"Les deportes sont plus heureux que nos soldats, car nos
soldats ont des factions a faire ... tandis que le deporte
vit au milieu des fleurs de son jardin."--_Discours de
l'Amiral Fourichon, Ministre de la Marine, contre
l'Amnistie, Seance du 17 Mai 1876._
"Ce sont surtout les republicains qui ne doivent pas vouloir
l'amnistie."--_Victor Lefranc, Seance du 18 Mai 1876._
NEW CALEDONIA--EXILE--BALANCE-SHEET OF BOURGEOIS
VENGEANCE--THE LIBERAL CHAMBER AND THE AMNESTY.
Two days' journey from France there is a colony eager for hands, rich
enough to enrich thousands of families. After every victory over
Parisian workmen the bourgeoisie has always preferred throwing its
victims to the antipodes to fecundating Algeria with them. The Republic
of 1848 had Nouka-Hiva; the Versaillese Assembly, New Caledonia. It is
to this rock, six thousand leagues from their native land, that it
decided to transport those condemned for life. "The Council of the
Government," said the reporter on the law, "gives the transported a
family and a home." The mitrailleuse was more honest.
Those condemned to transportation were huddled together into four
depots, Fort Boyard, St. Martin de Re, Oleron, and Quelern, where for
long months they languished between despair and hope, which never
abandon political victims. One day, when they believed themselves almost
forgotten, a brutal call resounded. To the surgery! A doctor looked at
them, questioned them, did not listen to their answers, and said, "Fit
for departure!"[256] And then farewell family, country, society, human
life, _en route_ for the sepulchre of the antipodes. And happy he who
was condemned to transportation only. He could for a last time press a
friendly hand, see tears in kindly eyes, give a last kiss. But the
galley-slave of the Commune will only see the taskmaster. At the call of
the whistle he must undress, be searched, then have the livery of the
voyage thrown him, and, without a farewell, ascend the floating bagnio.
The transport ship was a moving pontoon. Large cages built on the
gun-deck shut in the prisoners. In the night these became centres of
infection. In the daytime, the uncaged people had but one-half hour to
come up on the deck and breathe a little fresh air. Around the cages the
jailers stood grumbling, punishing with the blackhole the slightest
infringement of the rules. Some unhappy beings made the whole voyage at
the bottom of the hold, sometimes almost naked, for having refused to
comply with a caprice. The women, like the men, were sent to the
blackhole; the nuns who watched them were worse than the jailers. For
five months they had to live in this promiscuous fashion in the cage, in
the filth of their neighbours, fed upon biscuits often musty, on bacon,
on almost salt water; now burnt by the tropics, now frozen by the cold
of the South, or by the spray dashing over the gun-deck. And what
spectres arrived! When the _Orne_ dropped anchor off Melbourne there
were 360 sick of scurvy out of 588 prisoners.[257] They inspired even
the rough colonials of Australia with pity. The inhabitants of Melbourne
came to succour them, collecting in a few hours 40,000 francs. The
commander of the _Orne_ refused to transmit the sum to the prisoners,
even in the shape of clothes, tools, and simple necessaries.
The _Danae_ was the first ship that set sail, on the 3rd May, 1872; the
_Guerriere_, _Garonne_, _Var_, _Sibylle_, _Orne_, _Calvados_,
_Virginie_, &c., followed. By the 1st July, 1875, 3,859 prisoners had
landed in New Caledonia.[258]
This Caledonian sepulchre has three circles: the peninsula Ducos, not
far from Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, for those condemned to
transportation in a fortress--805 men and 6 women; the Ile des Pins,
thirty miles south-east of the principal island, for those condemned to
simple transportation--2,795 men and 13 women; and, quite in the
background, worse than death, the bagnio of the Ile Nou, for 240
galley-slaves.
The peninsula Ducos, a narrow neck of land commanded by cannon, with its
mouth guarded by soldiers, without a watercourse, without verdure, is
traversed by arid hills and swampy valleys. For all shelter the
condemned found a few dilapidated hovels; for all furniture, a saucepan
and a hammock. The Ile des Pins, a tableland, its centre perfectly
desolate, is bounded by fertile plains, but in the hands of the Marist
monks, who exploit the labour of the natives. Nothing was prepared for
the reception of the condemned. The first who arrived wandered about in
the woods; only very long after did they receive bad tents and hammocks.
The natives, incited by the missionaries, fled from them, or sold them
provisions at enormous prices.
The administration was to have provided the indispensable clothing. None
of the prescribed rules was observed. The kepis and boots were soon worn
out, and the immense majority of the condemned having no means whatever,
had to bear the sun and the rainy season bare-headed and bare-footed.
They had neither tobacco nor soap; there was no brandy to mix with the
brackish water.
The prisoners did not lose heart at this beginning. Laborious, active,
with that universal aptitude of the Parisian workman, they felt
themselves equal to overcoming the first difficulties. The reporter on
the law had extolled the thousand revenues of New Caledonia--fisheries,
cattle-breeding, the working of mines--and represented this compulsory
emigration as the founding of a new French Empire in the Pacific. The
condemned hoped to make themselves a home in this far-off land. These
proletarians were free of the false dignity affected by the proscribed
bourgeois; far from refusing work, they sought for it. In the Ile des
Pins there were an hospital, an aqueduct, administrative warehouses to
be finished, a large road to be constructed; 2,000 condemned presented
themselves; 800 only were employed, and their wages never exceeded 85
centimes a day. Some of those rebuffed by the Administration then
demanded concessions of territory; they were granted a few yards of
land,[259] and at exorbitant prices some seeds and tools. With the
greatest efforts they could hardly make the soil yield a few vegetables.
The others, who possessed nothing, applied to private industry, offering
their services to the tradespeople of Noumea. But the colony, stifled
by the military regime, hampered by bureaucratic officials, and of very
limited resources besides, could only furnish work to about 500 at the
most. Moreover, many of them who had undertaken farming were obliged to
give it up very soon and return to the Ile des Pins.
This was the golden age of the transportation. Towards the middle of
1873 a despatch of the Minister of Marine reached Noumea. The
Versaillese Government suspended all administrative credits in support
of the state works. "If one admitted," said he, "the right to labour of
the convict, one would soon see the renewal of the scandalous example of
the national workshops of 1848." Perfectly logical this. Versailles owes
no means of labour to those it has deprived of their liberty to labour.
So the workshops were closed. The woods of the Ile des Pins offered
valuable supplies to the cabinetmakers, and some of the condemned
manufactured furniture much in request at Noumea. They were ordered to
discontinue. And on the 13th December the Minister of Marine dared to
pronounce from the tribune that the majority of the condemned refused
every kind of work.[260]
At the very moment that the Administration thus curtailed the life of
the transported, it summoned their wives to the Ministry of Marine,
where the most charming picture of New Caledonia was exhibited to them.
They were to find there, on their arrival, a house, a piece of land,
seeds, and tools. Most of them, suspecting some snare, refused to set
out unless invited by their husbands. Sixty-nine, however, were
inveigled, and embarked on board the _Fenelon_, with women sent forth by
the Public Assistance Office as helpmates for the colonials. These
unfortunate wives of the convicts, on landing, found only the despair
and misery of their husbands. The Government refused to send them back
again.
