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EMBRACIKO THE FULL TEXT OF THE FINAL TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN aSRlL NT AND FRANGI, BEING THE ONLY TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH. B^tTLS-niLD, Ain> BOBPirAL," " Tm roRR iH Tin onriL war," Toronto: PUBLISHED BY A. H. HOVEY, 34 KING STREET WEST. YARMOUTH, N.8.— >JOHN KILLAM. 1871. J. T»Pr-iTArp i W'^^M uAlii ^^ ^%, ACCURATE AND RELIABLE. Paris under the Commune ; OR THE Re6 Rebellion of 1871. A SECOND REIGN OF TERROR, MURDER, AND MAD'WS. EMBBACIlVa THK FULL TEXT OF THE PINAL TREATY OP PEACE BETWEEN GERMANY AND FRANCE, BEING THE ONLY TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH. BT L. P. BROCKETl, M.D., AUTHOR OF "THB CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA," "CAMP, BATTLE-FIELD, AND HOBPITAt," " THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR," " WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR," BTC, ETC. PUBLISHED BY A. H. HOVEY, 34 KING STREET WEST. YARMOUTH, N.S. — JOHN KILLAM. 1871. HUNTER, ROSE & CO., PBINTIRI, BOOKBmDKRB, XLEOTROTYPERS Kie. TOROXTO. Comm fightin a large more t( the " I Tt h effort, 1 RebeUi and to sought by thei nary fa sides, ii as well and can The France ratified PKEFACE. O the great majority of intelligent readers, the confused and contradictory reports and letters in the daily papers, concerning the insurrec- tion in Paris, have rendered the whole affair a hopeless muddle. They have f and themselves unable to distinguish who the leaders of the Commune were, what they wanted, or for what they were fighting. Yet this insurrection will occupy, as it should, a large space in history, for in all respects it has been more terrible and destructive, though less protracted, than the " Reign of Terror " of the First French Revolution. Tt has seemed to the writer an object worthy of effort, to give a clear and succinct account of this " Red Rebellion," freed from contradictions and discrepancies, and to state briefly but plainly what were the objects sought by the anarchists, and what the foul deeds done by them. For this purpose he possessed more than ordi- nary facilities, in the reports of the French papers of both sides, in a large mass of correspondence of personal friends, as well as of the leading papers, and in a very thorough and careful study of French revolutions in general. The Treaty of Frankfort (the final treaty between France and Germany), concluded on the tenth of May, and ratified a week later, is in these pages first presented lY PREFACE. complete in an English dress, nothing more than a very brief and imperfect summary of some of its provisions having previously been attempted. It is hero translated from the official French copy. We regard it as impor- tant to a satisfactory understanding of the future rela- tions of the two countries. Tmsting that this effort to gratify the desire of the public for valid and authentic infonnation concerning an event of so much importance, may receive the same approval and success which has attended his previous works, the author subscribes himself the public's very humble servant, » L. P. B. Brooklyn, N.Y., July, 1871. I a very 3 visions mslated impor- re rela- 5 of the ning an le same previous c's very P. B. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The restlossnesH of the French working class— Frenchmen not homogeneouH— CIosm hatreds— The erroneous principle of the duty of the State to pre vide labor or support to all it.s oilizens, at the foundation of the disturbance— To this Louis Philippe owed nis downfall— Louis Napoleon pretended to adopt thisfalne doctrine, but finally repudiated it— Where the strength of this government lay, enmity between the peasantry and bourgeoinie—lta causes— Hardships of the Ouvrier class — The enrol- ment of many of them in the National Guard— Revival of the old hostility with the surrender of the city— Existence of secret organizations among the workingmen — The favorable opportunity for an insurrection— The National Guard supplied with arms — The first measures of the Reds— M. Thiers' hesitation and uncertainty — Organization of the Commune— H. Thiers' attempts at pacification -Their failure— The high-handed outrages of the Commune— M. Thiers' policy— He puts down the insurrection, but at heavy loss of life— The rage of the Communists — They seek to destroy Paris— Their murders and outrages,— The result pp. 1-7 CHAPTER II. * The members of the National Assembly from Paris all radicals— Their subsequent course —The "International Association of Workingmen "—Its loading representative at Paris, M. Assi— His character -The other leaders of the insurrection— Adventures, civil and military- No master mind among them— Sullenness of the Parisians after the signing of the preliminary treaty— Thiers' mistake.— Removpl of the National As.sembly to Versailles -Insubordination and discontent of the National Guards of Paris— The demands— Attempts at mediation— Critical position of M. Thiers— The first effort at coercion on March 18th— Its failure— Several of the Government Gene- rals taken prisoners— Generals Thomas and Lecomte shot— Consternation in Paris —Withdrawal of Vinoy to the left bank of the Seine— Proclamations of the Reds— The election of members of the Commune, March 26— M. Thiers temporizes and offers concessions, but to no purpose- More proclamations from the " Red " leaders —Election of one hundred and six members of the "Comnmne"— Inauguration of the Government of the Commune, March 28— Great display— Tlie programme of the "Commune"— The prospects of the "Reds "in other parts of France— Lyons, Mar- seilles, Toulouse, &c— Decrees of the Paris Commune— Their anarchical character— Their military preparations- The sub-Central and Executive Committees— Their tyranny— The new Generals— Imprisonment of two members of the Commune— A general stampede from Paris— Resignation of the sub-Central Committee and appoint- ment of a new Executive Committee pp. 8_i8 CHAPTER III. Improved condition of the Government troops and position— Shrewd management of M. Thiers— The Commune leaders corrupt and ready to become traitors to their caiise— Blauqul /captured and Imprisoned— " The Commune" resolves after some VI CONTENTS. delay to attack the Government, drive it from Versailles, and compel the release of Blanqui— The skirmishes and battles of April 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th— Repulse of the Commune's troops— Their confidence that the garrison of Fort Mont Valerien would not fire on them— Their fright and disorganization when it commenced fire— Vuval and Flourens killed— The Government troops show no spmpathy for the Paris National Guards— The fighting severe on the west and south of Parla— C3hatilloii taken and held by the Versailles troops— The fighing renewed on the 7th of April at Neuill3'— The Versaillists gain a position jX Neuilly— Bergeret disgraced and impris- oned— Dombrowski in command— Fighting on the 8th— Advanca of the Versaillists ^Terrific bombardment of the MidUot gate— Effects of the bombardment— Internal difficulties in the Commune — Aflsi and Gambon imprisoned, and twenty-two others of the members of the " Commune" forced to resigu— Qustave Clursret, Minister of ViTar— His character— His atrocious decrees— Imprisoiunent and murder of innocent citizens — Imprisonment of the archbishop and leading priests of the city—Supression of the International Aid Soriety, and confiscation of its goods— Other outrages — The cardinal articles of the Commune's creed— Treachery of Cluseret. Marsha) MacMahou in chief command of the Versailles army — His plan of operations- Great streaffth of the Southern and T/esteru sides of Paris— Reasons why an attack on this aide was necessary — ^Very little progress made for eight or ten days ; but the VcrsaUliats hold what they have abready gained— M. Thiers' offer of concessions— Cluseret's attempt to sell out for 2,500,000 francs, to be paid to him personally— Dombrowiki's previous history—His fortifications at Asnieres- Their speedy evacua- tion — Tlie Versailles troops while holding their position on i'le West, and erecting new batterieo of heavy siege guns, make their heaviest assaults oa the south against Forts I;isy, Vanvres, and Montrouge— T^eir advance and success— Issy nearly cap- tured — General la Cecilia put in command vt it by Cluseret — Cluseret removed from office and Assi again imprisoned— Rossel, Minister of War — His treachery—State of Affairs at the end of April pp. 19-30 CHAPTER IV. Armistice of May 1st and 2Dd — Bombardment renewed May 3rd— Terrible fire on the West and South of the City — Fort Isay captured May 9, and Vanvres a few days later — Effect of the bombardment of Auteuil and Point du Jour— Rossel's r^ ,;na- tiot)— He asks for a cell in prison— Gets it, but escapes — Open rupture in Paris between the Committee of Public Safety and the Executive Committee of the Com- mune—Infatuation of the Communists — ^Their terrible excesses and crimes— Their order to give no quarter to the Versailles troops — ^The Column of July in the Place Vanddme pulled down and destroyed— Destruction of M. Thiers* residence— Abstrac- tion and subsequent destruction of his library and works of art — Delescluze the reigning spirit of the times, but finding the affairs of State too heavy, calls Billioray, another traitor, to his assistance — New Polish ofiicers rppointed to command — Con- tinued quarrels among the leaders — Womtn organized into regiments as soldiers and destroyers of property — Non-combatants placed under the hottest fire tobuUd barri- cades, and if they fall back, murdered — ^The moderate newspapers sujipressed, and their editor shot by Raoul Rigault — Last attempts of the Communists to fight outside the ramparts, May 16th and 17th— Their failure— Severe boaibaidment at all points on the 19th, 20th, and 21st — Breaches effected in the enceinte at the Point du Jour, the St. Cloud Gate, and the gate of Montrouge — Petit Vanvre?:, Malakoff, and Fort Montrouge taken — The Versailles troops enter the city by the St, Cloud Gate and the gate of Montrouge, on the night of the_2l!st — The resistance not great at tiie barri- cades generally, but very stubborn at Montmartre, Belleville, the Place Vcnd6me, the Inci P G Them Q' ne W( As of mt of fill —1 i)r Wf CONTENTS. Vll i the release of Repulse of the iTalerienwoui'l ;ed fire— Duval for the Paris Euiii— Chatilloii 7th of April at ed and impris- the Versaillists nent— Internal snty-two others ret, Minister of ler of innocent ity—Supresslon iher outrages— of operations — I why an attack 1 days ; but the •f concessions — m personally— • speedy evacua- st, and erecting le south against. •Issy nearly cap- it removed from chery— State of ....pp. 19-30 ible fire on the ivres a few days lossel's Tv .;na- ipture in Paris ;ee of the Coni- crlme»— Their ily in the Place lence— Abstrac- Delescluzc the calls Blllioray, ommand — Con- as soldiers and to build barri- luppressed, and to flght outside mt at all iwlnts Point du Jour, ikofiE, and Fort id Qate and the jat at the barri- le Vcnddme, the Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, &,c— Finding that there was no prospect of success, they resolved to fire the city — Women and children engaged 'n this work — About one- third of the city destroyed, including the Tuileries, par i the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, Palais Royal, &c., &c— The Archbishop and sixty-six other "hostages" murdered— Final flght at Pfire la Chaise—The terrible results : Paris in ruins, fifty thousand dead, as many more wounded, constant executions — The leaders mostly killed or in prison, and the destruction still less than the fiends designed— The utter depravity of the leaders— The future of France— What will it be?— The Republic ?— The Bourbons?— The Orleans?— The Bonapartes?— Atheistic or Papal? pp. 31-43 CHAPTER V. Incidents and episodes — M. Joseph Garnier's account of the coiidition of Paris under the sway of the Commune— The adventurers— The Central Committee— The Committee of Public Safety — What were the Communists fighting tori — Their decrees — Vivid picture of the condition of affairs — Bergeret's atheism — Cluseret's pass to the priests — ^The worthlessness of the National Guards as soldiers— The embarrassment of the Commune in regard to money— Their financial statements— Their plunder and thefts -—Their recklessness — ^The explosion of the cartridge factory at Grenelle — Destruc- tion of the Napoleon Column in the Place Venddme — Account of a Tribune corres- pondent—The entrance of the Versailles troops into Paris, May 21st — ^The energy and patriotism of Duranel— Major Forbes' description of their entrance — Ferocity of the leaders of the Commime on finding that all was lost — ^The plot to blow up the entire city— The murder of Archbishop D'Arboy and his companions— M. Evrard's narrative —The fury of the women incendiaries and soldiers— The large number of women executed for incendiarism and murder— The London Times correspondent's narra- tives — The public buildings burned — Destruction of the Tuileries— The Louvre —The Hotel de Ville— The Palais Royal -The Palace of the Legion of Honor— The Palais du Quai d'Orsay— Appearance of the captured city on the 28th of May — Sketches of the leaders of the Commune— Louis Auguste Blanqui — Gustave Flourens — Felix Pyat — Louis Charles Delescluze— Duval— Gustave Cluseret— Henry Rochefort —Bergeret—Dombrowski— Louis Nathaniel Rossel — Eudes— Wroble wski— Billioray Paschal Grousset— Raoul Rigault — Assi— What became of the rest — The wives of Generals Eudes and La Cecilia— No first-class man among the whole crew .... pp. 44-85 CHAPTER VI. The necessity of a final treaty — The Commissioners for its negociation : Favre, Pouyer- Quertier, and Goulard ; Von Bismarck and Arnim— The difficulties in the way of its negcciation— The consequent delay— The text of the final treaty, translated for this work— The additional articles— Ratification of the treaty by the French National Assembly, May 17 and by the Emperor William, May 19— Tlie financial condition of France after the treaty and the suppression of the Parisian rebellion— Her im- mense debt— over $6,000,000,000— The success of the loan called for— The payment of the first instalment of the indemnity— The elections in France, July 2nd, 1871, to fill the vacancies in the National Assembly — The Republicans largely in the majority —This secures a Republic for two years —The triumphal entry of the German troops 4)r their representatives into Berlin— The nnvaillng of the statue of Frederick William III— End pp. 86-100 n Europ hardl\ The ter, li The fi world the he workii class) was ur cruellj and m: when savage from t Phrygi found have e PARIS UIDER THE COMMUNE; OB, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. CHAPTER L •"•Vlr THE RESTLESSNESS OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE — SECRET OR- GANIZATION AMONG THE WORKING CLASSES — ORGANIZA- TION OF THE COMMUNE — THEY SEEK TO DESTROY PARIS — THEIR MURDERS AND OUTRAGES. .^\ HOUGH all the friends of France may have hoped that, after the disastrous termination of the war with Germany, her people would be wise enough to remain quiet, and endeavor, by patient industry and enterprise, to repair the devastations of war and restore their country to its former place among the great powers of Europe, those who knew the French people best could hardly have expected it. The French people are not homogeneouL in their charac- ter, like the Germans, the Spanish, and the English. The first Revolution (1789-93) made manifest to the world the intense hatred which had so long brooded in the hearts of the peasantry of France (including the entire working classes, and also a large portion of the literary class) against the nobles and property-holders. There was unquestionably much reason for this : they had been cruelly oppressed, wronged, and robbed by the aristocratic and middle classes. They had been scorned and crushed when they sought for peaceful redress, and at last the savage element in their nature — inherited, it may be, from those fierce robber hordes so long the terror of Phrygia and Mysia, from which they originally sprang — found vent in deeds of carnage, anarchy, and terror, which have ever since made the world shudder. 2 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; But if they had some real provocation for this mad out- break, it was also in part the result of false teachings. The age was infidel and godless ; the tendencies of the public teachings of the philosophers, politicians, and scholars of the day all tended to agrarianism, lawlessness, and bloodshed. Human life was of very little account ; especially were the lives of kings, princes, and nobles the prey of the masses : they bad no right to live, and if they did save their lives by exile, they should henceforth be only allowed to live in obs'^urity and wretchedness. We all know the reactions which followed the revolution, — how the Corsican became First Consul, Dictator, and Emperor, and proved himself as great a tyrant as any of the Bourbons ; how, in 1815, the Bourbons were restored and the old traditions of the pre-revolutionary period were re-established ; how, in 1830, the people again re- volted, and introduced, with the citizen king, a new and dangerous doctrine, or rather a doctrine which had been held in abeyance since the first revolution, viz., that it was the duty of the State to 'provide work for the labor- ing classes, or, failing in that, to support them without it. This doctrine, which had proved the destruction of the Eoman Empire in the plenitude of its power and glory, became henceforth the cardinal doctrine of the working and vagrant classes of the French people, and was constantly proclaimed by the ambitious and unprin- cipled demagogues, who were too numerous for the good of the nation at all times. We need only glance at the subsequent history of the nation to see how this pernicious doctrine, constantly reiterated and amplified by hot-headed Reformers, had poisoned the blood of the masses, and led directly to the fierce civil war of the spring of 1871. Louis Philippe owed his downfall, in 1848, mainly to the conviction of this proletarian class that he was not their tool, but possessed reactionary tendencies ; and the revolutionists weri only prevented by Lamar tine's tact from raising, at that time, the red flag, and enacting scenes of blood such as have recently been witnessed. Louis Napoleon, in his bid for the Presidency, recognized this OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. doctrine, and indeed professed, as he had previously done, to be the reddest of Red Republicans ; but once in power, he pursued a more despotic system of repression than any of his predecessors. He had, however, sufficient tact to propitiate this Cerberus of tlie populace by occasional largesses, and attempted control of the price of bread and the labor market ; but the leaders of the proletariat were kept in exile or imprisoned, unless they gave in their submission to his usurpations. There were, meantime, other classes which had become powerful in the govern- ment, and in the maintenance of the existing order of things. The great reliance of Napoleon III. was upon his army, which he had taken great pains to attach strongly to himself and his dynasty ; but, with the most inconceiv- able folly, he had permitted and encouraged its participa- tion in the pre'valent corruption and frauds upon the national resources, till the soul of honor was eaten out of it, and it was too rotten to be a real dependence. The Empress, on her part, had sought to conciliate the Pope and the Jesuits, and had become their dupe ; and while these wily courtiers were loud in their professions of Bonapartism, they were really intriguing to bring back the old Bourbon rule, as more easily controlled for their purposes. But the strongest pillar of the Bonaparte dynasty was the oourgeoisie or middle class, the traders, shopkeepers, property-holders, and the new aristocracy which had sprung from them. This class sustained Napoleon III., not because of the prestige of his name, or any special reverence or love for him, but because they wanted a strong government, one which would protect their property, and give them better opportunities for money-making. They would have been just as warm friends of an Orleanist prince, if they could have had the same assurance of success in money-getting and material prosperity under his rule. Between the hourgeoisie and the peasant class there has existed for years the bitterest hostility ; during the Empire the large majorities for Re- publican members of the Corps L^gislatif always came from this class in Paris and other large cities, the hour- ''"oisie always voting solidly for the Em^peror's candidates. rta. i f 1 1 4 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; When the Empire fell, the Government of National Defence, composed, as it was, of men of all opinions, did not dare to submit its claims to popular suffrage in Paris, knowing that they would be voted down as not radical enough to suit the Reds ; but llochefort, and at first Flourens, were put into the Government as their re- presentatives. They were, during the siege, furnished with arms, which Napoleon III., had always withheld from them, and there being probable need of their services, they were enrolled into the National Guard (the French Militia), which indeed, in Paris, was mostly made up of these working-men, and the idlers and vagabonds who always abound in large cities, and in none more than Paris. The Ouvriers and Ouvrieres (working-men and working- women) of Paris, whose numbers were estimated at 750,000 before the war, differ very materially from the working classes in other large cities, in possessing less of home sentiment. While many of them are peasants from the country, a very large proportion are foundlings and illegitimate children, the waifs and estrays of the great city, with no ties or attachments to bind them to the city in which they live. Life has been a hard struggle with them. Their toil brings them little more than a meagi-e subsistence, and that little is squandered upon the lowest amusements and such vices as they can afford. Naturally vivacious, they have no pleasant outlook for the future, and they enjoy what they can, as the time passes. This Ipxjk of home ties and home sentiment leaves them without barriers against a vicious life, and they but too often glide into it. During the siege these new National Guards were with some difficulty kept tolerably quiet ; two or three times the insurrectionary spirit broke out, as when under FJourens they took possession of the Hotel de Ville and deposed the government, and when, after the sortie of January 15, they insisted upon Trochu's removal; but, receiving their daily pay as National Guards, and having only triiiing duties to perform, they were mere quiet than was to have been expected. The working- women, and those of the men not enrolled in the National Guard, fared harder. With the exception National lions, did in Paris, [)t radical i at first iheir re- furnished withheld r services, le French ide up of »nds who lan Paris, working- ma^ed at from the ng less of ants from llings and the great jm to the i struggle than a upon the m atford. tlook for the time nt leaves they tut lese new tolerably rit broke )n of the ad when, Trochu's National rm, they enrolled Ixception e f I I m OK, THE BED REBELLION OF 1871. 