dawn it was abandoned, and shortly after, a battalion
of marines took possession of La Roquette. The resistance of the
prisoners, which had seemed at first so desperate, had proved
successful.
Innumerable other anecdotes have found their way into print concerning
the last hours of the Commune; but I will rather tell of Mégy, the
member of the Council who, in his scarf of office, animated the
party that slew the archbishop and his, five companions.
He reached New York in 1878, and, as I said, was received with
an ovation by a colony of escaped Communists who had settled on
our shores. A reporter connected with the New York "World" called
upon Mégy, and here is his account of the interview:--
"'I was born in Paris, in 1844,' said the ex-member of the Commune,
lighting a cigar; 'I went through a primary school, and learned
but little. I was apprenticed to a machinist. When I was twenty I
found work on the Suez Canal. I was already a member of a secret
society organized against the Empire, with Blanqui at its head.
In 1866 I came back to Paris, and persuaded all my fellow-workmen
in the establishment where I was employed to become conspirators.
We waited for a good opportunity to commence an insurrection. Some
of us wanted to begin when Pierre Bonaparte murdered Victor Noir;
but it was put off till February 7, when about three thousand of us
rushed into the streets, began raising barricades, and proclaimed
a Republic. The next day two thousand republicans were arrested.
On February 11 six police agents came to my house at a quarter
past five in the morning. I had a pistol, and when the first one
entered my room to arrest me, I shot him dead. You should have
seen how the others scampered downstairs. I am glad I killed him.
But five minutes after, I was overpowered, bound, and taken to
prison. I was condemned to twenty years in New Caledonia, with
hard labor. I was sent to Toulon, but before my embarkation the
Republic was proclaimed, and a decree of the Government set me at
liberty. I came to Paris, and was named a member of the Municipal
Council. In October, 1870, during the siege, an order was passed
for my arrest because I endeavored to deprive General Trochu of
his command. I hid myself, enlisted under a false name, and fought
the Prussians. Then I went to the South of France, and waited to
see what would happen. I was there when the Commune was proclaimed.
I arrested the prefect of Marseilles on my own responsibility, and
put myself in his place. I was prefect of Marseilles for eight
days. Early in April I made my way to Paris, was made a general,
and put in charge of Fort Issy.[l] When Fort Issy fell, I was made
commander-in-chief on the left bank of the Seine. I ordered the
Palace of the Legion of Honor to be set on fire; I defended the
barricades on the Boulevard of Magenta; and when I left them on
May 24, I found that Ferré and Deleschuze had given orders to shoot
the hostages because the troops of Thiers had shot eight of our
officers.'"
[Footnote 1: General Rossel gave his opinion of the officers in
command at Fort Issy in his letter to the Commune.]
"'Did you approve that order?'" asked the "World's" reporter.
"'Yes; why not? Of course I approved it. I went at once to La Roquette,
to be present at the execution. We were one hundred and fifty men,
but one hundred and twenty of them slunk away, and only thirty
remained for the work we came for.'
"'And what did you do?'
"'_Ma foi!_ I don't particularly care to say what I did; it might
injure me here where I have got work. We called out the men we
came to shoot, and we shot them as that kind of thing is generally
done. We took them down into a courtyard, put them against a wall,
and gave the order to fire; that was all.'
"After a minute's silence, Mégy added: 'It was all M. Thiers' fault.
We offered to give him up the hostages if he would give us Blanqui;
but he refused, and so we shot them. After the execution I fought to
the last. I escaped from Paris in a coal-cart, and went to Geneva.
I have had work in London and in Birmingham, and now I have got
work in New York.'"
He went on to affirm that there was a large colony of Communists in
that city; that America needed revolutionizing as much as France;
that Cardinal McCloskey might find himself in the same position
as Monseigneur Darboy; and so on.
I have quoted this interview with Mégy at some length, because it
shows the Communists painted by one of their own number. Before
the reporter left him, he chanced to pronounce the name of Mr.
Washburne. "Washburne is a liar and a cur," cried Mégy, angrily.
