"L'idee de voir un massacre me remplissait de douleur."--
_Jules Favre, Enquete sur le 4 Septembre._
THE MAYORS, THE DEPUTIES, THE JOURNALISTS, THE ASSEMBLY
COMBINE AGAINST PARIS--THE REACTION MARCHES ON THE PLACE
VENDOME, AND IS PUNISHED.
On the 21st the situation stood out in bold relief.
At Paris--the Central Committee, with it all the workmen and all the
generous and enlightened men of the small middle-class. The Committee
said, "We have but one object--the elections. Everybody is welcome to
co-operate with us, but we shall not leave the Hotel-de-Ville before
they have been made."
At Versailles--the Assembly;--all the monarchists, all the great
bourgeoisie, all the slaveholders. They yelled, "Paris is only a rebel,
the Central Committee a band of brigands."
Between Versailles and Paris--a few Radical deputies, all the mayors,
many adjuncts. They comprised the Liberal bourgeois, that sacred herd
that makes all revolutions and allows all the empires to be made.
Despised by the Assembly, disdained by the people, they cried to the
Central Committee, "Usurpers!" and to the Assembly, "You will spoil
all."
The day of the 21st is memorable, for on it all these voices made
themselves heard.
The Central Committee: "Paris has in nowise the intention of separating
from France; far from it. For France she has borne with the Empire and
the Government of the National Defence, with all their treachery and
defections, certainly not to abandon her now, but only to say to her as
an elder sister: Sustain thyself as I have sustained myself; oppose
thyself to oppression as I have done."
And the _Journal Officiel_, in the first of those articles where Moreau,
Longuet, and Rogeard commented upon the new revolution, said: "The
proletarians of the capital, amidst the failures and treasons of the
ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to
save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of
public affairs. Hardly possessed of the government, they have hastened
to convoke the people of Paris to the ballot-boxes. There is no example
in history of a provisional government so anxious to divest itself of
its mandate. In the presence of conduct so disinterested, one may well
ask how a press can be found unjust enough to pour out upon these
citizens slander, contumely, and insult? The workingmen, those who
produce everything and enjoy nothing, are they then for ever to be
exposed to outrage? The bourgeoisie, which has accomplished its
emancipation, does it not understand that now the time for the
emancipation of the proletariat is come? Why, then, does it persist in
refusing the proletariat its legitimate share?"
It was the first Socialist note struck in the movement. Parisian
revolutions never remain purely political. The approach of the
foreigner, the abnegation of the workmen, had, on the 4th September,
silenced all social demands. Peace once concluded, the workmen in power,
their voice would naturally make itself heard. How just was this
complaint of the Central Committee! What an act of accusation the French
proletariat could draw up against its masters! And on the 18th March,
1871, could not the people, making greater their great words of 1848,
say, "We had placed eighty years of patience at the service of our
country"?
The same day the Central Committee suspended the sale of objects pledged
in the pawnshops, prolonged the overdue bills for a month, and forbade
landlords to dismiss their tenants till further notice. In three lines
it did justice, beat Versailles, and gained Paris.
On the other hand, the representatives and mayors told the people, "No
election; everything is for the best. We wanted the maintenance of the
National Guard; we shall have it. We wanted Paris to recover her
municipal liberty; we shall have it. Your requests have been brought
before the Assembly. The Assembly _has satisfied them_ by a unanimous
vote, which guarantees the municipal elections. Awaiting these, the only
legal elections, we declare that we shall abstain from the elections
announced for to-morrow, and we protest against their illegality."
Thrice-lying address! The Assembly had not said a word of the National
Guard; it had promised no municipal liberty, and several of the
signatures were supposititious.
The bourgeois press followed suit. Since the 19th the Figarist papers,
supported by the police, the altar, and the alcove, the Liberal
gazettes, by which Trochu had prepared the capitulation of Paris, had
not ceased to fall foul of the federal battalions. They spoke of the
public coffers and private property being pillaged, of Prussian gold
streaming into the faubourgs, of documentary evidence hurtful to the
members of the Central Committee destroyed by them. The Republican
journals also discovered gold in the movement, but Bonapartist gold; and
the best of them, naively convinced that the Republic belonged to their
patrons, inveigled against the accession of the proletariat, saying,
"These people dishonour us." Emboldened by the mayors and deputies, they
all agreed to revolt; and on the 21st, in a collective declaration,
asked the electors to consider as null and void the illegal convocation
of the Hotel-de-Ville.
