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Title: The Insurrection in Paris
Author: An Englishman: Davy
Release Date: November 24, 2006 [EBook #19912]
Language: English
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THE INSURRECTION IN PARIS
RELATED
BY
AN ENGLISHMAN
_An eye-witness of that frightful war and of the terrible evils which
accompanied it_
PRICE: 2 fr. 50 c.
PARIS
A. LEMOIGNE, EDITOR
26, PLACE VENDÔME
1871
Imprimerie de F. Le Blanc-Hardel, rue Froide, 2 et 4, à Caen.
_Paris, June the 25th 1871._
DEAR EDWARD,
To you who have been pleased to take some interest in what I wrote about
Paris, I inscribe this small volume which, according to your suggestion,
I publish under the form of a nearly day per day correspondence.
_Yours truly_,
DAVY.
RECOLLECTIONS
OF THE
PARISIAN INSURRECTION.
The desire of appreciating _de visu_ the results of a five month's siege
in a town of two million inhabitants, unexampled in the annals of
humanity, made me leave London on the twentieth of March.
Hardly landed in the Capital of France which I thought of finding
tranquil and occupied in exercising its genius in repairing the
disasters caused by the enemy, I heard with stupefaction that Paris, a
prey to civil war, was under the blow of a fresh siege.
Sad change! the German helmets had given place to the French kepys;
citizens of the same nation were going to cut one another's throats.
My first thought was to withdraw from this mournful and dangerous
spectacle. Of what importance to me, a simple citizen of Great Britain,
were the disorders and furies of that people, in turn our most cruel
enemy or our friend according to circumstances, as European politics or
the interests of sovereigns make of them our adversary or our ally?--Why
expose myself voluntarily to the heart-rending and often dangerous
trials of a war that had none of my sympathies either on the one side or
on the other of the enclosure? Was I going to see a great people
breaking its irons and fighting to death in order to recover its rights
and liberty?--No--the French people had at last the government of their
choice,--the Republic. There was, then, question of an impious war,
undertaken by a blind multitude for the profit of a few hidden
ambitions: that is to say, a war without grandeur and without interest
for a simple spectator.
However, after due reflection, I overcame my repugnance. I had, in my
excursions, remarked, among the armed bands, so many heterogeneous
elements; that is to say, thousands of individuals of all social
positions and of so many nationalities, that I began to think it would
perhaps be useful to my compatriots to hear by and by a sincere recital,
written by a disinterested pen, of the events about to take place.
I did not conceal from myself the dangers to which my curiosity would
expose me; but had I not, and that too without any advantage, incurred
as great dangers in escalading Mont-Blanc and in going up along the
borders of the Nile? Besides, as is generally the case, the certainty of
an imminent peril only served to strengthen my resolution. Moreover, not
wishing to run any useless risk, I thought good to take a few
precautions: I went to see Monsieur ***, an old French refugee that I
had known at London, by the interposition of M. Causidiere. I asked him
if he could not procure me a permission, a pass, some paper or other.
«Are you quite decided on staying?»
Asked that gentleman, whom I do not name for a reason that will be
appreciated by the reader.
«Perfectly decided.»
«Could nothing, not even good advice, make you renounce your intention?»
«Nothing.»
«Then come with me to the Town-hall.»
I followed him; and, half an hour afterwards, I was in possession of a
pass signed by two members of the Commune.
This precaution was not to be useless. A few days afterwards, going to
see the fort of Vanves, strongly menaced, I was arrested and taken
before the commander of the Fort.
This officer examined my pass; and, hesitating without doubt as to my
identity, he put several questions to me in English. My answers
certainly satisfied him, for he took me by the hand and said to me in a
tone not without emotion:
«Go, Sir, I will give you some one to accompany you; I like the English;
I have seen them under fire; I was at Inkermann.»
The next day, having advanced too near Courbevoie, I was arrested by a
patrol, and taken before a Commander of the army of Versailles. There I
exhibited a letter from the ambassador's.
«Ah!» said the Commander, «I knew in the Crimea two brave officers of
your name.»
«John and Lewis--Captains--they were cousins of mine.»
«That is it exactly--what has become of them?»
«Lewis is in the Indies--John is dead.»
«He is very happy», said the commander sorrowfully, in bowing to me.»
I went back, not without thinking of those two men--of those two
brothers-in-arms, who perhaps were going to fire upon each other, after
having mingled their blood before the enemy for the defence of their
country. Alas! I was destined to see greater crimes.
Certain, henceforth, of being able to get safely out of all scrapes,
thanks to my pass of the commune and my papers from the ambassador's, I
persevered in following step by step the events I am about to relate.
Not having the pretention to write the history of the French revolution,
with an appreciation of its consequences, as was done by our illustrious
compatriot Carlisle for the revolution of 93, I will content myself with
a simple and daily account of what I have seen and heard, and nothing
more.
The events offer of themselves sufficient interest and need not be
augmented.
In default of merit to which this book, so rapidly got up, cannot
pretend, I dare hope that its sincerity will gain for it the reader's
sympathy and esteem.
Paris.
A certain calm reigned in the city in consequence of the hope that was
entertained of seeing the commune come to an understanding with the
government of Versailles. Several battalions even marched only because
they were forced to do so. This hesitation was caused by the convocation
of all the freemasons for bringing about a reconciliation between the
two parties. It was, in fact, on this very day, that all the freemasons
of Paris went to the Town-hall to hear pronounced, by several members of
the commune, speeches of a fiery character and leading to civil war.
All efforts of reconciliation have failed. Dombrowski, then, has ordered
the inhabitants of Neuilly to leave in 24 hours, having the intention to
reduce the village to ashes. The day ended by the arrest of general
Cluseret.
MAY 1rst.
This day is signalized by the capture of the railway-station of Clamart,
where the insurgents lost, in addition to 60 prisoners, about 300 killed
by the bayonet. The soldiers of Versailles gave no quarter, excited as
they were at the sight of the deserters of the Line who served in the
ranks of the commune.
It was also on this day that general Mariouze retook the castle of Issy,
having captured 250 insurgents. This number was increased by others,
made prisoners during the day, and they arrived at Versailles 400 in
number.
MAY 2nd.
The scaffolding for the destruction of the Vendôme Column is arranged,
and the eighth of this month is the day fixed for its fall.
The fighting around Paris continues violent and the troops of Versailles
press steadily forward.
The railway-companies are taxed to the amount of 2,000,000 fr.
Let us terminate this day by the recital of the pillage of Notre-Dame.
* * * * *
NOTRE-DAME PLUNDERED.
People were astonished that the commune should have restored the
treasure of Notre-Dame after having had it taken away. To day the
astonishment will cease: the furniture and vases had been brought back
only to be re-taken.
On monday, april 26th., in the afternoon, a certain number of national
guards, accompanied by the self-styled delegates of the commune, loaded,
for the second time, in two carriages, the treasure of Notre-Dame. Then,
having doubtless met with some difficulties, they had the horses taken
away and left the two carriages loaded.
The next day, at 1 o'clock, a pompous bill was stuck up at the town-hall
and at the mayory of the 4th. arrondissement, announcing that the
treasure of Notre-Dame had all just been restored. But, at about 3
o'clock, fifty national guards arrived at Notre-Dame, the horses were
again put to, and the two vehicles were taken no body knows where.
These gentlemen are to return, for they have only done half their work;
time has not permitted them to take all.
Such then is the end of the promises and protestations of gentlemen,
members of the commune, who declare aloud that probity is their ruling
virtue.
These gentlemen propose, moreover, it is said, to rake up, so to speak,
the very ground; that is to say, to upset every thing in the church,
cellars and calorifères. They insist on finding there arms and
ammunition.
It is true that, during the siege, the gunners of the national guard,
who occupied the park of artillery established round the basilic,
demanded of the chapter's steward the authorisation to put in the
cellars and calorifères their ammunition which was exposed to the shells
of the Prussians, and that this authorisation was granted them without
the least difficulty.
After the Armistice, they took away all these arms; but could they have
had the indelicacy to leave some behind in order to be able to justify
the impious and sacrilegious robbery they were meditating. This would be
odious but not impossible in such times as these.
A few days before two men employed in guarding the church were arrested.
They were kept 3 or 4 days, and, before being set at liberty, the keys
of the church were taken from them. What took place is however unknown,
for the poor fellows are afraid to utter a word.
A commissary came, in the name of the commune, to sequester the objects
belonging to the church Sainte-Marguerite, in the little borough of St.
Antoine. A picket of 10 national guards is in permanence in the church
to keep sight of the clergy.
The church Saint-Merry has also been ransacked by the sicaires of the
Commune.
The vicar, fortunately, had stolen away from their _fraternal_ visit.
The church Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs is transformed into a club-house.
The parishioners are robbed, plundered, driven from their temples, and
the preaching of the Gospel is replaced in the pulpit by the
declamations of epileptic tribunes.
At Plaisance they have sequestered a chalice and a sum of 175 franks,
the personal property of M. l'abbé Orse, first vicar.
The curate, M. Blondeau, is in the prisons of the Commune.
MAY 3d.
A manifestation, provoked by the Freemasons, took place in the
afternoon. A body of several thousands of people crossed the
Champs-Élysées, carrying green branches and white flags. Arrived at the
gate Maillot, the firing ceased, but the manifestation was warned not to
approach and that only two parliamentarians would be received. They
accordingly presented themselves and will be this evening at Versailles.
It is reported that yesterday 200 soldiers, wearing the uniform of
troops of the Line, went down the Champs-Élysées. It was said they were
deserters from Versailles. We can positively state as a certain fact,
that from the first week of april no deserter has been counted in the
army of Versailles.
MAY 4th.
Two brigades carried off last night the park, the castle and cemetery of
Issy, taking 8 guns, ammunition and a hundred prisoners. They had a few
dead and 20 wounded. The cemetery is about 210 yards from the fort. The
capture of this fort appears imminent.
Yesterday, Mr. Thiers received two parliamentarians, freemasons, who
declared, however, they had no mandate. Mr. Thiers gave them an answer
similar to those already known; that he desired more than any body the
end of the civil war, but that France could not capitulate before a few
insurgents; that they must apply for peace to the commune who had
troubled it.
Yesterday evening, a parliamentarian summoned the fort of Issy to
capitulate.
The insurgents answered that they were going to deliberate about it,
that they would give a reply in half an hour; then they asked for a
prolongation of the delay.--The parliamentarian returned.
The negociations for the capitulation, resumed in the morning, will
probably succeed.
The coup de main on the farm of Bonamy, in front of Châtillon, was
executed by a company of the 70th. and by that of the scouts of 71st.
Two officers of the insurgents were killed, and 30 insurgents killed or
wounded. They made 75 prisoners and among them 4 officers.
The last military facts of the day took place in the quarries and park
of Issy which were vigorously carried by the battalions of the brigades
Derocha, Paturel and Berthe, with the assistance of the marine
musketeers.
The insurgents, in very large numbers, retired precipitately, leaving
numerous dead and wounded, as well as a hundred prisoners, 8 pieces of
artillery, much ammunition and 8 horses.
Nothing particular this afternoon. The insurgents are busy about mining
Paris, and the Versailles troops have silenced the firing of the fort of
Issy which is now completely invested.
The fort of Issy is summoned to surrender, but Rossel, previously
colonel, who has replaced General Cluseret, gives the parliamentarian a
most arrogant answer of refusal threatening to have shot any other
messenger of the army of Versailles, the bearer of such a demand.
MAY 5, 6th.
Such was the remark I heard made yesterday by a poor and very old
peasant woman as she stopped work for a moment in a field above
Montretout to look at the Fort firing. She followed up this admirable
summary of recent military operations by asking me whether it was not
amazing that somebody could not "invent" a means to put a stop to this
Civil War. I think the whole world must concur with this poor old
woman. It is always the same repetition that is certain, and it is so
to even a greater degree than she was aware of. Not only is the
cannonading the same repetition, but the game of taking positions,
giving them up and retaking them, to lose or abandon them once more, has
been the night work of the last week. Except it may be by treason, or by
the Commune falling to pieces, they are not nearer a march on Paris than
they were three weeks ago. I won't say a month ago, because then the
work could have been done by a few thousand good troops. A non-official
organ of the Government now tells us to be confident, because "unless in
the case of such accidents as one cannot suppose, or of unforeseen
surprises, _some weeks_ will be sufficient to bring to an end the
necessary but sad entreprise of the attack on Paris!" The same paper is
of opinion that only "some months" will have elapsed before order is
restored in the capital. It thinks the _Journal Officiel_ ridiculously
sanguine, because the latter says, "our works of approach advance with a
rapidity which elicits the admiration of all men of art, and which
promises to France a speedy end of its trials, and to Paris a
deliverance from the horrible tyrants who oppress it." Perhaps it is
because the artillerists and other military men whom I meet are not
"men of art," but certainly I cannot find that any of them take so
bright a view of the position. I have just spoken with a very
distinguished foreign officer who has seen the position here and who has
been every where to look at the Insurgent side. He tells me that at the
batteries outside the city he saw some very good men, but that, taken as
a whole, the National Guards within the city are the most miserable lot
he ever saw under arms. All the barricades are admirably made as to
workmanship, but there is not one of them that could not be taken by
troops approaching from streets at angles with the points at which those
obstructions are placed. The Place Vendôme is "a rat-trap," and the
Insurgent chiefs take good care not to make it their own Head-Quarters.
The gallant gentleman to whom I refer believes that if the troops once
got inside the _enceinte_, the insurrection would utterly collapse; but
if the military confine themselves to the operations in which they are
now engaged it will be a considerable time before Paris gives in. Such
is the report of a competent and impartial authority. Rumours of the
most contradictory character are rife from morning till night in the
open air lobby of the Assembly--the Rue des Réservoirs. Deputies who
"ought to know better" circulate very absurd _canards_; but, as remarks
a local print, "_Que voulez-vous? On s'ennuie, il faut bien passer le
temps!_" In my last letter of Thursday night I stated that the affair at
Moulin Saquet was a repetition of that at the Clamart Station. I find
to-day a contradiction of the statement that insurgents were butchered
at Moulin Saquet. It is true, nevertheless. The Commune, wishing, no
doubt, to keep the whole truth from their followers fearing its
disheartening effect, state enough for their purpose, which is to
represent the Versailles Government as assassins. It says that 15 of the
National Guards were killed with knives. The fact is as I stated it. The
redoubt was taken by surprise, and the soldiers gave no quarter. The
number I gave as that of the wretched men killed by the bayonet was 450.
I was under the mark. In his report of the affair General Cissey
says,--"Two hundred insurgents were left dead on the spot. We have taken
many insurgent officers and 300 prisoners and cannon." The Commune
alleges that the redoubt fell into the hands of the Versailles troops by
means of treason. In this instance I dare say the cry of "_Nous sommes
trahis!_" is not far from the truth. The unfortunate garrison were
asleep when the troops entered, the sentinels having, as is alleged,
fled, when they found the enemy was upon them. There were 800 men in the
redoubt, and before they could prepare any effective resistance the
massacre was effected. Now, after all this slaughter and capture of
prisoners and guns, Moulin Saquet is again in the hands of the
Insurgents. The Commune boasts that the National Guards attacked it with
much dash, and re-took it from the troops of Versailles. The fact is
these troops found the place too hot for them, and were obliged to
abandon it. It is exposed to the fire of Bicêtre, Ivry, and Hautes
Bruyères. Was it worth while for the sake of eight cannon to commit such
a terrific slaughter? Most of the prisoners taken on the occasion declare
that they had been forced to serve, and that they had been sent to
Moulin Saquet as a punishment for their having refused to march on
Neuilly. Among the captives is an interesting looking young woman, in
the uniform of a _cantinière_. Poor thing, she is wounded and in
hospital. Her story is that some months ago she became the wife of a
young man, who after the breaking out of the Civil War was forced to
serve in the ranks of the Insurgents. For eight days she was without any
tidings of him, and in her despair she adopted the uniform in which she
was wounded and captured, in order that she might visit all the outposts
in search of her husband. She had not succeeded in finding him, and she
does not know whether he is living. Had she been successful she would
have died by his side rather than have been separated from him again. I
am happy to say that the wound of this heroine is only slight, and that
everything is being done to promote her recovery.
If the Insurgents have not actually re-taken the Clamart Station, the
scene of the other slaughter, they have established themselves very
close to it, in a cutting which forms a communication between the
Station and a barricade on the line of railway. As the Station is under
fire from Fort Vanves I have no doubt that the military found it
impossible to hold it, and that if not now in it the Insurgents may
re-occupy it whenever they like. Again, there was much boasting about
the taking of the Château of Issy. We were told that it was an admirable
position, completely screened from the insurgent fire, and affording an
excellent vantage ground for riflemen. I saw it on fire yesterday. The
Insurgents succeeded in making their shells reach it and making it very
much too hot for the Chasseurs. The truth is the Insurgents have been
doing the Versaillais quite as much damage as the latter have been
inflicting on them. The fire from the batteries at and about the Point
du Jour has been excellent. There must be artillerists there quite as
good as any on this side. The manner in which the ruins of Fort Issy
have been defended is surprising. There is not a roof or a window frame
in one of its barracks, but from the embrasures in the earthworks the
fire is still kept up from one or two points. To take it by assault
would be a matter of no difficulty, but General Faron believes that it
is mined, and even in its crippled position he won't venture to attack
it at close quarters. With the exception of bayoneting some 500 poor
wretches who could not defend themselves, taking a few hundred prisoners
who are rather an embarrassment to them, and capturing a few cannon
which they don't themselves want and which the Insurgents can easily
replace, the Government has done nothing this week. In the words of the
old peasant woman, _C'est toujours la même répétition_.
MAY 7th.