5 of such kinds of work as were directly connected with the war — the casting of cannon, repairing of firearms and other weapons, manufacturing cartridges and army equip- ments, soldiers* clothing, &c., and the necessary production of bread and preparation of meats for the market — almost eveiy kind of manufacture had stopped ; the ten thousand industries of Paris had all ceased, and the scores of thousands employed in them must find other employment or starve. That very many did starve is, unhappily, too well established by the testimony of Mr. Washburne, Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Sheppard, and others who were in the besieged city, as well as by the frightful bills of mortality • which, with a constantly decreasing population, grew larger every week. When the city was surrendered, and provisions again began to flow in, the old bitterness against the bourgeoisie began to revive, and there were many demonstrations, of triflirg importance in themselves, which yet indicated that there was beneath the apparently placid surface a seething, boiling volcano. The sudden and contemptuous forbear- ance manifested when the German army entered Paris, (March 1-3), the jaws resolutely set, the breath held hard, the muttered curses and the shut fists, all indicated how fierce was the desire for revenge on them, and how bitt«r their hatred of the French leaders who had brought them into the condition of humiliation. Whether, under any circumstances, the outbreak which followed fio soon after the ratification of the preliminary treaty of peace could have been prevented, it is impossible to say with certainty. There had existed before tne close of the siege a secret organization of working-men and some of the more restless of the inferior leaders, which seems to have formed the nucleus of the subsequent "Commune." At first everything seemed to be in their favor. The new government * of M. Thiers, organized in great haste, had not had time for consolidation. It knew nttle of the army, and had but slight influence over H, and none over the National Guard, which it had most stupidly stipulated was to be permitted to retain hence- forth their arms, even while the regular troops were re- 6 r^ARIS Uh'BER THE COMMl'NE j quired to surrender theirs, and this National Guard — composed of Red Republicans, working-men who had lost all desire for work, vagabonds who never had any, and visionaries, demagogues, humanitarians, and adventurers, who were unanimous on only one point, that the present government must be overturned, and they be allowed the opportunity of trying their crude ard mad schemes — were to be the protectors of Paris and the preservers of order. A portion of tliis guard had already, under patriotic pretences, fortifie«i themselves on the heights of Mont- martre. Findin*,' that they really possessed a formidable amount of power, the Reds immediately commenced exercising it—at first moderately, but presently with a ^ violence which roused hostility, and only showed that the craziest of their visionaries had taken the reins. At first they objected to General D'Aurtlles de Paladines, who had been appointed Commandant of the city, and to General Vinoy, the second in command. A part of their demands being acceded to, though there seem to have been no reasons ottered for them, they were emboldened to .make further claims : the National Assembly must be dis- solved and a new one chosen to sit in Paris. Their pay of one and a half franc per day must be continued ; they must be permitted to elect their own rulers, and govern themselves and France as well ; their fortified positions must not be disturbed, and they must be allowed to dic- tate who should be the Prefect of Paris. Uncertain how far he could depend upon the troops, many of whom seemed disposed to affiliate with the Reds, and knowing that ruin would be the consequence of defeat, M. Thiers temporized and parleyed with the in- surgent party, conceded some of their demand? and hesitated before resorting to force. His first attempt to compel the malcontents of the heights of Montmartre to yield proved a somewhat dffeastrous failure. The soldiers (themselves mostly National Guards), who had surround- ed the insurgents, began to yield to their clamors and entreaties, and, refusing to fire upon them, deserted their officers and guns and fraternized with the revolt. The mob now became the masters of the situation, captured several of the leading Generals of the Republic, two of OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 1 Guard — ho had lost ,d any, and iventurers, the present lUowed the raes — were rs of order. T patriotic i of Mont- formidable jommenced itly with a ed that the s. i Paladines, ;ity, and to irt of their ) have been oldened to mst be dis- Their pay Lued; they md govern i positions ved to dic- the troops, I the Reds, iquence of h the in- andp and ittempt to martre to le soldiers surround- imors and rted their tolt. The captured ic, two of whom tbev subsequent!) put to death, took possession of the H6tel de Ville, organized what they called the Central Committee of ihe Natio^ial Guard, thirty in number, which presently gave way to " The Commune," and drove out the officers of the Government, and pro- ceeded to erect barricades to defend Paris from the RepubHcan Government, whom they alleged had betrayed them. M. Thiers, on his side, fortified "'"^rsailles, and waited, first to ascertain whether other cities were infected with the spirit of revolt ; next, to see if some pacification was not yet possible, or if this mongrel government, composed of all manuer of discordant elements, would not fall to pieces of its own weight ; then to accumulate a sufficient force of trusty troops to make sure that his next blow should he both successful and terrible, and when the ful- ness of time had come, though not till " old chaos had come again" and the horrors of the first reign of terror had been repeated, with added atrocities, he delivered those sudden and repeated blows which crushed out the insurrection, deprived Paris forever of its prestige as the soul of France, and after frightful carnage, and terrible destruction of much that was precious in history and art, both by his troops and the insurgents, made it possible to maintain a government of law and order in the French capital. For the first time in five hundred years Paris has ceased to rule France, and has, in her turn, been subjected to the Provinces. It has been demonstrated that a weak government, hardly organized, and with an army of doubt- ful loyalty to it, had been able to accomplish what power- ful kings and mighty emperors have essayed in vain. Paris, the proud, the haughty, the magnificent and im- perious, is thoroughly huLibled and subdued, and that by one of her own sons. Her pride, her corruption, her infidelity and recklessness have brought this terrible calamity upon her, What other and greater evils, or what restoration and triumph, may be hers in the future, no man may now say ; but for the present she has been compelled to drink to the dregs of a bitter cup of humiliation and anguish. ft PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; CHAPTER II. M. ASSE AND OTHER LEADERS OF THE INSURRECTION — ADVENTURES, CIVIL AND MILITARY — THIERS' MISTAKE — HIS CRITICAL POSITION — INSURRECTION OF THE COMMUNE — A GENERAL STAMPEDE FROM PARIS. IjITH the preceding brief summary of the insur- rection and the causes which prompted it, we proceed to enter into more minute details of its history. As we have already said, the circumstances were favorable for an outbreak of Communism. A large proportion of the population remaining in the city were either Red Republicans or partially sympathized with them. The members of the National Assembly elected from Paris were all Radicals, and several of them subsequently leaders in the insurrection. Among them we find many names familiar as leaders in the ranks of the opposition in the days of the Empire, and some during the war. Gambetta, Garibaldi, Rochefort, Delescluze, Felix Pyat, Blanqui, Milliere, Louis Blanc, Quinet, Victor Hugo, Admiral Saisset, General Langlois, Victor Schoeloher, Tolain, Lock- roy, and Gustave Flourens were among them. Of these, Garibaldi returned to Italy ; Gambetta remained in the provinces ; Rochafort, Delescluze, Pyat, Blanqui, Milliere, and Victor Hugo sided with the Commune, though some of them left it subsequently in disgust, and others were either slain in battle or executed by the Versaillists when takeii prisoners. Victor Schoelcher, Sai.sset, and i.ockroy, attempted, but unsuccessfully, to mediate between the insurgents and the Thiers government ; and Louis Blanc, Quinet, and Tolain, with the last three, remained members of the Assembly. OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. the insur- ted it, we details of said, the outbreak )n of the re either th them. om Paris y leaders names n in the ambetta, Blanqui, Admiral n, Lock- Df these, in the tfilliere, jh some rs were ts when .ockroy, een the s Blanc, lembers There had existed for some years in most of the Euro- pean States an organization known as the " International Association of Workingmen," having its chapters or auxiliaries in each country. It was a less formidable nnd less revolutionary Association than the Carbonari ; but seems to have had a mild tendency to revolt. M. Assi, the leading representative of the Association in Paris, a weak-minded and half-crazy Frenchman, gave in his ad- hesion to the insurrection very early, and endeavored to rouse the auxiliaries in other States to aid them ; but, probably from lack of confidence in him, hardly any of them responded. Beyond the popular favorites we have named, who had been elected members of the National Assembly, there were many others : unsuccessful military adventurers, or discontented lawyers, or workingmen who aspired to the government of Paris, and through Paris of all France ; for it was a maxim of these reformers that they and they only had the right to govern France ; that the ignorant peasantry and bourgeoisie of the rural dis* tricts were incapable of governing themselves, and needec. to be controlled and managed by the philosophers, visionaries, and adventurers of Paris. Several of these, like General Cluseret, of whom we had some experience during the earlier portion of our own war ; General Dombrowski, General Bergeret, General Duval, General Eudes, General Granier, and General Brunei had been military adventurers, most of them, as we should say, " Militia Generals" of no very good reputation, but determined at this emergency to come to the surface. Others of equal ambition, and no greater mental calibre, like Blanqui, Grousset, Raoul Rigault, Felix Pyat, Amouroux, Billioray, Vall^s, and Courbet, had never been in military life, but desired and obtained, for a very brief period, prominent civil positions. But among them all there was no man possessing any high order of talent — the capacity to rule — which enabled him to take the lead and control these restless and fickle masses by the power of his imperious will. Had there been such a leader, the struggle would have been longer, fiercer, and, in the end, more disastrous. 10 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE ; li- The sullen mocxl of the Parisians after the signing of the preliminary treaty, and the departure of the German troops from Paris, on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of March, was ominous of a coming storm, and to M. Thiers, whom the Reds openly denounced as a traitor because he had signed the treaty, it must have been anything but reassuring. He had, in the hope of pleasing them, been so weak as to stipulate that the National Guard of Paris, whom he knew to oe disaffected, should be allowed to retain their aims, man the forts, and be the protectors of order in Paris, while the soldiers of the line m that city were required to surrender all their arms. He had thus put into the hands of those revolutionists weapons and power, which with an able leader would have proved fatal to his authority. He proceeded, however, with the concurrence of the National Assembly, to assign officers, both civil and mili- tary, to duty in Paris, and on the 11th of March procured a vote for tne removal of the National Assembly, on the 20th of March, from Bordeaux to Versailles. As we have said elsewhere, the National Guards occupied fortified positions at Montmartre and Belleville, suburban districts of the city, and they refused to leave these at M. Thiers* request. Presently, under the influence of some of the demagogues whom we have named, they began to make demands on the President. General D'Aurelles de Paladines, a really brave and meritorious officer, who had taken Orleans from the Germans in October, and whom President Thiers had placed in command of the National Guard, was not at all satisfactory to those Guards who had seen little or no fighting, nor was General Vinoy, the second in command, any more so. They demanded, then that both should be removed, and they should have the privilege of choosing their own commander. M. Thiers assigned General D'Aurelles de Paladines to duty elsewhere, and made General Vinoy chief, but he could not, of course, yield to them the election of their commanders, and they went away dis- satisfied. Presently they returned with other demands — they must be allowed their thirty sous a day wages for an indefinite period — it was so much easier to OR, THE llED REBELLION OP 1871. 11 play soldier than to work for a living. They demanded further that they should be allowed to elect their own municipal officers, and that Jules Ferry, a noisy dema- gogue, should be appointed Prefect of Paris in place of the able M. Valentin. They persistently i-efused to give up their cannon meanwhile, and daily fortified their position on the heights of Montmartre. Louis Blanc, Victor Schoelcher, and Admiral Saiset, all recognised as Radi- cals, visited them and endeavored to act as mediators ; but so far were they from relaxing any of their demands, or making any concessions, that they daily grew more imperious and insolent. M. Thiers was in a critical position. His authority must be maintained and no large concessions made, or all was lost ; yet he could not tell how far he could rely upon the loyalty of his troops, themselves National Guards or Volunteers, in a conflict with these insubordinate National Guards ; and yet until the soldiers of the regular army, who were prisoners in Germany, could return, he had no other dependence but these troops of doubtful loyalty. Then, too, if an insurrection commenced among these " workingmen," would it be confined to Paris ? Would not Marseilles and Lyons, Havre, Toulouse, Toulon, Bor- deaux, Nantes, and the other large cities rise also ? He temporized as long as it was possible, insisting each day that the Guards should relinquish their fortifications on the heights of Montmartre, and surrender their cannon, as a condition precedent to further concessions on his part. At length, finding them determined not to obey, and satisfied that further delay was ruinous, he caused General Vinoy, on the night of March 17th, to post a cordon of troops around the heights of Montmartre,* and plant mitrailleuses at the approaches. At an early hour on the morning of March 18tn the insurgents were summoned to surrender ; important positions were occupied, and the guns of the revolted suburban National Guards were about to be removed, when the soldiers began to yield to popular clamors and entreaties, and soon all bonds of discipline were loosened, the mitrailleuses abandoned by the artillerists, the officers deserted by their men, and the 12 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; 1i' ti revolters, aided by National Guards from other quarters, became masters cf the situation at Montroartre, as well as at Belleville and La Villette. Thus re-enforced, the insurgents turned at once upon the officers and the rem- nant of Republican troops which remained loyal to the Government. General Surville was killed, General Vinoy was pelted by a mob. General Paturel was wounded, and Generals D'Aurelles de Paladines, Clement Thomas, and Lecomte, and subsequently also General Chanzy, who was most brutally beaten and maltreated, were taken prisoners. General Faron was surrounded, but, his detachment of troops remaining faithful, sv'^eeded in cutting his way through. Other detachments, refusing to fight, withdrew to the left bank of the Seine, and after a short time the Hotel de Ville, the general headquarters of the National Guards of the capital, the ministries, the mayoralities, and the i)refecture of police were in the hands of the insurgents, the bulk of the National Guards remaining passive ; and all the members of the Government, with the undisbanded remnants of the public force, finally withdrew to Ver- sailles. The headquarters of the insurrection before this triumph were in the Rue des Rosiers, Montmartre, where a " Central Revolutionary Committee," subsequently superseded by the " National Guards Committee," had established itself in a public garden. Before that revolu- tionary body, composed, as it seems, of men of little note, as no names are mentioned, the captive geneials were brought. Two of these, Clement Thomas and Lecomte, were after a brief trial, worthy of the days of September, 1792, condemned to suffer death as traitors to the Repub- lic, and " taken out and shot." " All accounts say they died bravely." The last words of the brave and liberal-minded Clement Thomas, who but a few weeks before commanded the largest body of the defenders of Paris, under Trochu, is reported to have been, " Cowards !" The fate of Chanzy was left undecided. General Vinoy, who was at the head of the Government troops, escaped the clutches of the executioners, and sue- OR, THE RED REBELLION OP 1871i 13 quarters, 3 well as !ed, the ihe rem- 1 to the i Vinoy led, and las, and vho was risoners. nent of bis way ithdrew ime the National }ies, and urgents, ie ; and sbanded to Ver- re this ;, where quently e," had revolu- le note. Is were ecomte, ember, Repub- y they i;ment ed the chu, is yhanzy nment id suc- ceeded in re-organizing a portion of the forces under his command. Consternation and stupefaction reigned in Paris, and the revolutionists were left to do their work unchecked, although the press next morning mustered courage enough to brand the proceedings at atrocious and fatal to the republican liberty of France. Men of promi- nence fled the capital, varicus quarters of which were strongly barricaded. All approaches to it were ultimately closed, and some of the forts occupied by the Nationals. On the next day Vinoy withdrew his troops, a miserable remnant, to the left bank of the Seine, and awaited fur- ther developments; while the insurgents manned the defences of Paris and took possession of all its inner line of forts. The position was critical, and had the Reds at this time possessed a leader of any ability they might have effected almost irreparable mischief; but, fortunately, there were too many aspirants for the command, and not one of them possessed any capacity for ruling. " The National Guard Committee," having taken possession of the Hotel de Ville (the City Hall of Paris), issued proclamations thick and fast. In one of these they extolled their late action, de- claring that it was done " in defence of the Arch of the Liberties of the Republic — the only government that can close the era of invasion and civil war ;" in another they modestly declared to the people of Paris, " We have driven out the Government which betrayed us. Our mission is fulfilled, and we now report to you." In another, issued the same day (March 21), they decree immediate elections for the Commune ; and in still another, announce that they have sent their ultimatum to the Versaillists, demand- ing as the price of peace and harmony the appointment of Langlois as Commander-in-chief of the National Guards, of Dorian as Mayor of Paris, of Billault as Commander of the Army of the Seine, and of Jules Ferry as Prefect of Police. The elections, which were little more than a farce, took place very quietly on the 2Gth, but less than 200,000 out of 500,000 voters cast their ballots. Four days previously there was a riot and massacre of a considerable number of ijii 14 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; unoffending people. Attempts at reconciliation had been made by the Versailles Government, and from an unwil- lingness to shed blood, and an uncertainty in regard to the position of other cities, and the sympathies of the army in relation to the insurrection, M. Thiers had offered greater concessions than he ought ; but the insurgents were not to be placated ; all overtures looking toward reconciliation were rejected, and even their ovm ultimatums repudiated. Troops from the departments were coming in, and the soldiers of the line, who had been prisoners of war, were returning, and were eager to put down the insurrection. The condition of the Government at Versailles was daily improving, that of the many-headed despotism at the Hotel de Ville was constantly growing worse. On the evening before the election the " Committee of the National Guard" prepared, and early the next morn- ing issued, two or three more proclamations, one of which declared that the Government at Versailles, after having betrayed Paris, was intent on betraying the Republic ; anotlier promulgated the falsehood that the Due d'Aumale had been appointed Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. A third, giving counsel to the voters, was more adroitly and carefully worded : in it the Committee stated that they were about to resign their functions into the hands of the newly elected council, and exhorted the citizens in the selection of representatives to distrust ambitious men, who advise the people only in their own interest — " those talkers who are unable to pass from words to acts, and who will sacrifice everything to speech, an oratorial effect, or a clever word," and " those whom fortune has too greatly favored." " Seek men," (the proclamation added) " with sincere convictions ; men of the people, resolute and active, who are well known for their sense of justice and honesty Give your preference to those who do not can- vass for your suffrages ; the only true merit is modesty ; it is for the electors to know their men, not for the candi- dates themselves to come forward." This was very good advice, but both those who gave it and those to whom it was given did not desire that it should be taken too literally. While there was no con- OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 