THE IMPOTENCE OF THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY--
EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF VANVES AND OF THE VILLAGE OF
ISSY--THE MANIFESTO OF THE MINORITY--THE EXPLOSION IN
THE AVENUE RAPP--FALL OF THE VENDOME COLUMN.
At the advent of the new Committee on the 10th May our military
situation had not changed within the line from St. Ouen to Neuilly,
where both sides faced each other on the same level; but it was becoming
serious from La Muette. The powerful battery of Montretout, that of
Meudon, of Mont-Valerien, covered Passy with shells and greatly injured
the ramparts. The Versaillese trenches extended from Boulogne to the
Seine. Their skirmishers were pressing upon the village of Issy, and
occupied the trenches between the fort and that of Vanves, which they
tried to cut off from Montrouge. The negligence of the defence was still
the same. The ramparts from La Muette to the fort of Vanves were hardly
armed; our gunboats supported almost alone the fire of Meudon, Clamart,
and Val-Fleury.
The first act of the new Committee was to order the demolition of M.
Thiers' house. This giddy act helped the bombarder to a palace, which
the Assembly voted him the day after. Then the Committee issued its
proclamation: "Treason had slipped into," &c.
Delescluze issued one on his own account. He dragged himself along,
panting for breath, and might well say, "If I consulted only my strength
I should have declined this function. The situation is grave; but when I
contemplate the sublime future in store for our children, even though it
should not be given us to reap what we have sown, I shall still
enthusiastically hail the revolution of the 18th March."
On entering the Ministry, he found the Central Committee also
elaborating a proclamation. "The Central Committee declares that it is
its duty not to allow this revolution of the 18th March, which it had so
well begun, to succumb. It will unsparingly break down all resistance.
It is determined to make an end of all controversies, put down the
malignants, quell rivalry, ignorance, and incapacity." This was to speak
more authoritatively than the Council, and, above all, to flatter itself
strangely.
From the first night it was necessary to repair a disaster. The fort of
Vanves, upon which all the fires formerly directed against Issy were now
concentrated, had become almost untenable, and its commander had
evacuated it. Wroblewski, informed of this, took the command from La
Cecilia, who had fallen ill, and in the night of the 10th to the 11th
hurried thither at the head of the 187th and the 105th battalions of the
celebrated 11th legion, which up to the last day did not cease to supply
the defence with men. At four o'clock in the morning Wroblewski appeared
before the glacis where the Versaillese were stationed, charged them at
the point of the bayonet, put them to flight, took some prisoners, and
recovered the fort. Once more our brave Federals showed what they could
do when properly commanded.
During the day the Versaillese recommenced the bombardment. They
overwhelmed the convent Des Oiseaux and the whole village of Issy, whose
principal street was now one heap of ruins, with shells, grenades filled
with potassium picrate. On the night of the 12th to the 13th they
surprised the Lycee of Vanves, and on the 13th they attacked the
seminary of Issy. For five days Brunel exhausted himself in trying to
bring a little order into the defence of this village. Rossel had sent
for this brave member of the Council, whom the jealousy of coteries kept
at a distance, and said to him, "The situation of Issy is almost lost;
will you undertake its defence?" Brunel devoted himself, threw up
barricades, asked for artillery (there were only four pieces), and new
battalions to relieve the 2,000 men who had held out for forty-one
days.[172] They only sent him two or three hundred men. He tried to make
something of these, and fortified the seminary, which the Federals,
under a hailstorm of shells, were unable to hold. Brunel organised a
second line of defence in the houses of the village, and in the evening
repaired to the War Office, where Delescluze wanted him to assist at the
Council of War.
The first and only Council of War held under the Commune. Dombrowski,
Wroblewski, and La Cecilia were present. Dombrowski, very enthusiastic,
spoke of raising 100,000 men. Wroblewski, more practical, proposed to
concentrate all the efforts uselessly spent at Neuilly against the
trenches of the south. After a long debate no conclusion was come to.
