THE SHARE I HAD IN THE FRENCH COMMUNE
1870
My participation in the Commune in France, in the year '70, was the
result of chance. I arrived at Marseilles at a very critical time in the
history of that city. It was the hour when the Commune, or, as it was
styled there by many, the "Red Republic," was born. I was on a tour of
the world, the voyage in which I eclipsed all former feats of travel,
and circled the globe in eighty days. This served Jules Verne, two years
later, as the groundwork for his famous romance Around the World in
Eighty Days. The whole journey had been eventful, but I shall write of
that in a later chapter.
The French Empire had fallen and the Republic had risen within the
period of my swift flight; and now one of the darkest and most desperate
enterprises known in history was afoot--the attempt to transform France
and the world into a system of "communes," erected upon the ruins of all
national governments.
I arrived at Marseilles on the Donai, of the Imperial Messagerie line,
October 20, '70, and went at once to the Grand Hotel de Louvre. Imagine
my astonishment when I was received there by a delegation, and, for the
third time, hailed as "liberator." The empty title of liberator--so
easily conferred by the excitable Latin races--had become rather a joke
with me. The Australian revolutionists who wanted to make me President
of their paper republic, were in earnest, and would have done something
notable, had they ever got the opportunity, with sufficient men behind
them; but the Italians I had not felt much confidence in, nor had I any
desire to work for their cause.
The acclaim with which the people in the streets of Marseilles received
me, at first jarred upon my sensibilities and seemed an echo merely of
the little affair in Rome. However, I was soon to be convinced of the
deep sincerity of these revolutionists, and was destined to take an
active and honest part in their cause. It is remarkable how a slight
incident may turn the whole current of one's life. It had been my
intention to proceed as rapidly as possible to Berlin, and take a look
at the victorious Prussian army; but here I was at the very moment of my
arrival on French soil, involved in the problems and struggles of the
French people, as precipitated by the Prussian army, having for their
object the undoing of much of the work of the German conquest.
When the revolutionary committee hailed me as "liberator," I thought
they had mistaken me for some one else, and asked the leaders if they
had not done so. "No," they said; "we have heard of you and want you to
join the revolution." It seemed that they had kept track of my rapid
progress around the world, and told me they knew when I was at Port
Said, and had prepared to receive me as soon as I landed in Marseilles.
"Six thousand people are waiting for you now in the opera-house," they
said.
"Waiting for me?" I asked, incredulous. "How long have they been
waiting, and what are they waiting for?"
"They have been assembled for an hour; and they want you to address them
in behalf of the revolution."
"Well," said I, making a decision immediately, "I can not keep these
good people waiting. I will go with you." I had decided to trust to the
inspiration of the moment, when I should stand face to face with that
volatile French audience.
From the moment I entered the opera-house, packed with excited people
from the stage to the topmost boxes, I was possessed by the French
revolutionary spirit. The fire and enthusiasm of the people swept me
from my feet. I was thenceforth a "Communist," a member of their "Red
Republic." I felt this, as soon as I joined that cheering and ecstatic
mob--for it really was a mob then, and mobs have been the germs of all
great national movements in France.
A committee of some sort, prepared for the occasion, immediately seized
hold of me, and we marched, or rushed, through the crowd, down the
aisle, and up on the stage. About 250 persons, the more important movers
in the agitation, I suppose, were standing, all cheering at the top of
their voices. As I was placed upon the stage, in front of the audience,
there came a burst of cheers of "Vive la Republique!" "Vive la Commune!"
and many were shouting out my name with a French accent and a nasal "n."
It was irresistible. I stepped to the front of the stage and tried to
speak, but for several minutes could not utter a word that could be
heard a foot away, the din of the shouting and cheering was so
overwhelming.
When the shouting ceased, I told the people that I was in Marseilles on
a trip around the world, but as they had called upon me to take part in
their movement, I should be glad to repay, in my own behalf, a small
portion of the enormous debt of gratitude that my country owed to France
for Lafayette, Rochambeau, and de Grasse. I repeated a part of the
"Marseillaise," which always stirs Frenchmen to the depths, and a few
verses from Holmes's poem on France--
"Pluck Conde's baton from the trench,
Wake up stout Charles Martel;
Or give some woman's hand to clench
The sword of La Pucelle!"
I also urged that France should not yield an inch of her territory to
the rapacious Prussians.
The excitement of the hour carried everything before it, and the crowd
outside, numbering at least 20,000, finally was joined by the 6,000
inside, and the whole mass, making a grand and noisy procession,
escorted me to my hotel where I had taken the entire front suite of
apartments. The next morning I was waited upon by a committee of the
revolutionists. They said they wanted a military leader, and that
Cluseret was the man for the place. He would be able to lead the forces
of the Ligue du Midi.