15 had been m unwil- ard to the e army in id greater were not >nciliation 3pudiated. I, and the war, were mrrection. was daily im at the imittee of lext morn- e of which ter having RepubUc ; 3 d' Aumale Kingdom, e adroitly stated that the hands citizens in tious men, ;t — " those ) acts, and Drial effect, ,00 greatly ed) " with olute and ustice and not can- modesty ; the candi- 10 gave it ire that it as no con- siderable disturbance during the elections, there were not wanting insane men like General Lullier, and restless and ambitious destructives like General Cluseret, who went about haranguing the crowds, and endeavoring to stir them up to insurrection. The elections, of course, resulted in large majorities for the Red Republican leaders, who had hitherto kept in the background and controlled the ostensible Committee of Thirty, who, under one name or another, had had the reputation of governing. These leadei's, Blanqui, Felix Pyat, Delescluze, Assi, Flourens, and Vermerel, were mostly elected, and on Tuesday, the 28th of March, " the Commune," as these leaders called their government, was proclaimed in the Place de I'HStel de Ville, whero a plat- form covered with red cloth had teen erected, on which was placed a bust representing the Republic, wearing the Phrygian cap of liberty ornamented with red ribbon. Round the platform and in the square, tricolor and red flags were hoisted. The members of the Communal Council delivered speeches, which nobody heard. The square, the Rue de Rivoli for a considerable distance, the adjoining quays, and the Boulevard de Sebastopol were crowded with National Guards, who several times in the course of the proceedings raised their caps in the air on the points of their bayonets, and uttered tremendous shouts of" Long live the Republic !" Salvos of artillery were fired from a battery on the quay. In the evening the members of the Commune, 106 in number, assembled at the H6tel de Ville, and separated at midnight without having come to any understanding, in consequence of the violent character of some of the propositions advanced. A banquet was served them by lackeys in grand livery, and the splendid service of plate of the Hotel de Ville was brought out. The Commune made a further requisition on the Bank of France, and obtained an advance to the amount of 500,000 francs. The Bank removed near to the Imperial print- ing-office, from the view, it is believed, of facilitating the issue of a paper currency. The Director-General of the Post-office declined to surrender his office on the demand of the Comnmne, and threatened, if removed, to send the IG PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; mail wagons to Versailles. The employes were placed under the surveillance of the Hotel de Ville. The red flag was hoisted on all the public buildings in Paris, and addi- tional precautions were adopted against a surprise of the Commune from the direction of Versailles. The programme of the " Commune," as laid down bv its leaders, was: First, the compilation of a charter, such as in old times had been propounded by the friends of freedom, which should guarantee the municipal autonomy of Paris. Paris, it was further declared, should be fed- erated with the communes of the other large towns of France by a treat}^, which the National Assembly should be called upon to accept. If the Assembly accepted this, the " representatives of the national unity " should im- pose upon the Assembly the promulgation of an electoral law, "by which the representatives of the town shall not for the future be absorbed, and, as it were, drowned by the representatives of the country districts." While "the Commune" was thus preparing to seize the supreme authority and rule all France in its anarchical way, as Paris had ruled it through the past, how did the other cities and departments stand affected towards the Thiers Government ? Were they ready to follow the lead of these Parisian anarchists ? The first reports seemed to threaten danger from these places, but subsequent ac- counts showed that the disturbance was c(jmparatively trifling. At Lyons the excitement was short, and order was completely re-established in a few hours. At Mar- seilles the Commune was proclaimed on the 25th, and the Prefect, Mayor, and local Commandant were made pris- oners without bloodshed ; the city was declared in a state of siege, and business was at a stand-still. In a few days, however, order was restored and the power of the Govern- ment re-established. At St. Etienne the insurgents took possession of the Hotel de Ville on Friday night, but it was afterwards retaken by the authorities, with the as- sistance of the National Guards, and the city was reported quiet. At Perpignan an attempt at a rising was made on Monday evening. The rioters kept the Colonel and Mayor in custody foj* a short time, but on perceiving the OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 17 attitude of the great majority of the inhabitants, they re- leased their prisoners and attempted to escape. The dis- turbance was at an end. At Toulouse the Commune was proclaimed, but M. Thiers, in a circular to the prefects, stated that M. de K^ratry, who had been stopped at Agen, entered Toulouse on Monday, and dispersed the revolu- tionary Commuiie. Five hundred me^, aided by the citi- zens, were said to have been sufficient for the purpose of restoring order. Throughout the remainder of France there was no disturbance. "The Commune" at Paris was, meanwhile, carrying matters with a high hand. All prisoners, except those who had offended against the Com- mune, were set free ; the duty of assassinating all princes and kings was publicly proclaimed ; policemen were no longer to be employed, and the papers of the police office were burned, thus destroying the evidence against crim- inals of all sorts. It was directed that no one in any office in Paris should obey any instructions from Versail- les. It was furthermore ordered that the rent for the last three-quarters up to April should be wholly remitted. Whoever had paid any of these three quarters should have the right of setting that sum against future pay- ments. The same law was to prevail in the case of fur- nished apartments. No notice to quit coming from land- lords was to be valid for three months to come. Sales of pawned articles were suspended. It was forbidden to post notices on the walls of Paris emanating from Ver- sailles. Conscription was abolished, but every able-bodied cit- izen was ordered to enter the Guard ; the title of Com- mander-in-Chief was prohibited, and the i-ed flag of the Universal Republic was made the flag of the Commune. Eudes, an adventurer who had been the leader of a riot at La Villette in August, 1870, was appointed Delegate Minister of War ; Bergeret, a printer of the city. Chief of Staff; and Duval, whose previous employment had been that of chief claqueur at tne theatres, Military Command- er, Prefect of Police, and Judge. Duval and Bergeret were to organize immediately twenty-five battalions of infantry and fifteen mitrailleuse batteries for active ser- z 18 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; vice, and twenty batteries of reserve artillery. They were empowered for this purpose to make all needful requisi- tions. The Bank of France was " persuaded " to make the necessary advances, and a number of officials in the Department of Finance were dismissed for disobedience. The Sub-Central Committee, appointed from the Com- munal Council of 106 elected on the 26th, seemed to be full of business, and found it necessary to delegate some of its duties to an Executive Committee, composed of Duval, Bergeret, Eudes, Pyat, and Vaillant. A part of their work consisted in imprisoning and condemning to death all who were not of their way of thinking and act- ing. Two of the members of the Committee itself were thrown into prison, and another condemned to death as a Bonapartist. "Wilfrid Fonvielle, a brother of Ulric Fon- vielle, the companion of Victor Noir in his fatal visit to Pierre Bonaparte a year before, was sentenced to death on suspicion of an attempt to aid his brother in organiz- ing a body of loyal guards at St. Germain. Death was denounced by these men against a.! who would not de- clare their adherence to the " Commune." The Postal Director was summoned to surrender his functions to an appointee of the Commune, but refused, and the aflfair re- sulted in the total disorganization of the service. The judicial benches were deserted, all the judges having fled. A general exodus of the wealthier people of the city began. The workshops were closed, the operatives being engaged in the more important business of playing at National Guards and governing Paris. But both the Executive Committee and the Sub-Cen- tral Committee found their duties too onerous, and on the 30th of March surrendered them to the Commune, and the Communal Council selected and appointed a new Executive Committee, consisting of Gustave Flourens, Pyat, Eudes, Delescluze, and several other members of the Council who had no previous notoriety. OR, THE RED REBEItlON OP 187l. ID They were Iful requisi- 1" to reake iciala in the lisobedience. :n the Com- eemed to be ^legate some join posed of A part of idemning to ing and act- ) itself were death as a • Ulric Fon- atal visit to ed to death r in organiz- Death was )uld not de- The Postal ictions to an he affair re- lervice. The having fled. e city began, ing engaged at National He Sub-Cen- ous, and on Commune, inted a new e Flourens, members of ,H CHAPTER III. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COMMUNE IN APRIL. — ITS CONSTANT CHANGES. — ITS HORRIULE DOCTRINES, GROSS CRUELTIES, AND UTTER CORRUPTION. HE Government at Versailles was fast regaining its confidence and power. Day after day new bodies of troops came in, either the National Guards from the provinces, who were not in- fected with Com.munism, or, better still, the soldiers of the regular army now returning from Germany, where they had been detained as prisoners of war. President Thiers was, however, dis- posed to be cautious in his movements ; the failure of the attempt on Montmartre had shown him that National Guards were but a poor dependence, and knowing the fickleness of Frenchmen, and their liability to be influenced by various motives, he preferred to temporise with them, and to make use of the means at his command for bring- ins: them to a reconciliation without further bloodshed. His Government had nothing to lose by this delay, while it was likely to prove fatal to the insurgents. As we shall see by and by, too, he knew his countrymen so well that he had strong faith in his power of corrupting the leaders of the insurrection, and procuring, by means of money, a victory which, if less honorable, would be also less destructive than one won in the battle-field. Mean- time he neglected no measures within his power of crip- pling the strength of the insurgents.' He had inflicted a very severe blow upon them by the arrest and confine- ment in the prison at Fig^ac of their master-spirit, Blan- qui, which he effected on the 19th of March, and he had .1 .in 'ilii ■!:;iii 20 PARIS UNDER THE COMHtJNE; assured himself of the loyalty of the troops who still held Fort Mont Vai^rien, the strongest of the suburban for- tresses of Paris, and the one which guarded the only possible route from Paris to Versailles. The insurgents had expected that the Versailles Govern- ment would renew the fight at once, and were puzzled by the delay. At length they came to the conclusion that it was prompted by fear of their prowess, and they resolved to march at once to Versailles, and demand that Blanqui should be released, or they would put the Assembly to death at once. Some of the leaders were in favor of breaking up " the insurgent government," as they called it, whatever conditions they might offer. In this march they must, as we have said, pass Fort Mont Valdrien, but as they had not yet been fired upon by it, and the garrison treated them with apparent indifference, they concluded, without evidence, that they were really their friends. The movement began on Sunday, April 2d, with the send- ing some battalions of National Guards (the Commune's troops) to occupy Courbevoie and Puteaux, suburban vil- lage to the north-east of Fort Mont Val^rien,. but near enough to be raked by its fire ; but as the commandant did not fire upon them, their belief in his friendliness wau confirmed. General Vinoy, on being informed of this | advance of the insurgents, sent a division from the army of Versailles to meet om. A captain of gendarmerie (police), who was sent for- ward with a flag of truce, was fired upon by the Com- munists and killed, and their skirmishers also began to fire upon the patrols and vedettes of the Versailles army. An artillery fire was then opened by the Government troops upon the National Guards, who, after a brief enga- gement, Were completely routed, and retired in disorder across the bridge of Neuilly, across the Seine, into Paris. The news of this defeat caused great excitement in Paris, and not a little anxiety at the Hotel de Ville, the Communist Committee not knowing what might be the intentions of the military chiefs at Versailles. Prepara- tions were immediately made for renewing the fight next day. Camps were improvised in the open spaces within OK, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 21 v^ho still held luburban for- ded the only lilies Govem- e puzzled by lusion that it ihey resolved that Blanqui Assembly to in favor of uj they called n this march Valdrien, but I the garrison ey concluded, iheir friends. I'ith the send" le Commune's suburban vil- 'ien,. but near commandant endliness wau rmed of this :ora the army was sent for- by the Com- ilso began to Tsailles army. Government a brief enga- d in disorder le, into Paris. ixcitement in I de Ville, the might be the es. Prepara- ihe fight next spaces within the citj'', and towards dawn on Monday morning, the 3d instant, the Communist forces again advanced from the city to the number of about 100,000, in three columns, the left marching by ChS-tillon, south of Paris, the right by Neuilly and Clichy, north-west of the city, and the centre by the Point du Jour, south-west, on the direct road to Versailles. They were commanded by General Bergeret, a printer, and perfectly destitute of military knowledge; General Duval, late a claqueur (hired ap- plauder) at the Theatre Beaumarchais, and General Flourens were left at Neuilly with a reserve. The three columns were to converge upon Versailles, the object of attack. Under the impression that Mont Val^rien would not file upon them, they advanced close up under the gims of the fort, and, when the commandant, who left them undeceived as long as possible, and allowed a large number to march by unmolested to Nanterre and Reuil, west and north-west of the fortress, at last opened fire, the National Guards were taken by surprise and thrown into utter confusion. A large number returned to Paris, crying out that they were betrayed ! This retreat began before eight o'clock, and continued some hours. The rappel was beaten to collect reinforcements, but was little responded to. Meantime, those who had passed beyond Valdrien found their retreat unexpectedly cut off by the fire of its guns. General Flourens, who went to the res- cue, was killed early in the fight, and General Duval about the same time. The left wing of the insurgents, which was massed before and around the fort of Issy and Van- vres, made the most stubborn fight, as it appears that at this point the contest lasted nearly all day, but the Government troops were ultimately victorious. The right wing, under Bergeret, was cut in two by the fire of Fort Mont Val^rien, and that portion of it which had passed be- yond the fort to Nanterre and Reuil, about 15,000 in num- ber, were taken prisoners. The losses of the left wing in the vicinity of Chatillon and Meudon were very heavy, two thousand under General Heniy being captured, and in the whole battle four or five thousand slain. On Tuesday, April 4th, Vinoy again attacked such of the insurgent 22 PARIS UNDEll THS COM MC NIC I il troops as were outside of the fortifications, (lI•ivin^' Ber- geret and the remnant of his command northward toward Colombes and Gennevilliers, and routing them with heavy loss. During these tliree days of fighting, the Government troops showed none of that sympatliy with the insurgents which President Thiers had feared and the Commune had hoped for. They cursed and ridiculed the prisoners, ex- hibiting no compassion even for the badly wounded, and whenever a man was found among them wearing the uni- form of the regular army he was immediately shot down as a traitor. On Tuesday night, the insurgents were driven out of Chatillon (south of Paris), and on Wednes- day tried in vain to retake it, but wore repulsed with considerable loss. T'hey occupied the forts of Issy and Vanvres, and from these fired with considerable effect up- on the Government troops. On the night of Wednesday, the 5th, the Parisians made an attack on the bridge of JSevres, on the Seine, south-west of Paris, held by a detachment of the Versail- lies army, but were repulsed. On the following day con- siderable cannonading took place between the southern forts, Montrouge, Ivry, Bicetre, and Charenton, and bat- teries erected by the Government troops at Ch^itillon, and l)ositions farther east. The Government forces also made a vigorous assault on the insurgents at Oourbevoie and Neuilly, and, aided by the fire of Foi fc Mont Valc^rien, pressed them back towards the Seine, at the same time bafHing the attempts of Bergeret's troops to pierce their lines and return to Paris. On Friday, the 7th, lighting was resumed by the Ver- sailles army at Neuilly, north-west of the city, with re- newed vigor. The insurgents were forced to retire behind the bridge over the Seine, which is here very wide, Avhich they barricaded. The assailants then shelled and demolished the barricades, inflicting heavy loss on the defenders, and throwing tl.om into temporary disorder. The latter succeeded, however, in extricating their cannon, and took up sheltered positions on the east bank of the Seine. After an artillery duel from the opposite banks, OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 28 vin-- Bor- ird toward '^ith heavy >vernment insurgents imune had honors, ex- inded, and gtheuni- 5hot down ents were Wcdnes- Ised with Issy and etfect up- Parisiaus bhe Seine, le Versail- ^ day con- ■ southern I, and bat- billon, and also made evoie and VaMrien, 5am e time erce their '' the Ver- with re- to retire lere very 3n shelled Y loss on disorder. Ir cannon, ik of the be banks, the Versailles troops pushed across the bridge, and, in spite of new barricades erected in their way on the Neuilly avenue, and a brisk fire from the guns of the Paris ramparts, ultimately drove the insurgents out of the suburb and compelled them to retreat to the foot of the enceinte, or city ramparts. The Versailles Government states the loss of the Parisians to have been immense, but admits that its own was serious, and names three of its generals among the killed and wounded. The chief com- mand was held by Marshal MacMahon, and the whole army of investment was divided into four corps, of which one was in reserve, under General Vinoy. Who com- manded the insurgents in the engagements of the 6th and 7th, not stated. Subsequently, however, we find a Pole, Jaroslas Dombrowski, " appointed to succeed General Bergeret in command of the National Guard," the latter having been " arrested for military failure and insubor- dination." On Saturday, the 8th, Fort Mont Valdrien and the ad- vanced batteries of the Versailles army began the bom- bardment of the Maillot Gate, of the enceinte between Neuilly and the Arc de I'Etoile, their shells falling be- yond the latter, in the Champs Slysdes. The cannonade was continued throughout the day, during the night, and also all Sunday, brisk firing being simultaneously kept up between the southern forts and the positions opposite them. Everywhere the Government troops gained ground. They advanced almost to the enceinte, occupying Bou- logne, Sablonville, and Longchamps. The drawbridge and floor of the Maillot Gate were broken. The Nationals momentarily evacuated the Cl.amps Elys^es, seeking shelter in the adjacent streets. Subsequently, however, they reinforced their artillery at the Maillot Gate, as well as at the adjoining Porte des Ternes, and threw up huge barricades in the Champs Elysees, the Place de la Con- corde, and their environs, opened a cannonade upon Cour- bevoic and Puteaux, and made some desperate sorties to ti.'^ south and south-v^^est. The southern parts of the city wore, oven on Monday, the 10th, so much annoyed by the bombardment directed against Forts Montrouge, Issy, I 24 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; II. ;• ,1 ' and Vanvres, that an election appointed for that day, to fill vacancies in the Commune, nad to be postponed. At the western gates, however, the lire slackened on Monday, and the Versailles troops fell back to some distance, Mac- Mahon determining to make the main attack on the city from the south-west, with the co-operation of a flotilla of iron-clad gunboats on the Seine. On the 11th of April the insurgents were in possession of Asni^res, near Cour- bevoie, on the west bank of the river, north-west of the city. While this severe but not wholly decisive fighting was in progress, and for a week or two subsequent, the " Com- mune " was indulging itself in a reign of terror, which, in the atrocity of its horrors, surpassed the ever-memor- able infamies of the epoch of the First Revolution. Blan- qui was not released by the Versailles Government. Assi, the representative of the International Association of Workingmen, had fallen under the ban of his colleagues of the Commune as not radical enough, and with Gambon and Bergeret, poor fellow, who tried to be a general when he was only a printer, was thrown into the Mazas prison. Twenty-two other members of the Commune, out of one hundred and six in all, had been driven to resign, as not sufficiently advanced in their ideas. Gustave Cluseret, a French adventurer, dishonored and degraded from the army some years before, and for a time, with a horde of other adventurers, foisted upon our army in our civil war; subsequently the editor of an abusive sheet in New York and in Paris, a malcontent promoting insurrection in the Franco-German war, now seized control, and as Minister of War, proceeded to issue decrees which were simply fiendish in their character. Take the following specimen from the Journal Officiel (the organ of the Commune) of April 5 (we omit the preambles) : — The Commune of Paris Decrees: Article I. — Every person suspected of complicity with the Gov- ernment of Versailles shall be immediately brought up for examin- ation and imprisonment. Art. II. — A Jury of Accusation shall be organized within twenty- r OH, THE BED REBELLION OF 1871. 