THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNE WAVERS FROM ITS FIRST SITTINGS--THE
MAYORS AND ADJUNCTS ELECTED DESERT EN MASSE.
The Place of the Hotel-de-Ville was still astir when the newly elected
members of the Commune assembled in the municipal council-hall.
The ballot had returned sixteen mayors, adjuncts, and Liberals of all
shades,[107] a few Radicals,[108] and about sixty Revolutionists of all
sorts.[109]
How came these latter to be chosen? All must be told, and virile truth
at last substituted for the stale flattery of the old romantic school
styling itself "Revolutionary." There might be something more terrible
than the defeat: to misconstrue or to forget its causes.
Responsibility weighs heavily enough upon the elected, but we must not
charge it all to one side--the electors also have their share of it.
The Central Committee had told the people on Sunday, the 19th instant,
"Prepare for your communal elections." They thus had a whole week in
which to frame a mandate and select their mandatories. No doubt the
resistance of the mayors and the occupation of the military posts kept
away many of the revolutionary electors from their arrondissements, but
there still remained enough citizens to conduct the work of selection.
Never had a mandate been more indispensable, for the question at issue
was to give Paris a communal constitution acceptable to all France.
Never did Paris stand in such need of enlightened and practical men,
capable at once of negotiating and of combating.
Yet there was never less preparatory discussion. A few men only recalled
to prudence a people habitually so over-scrupulous in electoral matters,
and which had just made a revolution to get rid of their
representatives. The Committee of the twenty arrondissements issued a
manifesto very pertinent in several points, and which might have served
as an outline; the two delegates at the Home Office tried, through an
article in the _Officiel_, to impress Paris with the importance of her
vote. Not a single assembly framed the general programme of Paris; only
two or three arrondissements gave some sort of mandate.
Instead of voting for a programme, they voted for names. Those who had
demanded the Commune, made a mark at the Corderie or during the siege,
were elected without being asked for further explanations, some even
twice, like Flourens, in spite of the blunders of the 31st October. Only
seven or eight, and those not the best, of the obscure men of the
Central Committee were named, the latter, it is true, having decided
not to present itself for election. The public meetings in many
arrondissements sent up the most violent talkers, romanticists sprung up
during the siege, and lacking all knowledge of practical life. Nowhere
were the candidates put to any test. In the ardour of the struggle they
took no thought for the morrow. One might have fancied that the object
in view was a simple manifestation, not the foundation of a new order of
things.
Twenty-four workmen only were elected, and of these a third belonged
rather to the public meetings than to the International or the
workingmen's societies. The other delegates of the people were chosen
from the small middle-class and the so-called liberal professions,
accountants, publicists--there were as many as twelve of these--doctors
and lawyers. These, save a few really studious men, whether veterans or
new-comers, were as ignorant as the workmen of the political and
administrative mechanism of the bourgeoisie, albeit full of their own
personality. The safety of the Central Committee lay in this, that it
was unadorned with great men, each one provided with a formula of his
own. The Council of the Commune, on the contrary, abounded in chapels,
groups, semi-celebrities, and hence endless competition and rivalry.
Thus the precipitation and heedlessness of the Revolutionary electors
sent up to the Hotel-de-Ville a majority of men, most of them devoted,
but chosen without discernment, and, into the bargain, abandoned them to
their own inspirations, to their whims, without any determined mandate
to restrain and guide them in the struggle entered upon.
Time and experience would no doubt have corrected this negligence, but
time was wanting. The people never holds sway but for an hour, and woe
to them if they are not then ready, armed _cap-a-pie_. The elections of
the 26th March were irreparable.
