suffered enough of mortification and defeat at the hands of the enemy,
the Parisians have succeeded in emptying the cup of disgrace to the
dregs by dragging down the monument of their military glory, amid hoots
and hisses, and toppling over the effigy of their greatest soldier-hero
on to a bed of mire, at the same time publicly tearing the tricoloured
national flag which has for so many years led their armies to victory.
Upon the official announcement some days back that the Vendôme Column
was to be sacrificed as an insult to the principles of fraternity,
everybody laughed and thought it a good joke, never believing that the
plan would be carried out, even in spite of the ominous scaffoldings and
curtains which rose around its base. A few days later we were told that
it had been sawn through, and that a solemn Festival would be held to
commemorate this new display of liberty. We thought the party of Order
would protest; that the veterans of the Invalides would make a movement;
that the mass of the population would insist upon the abandonment of
such a piece of folly. But we forgot the state of coma into which
respectable Paris has fallen, and that those who had allowed themselves
to be ground down by a tyrannical few would scarcely bestir themselves
in defence of their public monuments. It became apparent that the column
was really doomed, and the Rue de la Paix was crowded by an expectant
multitude at about 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon; the balconies were
filled with ladies; all the windows were pasted with paper to neutralize
the expected concussion, while cake and newspaper vendors and _marchands
de coco_ plied a busy trade, and elbowed their way about among the
people down below. Three ropes had been fastened round the top of the
column beneath the statue, communicating with a crazy-looking windlass
and anchor placed in the centre of the road at the entrance of the Rue
Neuve des Capucines, and a long narrow dung heap filled with sand and
branches had been spread in the square to deaden the shock of the
falling mass. Public excitement was at its height, and the strangest
surmises went from mouth to mouth as to how far the statue would be
thrown, whether balconies would fall and slates be shuffled down, and
whether the great weight would or would not crash through the vaulted
arch into the sewers under the road. Still the crowd increased in
numbers, when at about 4 o'clock a cordon of National Guards was formed,
who pushed back the people as far as the Rue des Augustins, leaving an
empty space along the Rue de la Paix, which was duly watered in true
Parisian style, and became the arena for a display of equestrian prowess
on the part of sundry officers and members of the Commune. They rattled
backwards and forwards at full gallop, and made figures of eight, and
turned and twisted in a marvellous manner, suggestive rather of a circus
than a barrack-yard; but their evolutions served to amuse the crowd, who
waited patiently until sunset, when it became evident that the affair
would be put off until the morrow. It turned out that the members of the
artistic federation who, with Courbet at their head, had decided on this
piece of Vandalism, had been playing off a little practical joke upon
the crowd, for their preparations were not complete, and workmen were
still hacking at the stonework from behind their curtain screen until
evening had settled into night. With the easy good nature of a Paris
crowd, everybody quietly went home, a few disappointed at the failure of
a promised excitement, but by far the greater number rejoicing in their
hearts at the reprieve of the bronze pillar which they had been
accustomed from childhood to regard with pride. Tuesday's _Officiel_
positively announced the ceremony for that day at 2, and the concourse
was greater than ever. The Rue de la Paix and the space behind, up to
the steps of the New Opera, was a sea of heads, and the _élite_ of
Communal aristocracy who held passes to the Square itself were forced to
elbow their way and struggle through relays of guards long before the
prescribed hour in order to be certain of getting there at all. So far
all their arrangements were so bad as to suggest misgivings as to the
result of the attempt. Three meagre ropes were to do the deed, while two
beams, applied one on either side the column, were to give it the proper
inclination as it fell. Now, every one knows that, from some fault in
its construction, the Column has always leant a little towards the
Ministère des Cultes, and people moved restlessly about, uncertain where
to station themselves, lest the tottering mass, once set in motion,
should fall in an entirely different direction from the one intended.