25 four hours, to take cognizance of the crimes which are referred to them. Art. III. — The Jury will remain in session forty-eight hours. Art. IV. — All the accused retained in consequence of the verdict of the Jury of Accusation shall be the hostages of the people of Paris. Art. V. — Every execution of a prisoner of war (i. e. by the Ver- sailles Government or its army), or of a partisan of the regular gov- ernment of Ihe Commune of Paris, shall be, upon the spot, followed by the execution of three times the number of the hostages re- tained in virtue of Art. IV. ; and these shall be designated by lot. Art. VI. — Every prisoner of war shall be brought before the Jury of Accusation, who will decide whether he shall be immedi- ately set at liberty or retained as a hostage. Under these infamous decrees many thousands of the best citizens of Paris were arrested and imprisoned, and those who could do so made haste to escape from the city, 120,000 leaving within the next three days. The malig- nity of the Communist leaders seemed especially directed against the clergy, who did not sympathize with their doctrines or practices. The venerable Archbishop of Paris, a man greatly beloved for his kindness to the poor and suffering, and who had during the siege labored incessant- ly for the sick and wounded National Guards and soldiers, was arrested under these decrees on the 6th of April, with his sister and about seventy priests, the most prominent in the city. The nuns of the different convents and the Sisters of Charity were sent to the prisons, and no posi- tion or station in society, high or low, was safe from sus- picion, which led to instant incarceration, and very often to foul murder. The houses of "aristocrats" and churches were pillaged. All men between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five, then all unmarried citizens, and finally all between nineteen and forty were called under arms, and domiciliary search was made for the fugitives. The "International Aid Society for the Care of the Wounded," an International Sanitary Commission, which during the war had accomplished a vast amount of good, and was now, with its ambulances, its field hospitals, its surgeons, nurses, and attendants, bestowing its tender care on the wounded in the battles which had already taken place, and making good the notorious deficiency in the medical 26 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE ; i 51 i (I !i ! :ii ' iJ'lni service of the Communal Army, was dissolved by Clus- erets order ; its stores of wine, brandies, medicines, and food seized and turned over to the Commune, its funds confiscated, and its surgeons and nurses insulted and im- prisoned. Each day witnessed some new outrage on pro- perty, life, or morals ; and growing bolder with each hour's impunity, they speedily evolved the cardinal articles of their creed, which are neither more nor less than these : The total denial of the existence of God and of a future life, the prevention of any religious observances, and the treatment of priests and ministers as imposters; the abolition of marriage, and the substitution of temporary connections, based on the inclination of either of the parties; the rearing and education of children by the Commune as in a vast foundling hospital ; the outlawry of all persons not living by the labor of their hands, or, in other v/ords the creation of an aristocracy of ouvriers; the expulsion of the literary or educated class from all places of trust or dignity ; the substitution of " natural justice " in th^ courts of law for all artificial systems of jurisprudence; the appropriation of all property to public use, and the provision of labor for all persons able to labor, and support for those who were not able, out of the public purse. Is it possible to conceive of any state of society which would more nearly resemble pandemonium than one thus organized ? Will it be credited that this infamous monster Cluseret, while thus setting all law and order, human and divine, at defiance, was all the time endeavoring to negotiate with M. Thiers' agents for the betrayal of Paris to the Versailles Government ! Marshal MacMahon, who, on his return from Germany, had been assigned to the chief command of the Govern- ment Ji'my, took the field on Monday, April 10, and found that the troops of the Commune were pushing out on the north-v/est of the city to Asnieres, Neuilly, and even their advances as far as Colombas, with the view of operating against the left flank of his army. He directed his main attention to these points, and to the relief of a small de- tH-chmerit of his troops who were on the islfind of Grande Jatte, OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 27 Jatte, in the Seine, opposite Neuilly, whicli the insur- gents were trying to drive back toward Fort Mont Val^- rien. At the same time he maintained his position at Chatillon, and thus held a considerable portion of the troops of the Commune at the south of the city. His special efforts were directed, so far as immediate aggres- sive warfare was concerned, to driving back the Commu- nal troops from Neuilly inside the ramparts, and thus gaining the opportunity of bombarding and breaching the Porte de Maillot (the Maillot gate) into the city, the weakest and most exposed point of its western defences. The western and southern sides of Paris were much stronger than the northern and eastern, as the Germans had found to their cost ; but the necessity of protecting Versailles and the Assembly made it impossible for Mac- Mahon to attack elsewhere, and so stubborn was the re- sistance he met with, that he deemed it best to content himself with holding his position and repelling advances until the reinforcements, now hastening to his assistance, could be brought up. The record of the next eight or ten days, then, was one of continuous but not very vigorous fighting, and without material result. The Communist troops did not wholly abandon Asnieres, though they drew back from Colom- bes ; they did not evacuate Neuilly, but they could not drive the Government troops from the island of Grande Jatte, and whenever they attempted to move forward the heavy guns of Fort Mont Valdrien were trained on them with such effect that they recoiled. On the south of the city the Government troops held Chatillon firmly, and though Forts Issy and Vanvres, manned by the Com- munists, bombarded it almost constantly, they made very little impression, and rarely elicited any reply. Cluseret claimed victories for the Communists, but even hia own troo})s did not believe his proclamations. MacMahon boasted of no victories, but claimed what was true — that he was holding his own. This state of things was improved on both sides by overtures for compromise, publicly made, and by Cluseret by [)rivate oiTers of surrender on the payment of 2,500,000 28 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; !i« francs to him personally. All negotiations, however, fail- ed. President Thiers was willing to concede to the Pari- sians an elective self-government, subject, however, to the general government of France, and even to allow the Na- tional Guards to be the sole defenders and military force of the city, — a very unwise concession, — but he would not in any way recognize the Commune or its leaders. These, on their side, demanded recognition, and refused to be satisfied with his concessions, their appetite grow- ing with what it fed upon. Cluseret's private offer was rejected, probabij from the conviction that he could not make the delivery which he promised. After the lamented failure of the valiant printer-general, Bergeret, a Polish adventurer, Jaroslas Dombrowski, who had been successively a Russian subaltern, a leader in a gang of counterfeiters, a prisoner sentenced to the Ural mines, a Russian police pimp, and a Prussian spy, was promoted to the chief command of the Communist forces, and, though subsequently deprived of this position, man- aged to retain a prominent place till the downfall of the Commune. Under his direction the Communists had erected consid- erable defensive works at Asni^res, consisting mainly of huge barricades, on which they had mounted mitrailleu- These works were destined mainly to cover the vari- ses. ous approaches to the bridge over the Seine, which they held. Having no cavalry, however, the insurgents could not reconnoitre, and were ignorant of the fact that Mac- Mahon's troops had erected heavy batteries against them at Gennevilliers and Colombes, north and north-west of Asni&res. These opened suddenly a terrible fire upon their right flank and front on the 18th, while two attack- ing columns advanced against their positions. The Pari- sians answered the cross-fire only by one volley from their mitrailleuses, and soon began a hasty retreat across the Seine. General Dombrowski sent for reinforcements, and vigorously renewed the contest, leading a desperate as- sault in person, but in vain. They were forced from their positions on the left bank with heavy loss. The Versailles troops did not occupy Asni^res at this OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 29 time, but intrenched themselves west of it on the railroad leading to Colombes, thus securing their left flank in their subsequent operations on Neuilly. On the 2Uth of April the Government troops made an assault upon Neuilly, and carried nearly half the barricades erected by the Communists, capturing their cannon, and driving them back toward the Maillot Gate. The fighting was very severe, but the Communists still retained a part of their defences, and held with great tenacity their position be- fore the gate. The Versailles troops now resolved to re- turn to tlieir former plan of bombarding their barricades,, the gate, and the city within the ramparts, from Fort Mont Valferien and their other batteries, having, with the; approval and assistance of the Prussians, cut off all sup- plies fr8m Paris. Pursuing this policy in regard to the' western defences of the city, they now turned their chief attention to the southern defences of it, and especially against the Forts Issy, Vanvres, and Montrouge, which had suffered so severely from the Prussian fire during the siege, but had since been repaired. A furious bombard- ment was opened against them on Wednesday, April 26, and continued throughout the night, with particular dam- age to Fort Issy. The barracks of this fort were destroyed, its fire silenced, and a breach made in the walls. On the morning of the 27th, Les Moulineaux, a village in its close vicinity, which offered an important new position, was carried iDy the assailants. In the night of the 29th they carried a park and several buildings situated but a few hundred paces from the intrenchments, whereupon the defenders of the fort, half of whose guns were dismounted, were seized with a sudden panic, mutinied, and most of them fled, tlluseret, in the morning, hastened 'to the front, and succeeded in having the fort reoccupied by fresh troops, under command of General La Cecilia, an Italian adventurer, whom he had brought into the service. The new garrison, exposed to a raking tire, was strongly dis- posed to capitulate, but was prevented from doing so by some of its more zealous ofticers, and by the failure of a plot for its betrayal by some of the worthless adventurers, placed in important commands by the leaders of the Com- mune. It : '! ''i|'! u 30 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; Meanwhile Cluseret's race was run; the executive Committee of the Commune, dissatisfied with his grand promises and his meagre performances, terror-stricken at the peril in which their southern defences were placed, and very possibly informed of the attempt he had been making to sell out the city to the Versaillists (though al- most any of them would have done the same), removed him from office, but did not imprison him, as they did at this time Assi, the representative of the International Society, who had once before fallen under their displeasure, and Raoul Rigault, their late delegate for Public Safety, or Chief of Police, who was suspected, perhaps unjustly, of treachery. General Rossel, another adventurer, but, like Cluseret, of French birth, succeeded to the#Ministry of War, but held it for only ten days — long enough, how- ever, to attempt to sell Forts Issy and Vanvres to the Versailles government, making the atrocious proposition to give up twelve or fourteen thousand of the Communist troops to be butchered, without means of defence, if only he might receive a million of francs for his treachery. At the end of April, then, the Versailles army had made material progress, and could look forward hopefully to more. They had not yet entered Paris, nor was that "doomed city quite surfeited by the experiences it had had of the rule of reprobates who still held sway, but there was room for hope that under their vigorous blows the rule of the mob would soon come to an end. This hope was realized, but at a most fearful cost. ;l executive his grand jtricken at ire placed, i had been [though al- ), removed hey did at ternational lispleasure, 3lic Safety, 3 unjustly, turer, but, ie#Ministry ough, how- res to the proposition Dommunist ace, if only lachery. y had made Lopefuily to • was that ; it had had •, but there blows the This hope ^ ^ <;» <;i 8 OR; THE RED REBELLION OP 1871. 31 CHAPTER IV. ARMISTICE OF MAY IST. AND 2ND. — BOMBARDMENT RE- NEWED—CAPTURE OF FORTS D'ISSY AND VANVRES — TERRIBLE EXCESSES AND CRIMES OF THE COMMUNISTS — BURNING OF PARIS — THE ARCHBISHOP MURDERED — THE FUTURE OF FRANCE. BRIEF armistice occurred on the 1st and 2nd of May, during negotiations for the surrender of Fort d'Issy ; but these negotiations failing in consequence of the unwillingness of MacManon to pay a large sum to those who were willing to betray a foil which it was evident must soon be his at only the cost of a little longer bombard- ment, the bombardment was renewed on the 3d, and ex- tensive batteries erected at Gennevilliers, on the north- west of the city, soon made Neuilly and the Maillot Gate untenable for the Communists, who were driven back in- to the city. The whole north-west, west, and south-west sides, and most of the south side of the city were invested by a line of heavy batteries, which were fast making breaches in the walls, and making havoc with the dwell- ings and public buildings in those sections of the city. On the morning of May 9th Fort d'Issy was captured, a considerable portion of its garrison escaping by way of the catacombs, where considerable numbers perished miserably. Fort Vanvres held out for xew days longer, and meanwhile a severe bombardment of Auteuil and Point du Jour, from the batteries of Montretout and Brimborion, was maintained, which told with frightful effect on the ramparts and^ on the dwellings of the west side of Paris !J 1.1 n Ax f . »l ■ >". h t 'd ^ m\i ii'i i\ '^'Ui::' m h 32 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE J It had become evident by this time to reflecting men, both in and out of the city, that the Commune had but a very brief existence before it ; that in two or three weeks at the farthest the city must be in the hands of the Versailles troops, and that those who had been the leaders in this insurrection, and many of those who had partici- pated in it, must escape or lose their heads. The leaders themselves, however, would not acknowledge any appre- hension. They were gaining victories every day, and in- temperance, debauchery, licentiousness, and murder ran riot in the city as they had done hitherto. Never had vice of all descriptions been so bold and unblushing as it was now. Scenes were hourly enacted which would have brought a blush to the face of the lowest Hottentot. The women of the ouvriera class, as well as those more openly lost to shame, took part in the military movements, and mingled everywhere with the National Guards; and though they did not encourage them in genuine acts of bravery, they made them more insubordinate and restless, and more demonlike in theii* conduct. The National Guards were, in fact, becoming almost worthless as troops ; they would not obey their officers, erected barricades wherever they chose, without any reference to their availability for purposes of defence, and, while constantly clamoring for reinforcements, they would run from the points they were set to defend, upon the slightest symp- toms of a close or severe action. After the fall of Fort d'Issy, General Rossel, whose efforts to sell the city to M. Thiers for a large sum, to be paid to him in person, had failed of success, sent a com- munication to the Commune, tendering his resignation as Commander-in-chief of the insurgent forces. In this com- munication he said : " I cannot endure to hold the respon- sibility where everybody deliberates, where nobody obeys orders, where nothing is organized, and where the gun» depend for service upon a few volunteers." In continua- tion, he complained that reinforcements had not been granted him when urgently needed ; and that, in point of fact, the Commune vras incapable of the discharge of the duties pertaining to it. He therefore retired from its OR, THE REE aEBELLIO'.^ OF 1871. 33 service. The document concluded as follows: "Two courses were open to our forces, viz : to break through the obstacles which environ Paris, or to retire. The former has been found to be impossible, and therefore we have retired. I have the honor to ask of yovL a cell in the Mazas prison." His request was granted : but the Mazas prison having not so many charms for him as he had anticipated, he made his escape from the prison, was active in a subor- dinate capacity for a week or two, and finally was arrested, a month later, by the Versailles authorities. The old Committee of Public Safety, which had pre- ceded the Commune, and most of whose members were not elected as members of the Commune, still maintained its existence and attempted to exercise its authority. On the occasion of Rossel's resignation, as on many previous ones, there was a very violent collision between the two sources of authority, and the severest recriminations oc- curred between the members, each party knowing alto- gether too much of the other to make their discussions pleasant. In the end, Delescluze, who seems to have been from this time the ruling spirit of the Commune, trium- phed over the conspirators of the Committee of Public Safety, and insisted on their resignation under penalty of their immediate arrest and execution if they refused. With an infatuation which seems almost incredible, the Commune and its leaders now assumed that they were on the high road to a complete victory over the Versailles troops, and issued orders to their army to take the most relentless measures towards the besiegers. " No soldier," says this order, " will be allowed to depart in the slightest degree from his duty, and all the troops are forbidden to cease firing upon the Versailles troops who may at- tempt to surj-ender ; while fugitives and stragglers are to be sabred when caught, or, if they are in numerous bodies, are to be fired into mercilessly with cannon and mitrail- lieuses." The " Column of July " in the Place VendSme, erected by Napoleon I. in commemoration of his victories, for the bronze of which twelve hundred captured camion wer© AA ' 34 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUi-IE; melted, and which was crowned with a colossal statue of himself", — a column justly regarded as cne of the finest art-treasures of Paris, — was doomed to destruction by these Vandals, and Courbet, an artist from the provinces, volunteered to superintend the work of overthrowing it. On the 15th of May it was to be pulled down, but through a failure of the machinery provided by Courbet, it v^as not destroyed till the next day. On the 14th of May Fort Vanvres was captured and Fort Riontrouge isolated; the Auteuil gate, on the west side, was entirely destroyed, and the ramparts so badly breached as to give hope of an entrance into the city by the Versailles troops in a very short time. Inside the city, quarrels were still raging between the Committee cf Public Safety nnd the Commune, and each demanded the execution of the other. M. Thiers' re- sidence —one of the finest buildings in Paris, and contain- ing a vj st collection of choice bronzes, statues, antiques, paintings, and costly furniture, and a fine library — was ordered to be destroyed, and all its valuables confiscated, and the order was speedily carried into effect, Dylescluze, though still retaining the chief power, tired of the posi- tion of Minister of War, and Billioray took his place. New Polish officers were called to important commands — dancing-masters and adventurers of all sorts, without reference to their previous history and antecedents — and the Commune grew more and more cruel and bloodthirsty with each day, as its power began to totter to its fall. Quiet citizens who had remained in Paris, but had taken no part in the insurrection, were arrested by scores and hundreds, thrown into prison, and retained as hostages against the Versailles Government, and many of them put to death. The churches were plundered, and the plate, money, and statues and images they contained used for the purposes of the Commune. The Committee of Public Safety still refused to disband, and set free those whom the Commune imprisoned, and arrested those who were discharged. by it. Bergeret, Cluseret, and several other prominent men who had been thrown into prison were thus released, and took part in the fighting. Large OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 35 bodies of women were organized and armed to arrest and punish deserters and stragglers, who were becoming very- numerous. They proved more cruel and severe than the men. Women were also assigntd to other duties by the Committee of Public Safety or the Commune. Among these was that of setting on fire public buildings, which now began to be one of the contemplated amusements of the black-hearted villains who still held the reins of power in Paris. Other high-handed measures adopted were tie demoli- tion of churches ; the turning of the Sisters of Mercy out of their convents ; the compelling of the non-combatants, whom they had seized and imprisoned as hostages, to serve at the barricades, and when the fire was so fierce that these unarmed men could not longer remain there, marching them back to their prisons and shooting them down in cold blood ; the suppression of all the mo- derate journals, and the menacing their editors with death, and the deliberate murder of some of them by the orders of that incarnate fiend, Raoul Rigault. The last attempts of the Commune at resuming the offensive, outside of the walls, were made on the 16th and 17th, by Dombrowski's command, at Neuilly, and ended in failures. Batteries at Montmartre vainly bombarded at the same time the position of the Versailles troops at ChS,teau-Becon. On the evening of the 17th a powder- magazine exploded with terrible effect inside of the west- ern enceinte, spreading havoc and consternation all around. Further south, fierce cannonading was kept up by