Only about sixty of those elected were present at the first sitting. At
its opening, the Central Committee came to congratulate the Council. The
chairman by seniority, Beslay, a capitalist of a fraternising turn of
mind, made the opening speech. He very happily defined this young
revolution: "The enfranchisement of the Commune of Paris is the
enfranchisement of all the communes of the Republic. Your adversaries
have said that you have struck the Republic. It is as with the pile, to
be driven deeper into the earth. The Republic of 1793 was a soldier, who
wanted to centralise all the forces of the nation; the Republic of 1871
is a workman, who above all wants liberty to fecundate peace. The
Commune will occupy itself with all that is local, the Department with
what is regional, the Government with what is national. Let us not
overstep this limit, and the country and the Government will be happy
and proud to applaud this revolution." This was the naive illusion of an
old man, who, nevertheless, had had the experience of a long political
life. This programme, so moderate in its form, was nothing less than the
death-knell of the great bourgeoisie, as shown during this very sitting.
There were already some jarring notes. The violent and the giddy-headed
launched out into random motions, and wanted the Commune to declare
itself omnipotent. Tirard, elected by his arrondissement, improved this
occasion to withdraw, stating that his mandate was purely municipal,
that he could not recognise the political character of the Commune, gave
in his resignation, and ironically bade farewell to the Council: "I
leave you my sincere good wishes; may you succeed in your task," &c.
The insolence of this dishonest man, who for eight days had been busy in
fomenting civil war and now threw up the mandate solicited in his
address to the electors, evoked general indignation. The more impatient
wanted to have him arrested, others to declare his mandate forfeited. He
escaped scot-free because he had said at the Versailles tribune, "When
you enter the Hotel-de-Ville, you are not sure to return from it."
This incident no doubt induced the Council to vote the secrecy of their
sittings, their awkward pretext being that the Commune was not a
parliament. This decision produced a very bad effect, violating the
best traditions of the great Commune of 1792-93, as it gave the Council
the appearance of a conspiracy, and it was found necessary to quash it
two weeks after, when the newspapers abounded in fantastic reports, as a
natural consequence of the secret sittings. But the publicity never
consisted in anything but the insertion of curtailed reports in the
_Officiel_. The Council never admitted the public, whose presence would
have prevented many faults.
The next day the Council subdivided itself into commissions charged with
the various services. A Military Commission, and others of Finance,
Justice, Public Safety, Labour and Exchange, Provisions, Foreign
Affairs, Public Services, and Education were named. The Executive
Commission was composed of Lefrancais, Duval, Felix Pyat, Bergeret,
Tridon, Eudes, and Vaillant, of whom Duval, Bergeret, and Eudes also
belonged to the Military Commission.
It had just been voted that all decrees should be signed _The
Commune_--a vote too soon forgotten--when the delegates of the Central
Committee were announced. After waiting half an hour they were
introduced. "Citizens," said their spokesman, "the Central Committee
comes to hand over to you its revolutionary powers. We resume the
functions defined by our statutes."
This was the moment for the Council to affirm its authority. The only
representative of the population, alone responsible, it should now have
absorbed all powers, not tolerating the co-existence of a Committee
which was sure always to remember the paramount position it had held and
strive to recover it. In the previous sitting, the Council had done
justice to the Central Committee in voting that they had deserved well
of Paris and the Republic, and now taking them at their word, ought to
have declared that the role of the Committee had come to an end. Instead
of an authoritative decision in this sense, recriminations were resorted
to.
A member of the Council recalled the promise of the Central Committee
to dissolve after the elections. Unless they aimed at power, there was
no necessity for the maintenance of their organisation. Varlin and
Beslay defended the existence of the Committee, which was combated by
Jourde and Rigault. The delegates, who would have yielded to a
peremptory word, held out against this weakness. "This is," they said,
"the Federation that has saved the Republic. The last word is not yet
said. To dissolve this organisation is to break your strength. The
Central Committee does not pretend to share in the government. It
remains the bond of union between you and the National Guard, the right
hand of the Revolution. We again become what we were, the great _conseil
de famille_ of the National Guard."
This simile made a marked impression. The debate was prolonged, and the
delegates of the Committee withdrew, no conclusion having been arrived
at.
Thereupon, without preamble, like a Jack-in-the-box, Felix Pyat jumped
up and proposed the abolition of the conscription.