The bed, too, which was to receive it seemed strangely small and
narrow, and it appeared a matter of doubt whether the bronze Emperor
might not force his way into one of the adjoining houses, and pay a
visit as little desired as it was expected. Meanwhile, a party of
workmen continued to drive wedges into the space which had been sawn,
while others gave a finishing touch to the dung heaps and cleared away
the curtains and scaffolding that had obscured their operations. At
half-past 3 the Commune arrived on horseback, attended by their Staff,
and placed themselves in front of the crowd in the Rue de la Paix--a
mounted squadron of some 200 persons; while at a given signal a number
of bands stationed at different points began to play a medley of
patriotic airs, regardless of general effect. Trumpets brayed forth
signals, and all strained their eyes into the dazzling sky, not without
having first assured themselves of a safe retreat through some friendly
doorway in case of a disaster, as the ropes were seen to tighten--"See!
It moves!" "No, 'tis the effect of a passing cloud;" and, after a
second's pause of intense anxiety one of the ropes snapped, knocking
down in its whirl several men at the windlass. And now began a murmur
and a shaking of heads, "Ah, I knew it could not succeed; they will be
obliged to blow it up with gunpowder; shame on them for the attempt!"
"Why cannot they leave it alone?" said one man to his neighbour, "it has
cost so much." "Yes, it has," replied the other; "it has cost us
millions of human lives on the plains of Germany and in the Russian
snows." The attempt had failed, and people were preparing to move away,
when news arrived that the Commune were not going to be thus baffled,
but had sent for more ropes and apparatus, and were determined to have
their way at any price. Meanwhile, the great figure looked calmly down
upon his persecutors, seemingly as secure as ever, while the bands
continued to play, and the horsemen galloped about the square. It was
half-past 4 before the two new ropes arrived, and fully 5 o'clock before
they had been hoisted to their places, not being attached to the capstan
like the others, but held, one on either side the road, by 50 sailors
each. Brute force had failed, and so they had determined to try the
effect of a series of swings. People laughed at these renewed
preparations; and could scarcely be kept close under the houses out of
immediate danger. The ropes slackened and tightened again for a final
effort, and a cry burst from the assembled multitude in the horror of a
coming danger which might be incalculable as the great giant swayed for
a few seconds and finally tottered down with an awful crash, separating
into rings in the air, upon the foul bed which had been prepared for
him: a shapeless mass of shattered metal and stone lying in uneven coils
like some mighty serpent. The wooden sentry-boxes in the square reeled
round and fell, while a cloud of filth and dust obscured the fallen
monster, and men looked awe-struck at one another like naughty children
who had broken something which they ought not to have dared to touch.
The moment of compunction was a short one, and a howling throng rushed
with one accord into the noisome cloud, fighting and quarrelling for
bits of bronze and stone, and a man near me drew back, half stifled for
an instant, saying, with disgust, "See what a stench the Empire has!"
The statue had fallen beyond the heap, and, having smashed the pavement
into splinters, lay a wreck, with one arm broken and the head severed
from the body, while women kicked and spat upon it, waving their arms
wildly, and shouting, "_Vive la République!_" "_Vive la Commune!_" All
the bands struck on the _Marseillaise_ in different keys, a few people
crowded on the remnants of the pedestal waving red flags and shrieking
in their excitement, and a sergeant who endeavoured to unburden himself
of an oration was speedily gagged and hustled down to make way for the
great "Bergeret _lui-même_," who, in all the glory of a red scarf and
tassels, waved his hat and struggled to be heard above the general
hubbud of music, voices, and battering of bronze. "Citizens," he said,
"the 26th of Floréal will be memorable in our history. Thus we triumph
over military despotism, that bloody negation of the rights of man. The
First Empire placed the collar of servitude about our necks--it began
and ended in carnage--and left us a legacy of a Second Empire, which was
finally to end in the disgrace of Sedan." Much more he said, but his
voice was drowned in the continued hammering of metal, while our
attention was distracted by peremptory orders to "move on." Such an
order at such a moment was particularly exasperating, and led to many
little tussles with citizens, who refused to consider this a pleasant
opening to the era of liberty, an exasperation very considerably
increased at the different exits from the square by an uncompromising
search into the contents of pockets, and a consequent disgorging of
trophies and remembrances. A fight was going on meantime in the Rue de
la Paix between a company of Marines and the multitude of people
gathered in the street, who struggled and fought with an energy worthy
of a better cause in hopes of gaining a share in the spoils. As I
emerged from the conflict into the comparative peace and coolness of the
Boulevard, I was stopped by a procession--two battalions of National
Guards returning much shorn of numbers, from the Bois de Boulogne,
bringing with them in a furniture waggon a portion of their dead, among
whom was their colonel, whose feet projected from under the flapping
awning of the cart.