the besiegers against the gates of Auteuil and St. Cloud, and from their new positions at Issy against Point du Jour and Grenelle. On Thursday the 18th the two insurgent positions near Fort Montrouge were carried at the point of the bayonet, but subsequently al^vudoned. Some de- sultory fighting, with varying success, also took place on the two following days. The battering fire was renewed with the utmost vigor on the night of Saturday the 20th, and continued until immense breaches were effected in the ramparts, which the defenders on Sunday gradually began to abandon, re-entering the city in the greatest dis- 3G PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE ; Ml: :)■,;: 1 ■ : order. In the afternoon, the Government troops finally entered the capital ; General Douai marching in from the southwest, by the battered-down St. Cloud Gate, at the Point du Jour, and General Cissey from the south, by the Gate of Montrouge ; the latter having shortly before oc- cupied the positions of Petit Vanvres and MalakofF, and Fort Montrouge, without a struggle. On the two ex- tremes of the field alone, in front of Batignolles on the northwesu, and between Gontilly and I\Ty on the south- east. Generals Dombrowski and Wroblewski endeavored for a time to continue the contest outside of the enceinte. On Monday morning, May 22nd, Dombrowski still made two assaults on the left wing of the Versailles forces, but his ranks were broken, and he himself wounded, and finally a panic seized his men, which was communicated to vari- ous detachments in the rear. All fled in wild confusion. The Government troops now advanced from every quar- ter, General Clinchant from the side of Clichy, Douai and L'Admirault along the Seine, Cissey from the south. There was hardly any resistance. The huge barricades of the Avenue des Champs Elys^es and the Place de la Concorde were speedily abandoned ; others but feebly re- plied to the guns of the assailants ; the insurgents retreat- ed towards Montmartre, hard pressed by Clinchant and L'Admirault ; Cissey and Douai in the meanwhile occu- pying the southern and central portions of the city. In the evening General Clinchant occupied Batignolles, and on Tuesday morning attacked Montmartre, the main stronghold of the insurrection, from the Avenue de Clichy on the west, and the Boulevard de Clichy on the south ; while General L'Admirault attacked it from the southeast, having carried the fortified Northern Railway statipn by assault. Early in the afternoon Montmartre was in the hands of the Government troops. In the afternoon of the 23rd, shortly after the capture of Montmartre, General Vinoy occupied the Ministry of "War; Clinchant moved by the Rue de Clichy on the New Opera House, and L'Admirault's troops held the stations of the Northern and Eastern Railroads. The in- surgents, howc/er, continued to defend their main central OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 37 positions on both sides of the Seine, including the Place Vendome, the Tuileries, the Prefecture of Police, and the Hotel de Ville. Their batteries on the Boulevard Hauss- mann, the Place Vend6me, and the garden of the Tuileries, still presented a formidable front towards the tv^est and north-west ; but their right and rear were threatened by the flanking movements of General L'Admirault, against which they were not sufficiently guarded. This seems to have chiefly compelled their retreat in the night, or on the following morning, May 24, towards the eastern fau- bourgs, the beginning of which was accompanied by the setting on fire of the Tuileries and Louvre, and of the Palaces of the Legion of Honor and of the Council of State, on the opposite bank of the river. The conflagra- tion was exceedingly violent, so that of the four palaces only a portion of the Louvre could be saved, including its main treasure, the collection of art, while its library became a prey to the flames. But this act of Vandalism was not to be the foulest stain on the memory of the Commune, for, in the same night, scores of so-called hostages were slain by its executioners in their prison, and among them Monseigneur D'Arboy, the Archbishop of Paris, the Abb^s Susa and de Guerry, sixteen other priests, and forty-four other hostages, mostly officers of the gendai'mes, or police, and the noted Mexican banker, Jecker. Nearly a hundred more of these hostages — forty or fifty priests among them — made barricades in their prison and fought for their lives. The National Guard, by Raoul Rigault's order, tried to burn them alive, but they were, at almost the last moment, rescued by the Versailles troops. By orders of Delescluzo and Billioray, hundreds of men and women were passing through all the principal streets carrying concealed bottles and hand- grenades of petroleum, which they threw into the areas of dwellings and followed with lighted matches, thus setting them on fire so completely that very few of the buildings were saved. Others, in the garb of firemen, under pretence of extinguishing the flames, threw petro- leum on them from their engines, and as the insurgents retreated they threw from their cannon bomb-shells 38 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; )i:i '\m charged with the same inflammable fluid upon all the streets where they would do most mischief The Place Vend6rae was occupied on Wednesday- morning ; the insurgents made a strong stand at the Rue St. Honord, and, on retiring, fin I th# Palais Royal ; the Paliice of Finance, the Ban^acks on the Quai d'Orsay, the Court of Accounts, the Prefecture of Police, and the Mont de Pi^td blazing up about the same time with petroleum. The burning of this last building was one of the most atrocious acts of these incendiaries. The Mont de Pi^t4 was the Government Pawner's Bank, receiving its deposits by hundreds of thousands < f articles from the poor, advancing on them three-fourths of their just valuation, and charging but five per cent, interest. It was said that at this very time it held m pledge not less than 750,000 articles, many of them deposited by these very ouvriers and ouvrihes who set fire to it. The Hotel de Ville came next. The centre of Paris, on both sides of the Seine, was thus enveloped with flames and smoke, which spread towards the extremities. Still the fighting continued fierce. The Versailles troops, having carried the barri- cades in the Boulevards Bonne-Nouvelle and Poissonni^re, and some adjoining positions, which were stubbornly con- tested, finally became undisputed masters of the centre. The Quartier du Temple was the next theatre of the carn- age, which was merciless on both sides. Women and children shared both in the fiendish fight and the pitiless retribution. From the Buttes Chaumont the insurgents bombarded the city with petroleum shells. Numberless insurgents caught with arms in their hands were shot ; others were drawn from their hiding-places to share the same fate. Similar was the aspect of aflairs in the eastern half of Paris on Thursday, during which day the insur- gents, after having blown up or evacuated all their positions south of the Seine, including the forts of Bic^tre and Ivry, still held Bercy, Charonne, the P^re la Chaise, M^nilmontiint, Belleville, the Battes Chaumont, La Villette, La Chapelle, and the environs of the Place de la Bastille. On Friday the Government troops attacked both Belle- OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 89 3on all the .both Belle- ville — upon which batteries of marine guns erected at Montmartre poured a terrible fire— and the Place de la Bastille. The fighting at each point was very severe, and was soon extended over the adjoining districts. The havoc among the insurgents became frightful. Several thousands surrendered, others fled beyond the ramparts, where they were disarmed and arrested by the Prussians. On the following day Picard announced in the Assembly that " Generals Vinoy and Douai. after capturing the Place de la Bastille, had occupied the Faubourg St. Antoine as far as the Barriere du Tr6ne, and that Generals Clin- chant' and L'Admirault had advanced to the foot of the Buttes Chaumont." This announcement summed up the results of the operations of Friday, which were completed on Saturday, the 27th, by the capture of the Buttes Chaumont and M^nilmontant by L'Admirault, and of the cemetery of P^re la Chaise by Vinoy. The fighting at; all these places is described as desperate in the extreme, the Versailles troo[)s, after a last summons by Marshal McMahon, having ceased to give quarter — " to man, woman, or child," says the report — and men, women, and children were fighting. Remnants of various bands, hunted up in their last place of refuge, the Bois de Vincennes, surrendered on Sunday. General la Cecilia yielded the Castle of Vincennes shortly after, with (),()00 prisoners, having first blown up the magazine and done what he could to destroy his garrison in that way. The destruction of human life in these last ten days had been frightful. Of the victims of the Commune, many of them innocent victims — men, women, and child- ren who had no sympathy with its horrible doctrines, and its more horrible practices — not less than 35,000 were killed between May 22nd and May 28th, and more than 12,000 previously; while, of those who had been actors in this fearful drama, 4-5,000 had been taken pri- soners, many of them among the wounded. The losses of the besieging troops had been smaller, though they were very heavy during those six or seven days of barricade fighting, and, according to the best authorities, during the whole period from March Ibth to May 2bth, were about 40 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; Ml' '■' 13,000 killed, and perhaps as many more wounded. Here, then, were not less than 80,000 or 90,000 men either slain or so wounded that they would eventually die of their wounds, because a handful of mad fanatics and adven- turers in Paris were determined to seize upon the supreme power in the city and nation. Had these leaders of the insurrection all met with the fate they deserved, there would be some compensation for this frightful loss of life in the fact that the world was rid of so many of those whose lives had been occupied with the endeavor to destroy order, and ruin all with whom they were brought in contact. But too many of them have escaped. 'Flou- rens, one of the best of the bad lot, and Duval fell early in battle. Blanqui is a prisoner, and probably will be executed; Delescluze, Dombrowski, Milliere, Billioray, Raoul Rigault, Miot, Vall^s, Ferr^, Brunei, Varlin, Gam- bon, Lefrangais, Vidal, Vilain, Salinski, Thibout, Brune- ron, Jourde, Moilin, Gaillard, Burget, and perhaps one or two more, were either killed in battle or shot when cap- tured. It is reported that Chiseret, Cecilia, and Eudes had also been shot ; but there is reason to believe that they have escaped. Assi, Rossel, Rochefort, Grousset and Felix Pyat are prisoners, and their fate should be prompt and certain. Whatever the intellectual abilities of these men, and some of them undoubtedly possess a high order of talent, they are too dangerous to a community, and have done too much mischief, for society to be endangered by their further existence in this life. Especially should we regret the escape of Cluseret and la Cecilia from the doom which both so richly merit. The very earth on whijh they tread cries aloud for vengeance on creatures so unworthy of life. The destruction of property, though not to be named in the same breath with this terrible destruction of human life, has yet been such as has not been witnessed before during the present century, or hardly during any century of the Christian Era. Paris, the most beautiful of modern cities, with its grand and sumptuous palaces, its magnifi- cent public and private edifices, its columns, arches, statues, and fountains, the wonder and admiration of the OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 41 world, — Paris, not as it- was in the days of the Sixteenth Louis,with its narrow streets, its alternations of palace and hovel, its dens of La CitS and its broad parks and ill-con- structed royal residences, but the Paris of 1870, on which have been lavished all the architectural and civic skill and the vast expenditure of Baron Haussmann's gigantic plans, now lies waste and desolate. St. Cloud is in ruins, the Tuileries destroyed, the greater part of the Louvre burned ; the H6tel de Ville, the Palais Royal, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the buildings of most of the Government Ministries, M. Thiers' residence, several hun- dred private residences, the Lyons station, five or six of the principal theatres, several churches, the Napoleon Column in the Place Vendome, have all been destroyed, and many other public buildings seriously injured. The Bank of France, the Great Hospital, the H6tel Dieu, and many other important buildings were found to have vast collections of combustibles under them ready for the torch ; but the overthrow of the Commune was too sud- den to give time to fire them. Indeed, the sudden de- struction of the Commune was all that saved Paris from becoming a mass of ruins, for the sewers had been charged with explosive compounds, and within three days after the overthrow of the insurgents more than a thousand electric wires, arranged to explode these compounds in every part of the city, were cut, and this wholesale de- struction prevented. Wicked and depraved as Paris was, and seemingly given over to all uncleanness, the hand of God, that God whom these Communists had ignored and denied, was never more plainly visible than in saving the city from the terrible doom which these mad atheists strove to bring upon it. His hiind alone arrested them, and pre- vented its utter destruction. We have long believed that no man or body of men were so utterly depraved that there was not in them some redeeming traib, some trace of the lost Eden, some possibility of good which, under other and better in- liuences, might have germinated and brought forth at least evidence of some of the sympathies of our common t&i ) 42 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; humanity and brotherhood ; but, in the contemplation of these stupendous crimes against man and against God, we must own that our faith in the native goodness of the human heart is staggered. The beings that could delibe- rately plan and prepare for the destruction, by explosion, of a city of a million and a half of inhabitants, who had no pity for the tender babe, the winning innocence of childhood, the beauty and confiding trust of woman, and the gray hairs of the aged, but were willing and ready to ,whelm them all in a death so sudden and terrible ; — the creature who could deliberately offer to sacrifice fourteen thousand of his fellow-men to death, helpless and unarmed or who could deliberately set fire to the magazine of a fort, hoping thus to rid himself of a part of his troops, taking care to be out of the way of the explosion himself: the villains who could murder in cold blood the ministers of religion, and especially those who had adorned a high station by the most consistent and self-denying benevo- lence and charity ; the wretches who could be guilty of such deeds as these, and others of like atrocity, are surely so thoroughly depraved that even the demons of the pit cannot equal them in degradation. We would fain hope that with this terrible carnival of blood the danger to Fn^nce was forever adverted ; that, henceforth, sobered and saddened by the misfortunes and errors of the past, she would become a wiser and a better nation than if she had not passed through such a fiery ordeal, and that a bright and glorious future was in store for her. But alas ! there seems to be but little ground for such hope. Dark clouds, impenetrable by mortal eyes, shroud her future, and no friend of hers, be he never so hopeful, can find any gleams of light breaking through the murky mass. For a Republic, pure and simple, she is evidently unfit ; the attempt to establish it would soon degenerate into another Commune, for the elements of disorder and mis- chief still exist and in vast numbers. A Republic with oligarchical powers or a Constitutional Monarchy might afford a brighter promise ; but where is the President or the King who possesses th^ ability to rule constitutionally' ■^ ■!:. OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 43 over such a people ? Thiers' administration, at the best, is but temporary ; and adroit as he is, he has not the weight of character to awe into obedience the turbulent, fickle, restless masses. Look where we may throughout France, there is no man so great in goodness, so wise in counsel, so dignified and self-centred, as to be able to make his influence felt throughout the nation, and hold it in wise and judicious control. Shall the French people return to the Bona partes, whom they so latoly discarded ? We do not believe it ! The man of December has proved himself so utterly corrupt, so palpable a fraud, that he could not reign a month ; and neiw. or Eugenie, alternately the devotee of fashion and the dupe of a Jesuit father confessor, --or the poor simple-minded boy who calls her mother,, have the ability to rule in so stormy a time. Shall it be Bourbon or Orleans 1 Neither, we would fain hope, for the manifesto of Henri de Chambord d« aon- strates that now, as in 1815, the Bourbons have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He proposes to govern France by the old Bourbon traditions, to sign a concordat with the Pope, and to pledge France to aid in restoring the temporal power of the Papacy, which, to say nothing of any other result, involves a war with Italy. The elevation of either of the Orleans princes to the throne would involve measurably the same results, since, though men of broader views and more enlightened sentiments, they are pledged to maintain the Jesuit supremacy. A hard fate it seems to be for poor, unfortunate, mis- gaided France that there is for her no middle ground ; that she must be either atheist or papal, and that when all the nations around her are rising to a higher concep- tion of true liberty of thought and action, in the I'ear of God, she alone cannot emerge from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 44 PABIS UNrEE THE COMMUNE; i^v ¥. ,'! ^1'' v-ii I . ■ CHAPTER V. INCIDENTS AND EPISODES. — THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY. — WHAT WERE THE COI.IMUNISTS FIGHTING FOR? — THEIR FINANCIAL EMBARRASSMENT. — THEIR PLUNDER AND THEFT. — PLOT TO BLOW UP THE CITY.— SKETCHES OF THE LEADERS OF THE COMMUNE. ome sup- d'Auteuil, listrict by Un|)lea- into the as a kind lly gather, aaixls had 1 lined the 1 court and eyond the i with con- ccn driven ) v.iOse and batteries rion. The Jour, had, like that of Billancourt, fallen into the hands of the Ver- saillists, who, having occupied the enceinte in force, and the adjacent houses behind it, were detaching strong parties to reconnoitre up the Rues Leman'ois and Billan- court, one of which at least had been as far as the rail- way, but had been driven back. " Dombrowski smiled as the news was communicated to him, and I thought of his 'second line of defence,' and of his assurance that the 'situation was not compromised.' By this time it was nearly o'clock, and it seemed to mo that the Versaillists must have got cannon on to the enceinte, the fire became so hot and heavy about and into the Institution de Ste. Purine. Dombrowski and his staff were very active and daring, and the heart of the troops seemed good. There was some cheering at the order to advance, and the troops — consisting chiefly of francs- tireurs and men dressed in a Zouave dress, so far as I could see in the gloom — were moved briskly up into the Rue de la Municipalitd. A couple of guns — field-guns, I fear — were got into position on the Circular Railway, to the left of the Rue de la Municipalitd, and, under their cover, the infantry debouched with a rush. Of cavalry I saw only a few scattered pickets. Soon there was a fear- ful disorganization, the result of a hot and close infantry fire that came seemingly from over a wall which I learned bounded the Cimeti^re des Pauvres. The Federals broke right and left. Some made round the corner of the Rue de Michel Ange (which bounds the cemetery on the right), under the leadership of a young staff officer whom I had noticed in the Chateau de la Muette at dinner-time. There was a close fusillade and attempt, which was partly successful, to storm the cemetery, taking it on three sides. It was said that Dombrowski himself headed the direct at- tack, but the locality was too warm for me to satisfy myself quite fully on this point. Meanwhile there seemed to be almost hand-to-hand fighting going on all around in the space between the enceinte and the railway. I could hear the incessant whistle and patter of the bullets and the yells and cursing of the men, not a few of whom owed what courage they displayed to profuse libations. Every ^^. H: > !li *l GO PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; now and then there was a cheer and a rush, tlien a volley which scemcfl to stay the rush, and then a stampede back under cover. By lOi it was obvious that the Commu- nists had nearly lost their courage. Dombrowski I had lost sight of. One officer told me he had been killed in the churchyard, another that his horse had been shot under him, and that when last seen the daring little fel- low was fighting a Versaillist marine with his sword. There came a panic, in the thick of which I made good my retreat behind 'the second line of defence,* which could not easily be recognized as a line of defence at all. I fear Dombrowski must have been gasconading. Once behind the railway, the Communists held the new ground with stubbornness. One or two attacks were made by de- tached parties of Versaillists ; but their fire gradually died away, and soon after 11 o'clock the quietness had become so great that I thought the work was over for tho night and that Dombrowski's anticipations had been realized. " The pause was deceptive. The Versaillists must have simply held their hands for a time to make the blow heavier when it should fall. No doubt they had their combinations to execute elsewhere, and were pouring into the area between the enceinte and the Circular Railway. While they were doing this they were also packing the thoroughfares with artillery. We could hear in the dis- tance in our rear the general march beaten. A staff officer, who spoke English perfectly, and who was as black as a negro, from powder and smoke, came to where I lurked, and told me how he mistrusted the pause, and feared that the supreme hour had come at last. The supreme hour had come. It was 2 o'clock in the morn- ing. Suddenly a fierce fire opened on the railway. Showers of shells poured upon it and in its vicinity, and upon it a hail of musketry pattered. The Communists did essay a reply, but it was extremely weak. Then there sud- denly came on the wind the din of sharp firing from the north. I heard some one shout, * We are surrounded ; the Versaillists are pouring in by the gates of Auteuil, Passy, and la Muette !' This was enough. A mad panic set in. ;> OR, THE RED REBELLION OK 1871. 