On the 3rd March he had stolen away from the National Assembly, as he
had on the 31st October deserted the Hotel-de-Ville, and, a few days
after, sneaked out of prison. On the 18th March he did not stir, while
Delescluze had joined the revolution from the first day. Felix Pyat
waited for the triumph, and on the eve of the elections came to sound
the timbrel before the Committee, "which teaches modesty to the proudest
name and inspires men of genius with a feeling of inferiority." Elected
by about 12,000 votes in the tenth arrondissement, he was now forward to
take his seat at the Hotel-de-Ville.
The hour awaited for twenty years had at last struck; he was about to
tread the boards. Amidst the crowd of dramatists, thaumaturgists,
romanticists, visionaries, and Jacobin relics, trailing since 1830 at
the heels of the social revolution, his business had been that of
appeals to regicide, to revolutionary chouannerie, of epistles,
allegories, toasts, invocations, evocations, pieces of rhetoric on the
events of the day, tinkering the old Montagnard wares, and doing them
up with a little humanitarian varnish. Under the Empire his rabid
manifestoes had been the joy of the police and of the Bonapartist
journals, excellent sops to throw to the people, who could not extract
from them a practical idea or a grain of sense. This intoxication was
more than half-feigned. The dishevelled madman of the stage behind the
scenes turned crafty, trickish, and wary to a degree. At bottom he was
only a splenetic sceptic, sincere only in his self-idolatry. He came to
the Commune his pockets crammed with decrees.
When he read his motion, it was lustily cheered by the romanticists and
passed at once. Yet still in the morning the Council had intimated
nothing of the sort, but only stated in the proclamation in which they
presented themselves to Paris: "To-day the decision on house-rents,
to-morrow that on the overdue bills, the public services re-established
and simplified, and the National Guards reorganised, these are our first
acts." And now it abruptly encroached upon national affairs. Commune in
the morning, Constituent Assembly in the evening.
If they wanted to change the revolution from a communal into a national
one, they ought to have said so, boldly set forth their whole programme,
and demonstrated to France the necessity of their attempt. But what
signified this decree, improvised at random, without a preliminary
declaration and without a sequel? This _quid pro quo_ was not even taken
up. Under pretext of avoiding parliamentarism, the matters at issue were
hurried over.
Then the Council decreed the general release of rents due between
October, 1870, and July, 1871. Versailles had offered only delays; this
was contrary to equity. The Council released rents for the good reason
that property ought to bear its share of the general sacrifices; but it
did not except a lot of industrials who had realised scandalous profits
during the siege. This was contrary to justice.
Finally, they neglected to announce themselves to the provinces, already
so forsaken by the Central Committee. A commission had certainly been
charged to draw up an address, but its work had not pleased, and another
one had been named, so that what with one commission and another, the
programme of the Commune was kept in suspense for twenty-two days, and
the Council had allowed all the insurrections of the provinces to die
out without giving them any advice or ideas.
These encroachments, this disorder, disturbed Paris with the thought
that the new power had neither very clear ideas nor consciousness of the
situation. The Liberal fraction of the Council took advantage of this
pretext to withdraw. If their convention of the 20th had been sincere,
if they had cared for the destinies of Paris, the mayor and adjuncts
elected would have courageously stood by their mandates. Like those of
the provinces, they deserted, but were still more culpable, since they
had not protested against their elections. Many had never been seen at
the Hotel-de-Ville; others wrung their hands, lamenting, "Where are we
going?" Some shammed mortal illness: "You see I am at my last gasp."
Those who have been most abusive since, then sought for humble evasions.
Not one broke boldly.
Their resignations,[110] the double elections, left twenty-two seats
vacant on the 30th, when the Council verified the credentials. Faithful
to the best traditions of the French Republic, it admitted the Hungarian
Frankel, one of the most intelligent members of the International,
elected in the thirteenth arrondissement. Six candidates had not
received the eighth part of the votes required by the law of 1849; the
Council passed by this irregularity because the arrondissements of these
candidates, composed of reactionary quarters, were emptying themselves
from day to day.
