with nervous energy to raise fresh armies in the south; Garibaldi, his
sword free from duty in Italy, had come to the aid of France; all
patriots were called to the ranks and a struggle of some importance took
place. But all this practically ceased on the 28th of January, 1871,
when an armistice brought the hopeless resistance of Paris to an end.
Almost at once the war died out on all sides, the Germans occupied all
the forts around Paris, and France lay at the mercy of Germany, after a
struggle of six months' duration.
The first siege of Paris had terminated; a second and more desperately
contested one was at hand. On March 13 the German army around Paris,
which had been given the triumph of a march into the conquered city,
set out on its return home and the authorities of the new republic
prepared to take possession of their freed capital.
They were to find the task one of unlooked-for difficulty. On March 18
the revolutionary element of the city rose _en masse_, organized under
the name of the Commune, took possession of Paris, and prepared to
defend it to the death against the leaders of the new-formed government,
whom they contemned as aristocrats.
The story of the Commune is a shameful and terrible one. Beginning in a
fraternization of the National Guard with the mob, its advent was sealed
with murder. In a contest on the 18th for the possession of some cannon
General Lecomte ordered his men to fire on the insurgents. They refused.
A gentleman standing in a crowd of angry men on the street corner said:
"General Lecomte is right." He was immediately seized and quickly
recognised as General Clément Thomas, a brave officer who had done
gallant service during the siege. This sufficed him nothing with the
mob. He and General Lecomte were at once dragged away to prison. At 4
o'clock that same day they were brought out by a party of the insurgent
National Guards, and after a mock trial were taken to a walled enclosure
and shot down in cold blood. They were the first victims of the mob,
which had early begun to burn its bridges behind it.
On the following day the leaders of the outbreak met at the
Hôtel-de-Ville. They all belonged to the International, a secret society
formed for the abolition of property, religion, rulers, government, and
the upper classes, and the reduction of the community to a state of
anarchy or something resembling it. They called upon the citizens to
meet in their sections and elect a commune--the new form of government
advocated by the Anarchists, in which destruction of all existing
institutions was to precede reconstruction from the bottom upwards.
Events now moved rapidly. A delegation from the few men of note left in
Paris proceeded to Versailles, where the government of the republic was
in session, and demanded that special municipal rights should be given
to the people of Paris. The refusal of this request precipitated the
insurrection. The furious people at once elected a revolutionary
government, choosing the most extreme of the revolutionists, who
organized what was called the Council of the Commune. This consisted of
eighty members, of varied nationality, seventy of them never having been
heard of in Paris before. They had risen from the bottom of the deep sea
of anarchy to assume control.
On the 3d of April the civil war broke out--Paris against Versailles,
the army under the Assembly of the republic against the National Guard
in sympathy with the Commune. The Germans, who still held two of the
forts in the vicinity of Paris, looked grimly on at the tragedy about to
be played upon the stage which their hands had erected.
The war began with murder. Dr. Pasquier, a distinguished surgeon,
bearing a flag of truce, met two National Guards on the bridge of
Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon had been brought
ashore thirty years before. After a brief debate one of the soldiers
ended the colloquy by blowing out the doctor's brains. As soon as
General Vinoy, in command of the army of order, heard of this murderous
act he ordered the guns of Fort Varélien to be turned upon the city.
On the following morning five columns of the troops of the Commune
marched out to take the fort, lured by the confident impression that the
soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them. They were mistaken. The
guns of Fort Varélien hurled death-dealing missiles into their columns
and they were quickly in full retreat. Flourens, a scientist of fame who
had joined their ranks, fell dead. Duval, one of their generals, was
captured and was quickly shot as a traitor. The other leaders were at
once sent to prison by the angry Council on their return and the Commune
ordered that Paris should be filled with barricades.
Though the Commune had imprisoned the unsuccessful generals, they were
infuriated at the execution of General Duval and sought in the
dignitaries of the church the most exalted hostages they could find
against such summary acts. On the night of the 6th Monseigneur Darboy,
Archbishop of Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests were
arrested. The curé of the Madeleine and his vicar had before been
seized. Other priests were later taken into custody and the prison at
Mazas was well filled with these so-called hostages. The fury of the
leaders of the revolt led them to other excesses against religion, the
churches being closed, the arms cut from the crosses, and red flags hung
in their stead.
The outrages were not confined to the church. In the words of a resident
of Paris: "The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity of that sort
which means arrest of each other." Before the Council was two weeks old
many of its leading members had found their way to prison. Dissensions
had broken out in its midst, and the stronger victimized the weaker.