An order of the day of Marshal Mac-Mahon has been published in which he
announces the demolition of the Vendôme Column. He says:--
"The foreigner respected it; the Commune of Paris has overthrown it. Men
calling themselves Frenchmen have dared to destroy, under the eyes of
the Germans, who saw the deed, this witness of the victories of our
fathers against Europe in coalition. The Commune hopes thus to efface
the memory of the military virtues of which the Column was the glorious
symbol. Soldiers! if the recollections which the Column commemorated are
no longer graven upon brass, they will remain in our hearts. Inspired by
them, we know how to give France another proof of bravery, devotion, and
patriotism."
MAY 20th.
M. ROCHEFORT.
Never have I witnessed a scene of greater excitement than the entry of
Rochefort into Versailles as a prisoner to-day. He was brought in by the
St. Germain road, and was seated in a family omnibus drawn by two
horses. First came a squadron of gendarmes, then the omnibus, surrounded
by Chasseurs D'Afrique, and lastly a squadron of the same corps. In the
vehicle with Rochefort were his secretary, Mouriot, and four police
agents dressed in plain clothes. Outside the omnibus were an officer of
the gendarmerie in uniform and two or three _sergents-de-ville_ not in
uniform. Rochefort's moustache had disappeared. He had himself shaved
closely before setting out from Paris in order to disguise himself, but
there was no mistaking him. It was half-past 1 o'clock in the afternoon
when the _cortège_, arriving at the end of the Boulevard du Roi, entered
the Rue des Réservoirs. Every one ran into the street, and shouts of
execration were raised on all sides. It was no mere demonstration of a
mob. The citizens of all classes joined in it. One man ventured to cry
"Vive Rochefort!" He was kicked by several persons who happened to be
near him, and was saved from further violence only by arrest at the
hands of the _sergents-de-ville_. Along the rue des Réservoirs, the Rue
de la Pompe, the Place Hoche, the Rue de Hoche, and the Avenue St. Cloud
Rochefort was greeted with incessant shouts of "_À bas l'assassin; à
pied le brigand; à mort_!" The people wanted to have him out of the
omnibus, and it was with difficulty the cavalry prevented them from
dragging him out and inflicting summary execution. The cavalcade was
obliged to go at a slow pace, but finally he was safely lodged in gaol.
I believe that but for the precautions taken by the Government he would
have been killed before he had got near it. The demand to have an
example made of him, and the dissatisfaction at seeing him brought to
prison in a carriage, were loud and general.
There was a tremendous fire against the bastions this morning at 5
o'clock, and a strong fire has been maintained all day.
The fire of the Insurgents is much weaker than it was yesterday and the
day before, except at Vaugirard, and from there to Montrouge, where
mitrailleuses and musketry were brought into requisition.
Up to 5 o'clock this afternoon Auteuil still shelled.
From 3 o'clock I have observed a very large number of the Versailles
troops under arms at a short distance from the Point du Jour, and a
considerable body of the Insurgents watching them from near the
Vaugirard Gate.
At 5 o'clock the white flag was displayed at the Porte d'Auteuil.
Orders have been given for the troops to march onward and occupy it.
M. Thiers has issued a circular, dated noon to-day, in which he says:--
"Several Prefects having demanded that news should be published, the
following answer has been sent to them:--Those persons who are uneasy
are greatly mistaken. Our troops are working at the approaches, and at
the moment of writing the breaching batteries continue their fire upon
the walls. Never have we been so near the end. The members of the
Commune are busy making their escape."
The breaching batteries are still keeping up a very heavy fire against
the _enceinte_.
M. Thiers has sent a despatch to the Prefects announcing that the gate
of St. Cloud was forced down by the fire of the Versailles guns, and
General Douai then rushed with his men into the interior. The troops
under Generals Ladmirault and Glinchamps were at once set in motion to
follow them.