In consequence of a large placard posted over the walls of Paris this
morning I passed through the gate of the private garden of the
Tuileries, and made my way, in company with a crowd of citizens of all
classes, through the apartments occupied but a few months ago by the
ex-Emperor and Empress. The printed invitation announced that we might
see the rooms in which the "tyrant" had lived, for the modest sum of 50c.,
but that, should we think proper to take tickets for the concert,
"whereby these saloons might be at length rendered useful to the
people," we should be permitted to enjoy the extra show gratis. I took a
ticket, and joined myself to a thick stream of people who belonged to
every nationality and rank of life, and whose remarks and criticisms
were most edifying. There were shopkeepers and their wives, only too
delighted to take advantage of the mildest dissipation; gentlemen whose
National Guard trousers were rendered respectable by the gray jacket or
blouse of a citizen; humdrum housewives who approved everything, and
gaped their admiration of so much gorgeous wall-colouring; there were
flaunting ladies in bonnets of the latest fashion and marvellous
petticoats, who criticized the curtains and pointed the parasol of scorn
at faded draperies; people who felt the heavy hand of the spectre of
departed glory, and people who exulted at beholding the hidden recesses
of an Imperial mansion laid bare to the jokes and ribaldry of
Belleville and La Villette. Every class of Parisian society was
represented in the throng that swayed and hustled through the rooms, but
the saddest sight of all was a knot or two of decrepit veterans from the
Invalides who leant against the balustrade of the grand staircase, and
gazed with pinched-up lips and dry eyes at the National Guards on duty,
lounging and carousing down below. The stairs were littered with bedding
and cooking utensils, shirts and stockings hanging to dry over the gilt
railings, while in the square at the stairs' foot were ranged benches
and boards on trestles, and there the soldiers of the Guard sat in
picturesque groups enough, contrasting in the carelessness and dirt of
their general appearance with the lavish ornaments of marble and gilt
work which served as a background to their figures. Marching orders,
more or less thumbed and torn, hung in fragments from the panelled
walls; names in pencil and names in ink, and names scrawled with a
finger-nail, defaced the doors and staircase wall. A sentry stood at
every door to see that the citizens behaved themselves--a precaution by
no means unnecessary, the outward aspect of certain members of the crowd
being taken into consideration. In the Salle de la Paix a number of
women were busy uncovering a number of chairs for the promised concert,
and in the Salle des Maréchaux beyond, where the concert was to be
given, velvet benches were already occupied by old ladies in white caps
with baskets in their hands, who presented a stern aspect of endurance,
as though they were determined to sit there through the preparations as
well as the promised entertainment, and still to continue sitting until
turned out by sword and bayonet. The "Salle des Maréchaux" exists no
more except in name, for men on ladders were employed covering up the
portraits which decorate the hall with screens of red silk--I suppose
lest the past glory of French heroes should pale the brilliancy of the
National Guard, just as the bas-reliefs of the Vendôme Column act as an
outrage upon the susceptibilities of the Commune. White cloths were
being tied over the busts of Napoleon's Generals, and everything
relating to the past carefully obliterated--a rather foolish proceeding,
considering that the bee-spangled Imperial curtains still hang over the
doors, and festoons of the same drapery decorate the gallery above. The
brocaded panels of the Salle du Trône were objects of much remark among
the ladies, as were the tapestries of the Salle des Gobelins; but the
bareness and total absence of furniture were commented on freely on all
sides. Not a chair or a window blind, or even a door-plate or handle, is
to be seen in any of the rooms, except in those used for the concerts,
and the question arose, naturally enough. "Where is it all gone to?" The
same demand was made so often of an elderly bourgeois on duty at the end
of the Salle de Diane that he was fairly bewildered, and looked round
for help, and hailing the gold stripes on my cap as a haven of relief,
he forthwith seized upon me as a superior officer, and insisted on an
explanation. "You know there were quantities of cases carried off during
the time before Sedan," he said, "but, with all their cunning, they
can't have dismantled a whole palace of this size, can they?" And the
crowd stood round endeavouring to account for the nakedness of the land,
until a remark that the Commune had been feathering their nests with the
chairs and tables dispersed them laughing. The Empress's bedroom was a
great attraction, Chaplin's charming decorations being subjects of
sufficient interest, independent of the absent furniture. The
looking-glasses which spring from the walls called down ejaculations of
delight from a party of dressmakers, who carefully took notes of the
mechanism, "in order to imitate it, my dear, when Paris becomes itself
again." There was a large placard upon the wall of a kind of library,
inviting the attention of the public to the secret arrangements in a
recess whereby the Empress obtained her dresses and linen from some
manufactory of garments above, and an old lady, after having carefully
examined the elaborate details, turned away with a sigh and a shake of
the head. "How foolish of them, after all, not to have done a little for
us in order that they might have continued to abide in this paradise!"
How different was the Empress's apartment this morning, bare and crowded
with the dregs of the Paris population, from the night when I last saw
it, the night of her flight, when bed-clothes still littered the floor,
and gloves and little odds and ends of female finery told of recent
occupation! All was silent then with the stillness of a coming storm;
now the walls re-echo with a stir of unhallowed feet, and the spring
sunshine streams in at the open window accompanied by whiffs from the
garden below, while a distant cry reaches us from the street beyond of
"_Le Vengeur_," "_Le Cri du Peuple_," "_Le dernier ordre du Comité du
Salut Public_," and we detect curls of smoke about the Arch of Triumph,
which remind us that the bombardment still goes on. A reflective sentry
at the door of the _cabinet de travail_ begged me to remark the
portraits set round above the doors. "Those are the Empress's favourite
ladies," he informed me; "are they not _salopines_, one would say, of
the period of Montespan? And those were the ladies who were models for
the women of our land--no wonder that Paris should have become the
Gomorrah that it is!" In the evening the concert was given, and a
wonderful bear-garden the Imperial Palace presented. Members of the
Commune flitted about in red draperies and tried to find room on the
already crowded benches for the struggling mob, who rubbed their hot
faces with their unaccustomed white gloves, and used such language to
each other as, it is to be hoped, those august walls have seldom heard.
Meanwhile, the crowd increased in numbers, and by 8 o'clock the
reception rooms were full, and some 2,000 people still stood in a long
string in the garden outside. They behaved with the wondrous good nature
which characterizes a French crowd, laughing over the absurdity of their
predicament and waving the tickets, which they would never be enabled to
present, jestingly at one another. In course of time the whole of the
_jardin privé_ was full of people, who looked up at the lights streaming
from the windows, and sat about on chairs quietly smoking their cigars
and enjoying the lovely evening, listening to the occasional boom at
the other end of the long alley, where a bright flash which bore death
upon its wings appeared in the sky from time to time, in mockery of the
gas-lit chandeliers and feeble attempts at revelry that were going on
above our heads.
The reigning scandal of the day is the affair of the Convent of Picpus.
So highly roused has public indignation been by the supposed discovery
of atrocities committed within those jealous walls that the people have
been peremptorily excluded until the investigations of justice shall be
complete. I managed, however, to penetrate within the precincts by
attaching myself to the _cortège_ of an English friend, who was
journeying thither under special official orders, to investigate the
case of an English Sister named Garret. In the Rue de Picpus, near Mazas
prison, stand two large buildings, each surrounded by high walls, above
which may be seen green trees at intervals. The one is an establishment
of the Jesuites; the other the Convent of the White Nuns. The Jesuites
Brothers escaped at the first sign of approaching danger, but the
Sisters held their own until forced into cabs and conveyed to the cells
of St. Lazare, there to await the results of a judicial inquiry into
certain matters that are deemed suspicious. Arrived at the gate of the
Convent, we were obliged to force our way through a crowd of angry
people who demanded instant permission to enter, and who were as
persistently swept back by a group of National Guards--we, however,
being admitted inside the door under cover of the official pass and
signatures. In the court-yard, under the shade of some fine trees, a few
Guards were playing bowls in the Jesuit's alley, and making up to one of
them, whose cap displayed tokens of authority, we mentioned our
business, and begged permission to see what was to be seen. Our friend
was very civil, accepted a cigar, and marched us off to go the rounds.
He pointed out to us the fact, of which there certainly could exist no
kind of doubt, that the two buildings communicated one with the other,
by means of an old door which still exists at the back of a stable, as
well as by other apertures in the garden wall, which show signs of
having been recently closed up. The Jesuit's garden is a most beautiful
one, occupying a space of some 12 acres, laid out with care and
furnished with fruit trees of every description, pruned and trained
after the latest horticultural designs. There are wondrously ingenious
plans, too, for irrigating the beds, forcing pits and hothouses, and
long alleys with vines trained over them. Through the old door above
mentioned we passed into the Sister's garden, equally large and
beautiful, though not kept with the same care. In the centre stands a
gymnasium, I suppose for the use of the children brought up under the
Sisters' care, and further is their cemetery, a lovely spot, where,
under the heavy shade of ancient cypresses, lie bearers of some of the
most ancient names in France--"Prince of Salm-Kyrbourg, immolated under
the Terror, aged 49;" "Rochefoucauld," "De Noailles," "Montmorency,"
"the great Lafayette," the whole family of the Talleyrand-Périgords, and
legions of Princes and Princesses. Some of the vaults have been opened,
and many lead coffins, half-covered with rotting velvet and gold lace,
lie exposed to the light of day, awaiting an examination at the hands of
the Minister of Justice. At the extreme end of the garden, however, are
the three little conical huts, side by side, resembling white ants'
nests, which have been the prime cause of so much excitement and
judicial inquiry. When the Convent was occupied by the National Guards
these little huts were tenanted each by an old woman, enclosed in a
wooden cage, like a chickens' pen, the three buildings being similar in
size and construction, six feet square by seven in height, with a slate
roof, through which daylight was visible, while the three old women
were all of them hopeless idiots. The Lady Superior has kept her lips
resolutely closed up to the present time, but admitted, when first
questioned, that the three sufferers had lived in their hideous prison
for nine years, in an atmosphere of stifling heat throughout the summer
and half frozen with cold throughout the winter; "but," she added, "they
were idiots when they came." The conductor of the inquiry replied that,
if such were the case, it was illegal to have admitted them to the
Convent at all, and that even supposing them to have been admitted, the
place where they were found was not a fit dwelling-place for a dog. A
key was discovered among her papers, labelled "key of the great vault;"
but where this great vault may be has not yet been found out. The
Superior and her nuns keep a uniform and persistent silence upon the
point; excavations have been made at different points in the garden, and
under the high altar of the chapel, but hitherto without effect. At one
end of the nuns' garden stands an isolated building, in which were found
mattresses furnished with straps and buckles, also two iron corsets, an
iron skull-cap, and a species of rack turned by a cog-wheel, evidently
intended for bending back the body with force. The Superior explained
that these were orthopædic instruments--a superficial falsehood. The
mattresses and straps struck me as being easily accounted for; I have
seen such things used in French midwifery, and in cases of violent
delirium; but the rack and its adjuncts are justly objects of grave
suspicion, for they imply a use of brutal force which no disease at
present known would justify. On our way back through the gardens our
guide made a _détour_ in order to show us a great subterranean
warehouse, where an enormous quantity of potatoes was stored, as well as
barrels full of salt pork, while in a yard hard by lay grunting a fat
pig. "Look at this!" cried our National Guard indignantly. "Look at
these stores, which might have helped to feed the starving poor of the
arrondissement during our six months' siege, and think that these people
were begging from door to door the whole time for money to buy broken
victuals for their pensioners!" Arrived at the entrance gate our guide
nudged me, telling me in whispers to look at the old woman who was
wandering about, followed by a younger one, stooping from time to time
to pick up a leaf or rub her hands with sand and gravel. "That is Soeur
Bernadine," he said, "one of the three prisoners of the wooden cages.
She is the most sane in mind of the three, and we keep her here under
the care of one of our wives to cheer her up. She is only 50, though she
looks past 70. The other two have been removed, as they were rendered
violent by the crowd and change of scene." I passed close to her and she
looked up--a soft, pale face, with sunken eyes shaded by the frills of a
great cap. She looked at me dazedly, without taking any notice, and
stooping again, filled her hands with refuse coffee grounds, which she
put into her mouth until prevented by her companion. Without showing the
least prejudice in the matter, I think I can safely say that the ladies
now shut up at St. Lazare will find it no easy matter to clear
themselves of blame; for, though there are doubtless many suspicious
circumstances that maybe explained away, there are also hard facts which
will remain hard facts in spite of the most elaborate attempts at
refutation.
MAY 8th.
In consequence of the bombardment daily expected from the Montretout
batteries people have been hurriedly leaving Paris in great numbers.
Fort Vanves took fire last night, and had to be evacuated. It was found
impossible to extinguish the fire. It is still burning.
The explosion at Issy arose from a torpedo, not a powder magazine. The
Fort is evacuated.
There has been a general heavy firing to-day, and the Point du Jour has
suffered severely.
Father Hogan, the _curé_ of St. Sulpice, a British subject, was again
arrested yesterday. Mr. Malet has with difficulty procured his release
on condition that he leaves Paris.
The Government troops were compelled to evacuate the railway station at
Clamart in consequence of the effluvia arising from the great number of
unburied corpses in and about the station, which was then occupied by
the Federalists, subsequently again evacuated by them upon the approach
of the Versailles troops.
The Government have sent away to the Departments all the young soldiers
who have parents or relations domiciled in Paris.
The statement that M. Schneider intented to remove his iron foundries
from Creuzot to Stockton-on-Tees is incorrect. A large number of models
and designs have been sent from Creuzot to foundries at
Stockton-on-Tees, where it is intended to instruct a staff of workmen in
the production of steel before commencing that branch of manufacture at
the French establishment.
Fort Issy was captured and occupied by the Government troops this
morning.
MAY 9th.--AND 10th.
Forts Montrouge and Vanves have been reduced to silence by a battery of
mitrailleuses established on a parapet of Issy, which picks off Federal
artillerymen when they show themselves. Seven guns on bastions 72, 73,
and 74 have been dismounted by the new battery of Montretout and the
bastions silenced. Many prisoners are said to have been taken at Issy
yesterday.
The National Guards of Vaugirard and the Panthéon decline to march,
barely a third of their numbers having answered the call.
The Vendôme Column is definitively to fall on Friday.
The Lycée, on the high ground behind Issy, is being hurriedly formed
into a fortress mounted with guns, earthworks connecting it with Vanves.
Three shells per second are said to have fallen on Auteuil this morning.
Nineteen battalions were reviewed yesterday by Colonel Rossel in the
Place de la Concorde. Rossel continues to command in spite of his
resignation yesterday, which is attributed to a quarrel with the Central
Committee. The Committee of Public Safety is still sitting. It is
rumoured that should he decline to withdraw his resignation, the
functions of the Ministry of War would be absorbed by the Committee of
Public Safety, who would attach to themselves an Assistant Military
Commission, headed by Dombrowski.
MAY 10th.
The Committee of Public Safety, in consequence of the proclamation of M.
Thiers, which was placarded in Paris, has issued a decree ordering the
furniture and property of M. Thiers to be seized, and his house in the
Place St. Georges to be immediately demolished.
The Commune, in its sitting of yesterday, decided to bring Colonel
Rossel before a court-martial.
Delescluze has been appointed Delegate of War.
Colonel Rossel was arrested yesterday and handed over to the custody of
Citizen Gerardin. At 5 p.m. an announcement was made to the Commune that
Rossel had left with Gerardin. The Commune accepted the offer of General
Bergeret to re-arrest Rossel. Nevertheless, at 2 o'clock this morning
this had not been effected.
Félix Pyat, in the _Vengeur_, accuses Rossel of treason.
MAY 11th.
There is increasing discouragement among the National Guards, in spite
of the retaking of Vanves. The _Vengeur_ hints at a plot headed by
Gerardin, and states that 400 National Guards, who exhibited no numbers
of their battalions, were assembled for an unknown purpose at the
Luxembourg; that at the same time officers who were making a domiciliary
visit at Gerardin's house were attacked, and that in another quarter an
attempt was made to assassinate Dombrowski.
A considerable portion of masonry from the Auteuil Viaduct has fallen
into the water.
A search has been made at the Bank of France under the excuse of looking
for arms. It is said that the _employés_ of the Bank are armed and
victualled, and will stand a siege rather than surrender the gold under
their care.
In consequence of pressure from Delescluze the Central Committee abandon
the direction of the War Administration, and Moreau resigns his office
of Civil Delegate.
The furniture and pictures are being carted from M. Thiers' house, and
sounds of hammering within suggest the commencement of its demolition.
Six newspapers have been suppressed--viz., the _Univers_, _Spectateur_,
_Moniteur_, _Étoile_, _Anonyme_, and _Observateur_.
The batteries at Montretout continue a vigorous firing. Throughout last
night they received only six shells from the Insurgents.
The shells thrown from the floating battery bridge at the Point du Jour
and from the land batteries near that point generally drop short of the
mark and fall either into the Seine or on the slopes of the railway by
the right bank.
This afternoon I saw many projectiles from Montretout and Meudon explode
among the houses at the Point du Jour and the _enceinte_ near it. The
wall screening the Ceinture Railway between Auteuil and Vaugirard has
been dreadfully battered in various places.
The Bois de Boulogne, in a semicircle from about the Villa Rothschild to
Bagatelle, following the race course at Longchamps, is one vast camp,
and from this camp to the village of Boulogne the work of constructing
trenches parallel with the _enceinte_ is being pushed rapidly forward. I
saw hundreds of men working at them to-day.
The Fort of Vanves is still occupied by the Insurgents, but Moulin de
Pierres and Châtillon cover it with shells.
By means of cannon shots the troops of Versailles have demolished the
houses in the village of Vanves, as they concealed and covered the
postern of the Fort. The military had succeeded in occupying the
village, but were obliged to abandon it because the houses were exposed
to the fire of the Insurgents.
There has been a sharp musketry fire to-day in the plantations to the
north-east of Issy, and just over the Vaugirard road.
There has been fighting of the same kind in the direction of the St.
Ouen station at the other end of the lines. The sphere of attack is
again being extended, and in consequence of this the Insurgents are
obliged to defend themselves at, perhaps, three or four points
simultaneously.
MAY 12th.--13th.
There was a considerable movement in the city yesterday consequent on
desperate attempts to enlist refractory citizens in marching battalions.
Pressgangs paraded the streets all day, and many men within the ages of
19 and 40 were, it is said, temporarily incarcerated in the Church of
Notre Dame de Lorette.
An extraordinary meeting was held at the Hôtel de Ville in consequence
of a supposed discovery of a reactionary plot. Forty-seven Gendarmes,
says the _Mot d'Ordre_, were found in the Marine Barracks disguised as
National Guards, besides a great quantity of tricoloured _brassards_.
M. Beslay, surnamed the Father of the Commune, has retired, because he
disapproves the confiscation of M. Thiers' goods.
The new batteries on Montmartre opened fire last night, but ceased this
morning.
The 46th battalion Montrouge were relieved from duty two hours before
their time last night because they talked of opening the Gates. This
battalion consists for the most part of shopkeepers.
The new battalion called the "Vengeurs du Père Duchesne" were shut up in
the Luxembourg Gardens, all points of egress being guarded, because they
declined to march outside the city.
Difficulties have arisen in the Quartier Val de Grace, consequent upon
the heavy tax recently levied on meat.
The Versaillais gunboats at the Asnières Bridge forced the Federal
troops to recoil several hundred yards towards the city walls.
Félix Pyat announces his opinion publicly that the fall of the Commune
is imminent.
Mortars are being placed on the top of the Arc de Triomphe.
The demolition of the house of M. Thiers has commenced.
The Central Committee have ordered that all the quarters of Paris shall
be searched for arms and refractory National Guards. All the young men
in Paris are to be armed.
MAY 14th.
A large crowd has been waiting in the Rue de la Paix since 4 o'clock to
see the fall of the Vendôme Column. Its fall had been officially
promised at that hour, but up to half-past 6 it was still standing. It
will probably fall to-day. The tricolour flag has just been attached to
the statue, amid faint cheers from the crowd.
An Armistice has been arranged for next Wednesday, to enable the
inhabitants of Vanves and the neighbourhood to remove.
Cluseret, Megy, and Schoelcher have been released.
