"Toutes les parties de la France sont unies et ralliees
autour de l'Assemblee et du gouvernement."--_Circulaire de
M. Thiers a la Province, le 23 au soir._
THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT.
What was the state of the provinces?
For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon
lying despatches of M. Thiers,[102] then looked at the signatures to the
proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the
Left nor the democratic paragons, said, "Who are these unknown men?" The
Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the
siege of Paris--very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative
press--as their fathers had formerly said, "Pitt and Coburg," when
unable to comprehend popular movements, they cried, "These unknown men
can be nothing but Bonapartists." The people alone showed true instinct.
The Paris Commune found its first echo at Lyons. This was a necessary
reverberation. Since the advent of the Assembly the workmen found
themselves watched. The municipal councillors, weak men, some of them,
almost to reaction, had lowered the red flag under the pretext that "the
proud flag of resistance _a outrance_ should not survive the humiliation
of France." The clumsy trick had not deceived the people, who, at the
Guillotiere, mounted guard round their flag. The new prefect, Valentin,
an ex-officer as brutal as vulgar, a kind of Clement-Thomas,
sufficiently forewarned the people what sort of Republic was in store
for them.
On the 19th, at the first news, Republicans were on the alert, nor did
they hide their sympathy for Paris. The next day Valentin issued a
provocative proclamation, seized the Parisian journals, and refused to
communicate any despatches. On the 21st, in the municipal council, some
of the members grew indignant, and one said, "Let us at least have the
courage to be the Commune of Lyons." On the 22nd, at mid-day, eight
hundred delegates of the National Guard assembled at the Palais de St.
Pierre. A motion was put proposing to choose between Paris and
Versailles. A citizen just arrived from Paris explained the movement
there, and many wanted the meeting to declare itself immediately for
Paris. The Assembly finally sent delegates to the Hotel-de-Ville to ask
for the extension of the municipal liberties, the appointment of the
mayor as chief of the National Guard, and his investiture with the
functions of prefect.
The municipal council was just sitting. The mayor, Henon, a
wooden-headed relic of 1848, opposed all resistance to Versailles. The
mayor of the Guillotiere, Crestin, a known Republican, demanded that
they should at least protest. Others wanted the council to extend its
prerogatives. Henon threatened to tender his resignation if they went on
like that, and proposed they should repair to the prefect, who was then
convoking the reactionary battalions.
The delegates of the Palais St. Pierre arrived, and were roughly
received by Henon. One deputation succeeded the other, always meeting
with the same rebuffs. However, during this time the battalions of
Brotteaux and La Guillotiere were preparing, and at eight o'clock a
dense mass filled the Place des Terreaux in front of the Hotel-de-Ville,
crying, "Vive la Commune! Down with Versailles!" The reactionary
battalions did not respond to the prefect's appeal.
Part of the council had met again at nine o'clock, while the others,
together with Henon, were still wrangling with the delegates. After an
answer from the mayor, which left them no hope of coming to an
understanding, the delegates invaded the council-chamber, and the crowd,
apprised of this, rushed into the Hotel-de-Ville. The delegates, sitting
down round the council table, named Crestin mayor of Lyons. He refused,
and, summoned to give his reasons, declared that the direction of the
movement belonged to those who had initiated it. After a great uproar,
the National Guards acclaimed a Communal Commission, at the head of
which they placed five municipal councillors--Crestin, Durand,
Bouvatier, Perret and Velay. The delegates sent for Valentin, and asked
him if he were for Versailles. He answered that his proclamation could
leave no doubt on that head, whereupon he was put under arrest. Then
they decided on the proclamation of the Commune, the dissolution of the
municipal council, the dismissal of the prefect and of the general of
the National Guard, who was to be replaced by Ricciotti Garibaldi, noted
alike by his name and his services in the army of the Vosges. These
resolutions were announced to the people and hailed with cheers. The red
flag was again unfurled from the balcony.
The next day, the 23rd March, early in the morning, the five councillors
named the evening before backed out, thus obliging the insurgents to
present themselves single-handed to Lyons and the neighboring towns.
"The Commune," they said, "must vindicate for Lyons the right to impose
and administer her own taxes, to have her own police, and to dispose of
her National Guard, which is to occupy all posts and forts." This rather
meagre programme was a little further expanded by the committees of the
National Guard and the Republican Alliance: "With the Commune, the taxes
will be lightened, the public money will no longer be squandered,
social institutions demanded by the working-class will be founded. Much
misery and suffering will be alleviated pending the final disappearance
of that hideous social evil, pauperism." Insufficient proclamations
these, inconclusive, mute as to the danger of the Republic and the
clerical conspiracy, the only levers by which the small middle-class
might have been roused.