"Before the Commune ended, some of our people asked him what the
Versailles Government would do with us if we surrendered or were
conquered. 'I assure you,' he said, 'you would be shot.' During
the siege of Paris, Washburne was a German spy. He is a villanous
old rascal."
In studying the history of the Commune, it is desirable to remember
dates. The whole affair lasted seventy-three days. On March 18 the
guns on Montmartre were taken by the populace, Generals Lecomte
and Thomas were shot, and the Commune was proclaimed. Military
operations were begun April 4. On April 9 Fort Valérien began to
throw shells into Paris. From that day forward, the Versailles
troops continued to advance, taking possession one by one of the
forts and the positions of the Federals. On Sunday, May 21, the
Versailles troops began to enter Paris, and fought their way steadily
from street to street till Sunday, May 27, when all was over. The
hostages were not hostages in the true sense of the word; they had
not been given up in pledge for the performance of any promise. They
were persons seized for purposes of intimidation and retaliation,
as in 1826 the Turks seized the most prominent Christians in Scio.
During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski, its only
general with military capacity, was killed,--it is supposed, by
one of his own men. The Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and numerous
other buildings were fired, the Dominican Brothers were massacred,
and the executions in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in
other parts of Belleville and at the Prefecture. One of the most
diabolical pieces of destruction attempted was that of the Grand
Livre.
The Grand Livre is the book kept in the French Treasury in which
are inscribed the names and accounts of all those who hold Government
securities; and as the French Government is the proprietor of all
railroads, telegraph systems, and many other things that in England
and the United States are left to private enterprise, the loss of
the Grand Livre would have involved thousands upon thousands of
families in ruin. For a man to have his name on the Grand Livre
is to constitute him what is called a _rentier_, _rentes_ being
the French word for dividends from the public funds.
The Grand Livre is kept at the Ministry of Finance; that building
Ferré ordered to be summarily destroyed, uttering the words, "Flambez
Finances." The building was accordingly set on fire the day before
the Commune fell; and for some days after, it was thought throughout
all France that the Grand Livre had perished. By heroic exertions
some of it was saved, the officials in charge of it rushing into
the flames and rescuing that portion of it which contained the
names of living property-holders, I while they let the records of
past generations burn.
There was in existence a duplicate copy of the Grand Livre, though
this was known only to the higher officials of the Treasury. It was
kept in a sort of register's office not far from the Tuileries,
and was in the care of a M. Chazal. When the Tuileries and the
Treasury were on fire, the object of M. Chazal and of all who knew
of the precious duplicate was to save it, in case the building
in which it was deposited should share in the conflagration.
Of course the Grand Livre is of vast bulk. This copy was contained
in great bundles of loose sheets. Luckily these papers were in stout
oaken boxes on the ground-floor of a detached building opening
on a courtyard. The Versailles troops had reached the spot, and
ninety sappers and miners, with seven brave firemen, were at work
with water-buckets attempting to save the main building, which
was blazing fiercely when M. Chazal arrived. Already the detached
building in which the precious duplicate was stored was on fire.
There was no place to which he could safely remove the precious
papers, no means of transport to carry them away.
During the siege orders had been given to have large piles of sand
placed in the courtyards of all public buildings, to smother shells
should any fall there. There were three of these sand-piles lying in
the yard of this record office. In them deep trenches were rapidly
dug; and the boxes were buried. Then the pile was covered with
all the incombustible rubbish that could be collected; and had
the Grand Livre been really destroyed, as for some days it was
believed to have been, every Government creditor would have found
his interests safe, through the exertions of M. Chazal and the
intrepid band who worked under him.
In somewhat the same manner the gold and silver in the vaults of
the Bank of France were saved from pillage. The narrow staircase
leading to the vaults, down which only one man could pass at a
time, was by order of the directors filled up with sand during the
siege.
Though my readers may be weary of sad tales of massacre, that of
the Dominicans of Arceuil remains to be told. Their convent was in
the suburbs of Paris; it had been turned by them into a hospital
during the siege, and it continued to be so used during the Commune.
After the fall of Fort Issy, the insurgent troops made their
headquarters not far from the convent. They were commanded by a
general of some ability, but of ferocious character, named Serizier.
