"Une portion considerable de la population et de la garde
nationale de Paris sollicite le concours des departements pour
le retablissement de l'ordre."--_Circulaire de M. Thiers aux
Prefets, le 27 Mars._
PROCLAMATION OF THE COMMUNE.
This week ended with the triumph of Paris. Paris-Commune again resumed
her part as the capital of France, again became the national initiator.
For the tenth time since 1789 the workmen put France upon the right
track.
The bayonets of Prussia had laid bare our country, such as eighty years
of bourgeois domination had left it--a Goliath at the mercy of his
driver.
Paris broke the thousand fetters which bound France down to the ground,
like Gulliver a prey to ants; restored the circulation to her paralysed
limbs; said, "The life of the whole nation exists in each of her
smallest organisms; the unity of the hive, and not that of the barracks.
The organic cell of the French Republic is the municipality, the
commune."
The Lazarus of the Empire and of the siege resuscitated, having torn the
napkin from his brow and shaken off the grave-clothes, was about to
begin a new existence with the regenerated Communes of France in his
train. This new life gave to all Paris a youthful aspect. Those who had
despaired a month before were now full of enthusiasm. Strangers
addressed each other and shook hands. For indeed we were not strangers,
but bound together by the same faith and the same aspirations.
Sunday the 26th was a day of joy and sunshine. Paris breathed again,
happy like one just escaped from death or great peril. At Versailles
the streets looked gloomy, gendarmes occupied the station, brutally
demanded passports, confiscated all the journals of Paris, and at the
slightest expression of sympathy for the town arrested you. At Paris
everybody could enter freely. The streets swarmed with people, the cafes
were noisy; the same lad cried out the _Paris Journal_ and the
_Commune_; the attacks against the Hotel-de-Ville, the protestation of a
few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the placards of
the Central Committee. The people were without anger because without
fear. The voting paper had replaced the chassepot.
Picard's bill only gave Paris sixty municipal councillors, three for
each arrondissement, whatever might be its population. Thus the 150,000
inhabitants of the eleventh arrondissement had the same number of
representatives as the 45,000 of the sixteenth. The Central Committee
had decreed that there was to be a councillor for every 20,000
inhabitants, and for each fraction of 10,000; ninety in all. The
elections were to be conducted with the lists of February and in the
usual manner; only the Committee had expressed the wish that for the
future open voting should be considered the only mode worthy of
democratic principles. All the faubourgs obeyed, and gave an open vote.
The electors of the St. Antoine quarter formed in long columns, and,
headed by a red flag, their voting papers stuck in their hats, defiled
before the column of the Bastille, and in the same order marched to
their sections.
The adhesion and convocation of the mayors dissipating all scruple, also
made the bourgeois quarters vote. The elections became legal since
plenipotentiaries of the Government had given their consent. Two hundred
and eighty-seven thousand men voted, relatively a far greater number
than in the elections of February; for since the opening of the gates
after the siege, a great part of the easy classes had rushed to the
provinces there to recruit their health.
The elections were conducted in a way becoming a free people. At the
approach to the halls, no police, no intrigues. And yet M. Thiers dared
telegraph to the provinces: "The elections will take place to-day
without liberty and without moral authority." The liberty was so
absolute that in all Paris not one single protestation occurred.
The moderate papers even commended the articles of the _Officiel_, in
which the delegate Longuet set forth the part of the future Communal
Assembly: "Above all, it must define its mandate, fix the boundaries of
its attributes. Its first work must be the discussion and the drawing up
of its charter. This done, it must consider the means of having that
statute of the municipal autonomy recognised and guaranteed by the
central power." The plainness, the prudence, the moderation which marked
all official acts was beginning to move the most obdurate. Only the
hatred of the Versaillese did not abate. That same day M. Thiers cried
from the tribune, "No, France will not let those wretches triumph who
would drown her in blood."