61 len a volley nipede back le Commu- )wski I had n killed in been shot \g little fel- his sword. made good nee,* which fence at all. ling. Once [lew ground aade by de- gradually ietness had /■as over for had been 1 must have e the blow '■ had their louring into ar Railway, packing the • in the dis- m. A staff vas as black bo where I pause, and last. The 1 the morn- 16 railway, icinity, and munists did ti there sud- iff from the unded ; the ieuil, Passy, )anic set in. The cry rose of Sauva qui petit, ininglcd with other shouts. Nous sommea trafiin. Arms and packs were thrown down and every one bolted at the top of his speed, the officers leading the way. I came on one party —a little detachment of francs-tireurs— standing fast behind the projection of a house, and calling out that all their chiefs had run away and left them. Whether this was the case as regards the higher commanders I cannot tell. I do not think that Dombrowski or any of his staff were the men to run. But certainly none of them were to be seen. There was a cry, too, that there was an in- vasion from the south, and so men surged, and struggled, and blasphemed confusedly up the quay in their confu- sion, shot and shell even chasing them as they went. In the extremity of panic, mingled with rage, men dis- charged their pieces indiscriminately, and struck each other with their guns. " I can hardly tell how I came to be on the Avenue du Roi de Rome at about half-past nve in the morning — my watch had run down. The battery had been carried off. Looking down the Boulevard de I'Empereur I saw a bat- tery of horse artillery coming up it at a walk. A few corpses of Communists were lying about the battery. These troops advancing with a deliberation so equable were MacMahon's men coming into the Trocaddro. I did not wait for them, but made for a side street toward the Champs Elysdes. I came out in the beautiful avenue, about midway between the Arch of Triumph and the Rond Point ; and there stood several battalions of soldiers in red breeches. They were packed there seemingly as densely as the Bavarians had been on the 1st of March, but they were not so pacific. There was no firing from the big barricade at the Place de la Concorde end of the Tuileries gardens, but National Guards were shoving about it, and now and then making a shot at the dense masses of the Versaillists, who were very deliberate, and made ([uite sure of their ground before advancing. They had a field battery in action just below tlie Arch, which swept the Champs Elysi^es very neatly. I saw several shells exjjlode about the Place de la Concorde. Penetrating casu- U ] 4 '* i 02 PARIS UNDER THE C'OMMUNi:; ally in a iiorfli-wcsterly direction, I found danger again in the Rue Bi lult, a side street, nearly parallel to the Avenue de la 1 ine Hortense, which extends away from the Arch of Tiium h, nearl}' at right angles to the Champs Klysdes. In this avenue a person I H|)oko with told me the Versaillists had come n{)on the Communists as they were throwing up a barricade, and had saved them the trouble of comi)leting it by taking it from them at the point of the bayonet. There I got very nearly shut in, for as I talked there was a shout, and here were tiie Versail- lists, with artilleryattheir head, marching down the Avenue Friedland toward the Boulevard Haussmann, and I had just time to dodge across their front. I then tracked them by a side street, and found they pressed on steadily, tiring but every now and then, till they reached the open space near the top of the Boulevard Haussmann, in front of the Caserne do la Pdpiniere. Here was a noble position, and no mistake. They could sweep the Boulevard Males- herbes straight down to the Madeleine, and so open their way into the Rue Royale, and down it into the back of the barricade at its end facing the Place de la Concorde. Tliere, too, they could sweep the Boulevard Haussmann along its whole length, and, by a steady fire along these thoroughfares, prevent concentration, and cut that part of Paris practically into three districts. *' Recrossing the Boulevard Haussmann, I made my way by devious paths towards the Palais Royal. Shells seemed to be bursting all over the city. They were time- fuse shells; and I could see many of them burst in a white puff of smoke high in air. Several fell on and about the Bourse as I was passing, and the neighborhood was silent and deserted, except by National Guards in small parties, or singly. I could not tell wdiether they were advancing or retreating. Everywhere barricades were hastily erecting, but I dodged them all till I got to the Place du Palais Royal. Here two barricades were constructing, one across the Rue St. Honori^, another across the Rue de Rivoli. For the latter the material was chiefly furnished by a great number of articles which were hurriedly pitched out of the Avindows of the es- OH, TJIK IIKD IlKMHLMON OF 1871. 68 iiigcr again lilol to tll(3 ay from the ho Chaiii[).s ith toM mo ists as thoy 1 them the hem at tlio shut in, for 1)0 Vcrsail- tlioAvonuo , and I liad en tracked 3n steadily, ed the open , in front of osition, and ard Males- open their the back of 1 Concorde, ffaussmann along these :,hat part of made my al. Shells were time- burst in a 'ell on and ighborhood 1 Guards in ether they barricades bill I got to cades were v6, another laterial was icles which of the es- tablishment, and of mattresses from tlu; Guards' barracks at the Tuileries. The Rue St. lionord barricade, was formed of paving stones, cabs, and carriages, and 1 was compelled, nolens uulois!, to assist in the construction of it. It is pleasant, even if you arc forced to do a thing, to attenij)t doing it in a satisfactory manner ; and, observing that an embrasure had been neglected in the construction of the barricade, J devoted my energies to remedying this defect. I was not sorry, however, to be released from my ta.'ik after a (juarter of an hour's work, the more so as the shell lire was increasing in warmth and proximity. I noticed that, from the great barricade at the to}) of St. llonord, the Communists had got one gun at least into action, and were using it to lire somewhere in the direc- tion of the Arch of Triumj)h. It was imjjossiblc to fulfil my original intention, which Avas to cross the river to the Ministry of War, therefore I returned in the direction of the New Opera House. Crossing the Boulevard I noticed that the Versaillists must have gained the Made- leine, between which and their position at the repiniero Barracks no obstacle in the shape of a barricade intervened. They had constructed across the end of the Boulevard de la Madeleine a barricade of trees and casks for artillery. The Communists, on their side, had a temporary barricade, chiefly of })rovision wagons, across the Boulevard at the head of the Rue de la Paix. By 9^ the Versaillists had ad- vanced considerably down tlie Boulevard Haussmann, which they swept witha heavy musketry fire. Two lads were shot down close to me at the end of the Rue de Lafayette. Thci'e was no return lire of any account. Many C(jmmunists ]jassed me in ctreat, declaring, as usual, that they had been betrayed. As I stood, there Avas a scramble for a barricade in thi Boulevard Hauss- mann, about 500 yards nearer Pdpineire than the Rue de Lafayette. It wan carried by the Versailhst marines. I could see them jumping up on the barricades. Every- where, as I leai-n, the Versaillists Avere led by gendarmes and sailors or marines. TIjo National Guards fell back, dodging behind lamp-post^; and in doorways, and firing v/ildly as they retreated. This drcAV a still heavier fire I 64 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; ^i: ^1 is it M i M T V :: I,:, , I. it from the Versailles barricade. A bullet struck the front of a gas-pillar behind which I stood, and fell flattened in the road, and a woman stepped out from the gable of the Rue de Lafayette, picked up the bullet, and walked coolly back, clapping her hands with glee. "What curious ceremony is going on at the corner of the the Rues Lafayette and Lafitte ? There is a wagon, a mounted spahi, nearly as black as night, and an oflicer. A crowd is all round, and in the centre is a blazing fire of papers. Are they burning the ledgers of the bank, or the title-deeds of the surrounding property ? No, It is the papers of the battalion which are thus burning, that they might not bear witness against the members, I sup- pose. A sign surely of the beginning of the end. Other signs were not wanting. English passports were sought after ; but when men talked of getting out it was found that, in the morning, the Prussians had let out train after train, but stopped each at St. Denis, and allowed no body to go on. A woman is said to have been fired on this mornip'T on making an attempt to get out. The Com- munists retreated, ever throwing up barricades every- where, so that circulation became almost impossible. They seemed to be heading toward Montmartre, which had opened fire on the Trocaddro, from which the chief share of the Versailles artillery fire seemed to come. The Versaillists seemed to understand this policy, and made some haste to counteract it. By 12 they had gained the Place de I'Europe, near the western terminus, on the way to Montmartre, thus completing a definite and well- marked line from the western terminus riverward by the Madeleine and the Place de la Concorde. Of the other side of the river I can say nothing. Some say the Ver- saillists are as far as the Pont de la Concorde and the Ecole Militaire, but there is no certainty. It is now 4 o'clock P.M. At about 2 o'clock the Versaillists had fairly established themselves in the line I have described, and were making the Boulevard Haussmann terribly hot quarters down the very end. At the same hour they began to shell their battery at the Madeleine, the Communist barriv.vae on the Boulevard des Capucines, at I k the front flattened in able of the liked coolly )rner of the a wagon, a 1 an officer, blazing fire he bank, or No, It is irning, that ibers, I sup- ;nd. Other vere sought , was found t train after ^^ed no body red on this The Com- ades every- impossible. ,rtre, which h the chief come. The and made gained the on the way and well- ward by the )f the other 5ay the Ver- de and the It is now 4 ts had fairly jscribed, and terribly hot le hour they idelein'>, the 'apucines, at OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 65 the top of the Rue de la Paix. This was a crushing fire, and the barricade was soon shattered. As I conclude, the Communists seem demoralized, yet are working hard everywhere erecting barricades, and the gSn4rale is sound- ing. No generals are to be found." The ferocity of the leaders of the Commune, upon thus finding that all was lost, exceeds anything in history. Men who a day or two before had been willing to sell to President Thiers the city, its fortresses, and even their own souls, had they been worth the purchase, now fought with the fiercest desperation, and, as they were driven back from one barricade after another, seemed filled with a diabolical fury which could not be sated with destruc- tion. On the dead bodies of the leaders and military officers were found orders to employ hundreds of persons to set on fire all the buildings of the principal streets, the public edifices, many of them associated in the minds of all Frenchmen with the glory of their capital and the history of their nation. The soldiers were ordered to charge their cannon with petroleum bombs, and to use wadding dipped in petroleum in their rifles. Nay, more; they had devised plans for involving the whole city in a common destruction by placing explosive compounds in all the sewers and arranging electric wires to explode them ! Nothing but the surprise, so ivell described, pre- vented this wholesale destruction. Equally atrocious in its spirit was their treatment of their prisoners. The murder of the venerable Archbishop D'Arboy and his fellow-prisoners, a crime for which there was no possible justification, will long remain as a foul blot on the charac- ters of the Red Republicans of Paris in 1871. A prisoner named Evrard, in the same prison with the Archbishop (La Roquette), himself a Communist, but confined for some real or fancied ofience against the Commune, thus relates the execution of the venerable prelate : — " On Wednesday, May 24, at 7.30 in the evening, the director of the prison, one Lefran9ais, a namesake of the member of the Commune, and who himself had spent six years at the Bagne, ascended at the head of fifty Federpls to the gallery where the principal prisoners were con- cc 60 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; , n^ fined. An officer went round to each cell, summoning first the Archbishop, and then in succession M. Bonjean, the Abb^ AUard, Fathers du Coudray and Clair, and the Abb6 de Guerry, Curd of the Madeleine. As the prisoners were summoned they were marched down the road running round the prison, on each side of which, as far as I could see, were arranged the National Guard, who received the captives with insults and epithets which I cannot transcribe. My unfortunate companions were taken into the courtyard facing the infirmary, where they found a firing party awaiting them. MonseigneurDArboy stepped forward, and, addressing his assassins, uttered a few words of pardon. Two of these men approached the Aichbishop, and, in face of their companions, knelt before him, beseeching his forgiveness. The other Federals at once rushed upon them and drove them back with insult- ing reproaches, and then, turning towards the prisoners, gave vent to most violent expressions. The commander of the detachment felt ashamed of this, and, ordering silence, uttered a frightful oath, telling his men that they were there to shoot those people, and not to bully them. The Federals were silenced, and upon the orders of their lieutenants loaded their weapons. Father Allard was placed against the wall and was the first shot down. Then M. I)' Arboy, in his turn, fell. The whole six prisoners were thus shot, all evincing the utmost calmness and courage. M. de Guerry alone exhibited a momentary weakness, Avhicli was attributable rather to his state of health than to fear. After this tragical execution, carried out without .my formal witnesses, and in the pref;v..nce only of a nui iber of bandits, the bodies of the unfortunate victims were placed in a cart belonging to a railway company, which had been requisitioned for the purpose, and were taken to Pere la Chaise, where they were placed in the last trench of the 'fosse commune' side by side, without even any attempt to cover them with earth." There were in all sixty-four of these prisoners in La Roquette shot on the 24th and 25th of May. Similar barbarities were committed at other prisons. Gustave vChaudey, one of the editors of the Bilcle, a man highly on, THE EED REBELLION OF 1871. 67 esteemed, fell under the displeasure of the brutal Raoul Rigault, the " Delegate for Public Safety," and was con- signed to Ste. Pelagic. On Tuesday, May 2o, Raoul Ri- gault came to the prison, and entering his room said to him, very coolly : " I have come to announce that this is your last hour." " How ? " cried Chaudey ; " you mean to assassinate me ?" " You are going to be shot," was the reply. The guards of the prison refused to shoot the prisoner, and Rigault had to go for other executioners. They came into the court wliere Chaudey was set up against a wall. Rigault waved his sword as the signal to fire, and they fired. But they had fired too high ; the poor victim was only wounded, and at last he had to be despatched by being shot through the ear with a pistol. The Communists had destroyed several churches and the residence of M. Thiers before the Versailles troops effected an entr}^ into the city ; but from the 21st to the 28th of May they seemed possessed with an insane and un- controllable impulse to destroy all before them. In this work of destruction the women were even more furious than the men ; thousands of them were arrested either setting fire to buildings or shooting down the Versailles troops from corners, from windows, behind barricades, or from house-tops, and when arrested they fought like tigers. Many of them were, it is true, of the abandoned class ; but others, wives and motherK, hitherto of good repute, were nevertheless now maddened with the desire to destroy. It was sad and disiressing to see so many of these female furies marched to execution, and shot down in squads by the Versaillists ; and yet we cannot wonder that, finding them engaged in the work of destruction, the soldiers should have had no pity. The Versailles Govern- ment has been very severely censured for the summary execution of so many prisoners, and our own leniency has been adduced in contrast. We cannot help wishing that their justice had been tempered with a greater share of mercy, yet it must be urged in their behalf that the two situations were wholly unlike. In our case the soldiers and officers opposed to us understood and obeyed the usages of war, and did not continue fighting when e^ p;/illS UNDER THE COMMUNE; ii hM\, in! further fight? ng was useless, nor did they seek to destroy what they were powerless to hold longer. The Commun- ists, on the contrary, acted like wild beasts, and sought to involve themselves and their foes in the common ruin, and it was natural, though possibly not politic, to treat them like wild beasts, whose extermination was necessary for the safety of Society. In the execution of the leaders of che insurrection they certainly acted wisely, and it is only a pity that any escaped. In the slaughter of the undistinguished herd it is not impossible that in some cases the innocent m«y have suffered with the guilty; but there seems to be sufficient evidence that only those who were ensaojed in acts of murder or incendiarism when taken were, knowingly, put to death. Still, we cannot help shuddering at such executions as the following, related by one of the correspondents of the London Times: "On the 31st of May thirt^^'-three Communists, among whom were seven women, were shot in a body by a company of soldiers. Around three sides of the square troops to the number of 1,500 were drawn up, under command of Colonel Guizot. At 8 o'clock the prisoners, who had been confined in the coal-cellars back of the porter's lodge in the Hotel de Ville, were brp'fht out, their hands tied behind their backs, and tht j -arched out, by the main gateway through a double file oi soldiers, and having reached the centre of the wide area in front of the Hotel de Ville, were ranged in a row, and made to kneel down close together. There was nothing on the whole plaza but three empty scavenger carts, which stood in a line at the rear of the prisoners. When the company was in line and ready to fire, Colonel Guizot stepped for- ward and told the prisoners in a few words that they were to suffer d ! ch fur having been caught in the act of setting fire to buildings and dv/ellings of Paris. At this moment the women uttered a piercing shriek, and began to sway themselv(s back and forth. An officer advanced and made them keep still wit\i the fiat of his sword. A few moments afterward a volley was fired, and when the smoke cleared away a mof-jt horrible sight was presented. Three of the women, wlio were in the middle of the row, II: •^,?>n destroy bmmun- lought to ion ruin, to treat lecessary le leaders and it is er of the in some guilty; [ily those sm when e cannot "oUowing, n Times: s, among dy by a e square p, under prisoners, 3k of the "o-bt out, VA arched i soldiers, a in front i made to ig on the ;h stood in company ?pped for- they were of setting s moment a to sway need and I A few when the presented. f the row, OR, THE RED REBELLIOK OP 1871. between the men, were still living, and writhing in agony. A second volley was fired, and a third, and not until the sixth did all the prisoners cease to live. The dead bodies were then flung into the three scavenger carts and carried away to be buried. There were very few people on the scene." Another case, related by the same correspondent, does not awaken our sympathy so much as our pity ; — "You have heard, doubtless, of the vivandieres of the National battalions, who have marched brightly and bravely to the combat with the corps, or with the men who claimed their wild and more than half unwomanly devotion. One woman of this class, straight, tall, splen- didly set, with vigor in her face and beauty in every limb — she could not have been more than 25, and slie was n woman perfectly made — I saw suffer a frightful fate. Captured, I know not how, she had killed with a revolver, before her hand could be stayed, a V'ersaillist officer and three of his men. She looked ' out and out' a fury ; her handsome face was black with powder, her lips especially made livid by hasty biting of cartridges ; her hair hung in dishevelled tangles about her handsome but ferocious face ; and her eyes, gleaming with an overstrained courage that mounted even to madness, blazed defiance on the red-breeched crowd who held her at their mercy. I will not linger on the scene. Her hands were tied, and with her back against a wall she died — pierced through and through with shots from the rifles of M. Thiers' troops. I could not blame them — but I could not help being deeply sorry for her." But though several thousands thus perished by summary execution, there were a still greater number who were prisoners, taken with arms in their hands, or with incendiary grenades or bottles of petroleum about them, ready to be used in setting fire to the buildings of the city. These were reserved for trial, and most of them would probably eocape leath, though perhaps not a pro- tracted imprisonment or banishment. When we consider thnl fuUy one-third of the beautiful city of Paris had been d ::-t,royed through the fiendish rage »1i -1 'lii hi - h^ >. :!Mf ■ If;' 70 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; of these Communists, and that the rest would have o-one had they had another day for the consummation of their horrible designs, we can hardly withhold our sympathy with the Versailles troops in their determination to ex- terminate such wretches from the face of the earth. Of the public buildings burned, some, identified with the past history of the nation, cannot be replaced. Among them the Tuileries takes rightfully the first place. Its history extends over centuries. In 1564, Catheriue de Medicis began its erection. A prediction bidding her beware of St. Germain and the Tuileries caused her to abandon the work, and leave it for Henry IV. to extend and embellish. He began the long work which joins the Louvre to the palace ; and the works suspended by his death were carried on and terminated by Louis XIII., who fixed his residence there. Louis XIV. having ordered Levan and D'Orbay to harmonize the whole, an attic was added to the central buildings, and other important