He was in the habit of saying, as he looked from his window into
the garden of the Dominicans, "Those rascals ought to be roasted
alive." On May 17 the roof of the building in which he lived caught
fire. The Dominicans tucked up their gowns and did their best to
put it out. When all was over, they were ordered to wait upon the
general. They supposed that they were going to be thanked for their
exertions, and were amazed at finding themselves accused of having
set the building on fire as a signal to the Versaillais. The next
morning a battalion of Communist soldiers surrounded their convent.
The prior, his monks, pupils, and servants, were arrested and marched
to a casemate of a neighboring fort. Their convent was stripped of
everything. The building, however, was saved by a _ruse_ on the
part of an officer of the Commune, one of the better class. They
were two days without food, and were then driven into Paris like a
flock of sheep, their black-and-white dress exposing them to all the
insults and ribaldry of the excited multitude; for the Versaillais
were in Paris, and hope, among those who knew the situation, was
drawing to an end. That night the Dominicans were confined in a
prison on the Avenue d'Italie, where a friend of Serizier's (known
as Bobêche) was instructed what to do with them. During the morning,
however, Bobêche went to a drinking saloon, and while there the
man he left in charge received orders to send the priests to work
on a barricade. He affected to misunderstand the order, and sent,
instead, fifteen National Guards imprisoned for insubordination.
When Bobêche came back, half-drunk, he was furious. "What! was the
blood of priests to be spared, and that of patriots imperilled
at a post of danger?" Before long the order was repeated. "We will
tend your wounded, General," said the prior, "we will go after
them under fire, but we will not do the work of soldiers for you." At
this, soldiers were called out to shoot the Dominicans. They were
reluctant to obey, and Serizier dared not risk disobedience. The
fathers were remanded to prison, but were soon called out one by
one. Some volunteers had been found willing to do the shooting,
among them two women, the fiercest of the band. As the fathers came
into the street, all were shot at, but some were untouched; and
soon succeeded a dreadful scene. Round and round the open square,
and up side streets, they were hunted. Four of the twenty escaped.
Men laughed and women clapped their hands at seeing the priests run.
Then Serizier went back to the prison, and was making preparations
to shoot the remaining prisoners, who were laymen, when one of
his subordinates leaned over him and whispered that the troops of
Versailles were at hand. He dropped his papers and made off. The
troops came on, and picked up the bodies of the dead Dominicans.
Serizier was not arrested till some months after, when the wife of
one of his victims, who had dogged him constantly after her husband's
death, discovered him in disguise and gave him up to justice.
The Prefecture of Police, which stands upon an island in the Seine,
in the heart of Paris, had in those days a small prison in its
main building, and an annex for women. These prisons were full
of prisoners,--_réactionnaires_, as they were called in the last
days of the struggle.
On May 26, as has been said, nothing remained for the Commune to do
but mischief. Raoul Rigault was busy, with his corps of _Vengeurs
de Flourens_, getting through as many executions as possible; Félix
Pyat was organizing underground explosions, Ferré, the destruction
of public buildings. A gentleman[1] confined in the women's part
of the Prefecture, chancing to look down from a high window on
the offices of the main building, saw beneath him eight men in
the uniform of the Commune, one of them wearing much gold lace,
who were saturating the window-frames with something from a bottle,
and bedaubing other woodwork with mops dipped in a bucket that
he presumed contained petroleum. Their caps were pulled low over
their eyes, as if they did not wish to be recognized. At last he
saw the officer strike a match and apply it to the woodwork, which
caught fire immediately. Then rose frightful shrieks from the prisons
both of the men and the women, for many others had seen what was
going on. An earnest appeal to a turnkey to go to the director
of the prison and represent to him that all his prisoners would
be burned, was met by the answer that he did not take orders from
prisoners. But all turnkeys were not Communists, though Communist
officials were set over them. Some of them took advantage of the
confusion to look into the cells, and speak hope and comfort to
the prisoners. But as the flames caught the great wooden porch of
the Prefecture, the screams of the women were heart-rending; They
even disturbed Ferré, who sent orders "to stop their squalling."
