"La plus grande infamie dont l'histoire moderne ait garde la
souvenir, s'accomplit a cette heure, Paris est bombarde."
--Jules Favre, Jules Simon, E. Picard, Trochu, Jules Ferry,
E. Arago, Garnier-Pages, Pelletan. _Proclamation du
Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale a propos du bombardement
Prussien._
"Nous avons ecrase tout un quartier de Paris."--_M. Thiers a
l'Assemblee Nationale, Seance du 5 Aout 1871._
PARIS IS BOMBARDED--THE FORT OF ISSY SUCCUMBS--THE COUNCIL
ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--ROSSEL FLIES.
We must leave this heroic atmosphere to return to the quarrels of the
Council and of the Central Committee. Why did they not hold their
sittings at the Muette or under the eyes of the public?[152] The shells
of Montretout, which had just unmasked its powerful battery, the severe
attitude of the people, would no doubt have made them unite against the
common enemy. He had commenced to batter in breach.
On the 8th May, in the morning, seventy marine pieces began to attack
the enceinte from the bastion 60 to the Point du Jour. The shells of
Clamart already reached the quay of Javelle, and the battery of Breteuil
covered the Grenelle quarter with projectiles. In a few hours half Passy
had become uninhabitable.
M. Thiers accompanied his shells with a proclamation: "Parisians, the
Government will not bombard Paris, as the men of the Commune will not
fail to tell you. It will discharge its cannon.... It knows, it would
have understood, even if you had not said so on all sides, that as soon
as the soldiers cross the enceinte you will rally round the national
flag." And he invited the Parisians to open the gates to him. What was
the action of the Council in reply to this appeal to treason?
On the 8th it entered upon a random discussion on the minutes of its
sittings[153] and the publicity of the latter, which one member of the
majority wanted to suppress altogether. The minority complained of the
Central Committee, which had encroached upon all services in spite of
the Commission of War; it had driven away Varlin from the commissariat,
entirely reorganised by him. They asked whether the Government called
itself Central Committee or Commune. Felix Pyat justified himself by
accusing Rossel. "It is not the fault of the Committee of Public Safety
if Rossel has neither the strength nor the intelligence to keep the
Central Committee within its functions." The friends of Rossel answered,
accusing Pyat of continually interfering even in purely military
questions. If the Moulin Saquet had been surprised, it was because
Wroblewski, who commanded on that side, received a formal order from
Felix Pyat to repair to Issy. "It is false," said Pyat; "I have never
given such an order." They let him thoroughly enmesh himself, and then
produced the order, written entirely in his own hand. He took hold of
it, turned it round, feigned astonishment, and was finally obliged to
confess.[154] The discussion then reverted to the Central
Committee--were they to dissolve it, arrest its members, or surrender to
it the administration of the War Office? The Council, as usual, did not
dare to decide, and, after a confused debate, abode by the resolution of
the 3rd May--the Central Committee will be held subordinate to the
Military Commission.
At this very moment strange scenes were enacted at the War Office. The
_chefs-de-legion_, who were stirring more and more against Rossel, had
that day resolved to ask him for the report of all the decisions he was
about to take with respect to the National Guard. Rossel knew of their
project. In the evening, when they arrived at the Ministry, they found
in its court an armed platoon, and beheld Rossel watching them from his
window. "You are audacious," said he; "do you know that this platoon is
here to shoot you?" They, without appearing to care much: "There is no
need of audacity; we simply come to speak to you of the organisation of
the National Guard." Rossel relaxed, went to the window, gave orders to
the platoon to re-enter. This burlesque demonstration did not miss its
effect. The _chefs-de-legion_ disputed the project on the regiments
point by point, demonstrating its impossibility. Tired of arguing,
Rossel said to them, "I am fully aware that I have no forces, but I
affirm you have not either. You have, say you? Well, give me the proof.
To-morrow, at eleven o'clock, bring me 12,000 men to the Place de la
Concorde, and I will try to do something." He wanted to make an attempt
by the Clamart station. The _chefs-de-legion_ engaged to find the men,
and spent the whole night in search of them.
While these contests went on, the fort of Issy was being evacuated.
Since the morning it had been reduced to the last extremity. Any of its
defenders who approached the guns was a dead man. In the evening the
officers assembled, and came to the conclusion that they could no longer
hold out. Thereupon the men, driven away from all sides by the shells,
massed themselves under the entrance vault, when a shell from the Moulin
de Pierre fell in their midst, killing sixteen of them. Rist, Julien,
and several others, who were stubbornly bent upon holding these ruins,
were at last obliged to yield. About seven o'clock the evacuation began.