The 8th and 11th Battalions have been disarmed on suspicion of being
reactionary.
Paschal Grousset has sent a circular to the principal towns of France,
inviting them to join the Communal movement.
The approaches are now within 150 metres of the _enceinte_, and a
breaching battery is being constructed. The Montretout batteries have
already made a considerable breach in the _enceinte_ by the side of the
Auteuil Gate, which has been demolished.
There was a very lively fusillade this afternoon between troops in the
Bois de Boulogne and the Insurgents, who fired from houses and other
shelter behind the _enceinte_ between Passy and Auteuil. Mortars were
also used by the military.
The Insurgents have shot a captain of Engineers who imprudently advanced
beyond the Versailles lines.
In the Fort of Vanves a soldier of the Line has been found; his feet
were tied together, and there are numbers of bayonet wounds in different
parts of his body. The Insurgents had made him prisoner.
Of the 60 pieces of cannon left in the Fort, the greater number had been
rendered useless by the fire of the troops.
It is believed that the garrison escaped by a subterranean passage
communicating between Forts Vanves and Montrouge.
Every commander of an Army Corps will henceforward have the command of
an Arrondissement, and will be answerable for the defensive measures
undertaken in his zone.
All persons in the possession of sulphur and phosphorus must declare to
the Commune the amount of each within three days.
La Cecilia has again undertaken the command at Petit Vanves.
Torpedoes are to be laid down at exposed parts.
The night has passed off quietly, and nothing of any importance has
transpired.
The Versailles troops are under the walls of Paris, and are exchanging
shots with the Insurgents on the ramparts from the Muette Gate to the
Issy Gate.
The Federalists have been driven out of their entrenchments between
Forts Vanves and Issy.
A battery is being erected in the garden of the Tuileries, from which
the Communists will be able to keep up a flank fire upon the Champs
Elysées.
There is no doubt of the existence of a serious conspiracy, possessing
wide ramifications, in Paris to effect the overthrow of the Commune.
The Garden of the Luxembourg has been closed, and is occupied by four
battalions of National Guards, as a precaution against the rising which
is apprehended.
MAY 15th.
The _Journal Officiel_ announced that the Column would positively fall
to-day at 2. A great concourse assembled. Bands played. The Commune and
their Staff, amounting to 200, attended on horseback. At 3.45 p.m. an
attempt was made, which failed owing to the breaking of a snatchblock.
The ropes slackened suddenly, injuring two men. Another attempt was
made, fresh ropes having been added, and the Column fell at about 10
minutes to 6. It broke up in the air as it fell. The concussion was
nothing like what had been expected. No glass was broken or injury done
to the Square, excepting that the Column forced itself into the ground.
The excitement was intense. The crowd rushed with loud cheers to
scramble for fragments, while speeches were made by members of the
Commune, mounted on fallen masses, and red flags were hoisted on the
pedestal. Immense crowds assembled in the streets outside, making it
almost impossible to leave the Place Vendôme. It was forbidden to take
away any fragments, and people were searched before leaving the Square.
MAY THE 16th.
Two hundred National Guards entered the Grand Hotel last night. After
having searched every room, under the pretence of looking for arms,
they retired with a good deal of plunder.
This is on that subject a letter forwarded by Mister van Henbeck to the
_Figaro Journal_.
It has been spoken in different ways of the frequent searches made in
the Grand Hotel, since the occupation by the admiral Saisset and his
Staff, which had rendered the Hotel suspected by the "Commune" and the
"Comité Central."
The last visit of these _Gentlemen_, has been marked by many strange
proceedings:
In the night of may 15th a band of about 300 armed men, pseudo-sailors
of the "Commune" and Belgian volunteers of both sex, rushed into the
Hotel. During five hours these mad men, several of them being
intoxicated, had to make in every part of the Hotel fantastic searches,
they went breaking the doors and menacing the administrator, the clerks
and servants.
They had no mandamus to do that, but the pretext was the arrestation of
a battalion of "Gendarmes" and the discovery of a subterranean vault
leading to Versailles.
The search for "Gendarmes" was not long to make, but the one for the
vault was stopped only when they had found the wine cellar. The door was
knocked out:
The great attention they paid to those investigations can be evaluated
by a consummation of 1764 francs of wine.
That operation began at 4 a.m. and was out at 6.
The whistles of those supposed sailors and the trumpets of the "Fédérés"
ordered the end of that small festival. The cellar was left a-side, and
the servants of the Hotel were obliged to bring up in the court-yard
those of the band who could not walk any more; at last, the troop went
out carrying away a good supply of provisions as wine, cigars, watches,
jewels and purses stolen in the servants' rooms, and also clocks and
about a hundred table-plates belonging to the Hotel.
They went with empty hands, but the pockets were full. Two of the
servants were obliged to go with them, and they said they would come
back the next day to arrest many others.
These wicked orgies having no political character, I will address myself
to the "Code pénal" for a repression, and I deliver into the hands of
the "Procureur de la République" a complaint justified by the deposings
of all my servants, and indicating the names of the chiefs of that
curious performance.
Be good enough, Sir, to believe me yours most respectfully: V.....
_Administrator of the Grand Hotel_.
The Insurgents have evacuated all their positions between Fort Vanves
and the _enceinte_.
The only gunboats now beneath the Viaduct at the Point du Jour are mere
wrecks, and their guns have completely disappeared.
The Insurgents' battery on a bastion between Vaugirard and Montrouge has
been firing frequently to-day. One of its shells came as far as Bas
Meudon.
Fort Issy has been directing its fire upon the Point du Jour. About noon
there were two conflagrations at the Point du Jour and one at Auteuil.
The soldiers working at the parallels and the breaching batteries are
suffering from the musketry of Insurgents behind the _enceinte_. As many
as 30 of them have been killed during one night, but the sap has been
carried to within less than 400 metres of the ramparts.
The Insurgents are raising additional barricades in the Rue de
Vaugirard, and also at Passy and Auteuil. Pontoon bridges and fascines
in great numbers are being sent forward to the military foreposts.
The Committee of Public Safety has appointed a military Commission to
replace the existing Commission; it is composed of Arnold, Avrial,
Johannard, Tridon, and Varein.
Henri has been appointed Chief of the Staff of the War Ministry, and
Mathieu commander of the troops posted between the Point du Jour and the
Wagram Gate.
All mechanics over 40 years of age have been called out to work at the
city defences. They will receive 3f. 75c. as daily pay.
Important resolutions are expected to be taken at the sitting of the
Commune to-day, and the serious division will be terminated by the
dissolution of the Central Committee, or by the absorption of the
Committee of Public Safety in the Central Committee.
The Commune announces that the Versailles troops were repulsed in
several attacks made by them last night upon the barricades at
Châtillon, Moulin de Pierre, and Moulin Saquet.
There was a vigorous engagement yesterday evening at the Dauphine and
Maillot Gates, and the Versailles troops were driven back with
considerable loss.
It is rumoured that Fort Montrouge has been evacuated.
The Commune declares that it has a reserve force of 20,000 men.
Of M. Thiers' house little more, it is feared, than the outer walls
remain standing.
MAY 17th
The "Majority of the Commune"--as the Commune is now spoken of in
consequence of the secession of 22 of its members--has resolved to form
a Central Club like that of the Jacobins, composed of delegates from
various clubs of Paris, in order to keep itself _en rapport_ with public
opinion.
The 12th Legion has formed a battalion of women, who in addition to
their other military duties are to disarm publicly all runaways.
The Communal Delegation of the 2d Arrondissement, considering that
slavery was considered immoral even before the American War, and that a
standing army has been suppressed by the Commune, decrees that all
houses of ill fame in their quarter shall be immediately closed, as
involving traffic in human beings.
Peter's Restaurant was searched last night, and several arrests were
made, among them officers of the National Guard suspected of complicity
in the Tricolour Brassard Plot. The Restaurant is closed.
The heaviest firing to-day has been against the Point du Jour. Large
pieces of Marine Artillery have been placed on the ramparts behind
Montrouge.
A terrific explosion has just (6 o'clock) created general alarm.
Enormous volumes of smoke are visible from a great distance. The
cartridge manufactory near the École Militaire has exploded. Six hundred
_employés_, chiefly women, are said to have been killed. Bullets were
launched in all directions, killing and wounding many passers by.
The Insurgents have constructed a battery of Marine pieces, which much
embarrasses the troops and retards the breaching works. Breaches will be
opened at three points--namely, at Mortemart, opposite Auteuil, at
Bastion 65, opposite the Parc-aux-Princes in the Bois and in the
neighbourhood of Vaugirard.
This afternoon the Insurgents fired from three batteries between the
left bank ending the viaduct at the Point du Jour and Montrouge. One of
these batteries was placed close to the Vaugirard Gate, and its fire was
directed to a point at which the Engineers were supposed to be
constructing a trench.
There were conflagrations this evening in Auteuil, the Point du Jour,
and between the latter place and Vaugirard. The flame and smoke were
distinctly visible. We hear it was the blowing up of a powder factory in
the Rue de Wagram, Paris, or at the Trocadéro.
The Committee of Public Safety, in order to save the country from a
military dictatorship, has associated Civil Commissioners with the
various Generals of the Commune. With Dombrowski are joined Burger and
Dereuve, with La Cecilia, Johannard, and with Wrobleski, Leo Meillet.
All passenger and goods trains leaving Paris have to stop outside the
walls for examination. Trains contravening this order will not be
permitted to proceed.
Possessors of petroleum are to declare the amount they hold to the
authorities within 48 hours.
Fort Montrouge is still held, and is strongly supported by the Hautes
Bruyères.
The Government troops have not yet occupied Vanves; they are pressing
upon Billancourt and La Marette.
A letter of General Cluseret in the _Mot d'ordre_ advises that every
exertion should be made for the erection of barricades at the Barrière
de l'Etoile, the Place Roi de Rome, and the Place Eylau, with a second
line between the Passy Gate and the Grenelle Bridge, and a third line
from the Pont de la Concorde to the Ouen Gate.
The Versailles and Auteuil Gates of Paris have been demolished by the
cannonade. The neighbouring bastions are subjected to a tremendous fire,
but do not reply.
Fort Issy, which is now in the hands of the Versailles troops, is
vigorously bombarding Petit Vanves, Grenelle, and Point du Jour.
The last is utterly untenable by the Insurgent gunners.
A belief obtains that the Versailles Engineers are laying a mine under
the walls of Paris in the direction of the Muette Gate. The disagreement
between the Commune and the Central Committee continues.
The Versailles troops have made good their communications from Montrouge
to Issy, and have established batteries on the glacis before Fort
Vanves. They are vigorously attacking Bicêtre and Hautes Bruyères.
A terrible bombardment of the Maillot Gate and the Arc de Triomphe is
going on.
The Federalists in the village of Malakoff are in danger of being cut
off from Paris, while those stationed in the villages of Petit Vanves
and Montrouge have been compelled to retire into the city.
Ladders for scaling the ramparts have reached the Versaillist outposts
in the Bois de Boulogne.
The Versailles troops are endeavouring to cut a way through the wood to
the Avenue of Neuilly.
The cannonade in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe is increasing in
intensity.
MAY 18th.
To-day was a day of feasting, and National Guards surrounded the
Churches of St. Augustin and La Trinité, and forced the priests to stop
Divine service, and turned out the congregations. The establishment of
the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul was also surrounded. An
inventory was made of the goods, the Sisters being themselves placed
under lock and key until to-morrow, when they will be turned out.
Bodies are being removed from the crypt of the Church of Les Petits
Pères, near the Bank of France, for examination. Rumours are afloat that
people have been recently buried there under false names, and bones
strew the pavement on both sides of the church door.
The Versaillais are at a distance of 200 metres from the ramparts from
the Point du Jour to Vanves. The National Guards in great numbers are
assembled under the cover of the ramparts, and an attack is hourly
expected. Shells have fallen on the bridge of Grenelle, killing several
persons. An attack was made yesterday on the Zoological Gardens of the
Bois de Boulogne, which turned out disastrously for the Federals.
The fire from the Insurgents' batteries on the _enceinte_ has been
stronger to-day than at any time previously since the opening of the new
redoubt at Montretout. They have been throwing shells from La Muette
against the troops in the Bois de Boulogne, but mortars placed in the
Bois near the large lake have been responding vigorously, and a field
battery at Mortemart, the south-eastern extremity of the Bois, has been
protecting, by its fire, the Engineers working at the breaching battery,
and also doing some damage to the Artillery on the bastion.
Between Passy and Auteuil the Insurgents are in considerable force
behind the _enceinte_. Their three batteries on the _enceinte_, between
the Point du Jour and Montrouge, have been firing on the military
position at Bas Meudon and Issy. There has been a return shelling from
these positions between the rival Artillery.
Engineers are engaged in sapping from Issy in the direction of
Vaugirard. They are much exposed to the batteries of the Insurgents, but
neither yesterday nor to-day did I see a single shell fall into the
French lines where they are at work.
The Committee of Public Safety has issued an appeal to the National
Guards calling upon them to secure the triumph of Paris, and describing
the fearful results which would ensue from the victory of the Versailles
troops.
A later attack which was made on Neuilly yesterday was repulsed.
This morning the Federal batteries at Montmartre are bombarding the
Château Bécon.
The _Journal Officiel_ of the Commune of to-day accuses the agents of
Versailles of having caused the explosion of the cartridge manufactory,
and says that a hundred persons have fallen victims to it. Four arrests
have been made in connexion with this affair. The _Vérité_ demonstrates
that the explosion could not have been the result of intention, but was
solely attributable to accident. The same paper states that no shell
fell in the Champ de Mars at the time of the explosion.
The Versailles troops are constructing trenches within 200 yards of the
Auteuil Gate, but the breach is not yet assailable.
Fort Montrouge still holds out, but offers only a feeble resistance.
The Communists claim to-day to have repulsed all attacks.
The bombardment is incessant.
The German troops are taking up imposing positions.
The tribunals of the Commune have decided to-day as to who among the
prisoners in the hands of the Commune are to be regarded as hostages. It
is asserted that three hostages will be executed to-morrow.
MAY 19th.
The firing was heavier last night than it has ever been. There were both
a cannonade and a fusillade. Everybody thought that the Versaillais had
at last made their assault. It appears that the Communists attempted a
sortie, and were repulsed with great loss. Numerous waggons filled with
wounded were taken to Versailles. Various battalions returned to Paris,
apparently much dispirited. Numerous reinforcements, however, were
brought up.
The bullets are falling so thickly about the ramparts that the
Communists with difficulty maintain their position there. The Versailles
shell-practice has improved. The shells burst about the bastions instead
of in the town.
The conscription is carried on with increased rigour, death being
threatened to those who refuse to serve. A Lieutenant-Colonel and a
Commandant have been sentenced, the one to 15 years' and the other to 10
years' imprisonment for cowardice, and their battalion has been
dissolved. The Chief and Staff of the 6th Legion have been dismissed for
not disarming the refractory battalions.
It is said the prisoners accused of firing the cartridge manufactory are
to be shot in 24 hours.
Much fear is entertained for the fate of the hostages, whose execution
has been so strongly advocated in the Commune, in reprisal for the
alleged violation and murder of an _infirmière_ by the Versaillais.
Some iron cupola-shaped cases, capable of holding each 1,000lb. of
powder, were to-day taken to the barricades near the ramparts for the
purpose of blowing them up if necessary.
It has been proposed in the Commune to abolish all titles of rank, with
the emoluments and advantages appertaining to them; also that all
children now illegitimate shall be for the future legitimate; and that,
instead of the present form of marriage, any man over 18 and woman over
16 may be allowed to go before a municipal magistrate and declare their
wish to marry.
The only breaching battery that has as yet opened fire is that
established in the Parc aux Princes, at 400 metres distance from the
ramparts. It directs its fire against the _enceinte_ at Auteuil, where
the gates and the drawbridge have been destroyed.
The Fort of Montrouge is almost surrounded by the troops, who advance
also by means of trenches towards the Redoubt of Hautes Bruyères.
Towards the South a series of attacks have been made, with the view of
driving all the Insurgents on that side from their positions outside the
_enceinte_.
Last night, in an affair at Lagrange, the military put 110 Insurgents
_hors de combat_ and made 43 prisoners.
All the breaching works are not yet completed.
To-day the Insurgents have been firing from La Muette, which is on the
_enceinte_ between Passy and Auteuil, and I observed that they had added
to the number of their guns between the Point du Jour and Montrouge.
Yesterday they had three batteries between those points; to-day they
have been firing from five.
Mont Valérien has done very little to-day, and Montretout has not been
so violent as usual, but the military batteries at Bas Meudon, Les
Moulineanx, and Issy have been very active, as have likewise been the
mortars and field guns in the Bois de Boulogne.
Twenty-one members of the Commune no longer attend the sittings of that
body, but remain in their Arrondissements.
Four hundred Versailles Chasseurs are said to have deserted from their
own side into Paris yesterday.
Batteries of 30 guns have been established at the Dauphine Gate.
The _Cri du peuple_ says the Committee have determined rather to blow up
Paris than capitulate.
A requisition has been made of the silver candlesticks at the Church of
Notre Dame des Victoires.
No one without a special pass is allowed to leave the city at night by
the Eastern or Northern gates.
The Commune has ordered that all prostitutes and drunkards shall be
arrested.
A decree of the Committee of Public Safety, published to-day, orders the
suppression of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, _Avenir National_, _Patrie_,
_Commune_, _Justice_, and five other newspapers.
No new journals will be allowed to appear until the end of the war.
All articles must be signed by the writer.
Attacks on the Government will be dealt with according to martial law.
Officers who hesitate to obey the orders of the Committee of Public
Safety will be tried for high treason by court-martial.
The _Salut Public_ alleges that one of the chief persons implicated in
the explosion of the cartridge manufactory is Count Ladislas Zamoyski,
and that papers have been found upon him proving him to be in
communication with the Government of Versailles.
The same paper announces that the Germans demand that an armistice
should be entered into between the Commune and the Versailles
Government, in order that a _Plebiscite_ of all France may be held to
decide upon the future form of Government.
The Commune has seized the silver ornaments and other valuables of the
Church of the Trinity. All the other churches of Paris will shortly be
treated in a similar manner, and will then be closed.
All arrests and requisitions are being carried out by Flourens's corps
of Avengers.
The demolition of the Expiatory Chapel was commenced to-day.
The gate at Point du Jour is destroyed.
Yesterday evening two battalions of troops carried the Ory Farm and
Plichon House, near Fort Montrouge, at the point of the bayonet. The
Federalists had about 400 killed and wounded, and lost 42 prisoners,
including a Chief of Battalion. The troops also captured a flag, but
subsequently evacuated the conquered positions, as they were too much
exposed to the fire of the enemy. The loss of the Versailles troops was
small.
* * * * *
THE VENDÔME COLUMN.
Foul is the bird that soils her own nest! As though they had not
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.
Dombrowski has not been taken. He escaped from La Muette when the troops
entered, leaving behind him the silver service which was in the room
where he had been about to sit down to dinner.