So the Commission found itself isolated. It had taken the fort of
Charpennes, accumulated cartridges, disposed the cannons and
mitrailleuses round the Hotel-de-Ville; but the popular battalions,
except two or three, had withdrawn without leaving a picket, and the
resistance was being organised. General Crouzat at the station picked up
all the soldiers, marines, and mobiles dispersed about Lyons. Henon
named a general of the National Guard. The officers of the battalions of
order protested against the Commune, and placed themselves at the
disposition of the municipal council, which sat in the cabinet of the
mayor, close to the Commission.
Forgetting it had dissolved the Council the evening before, it invited
the Council to hold their sitting in the ordinary council-room. They
arrived at four o'clock. The Commission gave up the place to them,
National Guards occupying that part of the room reserved to the public.
Had there been some vigour in this middle class, some foreboding of the
Conservative atrocities, the Republican councillors would have taken the
lead of this popular movement; but they were still, some of them, the
same mercantile aristocrats, chary of their gold and their persons
during the war of the national defence; the others, the same overweening
Radicals who had always striven for the subordination instead of the
emancipation of the working-class. While they were deliberating without
coming to any resolution, the assistants, growing impatient, uttered a
few exclamations shocking to their lordliness, and they brusquely raised
the sitting in order to go and draw up an address with Henon.
In the evening two delegates of the Central Committee of Paris arrived
at the club of the Rue Duguesclin. They were taken to the
Hotel-de-Ville, where from the large balcony they harangued the mass,
who answered with cries of "Vive Paris! Vive la Commune!" and
Ricciotti's name was again acclaimed.
But this was only a demonstration. The delegates were themselves too
inexperienced to keep alive and direct this movement. On the 24th there
remained on the Place de Terreaux but a few groups of idlers. The
_rappel_ sounded in vain. The four important journals of Lyons, Radical,
Liberal and Clerical, "energetically repudiated all connivance with the
Parisian, Lyonese, and other insurrections;" and General Crouzat spread
the rumour that the Prussians, camping at Dijon, threatened to occupy
Lyons within twenty-four hours if order were not re-established. The
Commission, more and more deserted, again turned to the Council, which
now held its sitting at the Bourse, proposing to hand over the
administration to them. The Council refused to treat. "No," said the
mayor, "we will never accept the Commune." And as the mobiles from
Belfort were announced, the Council decided to give them a solemn
reception. This was a declaration of war.
The parley had been going on the whole afternoon until late into the
evening. Little by little the Hotel-de-Ville grew empty, and the members
of the Commission disappeared. At four o'clock in the morning the only
two who remained cancelled their powers,[103] dismissed the sentries who
guarded the prefect, and left the Hotel-de-Ville. The next day Lyons
found her Commune gone.
* * * * *
On the same evening, when dying out at Lyons, the revolutionary movement
burst forth at St. Etienne. Since the 31st October, when they had almost
succeeded in officially proclaiming the Commune, the Socialists had not
ceased calling for it, despite the resistance, and even the threats, of
the municipal council.
There were two Republican centres--the Committee of the National Guard,
spurred on by the revolutionary club of the Rue de la Vierge, and the
Republican Alliance at the head of the advanced Republicans. The
municipal council was, with one or two exceptions, composed of those
Radicals who know not how to resist the people without being crushed by
the reaction. The Committee and the Alliance agreed to ask for its
renewal.
The 18th March was enthusiastically welcomed by the workmen. The Radical
organ, _L'Eclaireur_, said, without drawing any conclusion: "If the
Assembly prevails, the Republic is done for; if, on the other hand, the
deputies of Paris separate from the Central Committee, they must have a
good reason for it." The people went straight on. On the 23rd the Club
de la Vierge sent delegates to the Hotel-de-Ville to ask for the
Commune. The mayor promised to submit the question to his colleagues.
The Alliance also came to demand the adjunction to the council of a
certain number of delegates.
The next day, the 24th, the delegations returned. The Council tendered
their resignation, and declared they would only officiate till their
replacement by the electors, to be convoked with the briefest delay.
This was a defeat, for the same day the prefect _ad interim_, Morellet,
adjured the population not to proclaim the Commune, but to respect the
authority of the Assembly. At seven o'clock in the evening a company of
the National Guard relieved the sentinel to the cries of "Vive la
Commune!" The Central Committee invited the Alliance to join them in
taking possession of the Hotel-de-Ville. The Radicals refused, saying
that the promise of the Council sufficed; that the movements of Paris
and Lyons were of a vague character, and that it was necessary to affirm
order and public tranquility.