The men of order, twice chastised, continued migrating to Versailles,
which they stocked with a new store of rancour and rhodomontades. The
town had assumed a warlike aspect; all announced that the struggle was
near at hand. Already M. Thiers had cut off Paris from France. On the
eve of the April term, the 31st March, the director of the general
post-office, Rampont, belying the word of honour he had given the
delegate of the Central Committee, Theisz, made off after having
disorganised the postal service, and M. Thiers suppressed all the goods
trains and kept back all correspondence destined for Paris.
On the 1st April he officially announced war. "The Assembly," he
telegraphed to the prefects, "is sitting at Versailles, where the
organisation of one of the finest armies that France has ever possessed
is being completed. Good citizens may then take heart and hope for the
end of a struggle which will be sad but short." A cynical boast of that
same bourgeoisie which had refused to organise armies against the
Prussians. "One of the finest armies," was as yet only the rabble of the
18th March, strengthened by five or six regiments; about 35,000 men,
with 3,000 horses, and 5,000 gendarmes or sergents-de-ville, the only
corps that had any solidity.
Paris would not believe in the existence even of this army. The popular
papers demanded a sortie, speaking of the journey to Versailles as a
promenade. The most impetuous was the _Vengeur_, in which Felix Pyat
furiously shook his cap and bells. He exhorted the Commune "to press
Versailles. Poor Versailles! it no longer remembers the 5th and 6th
October, 1789, when the women of the Commune alone sufficed to catch its
king." On the morning of Sunday the 2nd April the same member of the
Executive Commission announced to Paris: "Yesterday at Versailles the
soldiers, requested to vote by _aye_ or _no_ if they were to march on
Paris, answered No!"
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Ad. Adam, Meline, Rochard, Barre (1st arrondissement, Louvre);
Brelay, Loiseau-Pinson, Tirard, Cheron (2nd, Bourse); Ch. Murat (3rd,
Temple); A. Le Roy, Robinet (6th, Luxembourg); Desmarets, E. Ferry, Nast
(9th, Opera); Marmottan, De Bouteillier (16th, Passy).
[108] Goupil (6th, Luxembourg); E. Lefevre (7th, Palais-Bourbon); A.
Ranc, U. Parent (9th, Opera).
[109] Demay, A. Arnaud, Pindy, C. Dupont (3rd, Temple); A. Arnould,
Lefrancais, Clemence, E. Gerardin (4th, Hotel-de-Ville); Regere, Jourde,
Tridon, Blanchet, Ledroit (5th, Pantheon); Beslay, Varlin (6th,
Luxembourg); Parizel, Urbain, Brunel (7th, Palais-Bourbon); Raoul
Rigault, Vaillant, A. Arnould, Alix (8th, Champs-Elysees); Gambon,
Felix, Pyat, H. Fortune, Champy, Babick, Rastoul (10th, Enclos St.
Laurent); Mortier, Delescluze, Assi, Protot, Eudes, Avrial, Verdure
(11th, Popincourt); Varlin, Geresme, Theisz, Fruneau (12th, Reuilly);
Leo Meillet, Duval, Chardon, Frankel (13th, Gobelins); Billioray,
Martelet, Decamp (14th, Observatoire); V. Clement, J. Valles, Langevin
(15th, Vaugirard); Varlin, E. Clement, Ch. Gerardin, Chalain, Malon
(17th, Batignolles); Blanqui, Theisz, Dereure, J. B. Clement, Ferre,
Vermorel, P. Grousset (18th, Montmartre); Oudet, Puget, Delescluze, J.
Miot, Ostyn, Flourens (19th, Buttes-Chaumont); Bergeret, Ranvier,
Flourens, Blanqui (20th, Menilmontant). Blanqui had been arrested in the
South of France, where he had gone for the sake of his health.
[110] See Appendix III.