By April 7 a personage calling himself General Cluseret had, as some one
expressed it, "swallowed up the Commune." He called himself an American,
and had been in the Union service in the American civil war, but no one
knew where he was born. He had served in the Chasseurs d'Afrique and in
the Papal Zouaves, and after the fall of the Commune escaped from Paris
and became a general of the Fenians, nearly capturing Chester Castle in
their service.
This man became absolute dictator over the revolted city, with its two
million of inhabitants; yet after three weeks of this dictatorial rule
his star declined and he found himself in prison at Mazas, to which he
had sent so many others.
Leaving these details for the present, we must return to the war, which
was soon in full blast. The assault of April 4 repulsed, the guns of
Fort Varélien were opened upon the city and the second bombardment of
Paris in that memorable year began. The guns of its friends were more
destructive than those of its foes, the forts taking part in the
bombardment being much nearer the centre of the city. Their shells
damaged the Arch of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared; they fell
alike on homes, public buildings and churches; alike on men, women and
children, friend and foe.
Under order of General Cluseret, the dictator of the Commune, every man
was ordered to take part in the defence of the city. His neighbors were
required to see that he did so and to arrest him if he showed a
disposition to decline. For the seventy-three days that the power of the
Commune lasted Paris was a veritable pandemonium, the fighting, the
arrests, the bombardment keeping the excitement at an intense pitch. The
people deserted the streets, which were silent and empty, except for the
soldiers of the Commune--a disorderly crew in motley uniforms--the
movement of ammunition wagons, and the other scenes incident to a state
of war. But the usual swarming life of Paris had vanished. There was no
movement, scarcely any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many of them
boarded up, red flags hanging from a few, but as a rule the very
buildings seemed dead.
This is the story told by one observer, but another--perhaps at a
different period of the bombardment--speaks of well-dressed people
"loitering in the boulevards as if nothing were going on. The cafés,
indeed, were ordered to close their doors at midnight, but behind closed
shutters went on gambling, drinking and debauchery. After spending a
riotous night, fast men and women considered it a joke to drive out to
the Arch of Triumph and see how the fight was going on."
On the 9th of April the army of Versailles began to make active assaults
upon the forts held by the soldiers of the Commune, and with such effect
that confusion and dismay quickly pervaded its councils. As the struggle
went on the fury and spirit of retaliation of the insurgents increased.
New hostages were arrested, the palace of the archbishop was pillaged,
and in the first week of May the destruction of the house of M. Thiers,
the president of the republic, was decreed. It was a beautiful mansion,
filled with objects of art and valuable documents used by him in writing
his historical works. Some of these were removed, but most of them were
consumed by the flames. On the 12th of May the Commune, now inspired by
the spirit of destruction, ordered the levelling of the famous column in
the Place Vendôme, describing it as a symbol of brute force and false
glory.
This famous column, one hundred and thirty-five feet high, formed on the
model of Trajan's column at Rome, had been erected by Napoleon I., cast
from cannon taken from his foes, and surmounted by a statue of Napoleon
in his imperial robes. On May 16 this proud work of art fell, being
pulled down with a tremendous crash by the aid of ropes fastened to its
upper part. It is pleasant to be able to state that this fine work of
art has been restored. Its attempted destruction filled the army of
Versailles with a spirit of revenge, which led them, on their entering
Paris a few days later, to deal with the insurrectionists with brutal
and merciless energy. They had other and abundant cause for this
feeling, as the reader will perceive in the recital of the later deeds
of the desperate Commune.
By the date now reached the army of order was rapidly gaining ground.
The fort of Vauves was taken; that of Mont Rouge was dismantled;
breaches were opened in the barricades, and by the 20th of May the army
was in the streets and fighting its way onward against a desperate
defence. The carnage was frightful; Dambrowski, a Pole and the only able
general of the Commune, was killed; prisoners on both sides were shot
down without mercy; there were barricades in almost every street and
these were hotly defended, the courage of despair in their defenders
making the progress of the besieging army a slow and bloody one.
The rest of the story is all blood and horror. The desperate leaders of
the Commune determined that, if they must perish, Paris should be their
funeral pyre. On the night of May 24 the city became a scene of
incendiary rage. The Hôtel-de-Ville was in flames; the Palace of the
Tuileries was burning like a great furnace; the Palace of the Legion of
Honor, the Ministry of War, the Treasury were lurid volcanoes of flames;
on all sides the torch had been applied.
Not only these great public buildings, but many private houses were
consigned to the flames. All the sewers beneath Paris had been strewn
with torpedoes, bombs, and inflammable materials, connected with
electric wires, and the catacombs in the eastern quarter of the city
were similarly prepared. It was the intention of the desperate
revolutionists to blow up the city, but fortunately, before their
preparations were completed, the army of order was in control and
sappers and miners were sent underground to cut the electric wires
leading to these mines of death-dealing explosives.