The commander, Lisbonne, one of the members of the first Central
Committee, a man of extraordinary courage, covered the retreat amidst a
shower of bullets.
A few hours after, the Versaillese, crossing the Seine, established
themselves before Boulogne in front of the bastions of the Point du
Jour, and opened a trench three hundred yards from the enceinte. All
that night and the whole morning of the 9th the War Office and the
Committee of Public Safety knew nothing of the evacuation of the fort.
On the 9th, at mid-day, the battalions asked for by Rossel were drawn up
along the Place de la Concorde. Rossel arrived on horseback, hardly
looked at the front lines, and then addressed the _chefs-de-legion_,
"There are not enough men here for me;" and at once turning about, rode
off to the War Office, where he was informed of the evacuation of the
fort of Issy. He seized his pen, wrote, "The tricolor flag floats from
the fort of Issy, abandoned yesterday evening by the garrison," and,
without apprising the Council or the Committee of Public Safety, gave
the order to placard ten thousand copies of these two lines, while six
thousand was the number usually printed.
He next sent in his resignation: "Citizens, members of the Commune, I
feel myself incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a
command where every one deliberates and no one obeys. The Central
Committee of Artillery has deliberated and prescribed nothing. The
Commune has deliberated and resolved upon nothing. The Central
Committee deliberates and has not yet known how to act. During this
delay the enemy has hemmed in the fort of Issy by imprudent attacks, for
which I would punish him if I had the smallest military force at my
disposal." He then recounted in his own fashion, and very inaccurately,
the evacuation of the fort, the review on the Place de la Concorde; said
that, instead of the 12,000 men promised, there were only 7,000,[155]
and concluded: "Thus the nullity of the Committee of Artillery prevented
the organisation of the artillery; the hesitation of the Central
Committee stopped the administration; the paltry pre-occupations of the
_chefs-de-legion_ paralysed the mobilisation of the troops. My
predecessor committed the fault of struggling against this absurd
situation. I retire, and have the honour to ask you for a cell at
Mazas."
He thus thought to clear his military reputation; but point by point he
might have been categorically answered. Why did you accept this "absurd"
situation with which you were thoroughly conversant? Why did you make no
conditions on entering the Ministry on the 1st April, no condition to
the Council on the 2nd and 3rd May? Why did you send away at least 7,000
men this morning, when you pretend not to have "the smallest military
force" at your disposal? Why did you know nothing for fifteen hours of
the evacuation of a fort whose straits it was your duty to watch from
hour to hour? Where is your second enceinte? Why has no work been done
at Montmartre and the Pantheon?
Rossel might perhaps have addressed his reproaches to the Council, but
he committed an unpardonable fault in sending his letters to the
journals. Thus in less than two hours he had disheartened 8,000
combatants, spread panic, stigmatised the brave men of Issy, denounced
the weakness of the defence to the enemy, and that at the very moment
when the Versaillese were rejoicing over the taking of Issy.
There every one was merrymaking. M. Thiers and MacMahon harangued the
soldiers, who, singing, brought back the few pieces found in the fort.
The Assembly suspended its sittings and came into the marble court to
applaud these children of the people who thought themselves victors. M.
Thiers a month later said from the tribune, "When I see these sons of
our soil, strangers often to an education that elevates, die for you,
for us, I am profoundly touched." Touching emotion this of the hunter
before his pack. Remember this avowal and the sort of men for whom you
die, sons of the soil!
And at the Hotel-de-Ville they were still disputing! Rigault
recriminated. The majority of the Council had named him procureur of the
Commune in spite of his culpable levity at the Prefecture. The
discussion was growing angry when Delescluze entered hastily and
exclaimed, "You discuss when it has been placarded that the tricolor
flag floats from the fort of Issy. I make an appeal to you all. I had
hoped that France would be saved by Paris and Europe by France. The
Commune is pregnant with a power of revolutionary instinct capable of
saving the country. Cast aside to-day all your animosities. We must save
the country. The Committee of Public Safety has not answered our
expectations. It has been an obstacle instead of a stimulus. With what
is it occupying itself? With individual appointments instead of general
measures. A decree signed Meillet names this citizen himself governor of
the fort of Bicetre. We had a man there, a soldier,[156] who was thought
too severe. It is desirable that all were as severe as he. Your
Committee of Public Safety is undone, crushed beneath the weight of the
memories attached to it. I say it must disappear."
The Assembly, thus brought back to a sense of its duty, resolved into a
secret committee, thoroughly discussing the Committee of Public Safety.