Thus there are thousands of men accustomed to work, to activity of mind,
penned up, idle and miserable, some in the narrow peninsula, others in
the Ile des Pins, without clothes, ill-fed, under orders executed by
brutes,[261] revolver in hand, hardly in connection with the world, save
for a few rare letters, and these are even delayed for three weeks at
Noumea. In the beginning endless reveries, then discouragement and
sombre despair; cases of madness occurred, at last death. The first one
set free was the teacher Verdure, member of the Council of the Commune.
The commissary of the court-martial had accused him of but one crime.
"He was a philanthropic Utopist." He wanted to open a school in the
peninsula; permission was refused him. Useless, far from his wife and
daughter, he languished and died. One morning in 1873 the jailers and
the priests saw in the winding pathway that leads to the cemetery a
coffin covered with flowers carried by some of the condemned. Behind
them walked 800 friends in a deep silence. "The coffin," one of them has
told us, "was lowered into the grave. A friend spoke a few words of
farewell; each one threw in his little red flower, cried, 'Vive la
Republique! Vive la Commune!' and all was over." In November, in the Ile
des Pins, Albert Grandier, one of the staff of the _Rappel_, died. His
heart had remained in France, with a sister whom he adored. Every day he
went to the sea-shore to wait for her; so he became mad. The
Administration refused to admit him into an asylum. He escaped from the
friends who guarded him, and one morning was found dead of cold in the
swamps, not far from the road that leads to the sea.[262]
These at least have the consolation of suffering with their equals. But
the convicts chained in the sink of the scoundrels! "I know but one
bagnio," replied the republican Minister, Victor Lefranc, to a mother
begging for her son. And there is indeed but one bagnio, where heroes
like Trinquet and Lisbonne, men all compact of devotion and probity like
Fontaine, Roques, the mayor of Puteaux (so many names press forward that
I am ashamed to mention a few), journalists of high character like
Brissac and Humbert, some whose sole crime was to have carried out a
warrant of arrest, have been chained for five years to assassins and
thieves, enduring their insults, and bound at night to the same
camp-bed. The Versaillese want more than the body; they must attaint the
rebellious mind, surround it with an atmosphere of stench and vice, in
order to make it fail and founder. The "felons" of the Commune,
assimilated to criminals, subjected to the same labour, to the same rule
of the stick and whip, are beset by the special hatred of the jailers,
who incite the convicts against them. From time to time a letter
escapes, and even reaches us. Thus writes a member of the Council of the
Commune, a man of thirty-three, at one time in robust health:--
"ST. LOUIS.
"... The work of the camp is considered the most severe. It
includes the digging up of stones, earthworks, &c. It is
only interrupted on the Sunday morning for the religious
service. For nourishment we have coffee without sugar at
five o'clock in the morning, 700 grammes of bread, and 100
grammes of beans; in the evening a small piece of beef; and,
finally, 69 centilitres of wine a week. When I am able to
buy a quarter of a pound of bread, my health leaves less to
be desired. Already several of ours are no more. Many are
attacked with anaemia. Fifteen out of sixty in St. Louis are
at the hospital. All this would be nothing if there were not
that commingling with men of infamous passions. There are
fifty of us in one compartment. As to the employments,
shops, and offices, the Communards are excluded from these."
Another writes:
"ILE NOU, _15th February_.
"I isolate myself as much as I can, but there are hours when
I must be in the bagnio on pain of death. There are hours
when I must defend my rations from the voracity of my
companions, when I must submit to the familiarity of a Mano
or of a Lathauer.[263] This is horrible, and I blush with
shame when I think that I have become almost insensible to
all this infamy. These wretches are cowards, and are not the
least of our tormentors. It is enough to drive one mad, and
I believe that many amongst us will become so. Berezowski,
this unfortunate man,[264] who has suffered so much for
eight years, is almost demented, and it is painful to look
upon him. It is terrible, and I dare not think of this. How
many months, years, are we still to pass in this bagnio? I
tremble at the thought. Despite all, believe that I shall
not allow myself to be crushed; my conscience is tranquil,
and I am strong. My health alone could betray me and be
vanquished, but of myself I am sure, and shall never
swerve."
A third:--
"I have suffered much; the bagnio of Toulon, the chains, the
convicts' dress, and, what is still worse, the ignoble
contact of the criminals--all this I have had to bear with.
I have, it is true, one consolation for so much
suffering--my tranquil conscience, the love of my old
parents, and the esteem of men such as you.... How many
times have I been discouraged! What despair, what doubts
have seized me! I believed in mankind, and all my illusions
have been lost one by one; a great change has come over me,
and I have almost failed to resist so many disillusions."
Yet another:--
"I do not deceive myself; these years are entirely lost for
me; not only is my health undermined, but I feel myself
getting lower every day. This life is really too hard to
bear, without books (save those of the Mame library), in
this filthy bagnio, exposed to all insults, to all blows;
shut up in grated caves; in the workshops treated as beasts;
insulted by our jailers and our comrades of the chain, we
must submit to it all without a murmur, the slightest
infringement entailing terrible punishments--the cell,
quarter ration of bread, irons, thumbscrews, the lash. It is
ignominious, and I shudder at the thought of it. Many of our
comrades are in double chains in the correction platoon,
subjected to the hardest labour, dying of hunger, driven on
with blows of a cane, often with revolver-shots, unable to
communicate with us, who cannot even pass them a mouthful of
bread. It is terrible, and I am afraid all this will not end
very soon. But protestations will be made; we shall not be
abandoned; it would be horrible if we were left here. I am
unable to work, so I am right in saying that these years are
completely lost, and this drives me to despair; yet I was
willing to learn; but what is to be done without books and
without a guide? We are almost without news. Still we know
that the Republic is affirming itself from day to day; our
hope is there, but I dare not believe it; we have had so
many deceptions."
How many live to-day? It is not known. Maroteau left in March, 1875. The
Commission of Pardons had aggravated his sentence; commuted Satory to
the Ile Nou. At twenty-five years of age he died in the bagnio for two
articles, when the jackals of the Versaillese press, whose every line
has demanded and obtained carnage, sway our Paris. To the last moment
his courage did not forsake him. "It is not a great affair to die," said
he to the friends who surrounded his deathbed; "but I should have
preferred the stake of Satory to this filthy pallet. My friends, think
of me! What will become of my mother?"
Hear this knell tolled by one of the convicts:--
"ILE NOU (LIMEKILN WORKS), _18th April_.
"I cannot help saying that many friends are dying, and that
this month five have succumbed."
"_15th May._
"Old Audant, one of the transported of the 2nd December, has
been for ever released from his chain. He was sickly, old
(fifty-nine), and our labour had overcome him. One day,
tired out, attacked by acute bronchitis, he was unable to
get up; still he was obliged to recommence his work. Two
days after he asked for the visit of the doctor. He got the
dungeon. Five days after he died in the hospital; and a few
days later on, another, Gobert, followed him to the tomb."