Cluseret was then in Switzerland, where he had taken refuge after the
troops drove him out of Lyons at the orders of Gambetta. He was the
Gustave Paul Cluseret who had taken part in our Civil War, serving on
the staffs of McClellan and Fremont, and who later was Military Chief of
the Paris Commune. We sent to Switzerland and invited General Cluseret
to join us in Marseilles. To our surprise he sent word that he would
need a force of 2,000 armed men! This settled Cluseret, as far as I was
concerned.
A few days later a card was brought to me in the hotel bearing the name
"Tirez," and the statement that M. Tirez occupied room 113 in the same
hotel. I went up to this room, and there found a splendid-looking fellow
with a great military mustache. "Are you M. Tirez?" I asked. "I am
General Cluseret," he said. "I thought you wanted 2,000 armed men?" I
said. "You can probably give me more than that number," he said, with a
smile. "You seem to be in command of everything and everybody here." "We
shall see," I said. I asked him to go to the Cirque with me that
evening.
There were at least 10,000 men in this gigantic amphitheater. I made a
short speech and said I wanted to give them a surprise. "You want a
military leader. I have brought you one. Here is your leader--General
Gustave Paul Cluseret." He was greeted with tremendous cheers.
We at once organized military headquarters and prepared to take
possession of the city. In this effort we were aided by the liberal
views of the prefet, M. Esquiros, a republican, and later by the
incapacity of the new prefet appointed by Gambetta, M. Gent. The next
day we marched to the military fortifications with a great mass of men.
General Cluseret and I were arm in arm as we entered the gates. I
observed the officer in charge of the guns at the entrance about to give
an order, which I knew meant a volley that would sweep us into the next
world. I sprang forward and seized the officer by the arm. "Come to see
me at the hotel," I whispered in his ear. The order to fire was not
given, and we filed into the fortifications and took possession in the
name of the Commune--the "Red Republic."
The following day 150 of the Guarde Mobile came to the hotel and
demanded General Cluseret. I told the officers he was not present, but
they insisted upon invading my rooms. I then told them that they would
not be permitted to cross the threshold alive. I was armed with a
revolver, and three of my own secretaries were armed in the same way. I
said to the chief officer at the door that there were four men inside
and we would shoot any one who tried to enter; we thought we could kill
at least two dozen of them. The Guarde held a short council outside, and
I soon heard their military step resounding down the hall. They had
given up the search for Cluseret.
The next morning I saw from my window an army marching down the street.
I thought it was our army, and went out on the balcony and began
shouting "Vive la Republique!" and "Vive la Commune!" with the people in
the street; but there was an ominous silence in the ranks of the troops.
They did not respond to these revolutionary sentiments. Then I saw the
new prefet, M. Gent, Gambetta's man, in a carriage, with the army.
Suddenly I heard a shot, and Gent dropped to the bottom of the vehicle.
Some one had tried to kill him, but missed, and the prefet did not care
to be conspicuous again.
The troops came to a halt directly in front of the hotel, and I saw that
the officers were regarding with anger the flag of the Commune that
floated from the balcony. Orders were given, and five men, a firing
squad, stepped from the ranks and knelt, with their rifles in hand,
ready to fire. I knew that it was their purpose to shoot me. I do not
know why, but I felt that if the thing had to be, I should die in the
most dramatic manner possible. There were two other flags on the
balcony, the colors of France and America. I seized both of these, and
wrapped them quickly about my body. Then I stepped forward, and knelt at
the front of the balcony, in the same military posture as the soldiers
below me. I then shouted to the officers in French:
"Fire, fire, you miserable cowards! Fire upon the flags of France and
America wrapped around the body of an American citizen--if you have the
courage!"
An order was spoken, too low for me to catch, but the kneeling soldiers
dropped their rifles, and then rose, and rejoined the ranks. Another
order was shouted along the line, and the troops marched on down the
street and out of sight.
The attempted assassination of the prefet had an unexpected effect upon
public opinion in Marseilles. It turned the mercurial Frenchman against
the Commune. I advised General Cluseret to go at once to Paris. I even
purchased a gold-laced uniform for him. His subsequent history, as
military leader of the Commune in Paris, his capture, trial, release,
and retirement to Switzerland, are well known.
At this time I believe the tide of war might have been turned in favor
of France by some swift movement like those of which the mobile Boers
made good use in South Africa, perhaps by an attack on the rear of the
German armies. France was filled with German soldiers, but Germany was
unguarded; and I believed then that a body of light horsemen, say, like
the Algerians, might have created such a diversion by a rapid raid to
the rear that it would have forced the Germans back to the Rhine, or
even to Berlin. I was astonished by the tremendous amount of munitions
of war, and by the masses of troops that were still available in the
south of France. Leadership, and not troops, was what France lacked.