The Versailles troops entered Paris at 4 o'clock this afternoon at two
different points--namely, by the St. Cloud Gate at Point du Jour, and by
the gate of Montrouge.
The ramparts were abandonned by the Insurgents.
* * * * *
THE CAPTURE OF PARIS.
MAY 21st.--AND 22d.
The great event of yesterday came upon every one by surprise. It had
been expected, but not for yesterday.
Even the Marshal Commanding-in-Chief looked onward to at least six more
days of sapping and mounting of batteries and actual breaching before
his army would be able to make the final movement.
A certain number of the troops were inside the _enceinte_ before any one
but themselves knew of it, and Auteuil and the Point du Jour were
shelled for nearly two hours after they had fallen into possession of
the forces of Versailles.
One man, M. Clément, an officer of Engineers, played a prominent part
in this historical affair. Soon after midday, proceeding cautiously in
advance of a party of his men, who were lying in concealment between the
nearest parallel and the Porte de St. Cloud, he crept up to the bastion
and found it and the ramparts adjoining without a single sentinel.
Keeping near the ground, he waved a white handkerchief; it was seen by
the small party of Engineers who were lying outside the last parallel,
and also by Lieutenant Trèves, of the French Navy. At first the signal
was not understood; but M. Clément continued to wave the handkerchief
violently, and beckon to those who saw him to come on immediately. It
was with difficulty 100 men could be collected in the trenches, but
about that number advanced and occupied the deserted position. In the
meantime the word was passed from post to post in their rear, and a
batallion was soon on its way after them. By half-past 3 o'clock
dispositions had been effected for occupying both Auteuil and the Point
du Jour with a sufficient force, and proceeding to the other gates both
right and left. The gates and drawbridge of Auteuil had been demolished
several days previously, but the Insurgents had substituted an enormous
barricade, which shut off the iron bridge uniting the Railway Station
with the Viaduct.
The Division of General Vergeé marched direct upon Auteuil. Scarcely had
the first column arrived there, when volleys of musketry were opened by
the Insurgents concealed in houses. A few of the troops were put _hors
de combat_ by this fire, but the artillery of the Division turned their
pieces on the ramparts against the enemy, Mitrailleuses were also
brought into requisition by the troops, and within an hour the
Insurgents had fled to a distance.
The Division of General Douai entered by the gate of St. Cloud, which is
at the Point du Jour, and occupied the salient between the ramparts and
the viaduct. Here there was a second bastion of considerable solidity.
The soldiers entered the half-ruined barracks and casemates, and made
prisoners of a number of Insurgents whom they found concealed there.
Immediate preparations were then made for the advance right and left,
but as the enemy was still keeping up a fire from 7-pounders and
Mitrailleuses, along the bastions between Vaugirard and Montrouge, a
regular assault of these positions by the division under General Cissey
was determined upon. I have already announced that it has been
successful.
The Division began to march in by the Gates of Vaugirard and Montrouge.
At 2 o'clock this morning La Muette was occupied without serious
resistance.
A Division subsequently advanced to Passy to join that which had taken
La Muette.
Such was the suddenness with which the occupation of the Point du Jour
had been effected that, as I have stated, the firing from the military
batteries continued for a considerable time after the first of the
troops were in it. It was not till 4 o'clock that the order to cease
firing in that direction left the Head-Quarters. In the meantime,
hundreds of people stood on the Avenue and Terrace of Meudon watching
the cannonade, and believing that all the posts of the Insurgents were
still occupied by the enemy. Even the officers and men in the batteries
did not know why the order to cease firing had been sent round.
I have just returned, after having followed in the rear of General
Vinoy's last column, going to take up positions in the neighbourhood of
the Trocadéro. I have wandered all over the Point du Jour, visited
Auteuil, and have walked along by the bastions between the Gate of St.