What had it done for a week past? Installed the Central Committee at the
War Office, increased the disorder, sustained two disasters. Its members
lost themselves in details or else did amateur service. One deserted
the Hotel-de-Ville to go and shut himself up in a fort; if at least it
had been that of Issy or of Vanves! Felix Pyat passed the greater part
of his time in the office of the _Vengeur_, there venting his spleen in
long-winded articles. A member of the Committee of Public Safety
endeavoured to defend it by pleading the vagueness of its attributes. He
was answered that Article 3 of the decree gave the Committee full powers
over all the Commissions. Finally, after many hours, they decided to
renew the Committee at once; to appoint a civil delegate to the War
Office; to draw up a proclamation; to meet, save in cases of emergency,
only three times a week; to establish the new Committee permanently at
the Hotel-de-Ville, while the other members of the Council were to stay
regularly in their respective arrondissements. Delescluze was named
Delegate at War.
In the evening, at ten o'clock, there was a second meeting for the
nomination of the new Committee. The majority voted Felix Pyat, quite
exasperated at the attacks of the afternoon, to the chair. He opened the
sitting by demanding the arrest of Rossel. Cleverly grouping together
appearances which seemed proofs to the suspicious, he made Rossel the
scapegoat of the faults of the Committee, turning the anger of the
Council against him. For half an hour he disparaged the absent man, whom
he would not have dared attack to his face. "I told you, citizens, that
he was a traitor. You would not believe me. You are young; you did not,
like our paragons of the Convention, know how to mistrust military
power." This reminiscence ravished the Romanticists. They had but one
dream--to be Conventionnels. So difficult was it for this revolution of
proletarians to rid itself of bourgeois tinsel.
The ire of Pyat was not wanted to convince the Assembly. Rossel's act
was culpable in the eyes of the least prejudiced. His arrest was decreed
unanimously, less two voices, and the Commission of War received the
order to carry it out.
They next passed to the nomination of the Committee. The minority, a
little reassured by the election of Delescluze and Jourde, which seemed
to acknowledge the right of the Council to appoint the delegates,
resolved to take part in the vote, and asked for a place in the list of
the majority. This was an excellent occasion to efface all differences,
to re-establish union against Versailles. But the perfidious promptings
of Felix Pyat had induced the Romanticists to look upon their colleagues
of the minority as veritable reactionists. After his speech the sitting
was suspended; little by little the members of the minority found
themselves alone in the council-hall. They looked for their colleagues
and surprised them in a neighbouring room deliberating apart. After a
violent altercation they all returned to the Council.
A member of the minority demanded that they should put an end to these
shameful divisions. A Romanticist answered by asking for the arrest of
the factious minority, and the President, Pyat, was about to empty the
vials of his wrath, when Malon cried to him, "Silence! you are the evil
genius of this revolution. Do not continue to spread your venomous
suspicions, to stir up discords. It is your influence that is ruining
the Commune!" And Arnold, one of the founders of the Central Committee,
"It is still these fellows of 1848 who will undo the revolution."
But it was too late now to engage in the struggle, and the minority was
to expiate its doctrinairism and maladroitness. The whole list of the
majority passed; Ranvier, Arnaud, Gambon, Delescluze, and Eudes. The
nomination of Delescluze to the War Office having left a vacancy, there
was after two days a second vote, and the minority proposed Varlin. The
majority, abusing their victory, committed the impropriety of preferring
Billioray, a most worthless member.
The Council broke up at one o'clock in the morning. "Did not we do them?
and what do you think of the way I managed the business?" said Felix
Pyat to his friends on leaving the chair.[157] This honest mandatory,
altogether absorbed in the work of "doing" his colleagues, had forgotten
to verify the capture of the fort of Issy. And that same evening,
twenty-six hours after the evacuation, the Hotel-de-Ville placarded on
the door of the mairies, "It is false that the tricolor flag floats on
the fort of Issy. The Versaillese do not and shall not occupy it." This
contradiction was as good as Trochu's apropos of Metz.
During these tempests at the Hotel-de-Ville the Central Committee had
sent for Rossel, reproached him with the placard of the afternoon, and
the unusual number of copies printed. He defended himself acrimoniously.
"It was my duty. The greater the danger, the greater the duty to make it
known to the people." Yet he had done nothing of the kind on the
surprise of the Moulin-Saquet. After his departure the Committee
deliberated at length. Some one said, "We are lost if we get no
dictatorship." For some days this idea was uppermost in the Committee.
The latter voted quite seriously that there should be a dictator, and
that the dictator was to be Rossel. A deputation of five members gravely
went to fetch him; he came down to the Committee, pretended to reflect,
and finally said, "It is too late. I am no longer delegate. I have sent
in my resignation." Some waxing angry with him, he rebuked them and
left. In his cabinet he found the Commission of War, Delescluze, Tridon,
Avrial, Johannard, Varlin, and Arnold, who had just arrived.