"CANALA, _25th December_.
"... Add to that the death of old and good friends. After
Maroteau, Morten, Mars, Lecolle, whom we buried a month
ago."
They die, but none have faltered. The political convicts are men; they
succeed in remaining in the pitch without being defiled. It is the
general inspector Raboul who has allowed this avowal to escape him. What
is the Christian martyr's vaunted heroism of an hour in comparison with
these men, who each day, in the indefatigable, merciless clutches of the
jailers, maintain unbent their revolutionary faith and their dignity?
And do we even know all their sufferings? Chance alone has raised a
corner of the veil. On the 19th March, 1874, Rochefort, Jourde, Paschal
Grousset, and three others, condemned to transportation, succeeded in
escaping on board an Australian ship.[265] They landed safely in
Australia, and the information they brought with them has thrown a
little light upon the den. It was then we learnt that the convicts of
the Commune had suffered additional tortures; that the torture of the
thumbscrews, which mutilated the hands, is still in use at the bagnio;
that four convicts had been shot in the Ile des Pins for a simple
assault, which would have been punished by a few months' imprisonment by
ordinary tribunals; that the severity and insults of the jailers seemed
intended to cause a rising, which would permit of all those condemned to
transportation being sent to the bagnio. The convicts had to pay dearly
for these revelations. The Versaillese Government immediately sent out
the Rear-Admiral Ribourt, and the torture-screw was turned more tightly
than ever. Those who had obtained permission to sojourn in the principal
island were again shut up in the peninsula Ducos or the Ile des Pins;
fishing was interdicted; every sealed letter confiscated; the right to
fetch wood in the forest for cooking food suppressed. The jailers
redoubled their brutality, fired at the convicts who went beyond bounds,
or who had not returned to their huts at the regulation hour. Some
merchants of Noumea, accused of having facilitated the escape of
Rochefort and his friends, were expelled from the isle.
Ribourt had brought the dismissal of the governor, La Richerie, former
governor of Cayenne, who by dint of rapine had made a great fortune in
New Caledonia. Of course it was not for his dishonesty, but for the
escape of the 19th March that he was punished. The provisional
government was confided to Colonel Alleyron, who had become famous by
the massacres of May. Alleyron decreed that every prisoner was to give
the State half-a-day's labour, on pain of receiving only the strictly
indispensable food, 700 grammes of bread, 1 centilitre of oil, and 60
grammes of dried vegetables. As the prisoners protested, he began by
applying the decree to fifty-seven persons, of whom four were women.
For the women were subjected to the same rigorous treatment as the men,
and they had courageously revindicated the right of sharing the common
lot of all. Louise Michel and Lemel, whom they had wanted to separate
from their comrades, declared that they would kill themselves if the law
were violated. Insulted by the jailers, abused sometimes in the order
of the day of the commander of the peninsula, scarcely provided with
dresses, more than once they had been obliged to put on men's clothes.
The arrival at the beginning of 1876 of the new governor, De Pritzbuer,
terminated the short but brilliant career of Alleyron. Pritzbuer, a
renegade of Protestantism turned arrant Jesuit, and sent to New
Caledonia through the Jesuitical tendencies of the Ministry, found ways
and means with his mawkish airs to even aggravate the misery of the
convicts. He was guided in this task by Colonel Charriere, general
director of the New Caledonian Penitentiary, who declared the criminals
of the bagnio much more honourable than the political convicts.
Pritzbuer renewed the order of his predecessor, adding that those of the
convicts who in one year should not have been able to create for
themselves sufficient resources would no longer receive full rations;
and, finally, that the Administration intended exonerating itself at the
end of a certain time of all expenses with regard to the convicts. An
agent was appointed to act as intermediary between them and the traders
of Noumea. But all the decrees in the world cannot extend the commerce
or industry of a country without natural resources. It had been said,
been proved a hundred times, that New Caledonia has no employment for
these thousands of men, who would prosper in a vital and flourishing
colony. Those few who could be employed have proved their intelligence,
and have carried off several medals or been honourably mentioned at the
exhibition of Noumea. The less favoured--hundreds of them--suffer under
the blow of the decree of 1875. In reality, the immense majority of
those condemned to transportation are now subjected to hard labour. The
regulations put into force since the escape of Rochefort have never been
mitigated. The wives, the mothers of the convicts, are only allowed to
communicate with them at rare intervals, and under the eye of the
jailers. More than one has been expelled from the colony.
Despite so many efforts to break them, the honour of the majority of the
prisoners has not yielded; far more, it is an example to others.
Although the courts-martial have mixed up with the condemned of the
Commune a bad element, totally foreign to this revolution, common
misdemeanours are very rare. Their condemnation for political
misdemeanour, the contact with the best workmen, has even re-made the
conscience of many men with but sorry antecedents. The majority of the
condemned are punished only for infringements of the rules or for
attempts to escape; attempts almost always condemned to failure
beforehand. How fly without money and without confederates? There have
been but fifteen successful escapes. Towards the middle of March, 1875,
twenty prisoners of the Ile des Pins, amongst whom were the member of
the Council of the Commune, Rastoul, fled in a bark which they had
secretly constructed. Their fate has never been known, but a few days
after their flight the wreck of a craft was found amongst the reefs. In
November, 1876, Trinquet and some of his comrades managed to abscond in
a steamboat. They were pursued, overtaken. Two threw themselves into the
sea to escape their pursuers. One died; the other, Trinquet, was
restored to life and the bagnio.
* * * * *
Before such abysses of misery the exiles must not speak of their
sufferings, but they may say in a word that they have not sullied the
honour of the Cause. Thousands of workmen, with their families, thrown
helpless, without resources, into a strange country, speaking a foreign
language, employees, professors, still more forlorn, have succeeded by
dint of energy in gaining a livelihood. The workmen of the Commune of
Paris have won an honourable place in the workshops of foreign
countries. They have even, especially in Belgium, rendered prosperous
industries till then languishing; they have imparted to certain
manufactures the secret of Parisian taste. The proscription of the
Communards, like that of the Protestants formerly, has thrown across the
frontiers a part of the national wealth. The exiles of the so-called
liberal professions, often more unfortunate than the workmen, have not
shown less courage. Some fill posts of confidence; one perhaps condemned
to death as an incendiary or to hard labour for pillage, is a teacher in
a large college or examines the candidates for Government schools.
Despite the difficulty at the commencement, sickness, slackness of work,
not one exile has given way, and not a single condemnation before the
police court has occurred. Not a single woman has fallen. Yet it is the
women who bear the greater share of the common misery. Amongst these
thousands of exiles there have been discovered but two or three spies;
and there was only one, Landeck, to get up a journal of denunciations
more vile than the _Figaro_. Justice was soon done, for no proscription
has been more careful of its dignity. One ex-member of the Council of
the Commune had to defend himself before the refugees for having
received money from the deputies of the Extreme Left. Never was the
commemorative meeting of the 18th March better attended than that of
1876 during the debate on the amnesty, for one and all would have
blushed to hide their colours at such a moment. No doubt, like any other
proscription, that of 1871 has its groups and its animosities, but all
these opinions disappear behind the red flag escorting the coffin of a
comrade. No doubt there have been virulent manifestoes, which, however,
only affect their authors. Finally, these exiles have not forgotten
their brothers of New Caledonia, and they have opened a permanent
subscription for them, which has its centre in London. Poor help, no
doubt; but this mite from the exiles goes and says to the unfortunate
convict of the Commune, "Courage, brother! thy comrades do not forget
thee; they honour thee." It is the hand of the wounded held out to the
dying.