Cloud at the Point du Jour and the Gate of Auteuil. Having watched the
other side of the Sèvres Bridge, I was surprised on passing along the
Sèvres road to observe that, very little damage had been done to the
houses at the end of it near the _enceinte_. One or two bore the marks
of shells, but the fact is that nearly all had escaped, and what I saw
at the _enceinte_ and within it, shows that the artillery practice of
the Versailles side had been exceedingly good throughout the
bombardment. The people on the Sèvres road had kept their shops open
amid all the terrible firing. Only some two or three houses had been
closed. They stood at a dangerous angle to the batteries at Meudon. On
one of them was chalked "_fermée pour cause du bombardement._" Between
the last of the houses and the ramparts, and at a distance of not more
than 100 yards from the latter, were the newly-cut trenches which the
troops had constructed. Good gabions protected them in front, and there
was a plentiful supply of fascines lying all about. The doors of the
Porte were no longer to be seen, except in little bits on the roadway.
The drawbridge had succumbed bodily, and its place was supplied with
some planks. The posthouse was in ruins, and the stone walls on either
side between the gates and the parapet of the fortifications had been
crumbled into rubbish; the glacis from the Point du Jour to Auteuil had
been ploughed up in such a manner that not a yard of it was to be seen
without a shell hole. To say that the parapet had been riddled would not
be correct. It is smashed here and there, and at intervals everywhere,
but in no place between the two Gates I am referring to is the earthwork
inside the parapet laid bare, nor has a breach, properly so called, been
anywhere made. The doors and gate walls of both gates are smashed
through, but all along, despite serious disfigurement, the parapet is
strong still.
To come back to the Point du Jour--that is as much a ruin as the town of
St. Cloud. From the gate to the Railway Station there is not a single
habitable house; not three have roofs, and not one has its windows and
walls intact. Every lamppost has been scattered about the road in small
pieces, and a stranger who had not heard of the bombardment might be
pardoned for supposing that the streets had been macadamized with the
fragments of shells. Strange to say, the staircase leading from the
Booking Office of the Railway Station to the line over head is
uninjured, or nearly so, and by its means I was enabled to ascend and
walk through that Viaduct which I have been looking at from a distance
as shells have been battering it for the last six weeks. It is much
knocked about, and so is the bridge underneath it, which in a series of
arches spans the river, but both will be serviceable still after some
repair. Huge stones, displaced from their settings and broken into
small pieces, lie scattered on the bridge and its approaches. From the
Viaduct I could see an immense conflagration in the neighbourhood of the
Champ de Mars, and a combat between the troops and the Insurgents was
going on. In the Place de la Concorde and the Rue de Rivoli, all down to
the Trocadéro, reserves were in waiting with their chassepots stacked on
each side of the road, but there was no fighting along the Quays.
General Vinoy had established himself in his new Head-Quarters, and the
70,000 or 80,000 men already in the heart of the city are believed to be
quite sufficient to dispose of the last desperadoes of the Commune. The
sounds of battle we heard from more than one point, and yet every one
spoke of the Insurrection as in its last agonies. Men and women once
more held up their heads and snapped their fingers at Delescluze,
Dombrowski, and the Commune, but there was sad evidence all around us of
what this rebellion had done. There in the little cemetery behind the
ramparts lay the unburied and mangled remains of 32 National Guards who
had been killed at the batteries just above. The whole place was a
picture of ruin and desolation. Passing out of the Point du Jour by the
opining where the Porte de St. Cloud had stood, whole and entire, even
after the Prussian bombardment, but where there is not a vestige of it
bigger than a splinter now, I walked along the glacis in the direction
of Auteuil. I was surprised to find that, at a distance of less than an
eighth of a mile from the latter place, the military had fixed their
gabions, sapped right up the glacis, and to within four or five yards of
the fosse. The trenches had been cut across the Bois de Boulogne.