During these negotiations the people had assembled at the Club de la
Vierge, accusing the first delegates of weakness, resolved to send
others, and to accompany them, so that they could not give way. At ten
o'clock two columns of 400 men each drew up before the rails that cover
the Hotel-de-Ville. These had been closed by order of the new prefect,
M. De l'Espee, an autocrat of iron works, who had just then arrived,
eager to subdue the disturbers. But the people began pulling down the
rails, and it was necessary to let in their delegates. They found the
mayor and Morellet, asked for the Commune, and provisionally the
adjunction of a popular commission. The mayor refused, the former
prefect obstinately tried to demonstrate that the Commune was a Prussian
invention. Hopeless of convincing the delegates, he went to warn M. De
l'Espee--the prefecture being contiguous to the mairie--and both then
making off by the garden, succeeded in rejoining General Lavoye, the
commander of the garrison.
At midnight the delegates, unable to obtain anything, declared that
nobody would be allowed to leave the Hotel-de-Ville, and proceeding to
the rails, told the demonstrators to reflect. Some ran off in quest of
arms, others penetrated into the Salle des Prudhommes, where they held a
meeting. The night passed tumultuously. The delegates, who had just
learned the miscarriage of the movement at Lyons wavered. The people
threatened and were for beating the _rappel_. The mayor refused. At
last, at seven o'clock, he found an expedient, and promised to propose a
plebiscite on the establishment of the Commune. A delegate read this
declaration to the people, who at once withdrew from the Hotel-de-Ville.
At the same moment M. De l'Espee conceived the brilliant idea of beating
the _rappel_, which the people had in vain asked for since midnight. He
picked up some National Guards of order, re-entered the now empty
Hotel-de-Ville, and promulgated his victory. The municipal council
informing him of the morning's agreement, De l'Espee refused to fix the
date of the elections. Besides, said he, the general had promised him
the aid of the garrison.
At eleven o'clock the prefect's call to arms had reassembled all the
popular battalions. Groups formed before the Hotel-de-Ville, crying
"Vive la Commune!" De l'Espee sent for his troops, consisting of 250
foot-soldiers and two squadrons of hussars, who came up sluggishly. The
multitude surrounded them; the Council protested; and the prefect had to
discharge his warriors, there remaining to face the crowd only a line of
firemen, and in the Hotel-de-Ville two companies, of which but one was
favourable to the party of order.
Towards mid-day a delegation summoned the Council to keep their promise.
The councillors present--only few in number--were not adverse to
accepting as coadjutors two delegates from each company, but De l'Espee
formally declared against any concession. At four o'clock a very
numerous delegation from the Committee presented itself. The prefect
spoke of retrenching himself and of strengthening the gates for defence;
but the firemen raised the butt end of their muskets, opened the
passage, and De l'Espee had to receive some of the delegates.
The crowd outside waxed unruly, impatient at these useless parleys. At
half-past four the workmen from the manufactory of arms arrived, when a
shot was fired from one of the houses of the place, killing Lyonnet, a
workingman. A hundred shots answered; the drums beat, the trumpets
sounded the charge, and the battalions rushed into the Hotel-de-Ville,
while others searched the house whence the attack was supposed to have
come.
At the noise of the firing the prefect broke off the conference and
tried to escape as on the night before, mistook his way, was recognised
and seized, together with the deputy of the _procureur de la
Republique_, brought back with the latter into the large hall, and shown
from the balcony. The crowd hooted him, convinced that he had given the
order to fire upon the people. One of the reactionist guards, M. De
Ventavon, on his flight from the mairie, was taken for the murderer of
Lyonnet, and carried about on the litter on which the corpse had just
been transported to the hospital.
The prefect and the procureur's deputy were left in the large hall in
the midst of exasperated men. Many accused De l'Espee of having provoked
the fusillade of the miners of Aubin under the Empire. He protested,
stating that he had been director of the mines of Archambault, not those
of Aubin. Little by little, the crowd, tired out, dispersed, and at
eight o'clock about forty guards only remained in the hall. The
prisoners took some food, when the president of the Commune, which was
constituting itself in a neighbouring room, seeing everything calm, also
withdrew. At nine o'clock the crowd returned, crying, "La Commune! La
Commune! Sign!" De l'Espee offered to sign his resignation, but added
that he did so under compulsion. The prisoners were in charge of two
men, Victoire and Fillon, the latter an old exile, quite distracted, who
turned now against the crowd, now against the prisoners. At ten o'clock,
being hard pressed by the throng of people, Fillon, as in a dream, faced
about, fired two shots from his revolver, killing his friend Victoire
and wounding a drummer. Instantaneously the muskets were levelled at
him, and Fillon and De l'Espee fell dead. The deputy, covered by the
corpse of Fillon, escaped the discharge. The next day he and M. De
Ventavon were set free.