Assy, was taken on the Quai de Billy.
Montmartre has been carried after a rather sharp struggle. The tricolour
now waves over the Buttes.
For some hours I witnessed the fighting to day. I found that early this
morning all the important positions of Montmartre had been taken by the
two Corps d'Armée of Generals Douai and Ladmirault. The latter General
had occupied the station of St. Ouen and the Place of Clichy, and he had
advanced to Montmartre by an external movement, keeping for some
distance outside the ramparts. At the same time General Douai made a
direct movement from inside the city by the Parc de Monceaux. In this
manner Montmartre had been almost entirely surrounded. There was a hard
contest, but the troops succeeded in entering the Buttes. A large number
of the Insurgents were killed in the action, and about 4,000 were made
prisoners. The number of cannon and mitrailleuses taken was very
considerable, amounting to some hundreds. Belleville is still in the
hands of the Insurgents, as are also the Hôtel de Ville and the
Tuileries. The Red flag was floating on them at half-past 5 o'clock.
Severe fighting was going on across the Place de la Concorde between the
Insurgents occupying the mansion of the Ministry of Marine, at the
corner of the Rue Royale, and the troops on the other side of the river
in the Palace of the Corps Législatif. A gunboat which the Insurgents
had under the Pont Royal, close to the Tuileries, was firing constantly.
The Insurgents in the Rue de Rivoli and the garden of the Tuileries were
using mitrailleuses and rifles, and the troops along the Boulevard at
the edge of the Place des Invalides, close to the river, were attacking
them with four-pounder guns. Fort Vanves was firing on the Insurgent
positions in the neighbourhood of Montrouge and the Faubourg St.
Germain, and the Federalists were shelling Vanves from Forts Montrouge
and Bicêtre. There was musketry skirmishing at various points in the
Faubourg St. Germain. The Insurgents occupy houses, from which they keep
up a rapid fire to impede the march of General Cissey's troops. Among
the prisoners taken to-day many have been recognized as old Reds who
were actively engaged in the insurrection of June, 1848. A movement has
been ordered which will result in completely shutting in the Insurgents
within a circle formed by the whole Army of Paris. The Madeleine is in
the hands of the military. Several fires have broken out in the city.
Colonel Piquemalle, Chief of the Staff of General Vergé, was killed
to-day.
The following circular despatch was yesterday forwarded to the Prefects
of the several Departments.
"The tricolour flag waves over the Buttes-Montmartre and the Northern
Railway station. These decisive points were carried by the troops of
Generals Ladmirault and Clinchant, who captured between 2,000 and 3,000
prisoners. General Douai has taken the Church of the Trinity, and is
marching upon the Mairie in the Rue Drouot.
"Generals Cissey and Vinoy are advancing towards the Hôtel-de-Ville and
the Tuileries.
MAY 24th.
"The Generals, desiring to treat the city with lenity, withheld any
attack upon public monuments in which the insurgents had taken up
positions. This morning they carried the Place de la Concorde. The
Ministry of Finances, the Hôtel of the Conseil d'Etat, the Palace of the
Légion of Honour, and the Palace of the Tuileries were burnt by the
insurgents. When the troops gained possession of the Tuileries, it was
but a mass of smouldering ashes. The Louvre will be saved. The Hôtel de
Ville is in flames. I am convinced that the insurrection will be
completely conquered by this evening at the latest. No one could have
prevented the crime of these wicked wretches. They have made use of
petroleum for their incendiary purposes, and have sent petroleum bombs
against the soldiers. What remedy can be applied? The best of the
Generals of the army have shown an amount of talent and valour which has
excited the admiration of foreigners.
I have just returned from witnessing one of the saddest sights that has
occurred in the world's history.
I announced that the insurgents had set fire to several of the public
buildings of Paris, the Royal and historical Tuileries included. Flames
and bombshells are fast reducing the magnificent city to a huge and
shapeless ruin. Its architectural glories are rapidly passing away in
smoke and flame, such as have never been witnessed since the burning of
Moscow, and amid a roar of cannon, a screaming of mitrailleuses, a
bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different
quarters which are appalling. A more lovely day it would be impossible
to imagine, a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen,
a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind
to ruffle the Seine. Such of the great buildings as the spreading
conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are
seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of
the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky
and positively obscure the light of the sun. I am making these notes on
the Trocadéro. Close and immediately opposite to me is the Invalides,
with its gilded dome shining brightly as ever. The wide esplanade of the
École Militaire, almost immediately underneath it, is nearly covered
with armed men, cannon, and horses. Shells from the positions of General
Cissey, at Montrouge, are every minute falling close to the lofty dome
of the Panthéon. It and the fine building of Val de Grace, near it, seem
certain to be destroyed by missiles before the incendiary fire reaches
them. There is a dense smoke close to St. Sulpice, and now flame rises
amid the smoke, and the two towers of the church are illuminated as no
electric light could illuminate them. Some large building is on fire
there. Every one asks which it is; but no one can approach that Quarter
to put the matter beyond doubt. Burnt leaves of books are flying towards
us, and the prevailing opinion is that the Sorbonne and its Library are
being consumed. There are a dozen other fires between that and the
river. No one doubts that the Palais de Justice is sharing the fate of
the Tuileries and the Louvres. The Château of the Tuileries has all but
disappeared. The centre cupola has fallen in, and so has the roof along
the entire length of the building. Some of the lower stories yet burn,
for fire and smoke are rushing fiercely from the openings where up to
this morning there were window-frames and windows.
The Louvre is not yet wholly gone, and perhaps the fire will not reach
all its Courts. As well as we can make out through the flame and smoke
rushing across the gardens of the Tuileries, the fire has reached the
Palais Royal. Every one is now crying out, "The Palais Royal burns!" and
we ascertain that it does. We cannot see Notre Dame or the Hôtel Dieu.
It is probable that both are fast becoming ashes. Not an instant passes
without an explosion. Stones and timber and iron are flying high into
the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes. The very trees
are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like
tinder. The buildings in the Place de la Concorde reflect the flames,
and every stone in them is like bright gold. Montmartre is still outside
the circle of the flames; but the little wind that is blowing carries
the smoke up to it, and in the clear heavens it rises black as Milton's
Pandemonium. The New Opera House is as yet uninjured; but the smoke
encircles it, and it will be next to a miracle if it escapes. We see
clearly now that the Palais de Justice, the Ste. Chapelle, the
Prefecture of Police, and the Hôtel de Ville are all blazing without a
possibility existing of any portion of any one of them being saved from
the general wreck and ruin.
The military are as far as the Pont Neuf on the left bank of the river,
and just beyond the Hôtel de Ville on the right. Now, at 6 o'clock, it
is all but certain that when this fire is extinguished scarcely one of
the great monuments of Paris will have escaped entire destruction.
The barricade of the Insurgents at the end of the Rue Royale was taken
last night by a movement in which the troops made their way from house
to house, starting from the Rue Boissy d'Anglas, to the Rue Faubourg St.
Honoré. The fighting in the Rue Faubourg St. Honoré and the Avenue
Marigny was very severe. Six shells fell and exploded in the grounds of
the British Embassy. The two houses which formed the angles at the
corners of the Rue Royale and the Rue Faubourg St. Honoré were burnt to
the ground. The Place Vendôme was taken by the troops. In the Faubourg
St. Germain during the whole night an energetic combat was raging
between the Insurgents and the men of General Cissey's division.
The Versailles batteries are firing furiously against the Quarters
which still hold out. By the aid of the telescope the horrible fact is
disclosed of numerous dead and wounded left lying about the streets
without any succour whatever.
MAY 25th.
I have been over a large portion of the city to-day and I am happy to
say that, though large fires are still raging, the conflagration is not
spreading to the extent that had been apprehended. The destruction done
by the street fighting and the desolation which prevails in the
principal Boulevards and other leading thoroughfares exceed all I could
have imagined from a more distant view.
I went to the Porte de la Muette, and, getting round to the left,
approached the Arc de Triomphe from the Avenue de L'Impératrice. All
along I found trees, lamp-posts, and the façades of houses smashed by
shells. Turning off by the Rue de Morny, I worked my way round to the
Boulevard Haussmann. It was impossible to proceed along by the pavement,
as on either side at intervals of a few feet felled trees and thick
branches had been laid down by the insurgents to obstruct the passage of
the troops. On Monday last the Federals had occupied the houses, and
fired from the corridors. All the fronts of the houses were disfigured
by rifle balls, the corridors were broken, and the handsome stone
cornices very much battered. The beautiful columns of the Madeleine are
sadly injured, the fluted edges having been in many places shot away.
The two houses in the Rue Royale, at the corner of the Rue Faubourg St.
Honoré, were blazing still, and the smoke and ashes that flew from them
were stifling the pompiers, who were working energetically there and at
other points; some of their corps were shot. It had been discovered that
they, instead of throwing water on the fires they were called upon to
extinguish, were actually pumping petroleum into the flames, and so
adding to their fury. When this was detected the guilty firemen were
surrounded by a body of cavalry, conducted into the Parc de Monceaux,
and there shot. I could count the number of people I met along the
Boulevards, so few were those who ventured to walk about. The fears of
petroleum and explosions are universal. The inhabitants had either
stopped up, or were engaged in stopping up, every chink through which
petroleum might be thrown into their houses. Their cellar lights, their
ventilators, and their gratings were being made impervious by sand,
mortar, and other materials. This precaution was taken because women
and children partisans of the Commune, have in numerous instances been
detected throwing petroleum into houses. Not a shop was entirely open,
and those that opened only doors were inferior restaurants and wine
houses. Around the railing in the Place Vendôme troopers' horses were
tied. The bronze figure of the Emperor was on its back, the shattered
and prostrate Column lay about in fragments. On visiting the
neighbourhood of Montmartre, and ascending an Observatory there I found
there was a cannon and musketry fire going on in the district of
Belleville and the Buttes de Chaumont. The Insurgents had not been
dislodged, and as the troops have undergone much fatigue since Monday a
regular attack on Belleville will not be made till to-morrow morning.
General Clinchant will bring his forces against it in the rear, and
General Vinoy's soldiers will advance upon it from the Boulevards. On
coming round by the quay to the Place de la Concorde I found that all
the statues of the French cities are injured, and some very
considerably. Of several the arms and heads are off. The splendid
fountains in the centre of the Place are dreadfully smashed. The stone
balustrade is badly broken in a hundred places. The lamp posts are all
down, and this once charming spot presents a most melancholy
appearance. I found a crowd looking over the wall of the wharf beside
the bridge. I looked over and found a number of labourers digging a huge
square grave in which to bury some 25 Insurgents, who lay mangled and
dead along the wall.
The Hôtel de Ville is still smoking. So are the ashes of the Tuileries.
Happily not very much of the Louvre is destroyed, and at the Palais
Royal the fire was extinguished when only a portion of that building had
been consumed. The Prefecture of Police is consumed, but the Palais de
Justice is not, and the Sainte Chapelle has suffered but little injury.
The greatest conflagration of to-day was that at the Grenier
d'Abondance. The flames and smoke from it rose high over the city. There
were other fires, but, happily, not in the centre of the city. I could
not learn in what particular buildings they were rising, but I believe
that a frightful fire is raging at the Entrepot des Vins, on the Quai
St. Bernard.
M. Thiers has addressed the following Circular to the Departements:--
"We are masters of Paris, with the exception of a very small portion,
which will be occupied this morning. The Tuileries are in ashes, the
Louvre is saved. A portion of the Ministry of Finance along the Rue de
Rivoli, the Palais d'Orsay, where the Council of State holds its
sittings, and the Court of Accounts have been burnt. Such is the
condition in which Paris is delivered to us by the wretches who
oppressed it. We have already in our hands 12,000 prisoners, and shall
certainly have from 18,000 to 20,000. The soil of Paris is strewn with
corpses of the Insurgents. The frightful spectacle will, it is hoped,
serve as a lesson to those insensate men who dared to declare themselves
partisans of the Commune. Justice will soon be satisfied. The human
conscience is indignant at the monstrous acts which France and the world
have now witnessed. The Army has behaved admirably. We are happy in the
midst of our misfortune to be able to announce that, thanks to the
wisdom of our Generals, it has suffered very small losses."
The troops have captured the Hôtel de Ville, and have occupied Fort
Montrouge.
The military operations are being actively and energetically carried on
by the three Corps which are now in Paris. It is hoped that they will be
in possession of the whole of the capital by this evening.
It is asserted that General Vinoy has been appointed Governor of Paris.
The newspapers state that Delescluze, Cluseret, Félix Pyat, and Ranvier
have been made prisoners, but the news is not officially confirmed.
Firemen have been summoned by telegraph from all the districts around
Paris.
Fort Bicêtre has been occupied by the troops.
It is stated that Raoul Rigault was shot this morning.
A dense cloud of smoke still hangs over Paris, which gives rise to fears
of fresh conflagrations.
Since noon to-day a south-easterly wind has arisen, causing the
conflagration to extend in the direction of the Bastille, and
threatening the city with destruction.
The Versailles batteries are firing vigorously upon Belleville.
The fires are apparently slackening. The wind fortunately veered round
to the west at 5 o'clock this evening, and this change was followed by a
calm, which has since continued. The sky is still lurid from the
reflection of the flames, and the _débris_ from the burning buildings
fall at distances of 20 kilomètres.
It is said that the Mazas prison is burnt to ashes, and fears are
entertained for the safety of the Archbishop, who was incarcerated
there.
It is reported that considerable bodies of Insurgents attempted to
escape from Paris in the direction of Aubervilliers and Romainville,
but they were driven back.
The cannonading from the Versailles batteries at Montmartre against
Belleville and Chaumont continues.
MAY 26th.
The attack on Belleville was made this morning soon after daybreak.
General Clinchant approached it from the ramparts, and General Bruat's
Division marched on it in front from the direction of the Rue de Paris.
The troops had to attack seven barricades successively. When they had
made a partial progress the Insurgents, seeing defeat inevitable,
offered to surrender on condition that their lives should be spared.
This was refused, and the struggle continued till the military
succeeded. A large number of the Insurgents were shot. Many cannon and
22 red flags were captured.
Last night a large group of the Insurgents imprisoned in the docks of
Satory, attempted a rising. The battalion in charge fired, and a number
of the prisoners were shot dead. The portion of the Palais Royal
consumed by the fire on Wednesday is the block of buildings in which
Prince Napoleon resided. The library of the Louvre has been destroyed.
The fire was arrested at the portion of the building occupied by the
Gendarmerie. Between the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville several shops and
private houses have been reduced to ashes. The Théâtre Lyrique is burnt
down. Of the Hôtel de Ville nothing remains but some walls. The Hotel of
the Ministry of Finance and that of the Cour des Comptes are both
destroyed. One of the towers of the Conciergerie, the Prefecture of
Police, and a portion of the Palais de Justice are burnt. The Grenier
d'Abonbance has disappeared, after being in flames for many hours
yesterday. A shell charged with petroleum struck and set on fire the
turret of the Church of St. Eustache. This part of the building crumbled
away; but the church itself was saved. In the Rue Royale eight houses
have been entirely, and two partially, consumed by the fire which broke
out at the corners of the Rue Faubourg St. Honoré. In the latter street
four houses have been consumed. The upper story of the British Embassy
has been much injured by shells. Several women have been arrested while
in the act of firing on the troops, and it is said that one _cantinière_
caused the death of ten soldiers by putting poison in their wine. Some
of the women whom I have seen marched from Paris as prisoners are
dressed in the uniform of National Guards. Not a few of the female
prisoners are very furious-looking. Several attempts at escape and
assassination have been made by prisoners. They are marched between a
double line of Cavalry, each of the latter holding a revolver in his
hand, with his finger on the trigger. Women found throwing petroleum
into houses have been shot on the spot. Since Monday there has been a
very large number of summary executions in the streets of Paris. At No.
27, Rue Oudinot, where Les Ambulances de la Presse have their
Head-Quarters, the bodies of 52 persons thus despatched are now
deposited. On one, which is dressed in the uniform of a National Guard,
bank notes to the amount of 150,000f. were found.
Viard, a member of the Commune, was arrested in the Rue de l'Université
yesterday. Gustave Courbet, an artist of celebrity, and also a member of
the Commune, has died at Satory of poison, supposed to have been
administered by himself. He expired in great agony. He it was who
promoted the idea of destroying the Column in the Place Vendôme. Raoul
Rigault, Procureur de la Commune, has been shot. Napoléon Gaillard,
Director of the Barricades, was insubordinate at Satory, and was shot by
the side of the fosse there. It is reported that Cluseret, Amouroux,
and Clément, all members of the Commune, have been arrested.
Fort d'Ivry has been evacuated by the Insurgents. They blew it up on
leaving, and the troops have taken possession of it. Six thousand
insurgents surrendered at discretion this morning at the Barrière
d'Italie.
The affair of Belleville is not yet concluded. There is fighting still.
A great fire is raging in the direction Buttes de Chaumont.
MAY 27th.
If it is difficult to realize the present condition of Paris, it is
still more difficult to describe it. We creep timidly about the streets,
haunted by the constant dread, either of being arrested as belonging to
the Commune, pressed into a _chaîne_, or struck by the fragment of some
chance shell, and oppressed ever by the scenes of destruction and
desolation that surround us; the whole forming a combination which
produces a sensation more nearly allied to nightmare than to any
psychological experience with which I am familiar, but yet requiring
some new word to define it. The angry ring of the volleys of execution;
the strings of men and women hurried off to their doom; the curses of an
infuriated populace; the brutal violence of an exasperated soldiery,
are sights and sounds calculated to produce a strange and powerful
effect on the mind. Yesterday afternoon I drove over as much of the city
already in the occupation of the Versaillists as was consistent with
safety. Following the Boulevard Clichy in order to avoid the _chaînes_
in the neighbourhood of the Madeleine, I passed the scenes of terrible
fighting. The Place Clichy was a mass of barricades and shattered
houses, the _façades_ marked with bullets as if pitted with the
smallpox, the windows smashed, and the evidences of a fearful struggle
visible everywhere. It seemed as if the ground had been disputed here
house by house; but from all I can learn of the resistance, the actual
defenders of the barricades, though resolute men, were few in number.
One of the most marked characteristics of this fighting has been the
cowardice of the many as compared with the courage and resolution of the
few; some of the barricades were abandoned by their defenders by
hundreds, only ten or a dozen remaining to the last, and holding their
ground until they were all killed or wounded. Passing up the Rue
Lafayette, I reached the Head Quarters of the Fifth Corps, where,
happening to know an officer, I was present at the examination of some
prisoners who were brought in, as every soldier who thinks he has good
ground for suspicion can arrest men or women, and drag them to the
divisional tribunal. They are captured in shoals. One lame man with a
villanous countenance, who was brought in while I was there, was accused
of being a _chef de barricade_, and having been taken in the act. He was
put through a short sharp fire of cross-examination, his pockets emptied
and his clothes felt, and he was then hurried off to take his place in
the ranks of the condemned ones that are forwarded to Versailles.