When Brunel arrived the sitting was already raised; so he was obliged to
go and look for Delescluze at the Hotel-de-Ville, and then he retraced
his steps to Issy. At the gate of Versailles he perceived his battalions
on the other side of the rampart. These, deaf to their chiefs, had
evacuated the village and wanted to re-enter the town. Brunel forbade
the lowering of the drawbridge, and tried to get out by the gates of
Vanves, where they refused to let him pass. He returned to the War
Office, explained the situation, asked for men, wandered about the whole
night looking for some, and at four o'clock in the morning set out with
150 Federals, but found the village entirely occupied by the
Versaillese. The officers of Issy were tried by court-martial. Brunel
gave evidence, and complained bitterly of the culpable carelessness
which had paralysed the defence. For answer he was arrested.
He spoke but too truly. The disorder of the War Office rendered all
resistance chimerical. Delescluze had brought only his devotion. Of a
weak character despite his apparent rigidity, he was at the mercy of the
general staff, still directed by Prodhomme, who, surviving all his
chiefs, had succeeded in making himself thought indispensable. The
Central Committee, emboldened by the timidity of the Council, intruded
everywhere, published decrees, ordered the payment of expenses without
submitting them to the control of the Military Commission. The members
of the Commission, men of intelligence, but belonging to the minority,
complained to the Committee of Public Safety, which replaced them by
Romanticists. The dispute went on all the same, and waxed so violent
that rumours of a rupture between the Council and the Central Committee
spread amongst the legions.
The Versaillese, on their part, still pushed on. In the night of the
13th to the 14th the fort of Vanves, which now only fired occasional
volleys, was quite extinguished, and could no more be rekindled. The
garrison, cut off on all sides, retired by the quarries of Montrouge,
and the Versaillese occupied what remained of the fort. There was again
an ovation at Versailles.
On the 16th May we had not a single man from the left bank to the Petit
Vanves, where about 2,000 Federals, under the command of La Cecilia and
Lisbonne, were encamped. We attempted to retake the village of Issy, but
were repulsed. Henceforth the enemy could continue his approaches and
arm the two bastions of the fort of Issy that faced the town. His fire,
counteracted for a moment by the ramparts, now showed a marked
superiority, and joined the batteries that crushed the sixteenth
arrondissement. This unfortunate quarter was now taken in enfilade from
the front and the flank by nearly a hundred ordnance pieces. It was
indeed time to think of the defence of the interior. Delescluze extended
the powers of the three generals to the quarters of the town contiguous
to their command; he disbanded the battalion of the barricades, which
had been of no utility whatever; he confided the works to the military
engineers, and made an appeal to the navvies. But all his decrees
remained so much waste paper or were crossed by others. When the
delegate offered the navvies 3 francs 50 centimes, the Committee of
Public Safety, in the same column of the _Officiel_, offered them 3
francs 75 centimes.
The Committee of Public Safety contributed to the defence by a decree
obliging all the inhabitants of Paris to provide themselves with a civil
card, whose production might be requested by any National Guard--as
impracticable and unpractised a decree as that on the refractory
recruits. The Hotel-de-Ville awed nobody; behind its big words impotence
made itself felt. On the 12th, some battalions having surrounded the
Bank and wanting to make a search, old Beslay prevented them doing so,
and the terrible dictators of the Committee of Public Safety disavowed
their own agent. The public chaffed--a terrible thing! A last blow, and
it was all over with the authority of the Commune; and this blow came
from the minority.