One warder, Braquond, ventured to remonstrate. "Bah!" said Ferré,
"they are only women belonging to gendarmes and _sergents de ville_;
we shall be well rid of them." Then Braquond resolved to organize
a revolt, and save the prisoners. He ran to the corridor, and with
a voice of authority ordered all the cell-doors to be opened, thus
releasing four hundred prisoners. Braquond put himself at their
head and led them on. But when they reached the outer gate, they
were just in time to witness the departure of the last _Vengeur de
Flourens_. Ferré had just received news that the troops of Versailles
were close at hand, and he and his subordinates fled, leaving the
prisoners to shift for themselves.
[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]
But though delivered from the Commune, not only was the Prefecture
and all in it in peril, but every building and every life upon the
island. Quantities of ammunition had been stored in the Prefecture;
if that caught fire, the "Cité" (as that part of Paris is called)
and all its inhabitants would be blown into the air. The citizens
of the quarter, the turnkeys, and the prisoners had nothing but
their hands with which to fight the flames. In the midst of the
fire they began to carry out the gunpowder. They had to make all
speed, yet to be very careful. One train of powder escaping from a
barrel, one sack of cartridges, with a rent in it, falling on the
pavement, where sparks were dropping about, might have destroyed
the whole "Cité."
There was a brave, stout woman, mistress of a coal and wood yard,
named Madame Saint-Chély. She was a native of Auvergne, whence
all porters and water-carriers in Paris come. With her sleeves
tucked up, and her hair flying, she kept carrying out sack after
sack of cartridges, undaunted, though her clothes caught fire.
Bending beneath the weight upon her back, she emptied them into
the basin of the fountain that stands in the middle of the Place,
then rushed back for more, while the flames poured from the windows
of the upper story. Her activity and cheerfulness animated every
one.
There was also a barber named Labois, who distinguished himself
by his courage and activity in rolling barrels of powder out of
the cellar of the prefecture, and plunging them into the Seine.
When several tons of powder and twenty millions of cartridges had
been carried out, danger from that source was over. The next thing was
to fight the flames. Then they discovered that all the fire-engines
had been sent away. Every basin, pitcher, bucket, or saucepan on
the island was put into requisition. Surrounded by the Seine, they
had plenty of water. All worked with a will. At last an engine
came, sent in to their help from Rambouillet.
One part of the Prefecture, whose burning caused innumerable sparks,
was the depot for lost property. It contained, among other things
twenty thousand umbrellas.
It was above all things desirable to remove the straw bedding of
the prisoners, stored by day in one large room, and while those
busy with powder and cartridges worked below, Pierre Braquond,
the turnkey, took this task upon himself, assisted by some of his
late prisoners.
The difficulty of escaping from the island was great, for the insurgents
would fire on fugitives from the right bank of the river, the Versailles
troops from the left. A warder, at the risk of his life, crept to
the water's edge opposite to the Versaillais, and waved a white
handkerchief. As soon as he was seen, the troops ceased firing.
Every moment it was expected that the roof of the prison would
fall in, when suddenly the reservoir on the top of the building
gave way, and the flames were checked by a rush of water. Braquond
had said to Judge Bonjean a few days before he was sent from the
Prefecture to Mazas, "I can stay here no longer. I am going to
escape to Versailles." M. Bonjean replied: "As a magistrate I command
you to remain; as a prisoner I implore you. What would become of
those under your care if the friends of the Commune were set over
them?"
The Ministry of Marine (that is, the Navy Department) is situated
in the Rue Saint-Florentin, near the Rue Royale and the Place de
la Concorde,--the most beautiful part of the city. The officer who
held it for the Commune was Colonel Brunei, an excellent middle-aged
man, far too good for his associations. There was no stain of any
kind on his past life, but he had been disappointed when peace
was made with the Germans, and had joined the Commune in a moment
of patriotic enthusiasm. Once in its service, there was no way
to escape.