Instant execution is only ordered in the more extreme cases, excepting
where the fighting is actually going on, and then the troops give very
little quarter. The bitterness of the belligerents against each other is
of a far more intense and sanguinary kind than that which ordinarily
exists between combatants. The soldiery, looking at the pedestal on the
Place Vendôme and at the numerous public buildings which in some form or
other are associated with their military history, now all smoking ruins,
can scarcely contain their rage, and not unnaturally vent it with
ferocity on an enemy which deliberately planned the destruction of Paris
as the price of victory to the conquerors, and who are even yet
endeavouring to carry out their diabolical design of destroying the
houses still uninjured by secretly introducing petroleum balls and
fusées into the cellars. I saw a soldier suddenly seize a man as he was
apparently harmlessly walking along the street; his pockets were emptied
and found to contain cartridges and combustible balls of various sizes.
Another soldier and a sailor rushed to the spot; the latter drew his
revolver, and I expected would have shot the man then and there, but he
was satisfied on seeing his comrade prick him sharply with his bayonet.
The two soldiers then hurried the culprit off in front of them cuffing
him occasionally on the head, and accelerating his progress with the
points of their bayonets while they cursed him heartily. A small crowd
eagerly followed to see his fate, which they loudly hoped would be
instant execution; and, looking at the detestable nature of the contents
of his pockets and of his intentions, one could scarcely blame either
his captors or their sympathizers if they called for vengeance, and long
ere this, he has probably ceased to exist. One woman was caught with
these fire balls on two occasions, having succeeded once in escaping. As
a general rule, the hand-dog look of the prisoners is their most
striking characteristic. I passed one gang of about 50 yesterday, and
tried in vain, as I walked by their side, to catch a man's eye, or even
to see a face turned fairly up to the light of day. With heads bare, and
eyes steadily fixed on the ground, they passed between rows of people,
who howled and hooted at them, and it was not till I reached the head of
the short column that I observed a slender figure walking alone in the
costume of the National Guard, with long, fair hair floating over the
shoulders, a bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold, young face that
seemed to know neither shame nor fear. When the female spectators
detected at a glance that this seeming young National Guardsman was a
woman, their indignation found vent in strong language, for the torrent
of execration seems to flow more freely from feminine lips when the
object is a woman than if it be one of the opposite sex; but the only
response of the victim was to glare right and left with heightened
colour and flashing eyes, in marked contrast to the cowardly crew that
followed her. If the French nation were composed only of French women
what a terrible nation it would be!
The aspect of the Boulevards is the strangest sight imaginable. I
followed them from the Porte St. Martin to the Rue de la Paix. There was
fighting at the Château d'Eau, and without either a pass or an ambulance
_brassard_ a nearer approach to the scene of action was undesirable;
indeed, until recently, the shells had been bursting here in every
direction, and their holes might be seen in the centre of those
pavements heretofore sacred to the _flâneurs_ of Paris. Strewn over the
streets were branches of trees; and fragments of masonry that had been
knocked from the houses, bricks and mortar, torn proclamations, shreds
of clothings half concealing bloodstains, were now the interesting and
leading features of that fashionable resort; foot passengers were few
and far between, the shops and _cafés_ hermetically sealed, excepting
where bullets had made air holes, and during my whole afternoon's
promenade I only met three other carriages besides my own. The Place de
l'Opéra was a camping ground of artillery, the Place Vendôme a confusion
of barricades, guarded by sentries and the Rue Royale a mass of
_débris_. Looked at from the Madeleine the desolation and ruin of that
handsome street were lamentable to behold. The Place de la Concorde was
a desert, and in the midst of it lay the statue of Lille with the head
off. The last time I had looked on that face it was covered with crape,
in mourning for the entry of the Prussians. Near the bridge were 24
corpses of Insurgents, laid out in a row, waiting to be buried under the
neighbouring paving stones. To the right the skeleton of the Tuileries
reared its gaunt shell, the framework of the lofty wing next the Seine
still standing; but the whole of the roof of the central building was
gone, and daylight visible through all the windows right into the Place
de Carrousel. General Mac-Mahon's head-quarters were at the Affaires
Etrangères, which were intact. After a visit there, I passed the Corps
Législatif, also uninjured by fire, but much marked by shot and shell,
and so along the Quais the whole way to the Mint, at which point General
Vinoy had established his head-quarters. At the corner of the Rue du Bac
the destruction was something appalling. The Rue du Bac is an impassable
mound of ruins, 15 or 20 feet high, completely across the street as far
as I could see. The Légion d'Honneur, the Cour des Comptes, and Conseil
d'Etat were still smoking, but there was nothing left of them but the
blackened shells of their noble _façades_ to show how handsome they had
once been. At this point, in whichever direction one looked, the same
awful devastation met the eye--to the left the smouldering Tuileries, to
the right, the long line of ruin where the fire had swept through the
magnificent palaces on the Quai, and overhead again to-day a cloud of
smoke, more black and abundant even than yesterday, incessantly rolling
its dense volumes from behind Notre-Dame, whose two towers were happily
standing uninjured. This fire issued from the Grenier d'Abondance and
other buildings in the neighbourhood of the Jardin des Plantes. In
another direction the Arsenal was also burning. One marked result of a
high state of civilization is, that it has furnished improved facilities
for incendiarism, which seem to have been developed even more completely
than the means of counteracting them. Along the Quais under the trees,
cavalry horses were picketed, and a force was about to leave General
Vinoy's head-quarters just as I reached it, to support an attack which
was even then being made upon the Place de la Bastille, where the
Insurgents were still holding out. On the opposite side of the river
were the smoking ruins of the Théâtre Châtelet and the Hôtel de Ville.
Passing through the Place du Carrousel into the Rue de Rivoli, I had a
more complete view of the entire destruction which has overtaken the
Tuileries and some of the adjoining buildings. The lower end of the Rue
de Rivoli towards the Faubourg St. Antoine was densely crowded with
troops, and passage in that direction was interdicted, while at the
other end, near the Place de la Concorde, there was a _chaîne_; so I
struck once more across to the Boulevards, past the Palais Royal, a
large part of which is burnt, wearied and sickened with the waste of
ruins through which I had passed, and meeting with only one incident,
when I found myself in the midst of a panic-stricken throng all running
away from a series of cracker-like explosions, which turned out to be
cartridges that from some unexplained cause had begun to go off
spontaneously under our feet. To-day the firing is more distant and less
audible. The insurgents are still holding the heights of Belleville and
Père-Lachaise. In the Jardin des Plantes the loss of the troops was
heavy, but up to this time they have won their ground with a less loss
than could have been anticipated, and the fearful mortality of Generals
which characterized the last "_Campagne Parisienne_" has happily not
been repeated upon this occasion. So far, no General has been either
killed or wounded.
The affair of Belleville is not yet concluded. There is fighting still.
A great fire is raging in the direction of the Buttes de Chaumont.
Loud reports have been heard within the walls of Mazas, and it is
supposed that the hostages have been massacred.
Courbet, Amouroux, Gambon, and Valles have been executed.
The night is quiet.
Shells have fallen on the Boulevard Ménilmontant. Great hopes are
entertained that the rains will check the conflagration. A few shells
have fallen in the Rue de la Paix. Constant arrests or executions are
being made of women who throw incendiary matter down the cellar
gratings. Many bodies have been exhumed from under shattered houses,
some with large sums of money on them. News reaches us that troops of
the Line have occupied Ménilmontant and the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
The Federals had declared Père-Lachaise to be their last stronghold,
and that they were prepared to defend it tomb by tomb. The National
Guard will be dissolved to-morrow. Upwards of 1,000 prisoners were
marched up the Boulevard this morning, escorted by mounted Hussars.
Delescluze has been taken at Villiers le Bel. General Eudes and Ranvier
have also been taken. The public buildings destroyed up to the present
time are the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Ministry of Finance, the
Cour des Comptes, the Prefecture of Police, the Palace of the Légion of
Honour, the Caisse des Dépôts, Graineterie, and the Garde Meuble. The
Panthéon was saved by a rush of Marines, who cut a slow match before it
reached the powder barrels in the crypt. The Châtelet, Lyrique, and
Porte St. Martin Théâtres have been burnt, also the great barracks of
the Rue des Célestins. Part of the roof of St. Eustache has fallen in.
The fighting still continues round the Château d'Eau. There will be no
difficulty, however, in disarming the National Guard. Valles fought for
his life, and received a sabre cut across the face and several bullets
before he finally fell close to the Tour St. Jacques. Rows of bodies
line the quays awaiting burial where they fell. The individuals arrested
will be tried by Court-Martial at Versailles. The Court-Martial will
commence its sittings on Monday. Many women and children have been
executed around the Luxembourg, having been convicted of firing on
soldiers. Fort Bicêtre is still in Federal hands, but the garrison is
said to have exhausted its ammunition. Bergeret gave the order for
burning the Tuileries. General Douai, by promptness of action, prevented
the fire spreading to the Louvre. Humour has it that Delescluze and
Pyat, disguised as beggars, were recognized in the Rue du Petit Carreau,
and shot. Thirteen women have just been executed after being publicly
disgraced in the Place Vendôme. They were caught in the act of spreading
petroleum. Such papers as have appeared announce the execution of the
Archbishop of Paris and the curé of the Madeleine.
The Column Vendôme is to be rebuilt.
With an English friend I this morning made my way along the line of
Boulevards running east of the Madeleine. A marvellous change had come
over them since yesterday; they were crowded with troops of the Line and
civilians fraternizing with them, and wandering about to look for the
traces of the recent conflict without danger of being shot from windows
or being pressed into the service of the Communists to build or fight
behind a barricade. It was our plan to make for the Hôtel de Ville, and
we took the Bourse in our way. Everything was so quiet that we half
hoped the fighting in that part of Paris at any rate was over, and we
were in consequence greatly astonished to hear near us the furious
beating of the _rappel_, as regulars were all about. We thought for a
moment a hot conflict was at hand, but we had forgotten, not
unnaturally, considering how long it is since we had seen or heard of
them, the Party of Order. It was they who were rallying valiantly at the
Bourse round the new tricolour banner and a few gentlemen who wore
tricolour _brassards_ or pretty bunches of tricolour riband, and whose
general tidiness and freshness contrasted strikingly with the grimy,
business-like look of the real soldiers close by. These were streaming
into the Place des Victoires, close by, receiving cheers and
congratulations from the people about in the square or at the windows,
who seemed delighted to see them. The men were in capital spirits, and
told us they were carrying everything before them, that the Insurgents
fought often well enough so far as mere pluck went, but were everywhere
outmanoeuvred, and at nearly every barricade found themselves taken at
once in front, flank, and rear. This exactly tallied with what we had
already heard and seen. An officer told his men to keep a sharp look out
on the windows of the houses about, lest they should be surprised by a
fusillade. "No fear of that," said a _bourgeois_; "not a gun will be
fired at you in this Quarter." This looked peaceful enough, and we were
considerably astonished therefore as we went up a street a little
further on, the Rue d'Aboukir, I think, to find ourselves facing a
barricade about 150 yards off, manned, and with a flag floating over it
that looked very red. We stared hard and long, but the flag was
unmistakably red, and therefore, supposing any Regulars to advance, we
were directly between two fires. We accordingly turned into a side
street and waited patiently, as it seemed impossible that Regulars and
Reds so near each other should escape collision. The Regulars were sure
to come on; the only question was whether the Reds would run. As I
looked up another parallel street, the Rue de Cléry, I think, I found
the question answered in an odd way. There, within thirty yards, were
two officers of Reds lounging leisurely about and stopping now and then
to talk to people at doors. I suppose they were told of the near
approach of the Regulars, for they turned back in the direction of their
barricade. But meantime the Regulars had advanced, and, therefore, the
enemies were at one moment within 40 paces of each other, though, being
in different streets, they were unconscious of each other's near
vicinity. Both parties seemed, as they well might, thoroughly at home,
the people, whatever might be their secret sympathies, showing a decent
appearance, at least, of impartiality to all men with arms in their
hands, and yet in a few minutes or seconds--for there was now no doubt
that they were about to fight--everybody was on the _qui vive_, getting
ready to escape if necessary. The extraordinary feature of these Paris
street fights is that many of them go on with a crowd of non-combatants,
men, women, and children, as close to them on both sides as if the whole
affair were a theatrical representation of a sensational melodramatic
kind, where a good deal of powder and blue lights would be burnt, but no
bullets or lives would be spent. In streets in which fighting actually
occurs no one of course shows except combatants, and these show as
little as possible, lying down or sheltering behind extempore
barricades and windows. The people indoors, as may be supposed, do not
keep near them, as the bullets fired down the sides of the streets under
cover of doorways or corner houses glance and ricochet about in the
wildest way. Scarcely a window escapes if the fight lasts long, but
adjoining streets running at right angles to the fighting ground are for
the moment comparatively safe, and the people crowd about the doorways
in these, the more venturesome getting close to street corners, and
every now and then cautiously craning their necks round to see, if
possible, whether shots tell.
Perhaps the strangest thing about a Paris street fight is that up to the
very last moment one sees people running quietly along, utterly
unconscious of danger, right between two lines of fire, with loaded
mitrailleuses within a hundred yards of them. One minute before the
fight I am describing began this morning, an old lady, with a large
market basket on her arm, was leisurely walking down the Rue d'Aboukir
between the barricades and soldiers mustering quietly at the corner of
the Rue Montmartre. She was probably making way to the Halles Centrales
close by to get something for breakfast, in happy ignorance of the fact
that at that very moment soldiers were firing, as far as we could see,
right into it. I found afterwards that the Reds were then in occupation
of it, and had loop-holed the Church of St. Eustache, which they held in
great force. Shouts of warning from the crowd standing near me at the
corner of the Rue Montmartre made her at last quicken her pace, though I
doubt whether she quite understood them or knew her danger. I scarcely
know whether Paris combatants at this period are considerate enough to
wait till the ground is clear of non-combatants, or whether out of
politeness each side was waiting for the other to fire first. In any
case the regulars did not wait long. A colonel of the Staff, with cane
in one hand and in the other a map of Paris, studying, stood at the
corner of a side street, gave his men the order to commence instantly. A
soldier on each side took a step forward, and exposing himself as little
as possible fired up at the barricade. After he had fired he fell back
to reload, and another all ready took his place, so that, though there
were at first very few men--not more than 20 perhaps--firing was pretty
hot. Quick came back the response of the Reds, and whizzing went their
bullets down the street, or crashing against projecting corners of the
houses, so near one's ears that it was at first hard to keep from
dodging, despite one's convictions that only Irish guns shoot round
corners. Ricochet balls were not only not more dangerous, but probably
were less dangerous, at the corner than farther off. Some stood as near
as they could to the soldiers. It would be impossible to do this with
the Reds, as they would insist one's taking up a rifle and shooting or
being shot; but the Regulars, so far from forcing, would not even allow
an amateur to indulge in fancy shooting. But taking hurried shots round
a corner at men crouched hundreds of yards off behind well-built
barricades is too slow work to be satisfactory, and the officials came
and began to show signs of impatience. The leader, from a safe post of
observation, was able to take a cool searching view of the situation,
and ordered some of his men, whose numbers were gradually increasing as
they hurried up the street below, ducking heads and hugging walls, to
mount some of the corner houses, while others extemporized a barricade
in the street. To mount the houses was easy enough, though the door of
one had to be broken in, and presently we heard glass tumbling down as
muzzles of rifles were poked through the upper panes, and soon sharp
cracks and thick puffs of smoke leaping out showed that the men had
settled down to their work. The barricade was a more difficult matter,
as it had to be made full in front of the enemy's fire; but it was
contrived with wonderful coolness and rapidity, the civilians about
eagerly bringing stones. Two or three barrels appeared as if by magic.
By pushing the barricade cautiously across the street, by lying down
under cover of one bit as they built another, the Regulars soon had
cover enough to fire comparatively at ease straight up at the barricade,
while their comrades at the windows took it from above in flank. I was
sometimes within a few feet of them, and was much struck by their
coolness and military common sense, if I may use the expression. They
did the work before them in a quiet, business-like way, in what, during
the late war, was considered by some the best feature of Prussian
fighting, not shirking risk when it was necessary, but, on the other
hand, not needlessly exposing themselves for the sake of swagger,
especially of the officers. This morning, the officers not being wanted,
had the sense to keep quietly out of harm's way and smoke their
cigarettes like unconcerned civilians when not giving orders to their
men. The Reds, on the other hand, fought capitally, keeping up a brisk
and well-directed fire. Yet, strange to say, nobody was wounded; I mean
on our side.
MAY 28th.
A week has elapsed to-day since the Versailles troops established
themselves inside the _enceinte_, and the fighting has been incessant
ever since; this is hard work enough for the assailants, who number
nearly 150,000 men; but for the soldiers--if soldiers they can be
called--of the Commune, the effort has already been almost superhuman.
Gradually diminishing in numbers, constantly finding themselves forced
upon a smaller area, and, therefore, the target of a more concentrated
fire, hemmed in upon all sides, with ammunition and provisions falling
short, exposed to a heavy rain, which has been falling incessantly for
48 hours, unable to seek repose in any spot sheltered from the shells of
the enemy, which are pouring in unremitting showers upon every corner of
their position, the situation of the Insurgents is desperate in the
extreme, and it cannot be denied that they are fighting with an energy
and a heroism worthy of a better cause. Reports are so varied and
contradictory as to the fate of their leaders that even the Generals of
the French army do not know positively who is commanding them; but if
the prisoners are to be believed, the irrepressible Cluseret has again
risen to the surface, and is the heart and soul of the defence. As the
position of the Insurgents becomes desperate, it seems to produce a
greater ferocity on both sides. The rebels neither ask nor give quarter;
they have made up their minds that death, whether as combatants or as
prisoners, is their only alternative, and men and women seem to be
lashed up to a frenzy which has converted them into a set of wild beasts
caught in a trap, and rendering their extermination a necessity. I went
yesterday to the Jardin des Plantes, as the entire left bank of the
Seine is now in the hands of the Government troops, and found M.
Decaisne, the celebrated botanical professor, still safe and sound,
after having passed through three days of unparalleled suspense. On
Wednesday the _rappel_ had been beaten by the Insurgents, and notice was
publicly given that the Panthéon was to be blown up at 2 o'clock. The
result was a general "stampede" of the inhabitants in an agony of terror
and dismay. For two or three hours women and children came pouring out
of the doomed quarter, unable to save any of their property, and not
even yet assured that they had escaped the limits of the explosion. At 5
o'clock no explosion had occurred, and the rumour spread that the
attempt had failed for want of a sufficient quantity of powder. I told
you how the Panthéon was saved; the people went back to their houses,
only to witness severe street fighting, the result of which was to drive
the Insurgents slowly across the river, where they made a fierce stand
at a _tête du pont_ erected at the end of the bridge of Austerlitz. This
had only been carried the evening before my visit to it, and bore all
the marks of an actual battlefield. Here were eight or ten bodies strewn
behind the barricade, with groups of women and young children gathered
round inspecting them, and lifting, with a morbid curiosity, the cloths
which had been thrown over them to conceal their distorted countenances.