The next day 200,000 "wretches" came to the Hotel-de-Ville there to
instal their chosen representatives, the battalion drums beating, the
banners surmounted by the Phrygian cap and with red fringe round the
muskets; their ranks, swelled by soldiers of the line, artillerists, and
marines faithful to Paris, came down from all the streets to the Place
de Greve like the thousand streams of a great river. In the middle of
the Hotel-de-Ville, against the central door, a large platform was
raised. Above it towered the bust of the Republic, a red scarf slung
round it. Immense red streamers beat against the frontal and the belfry,
like tongues of fire announcing the good news to France. A hundred
battalions thronged the place, and piled their bayonets, lit up by the
sun, in front of the Hotel-de-Ville. The other battalions that could not
get into the place lined the streets up to the Boulevard de Sebastopol
and to the quays. The banners were grouped in front of the platform,
some tricolour, all with red tassels, symbolising the advent of the
people. While the place was filling, songs burst forth, the bands played
the _Marseillaise_ and the _Chant du Depart_, trumpets sounded the
charge, and the cannon of the old Commune thundered on the quay.
Suddenly the noise subsided. The members of the Central Committee and of
the Commune, their red scarfs over their shoulders, appeared on the
platform. Ranvier said, "Citizens, my heart is too full of joy to make a
speech. Permit me only to thank the people of Paris for the great
example they have given the world." A member of the Committee announced
the names of those elected. The drums beat a salute, the bands and two
hundred thousand voices chimed in with the _Marseillaise_. Ranvier, in
an interval of silence, cried out, "In the name of the People the
Commune is proclaimed."
A thousandfold echo answered, "Vive la Commune!" Caps were flung up on
the ends of bayonets, flags fluttered in the air. From the windows, on
the roofs, thousands of hands waved handkerchiefs. The quick reports of
the cannon, the bands, the drums, blended in one formidable vibration.
All hearts leaped with joy, all eyes filled with tears. Never since the
great Federation had Paris been thus moved.
The filing off was very cleverly managed by Brunel, who, while having
the place evacuated on the one hand, brought in those battalions that
were without, all equally anxious to acclaim the Commune. Before the
bust of the Republic the flags were lowered, the officers saluted with
their sabres, the men raised their muskets. Not until seven o'clock did
the last procession pass by.
The agents of M. Thiers returned in dismay to tell him, "It was really
the whole of Paris that took part in the manifestation." And the Central
Committee might well exclaim in its enthusiasm, "To-day Paris opened a
fresh page in the book of history, and there inscribed her powerful
name. Let the spies of Versailles, who are prowling around us, go and
tell their masters what the common movement of an entire population
means. Let these spies carry back to them the image of the magnificent
spectacle of a people recovering their sovereignty."
This lightning would have made the blind to see. 287,000 voters, 200,000
men with the same watchword. This was not a secret committee, a handful
of factious rioters and bandits, as had been said for ten days. Here was
an immense force at the service of a definite idea--Communal
independence, the intellectual life of France--an invaluable force in
this time of universal anaemia, a godsend as precious as the compass
saved from the wreck and saving the survivors. This was one of those
great historical turning-points when a people may be remoulded.
Liberals, if it was in good faith that you called for decentralisation
under the Empire; Republicans, if you have understood June, 1848, and
December, 1851; Radicals, if you really want the self-government of the
people, listen to this new voice, avail yourselves of this marvellous
opportunity.
But the Prussian! What does it matter? Why not forge arms under the eye
of the enemy? Bourgeois, was it not in sight of the foreigner that your
ancestor Etienne Marcel tried to remake France? And your Convention, did
not it first act in the very midst of the hurricane?
What did they answer? Death to Paris!
The red sun of civil discord melts veneer and all masks. There they are
side by side as in 1791, 1794, and 1848, Monarchists, Clericals,
Liberals, Radicals, all of them, their hands raised against the
people--one army in different uniforms. Their decentralisation is rural
and capitalist federalism; their self-government, the exploitation of
the budget by themselves, just as the whole political science of their
statesmen consists only in massacre and the state of siege.
What bourgeoisie in the world after such immense disasters would not
with careful heed have tended such a reservoir of living force? They,
seeing this Paris capable of engendering a new world, her heart swelled
with the best blood of France, had but one thought--to bleed Paris.