But the capture of the city came too late to save the lives of many of
the "hostages" whom the Commune had sent to prison. Not content with
burning the architectural monuments of the city, as the last effort of
baffled rage they condemned these innocent victims of their wrath to
death. On Wednesday, May 24, the venerable archbishop and five others of
the imprisoned priests were taken from their cells and shot to death. On
Thursday fifty more, priests and others, were similarly slaughtered.
A large number of captives remained shut up in the prison of La
Roquette, around which, on Saturday the 27th, a yelling crowd gathered,
thirsting for their lives. They, knowing that their rescuers were
fighting within the city, determined to defend themselves and convert
the prison into a fortress. Poiret, one of the warders, horrified by
what had already been done, was the leader in the resolution, in which
he was joined by the Abbé Lamazan, who called out:
"Don't let us be shot, my friends; let us defend ourselves. Trust in
God; he is on our side."
The _sergents de ville_, captives in the story below, had made the same
resolution. They had no arms, but they barricaded the doors and resolved
to defend themselves from the murderous throng outside, howling for
their blood. Two guns and a mortar had been brought by the mob to fire
on the prison and the moment was critical.
Suddenly there came a lull in the uproar. Something had taken place. In
a few minutes more the crowd broke up and dispersed, dragging away the
guns they had brought. Word had reached them that the Council had fled
from its headquarters to Belleville and a sudden panic seized the mob.
Yet that night they returned, howling and cursing, while a barricade
near by was still held by the insurgents. But with the early dawn this
was abandoned, the mob melted away, and soon after a batallion of
rescuers marched up and took possession of the prison. The captives were
saved. Their resistance, seemingly so desperate, had proved successful.
That day, Sunday, May 28, ended the rule of the Commune. The Versailles
troops, who had been fighting their way steadily from street to street
since the 21st, completed their work, the whole great city was in their
hands, and the rule of the Commune was over.
The Commune had left devastation behind it. On every side were
smoldering ruins, including the great municipal buildings, the law
courts, and other public edifices, two theatres, eight whole streets,
and innumerable private houses, while the dead bodies of its victims lay
where they had been shot down. The soldiers, infuriated by the ruin
which they beheld on all sides, were savage in their revenge. Every man
seized whose hands were black with powder was instantly shot, many
innocent persons perishing, since numbers had been forced to the
barricades. The story of what took place during those bloody days of
retribution is too long to tell, and it must suffice to sum it up in the
frightful death roll of fourteen thousand persons--six thousand of them
killed in open fight, eight thousand executed in bitter revenge.
The executions over, the prisons were filled to bursting. Count Orsi
tells us that six hundred men were locked up in the wine cellars of
Versailles, forty-five feet underground. He himself, falsely seized
through the malice of an enemy, spent ten days in this horrible place
amid the scum of the insurgents. As for the members of the Council of
the Commune, some escaped, some were executed, others were transported
to New Caledonia, a lonely isle in the far Pacific--from which they were
subsequently freed when the hot blood of that year of revengeful
retribution cooled down.
Thus ends the remarkable story of that year of war, insurrection, and
devastation, the whole due to the overweening ambition of one man, Louis
Napoleon, who wished to shine as a great conqueror. The destiny of
France lay in his hand alone. He blindly decided upon war. The result
was the humiliation of France, the death of thousands of her sons, the
overthrow of her government, the frightful saturnalia of the rule of the
Commune, and the loss to France of two of her provinces, those of Alsace
and Lorraine, and a war indemnity of one thousand million dollars. Such
terrors march in the train of blind and unrestrained ambition.
THE END.
[Illustration: FRIEDLAND.]
[Illustration: COLUMN OF JULY, PLACE DE LA BASTILLE.]
[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC AT ORLEANS.]
[Illustration: A DUEL OF KNIGHTS]
[Illustration: LOUIS XI.]
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF GUISE AT THE FRENCH COURT.]
[Illustration: EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF HENRY IV.]
[Illustration: CHAMBER OF MARY DE' MEDICI.]
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. PARIS.]
[Illustration: THE VOW OF CLOVIS.]
[Illustration: VOLTAIRE'S LAST VISIT TO PARIS.]
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER CHILDREN.]
[Illustration: THE LAST VICTIMS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.]
[Illustration: THE CITY OF MOSCOW.]
[Illustration: ARC DE TRIOMPHE AND CHAMPS ELYSÉES. PARIS.]
[Illustration: NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM ELBA.]
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.]
[Illustration: THE CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE.]
[Illustration: CITY OF ORLEANS.]
[Illustration: A MARRIAGE FEAST IN BRITTANY.]
End of Project Gutenberg's Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15), by Charles Morris