On May 23 the Versaillais were gaining every moment. There was a
man named Matillion, charged by the Central Committee to do anything
or to burn anything to prevent their advance. That night, when
houses that he had set on fire were blazing in the Rue Royale (he
had had petroleum pumped upon them by fire-engines), there was a
fierce orgy held by the light of the flames before the Church of
the Madeleine. A wild, demon-like dance was led by three women
who had done duty all day as _pétroleuses_,--Florence, Aurore,
and Marie. Marie had been publicly thanked at the Hôtel-de-Ville
for sending a cannonball through one of the statues before the
Chamber of Deputies.
Three battalions of Communist soldiers stationed in the Ministry
of Marine, which had been converted into a hospital, took advantage
of the fact that the general attention was fixed upon this orgy to
quit their post and steal away, leaving the Ministry undefended.
It was eleven at night; Colonel Brunel was sending to the Central
Committee for fresh soldiers and fresh orders, when a paper was
given him. He read it, turned pale, and sent for the doctor. "The
Central Committee," he said, "orders me to blow up this building
immediately." "But my wounded?" cried the doctor. There were one
hundred and seven wounded soldiers of the Commune in the hospital.
There was no place to which they could be moved, and no means of
transportation. Colonel Brunel sent an orderly to represent the
case to the Committee. All he could obtain was a detail of National
Guards to assist in carrying away the wounded, together with a
positive order to burn down the building. As the sick men were
being very slowly carried out, a party arrived, commanded by a
drunken officer, and carrying buckets of coal-oil and other
combustibles, which they scattered about the rooms. By this time
the fires of the Versaillais gleamed through the trees in the Champs
Élysées. The Rue Royale, near at hand, was in flames. Across the
Seine, the Rue de Lille was burning. The Ministry of Finance and
the palace of the Tuileries seemed a sea of flame. In the Ministry
of Marine were two clerks, long attached to that branch of the
Government service, who had been requested by Admiral Pothereau,
the Minister for Naval Affairs, to remain at their post and endeavor
to protect the papers and property. Their names were Gablin and Le
Sage. M. Le Sage had his wife with him in the building. These men
resolved to save the Ministry, or perish. While Le Sage, who was
expert in gymnastics, set out to see if he could reach the general
in command of the Versaillais, Gablin turned all his energies to
prevent the impending conflagration. Putting on an air of haste and
terror, he rushed into the room where the soldiers were refreshing
themselves, and cried out lustily that the Versaillais were upon them,
but that if they followed him, he would save them. Under pretence
of showing them a secret passage, he led them into a chamber and
locked the door. Then he turned his attention to their commander.
He represented to him that the Versaillais were close at hand, and
promised him safety and a handsome reward if he would not set fire
to the building. "But I have my orders!" objected the half-tipsy
officer. "I have the order you had better obey," replied Gablin,
pointing a pistol at his head. "Now, shall I fire, or shall I reward
you?" The officer gave in. He helped M. Gablin to pour the buckets
of coal-oil into the gutters in the courtyard, to clear away the
powder, and to drench the floors with water. Then Gablin took him
to a chamber, gave him plain clothes, and locked him in. He fell
asleep upon the bed in a moment.
Le Sage meanwhile had made his way over the roofs of neighboring
houses, and then descended to the Champs Élysées. He was arrested
several times by sentries, but at last made his way to General
Douai. The general heard his story, and then put a paper into his
hand, saying, "The Ministry of Marine is already ours." Admiral
Pothereau himself, at three o'clock in the morning, was looking
towards his old offices and residence from the Champs Élysées.
He remarked to an aide-de-camp and to another officer: "All looks
very quiet. Suppose we go and reconnoitre, and see how near we
can approach my official home." They held their swords in their
hands, and, followed by three gendarmes, cautiously drew near the
Ministry. They met with no opposition, and finally walked in. "Where's
Le Sage?" was the admiral's first question. "He is out looking
for you, M. le Ministre," cried Le Sage's wife, shedding tears of
anxiety.
Thus the Ministry of Marine was captured by the minister; but the
building itself and all its valuable documents had been preserved
by the fidelity of two young men.
As for the Communist officer, when he came to himself he sincerely
repented his connection with the Commune. He was pardoned, became
a respectable citizen, and found a true friend in M. Gablin.