* * * * *
Twenty-five thousand men, women, and children killed during the battle
or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the
forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity;
thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life;
seventy thousand women, children, and old men deprived of their natural
supporters or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand
victims at least;--that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance
for the solitary insurrection of the 18th March.
What a lesson of revolutionary vigour given to the workingmen! The
governing classes shoot in the lump without taking the trouble to select
the hostages. Their vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor
victims appease it; they make of it an administrative function,
methodical and continuous.
For four years the Rural Assembly allowed the courts-martial to work,
and the Liberal element, which so many elections had sent up in great
force, at once followed the track of the Rurals. One or two motions for
amnesty were burked by the previous question. In the month of January,
1876, when the Rural Assembly broke up, it had removed a few convicts
from one part of New Caledonia to another, shortened a few terms of
imprisonment, and given full pardon to six hundred persons, condemned to
the lightest penalties. The Caledonian reservoir remained intact.
But at the general elections the people did not forget the vanquished.
In all the large towns _Amnesty_ was the watchword; it was inscribed at
the head of all the democratic programmes; at all the public meetings
the question was put to the candidates. The Radicals, tears in their
eyes and their hands on their fraternal hearts, pledged themselves to
ask for a free and complete amnesty; even the Liberals promised "to wipe
out the last traces of our civil discords," as the bourgeoisie is wont
to say when it condescends to have the paving-stones cleaned which
itself has reddened with blood.
The elections of February, 1876, were Republican. The famous Gambettist
layers had come to the surface. A crowd of lawyers, Liberal landlords,
had carried away the provinces in the name of liberty, reforms,
appeasement. The Minister of the reaction, Buffet, was beaten along the
whole line, even in Rural corners. The Radical papers declared the
democratic Republic once for all founded; and one of these in its
enthusiasm cried, "May we be cursed if we do not close the era of
revolutions!"
The hopes for amnesty became now a certainty. No doubt this was the boon
by which the reparative Chamber would signalise its joyous advent. A
convoy of convicts was about to set sail for New Caledonia. Victor Hugo
summoned the President, MacMahon, to adjourn the departure until the
discussion and the certainly favourable decision of the two Chambers. A
petition, hurriedly organised, in a few days had over a hundred thousand
signatures. Soon the question of the amnesty effaced all others, and the
Ministry insisted upon an immediate discussion.
Five propositions had been laid on the table. One only demanded the full
and complete amnesty. The others excepted the crimes qualified as common
crimes, and amongst which were classed newspaper articles. The Chamber
appointed a commission to draw up a report. Seven commissioners out of
ten declared against all the propositions.
The new layers were manifesting themselves. It was always this same
middle-class, bare of ideas and courage, hard to the people, timid
before Caesar, pettifogging and jesuitical. The workmen already shot down
in June, 1848, by an Assembly of Republicans were to see in 1876 a
Republican Assembly rivet the chain forged by the Rurals.
The motion for a full and complete amnesty was supported by those same
Radicals who had combated the Commune or abetted M. Thiers. They were
now the democratic lions of a Paris without a Socialist press, without
popular tribunes, without a history of the Commune, watched by the
courts-martial, always on the look-out for more victims, bereft of all
revolutionary electors. In this town which he had helped to bleed, there
were arrondissements which disputed the honour of electing Louis Blanc.
The deputy of Montmartre was the same man who, on the 18th March, had
congratulated Lecomte on the capture of the cannon, M. Clemenceau.
He made a jejune, garbled, timid expose of the immediate causes of the
18th March, but took good care not to touch upon the veritable causes.
Other Radicals, in order to make the vanquished more interesting, strove
to lower them. "You are absolutely mistaken as to the character of this
revolution," said M. Lockroy very grandly. "You see in it a social
revolution, where there has really been only a fit of hysterics and an
attack of fever." M. Floquet, nominated in the most revolutionary
arrondissement, the one in which Delescluze had fallen, called the
movement "detestable." M. Marcou wisely declared that the Commune was
"an anachronism."
No one even in the Extreme Left dared courageously to tell the country
the truth. "Yes, they were right to cling to their arms, these
Parisians, who remembered June and December; yes, they were right to
maintain that the monarchists were plotting for a revolution; yes, they
were right to struggle to the death against the advent of the priest."
No one dared to speak of the massacres, to call the Government to
account for the bloodshed. They were even less outspoken than the
Enquete Parlementaire. It is evident from this weak and superficial
discussion that they only wanted to redeem their word given to their
electors.
To advocates who stooped so low the answer was easy enough. As M. Thiers
and Jules Favre had done on the 21st March, 1871, the Minister Dufaure
pertinently set forth the true question at issue. "No, gentlemen," said
he, "this was not a communal movement; this was in its ideas, its
thoughts, and even in its acts, the most Radical revolution which has
ever been undertaken in the world." And the reporter of the Commission:
"There have been hours in our contemporary history when amnesty may have
been a necessity, but the insurrection of the 18th March cannot from any
point of view be compared with our civil wars. I see a formidable
insurrection, a criminal insurrection, an insurrection against all
society. No, nothing obliges us to give back to the condemned of the
Commune the rights of citizens." The immense majority applauded Dufaure,
singing the praises of the courts-martial, and not a Radical had the
courage to protest, to defy the Minister to produce a single document, a
single regular judgment. It would be easy to retort to this Extreme
Left: "Silence, pharisees, who allow the people to be massacred and then
come supplicating for them; mute or hostile during the battle,
grandiloquent after their defeat." Admiral Fourichon denied that the
convicts of the Commune are put on the same footing as the others;
denied their ill-treatment; said the convicts lived in a very garden of
flowers. Some intransigents having stated that "The torture has been
re-established," this delicious answer was vouchsafed them, "It is we
whom you put to the torture."
On the 18th May, 1876, 396 noes against 50 ayes rejected the full and
complete amnesty. Gambetta did not vote. The next day they discussed one
proposition of amnesty, which excluded those condemned for acts
qualified as common crimes by the courts-martial. The Commission again
rejected this motion, saying that it must be left to the mercy of the
Government, which had promised a considerable number of pardons. The
Radicals discussed a little to save appearances. M. Floquet said, "It is
not on a question of generosity and mercy that we should ever doubt of
the intentions of the Government;" and the proposition was thrown over.
Two days after, in the Senate, Victor Hugo asked for the amnesty in a
speech in which he drew a comparison between the defenders of the
Commune and the men of the 2nd December. His proposition was not even
discussed.