I left Marseilles for Lyons, after the troops tried to shoot me in the
balcony of the hotel, and was accompanied by Cremieux, one of the
leaders of the Ligue du Midi. As we left Marseilles, a man, wearing
conspicuously the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, entered our
compartment. I at once set him down as a spy, and began talking with
Cremieux in a loud voice. My estimate of his character was justified in
an unpleasant way at Lyons. No sooner had we entered the suburbs of that
city than our friend left the compartment and got off the train.
When the train came to a stop in the station, I sprang out of the
compartment with Cremieux, and was confronted by six bayonets. Both of
us were placed under arrest. Immediately I remembered the little slip of
paper in my pocket which might betray Cluseret, if found, and I seized
it hastily and put it into my mouth. The officer of the squad of
soldiers rushed forward to stop me, but it was too late. The slip had
gone. I had swallowed it.
"That was the address of General Cluseret!" shouted the officer.
"Of course," said I. "And it has gone to a rendezvous with my
breakfast!"
The soldiers took Cremieux and myself to the Bastile, in Lyons, and I
was detained there for thirteen days. When I went into the cell I was
very tired and sat up against the wall and leaned my head against it. In
a moment I detected the breathing of a man very near me, and perceived a
crack in the wall, against which a spy in the adjacent cell was
inclining his ear to catch any incriminating words that might pass
between Cremieux and myself. It was the old trick of the Inquisition;
but it did not serve the purposes of these late players of it.
My secretary, Mr. Bemis, who came on from Marseilles by a later train,
could not find me in Lyons. He spent a week in looking for me. At the
end of that time my wife, who was in New York, telegraphed to the
American legation at Paris asking if the report were true that I had
been killed. It had been currently reported in America that the soldiers
had shot me in Marseilles. Mr. Bemis went immediately to the Guarde
Mobile, which was in sympathy with the Commune, the organization from
which General Cluseret had been driven by Gambetta. The Guarde sent a
deputation of 150 officers to the prefet of the city, who ordered my
immediate release. Gambetta was appealed to, and he directed that I be
sent to him at Tours by special train.
To Tours I went in style. I had been poisoned in the Lyons Bastile, and
was ill, in consequence, having lost thirty pounds of flesh in thirteen
days. I was met at Tours by Gambetta's secretary, M. Ranc, afterward a
deputy, who told me I could see the Dictator at four o'clock. "Why not
now?" I asked. "Because it is not possible for M. Gambetta to work until
he has had his dinner." I found that these French officials were as fond
of their dinner as English officials. At the appointed hour M. Ranc took
me to the palace of the prefecture, and I was admitted at once to
Gambetta's presence.
I found everything in confusion. The prefecture was filled with men who
had been waiting for the Dictator's pleasure. In the first ante-rooms I
saw men who had been waiting for three weeks; in the next rooms were
those who had waited for two weeks; and in the third rooms I found
officers of the army and navy, who had waited one week. As I passed in
among these throngs with an air of self-possession, they took me for
some grand personage, and I heard whispers that I must be the ambassador
from Spain or the Papal Nuncio.
Gambetta was seated at his desk in a large and handsomely furnished
room. He made not the slightest sign of being aware that I was present.
He did not even turn his face toward me. I did not learn until afterward
that the distinguished Italian-Frenchman had one glass eye, and could
see me just as well at an angle as he could full-face. But I grew tired
of standing there silent, and was already weary from my long
incarceration. I decided, after taking in this strange character, then
at the top of the seething pot of French politics, that the best course
for me was to put on a bold front.
"When a distinguished stranger calls to see you, M. Gambetta, I think
you might offer him a chair."
The great man smiled, and motioned me to a seat with considerable
graciousness. I took a chair, and said:
"M. Gambetta, you are the head of France, and I intend to be President
of the United States. You can assist me, and I can assist you."
He looked at me with a curious regard, but did not smile.
"Send me to America, and I can help you get munitions of war, and win
over the sympathy and assistance of the Americans."
I knew, of course, that he was going to send me out of France in any
event, and I wanted to discount his plan.
The Dictator smiled again, and said: "You sent Cluseret to Paris, and
bought him a uniform for 300 francs."
"You are only fairly well informed, M. Gambetta. I paid 350 francs for
the uniform."
"Cluseret is a scoundrel," he said.
"The Communards call you that," I replied.
He ended our interview by saying a few pleasant words, bowing me out of
the room, and sending me out of France forthwith.
I went straight to London, then to Liverpool, and sailed for New York in
the Abyssinia, which, curiously enough, was afterward the pioneer ship
on the line of boats between Vancouver and Yokohama, it having been
bought by the Canadian Pacific.