These men had been killed in hard fighting, men and accoutrements were
strewn thickly around, the houses were smashed and riddled with shot.
The barricade, a formidable earthwork and battery, was pounded into a
mere heap--everything betokened a bitter struggle; and, indeed, I had
already heard from a Staff officer that the Line had lost more heavily
at this point than elsewhere. Passing along the side of the canal, we
endeavoured to reach the Bastille, but were stopped by a battery which
was firing at Père-Lachaise, and which was receiving shells in reply
from the cemetery. We therefore retraced our steps past the long gaunt
skeleton of the Prefecture of the Police, which was still smoking, and
which had contained a body of political prisoners incarcerated by the
Insurgents, but released by them in order to work at barricades. This
proved their salvation, as they were enabled to effect their escape on
the approach of the troops. It is reported, nevertheless, that some
still lie buried beneath these smouldering ruins. To the right of the
Bastille we could see a heavy volume of smoke rising apparently from a
point corresponding to the position of the prison of Mazas. We are still
in utter darkness as to the fate of the Archbishop and the clergy in
confinement with him, but the tragedy of the Dominicans leaves us little
hope. About 20 of these priests were imprisoned on Friday, the 19th, at
Fort Bicêtre. On Thursday, when this had to be abandoned, they were
hurried away to the Gobelins on the promise of being set at liberty.
Instead of this they were driven to work on the barricades, then dragged
to a prison in the Avenue d'Italie. At half-past 4 in the afternoon they
were visited by a certain M. Cerisier with a company of the 101st
battalion of the National Guards, who deliberately loaded in their
presence. The outside door of the prison was then thrown open, and they
were ordered to leave it one by one. As they marched out singly they
were shot successively by order of Cerisier, with the exception of the
narrator of the occurrence, and one or two others who were either missed
or slightly wounded and escaped. Twelve bodies of these unhappy men have
already been recovered.
There is also no doubt that M. Gustave Chaudey, one of the principal
editors of the _Siècle_, and a literary man of some eminence and high
character, who had incurred the displeasure of the Communists, has been
shot by them. On the other side the executions are wholesale. It is
estimated that upwards of 2,000 persons have been shot already on the
left bank of the Seine alone, evidently a small proportion of the total
number. Wherever women and children are to be observed leaning over the
parapet of the Seine intently regarding some object below, one may be
sure that the attraction is a group of hideously mutilated corpses of
men who have been brought down to the river side, and then with their
backs to the wall have met their doom. On the sloping roads leading down
from the _quai_ to the river may also be seen inequalities where the
road has been recently disturbed and where the freshly-turned earth
indicates burial-places. Not far from these bodies were lying several
dead horses, from which the people were cutting steaks. The inside of
the Hôtel de Ville presents a curious scene, the solid masses of stone
and lime of which the rubbish is composed having fallen in in the form
of a crater, which fills up the whole central place. Under this mound
are said to be buried from 200 to 300 Insurgents who were unable to
escape at the last moment, and thus fell the victims of the
conflagration they had themselves originated. The mutilation of the
ornamental work of this magnificent specimen of architecture is simply
hideous; there is scarcely a square inch of the _façade_ untouched by
shot or shell. Anxious, if possible, to judge of the progress of the
attack which was being made on the Insurgent position at Père-Lachaise,
I reached the Place Château d'Eau, which had been taken the day before
from the Insurgents. I found it, however, impossible to go beyond the
angle of the Wall near the Ambigu. Here a small crowd was collected
which was dispersed by a shot just as I approached, and the place itself
was a solitary desert, for it was swept from the heights of Belleville
down the Faubourg du Temple. Passing along the Boulevard Magenta, we
obtained from the point where the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis traverses
the Rue Lafayette, a view of an Insurgent barricade, on which a red flag
was still flying, and which was turned by the troops while we were
there. We were looking down the long, straight line of street totally
deserted, and in the far distance watching the barricade, beyond which
rose the occasional puffs of smoke from a musketry fire, when we
suddenly saw the red trousers scampering across in twos and threes, and
then in larger numbers, and knew that the barricade had been taken, and
that it was safe to come out of our cover and walk on the opposite side
of the street. All this time the whistling and bursting of the shell
overhead was as incessant and loud as I have ever heard on the field of
battle. We were directly in the line of fire between Montmartre and Père
la Chaise, although completely protected from it, as everything passed
overhead. But the terrific rushing through the air of the projectiles,
and the cracking and bursting at each end when they reached their
destination, made a music which it requires a Parisian education
thoroughly to appreciate. Heavy volumes of smoke rose from the besieged
quarter, and the destruction of life and property upon the doomed area
which the Insurgents have chosen as their final stronghold must be
something appalling. Near the angle of the street at which we stood lay
the dead body of a man, covered with a cloth, who had been shot not many
hours before in an adjoining Court. It was evident from the looks and
tone of the inhabitants of this neighbourhood that their sympathies were
strongly with the Communists. They muttered gloomily and savagely to
each other, scarcely daring to raise their suspicious glances from the
ground, for they knew not which of their neighbours might not have
denounced them, and that the day of danger was by no means past.
Probably two-thirds of the men now gathered at their shopdoors had
fought actively for the Commune. At the Prévôté of the 5th corps I had
an interesting instance of the effect of denunciations. While there some
men who had been intrusted with the arrest of General Henry returned
from their expedition. General Henry, it will be remembered, was one of
the earliest leaders of the movement, and I went down to see where he
had openly established himself as Commander-in-Chief of the National
Guard in the Vaugirard quarter. About the 16th of March, or two days
before the Revolution several attempts were made to arrest him but the
task was so dangerous that they all failed. Throughout the movement this
man has exhibited daring and intelligence, and his capture is much
desired. In consequence of the information received his haunt was
visited, and the result I saw in the shape of a blue Prussian overcoat
stained with blood and perforated with a bullet-hole, a tunic still
more bloody and torn, a very jaunty braided jacket quite clean and new,
a Prussian undress cap, and a very handsome sword. The proprietor had
evidently been wounded, and had succeeded in evading his captors, if
still alive, by some secret contrivance, which, however, the honour of
the denouncer was pledged to discover; it was evident that he had
provided himself with a Prussian uniform, in the hope of passing through
the German lines, and the blood on his coat would seem to indicate that
he had made the attempt and failed. From this barrack, just prior to my
visit, had been removed several wounded children, most of them under
eight years old. One of the most horrible features of the war in a
thickly-peopled city is to be found in the sufferings which it entails
upon the innocent who are thus early familiarized with scenes of blood
and violence, and who too often, unfortunately, are themselves the
victims of them. The _gamins_ of Paris love to dabble in petroleum and
play with lucifer matches, and revel in destruction and conflagration.
More daring than their elders, they stick with their mothers to
barricades after the father of the family has deemed it prudent to
retire, and numerous are the stories of their heroism and courage.
Unfortunately, their propensities for arson render them liable to be
shot, and it is sad to see how many children are often comprised in a
band of prisoners. I went underground to the cells in which the
prisoners were confined at the Prévôté, and wandered along narrow,
subterranean passages, where the noisome exhalations were almost
stifling, into dark cells, where the eye got at last sufficiently
accustomed to the light to distinguish the relics left by the prisoners:
here a pair of stays of which some female prisoner had divested herself,
there a red cockade, all kinds of articles of clothing steeped in slime
of indescribable foulness; and cowering at one end of the corridor a
dozen prisoners waiting to know their fate. They were more respectable
than usual, and not apparently of a very sanguinary type. They were all
men. To-day no less than a hundred women were marched down the streets
in one gang. The papers are so full of false reports that it is scarcely
safe to give news which has not been verified. Thus, unless I had seen
the Genius of Liberty on the top of the column in the Place de la
Bastille, and visited the Jardin des Plantes, I might have reported the
accounts, of which the papers are full, of the destruction of the figure
on the Column and of the animals and rare plants in the gardens, which
you will be happy to hear are all in a state of perfect health and
preservation. I am afraid, however, it is only too true that half the
Gobelins are destroyed, and that 67 of the "Frères de la Doctrine
Chrétienne" have been shot by their fellow-Christians of the Commune. A
friend of mine saw Madame Millière in a prisoners' gang, and we have
authentic intelligence to-day that her husband, one of the most
pestilent of the apostles of Fraternity and wholesale slaughter, has
been executed.
The streets are full of the National Guards of Order, carrying their
rifles to the different dépôts to be given up, for the disarmament of
the entire National Guard has been determined on, and it is to be hoped
that this most useless body in time of foreign invasion and most
dangerous one in moments of internal trouble will be extinguished and
abolished for ever throughout all the towns of France. Meantime the
Boulevards and streets from which the fighting has receded are slowly
waking into life, the tricolor waves from the windows in token of
loyalty and sympathy with the Government, and at least two cafés are
open on the Boulevards, but as yet only here and there the shutters of a
shop are lowered.
The roar of the batteries from Montmartre is still continuous, but it is
hardly possible that the Insurgents can continue the struggle for 24
hours longer.
Fighting was going on at Belleville about an hour ago, but still there
is every reason the believe that the insurrection is virtually over. A
great number of prisoners, escorted by cavalry, have just been marched
down the Boulevards. They were said to be 5,000, but this is probably an
exaggeration. They came from the Buttes Chaumont, where many of them
have been kept two days and a half without food. A more villainous
collection of faces I never beheld. There were many women, among them
some in men's clothes, some as _cantinières_ or _ambulancières_, and
very young boys and old men. Nearly 1,500 were Regular soldiers, or at
least wore their uniform. Their coats were turned inside out, as a mark
of disgrace. As they passed through the crowd lining each side of the
Boulevards they were met with cries of "_A mort, crapule,
fusillez-les!_" Four women in the Amazon uniform and the Regulars
excited special indignation. One prisoner, near the New Opera, refused
to march, and was twice stabbed with bayonets. He was then tied to a
horse's tail, and afterwards placed on the horse, but he threw himself
off, and again refused to march. He was put into a cart and carried off
to the nearest place of execution to be shot. Another prisoner, who
also refused to march, was dragged by the hands and hair of the head
along the road. The crowd called out to the soldiers to shoot him, and
declared that but for the presence of the soldiers they would themselves
execute summary justice on him. The troops, headed by the Marquis de
Galifet, were loudly cheered as they passed.
I went early this morning to Père-Lachaise. Shells were still falling so
thickly near the Boulevard du Temple that no one was allowed to pass. I
had to go a very roundabout way to get to the Place Bastille, as at
numerous barricades everybody who passed was compelled to assist in
pulling them down. The barricades were of astonishing strength. Behind
the barricade on the Boulevard Mazas lay three bodies of National
Guards--apparently shot in its defence. A little lower down on the
Boulevard Voltaire lay seven men dead, as if they had there made their
last desperate stand. There were some old gray-headed men among them. We
were told that their bodies were left there for recognition, and women
occasionally came up and claimed them. The Regulars had also suffered
severely there, but their dead had been immediately removed. Further on,
the stone barricades had been protected by a second line of large sacks
stuffed with rags and papers, and piled upon each other. At the corner
of Rue Roquette lay over 70 corpses of men, executed for being found
with arms in their hands. They lay piled over each other, and the
pavement and gutters streamed with blood. The crowd were not allowed to
approach them. We entered Père-Lachaise and found it full of troops,
chiefly of the Marine Brigade. There is no truth in the stories that the
cemetery was defended tomb by tomb. There had been no bayonet or even
fusillade fighting there, but the shells had shattered many of the
tombs, here and there laying bare the coffins below. The position was so
strong that the Marines could account for its abandonment only by the
fact that the Insurgents were utterly disorganized for want of leaders.
The shelling, however, had been sufficiently vigorous to compel the
troops to retire after they took it last night, and to return for
reinforcements. They retook the position early this morning. The
Insurgents had abandoned a battery of seven guns which commanded the
whole position. We could see from it that sharp fighting was still going
on at Belleville, probably the last stronghold. As we passed the prison
of La Roquette, we heard about ninety rifle-shots and then a
mitrailleuse, and were told by the troops that prisoners were being
executed. We had great difficulty in passing through the Faubourg St.
Antoine, and were stopped by at least five _cordons_ of sentries. They
told us that the Insurgents were _en fuite_, that the Quartier was
_suspect_, and that, therefore, nobody was allowed to pass. When we got
through, many people asked us to put their letters into the post for
them, as they were close prisoners. The streets were filled with arms
and equipments.
Only a few houses in Belleville still hold out. The Insurgents are
surrendering by thousands. The insurrection is considered over.
Most of those who founded the Comité du Salut Public have been taken.
The Insurgents are being shot by hundreds. In the Faubourg St. Antoine
great numbers of men and women were found carrying petroleum, and at
once shot.
The _Moniteur_ says that Félix Pyat and Paschal Grousset left Paris
yesterday in a balloon, which passed over Niort towards the sea.
MAY 29th.
By Saturday evening the various Corps of the Versailles troops, steadily
converging on the Insurgents from the North, South, and West, had forced
them into their last strongholds of Père-Lachaise, and at the Buttes
Chaumont, in Belleville; and M. THIERS on Saturday announced that the
final attack would be made on Sunday morning. But the troops waited no
longer to finish their terrible work. On Saturday Père-Lachaise was
taken by General VINOY; in the evening the Buttes Chaumont were carried
by General LADMIRAULT. The two corps united, and the remaining
Insurgents were forced into narrow space at the edge of the _enceinte_,
where they are hemmed in between the Versailles troops and the
Prussians, and must surrender or be killed. They have also been driven
out of all the Forts except Vincennes, and those who hold that Fort have
asked the Bavarian troops outside to permit their escape. At five
o'clock yesterday all fighting had ceased.
"The Revolution is crushed;" but at what a cost, and amid what horrors!
"Peace," says M. THIERS, "is about to be restored, but it will not
succeed in relieving all honest and patriotic hearts of the profound
sorrow with which they are afflicted." We know not, indeed, how or when
such relief is to come; for ruin has been wrought and crimes have been
perpetrated which will leave on Paris and on Frenchmen an ineffaceable
brand. After the first appalling news of the great conflagrations, a
faint hope had arisen that the ultimate result might prove less
disastrous than had been apprehended, and it is true that a few of the
noble buildings which were thought doomed have escaped. But the almost
universal wreck would of itself almost obliterate for the moment the
sense of relief, and the material ruin now constitutes the least horror
in the scene. It is sufficiently distressing to picture every Quarter of
the great Capital, which but the other day was the beauty of the world,
scarred by conflagrations, torn by shells, pitted with musketry, and
stained with blood. It is terrible to think that in a city "like Paris"
fire and sword, and instruments of destruction still more hellish, have
swept from West to East, and from South to North; that most of its noble
palaces are but gaunt and blackened walls, and its finest streets laid
in heaps of as utter ruin as the mounds of Nineveh. The mind is
overwhelmed by the mere physical spectacle of this whirlwind of blazing
destruction suddenly bursting over a noble city so near us, which we
knew so well, and the inhabitants of which were but yesterday our
neighbours and our friends. But even this is overpowered by the awful
human ruin which it expresses and reflects. On both sides alike we hear
of incredible acts of assassination and slaughter. The Insurgents have
fulfilled, so far as they were able, their threats against the lives of
their hostages as mercilessly as their other menaces. The Archbishop of
PARIS, the Curé of the Madeleine, President BONJEAN, with priests,
gendarmes, soldiers, and other victims to the number of 64, have been
shot, and 168 others were only saved by the arrival of the troops. This
massacre of distinguished and inoffensive men is one of those crimes
which never die, and which blacken for ever the memory of their authors.
But in the spirit of murder and hatred it displays the Communists seem
not very much worse than their antagonists. It sounds like trifling for
M. THIERS to be denouncing the Insurgents for having shot a captive
officer "without respect for the laws of war." The laws of war! They are
mild and Christian compared with the inhuman laws of revenge under which
the Versailles troops have been shooting, bayoneting, ripping up
prisoners, women and children, during the last six days. We have not a
word to say for the black ruffians who, it is clear, deliberately
planned the utter destruction of Paris, the burning of its inhabitants,
and the obliteration of its treasures; but if soldiers will convert
themselves into fiends in attacking fiends, is it any wonder if they
redouble the fiendishness of the struggle? Fury has inflamed fury, and
hate has embittered hate, until all the wild passions of the human heart
have been fused into one vast and indistinguishable conflagration.
So far as we can recollect there has been nothing like it in history.
The siege of Jerusalem may afford some parallel, but Roman soldiers
never so utterly lost their self-control as the Versailles troops appear
to have done. We are beggared for words to describe the scene, and
exclaim that it is hell upon earth. It is nothing less. There are all
the physical and all the moral accessories. Fire and brimstone, storm
and tempest, torture, insult, hatred, despair, all forms of malice,
murder, and destruction, have been raging in Paris during the last few
days. Women forgetting their sex and their gentleness to commit
assassination, to poison soldiers, to burn and to slay; little children
converted into demons of destruction, and dropping petroleum into the
areas of houses; soldiers in turn forgetting all distinctions of sex and
age, and shooting down prisoners like vermin, now by scores and now by
hundreds,--all combine to enact on civilized ground, and within the
sight and hearing of their fellow-men, scenes which find a parallel only
in the infernal regions imagined by prophets and poets. This is what
human nature is capable of; for Frenchmen are men, and we shudder for
our race. But, at all events, what hope is to be seen for France in
this seething abyss? This tragedy is the end of eighty years of
revolutions, of an eighty years' struggle after Liberty and Fraternity,
eighty years of attempts again and again renewed to rebuild French
Society on a new and harmonious basis. The end is a fiercer hatred,
deeper divisions, wilder passions, and more eternal distrust. Will these
six days of savage devastation tend to heal the existing breach between
the lower and the middle classes of France? Will the mutual slaughter of
soldiers and citizens tend towards that essential condition of a happy
State; mutual confidence between the Army and the People? Will the blood
of another butchered Archbishop sow the seeds of peace between the
Priests and their Socialist foes? That which we seem at present to see
in this outbreak of hell is the permanent creation of yawning abysses
between classes, institutions, memories, and men. Paris may, perhaps, be
rebuilt; but what is to wipe out the blood with which every street of
Paris is now stained, and when will women cease to hand down to their
children the envenomed hatreds of May, 1871? Where, above all, are the
signs of that combined generosity, firmness and foresight in statesmen
or soldiers which alone could lay the first stone of reconciliation? The
prospect is too black for France and for Europe for us to dare look
forward. We have no heart at present to balance the faults and crimes of
the two sides, or to assign the relative blame. We only see the worst
outburst ever yet displayed of human passions; we see it at the close of
fifteen centuries of Christian civilization; we see it in one of the
most gifted races of the world, and we know not where to look for hope
or consolation.
MAY 30th.