Two months after, MacMahon completed this hypocritical comedy by writing
to the Minister-at-War, "Henceforth no more prosecutions are to take
place unless commanded by the unanimous sentiment of honest people." The
honest officers understood. The condemnations continued. Some persons
condemned by default, who had ventured to return to France on the
strength of the hopes of the first days, had been captured; the
sentences against them were confirmed. The organisers of workingmen's
groups were mercilessly struck when their connection with the Commune
could be established.[266] In November, 1876, the courts-martial
pronounced sentences of death.[267]
This merciless tenacity alarmed public opinion to such an extent that
the Radicals were again obliged to bestir themselves a little. Towards
the end of 1876 they demanded that the Chamber should put a stop to the
prosecutions, or at least limit them. An illusory law was voted; the
Senate threw it out; our Liberals reckoned upon that.
The mercy of MacMahon was on a par with the rest. The day after the
rejection of the motion for an amnesty, Dufaure had installed a
consulting Commission of Pardons, composed of functionaries and
reactionists carefully culled by himself. The penitentiary
establishments in France then contained 1,600 persons condemned for
participation in the Commune, and the number of the transports rose to
about 4,400. The new Commission continued the system of the former one,
commuted some penalties, granted pardons of a few weeks or a few months,
even liberated two or three condemned who were dead. A year after its
institution it had recalled from New Caledonia a hundred at the utmost
of the least interesting of the prisoners.
Thus the Liberal Chamber continued the vengeance of the Rural Assembly;
thus the bourgeois Republic appeared to the workingmen as hostile to
their rights, more implacable perhaps than the Monarchists, justifying
the remark of one of M. Thiers' Ministers, "It is above all the
Republicans who must be adverse to the amnesty." Once again there was
justified the instinct of the people on the 18th March, when they
perceived in the conservative republic held out to them by M. Thiers an
anonymous oppression worse than the Imperialist yoke.
* * * * *
At the present time, six years after the massacres, near fifteen
thousand men, women, and children are maintained in New Caledonia or in
exile.[268]
What hope remains? None. The bourgeoisie has been too much frightened.
The cries for amnesty, the blazoned-forth elections, will not disquiet
the conservative republicans or monarchists. All the apparent
concessions will only be so many snares. The most valiant, the most
devoted, will die in the bagnio, in the Peninsula Ducos, in the Ile des
Pins.
It belongs to the workmen to do their duty so far as it is possible
to-day.
The Irish, after the Fenian insurrection, opened hundreds of public
subscriptions for the benefit of the victims. Near L1,200 were devoted
to their defence before the tribunals. The three men hanged at
Manchester received on the morning of their death the formal promise
that their families should want for nothing. This promise was kept. The
parents of the one, the wife of the other, were provided for, the
children were educated, dowered. In Ireland alone the donations, for the
families exceeded L5,000. When the partial amnesty was granted, all
Irish people rushed forward to help the amnestied. The single journal,
the _Irishman_, in a few weeks received L1,000, for the most part in
penny and sixpenny subscriptions. In one single donation the Irish of
America sent them L4,000, and the poorest of the poor Irish, the
emigrants of New Zealand, over L240. And this was not the outburst of
one day. In 1874 the Political Prisoners' Family Fund still received
L425. The total of the subscriptions exceed L10,000. Finally, in 1876, a
few Fenians chartered a vessel and carried off some of their comrades
still retained in Australia.
In France all the subscriptions for the families of the condemned of the
Commune have not exceeded L8,000. The Irish victims numbered only a few
hundreds; those of Versailles must be counted by thousands.
Nothing has been done for the transported "convicts." The Greppos, Louis
Blancs & Co., who, without mandate, without any surveillance, have
arrogated to themselves the right of centralising the subscriptions, of
distributing them at pleasure, have thus formed themselves a retinue out
of the families of those whom they had betrayed. They have refused to
transmit anything to the convicts, that is to say, to the most
necessitous, who, six thousand leagues from France, pine away without
resources and with no possibility of work.
Do you understand, workingmen, you who are free? You now know what the
whole situation is and what the men are. Remember the vanquished not for
a day, but at all hours. Women, you whose devotion sustains and elevates
their courage, let the agony of the prisoners haunt you like an
everlasting nightmare. Let all workshops every week put something aside
from their wages. Let the subscriptions no longer be sent to the
Versaillese committee, but made over to loyal hands. Let the Socialist
party attest its principles of international solidarity and its power by
saving those who have fallen for it.
FOOTNOTES:
[256] "We all recollect one of our comrades, Corcelles, who had
contracted pulmonary phthisis of the gravest form. He could scarcely
keep himself on his legs when crawling before the Commission. To the
President's usual question he answered by a pitiful smile only, and
while one of the younger members of the Commission, moved probably to
pity at the sight of the walking corpse, bent himself towards the ear of
the old surgeon, doubtless with the view of begging a respite, the
latter retorted, loud enough to be heard by the patient and several
other prisoners, 'Bah! the sharks will want something to eat.' And the
sharks did have something to eat; less than three weeks after we were
out at sea our friend Corcelles was dead, and we committed his remains
to the last common reservoir." We must give the name of this friend of
sharks; his name is Dr. Chanal. "Out of the four thousand condemned who
passed in file before him, ten cases of exemption are not known. And
perhaps the motives which dictated this may be better judged when the
following facts are known. M. Edmond Adam, deputy of the Seine, having
come to the Ile de Re in order to visit M. H. Rochefort, who was shut up
there, had a young woman present herself at his hotel, who proposed to
him, for the modest sum of 1000 francs, to procure from the
chief-surgeon a respite for his friend on his departure. She had but one
word to say, remarked she, and the old man was under her
orders."--_Account by two escaped prisoners from New Caledonia, Paschal
Grousset and Jourde, published by the Times, 27th June 1874._
[257] The Australian and English journals having revealed these
sufferings, the Versaillese Government answered in its journal: "The
news of the convict ship the _Orne_, transmitted through the English
press, is inexact in all points. Far from counting 420 cases of scurvy,
this vessel had hardly 360 cases."
[258] Report of the Commission of Pardons, presented in January 1876, by
MM. Martel and F. Voisin.
[259] In the Ile des Pins, 900 condemned received between them all 500
hectares (about 100 acres). "We have been mistaken as to the resources
offered by the Ile des Pins," philosophically remarked the Minister of
Marine in 1876. "I said so three years ago," answered M. Georges Perin.
[260] "Admiral Ribourt, in his Inquiry, declares that during the year
1873 the engineering department had paid the condemned in the peninsula
110,525 francs. We must then leave off saying that the convicts won't
work."--_Speech of M. Georges Perin in favour of an amnesty, Sitting of
the 17th May 1876._
[261] An overlooker of the first class had been condemned for an attempt
to murder; another, decorated with the cross of the Legion d'Honneur,
sentenced to seven years' hard labour for attempting to murder his wife.
Many of them were every day condemned for drunkenness.
[262] Details taken from the very correct and by no means exaggerated
relation which Paschal Grousset and Jourde published in the _Times_
after their escape. It has since been republished as a pamphlet.