Delescluze explained their mission. Rossel listened very calmly; said
that though the decree was unjust, he submitted to it. He then described
the military situation, the rivalries of all kinds that had continually
clogged him, the weakness of the Council. "It has not known," said he,
"how to utilise the Central Committee, nor how to break it at the
opportune time. Our resources are quite sufficient, and I am ready, for
my own part, to assume all responsibility, but on the condition of being
supported by a strong and homogeneous power. I could not in the face of
history take upon myself the responsibility for certain necessary
repressions without the assent and support of the Commune." He spoke at
great length in that clear and nervous style that twice in the Council
had won over his most decided adversaries. The Commission, much struck
by his arguments, withdrew to another room. Delescluze declared that he
could not make up his mind to arrest Rossel till the Council had heard
him. His colleagues were of the same opinion, and left the ex-delegate
under the guard of Avrial and Johannard, who the next morning conducted
him to the Hotel-de-Ville. Avrial stayed with Rossel in the questor's
office, while Johannard went to apprise the Council of their arrival.
Some wanted Rossel to be heard; the greater number, distrustful of
themselves, were afraid lest his voice should again bring round the
Council, maintained that his hearing was contrary to equity, and cited
the example of Cluseret, who had been arrested without being heard, as
though one injustice could sanction another. The admission of Rossel was
refused.
Ch. Gerardin, a member of the Council, repaired to the questor's office.
"What has the Commune decided?" said Avrial. "Nothing yet," answered Ch.
Gerardin, who nevertheless had just left the sitting, and seeing
Avrial's revolver on the table, he said to Rossel, "Your guardian
fulfils his duty conscientiously." "I do not suppose," answered Rossel
hurriedly, "that this precaution concerns me. Besides, Citizen Avrial, I
give you my word of honour as a soldier that I shall not seek to
escape."
Avrial, very tired of his post as sentry, had already asked the Council
to relieve him. Receiving no answer, he thought he might leave his
prisoner under the guard of a member of the Committee of Public
Safety--for Ch. Gerardin had not yet been discharged from his
functions--and he proceeded to the Council. When he returned, Rossel and
Ch. Gerardin were gone. The ambitious young man had slunk like a weasel
out of this civil war into which he had heedlessly thrown himself.
One may divine whether Pyat was sparing of adjectives against the
fugitive. The new Committee having just been informed of the discovery
of two conspiracies, launched a desperate proclamation: "Treason had
slipped into our ranks. The abandonment of the fort of Issy announced in
an impious placard by the wretch who surrendered it, was only the first
act of the drama. A monarchical insurrection in our midst coinciding
with the surrender of one of our gates was to follow. All the threads of
the dark plot are now in our hands. Most of the culprits are arrested.
Let all eyes be open, all arms ready to strike the traitors!"
This was going off into melodrama when cold blood and precision were
wanted. And the Committee boasted strangely when it pretended to have
arrested "most of the culprits" and that it held "in its hands all the
threads of the dark plot."
FOOTNOTES:
[152] On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be admitted,
and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the decree was
not executed, although in the Hotel-de-Ville itself there was the
splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few hours.
[153] The reports in the _Officiel_, confided to inexperienced writers,
who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the
printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret
committees, give but a very vague idea of these sittings.
[154] "Committee of Public Safety, No. 98.--Paris, 3rd May
1871.--General Wroblewski,--Please repair immediately to the fort of
Issy. It is urgent to make provision for several services, engineering,
artillery, &c. The members of the Committee of Public Safety. Felix
Pyat, Ant. Arnaud. Enclosed is a despatch from the commander of the
fort."
Before the public, ignorant of this despatch, Pyat kept up his lie. He
said in the _Vengeur_: "The only order given directly to the generals by
the Committee of Public Safety to defend Issy, which Rossel did not
defend, was addressed to General Wroblewski, intrusted with the forts of
the south. The Committee of Public Safety, in ordering him to watch over
Issy, did not displace him." In point of fact, not Wroblewski was
charged with the defence of the fort of Issy, but La Cecilia, who since
the reoccupation held the chief post on this side, and commanded Wetzel,
intrusted with the defence of the approaches of the fort.
[155] The _chefs-de-legion_ have said 10,000. The truth lies between the
two.
[156] P. Vichard, ex-chief of the staff of the Garibaldian General
Bossack.
[157] Heard and reported by Lefrancais, whose veracity is above
suspicion. _Etude sur le Mouvement Communaliste par G. Lefrancais_, p.
294. Neuchatel, 1870.