Illegality! Thus the question was put by the Legitimists, twice imposed
on us by foreign bayonets; by the Orleanists, raised to power through
barricades; by the brigands of December; even by the exiles returned
home, thanks to an insurrection. What! When the bourgeois, who make all
laws, always act illegally, how are the workmen to proceed, against whom
all the laws are made?
These attacks of the mayors and deputies and of the press screwed up the
courage of the Hectors of the reaction. For two days this rabble of
runaways, who during the siege had infested the cafes of Brussels and
the Haymarket of London, gesticulated on the fashionable boulevards,
asking for order and _work_. On the 21st, at about ten o'clock, at the
Place de la Bourse, about a hundred of these strange workingmen marched
round the Stock Exchange, banners flying, and advancing along the
boulevards to the cries of "Vive l'Assemblee!" came to the Place
Vendome, shouting before the general staff, "Down with the Committee!"
The commander of the Place, Bergeret, told them to send delegates. "No,
no!" cried they; "no delegates! You would assassinate them!" The
federals, losing patience, had the Place cleared. The riotous fops gave
themselves a rendezvous for the next day before the new Opera-House.
At the same hour the Assembly made its demonstration. The draft of an
address to the people and the army, a tissue of lies and insults to
Paris, having just been read, and Milliere having pointed out that it
contained some unfortunate expressions, was hooted. The demand of the
Left to at least conclude the address with the words "Vive la
Republique!" was frantically refused by an immense majority. Louis Blanc
and his group, entreating the Assembly to immediately examine their
project of municipal law and oppose a vote to the elections that the
Committee announced for the next day, M. Thiers answered, "Give us time
to study the question." "Time!" exclaimed M. Clemenceau, "we have none
to lose." Then M. Thiers gave those drones a lesson they richly
deserved: "What would be the use of concessions?" said he. "What
authority have you at Paris? Who would listen to you at the
Hotel-de-Ville? Do you think that the adoption of a bill would disarm
the party of brigands, the party of assassins?" Then he charged Jules
Favre to expatiate on this theme for the special benefit of the
provinces. For an hour and a half that bitter follower of Guadet,
spinning round Paris his elaborate periods, limed her with his venom. No
doubt he again saw himself on the 31st October, when the people held him
in their power and pardoned him, a cruel remembrance for his rankling
spirit. He commenced by reading the declaration of the press,
"courageously written," said he, "under the knife of the assassins." He
spoke of Paris as in the power of "a handful of scoundrels, putting
above the right of the Assembly I know not what bloody and rapacious
ideal." Then, humbly supplicating monarchists and Catholics: "What they
want," cried he, "what they have realised, is an attempt at that baleful
doctrine which in philosophy may be called individualism and
materialism, and which in politics means the Republic placed above
universal suffrage." At this idiotic quibbling the Assembly burst into
roars of applause. "These new doctors," continued he, "have the
pretension of separating Paris from France. But let the insurgents know
this: if we left Paris, it was with the intention of returning in order
to combat them resolutely." (Bravo! bravo!) Then stirring the panic of
those rurals who every moment expected to see the federal battalions
coming down upon them: "If some of you fall into the hands of these men,
who have only usurped power for the sake of violence, assassination and
theft, the fate of the unfortunate victims of their ferocity would be
yours." And finally, garbling, improving with ferocious skill the
maladroitness of an article in the _Journal Officiel_ on the execution
of the generals: "No more temporising. For three days I combated the
exigencies of the victor who wanted to disarm the National Guard. I ask
pardon for it of God and of man." Each new insult, each banderillo
thrust into the flesh of Paris, drew from the Assembly mad hurrahs.
Admiral Saisset stamped, emphasizing certain phrases of the speaker with
his hoarse interjections. Goaded by these wild cheers, Jules Favre
doubled his invective. Since the Gironde, since Isnard's curse, Paris
had not undergone such an imprecation. Even Langlois, unable to stand it
any longer, exclaimed, "Oh, it is outrageous, atrocious to speak thus!"
And when Jules Favre concluded, implacable, impassible, only foaming a
little at the mouth: "France will not be lowered to the bloody level of
the wretches who oppress the capital," the whole Assembly rose raving.
"Let us appeal to the provinces," shrieked the rurals. And Saisset:
"Yes, let us appeal to the provinces and march on Paris." In vain one
of the deputies of the Seine adjured the Assembly not to let them return
to Paris empty-handed. This great bourgeoisie, which had just
surrendered the honour, the fortune, and the territory of France to the
Prussian, trembled with rage at the mere thought of conceding anything
to Paris.