[263] Two notorious murderers.
[264] The Pole condemned for having in Paris shot at the Czar.
[265] One of them has given a complete account of their escape, together
with some interesting details on New Caledonia: "Un Voyage de
Circumnavigation," by A. Baillere.
[266] On the 22nd December 1876, Baron, ex-delegate of the accountants
of Paris to the Workmen's Congress, was summoned before the third
court-martial, which accused him of having been one of the secretaries
of the delegation of war during the Commune. Baron was condemned to
transportation in a fortress. During the examination the president said,
"The Court will take notice that the accused still has the same
sentiments as those which animated him in 1871, for in 1876 we have seen
that he took part in the Workmen's Congress."
[267] Appendix XXXVIII.
[268] Even in the month of April 1877 another ship, having 506 condemned
to transportation, has been despatched from France to New Caledonia.
APPENDIX.
I.--(Page 29.)
The Central Committee found in the bureau of the War-Office, and the
_Officiel_ of the Commune published on the 25th April, the following
letter from the supreme commander of the artillery of the army to
General Suzanne:--
"PARIS, _12th December 1870_.
"My dear Suzanne--I have not found among the young auxiliaries your
protege Hetzel, but only a M. Hessel. Is it he who is meant? "Tell me
frankly what you desire, and I will do it. I will attach him to my
staff, where he will be bored, having nothing to do, or else I will send
him to Mont Valerien, where he will run less risk than at Paris (this
for the parents), and where he will have the air of firing the cannons
into the air, according to Noel's method.
"Unbutton--your mouth, of course.--Yours,
GUIOD"
The Noel mentioned at that time commanded Mont Valerien.
II.--(Page 83.)
_The role of the Central Committee during the day of the 18th March._
"I would remind you that the members of the Committee had separated at
about half-past three in the morning of the 17th to the 18th. Before
raising the sitting it had been decided that the meeting of the
following day should take place at eleven o'clock in the evening, at a
school requisitioned for the purpose in the Rue Basfroi.
"Despite the lateness of the hour, nothing had transpired as to the
movements which the Government had decided upon, and the Committee
having only just constituted itself for the examination of its powers
and the distribution of the commissions, had received no information
which might have led it to suppose the imminence of the peril. Its
military commission had not yet begun to work; it had taken possession
of the documents, notes, and minutes of the former one, and that was
all.
"You know how Paris woke up on the morning of the 18th. The members of
the Committee heard of the events of the night through public rumours
and the official placards. For my own part, aroused at about eight
o'clock, I hurried on my clothes, and repaired to the Rue Basfroi,
crossing the Place de la Bastille, occupied by the Guard of Paris. I had
hardly entered the Rue de la Roquette when I saw that the people were
beginning to organise the defence. A barricade was being commenced at
the corner of the Rue Neuve de Lappe. A little higher up I was refused
passage, in spite of the declaration which I made of my quality of
member of the Central Committee. I was obliged to go up the Rue de
Charonne, the faubourg, and come back in the direction of the Rue St.
Bernard. No work was going on as yet in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine,
but the excitement there was great. At last, towards half-past ten
o'clock, I reached the Rue Basfroi, which was barricaded at both
outlets, with the exception of an opening reserved for the cannon drawn
up in the open grounds of this street, which were taken away one by one
to the different barricades in course of erection.
"I succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting into a schoolroom,
where some of my colleagues were gathered. Citizens Assi, Prudhomme,
Rousseau, Gouhier, Lavalette, Geresme, Bouit, and Fougeret were there.
Just as I entered, a staff sublieutenant, arrested in the Rue St. Maur,
was being led in. He was examined. Next a gendarme was brought, but the
only papers found in his possession were placards transmitted to one of
the mairies. X. looked after this business, and had organised a sort of
prison in the courtyard. I also saw defiling about fifteen individuals,
military and civil, arrested by the people. In the meantime I learnt
that Bergeret had been sent to take the command of Montmartre, where he
had been named _chef-de-legion_ the day before. Varlin, who came
immediately after me, had set out again in order to organise the defence
of the Batignolles. Arnold also put in his appearance for a moment, and
then went to place himself at the head of his battalion. The Committee
had added Citizens Audoyneau, Ferrat and Billioray to its numbers.
"At mid-day the course events would take was still waited for, and
nothing was decided upon. I begged some of my colleagues to leave X. to
his useless interrogations, and to come and to deliberate in another
room, the one we occupied having by degrees been invaded by persons
strangers to the Committee. As soon as we were installed, we asked for
some citizens willing to serve as our general staff, and to inform us as
to the situation in the different quarters. A great number presented
themselves. We sent them in all directions, to tell our colleagues to
hurry on as much as possible the construction of the barricades, to
muster the National Guard, to take the command of it, and to specify the
points whither we were to forward our communications.
"Of our messengers only four returned. He whom we had sent to the
twentieth arrondissement informed us that the rallying point was in the
Rue de Paris and at Menilmontant, in front of the new mairie. Varlin had
great trouble in grouping the National Guards of the Batignolles. One
staff had mustered forces at the Place du Trone, and had repaired to the
Neuilly Barracks, but the soldiers had closed the gates, and assumed a
menacing attitude. Brunel, together with Lisbonne, was preparing to
threaten the barracks of the Chateau d'Eau.
"Other accounts apprised us that the orders of the Committee were being
waited for. Duval had established himself at the Pantheon, and waited.
Faltot sent us a note in these words: 'I have five or six battalions in
the Rue de Sevres; what am I to do?' Pindy had taken possession of the
Mairie of the third arrondissement, and was mustering the battalions
devoted to the Committee. As soon as we had got this intelligence some
dispositions for the attack were taken.
"While these resolutions were being discussed Lullier had come to place
himself at the disposal of the Committee. The Committee had given him no
formal order, and confined itself to telling him that all forces
available for the taking of the Hotel-de-Ville were being mustered.
"In order to assure the transmission of the orders, each one of the
members then present--others had come up, but I could not say
who--undertook to carry them to a designated point. So at three o'clock
the Committee broke up, leaving Assi and two other members as a
permanent sub-committee at the Rue Basfroi."--Extract from an account
addressed to the author by a member of the Central Committee.
III.--(Page 160.)
Here is a letter from one of them, later a most violent enemy of this
Revolution, M. Meline, general secretary of the Ministry of Justice,
written on the 30th March, to the president of the Council of the
Commune:
"VILLE DE PARIS (_First Arrondissement, Mairie of the Louvre_).
"Citizen President--I no longer possess sufficient physical strength
after prolonged fatigues to combat in the midst of our Assembly, which
is destined to discuss so many grave questions. I beg you then to accept
my resignation, and my sincere hopes that the Assembly may consolidate
the Republic.--Receive, Citizen President, the expression of my
fraternal sentiments,
"JULES MELINE.
"_30th March 1871._"
IV.--(Page 207.)
Here is a letter addressed to the Delegate at War:--
"Citizen--Excuse my addressing you these lines, and be so kind as to
take into consideration the request which I address to you.