im- provements made. This monarch resided in the Tuileries occasionally until the building of Versailles, when the Co art entirely forsook the capital. The Regent, Duke of Orleans, fixed his abode in the Tuileries during the min- ority of Louis XV. ; but from that period till the forced return of Louis XVI. the families of persons officially attached to the Court occupied it. During and since the Great Revolution the Palace of the Tuileries was associated with many memorable scenes. Tho mob entered it on tuo 20th June, 1792, and it was attacked and the SvL^s Gu.trds massacred in the August following. It was tLe ofBcia^ rosidence of Napoleon when First Consul, and when he becjime Emperor it formed one of the imperial palaces. In J 808 Napoleon began the northern gallery, to serve as a communication with the Louvre. After the Restoration, the Tuileries continued to be the chief residoiice of tlie King and royal family. After the Revolution <^f 1830, when the people attacked and took the palace (June 29), Louis Philippe fixed his residence in it, and continued to inhabit it until the 24th of February, 1848, when it was again invaded by the people, and the King made his escape. By a decree of the OK, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 71 avo o-one . of their ympathy on to ex- irth. Of with the Among lace. Its leriiie de ding her (d her to bo extend joins the ed by his [III., who ; ordered attic was )rtant im- : Tuileries when the ,, Duke of ; the min- bhe forced , officially Palace of ble scenes, md it was be August leon when ormed one began the with the >ntinued to lily. After ackod and fixed his il the 24th led by the icree of the Provisional Government of '48, it was to be transformed into an asylum for invalid workmen, but that intention was not carried out. During and after the formidable insurrection of June of the same j'-ear it was used as an hospital for the wounded. In 1849 the yearly exhibition of paintings was opened in the Tuileries. During the reign of Napoleon III it was his official residence, and was the scene of magnificent balls and receptions. A concert was recently held in the Hall of the Marsha] s, under the auspices of the Commune. The exterior of the palace was grand and ^'mposing. The extreme length of the fa9ade was 336 yards; its breadth 36 yards. Owing to the different periods at w hich it was built, its architecture was not uniform. All that wealth and taste could accomplish was employed under successive monarchs to embellish its interior. The Emperor's private apartments were gorgeously decorated. The theatre could accommodate 800 spectatoi^, and wa^s used as a supper-room when balls were given at Court. The chapel of the palace was rather plain, and had a gallery and ceiling resting upon Doric columns of stone and stucco. The Salle de la Paix was used as a ball-room, and was 140 feet long by 35 feet broad, and contained splendid statuary. The Hall of the Marshals was remark- able for its splendor. The names of the gi-eat ba- Jes fought under the First Empire were inscribed on its walls, and around the hall were busts of distinguished generals and naval commanders, while portraits of the great mar- shals of France adorned its panels. The furniture was ornamented with green velvet and gold. This was used as a ball-room on state occasions. Four other magnifi- cent halls were conspicuous features. The carpets on them were o^ Gobelins manufacture, and cost $200,000. These halls Wv^re the White, the Apollo, and the Throne Halls. The Throne Hall, a splendid apartment, contained the imperial throne. The hangings were of dark velvet of Lyons manufacture, with palm-leaves and wreaths wrought in gold. The throne, facing the windows, was surmounted by a canopy of the same, and the drapery depending from it was studded with bees embroidered in 72 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; Ml »• !i 'I *; lii ! gold. A description of the remaining apartments would simply embrace a repetition of decorations of unrivalled elegance, the results of lavish expenditure. The Louvre, which fortunately was only partially de- stroyed, was mainly constructed by Louis XIV., but was left in a comparatively unfinished condition until 1802, when Napoleon resumed the works, and under him the Louvre was finished and the surrounding streets and places cleared. Its internal arrangements were made principally by Charles X. and Louis Philippe. Since the time of Louis XV. it has been devoted to the reception of the various museums of the fine arts, and was occasion- ally used for great ceremonies of state. The eastern front of the Louvre was one of the finest pieces of archi- tecture of any age. The grand colonnade was composed < Z' 28 coupled Corinthian columns, fronting a wide gallery. The central part of the building, forming the gateway, was crowned by a pediment, the raking cornices of which were each of a single piece. This pediment contained a bas-relief executed by Lemot, and over the grand door- way was another by Cartellier. The gates themselves, made by order of Ngr.oleon, were of magnificently worked bronze. This front w as 525 feet long and 85 feet high. The southern front, also the work of Claude Perrault, though not so bold, was very fine. It was decorated with 40 Corinthian pilasters, and, like the eastern, had a richly adorned pediment over the central compartment. The northern front consisted of a central and two lateral pavilions projecting from the main body. The western front presented no special features of interest. Almost all the interior of this palace was devoted to the museums for which it was so celebrated. 1'hese con- sisted of magnificent apartments, filled with the rarest and most valuable antiquities and artist'C productions that France couid secure through the reigns of successive sovereigns, who made additions to it a subject of pride and emulatio 1, As the valuable paintings were removed during the Prussian siege of Paris, the world will not have to deplore the irreparable loss their destruction would entail. Besides these, however, there was a library of OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 73 great value, containing two choice collections of American books, and books on the discovery of this country, and many other valuable works, and vast collections of curiosities from America, China, India, and Europe, which were entirely destroyed. The Hotel de Ville was the place of assembly of the Municipality of Paris, and was erected and embellished at an expense of upward of $4,000,000. It contained several magnificent state apartments, decorated in a highly artistic manner, and furnished at immense expense. All the revolutions of France were associated with the Grand Hall of this building. From it Louis XVI spoke to the populace with the cap of liberty on his head. It was in this edifice also that Robespierre held lis council and afterward attempted to destroy him^cli'; and it was at ono of these windows that General Lafayette embraced Louis Philippe and presented him to the people. The Palais Royal, which has shared in the general de- struction, was one of the most remarkable palaces of Paris, and was fitted up in splendid style for Prince Jerome and Prince Napoleon. Histovii^al associations of deep interest were connected with it. The Palace of the Legion of Honor was built in 1786. The interior was d(HM)rated with elegance. It was the home of the Grand Chancellor of the Order. The Palace du Quai d'Orsay was a magnificent building, appropriated to the several departments of the adminis- tration. It was begun while M. de Champigny, Duke de Cadore, was Premier, in the reign of Napoleon I. It was not, however, completed until the beginning of 1830, when Charles X. intended it as a palace for the exhibition of the productions of French industry. The Revolution delayed its completion, but it was at length finished by M. Lecorday, under Louis Philippe. The edifice consisted of four magnificent buildings surrounding a vast court, and two wings enclosing two smaller courts. Toward the river the front presented a long line of windows, formed by nineteen arches, se])arated by Tuscan columns, above which was a series of the Ionic order, and over this a mixed Corinthian attic, crowned with an elaborate battle^ 74 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE in! :1 merit. The lower stoiy was flanked at both ends with a balustraded platform laid out as a garden. The central court was siuTOunded by a double series of arcades with Doiic and Ionic pilasters ; the lower frieze was inlaid with various colored marbles. The interior of this gi'and edifice was on a scale com- mensurate with the administrative ufiicc-} of a great empire. The walls of the staircases were ornamented with allegorical paintings. On the first story was the Hall of Audience for the Court of Accounts, which was decorated witri paintings by eminent artists. The ground floor, fticing the I'iver, was appropriated to the sittings of the Council of State. The Hall of the Pas Perdus, on this floor, was an elegant square apartment, in which four Doric columns sustained a balustrade opening into a vestibule of the upper story. There were :H.ve other halls magnificently adorned, and containing portraits and pictures of great excellence. On the ground floor was al.'..^ ohe Salle des Stances Administratlves, a saloon of great splendor, decorated with twenty Corinthian columns of white marble, with gilt capitals, and portraits of Richelieu, Colbert, D'Agues- seau, Fuger, Turgot, and other eminent Frenchmen. The coned ceiling was ricldy gilt in compartments, and con- tained five emblematical paintings. In the tympans of the arches intersecting the cones were thirteen medallions, with portraits of distinguished French marsha.ls and savans. The palace cost $2,400,000. In the destruction of this buildinf' France has lost official records of national importance, and productions of artistic skill which cannot he restored. — An eye-witness thus describes the appearance of the captured city on the 28th of May. " The aspect of the Boulevards is tlie strangest sight imaginable. I followed them from the Porte St. Martin to the Rue de la Paix. 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 clothing half concealing blood- Htains, were now the interesting and leading featm'os of OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 75 inJs with a riie central •cades with was inlaid sc.ile com- af a great )rnamented *y was the which was rhe ground I sittings of Perdus, on which four ing into a other halls traits and les Stances , decorated larble, \7ith •t, D'Agues- imen. The bs, and con- tympans of medallions, irshais and destruction 1 of national hich cannot •ance of the ingest sight 3 St. Martin streets were y that had mortar, torn aling blood- feat\ircs of that fashionable resort ; foot-])aagengers were few and far between ; the shops and cafSs hermetic dly sealed, ex- cepting where bullets had made air-holes ; and during my whole afternoon's promenade I only met three other car- riages besides my own. The Place de I'Opdra was a camping-g.ound of artillery, the Place Vendome a confu- sion of barricades guarded by sentries, and the Rue Roy ale a mass of dShris. Looked at from the Madeleine, the desolation and ruin of that liandsome street were lamentable to behold. The Place do la Concorde was a desert, £\m\ in the midst of it lay the statue of Lille, with the head f>tf. 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 twenty-four corpses of insurgents, laid out in a row, waiting to be buried under the neighboring [)aving-stones. To the right the skeleton of the Tuileries reared its gaunt shell, the frame-work of the lofty wing next tho 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 du Carrousel. General McMahon's headquarters were at the Affaires Etrangeres, which were intact. After a visit there, I passed the Corps Ldgislatif, also un- injured 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 headquarters. At the corner of the Rue du Bac the destruction was something appalling. The Rue du Bac is an impassable mound of ruin", fifteen or twenty feet high, completely across the street as far as I could see. The L(^gion d'Hoimeur, the Cours des Comptes, and Conseil d Stat were still smoking, but there was nothing left of them but the blackened shells of their noble jagades to _ show- how handsome they had once been. At this point, in whichever direction one looked, the same awful devasta- tion 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 it.^ ^, .0^,. \> ^v^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 14a 128 12.5 |io "^ liiB 1^ \^ 12.2 1^'- IIIIM I.I 11.25 i 1.4 VI ^ /2 7 ^^^> > ./ r^ f '^^^^V' ■s-^ 'W '/ Photographic Sciences Cbrporatioii 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 >"^ > by the e Roche- ramatist, impetu- days he Y was a ^ college and his mtings. rom his rinciple. striking I by his ranny." s Arch- • satire achers ; but this did not prevent his taking his degree at their academy in 1850. He soon abandoned the study of medi- cine, which he at first pursued, and secured through familj/^ influence, a clerkship in a government oflfice, from which he was afterward transferred to other similar posts, though ultimately unsuccessful in them all. After these changes he found his career at last, and became an editor of the Paris ChaHvavi. In journalism he attained great success, and in 1868 he was one of the prominent editors of the Figaro. His few dramas also met with some favor, and his satires were brilliant and cutting. The beginning of his open and formidable attack on the Imperial Govevnment was his publication of the famous Lanterne. The imprrident wrath which the Government displayed against this publication only added to the un- exampled success of his satires, which were most keen and bitter, though their literary merit was not always so great as at the beginning. Banished for his persistent opposition, he continued the publication of the Lanterne at Brussels, but returned to Paris in time to beconie in- volved in the agitations provoked by the shooting of Victor Noir, and for his part in these he was imprisoned, only to be released by the Revolution of September. He was a member of the Provisional Government, and took part in the defence of Paris ; but at the end he found himself in a strange position by the establishment of the Commune. Regarded as too fiery an agitator by the Versailles Government, he preferred to remain within the city ; but throughout the turbulent days that ensued, he manifested little sympathy with the Communist leaders, used his influence on the side of order, and was regarded with no little suspicion by the men whose fanaticism surpassed his own. It was while attempting to escape from Paris that Rochefort was captured by the Versaillists ; and his trial is announced to take place in July. Bergeret, a printer, and atheistic braggart, ignorant, conceited, and pompous, had a very short career as Chief of Staff; being arrested on the 7th of April, for " military failure and insubordination." ile was succeeded by Gene- 84 TAllIS UNDKR THE COMMUNE J ral DoMBROWSKi, a Polish adventurer and knave, onco a subordinate officer in the Russian army, and there a no- torious counterfeitor, then, to escape from transportation to the mines of the Ural, a Russian pimp and spy ; later a spy of Prussia during the war, and when his companion- ship with Cluseret had enabled him to grasp power, he, too, opened negotiations with the Versailles Government to betray the city to them, but was removed from supreme command too soon to be able to complete the transaction, but in some way regained his authority, and, wounded in a barricade tight on the 22nd, died the next day at the Hotel de Ville. Louis Nathaniel Rossel, Dombrowski's successor, whatever may have been his antecedents, was in haste to betray his trust, coupling it with the horrible proposition to leave twelve or fourteen thousand of the National Guards to be butchered by the Government troops, with- out the means of resistance, and to deliver up the forts Vanvres and Issy. He was in the battles of the 21-28th May, but escaped from Paris, and returning thither was arrested June 7. His failure and his imprisonment led to the elevation of General EuDES, a young ambitious man who, in August, 1870, had been condemned to death for exciting an insurrection at Belleville, and was only kept from turning traitor by the energy and decision of his wife; "General" Wroblewskt, a Polish music-teacher, dancing-master, and thief, with no military knowledge, and so depraved that he had robbed his fellow Polish exiles of a large sum ; BiLLiORAY, a worthless adventurer from Lyons, formerly a hurdy-gurdy player, who, in his capacity as the last Minister of War, did all in his power to surrender the strongholds of Issy and Vanvres to the Government troops, but was taken and shot in the final struggle, manifesting the most pitiable cowardice. Paschal Grousset, a lazy, conceited dandy, who had been a sub-editor of one of the Paris journals, but too in- dolent to gain any very high position, was assigned by the Commune to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, for which his only qualification was his dress. He was some- what less brutal than others of the leaders of the Com- mune, 4th of Ra( in she Chief dey;a the fo OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 85 iiiunc, .'ukI escaped for the time, but was arrested on the 4th of June, and is to be tried in July. Raoul RiQAl'LT, a thorouglibred ruffian, who delighted in shedding blood, was the Minister of Public Safety or Chief of Police. He caused the murder of Gustave Chau- dey; and gave the order for the execution, without even the forms of law, of Archbishop D'Arboy and his fellow- prisoners, after the Versaillists had entered the city. His own career was very short ; for the next day he was ta- ken prisoner, and, being identified, was placed against a blank wall and shot. ' Of the remaining more prominent members of the Com- mune, AssT, a weak-minded but turbulent fellow, then re- presentative of the "International Society of Working- men," who was always in a quarrel with his fellow mem- bers of the Commune, was taken prisoner while trying to escape, and was remanded for trial at the same court with Rochefort, Amouiioux, Jules Miot, J ules Valles, and Jules Ferre. Brunel, Varmn, Gambon, Lefrancais, LoNGUET, ViDAL, ViLAiN, SuLLlER, who was really in- sane, Salinski, Dombrowski's aide-de-camp, Bruneron, JouRDE, Treilhard, and Moilin were shot, and Gail- lard was killed in a rencontre with a soldier. General EuDES was said to have escaped ; but his wife, a young and beautiful woman of great resolution, but a complete fanatic in her adherence to the ideas of the Commune, was taken at Belleville at a barricade, arms in hand, and shot. As the soldiers were ordered to fire at her, she said, " What matters death, if it is for the good cause !" General La Cecilia attempted to commit suicide, but failed and escaped ; but his wife was killed in the act of building a barricade?. In the whole number of these men of the Commune there was no one whose abilities were such as to f qualify him to become a great leader. There was not one of those who were active in the insurrection whom his associates fully trusted. Disbelieving in a God, they distrusted all men. 8G PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE ; CHAPTER VI. THE FINAL TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY. — COPY OF THE TREATY TRANSLATED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK. — THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF FRANCE AFTER THE SUP- PRESSION OF THE PARISIAN REBELLION. — ELECTIONS IN FRANCE. 1.HILE President Thiers was thus exerting all his energies to put down the insurrection in Paris, another matter was occupying much of his thoughts and requiring the exercise of his diplomatic skill and influence. It will be re- membered that the treaty between France and Germany, accepted by the National As- sembly on the 1st of March, and ratified by the German Emperor on the 3rd of the same month, was only a pre- liminary treaty : it put an end to hostilities and provided for peace ; but it was liable to material modifications ot details by the Commissioners appointed by the high con- tracting powers to make a permanent treaty, which must, in its turn, be ratified by the National Assembly and the Emperor, The Commissioner of France for the negotia- tion of this treaty was Jules Favre, the Minister of For- eign Affairs, and unquestionably the ablest statesman in the Republic ; M. Pouyer-Quertier was associated with him, and later M. de Goulard also. On the part of Ger- many, Prince Bismarck was of course the negotiator. President Thiers was consulted at every step by Favre, and the Herr von Arnim was Bismarck's counsellor and associate. Many difiiculties occurred in the negotiation of the treaty. The insurrection in Paris, not only by its dura- OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871 87 COPY OF WORK. — HE SUP- nONS IN rting all sction in much of ise of his ill be re- France )nal Aa- German '■ a pre- )rovided tions of gh con- jh must, and the aegotia- of For- man in d with of Ger- otiator. Favre, lor and of the dura- tion, engendered doubts of the continuance of the Repub- lic, but, requiring large and immediate expenditures for its suppression, })revented the payment of tlie first instal- ment of the indemnity at the time agreed, and thus the relief of the country from the heavy burden of the Ger- man army of occupation. There were, besides, several particulars in the preliminary treaty which bore with un- due severity on France, and which Favre sought to have modified. At length, on the 10th of May, 1871, after much deliberation and argument, the following treaty was agreed upon by the Commissioners : — * Treaty of Peace. Article I. The distance from the city of Belfort to the lino of the frontier, as it was at first proposed at the time of the negotiations at Versailles, and as it is found marked upon the map annexed to the instrument ratified at the preliminary treaty of peace of the 26th of February, is considered as indi- cating the measure of the radius which, in virtue of the clause relative thereto in the first article of the preliminaries, should remain to France, with the city and fortifications of Belfort. The German Government is disposed to enlarge this radius to such an extent that it shall comprehend the Cantons of Bel- fort, Delle, and Giromagny, as well as the western part of the Canton of Fontaine, west of a line drawn from the point where the canal from the Rhone to the Rhine leaves the Canton of Dello at the south of the Chateau of Montreux up to the north- ern boundaiy of the Canton between Bourg and Felon, where this line joins the eastern boundary of the Canton of Giro- magny. The German Government meanwhile only cedes the terri- tories indicated above upon the condition that the French Re- public, on its side, shall consent to a rectification of its frontier along the western limits of the Cantons of Catenom and of Thionville, such as shall leave to Germany the lands to the east of a line starting from the frontier of Luxembourg, be- tween Hussigny and Redingen, leaving to France the villages of Thil and Villerupt, extending between Erronville and Au- metz, between Beuvilliers and Boulange, between Brieux and *This treaty, which has not hitherto appeared in English, is translated from the oflB- clal French text expressly for this history. 