Paris is perfectly tranquil. Shops are opening. The streets are crowded
with people examining the amount of damage done. Prisoners in groups of
a hundred are being marched under escort down the Boulevards. Fighting
ceased about 3 yesterday afternoon. A few shots were fired from the
windows at Belleville, where frightful scenes are said to have been
enacted. The more desperate characters, felons and escaped _forçats_ of
the worst description, turned at the last moment on their own comrades
because they refused to continue the fight. Some women murdered with
knives two young men for the same reason. In consequence of the firing
from the windows, an immense number of executions occurred. The park of
the Buttes Chaumont was strewn with corpses. The soldiers were so
furious that the officers found it necessary to warn strangers of the
danger of incurring suspicion. A few of the inhabitants of Belleville
were declaring openly to passers by that the affair was not yet over,
and that terrible reprisals would be wreaked upon the soldiers. These
boasts have not yet been fulfilled, but general apprehensions are,
nevertheless, entertained that those of the insurgents who have escaped
justice will try to inaugurate a secret system of arson and
assassination. Constant discoveries of petroleum are still being made.
The danger is increased by the fact that women, who, on account of their
sex, are more likely lo escape notice, are really the most desperate.
Great precautions are taken at night. The streets are full of sentries
and all circulation is strictly forbidden. Any one who ventures out
without the password runs the risk of being locked up all night. There
are diversities of opinion relative to the Archbishop's fate even now.
Some people affirm that he has escaped; but the evidence is in favour of
his having been murdered at La Roquette.
Fears are entertained of an epidemic consequent upon the hurried burial
of so many dead under the pavement of the streets.
MAY 31st AND JUNE 1st.
The search for Insurgents from house to house is still going on
vigorously. It is still very hard either to leave or even to enter
Paris, Gourde, the Communist Minister of Finance, has been found. It is
said by Insurgents that Cluseret ought to be among the last batch of
prisoners taken at Fort Vincennes. This being their last place of refuge
it is expected that many other ringleaders will be discovered.
The Communist commander of that Fort sent to the Bavarian General a list
of his officers and men, requesting for the former passes into
Switzerland, for the latter passes into France. After various
negotiations, the affair was left in the hands of General Vinoy, and it
was agreed that all the garrison of Vincennes, having never fired a
shot, should be detained prisoners only temporarily; but that all
fugitives who had taken refuge there should be surrendered
unconditionally. The garrison eagerly consented to the terms, and at
once put their chiefs in prison. Orders were found on many of them,
signed Ulysse Parent, for the burning of the Hôtel de Ville, the Bourse,
and other places.
The Luxembourg is to replace temporarily the Hôtel de Ville, and the
Staff has already moved there. Everything is going on quietly enough in
most parts of Paris, but in the Belleville Quarter life is still unsafe.
Not only shots are fired from windows, but occasionally Insurgents fire
off revolvers upon officers at a few yards' distance. Many fear that,
notwithstanding the large numbers of the Insurgents caught, and the
terrible example made, enough have escaped to give further trouble, if
not by open resistance, at least by arson and secret assassination. The
severities, moreover, exercised by the military authorities have
produced a pretty strong feeling of reaction against them, and in some
of even the least revolutionary Quarters the troops are scarcely
popular, certainly not so popular as when they entered Paris. The
Insurgents find many sympathizers to hide them, and assist their escape
from Paris.
The policy of England with reference to those who have escaped is
watched with great anxiety.
Active measures are being taken to cleanse the streets and rid them of
the dead bodies, some of which had been buried where they fell under the
barricades, with a foot or two of soil over them. Passers-by are pressed
into the service as burying parties, and the English Embassy has
received complaints from Englishmen of having been seized for this
purpose. The smell of corpses in some places is offensively strong, and
it is feared this hot weather following upon the heavy rain may breed a
pestilence.
Traffic in the streets at night is getting easier, though the _cafés_
have to be closed at 11. The unpopularity of the troops is no doubt, in
part due to the deeply-rooted Parisian dislike of military rule and the
abolition of the National Guard--a measure which, however necessary,
under no circumstances is likely to be welcome.
The firemen of Havre who came to Paris to aid in extinguishing the
recent conflagrations have returned home to-day.
One of the most important of the "hostages" who suffered death at the
hands of the Commune--the most important person of their lay victims--M.
Bonjean, was President of the Court of Cassation, and it was only the
fact of his holding a high position, and being respected by all persons
whose respect was worth having, that can have rendered him odious. He
was a very old man, as old at least as the Abbé Deguerry. It was chiefly
as a Judge and not as a politician that his name was known to the world,
yet, all that was known of him as a politician was in his favour.
Indeed, he enjoyed the rare distinction of being, perhaps, the one
Liberal member of an Assembly so bigoted and so subservient as was the
Senate under the Empire. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he remained
firm at his post during the siege and during the far more perilous
period of the conflict between M. Thiers and the Comité Central. His
arrest was, so to speak, an accident, as he happened to be paying, or
expected to pay, a visit, by appointment, to the house of his friend,
the Procureur-général, when the police of the Communists were taking
possession of the house of the latter officer. He bore his imprisonment,
old as he was, with patience and resignation, remarking that for the
last 40 years he had been self-condemned to upwards of 12 hours' hard
labour a day over his books and papers, and that he could work as well
at these in a prison cell as in a palace.
JUNE 2d, AND 3rd.
Two days ago I was so fortunate as to meet Mons. Petit, the Secretary of
the late Archbishop, who had only escaped from the prison in which he
had been confined with the unfortunate Prelate the day before. M. Petit
did not himself see M. Darboy executed, though he saw the procession
pass and heard the firing. Out of 16 priests and 38 gendarmes confined
in the prison, 26 were shot, and the fate of the remainder had been
decided upon when an attempt to escape made by the criminal prisoners,
who were the original occupants of the gaol, succeeded, and with the
help of one of the gaolers the whole body made an attack upon the
Insurgent guard, who, in fact, did not wait for it, but abandoned their
post as soon as they perceived that all their prisoners were at liberty.
The priests succeeded in changing their clerical costume, but not in
sufficiently disguising themselves, for M. Petit saw four of his
companions shot at the first barricade they reached; he therefore fled
back to his prison, and, finding a common prison shirt, he reduced his
costume to that garments and took refuge in a bed in the hospital ward.
The prison was not again guarded, but those who casually passed through
it supposed him to be a sick prisoner not worth notice; and here he
remained until Sunday evening, when his suspense was put an end to by
the arrival of the soldiery. In the Chapelle Ardente of the Madeleine
lies the body of the _curé_ of that church, who was shot by the side of
the Archbishop, and a stream of persons, mostly women, with saddened,
awe-struck faces passed through it all yesterday afternoon. The body of
the Archbishop has been recovered, and is at the Palace.
I have now explored Paris in every direction to judge with some degree
of accuracy of the extent of the damage done, but I will spare you any
detailed account of those scenes of havoc and ruin, that I have partly
described already which differ in their character according to the agent
of destruction, and which consist of ruins caused by shells and ruins
caused by fire. Houses which have been destroyed by shells present a far
more ghastly appearance than those which have been burnt, and the aspect
of the street at Point du Jour is calculated to strike the imagination
of those who are now entering Paris for the first time from Versailles
by that gate. The same may be said of the houses on both sides of the
Avenue de la Grande Armée, and in the neighbourhood of the Porte
Maillot; but nothing that I have seen equals the Auteuil Railway
Station, where the building, the line, and the railway bridge have all
been crumpled up together, as if some giant hand had squeezed them into
a shapeless mass. The iron bridge still spans the road, but with rails
and girders so contorted and covered with _débris_ that we were afraid
to drive under it for fear the slight concussion caused by a carriage
passing beneath might bring the tottering mass down on our heads. A
little beyond, a sentry is placed to prevent people passing beneath a
house which is on the verge of crumbling to the ground. It is a lofty,
handsome building, elegantly furnished, and quite new, which has been
completely cut in two, and the furniture of each successive story is
thus exposed. One room on the fourth floor was apparently a boudoir, for
the rich crimson-covered furniture stands trembling at the edge of the
"_parquet_," and a heavy armchair threatens with the least jar to come
down with a crash into the middle of the road. It was reserved for
French artillery to complete the work which the German artillery began.
I drove round this same road some days after the first siege, and,
compared to their present condition, these suburbs might then have been
considered well preserved and habitable. Looking at the long _enceinte_
of fortifications with its battered breaches and crumbling embrasures,
one is puzzled whether M. Thiers deserves more credit for the skill with
which he put it up or for that with which he has knocked it down.
Anxious to see to what condition the conquerors have reduced the
Insurgent stronghold at Belleville, I have returned from penetrating its
disagreeable recesses. As usual, even in peaceful times, the lower part
of the Faubourg du Temple was densely crowded with an agitated,
restless throng, composed principally of women. Most of the shops were
shut, probably because their owners were either shot or in prison. Those
who lounged in their doorways looked surly and suspicious; nor is this
much to be wondered at, for during the last two days every domicile has
been searched in this Quarter from attic to cellar, and every street
swarms with denouncers and soldiers. As we approached Ménilmontant the
crowd became thinner, and the soldiers more numerous, until they almost
lined the street on either side. Here and there were piles of broken
arms and heaps of National Guard coats and trousers. The road was
literary strewn with caps, which had been torn from the heads of
prisoners and flung in the mud. Old women were rummaging in the heaps
for something worth taking away which was not of a military character,
as their operations were closely watched by the soldiery, who were by no
means of an amiable type. Here were no signs of fraternization or
amicable intercourse. At one place at least a dozen omnibuses were
collected and crammed with arms and military stores, a magazine of which
I saw in the process of being emptied. Three thousand Orsini bombs were
also found. I have specimens of two kinds in my possession; one is
circular, flat, and hollow, about six inches in diameter and an inch and
a half thick, and fitted all round its edge with little hammers, which
play upon a glass case inside filled with nitro-glycerine. Whichever way
the bomb falls it is sure to strike one of these hammers, which explodes
the nitro-glycerine. The other is a zinc ball, rather smaller than a
cricket ball, filled with powder and covered with nipples, upon which
are percussion caps. It cannot fall without striking a cap and
exploding. It is natural that the discovery of such objects should
exasperate the soldiery, for whom they were intended, and who cannot yet
walk with any feeling of security along streets filled with a population
who employ such diabolical engines of destruction. Hitherto, in most of
the instances in which they have been used, the culprit has been a
woman; more reckless and vindictive than the men, they have, in many
instances, literally courted death, forcing their fate by acts of
violence when escape was evidently impossible. Near the top of the steep
hill which leads to the Mairie of Ménilmontant were several _cordons_ of
sentries, through which we had some difficulty in passing, owing to a
commotion which had scarcely yet subsided, and which showed how
combustible were the materials of which the population here is
composed. There had been an altercation between a sergeant of the Line
and a citizen, in which the latter had offered some violence and had
been shot on the spot; his body was still palpitating on the pavement as
I came suddenly and unexpectedly upon it, and we were warned, by an
angry cry of "_au large_" from a sentry, that it would be a very simple
matter in the then temper of the soldiery to meet the same fate. It is
easy to imagine the scowling looks and stifled curses of the men and
women glaring from doorways and windows at the execution of a friend
before their eyes, and we began to feel that we were objects of equal
suspicion and dislike on either side. At every step we were challenged,
and the fact that we had a military pass made it clear to the
Bellevilleites that we were their enemies. We had now reached the crown
of the hill--the very heart of Belleville, and the last stronghold of
the Insurgents. It was crowded with soldiery: an hour in Belleville
under existing circumstances is enough to satisfy the morbid appetite
for excitement which may tempt people to go there. Notwithstanding the
crowds on the Boulevards, many of the shops are still shut, in
consequence of the absence of their owners from Paris. The difficulties
of entering and leaving the city are still so great that many days must
elapse before the ordinary population can return. Meantime, the want of
gas makes the streets as they were in the darkest moments of the siege,
and the gloom after dark, combined with the dangers of arrest, does not
tempt people to remain abroad much later than 10 o'clock.
Yesterday, out of one of the houses from which a shot had been fired, an
innocent Englishman, who, being elderly and deaf, knew nothing of what
had happened, came downstairs unsuspectingly on to the pavement into the
middle of the crowd, and had a very narrow escape for his life. Some
ingenious self-constituted detective called out "That's the man," and
the crowd, having long waited in vain for somebody, were only too glad
to have a victim thus extemporized to their hands, and if a few of the
cooler and more humane bystanders had not interfered, the Englishman
might have been murdered in cold blood and in broad daylight. As it was,
he got off with no more serious injury than torn clothes and a mauling
which may keep him to his bed for a fortnight.
What, to those who have witnessed the recent transformation scenes in
the great Parisian melodrama, is newest and strangest is the crowd of
well-dressed holyday-making loungers streaming so thickly over the
broad pavement that it is no easy matter to get through them, and
occupying every available chair outside the adjoining _café_. Where in
the world do they all come from? Many of them have stories of their
recent experiences to tell which, well arranged, might make the fortune
of a theatrical manager--stories so sensational that one would feel
bound to refuse them credence if they were not in perfect harmony with
the sensational scenes of which every third man's personal experience
has supplied him with a specimen. One man has been close prisoner in a
cellar two days and nights while fighting has been going on all around
him and over his head. Another has had to fly amid bullets from the
suffocating smoke of burning buildings, his ears still ringing with the
cries of poor wretches who could not muster up their courage for the
rush, and who risked a lingering death under the fallen ruins.
Numerous corpses have been dug out of cellars over which had fallen
masses of burning houses, and many probably still remain, at which it is
impossible to get. In the Rue Royale and its immediate neighbourhood
last night the air was tainted with the unmistakable smell of putrefying
bodies, which, it was supposed, were lying under the huge masses of
smouldering woodwork and masonry still heaped upon them. The fire,
though the engines have been at work at it six days and nights, has not
yet been completely extinguished, and last night I and a friend,
although he had his wife to protect him, were compelled to take our turn
at the pumps. We in vain pleaded that we would not leave the lady alone.
The head of the pressgang who had kidnapped us would be delighted to
take care of her while we worked, and as soon as it appeared that we
were only to work a short time--not to be kept on indefinitely into the
small hours of the night--we were not sorry to lend a helping hand. A
fresh batch of captives, condemned to hard labour, shortly came up and
replaced us. One of our objections to being kept long at work was that
it was getting late, and that after dark it is no very easy or safe
matter to go about the streets.
JUNE 4th AND 5th.
Large crowds took advantage of the free permission accorded yesterday to
pass through the gates of Paris, and to-day the streets are filled to
overflowing with sightseers examining the ruins and other traces of the
siege. Many foreigners have already arrived, some for pleasure, some to
recommence business operations.
Arrests are still numerous of men and women, many of the arrested
apparently belonging to the respectable classes.
It has been proposed to set on foot throughout Europe a subscription to
restore the public buildings destroyed in Paris.
It is hoped that in two days the telegraphs will again be open to the
public. The post is already working well, thanks to the exertions of M.
Rampont.
All impediments in the way of entering and leaving Paris have been
removed, as I said; persons are only required to show their passports
when demanded by the police.
The military authorities have entertained favourably the requests of
theatrical managers for permission to re-open the theatres, but the
re-opening of the _cafés chantants_ has not yet been authorized.
Aubry, agent of the International Society and treasurer of the Commune,
was arrested yesterday.
It is said that, until further orders, no one is to be allowed to pass
the gates of Paris after 9 p.m. Patrols of cavalry traverse Paris and
the environs all night.
The _Figaro_ calculates the number of insurgents still at large in Paris
who have escaped military justice at 50,000 men. These persons will, it
thinks, always constitute a source of danger, and will only await a
favourable opportunity for exciting disturbances.
JUNE 6th.
A gang of prisoners passing down the Boulevard is a never ending source
of interest, and with some reason, for the prisoners now are not the
scum of Belleville and La Villette, swept at haphazard out of their
lanes and alleys, but the more prominent men, who have been lying hid
ever since, and are being discovered or denounced singly, so that there
are seldom more than two or three in a batch, and these are generally
persons of note. I saw two parties yesterday, one containing three men
and two women, all of quite a different type from the ragged hangdog
squads that used to be driven past between lines of cavalry. These were
well-dressed, gentlemanlike men and modest, respectable-looking women
who seemed by no means either afraid or ashamed of the position in which
they found themselves. On another occasion I observed two men, also of
the _bourgeoisie_ class, both of them very superior to usual prisoners.
One of them had his hands tied firmly behind his back. They both boldly
looked the crowd that followed them in the face; but the arrest which
caused the greatest interest was that of M. Paschal Grousset, who was
caught hidden and disguised as a woman at 39 Rue Condorcet, and who was
honoured with a conveyance and a cavalry escort to protect him from the
crowd. M. Pyat still succeeds in evading the authorities, and there is
even some doubt whether the numerous persons who went to see the body of
M. Deslescluze when it was exposed in the church of St. Elizabeth, and
who declared that they recognized it, were not the victims of a
delusion, and whether that gentleman may not still turn up like Sir
Roger Tichborne to discomfit the minds of his old friends, who now seem
uncertain whether they know him or not.
Monday being the first day when the gates of Paris, as well as the
railway stations, were open to the public, there was an influx and
efflux on a large scale, the people who swarmed in were people from a
distance who had taken refuge in the country, and were returning with
their baggage to their homes. Those who swarmed out were for the most
part sightseers whom events have kept close prisoners in Paris for the
last two months, and who are now flocking to the outside of the
_enceinte_ to visit their former haunts of pleasure in the immediate
vicinity, which are now desolate wastes, and to compare the condition of
the suburbs as damaged by the Germans with their present condition as
destroyed by themselves. An examination for arms and weapons to be
extended to every room in Paris is now being made, and the military
authorities continue their active _perquisitions_ for men and documents
with tolerable success. Upon two successive occasions, however, shots
have been fired within the last few days from a window in a house in the
Place Beauveau upon officers, fortunately without injury, but the
would-be murderer has not been found.
JUNE 7th.
Ten thousand incendiary bombs have been discovered in the catacombs. As
23,000 were manufactured by the Commune according to documents found on
prisoners, and of these not many were used, a large number are believed
to be still somewhere concealed.
Nearly all the missing pieces of the Colonne Vendôme have been
recovered. It is thought the Column can be exactly restored.
A strange proposal is made to preserve untouched the ruins of the Hôtel
de Ville. It is seriously discussed, and finds many advocates.
On the extradition question the more moderate journals suggest that
Government should content itself with demanding the surrender of those
Insurgents against whom it can make out some case of ordinary
non-political crime.
Crowds still flock from all parts into Paris.
Perfect tranquility prevails, though numerous arrests continue to be
made.
It is believed that the prisoners will be classified in three
categories, the first consisting of persons against whom only minor
charges are preferred, the second of those charged with offences which
entail transportation, the third of criminals of the worst class, some
of them being accused of offences which may be punished by death.