"I have three sons in the ranks of the National Guard--the eldest in the
197th battalion, the second in the 126th, and the third in the 97th. As
to myself, I am in the 177th.
"However, there yet remains to me one son, who is the youngest. He will
soon be sixteen years old, and desires with all his heart to be enrolled
in no matter what battalion; for he has sworn to his brothers and to me
that he will take arms to sustain our young Republic against the hangmen
of Versailles.
"We have all agreed, and we have sworn an oath to revenge him who should
fall under the fratricidal balls of our enemies.
"Citizen, take then the last of my sons. I offer him with all my heart
to the Republican fatherland. Do with him as you wish, place him in a
battalion of your choice, and you will make me a thousand times
happy.--Accept, citizen, my fraternal salutation,
AUGUSTE JOULON,
"_Guard of the 177th Battalion_.
"18 AVENUE D'ITALIE, PARIS,
_12th May 1871_."
V.--(Page 209.)
Instances of their courage abound in the journals of the time. One
quotation taken at hazard from _La Commune_ of the 12th April:--
"On Thursday, the 6th, at the moment when the 26th battalion of St. Ouen
defended the barricade of the cross-roads, a child, V. Thiebault,
fourteen years old, ran up amidst the balls in order to give the
defenders something to drink. The shells having forced the Federals to
fall back, they were about to sacrifice the victuals of the battalion,
when the child, in spite of the shells, sprang towards a barrel of wine,
which he staved in, crying, 'At any rate they shall not drink our wine.'
At the same instant, seizing the rifle of a Federal who had just fallen,
he charged it, took aim, and killed an officer of gendarmes. Then
perceiving a waggon with two horses harnessed to it, whose driver had
just been wounded, he mounted the horses and saved the waggon.--Eugene
Leon Vanviere, thirteen and a half years old, contrived to save the guns
at the outpost of the Porte-Maillot, in spite of his wound."
VI.--(Page 217.)
The prefect of police, Valentin, sent the following circular to the
commissaries of the different railway stations:--
"VERSAILLES, _25th April 1871_.
"The chief of the executive power has just decided that, dating from
to-day, all victualling trains and all supplies of provisions directed
to Paris shall be stopped.
"I beg you to take all measures you may deem needful for the execution
of this decree at once. You are to examine with the most vigilant
attention all the railway trains, all the carriages destined for Paris,
and you will send back to the purveyors all the provisions you may
discover.
"You will for this purpose concert with ... &c.
"The delegate to the functions of prefect of police.
"VALENTIN."
VII.--(Page 219.)
"... Accompanied by Frankel and one of my brothers, I proceeded to the
General Post-Office, which was still occupied by the National Guards of
order. I was immediately received by M. Rampont, surrounded by the Board
of Administration. M. Rampont at first declared that he did not
recognise the authority of the Central Committee, which had appointed
me; but I think this was a merely formal precaution, for he began to
parley immediately. I told him that the Government of the 4th September,
which had named him, was also born of a revolutionary movement, and that
notwithstanding this he had accepted his post. During this discussion he
told us that he was a Mutualist-Socialist, a partisan of Proudhon's
ideas, and consequently hostile to Communistic ideas, which had just
triumphed with the Revolution of the 18th March. I answered that the
Revolution of the 18th March was not the triumph of a Socialist school,
but the prelude of a social transformation fettered by no particular
school, and that I myself belonged to the mutualist school. After a long
conversation, in which he declared himself ready to acknowledge the
authority of the Commune, which was to be named in two or three days, he
proposed to me to submit the following undertaking to the Central
Committee. Till the day when the Commune should have decided, he engaged
to remain at the head of the Post-Office; he accepted the control of two
delegates of the Committee. I communicated this proposal to Vaillant and
A. Arnaud (who had made over to me my nomination), in order that they
might inform the Committee. I waited in vain for an answer.
"The Commune met. The second day, perhaps, I broached the question of
the Post-Office. It was to be comprised in the order of the day, but
always in the confused way which one finds in the order of these
debates, when, on the 30th March, a workman came to apprise Pindy that
the administration of the Post-Office was deserting. The Commune
immediately voted my nomination, and gave me the order to have the
office occupied. Chardon set out at the head of a battalion, accompanied
by Vermorel and myself. It was seven or eight o'clock in the evening.
The work was done, and only a small number of employes remained. Some
gave us a sympathetic welcome, others seemed indifferent. Chardon left a
guard, and I spent the night alone in the office.
"The next day, at three o'clock in the morning, I walked through the
rooms and courts where the employes were arriving for the first
delivery. A manuscript placard, posted in all the rooms and courts,
ordered the employes to abandon their services, and repair to
Versailles, under pain of dismissal. I tore down these placards and
exhorted the men to remain true to their posts. There was at first some
indecision, then a few made up their minds to rally round me.
"At eight o'clock other employes came; at nine o'clock still more. They
formed groups in the large court, talked, discussed, some beat a
retreat, and their example was about to be followed.
"I had the doors closed, and militarily occupied by guards; and I went
from group to group, discussing, menacing. At last I gave the order to
each one to return to his respective bureau. Thereupon a precious
auxiliary came up, Citizen A----, an employe at the Post-Office, a
Socialist, for whom I had a letter from a friend. There was a momentary
hesitation. The father of a family, much respected, sure of an early
promotion, he was about to risk an advantageous place. But his
hesitation lasted only a few seconds. He promised me his assistance, and
he gave it me faithfully up to the last day. He brought me into relation
with Citizen B----, who soon became my second. Both of them furnished me
with information of the greatest utility concerning this department, of
which I did not know the most simple details.
"All the chiefs of bureaux had abandoned their posts; so, too, had the
second head-clerks, save one, who immediately had himself put on the
sick-list. A---- and B---- got together some friends, head-clerks, who
for a long time had done all the work of the chiefs of the bureaux.
Citizen C---- was placed at the head of the postal service for Paris.
"All the divisional bureaux, save two, had been closed and abandoned.
The stock had been carried off, the cash-box emptied, as was proved by
the minutes drawn up by a commissary of the Commune, with the assistance
of several well-known people of the quarter, amongst whom was M. Brelay,
since named deputy of Paris. Postage stamps were wanting. The carts had
set off for Versailles.
"A., B., and some others of an indefatigable zeal, had the divisional
bureaux opened by locksmiths in the presence of the commissaries of the
quarter, and installed well-meaning citizens, whose apprenticeship they
superintended. But there was a stoppage of two days in the delivery of
letters, which gave rise to public grumbling, and I was obliged to
explain the facts in a placard. At the end of forty-eight hours A. and
B. had reorganised the collection and delivery of letters.
"All the citizens whose services had been accepted as auxiliaries
received provisionally, till their capacities could be judged of, a
salary of five francs a day.
"By chance we found some postage-stamps of ten centimes at the bottom of
a chest. Camelinat, appointed the director of the Mint, sent for the
plates and the stock, and forthwith began manufacturing stamps.