Nothing, however, like enough of the parapet and the earthwork above had
been thrown down to fill up the fosse. Indeed, no effort whatever had
been made in the way of filling up, except at either side of the two
Portes, so that an assault at any other than these points would have
been a very difficult undertaking. On the glacis I saw the dead and
decomposed body of a man not in uniform. He lay on his side, with one
hand under his head and the other raised in the air. A gentleman who
lives close by stated that the deceased, with two or three other men,
had come out to fire stray shots at the soldiers in the trenches. As he
lay there to-day I perceived that he had been pierced by several rifle
balls. The gates at Auteuil have disappeared as completely as those at
Point du Jour, and at the Railway Station behind the iron railway bridge
over the road all the habitations are, so to speak, in a heap. The
French term "_débris_" best describes what is left of Auteuil and its
surroundings. Stone, mortar, iron bridge metal, lamp posts, trees, are
smashed, pounded, and scattered. No one who visited Auteuil in happier
times would recognize even the spot on which it stood. As specimens of
successful bombardment the Point du Jour and the three barracks behind
the _enceinte_ that lie between them may be cited among the most
complete that even modern artillery has succeeded in producing.
A great explosion, followed by a conflagration, occurred at half-past 12
at the Staff Quarters near the Esplanade of the Invalides.
Paris is now completely surrounded.
It is asserted that Dombrowski is hemmed in at Ouen.
The Insurgents have established a battery upon the terrace of the Garden
of the Tuileries, the fire of which sweeps over the Champs Elysées; but
this position has been turned by General Clinchamp, and there is reason
to hope that the resistance will not be of long duration.
The Versailles troops have already captured from 8,000 to 10,000
prisoners.
Fighting has been going on all this morning, the cannonade and musketry
fire being incessant.
There is a large fire in the neighbourhood of the St. Lazare Railway
Station, and a dense cloud of smoke hangs over the heights of
Montmartre. Not only have the Germans completely isolated Paris, but all
communication between Versailles and St. Denis is also cut off. Trains
arriving from the North no longer enter Paris, but stop at St. Denis.
It is rumoured that the Prussians occupy Fort Vincennes.
The strictest orders have been given to the German outposts to drive
back all Insurgents, and the advanced corps have been doubled tonight to
prevent any from breaking through the circle of investment north of
Paris.
A wounded Insurgent General attempted to pass the Prussian outposts, but
was forced to retrace his steps.
MAY THE 23d.
It may be desirable that I should add some particulars to the account I
have already given of the way in which the troops moved from the
_enceinte_ to the different positions they occupied in Paris last night.
The first column, proceeding between the railway and the Fortifications,
made its way from Auteuil to La Muette; the second, starting from
Auteuil, threw down a barricade which had been erected behind the
railway arch, and, taking the Rue Raynouard and the Rue Franklin,
proceeded by the high ground to the Trocadéro. This march was not a
rapid one, because at every step precautions had to be taken against
snares that might have been laid by the Insurgents. The Artillerymen and
the Engineers entered the houses on the terraces and examined the powder
stores in the Rue Beethoven in order to ensure the column against an
explosion. The third column, setting out from the Point du Jour, marched
along the quays to the Bridge of Jéna. At this point there was a
junction of the three columns, and a line of occupation from Passy to
the river side at that bridge was established. The fourth column crossed
the river at the Point du Jour, and marched along the quay of Grenelle.
Upon entering the Champs de Mars they found that the Insurgents were
encamped in considerable force there. Skirmishers were thrown out, and,
opening fire, they drove out the enemy without any serious difficulty,
although the latter had a park of artillery. The Insurgents showed fight
for some time, and a struggle was maintained on the right of the Champs
de Mars, where the temporary wooden barracks have been erected. The
Insurgents formed in a sort of hollow square at the four sides of the
portion of the ground which for some time has been covered with
artillery _caissons_, and responded to the attack upon them by a
vigorous fire, but being opposed on two sides by an overwhelming force,
they gave way, without any very great loss on either side. The tricolour
was planted on the Pavilion d'École.
From the Arc de Triomphe there was no fighting down the Champs Élysées,
but there was a struggle at the Palais de l'Industrie before the troops
obtained possession of that building. Under the orders of certain
members of the Commune, the Insurgents resisted with a musketry fire.
Montmartre kept firing in the direction of the Trocadéro throughout the
day. Its fire did not kill or wound many men, but it retarded the
advance of the troops towards the heart of the city.
The fire which I mentioned yesterday as having been seen by me from the
Viaduct of the Point du Jour was caused by the blowing up of the riding
school of the École d'Etat Major, which was filled with cartridges.