The latter was exasperated at seeing its most capable members expelled
from the services--Vermorel from the Commission of Public Safety,
Longuet from the _Officiel_, Varlin from the Commissariat--and was
struck with dismay at the disorder of the War Office. It had the
unfortunate idea of denying its own responsibility, prepared a
manifesto, and brought it to the sitting of the 15th. The majority,
forewarned, with the exception of four or five members, kept away. The
minority had their absence verified, and instead of waiting for the next
sitting, sent the declaration to the papers. "The Commune," it said,
"has abdicated its power into the hands of a dictatorship, to which it
has given the name of Committee of Public Safety. The majority has
declared itself irresponsible by its vote. The minority, on the
contrary, affirms that the Commune owes it to the revolutionary movement
to accept all responsibilities. As to ourselves, we claim the right of
being alone answerable for our acts without screening ourselves behind a
supreme dictatorship. We withdraw to our arrondissements. Convinced that
the question of the war takes the lead of all other ones, we shall spend
the time left us by our municipal functions in the midst of our brothers
of the National Guard."
A great fault this, and altogether inexcusable. The minority had not the
right to cry out about a dictatorship, having voted, without making any
express reserve, for the second Committee. It had not the right to say
that the elected delegates of the people were encroaching upon its
sovereignty, for this concentration of power was quite accidental,
necessitated by the battle, and leaving the principle of the people's
sovereignty intact under ordinary circumstances. It would have been more
dignified to openly disavow the acts of the Committee, and then propose
something better themselves. It would have been logical, since "the
question of the war took the lead of all others," not to thus morally
weaken the defence by deserting the Hotel-de-Ville. It was not with a
view to retain them in their arrondissements that the arrondissements
had sent delegates to the Council.
Several members of the minority brought the question before public
meetings, which called on them to return to their posts. Those of the
fourth arrondissement gave an explanation in the Theatre-Lyrique, in
which they said "that their guiding principle was that the Commune was
to be only the executive agent of the public will, manifesting itself
continually, and indicating day by day what was to be done to secure the
triumph of the revolution." No doubt that principle was correct, and the
revolution can only be made safe by the direct legislation of the
people. But was this a time to legislate when the cannon ruled supreme?
And in the midst of the fire, is the "executive agent" to expect that
the soldier who does battle for him will also bring him ideas?
The Versaillese journals crowed over this manifesto. Many of those who
had signed it understood their mistake, and fifteen of them presented
themselves at the sitting of the 17th. The Council had never been so
numerous; the roll-call was answered by sixty-six members. The Council
was first taken up with a proposition prompted by a traitor. Barral de
Montaut, chief of the staff of the 7th legion, had just published that
the Versaillese of Vanves had shot an ambulanciere of the Commune.
Urbain, urged by Montaut, who had managed to gain his friendship, asked
that, as reprisal, five hostages should be shot in the interior of
Paris, and five at the advanced posts. The Council passed to the order
of the day. Immediately after this incident, a member of the majority
interpellated those of the minority. He demonstrated without any
difficulty the futility of the reasons invoked in their manifesto, and,
growing warm, called his adversaries Girondists. "What! Girondists!"
answered Frankel; "one can see that you go to bed at night and get up in
the morning with the _Moniteur_ of 1793, else you would know the
difference there is between us Socialist Revolutionists and the
Girondists." The discussion became heated. Valles, who had signed the
manifesto, said, "I have declared that we must come to an understanding
with the majority; but they must also respect the minority, which is a
force;" and he demanded that all forces should be turned against the
enemy. Citizen Miot answered severely from the profound depths of his
beard. A member of the majority spoke of conciliation; immediately Felix
Pyat, to incense their ire, asked for the reading of the manifesto. In
vain Vaillant said, with sense and justice, "When our colleagues come
back to us disavowing their programme, we must not put it under their
eyes to engage them to persevere in their faults," and a conciliatory
order of the day was beaten by that of Miot, drawn up in terms offensive
to the minority.
Suddenly a tremendous explosion interrupted the dispute. Billioray
rushed into the room with the news that the cartridge factory of the
Avenue Rapp had just blown up.
The whole east of Paris was shaken. A pyramid of flame, of molten lead,
human remains, burning timber and bullets burst forth from the
Champ-de-Mars to an enormous height, and showered down upon the
environs. Four houses fell in; more than forty persons were wounded, and
the catastrophe would have been still more terrible if the firemen of
the Commune had not torn waggons of cartridges and barrels of gunpowder
from the midst of the flames. A maddened crowd gather, and believe in a
crime; a few individuals were arrested, and an artillerist was taken to
the Ecole Militaire.