After this horrible scene, the Radical deputies found nothing better to
do than to issue a lachrymose address inviting Paris to be patient. The
Central Committee was obliged to adjourn the elections till the 23rd,
for several mairies belonged to the enemy; but on the 22nd it warned the
papers that provocation to revolt would be severely repressed.
The matadors of reaction, reanimated by Jules Favre's speech, took this
warning for an idle boast. On the 22nd at mid-day they assembled at the
Place du Nouvel Opera. At one o'clock they numbered a thousand dandies,
squireens, journalists, notorious familiars of the Empire, who marched
down the Rue de la Paix to the cry of "Vive l'ordre!" Their plan was,
under the cloak of a pacific demonstration, to force the Place Vendome
and to expel the Federals from it; then, masters of the mairie of the
first arrondissement, of half of the second and of Passy, they would
have cut Paris in two and menaced the Hotel-de-Ville. Admiral Saisset
followed them.
Before the Rue Neuve St. Augustin these pacific demonstration-men
disarmed and ill-treated two detached sentries of the National Guard.
Seeing this, the Federals of the Place Vendome seized their muskets and
hurried in marching order to the top of the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs.
They were but 200, the whole garrison of the place; the two cannon
levelled at the Rue de la Paix had no cartridges. The reactionists soon
encountered the first line with the cry, "Down with the Committee! Down
with the assassins!" waving a banner and their handkerchiefs, while some
of them stretched out their hands to seize the muskets. Bergeret,
Maljournal, members of the Committee, in the first ranks, summoned the
rioters to retire. Furious cries of "Cowards! brigands!" drowned their
voices, and sword-canes were pointed at them. Bergeret made a sign to
the drummers. A dozen times the _sommations_ were made and repeated. For
several minutes only the roll of the drums was heard, and between these
savage cries. The ranks in the rear of the manifestation pushed on those
in front and tried to break through the lines of the Federals. At last,
despairing no doubt of succeeding by mere bravado, the insurgents fired
their revolvers;[96] two guards were killed and seven wounded;[97]
Maljournal was struck in the thigh.
The muskets of the guards went off, so to say, spontaneously. A volley
and a terrible cry, followed by silence more dismal. In a few seconds
the crowded Rue de la Paix was emptied. In the deserted road, strewn
with revolvers, sword-canes, and hats, lay about a dozen corpses. If the
Federals had only aimed at foes' hearts, there would have been 200
killed, for in this compact mass no shot would have missed. The
insurgents had killed one of their own, the Vicomte de Molinat, fallen
in the front ranks, his face towards the place, a ball in the occiput.
On his body was found a poniard fixed by a small chain. A witty ball
struck in the rear the chief editor of the _Paris Journal_, the
Bonapartist De Pene, one of the basest revilers of the movement.
The runaways traversed Paris shouting, "Murder!" The shops of the
boulevards were closed and the Place de la Bourse filled with rabid
groups. At four o'clock some of the reactionist companies appeared,
resolute, in good order, their muskets on their shoulders, and took
possession of the quarters of the Bourse.
At three o'clock the event became known at Versailles. The Assembly had
just rejected Louis Blanc's bill on the municipal council, and Picard
was reading another one refusing all justice to Paris, when the news
arrived. The Assembly precipitately raised the sitting; the Ministers
looked dumbfoundered.
All their swaggering of the evening before had only been meant to
frighten Paris, to encourage the men of order, and provoke a
_coup-de-main_. The incident had occurred, but the Central Committee
triumphed. For the first time M. Thiers began to believe that this
Committee, able to repress a riot, might after all be a Government.
The news in the evening was more reassuring. The fusillade seemed to
have roused the _men of order_. They were flocking to the Place de la
Bourse. A great many officers just returned from Germany came to offer
their help. The reactionary companies were establishing themselves
solidly in the mairie of the ninth arrondissement and reoccupying that
of the sixth, dislodging the Federals of the station of St. Lazare,
guarding all the approaches of the occupied quarters, and forcibly
arresting the passers-by. They formed a town within the town. The mayors
were constituting a permanent committee in the mairie of the second
arrondissement. Their resistance was now provided with an army.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] The aggression was so evident, that not one of the twenty
court-martials that searched into every detail of the revolution of the
18th March dared allude to the affair of the Place Vendome.
[97] Their names were published in the _Journal Officiel_.