The funeral of the Archbishop of Paris and the other distinguished
hostages assassinated by the Commune is expected to be a very imposing
ceremony. A Commission of 50 Deputies will officially represent the
Assembly on the occasion, but a very much larger number of Deputies will
attend. The chief of the Executive power and the other members of the
Government will be present at Notre-Dame, where the funeral service
will be celebrated to morrow morning at 11 o'clock.
The body of the Archbishop will be removed from the Archiepiscopal
Palace, in the Rue de Grenelle, at 10 o'clock. It will be carried on a
bed of state by seven Deacons. The seven Suffragan Bishops of the
Archdiocese of Paris will act as pall bearers.
Monseigneur Darboy will be interred in the tomb of the Archbishops of
Paris in the vaults of the Cathedral See.
The Abbé Duguerry will be burried in the vaults of the Madeleine, and
the other hostages in the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
The cause of the delay in opening the courts-martial at Versailles to
try the Communist prisoners is that a supplementary act of indictment
has been rendered necessary by the discovery of important documents on
several of the recently-arrested members of the Commune.
JUNE 8th AND 9th.
The inhabitants of the second Arrondissement have been warned that
everybody who does not give up his firearms may be tried before a court
martial.
An Anglo-Indian ex-officer is said to be gravely compromised in the
Insurrection, but the number of British subjects engaged in it appears
to have been ludicrously exaggerated:--not 20 have had cases made out
against them.
The number of Communists belonging to the International and similar
societies is estimated at 120,000. Arrests are still numerous. One of
the men who shot the Archbishop, and for whom the police had long looked
in vain, was yesterday arrested at his funeral.
The _Journal officiel_ publishes a circular note of M. Jules Favre,
dated the 6th inst., in reference to the causes of the Parisian
Insurrection. The principal of these is the collecting together of
300,000 workmen who were brought to Paris by the works executed under
the Empire, and who were led away by Jacobin agitators, and who were
vanquished on the 31st of October.
After that came the action of the International Society composed of
working men, the doctrines and dangers of which are explained in the
circular.
JUNE 10th.
It is calculated that 70,000 travellers entered Paris between Saturday
and Tuesday by the Northern line alone. Many had to travel in luggage
vans. Paris, notwithstanding, does not appear full. Most of the
visitors make a very short stay. The dull condition of trade is loudly
complained of.
The idea of burning the corpses which have not been properly buried has
been abandoned; it is proposed to exhume all those buried in the Parc
des Monceaux, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and other temporary burial
places, and to transfer them to a new cemetery beyond Fort Vanves.
One hundred and fifty pretended firemen were executed yesterday at
Versailles.
The Commander of the 9th Army Corps of Paris has issued a notice,
stating that the surrender of arms has been slow, and the last delay has
expired. The military authorities will, therefore, treat the offenders
with severity. Active searches have been made in the Rue St. Honoré
to-day.
The Courts-martial at Versailles will try the prisoners exclusively for
offences against the common law, and will not consider them as political
offenders.
JUNE 11th.
The close inspection which has been made of the sewers in Paris has
already led to the discovery of large quantities of weapons and
ammunition, and also of many ex-Federalist combatants, who, despairing
of escape from the regular troops, sought refuge in the subterranean
passages with whatever provisions they could secure. The greater part of
these miserable creatures are in a most deplorable condition from hunger
and the poisonous atmosphere of their hiding places. On Friday, at the
angle of the Rue Vavin and the outer Boulevard, the scavengers found
five bodies in the sewer, one that of an officer, and all mutilated by
rats. The bodies were brought out by means of ropes, and after search
for papers and documents, were interred in the Mont Parnasse Cemetery.
JUNE 12th.
On Wednesday the Commissary of Police for the Quartier Saint Victor
received information that the ex-General of the Commune, Rossel, was in
concealment at the Hôtel Montebello, upon the Boulevard St. Germain. The
Commissary proceeded to the hotel, and upon searching the place found in
a room on the third floor a person dressed in the uniform of the Eastern
Railway service. Upon being questioned this person stated that his name
was Tirobois, that he was an engineer living at Metz, but had been
summoned to Paris by the railway managers on account of the pressure of
traffic on the line. 'Are you sure of that?' asked the Commissary.
'Parbleu.' 'Well, in the name of the law I arrest you. You are Rossel.'
'I? not at all.' The prisoner was taken to the Prefecture de Police
established at the Barracks of the Cité, and thence in a boat to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the head-quarters of the municipal
police are established. During the whole of the journey thither, being
closely pressed with questions by the Commissary, the pretended Tirobois
continued his denials. Upon being further interrogated at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, he replied, 'I have told you all I know about
myself. Do not ask me any more.' Tirobois was then conveyed to the
Ministry of War, where he was confronted with a number of persons who
were detained in custody. Some of these declared that he was Rossel, but
others, the majority, denied that he was the Communist ex-General. About
10 o'clock at night the prisoner was formally questioned as to his
history. When the customary question, 'What is the name of your mother?'
was put, he became confused, turned red, and, suddenly springing up,
exclaimed, 'Why carry on this pretence any longer. Of what good is this
acting and these lies. Yes, I am Colonel Rossel.' After this avowal the
prisoner was removed under escort to the dépôt of the Prefecture. Upon
being searched there was found 225f. in notes, a political article, and
a longitudinal section of the different public monuments in Paris. The
next day he was taken to Versailles and lodged at the Grandes Écuries.
His real description is Louis Nathaniel Rossel, born at St. Brieuc
(Côtes du Nord), September 9, 1844, of Louis and of Sarah Campbell. The
_Figaro_ states that the artist Courbet was captured at the house of one
of his friends, a pianoforte maker in the Rue St. Gilles. He was
concealed behind a bedstead, and, upon being threatened with a revolver,
gave himself up without attempting resistance.
The destruction at the Gobelins has not been so extensive as had been
apprehended. Only a small portion of the buildings has been burnt, and
work has already been resumed in the parts which have been spared. Even
in those rooms which have been destroyed not all the works of art have
been lost, and especially the "Dead Christ" after Philippes de
Champagne, and the portrait of Louis XIV, after Rigault, have been
saved. The collection of ancient patterns has also been preserved.
JUNE 13th
Some disquieting rumours about the condition of La Villette have caused
the troops quartered there to be strongly reinforced; nevertheless,
perfect tranquility so far prevails.
Business is greatly improving, orders for _articles de Paris_ coming in
pretty freely, and the fine weather bringing increasing crowds of
visitors.
Some further important arrests have been made, including Urbain, alleged
to have been the principal instigator of the massacre of the hostages.
JUNE 14th.
Paris is rapidly resuming its old appearance. The Cafés and Concerts in
the Champs Élysées recommence to-morrow, and various theatres are
re-opening.
JUNE 15th.
People, in France, are discussing the causes of the late insurrection,
and measuring the consideration to which the Insurgents, whether as
rebels or refugees, are justly entitled. That the tendency of opinion
should be strongly against the Communists is natural, for the
justification of their revolt appears difficult, while their last acts
have excited universal abhorrence. It is, indeed, perfectly true that
they had no grievance against the Government which they defied, for
though, perhaps, the National Assembly might not have voted for a
Republic, no Republic which could have been voted by any Assembly of
Frenchmen would have satisfied the Insurgents of Paris. The political
leanings of the Assembly may be put out of the question in searching for
the origin of the Civil War. That war was hatched in the brooding minds
of Parisian workmen, intent on one single object, and it became
practicable when the Revolution of September last put arms in their
hands and the capitulation of February left them there still.
The one fixed idea of the workmen of Paris was that work entitled them
to something more than wages. They had so long and so intently
contemplated the relations between labour and capital that they knew
nothing of any other elements of human society, or of any other classes
beyond employers and employed. They saw that a hundred workmen got their
five francs a day each, and that the single person who hired them got
his thousands a year. We are not aware that, as a rule, they were
ill-paid or overworked, or in any way oppressed. We should infer rather
that they were in the receipt of good wages, that they possessed
education as well as skill, and that they had leisure enough and to
spare for discussion and thought. The misfortune was that they thought
of one subject only, until at last their conceptions grew actually
monstrous. It was not all at once that they reached the doctrines
recently declared. There is a wide difference between the ideas of 1871
and those of 1848. At the latter period the labourer was held simply to
be worthy of his hire, and nothing was proposed beyond such an
organization of labour as would insure a constant supply of work for all
who wanted it, at wages determined rather by considerate adjustment than
unrestricted competition. But the men of the Commune had advanced far
ahead of such old Tories of Socialism and Democracy as LEDRU ROLLIN and
LOUIS BLANC. Still occupied with the one single prospect of their daily
life, and regarding the relations between capital and labour as the
be-all and end-all of existence, they had reached the conclusion that
all capital should be transferred bodily to themselves; that they alone
ought to constitute society, that all other classes should be
dispossessed as worthless, and all established institutions abolished as
effete. They began their demolition with the nation itself. They would
have no nation, no France, no French Government. They renounced not
only all Kings and Emperors, but all Presidents, all Conventions, and
all Parliaments, the latter especially. In the place of such authorities
they proposed to substitute Committees of working men, and to cut up the
country into such areas as Trade Unions might conveniently govern. For
their own particular Union they thought Paris might serve well enough,
and so they stipulated for their own sovereignty within these limits
under the title of the Commune. On those terms--every other species of
authority and power being excluded--they believed they could put into
practice their one idea of turning their own little world upside down
and making the working class everything and other classes nothing. As
they never looked beyond their own workshops, they considered that none
but working people had ever done any duties or suffered any wrongs, and
that no others, therefore, were entitled to any rights. The one object
of their hatred, envy, and antagonism was capital, and they resolved to
take capital into their own hands. For the future they would lead easy
lives, and be the lords instead of the slaves of their old and detested
enemy.
In those pretensions and those desires originated the Revolution just
suppressed. The war thus undertaken was a Civil War, conducted without
the least respect to any laws of war at all. The flight of the
Government left the entire Capital not only with all its resources, but
with all its treasures and all its inhabitants, in the hands of the
insurgents. With these advantages they preferred their demands. They
asked for the Capital of France to be delivered over to them as an
estate or province within which they might proscribe the worship of GOD,
appropriate every form of capital, and depose all authority and all
ranks in favour of their own. Failing this, and in the event of their
being defeated in the actual war, they asked for amnesty and liberty to
depart. At first they reckoned on victory, for the Assembly appeared
disorganized and its armies wavering; the support of other great towns
was anticipated, and the outlaws of every country in Europe--the
veterans of the universal Revolution--had carried their swords to the
service of its latest and ripest expression--the Parisian Commune.
Moreover, they had tremendous means of extortion in their hands. They
held possession of all that was precious and admirable in the Capital of
France, and they declared that, if they were neither allowed to prevail
nor permitted to escape, they would spare nothing in their vengeance. In
preparation for the worst they stored combustibles in the noblest
edifices of the city, and then, laying their hands on some of the most
eminent and venerated of its inhabitants, they penned them in a body for
the contingency of prospective slaughter. They had no more personal
animosity against Monseigneur DARBOY than against any statue in the
Tuileries or the Louvre. Animate and inanimate objects were marked for
destruction on precisely the same grounds--the necessity of putting
stress upon the enemy; and the threat was actually executed because its
execution might improve the effect of terrorism another day. Of laws or
of rules of war these men took not the slightest account. The military
leaders of the insurrection had been trained in combats where every
imaginable expedient had been held lawful, and the Committee of the
International thought no price too high for the realization of their
fixed idea. Soldiers and workmen alike were prepared for any extremity
of outrage either in pursuit of victory or prosecution of revenge.
Such was the cause and such the conduct of this two months' war; but a
war, nevertheless, it was, waged by a political insurrection on behalf
of a political object. It is very true that the Insurgents aimed at no
form of polity known to the world, and that it would have been
impossible to content them by any measure of civil freedom or political
rights. Their chief and most peremptory demand was, not for any rights
of their own, but for the suppression of the rights of others. They
denounced the extension of the suffrage to the rural population, and, as
they were in a very small minority themselves, they protested against
the right of any majority to outvote them, though they were preparing
all the while to impose their own will on a constituency of ten times
their number.
Such are my summary reflections concerning that gigantic insurrection.
Now, my Dear, that I have brought my daily correspondence to an end,
happy shall I be, if such as may happen to read my small volume can find
the perusal of it as interesting as you told it was to you.
I don't expect to stay much longer abroad: I shall soon return to
England but quite heart-rent at what my eyes have witnessed, and
notwithstanding my admiration for the noble qualities of the french
nation, more than once, I fear, I shall not be able to refrain
exclaiming: _Poor France!_
THE END.
HISTORICAL INFORMATIONS ABOUT THE PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS BURNT
The Palais Royal, built on the site of Cardinal Richelieu's Palace,
faces the Louvre, and adjoins the Place des Victoires. Given by Louis
XIV, to his brother the Duke of Orleans, it passed from him to the
Regent Duke. Here, but not in the existing edifice, the Regent and his
daughter held their incredible orgies; here lived his grandson Egalité,
who rebuilt the palace after a fire, and relieved his embarrassments by
erecting the ranges of shops. The Palais Royal Gardens were the nursery
of the First Revolution; they were the favourite resort of Camille
Desmoulins and the other mob orators not yet sitting in Convention; and
in them was unfurled, on the 13th of July, 1789, that tricolour flag
which was to prove even a deadlier symbol than the red and white roses
plucked once for England's woe in our own Temple-gardens. At the Palais
Royal Egalité hatched the plots which ended in his execution, when it
was disposed of by lottery, to be bought back, repaired, and beautified
by the Orleans family after the Restoration, and inhabited by them till
the second death of the Monarchy, in 1830, removed them to the
Tuileries. In 1848 the palace was plundered and the interior destroyed
by the mob, who at the same time burnt Louis Philippe's fine library.
The Palais was turned into a barrack, but when the new Republic
developed into an Empire, it naturally changed back again into a palace.
The Emperor made it over to his uncle Jerome, who left it to Prince
Napoleon, by whom it was fitted up in sumptuous style. The great
staircase and its balustrades and the Galerie des Fêtes were fine in art
and in general effect, but nothing that may have been destroyed can be
half so great a loss as the Library which went in 1848, or as the Hôtel
de Ville, a magnificent structure, dating in part from 1628. The
additions of 1842 to this municipal palace cost 640,000_l_., and some of
the saloons were the most gorgeous in Paris, perhaps in the world. Here
in the days gone by, the Prefect of the Seine was wont to entertain his
7,000 guests in the great gallery, with its gilt Corinthian columns and
3,000 wax lights, the whole suite of rooms measuring more than 1,000
yards in length. In and about the building were some 500 statues of
French celebrities, from Charlemagne to Louis XIV, in a full-bottomed
wig. Painting, gilding, carving, glass, and velvet here had done their
utmost, and as a specimen of magnificence in the modern French taste
the furniture and decorations of the Hôtel de Ville were unrivalled. The
building, however, was far from depending altogether on its sumptuous
upholstery. Not only was the architecture worthy of all praise and the
art of much of the decoration as intrinsic as its gold, but here had
been enacted many famous and infamous scenes in the history of Paris.
Here the first Commune held its bloody sittings; here Robespierre took
refuge with his partisans, and was found by the soldiers with his broken
jaw; the "Citizen King" was presented here to the people by Lafayette
from a central window; here the soldiers were quartered in 1848; and
here in 1871 was the stronghold of the last Commune, less bloody in its
life but more desperate in its death than the first.
The Palais de Justice is a vast pile, which includes the Sainte
Chapelle, numerous courts of law, and the Prison of the Conciergerie.
Anciently the site of palaces inhabited by the Kings down to Francis I.,
afterwards the meeting place of the Parliaments of Paris, it has been
repaired and rebuilt since 1831 at a cost of nearly 1,000,000_l_. The
courts of law open from the vast but inelegant Salle des Pas Perdus,
which answers to our Westminster-hall. One of these courts was the
Chamber of the Tribunal Revolutionnaire, and communicated by a small
door with the Conciergerie Prison. In the precincts of the Palais
stands, or stood, the Sainte Chapelle, an exquisite specimen on a small
scale of the best style of Gothic architecture. The Chapelle was
finished in 1248, having been built by Pierre de Montereau to enshrine
the thorns of our Lord's crown and the wood of the Cross, relics bought
for an immense sum from the Emperor Baldwin by St. Louis, and carried
through the streets of Paris by the King barefoot. In 1791 the Sainte
Chapelle became a club, then a corn store, then a record office; Louis
Philippe commenced its restoration, and up to the fall of the Empire
about 2,000,000f. had been spent upon it. It is in two stories,
corresponding with the floors of the ancient palace; the lower chapel,
or crypt, was intended for the servants, the upper, on a level with the
Royal apartments, for the Royal family. The glass is exquisite, and the
statues of the twelve Apostles date from the 13th century, and are
admirable specimens of the art of their age. A small square hole to the
south of the nave communicates with a room in which Louis XI was wont to
sit and hear mass without fear of assassination.
GRAND-HOTEL
_12, Boulevard des Capucines, 12._
* * * * *
REOPENING
=After entire restoration.=
* * * * *
The new direction of the Grand-Hotel has greatly reduced the prices.
The price for service will be no more charged to travellers.
=700 rooms and drawing-rooms=
very comfortably furnished, from
5 francs a day, service included.
* * * * *
=TABLE D'HOTE=
BREAKFASTS--at 4 francs, wine included,
every day from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m.
DINNERS--at 6 francs, wine included,
every day at 6 p.m. precisely.
* * * * *
MEALS BY THE CARD.
* * * * *
SPECIAL SERVICE AT MED PRICE.
Including the lodging, fuel, light, service and food, with choice to
take the meals in the apartments, in the restaurant, or at the table
d'hôte:
1st class--30 frs. 24 sh. 6 d.
2d d° --25 » 20 » 5 »
3d d° --20 » 16 » 4 »
OPPOSITE THE NEW OPERA GRANDE BRASSERIE.--GRAND BREWERY
ENGLISH ALES,--DUTCH BEER
COFFEE-HOUSE.--EATING-HOUSE
_Breakfasts at 2 Fr. 50 (2 shil.).--Dinners at 4 Fr. 50 and à la carte
(bill of fare)_
31, BOULEVARD HAUSSMAN =The most comfortable in Paris=
* * * * *
CABOURG-DIVES
GRAND HOTEL DE LA PLAGE
Establishment for bathing situated in the most luxuriant and salubrious
country in Normandy
SPLENDID CASINO.--ROOMS FOR THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES
* * * * *
=DIEPPE=
HOTEL ROYAL ON THE PLAGE
THE MOST COMFORTABLE
Kept by Mme LAFOSSE
* * * * *
=CAEN=
HOTEL DE LA VICTOIRE
NEAR THE CATHEDRAL
_Kept by Mr BEUZELIN_
* * * * *
WINE AND SPIRITS
J. CHAIGNEAU AND CO
_31 and 33, rue Doidy_
=BORDEAUX=
Appointed to supply H.M. the king of sweden and norway
* * * * *
CAEN. TYP. F. LE BLAC-HARDEL.
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