"Je croyais que les insurges de Paris ne pourraient pas
conduire leur barque."--_Jules Favre, Enquete sur le
18 Mars._
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AFFIRMS ITSELF, REORGANISES THE PUBLIC
SERVICES, AND HOLDS PARIS.
Thus no agreement had been come to, only one of the four delegates
having, from sheer weariness, given way to a certain extent. So on the
morning of the 20th, when the mayor Bonvalet and two adjuncts sent by
the mayors came to take possession of the Hotel-de-Ville, the members of
the Committee unanimously exclaimed, "We have not treated." But
Bonvalet, feigning to believe in a regular agreement, continued, "The
deputies are to-day going to ask for the municipal franchises. Their
negotiations cannot succeed if the administration of Paris is not given
up to the mayors. On pain of frustrating the efforts which will save
you, you must fulfil the engagements of your delegates."
One of the Committee: "Our delegates received no mandate to enter into
such engagements for us. We do not ask to be saved."
Another: "The weakness of the deputies and of the mayors is one of the
causes of the revolution. If the Committee abandons its position and
disarms, the Assembly will grant nothing."
Another: "I have just come from the Corderie. The Committee of the
second arrondissement is holding a sitting, and it adjures the Central
Committee to remain at its post till the elections."
Others were about to speak, when Bonvalet declared that he had come to
take possession of the Hotel-de-Ville, not to discuss, and walked off.
His superciliousness confirmed the worst suspicions. Those who the
evening before had been favourable to making terms said, "These men want
to betray us." Behind the mayors the Committee beheld the implacable
reaction. In any case, to ask them for the Hotel-de-Ville was to ask
their lives, for the National Guards would have believed them traitors,
and punished them on the spot. In one word, compromise had become
impossible. The _Journal Officiel_, for the first time in the hands of
the people, and the placards had spoken.
"The election of the municipal council will take place on Wednesday
next, 22nd March," decreed the Central Committee. And in a manifesto it
said, "The offspring of a Republic whose device bears the great word
Fraternity, the Central Committee pardons its traducers, but it would
convince the honest people who have believed their calumnies through
ignorance. It has not been secret, for its members have signed their
names to all its proclamations. It has not been unknown, for it was a
free expression of the suffrage of 215 battalions. It has not been the
fomenter of disorder, for the National Guard has committed no excess.
And yet provocations have not been wanting. The Government calumniated
Paris and set on the provinces against her, wished to impose on us a
general, attempted to disarm us, and said to Paris, 'Thou hast shown
thyself heroic, we are afraid of thee, hence we will tear from thee the
crown of the capital of France.' What has the Central Committee done in
answer to these attacks? It has founded the Federation, preached
moderation, generosity. One of the greatest causes of anger against us
is the obscurity of our names. Alas! many names were known, well known,
and this notoriety has been fatal to us. Notoriety is cheaply gained;
often hollow phrases or a little cowardice suffice; recent events have
proved this. Now that our object is attained, we say to the people, who
esteemed us enough to listen to the advice that has often clashed with
their impatience, 'Here is the mandate you intrusted to us.' There,
where our personal interest commences, our duty ends. Do your will. You
have freed yourselves. Obscure a few days ago, obscure we shall return
to your ranks, and show our governors that it is possible to descend the
steps of your Hotel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of
receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands."[92]
By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel
the deputies and the mayors placarded a few dry and colourless lines,
where they promised to demand of the Assembly that same day the election
of all the chiefs of the National Guard and the establishment of a
municipal council.
At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified
functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five
or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition
was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight--this was not
what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which
they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of
taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the
provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at
Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of
soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was
to place a few posts along the routes of Chatillon and Sevres, and
protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses.
The President, Grevy, who during the whole war had cowered in the
provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by
stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could
extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession
towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before
the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection,
without general views, and without a preamble to explain them. First a
bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then
another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs.
Milliere alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to
prolong them for six months.
Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled
at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a
deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous
scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had
softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own
treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen
times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for
his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him
with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the
National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orleans two
generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who
took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without
endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them,
was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a
fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions.
"I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This
story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.[93]
From the first sitting one could see what the struggle between
Versailles and Paris was to be. The monarchical conspirators, abandoning
their dream for a moment, hastened to do the most urgent work first: to
save themselves from the Revolution. They surrounded M. Thiers and
promised him their absolute support to crush Paris. Thus this Ministry,
that a truly National Assembly would have impeached, became, even
through its crime, all-powerful. Scarcely recovered from the fright of
their stampede, M. Thiers and his Ministers dared to play the
swaggerers. And indeed, would not the provinces hasten to their rescue,
as in June, 1848? And proletarians without political education, without
administration, without money, how could they be able "to steer their
bark"?