During the evening a Commission constituted itself, chosen from amongst
the officers of the National Guards and the habitual orators of the Club
de la Vierge. It had the station occupied, took possession of the
telegraph, seized the cartridges of the powder-magazine, and convoked
the electors for the 29th. "The Commune," it said, "does not mean
incendiarism, nor theft, nor pillage, as so many are pleased to give
out, but the conquest of the franchises and the independence ravished
from us by imperial and monarchical legislation; it is the true basis of
the Republic." This was the whole preamble. In this industrial hive, by
the side of the thousands of miners of La Ricamarie and Firminy, they
found not a word to say on the social question. The Commission only knew
how to beat the _rappel_, which, as at Lyons, was not responded to.
The next day, Sunday, the town, calm and curious, read the proclamation
of the Commune, placarded side by side with the appeals of the general
and of the procureur. While this latter, as became a good Radical, spoke
of a Bonapartist plot, the general invited the Council to withdraw its
resignation. He went to the councillors, who had taken refuge in the
barracks, and said to them, "My soldiers won't fight, but I have a
thousand chassepots. If you will make use of them, forward!" The
councillors protested their unfitness for military exploits; but at the
same time, as at Lyons, refused to communicate with the Hotel-de-Ville,
considering "that one can only treat with honest men."
On the 27th the Alliance and _L'Eclaireur_ altogether withdrew, and the
Commission gradually dwindled down. In the evening, the few faithful
still holding out received two young men, whom the delegates from the
Central Committee at Lyons had sent. They urged resistance; but the
Hotel-de-Ville was being deserted, and on the morning of the 28th there
were only about a hundred left. At six o'clock General Lavoye presented
himself with the francs-tireurs of the Vosges and some troops come from
Montbrison. The National Guards, on his appeal to lay down their arms in
order to avoid bloodshed, consented to evacuate the mairie.
Numerous arrests were made. The Conservatives overwhelmed the Commune
with the customary insults, and recounted that cannibals had been seen
amongst the murderers of the prefect.[104] _L'Eclaireur_ did not fail to
demonstrate that the movement was purely Bonapartist. The workingmen
felt themselves vanquished, and at the solemn funeral of M. De l'Espee
not loud but deep curses were uttered.
* * * * *
At Creuzot, also the proletarians were defeated. Yet the Socialists
administered the town from the 4th September, the mayor, Dumay, being a
former workman at the iron works. On the 25th, at the news from Lyons,
they spoke of proclaiming the Commune. At their review on the 26th the
National Guards cried "Vive la Commune!" and the crowd accompanied them
to the Place of the Mairie, held by the colonel of cuirassiers,
Gerhardt. He ordered the foot-soldiers to fire. They refused. He then
ordered the cavalry to charge; but the guards levelled their bayonets
and invaded the mairie. Dumay pronounced the abolition of the Versailles
Government, proclaimed the Commune, and the red flag was hoisted.
But there, as everywhere else, the people did not move. The commander of
Creuzot came back the next day with a reinforcement, dispersed the
crowd, which was standing curious and passive in the square, and took
possession of the mairie.
In four days all the revolutionary centres of the east, Lyons, St.
Etienne, and Creuzot, were lost to the Commune.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] He then and there inaugurated this incomparable lying campaign,
the progress of which we shall closely watch. On the 19th he said, "The
army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated in good order at
Versailles." There were 23,000 men (the number given by himself in the
_Enquete_) totally disbanded. On the 20th: "The Government did not want
to enter into a bloody struggle, though provoked." By the 21st the army
had grown to 45,000 men: "The insurrection is disavowed by everybody."
On the 22nd: "From all sides the Government is offered battalions of
mobiles to support it against anarchy." On the 27th, while the votes
were being counted: "A considerable proportion of the population and of
the National Guard of Paris solicits the help of the provinces to
re-establish order."
[103] "Considering," said they in their declaration, "that the
Provisional Commune of Lyons, acclaimed by the National Guard, is no
longer feeling itself supported by them, the members of the Commune
declare themselves released from their engagements towards their
electors, and resign all powers they have received."
[104] Certain infamous evidence must be quoted in full in order to give
a notion of the delirium tremens of the great bourgeoisie when speaking
of the Commune. Four months after these events the Prefect Ducros, the
inventor of the famous bridges of the Marne, deposed before the
_Commission d'Enquete sur le 18 Mars_: "They did not respect his corpse;
they cut off his head. In the night, horrible to say, one of the men who
had participated in the assassination, and who has been put on his
trial, came to a cafe offering those present pieces of M. De l'Espee's
skull, and cracking under his teeth pieces of the same skull." And
Ducros dared to add: "The man had been arrested, put on his trial, and
acquitted." Horrible imaginings, which even the Radicals of St. Etienne
have stigmatised.