"During the first days bundles of letters from Paris destined for the
provinces were taken in by the receiving officer of Sceaux, who no doubt
was without precise instructions; then the blockade was completed. The
sending of letters to the provinces became the object of a daily
struggle. Secret agents went to throw them into the boxes of the offices
for ten miles round. The letters of Paris for Paris alone were stamped
with date-marks. Those sent to the provinces by our smugglers only had
the postage-stamp, which did not permit of their being distinguished
from the others. When Versailles found out the manoeuvre, it changed
the dotting of the stamps. We were quits at Paris by sending off the
letters of importance without prepayment, and procuring stamps from the
bureaux of Versailles.
"If the bureaux for the letters to be sent out of Paris could still
work, those for the collection of the letters from abroad were at a
stand-still. The letters from the provinces accumulated at Versailles.
Some men of business set up agencies, where, for a very high fee, the
letters which they went to fetch at Versailles might be obtained. These
people exploited the population, but we could not supersede them, and we
were obliged to shut our eyes. We contented ourselves with reducing the
profits somewhat, by deducting from each letter the postage of Paris for
Paris, without their being able on that account to raise the sum fixed
by their advertisements.
"The efforts of Versailles to disorganise the reconstituted postal
services were several times baffled, thanks to the vigilance of our two
inspectors. However, we could not prevent the success of all their
attempts at subornation.
"From the first days of April we instituted a council at the
post-office, composed of the delegate, his secretary, the general
secretary, all the heads of services, two inspectors, and two head
postmen. The postmen, _gardiens de bureaux_, and sorters had their wages
raised, very little, alas! for our receipts, considerably reduced, did
not allow us to be very liberal.
"We decided upon the suppression, if not absolute, at least partial, of
the time for serving as supernumerary, which was reduced to the strictly
necessary time. The aptness of the workmen had henceforth to be proved
by tests and examinations, as also the quantity and quality of their
labour."--Extract from an account addressed to the author by Theisz.
VIII.--(Page 220.)
The limits of this Appendix oblige me to make a resume of the extremely
interesting accounts by Faillet and Louis Debock on the direct taxes and
the National Printing Office:--
"In the evening of the 24th March Faillet and Combault (of the
International) presented themselves at the administration of the direct
taxes. On the written declaration that he yielded to menaces, the
director handed them over the keys. Citizen X., who was thoroughly
acquainted with the administrative movement, placed himself very
promptly at their disposal.
"The original register and other materials for the collection of taxes
had disappeared. It was decided that the taxes should be gathered
according to the list of 1869. The _personnel_ of the forty
collectorships, the valuers, the employes, to make up the list, had
fled. The collectors were replaced by forty citizens, some workingmen
belonging to the International, the others clerks of commercial houses
or government offices. Some of the old officials who had not withdrawn
were retained, but under the superintendence of a safe man. The presence
of Citizen X. decided a great number of employes to come and work under
the new directors.
"The service of the direct taxes was composed--for the _interior_, of a
director, a general administrator, a general secretary, two
sub-secretaries, one chief of the bureaux of taxes and lists, a head
accountant, five other accountants, and two inspectors of the collecting
offices; for the _exterior_, of forty tax-gatherers, each one assisted
by two or three clerks, a bearer of summonses, and an agent with his
accountants at the bonded warehouse for wine.
"Once or twice a week the director made a round in all the collector's
offices, which the inspectors visited every day. Each tax-gatherer
brought the cashier of the direction the receipts of the day before. The
cashier every evening laid the returns before the administration, and
made over to the Central Pay-Office of the Finance Department all that
was not needed for the general expenses of the service.
"The service ceased on the Saturday evening, 25th May. A hundred clerks,
not thinking their whole duty to the Commune done, formed a corps of
scouts, whose post was established in the presbytery of the Temple des
Billettes."
"On the 18th March, at five o'clock in the evening, Pindy and Louis
Debock presented themselves with a battalion at the National
Printing-Office, and established themselves there. The director Haureau
came down, tried to negotiate, and then went up again to his apartments.
During the evening Debock went to ask him for the list of workmen.
Haureau took advantage of the occasion to protest his republicanism,
said he was a former editor of the _National_, a friend of Marrast,
Arago, &c., and that the movement of the 18th March had no _raison
d'etre_ whatever. A few days were allowed him for removing.
"The whole _personnel_ was maintained, with the exception of the
director, the sub-director, the overseer, and the chief of the works,
Felix Derenemesnil, who was cordially detested for his brutality and
injustice. These spread abroad that the Central Committee had no money,
and that the workmen would not be paid. Debock answered by an order of
the day placarded in the workshops, guaranteeing the wages in the name
of the Central Committee.
"At the end of March, on the injunction of Versailles, all the employes
and heads of the services, with very few exceptions, abandoned the
printing-office after having received their salaries. The new director
took advantage of this to have the new foremen of the workshops
appointed by the workmen themselves. The places of managers of the
printing-press were put up for competition. As the administration of the
Rue Pagevin threw obstacles into the way of placarding the decrees and
proclamations, Debock advised the workmen bill-stickers to associate
themselves. They did so; their wages increased by 25 per cent., and the
printing-office saved 200 francs a day.
"The bulk of the salaries was greatly reduced; that of the lower clerks
and workmen increased. On the 18th March a fortnight's salary was due to
the workingmen and women, and a week's to the employes. The Commune
discharged these arrears. Versailles, victorious, refused to pay the few
days' wages due to the workmen. Yet the Versailles administration found
the stock intact and in perfect order.
"The budget of monthly expenses before the 18th March rose to 120,000
francs, of which 23,000 were absorbed by the salaries of the
functionaries, employes, &c. After this date the expenses did not reach
20,000 francs a week, the expenses of placarding included.
"After the Commune the Union Republicaine announced in the journals that
it had saved the Archives and the National Printing-Office from the
flames. This was a lie, as proved by the order sent on the 24th May to
the Archives at the request of Debock.
"_Order.--The Archives not to be burnt.--The Colonel
commanding the Hotel-de-Ville, Pindy._
"As to the printing-office, it was occupied by Debock up to the invasion
of the quarter. In the night of the 24th he sent to ask the Committee of
Public Safety for the documents, papers, and articles necessary for the
composition of the _Journal Officiel_. The next day, having received no
answer, and the Versaillese pressing forward, he repaired to Belleville,
where the three proclamations or placards which appeared on the
following days were printed by his order."
IX.--(Page 241.)
"Certainly the Communal principle must have been very strong in itself
to have held sixty days against such fools."--_Behind the Scenes at the
Commune_, _"Fraser's Magazine,"_ December, 1872.
"To conquer was so easy and simple, that it needed the double dose of
vanity and ignorance with which the feeble brains of the majority of the
Commune were stuffed to baulk the people of its victory."--_The Paris
Commune of 1871, "Fraser's Magazine,"_ March, 1873.
"He (Delescluze) had only once dared to attack me to my face, but it
resulted in so much discomfiture to himself, and he came out of the
affair so crestfallen, that for the future he confined himself to
plotting against us behind my back, while to my face he was as civil as
possible."--_Behind the Scenes at the Commune, "Fraser's Magazine,"_
December, 1872.