In 1831 the proletarians, masters of Lyons, had failed in their attempt
at self-government, and how much greater was the difficulty for those of
Paris! All new powers had until then found the administrative machine in
working order, in readiness for the victor. On the 20th March the
Central Committee found it taken to pieces. At the signal from
Versailles the majority of functionaries had abandoned their posts.
Octrois, street inspection, lighting, markets, public charity,
telegraphs, all the respiratory and digestive apparatus of the town of
1,600,000 souls, everything had to be extemporised. Certain mayors had
carried off the seals, the registers, and the cash of their mairies. The
military intendance left without a farthing six thousand sick in the
hospitals and ambulances.[94] M. Thiers had tried to disorganise even
the management of the cemeteries.
Poor man! who never knew anything of our Paris, of her inexhaustible
strength, her marvellous elasticity. The Central Committee received
support from all sides. The committees of arrondissements furnished a
_personnel_ to the mairies; some of the small middle-class lent their
experience, and the most important services were set to rights in no
time by men of common sense and energy, which soon proved superior to
routine. The employes who had remained at their posts in order to hand
over the funds to Versailles were soon discovered and obliged to flee.
The Central Committee overcame a more menacing difficulty. Three hundred
thousand persons without work, without resources of any kind, were
waiting for the thirty sous upon which they had lived for the last seven
months. On the 19th, Varlin and Jourde, delegates to the finance
department, took possession of that Ministry. The coffers, according to
the statement of accounts handed over to them, contained 4,600,000
francs; but the keys were at Versailles, and, in view of the movement
for conciliation then being carried on, the delegates did not dare to
force the locks. The next day they went to ask Rothschild to open them a
credit at the bank, and he sent word that the funds would be advanced.
The same day the Central Committee broached the question more forcibly,
and sent three delegates to the bank to request the necessary advances.
They were answered that a million was placed at the disposition of
Varlin and Jourde, who at six o'clock in the evening were received by
the governor, M. Rouland. "I expected your visit," he said. "On the
morning following a change of Government, the bank has always to find
the money for the new-comers. It is not my business to judge events; the
Bank of France has nothing to do with politics. You are a _de facto_
Government, and the bank gives you for to-day a million. Only be so kind
as to mention in your receipt that this sum has been requisitioned on
account of the town of Paris."[95] The delegates took away a million
francs in bank-notes. All the employes of the Ministry of Finance had
disappeared since the morning, but with the help of a few friends the
sum was rapidly divided among the paying officers. At ten o'clock the
delegates were able to tell the Central Committee that the pay was being
distributed in all the arrondissements.
The bank acted prudently: the Central Committee firmly held Paris. The
mayors and deputies had not been able to unite more than three or four
hundred men, although they had charged Admiral Saisset with the
organisation of the resistance. The Committee was so sure of its
strength that it had the barricades demolished. Everybody came to it,
the garrison of Vincennes spontaneously surrendering themselves with the
fort. Its victory was too complete, for it was perilous, obliging it to
disperse its troops in order to take possession of the abandoned forts
on the south. Lullier, intrusted with this mission, had the forts of
Ivry, Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves, and Issy occupied on the 19th and
20th. The last to which he sent the National Guard, Mont-Valerien, was
the key of Paris, and, at that time, of Versailles.
For thirty-six hours the impregnable fortress had remained empty. On the
evening of the 18th, after the order of evacuation, it had to defend it
only twenty muskets and some chasseurs of Vincennes, interned there for
mutiny. The same evening they burst open the locks of the fortress and
returned to Paris.
When the evacuation of Mont-Valerien became known at Versailles,
generals and deputies begged M. Thiers to have it reoccupied. He
obstinately refused, declaring this fort had no strategical value.
During the whole day of the 19th they still failed. At last Vinoy, in
his turn, urged by them, succeeded on the 20th, at one o'clock in the
morning, in wresting an order from M. Thiers. A column was immediately
despatched, and at mid-day a thousand soldiers occupied the fortress.
Not until evening, at eight o'clock, did the battalions of Ternes
present themselves; the governor easily got rid of their officers.
Lullier, on making his report to the Central Committee, said he had
occupied all the forts, and even named the battalion which, according to
him, was then in possession of Mont-Valerien.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] I need not justify the long quotations I shall make. The French
proletarian has never been allowed to speak in books of history; at
least he should do so in the recital of his own revolution.
[93] The two generals have testified to the extreme consideration shown
them in their prison. See the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_. Two days later,
on Chanzy's simple promise not to serve against Paris, the Central
Committee set them free.
[94] _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, Dr. Danet, vol. ii. p. 531.
[95] Of course the Radicals have seen in this a Bonapartist manoeuvre,
have written and said from the tribune of the Assembly, "The Bonapartist
director of the Bank of France saved the Revolution; without the million
of the Monday the Central Committee would have capitulated." Two facts
answer this: From the 19th the Committee had in the Ministry of Finance
4,600,000 francs; the municipal coffers contained 1,200,000 francs, and
on the 21st the Octroi had brought in 500,000 more.