Who was the culprit? Nobody knows. Neither the Council nor the procureur
of the Commune examined the affair. Yet the Committee of Public Safety
announced in a proclamation that it held four of the culprits, and
Delescluze that the case was to be sent before the court-martial. No
more was heard about it, although it was as much the duty as the
interest of the Council to throw light upon this affair. A serious
inquest would probably have revealed a crime. The women, who usually
left the factory at seven o'clock, had been on that day dismissed at six
o'clock. It has been seen that Charpentier asked Corbin for dynamite; it
might have been very useful to the conspirators to spread panic with one
stroke at the War Office, the Ecole Militaire, the artillery park and
the huts of the Champ-de-Mars, which were always occupied by a few
Federals.[173] Paris firmly believed in a plot. The reactionists said,
"This is the revenge for the Vendome column."
It had been pulled down the evening before with great ceremony. Its
demolition, the idea of which had become quite current during the first
siege,[174] was decreed on the 12th April.[175] This inspiration,
popular, humane, profound, showing that a war of classes was to
supersede the war of nations, aimed at the same time a blow at the
ephemeral triumph of the Prussian. The rather expensive preparations,
costing almost 15,000 francs, had been much protracted, owing to the
lukewarmness of the engineer and the continual efforts to suborn the
workmen. On the 16th May, at two o'clock, an immense crowd thronged all
the neighbouring streets, rather anxious as to the result of the
operation. The reactionists foretold all sorts of catastrophes; the
engineer, on the contrary, affirmed that there would be no shock; that
the column would break to pieces during its descent. He had sawn it
horizontally a little above the pedestal; a slanting groove was to
facilitate the fall backwards upon a vast bed of faggots, sand, and
dung, accumulated in the direction of the Rue de la Paix.
A rope attached to the summit of the column was twisted round a capstan
fixed at the entrance of the street. The place was crowded with National
Guards; the windows, the roofs were filled with curious spectators. In
default of MM. Jules Simon and Ferry, erewhile warm partisans of the
operation, M. Glais-Bizoin felicitated the new prefect of police, Ferre,
who had just taken the place of Cournet, and confided to him that for
forty years it had been his ardent desire to see the expiatory monument
demolished. The bands played the "Marseillaise," the capstan turned
about, the pulley broke, and a man was wounded. Already rumours of
treason circulated among the crowd; but a second pulley was soon
supplied. At a quarter past five an officer appeared on the balustrade
for some time, waved a tricolor flag, then fixed it on the rails. At
half-past five the capstan again turned, and a few minutes after the
extremity of the column slowly displaced itself; the shaft little by
little gave way, then, suddenly reeling to and fro, broke and fell with
a low moan. The head of Bonaparte rolled on the ground, and his
parricidal arm lay detached from the trunk. An immense acclamation, as
that of a people freed from a yoke, burst forth. The ruins were climbed
upon and saluted by enthusiastic cries, and the red flag floated from
the purified pedestal, which on that day had become the altar of the
human race.
The people wanted to divide among themselves the fragments of the
column, but were prevented by the inopportune interference of the
Council members present. A week afterwards, the Versaillese picked them
up. One of the first acts of the victorious bourgeoisie was to again
raise this enormous block, the symbol of their sovereignty. To lift up
Caesar on his pedestal they needed a scaffolding of 30,000 corpses. Like
the mothers under the First Empire, may those of our days never look
upon this bronze without weeping.
FOOTNOTES:
[172] These were what General Appert calls the Brunel brigade. 7882
strong.
[173] Appendix XIV.
[174] During the first siege, the _Journal Officiel_ of the mairie of
Paris had inserted a letter from Courbet demanding the overthrow of the
column.
[175] Thus Courbet was not as yet a member of the Council. Nevertheless
he was considered as the principal author of the fall of the column, and
condemned in the costs of its re-erection.