88 PARIS UNDEK THE COMMUNE; Lomeringen, and joining the old line of the frontier between Avril and Meyeuvre, The International Commission provided for in the first article of the preliminary treaty shall, immediately after the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty, return to this region to execute the labors imposed upon it, and to make a drawing of the new frontier in conformity with the preceding data. Art. 2. French subjects, natives of the ceded territories and actually residing in them, who may desire to preserve their French nationality, shall enjoy, up to October 1, 1872, the right, provided they make a previous declaration before a com- petent authority, of removing their domicile into France and es- tablishing it there ; and this right shall not be affected by the law of military service, their condition of French citizenship being maintained. They shall be free to retain their landed estate situated in the territory annexed to Germany. No inhabitant of the ceded territories shall be prosecuted, disquieted, or annoyed, either in his person or his goods, in consequence of any political or military acts committed by him during the war. Art. 3. The French Government will deliver to the German Government the archives, documents, and registers appertain- ing to the civil, military, and judicial administration of the ceded territories. If any of these titles have been removed, they will be re- stored by the French Government on the demand of the Ger- man Government. Art. 4. The F uch Government will deliver to the Govern- ment of the Empire of Germany, within six months from the date of the ratification of this treaty — 1. The amount of the sums deposited by the departments, the communes, and the public establishments of the ceded territories. The amount of premiums for enrolment or substitution ap- p'>rtaining to native soldiers and sailors of the ceded territories who shall prefer a German nationality. 3. The amount of bonds of the officers of the State. 4. The amount of the sums deposited pending judicial de- cisiona in consequence of measures taken by the administrative or judicial authorities in the ceded territories. Art. 6. The two nations shall enjoy equal privileges in that which concerns the navigation of the Moselle, the canal from the Marne to the Rhine, the canal from tlie Rhone to the Rhin oil, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 89 er between 5 first article le exchange region to drawing of ata. ritories and serve their ,1872, the tore a com- tnceandes- ted by the citizenship eir landed )rosecuted, goods, in ed by liini le German appertain- ;ion of the will be re- f the Ger- e Govern- ' from the artments, ho ceded ution ap- erritories iicial de- istrative 3 in that lal from 5 to the Rhine, the canal of the Sarre, and the navigable waters com- munirating with these routes of navigation. The right of rafti j; shall be maintained. Art. 6. The high parties contracting, being of the opinion that the diocesan boundaries of the territories ceded to the German Empire should coincide with the new frontier, deter- mined by the first article above, will act in concert after the ratification of this treaty, without delay, upon measures to be agreed upon for this purpose. Those communities which appertain either to the Eeformed Church or to the Augsburg Confession, established upon the territories ceded by France, will cease to be dependent upon their French ecclesiastical authorities. The communities of the Church of the Confession of Augsburg will cease to be dependent upon the Superior Consistory and l)irector sitting at Strasbourg. The Israelite communities of the territories situated to the east of the new frontier will no longer be dependent upon the Israelite Central Consistory sitting at Paris. Art. 7. The payment of five hundred millions of francs will be made in thirty days after the re-establishment of the authority of the French Government in the city of Paris. One thousand million francs will be paid during the current year, and five hundred millions more on the 1st of May, 1872. The last three thousand millions remain payable on the 2nd of March, 1874, as was stipulated in the preliminary treaty of peace. Beginning with the 2nd of March of the current year, the interest of these three thousand millions of francs will be payable on the 3rd of March of each year, at the raic .i five per cent, per annum. All sums paid in advance on the last three thousand mil- lions will cease to bear interest from the day on which the payment is made. All payments will be made in the principal commercial cities of Germany, and will be received in gold or silver, in bills of the Bank of England, the Bank of Prussia, the Royal Bank of Netherlands, the National Bank of Belgium, in bills pay- able to order, or negotiable letters of exchange of the first class, at their recognized value. The German Government having fixed in France the value of the Prussian thaler at three francs seventy-five centimes, the French Government accepts the conversion of the money of the two countries upon che basis thus indicated. 90 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; The French Government will inform the German Govern- ment, three months in advance, of any payment which they intend to make into the treasury of the German Empire. After the payment of the first five hundred millions of francs, and the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace, the de- partments of the Somme, of the Seine-Inf6rieure, and of the Eure, will be evacuated, ;So far as they may still be occupied by German troops. The evacuation of the departments of Oise, the Seine and Oise, the Seine and Marne, and the Seine, as well as of the forts of Paris, will take place as soon as the German Government shall consider the re-establishment of order, both in Paris and throughout France, sufficient to assume the execution of the engagements contracted by France. In any event, this evacuation will take place on the payment of of the third five hiridred million francs. The German troops, for the purpose of safety, have the con- trol of the neutral zone lying between the line of German demarcation and the enceinte of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine. The stipulations of the treaty of the 26th of February, rela- tive to the occupation of the French territories, after the pay- ment of the tAvo thousand millions of francs, will remain in force. Any deductions, which the French Government shall have the right to make, shall not be attempted till after the payment of the first five hundred millions of francs. Art. 8. The German troops will continue to abstain from requisitions in kind and in money in the occupied territories, this obligation on their part being correlative to the obliga- tions contracted for their maintenance by the French Govern- ment; but in the event of the French Government delay- ing to execute the said obligations, notwithstanding the re- iterated reclamations of the German Government, the German troops shall have the right of themselves procuring that which may be necessary for their sustenance, by levying imposts and requisitions in the departments occupied, or even beyond them, if their resources are not sufficient. As to the alimentation of the German troops, the regulations now in force shall be maintained up to the evacuation of the forts of Paris. In virtue of the convention of Ferrieres, of March 11, 1871, the reductions indicated by tliat convention will take eff'ect after the evacuation of the forts. When the effective force of German army shall be reduced below five hundred thousand men, the reduction made below OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 91 the con- Grerman k of the ry, rela- the pay- imain in snt shall ifter the in from fitories, obliga- ^overn- delay- the re- rerman which ts and them, ations )f the es, of sntion luced )eIow that figure shall be reckoned to establish a proportional diminution in the price of maintenance of the troops paid by the French Government. Art. 9. The exceptional arrangement heretofore made in regard to the products of industry in the ceded territories, in- tended for importation into France, shall be continued for the space of six months after the 1st of March, on the conditions made with the Alsatian delegates. Art. 10. The German Government will continue to send back the prisoners of war in accordance with its understand- ing with the French Government. The French Government will return to their own homes those of these prisoners who have served out their term of enlistment. As to those who have not completed their term of service, they will place them in camps behind the Loire. It is understood that the army of Paris and Versailles, after the re-establishment of the authority of the French Govern- ment at Paris, and up to the evacuation of the forts by the German troops, shall not exceed 80,000 men. Up to the date of this evacuation the French Government shall not concen- trate any of its troops on the right bank of the Loire ; but it may provide regular garrisons to the cities situated within this zone, according to their necessities, for the maintenance of order and the public peace. In proportion as the evacuation takes place, the chiefs of the aimy corps shall together fix upon a neutral zone between the armies of the two nations. Twenty thousand prisoners will be sent without delay to Lyons, on the condition that they shall be forwarded immediately after their organization to Algeria, to be employed in that colony. Art. 11. The treaties of commerce with the different States of Germany having been annulled by the war, the French Government and the German Government will take for the basis of their commercial relations, reciprocal obligations on the footing of the most favored nations. There are comprised under this rule the rights of entrance and clearance, transit, customs formalities, the admission and the treatment of the subjects of the two nations, as well as of their agents. Meanwhile there will be excepted from the rule aforesaid the favors which either of the contracting parties by treaties of commerce has accorded or may accord to any other States 92 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; than those which follow : Enghmd, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Eussia. Treaties of navigation, as well as the convention relative to the international service of rail- roads in their connection with customs, and the convention for the reciprocal guarantee of property in works of literature and art, will be continued in force. Nevertheless the French Government reserves to itself the power to levy duties of tonnage and the flag, upon all Ger- man ships and their cargoes, under the reservation that these duties shall not be higher than those which they charge upon the ships and cargoes of the aforementioned nations. Art. 12. All Germans expelled from Franco will retain the full and entire enjoyment of all the property which they have acquired in France. Those Germans who have obtained the authorization required by the French laws for their domicile in France will be restored to all their rights, and may in con- sequence establish their domicile upon French soil. The delay stipulated by French laws in obtaining natura- lization M'ill be considered as not being interrupted by the state of war, in the case of those persons who may avail themselves of the privilege before mentioned of returning to France, after a delay of six months after the exchange of rati- fications of this treaty, and the time passed between their ex- pulsion and their return to French soil will be reckoned as if they had never ceased to reside in France. The conditions already stated will apply in perfect reciprocity to all French subjects residing or desiring to reside in Germany. Art. 13. German ships which were condemned by prize courts previous to March 2nd, 1871, will be considered as de- finitively condemned. Those which had not been condemned at the date above indicated will be restored, with their cargoes, if these are still in existence. If the restitution of ship and cargo is no longer possible, their value, fixed according to the price of sale, will bo returned to their owners. Art. 14. Each of the two contracting parties will continue upon its own soil the labors undertaken for the canalization of the Moselle. The common interests of the parties separated from the two departments of the Meurthe and the Moselle will be liquidated. Art. 15. The high parties contracting engage mutually to extend to their respective subjects such measures as they shall judge desirable to adopt in favor of those of their people who, in consequence of the events of the war, have been unable to arrive tion of Art recipro of the Art mutua of this negotii Art Natior Frencl Majest fort af Inl ed the OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 93 Iierlands, atioii, as ceofrail- ntion for iture and tself the all Ger- at these •ge upon tain the ey have ined the micile in in con- natura- ►ted by- ay avail rning to of rati- heir ex- led as if editions French y prize [ as de- lemned argoes, lip and to the ntinue tion of arated e will lily to ' shall ho, in ble to I arrive at their homes in season for the protection or preserva- tion of their rights. Art. 16. The two governments, French and German, engage reciprocally to cause to be respected and preserved the graves of the soldiers buried on their respective soils. Art. 17. The regulation of minor points, upon which, a mutual understanding ought to be established in consequence of this and the preliminary treaty, will be the object of ulterior negotiations, which will take place at Frankfort. Art. 18. The ratifications of the present treaty by the National Assembly and the chief of the executive power of the French Republic on the one side, and on the other by his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, will be, exchanged at Frank- fort after a delay of ten days, or less if possible. In faith of which the respective plenipotentiaries have affix- ed their signatures and the seals of their arms. Done at Frankfort, the tenth of May, 1871. Jules Favre. Von Bismark. pouyer-quertier. Arnim. C. DE Goulard. Additional Articles. Art. 1. § 1st. At the time fixed for the exchange of ratifi- cations of the present treaty, the French Government will T;se its right of redemption of the concession granted to the Com- pany of the Eastern Railway. The German Government will assume all the rights which the French Government would have acquired by the redemption of the concessions in that which concerns the railways situated in the ceded territory, whether completed or in progress. § 2nd. There will be comprised in this concession : 1. All the lands appertaining U .le said Company, whatever their situation, and also termini and station-houses, sheds, work- shops, warehouses, look-outs, etc. 2. All the real estate which belongs to these, and also bar- riers, fences, sidings, switches, turn-tables, water-tanks, hydrau- lic cranes, fixed machines, etc., etc. 3. All combustible materials and moveables of all kinds, furniture of stations, tools of workshops and termini, etc., etc. L. S.l L. S.' L. s." L. s.' L. s.' 94 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; 4. The sums due to the Company of the Eastern Railway, in the way of subsidies granted by corporations or individuals resident in the ceded territories. § 3rd. There will be excluded from this cession the rolling stock. The German Government will give up that portion of the rolling stock, with its accessories, which may be found at that time in the possession of the French Government. § 4th. The French Government engages, as towards the Ger- man Empire, to discharge the railways ceded, as well as their dependencies, from all claims which third parties might bring against them, to -wit, the claims of bondholders. It also en- gages to substitute itself for the German Government, should the case occur, in relation to all demands which may be brought against the German Government by the creditors of the rail- ways in question. § 5th. The French Government will assume the satisfaction of all demands which the Eastern Railway Company may raise against the German Government or its attorneys, in regard to the employment of the said railway, and the use of the objects indicated in the second paragraph, as well as to the rolling stock. The German Government will communicate to the French Government, at its request, all the documents and information which may aid in ascertaining the facts on which the demands above mentioned may be based. § 6th. The German Government will pay to the French Government for the cession of the proprietary rights indicated in paragraphs 1 and 2, and in the way of an equivalent for the guarantee made by the French Government in paragraph 4, the sum of three hundred and twenty-five millions (325,000,000) of francs. They will deduct this sum from the war indemnity stipulated in Article 7. § 7lh. Having seen the situation which has served aa the basis of the convention concluded between the Eastern Railway Company and the Royal Grand Ducal Society of the Railway "William Luxembourg, under date of June 6, 1857, and January 21, 1868, and that concluded between the Govern- ment of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the societies of the Railways William Luxembourg and .the French East, under date of December 5, 1868, and which have been modified es- sentially, so that they are not applicable to the state of things created by the stipulations contained in the first paragraph, the OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 95 I Railway, idividuals le rolling portion of I found at t. the Ger- as their ;ht bring also en- ft, should brought the rail- tisfaction nay raise •egard to e objects e rolling e French brmation demands French ndicated t for the 3h 4, the )00,000) ipulated I as the Eastern of the 5, 1857, JoA'ern- eties of , under Sed es- things ph, the German Government declares itself ready to assume the rights and charges resulting from these conventions for the Eastern Railway Company. In case the French Government should obtain the control, either by repurchase of the concession to the Eastern Railway Company, or by a special agreement, of the rights of this society, in virtue of the conventions above indicated, it en- gages to yield gratuitously, after a delay of six weeks, its rights in it to the German Government. In case the said substitution shall not be effected, the French Government will only relinquish the concessions for the lines of railway appertaining to the Eastern Company and situated in French territory, on the express condition that the party to whom it is conceded shall not work the lines of railway situated in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Art. 2. The German Government offers two millions of francs for the rights and properties which the Eastern Railway Company possess in that part of its system of railway situated in Swiss territory, from the frontier to Basle, if the French Government will gain its consent to a delay of a month. Art. 3. The cession of territory around Belfort, offered by tho German Government in article 1st of the present treaty, in exchange for the rectification of frontier demanded west of Thionville, will be augmented by the following territories and villages : Rougemont, Leval, Petite Fontaine, Ramagny, F^lon, La Chapelle-sous-Rougeraont, Angeot, Vauthier-Mont, La Riviere, La Grange, Reppe, Fontaine Frais, Foussemagne, Cunelifere, Montreux Chateau, Bretagne, Chavanues-les-Grands, Chavanatte, and Suarce. The route from Giromagny to Remiremont, passing in a bal- loon from Alsace, remains to France throughout its whole ex- tent, and will serve for a boundary, inasmuch as it is situated outside of the Canton of Giromagny. Done at Frankfort, May 10, 1871. (Signed) Jules Favre. Pouyer-Quertier. De Goulard. Von Bismark. Arnim. This treaty was ratified, not without considerable, ur- gency on the part of M. Thiers, by the Assembly on the 96 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; 17th of May, 505 voting for it, and oiily 11 against it. It was ratified on the part of the German Emjreror en the 19th. The financial condition of France would be alarming to most nations ; but the buoyancy and hopefulness of the French will perhaps enable them to struggle along successfully with it. The state of the case is about as follows : — The debt, pvevious to the war, was, in round num- bers $3,000,000,000 M. Thiers states the cost of the Franco-German War at 600,000,000 This is -ndependent of local losses and requisitions, and ransoms of cities and towns, which was nearly double this, the indemnity required from Paris alone being $200,000,000, and the destruction of property being enormous . . 1, 200,000,000 The expense of the insurrection in Paris to the Versailles Government was 87,200,000 And the Commune itself spent about 25,000,000 The loss of property, public and private, by the incendiary tires and the other destructive acts of the Commune, all of which must be re- placed BO far as possible, was more than 100,000,000 Add the indemnity to Germany 1,000,000,000 $6,012,200,000 The deficit for the year 1870-71 was, including the suppression of the Paris insurrection, 2,OG7,000,000 francs, equal to $413,400,000, and part of this was met by a loan from the Bank of France. The burden of taxation is so severe, that there is dan- ger that it may be escaped by an almost wholesale emigra- tion. Yet among the French people the credit of the State is good. A subscription loan was voted by the Assembly to raise the money to pay the first instalment of the in- demnity to Germany, and though the reports were not full at the date of our writing (July 1), it was certain that $1,000,000,000 had been subscribed, the poor, and even servants, offering their little hoards, and large sums being fi 1 fainst it. eror en [larming ilness of lie along WO, 000 ,000,000 ,000,000 ,200,000 ,000,000 ,000,000 ,000,000 ^,000 ng the francs, t by a s dan- nigra- State Jmbly fie in- 'e not srtain even being OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 97 taken by German ba- kers. The loan, it should be stated, was offered at 82 per cent. If this spirit continues, the burden, though heavy, may not prove ruinous ; but France is certainly under very heavy bonds to keep the peace. On the 2nd of July, 1871, an election was held through- out France to choose 1 12 members of the National As- sembly, to fill existing vacancies. The election was of great importance, as the permanency of the Republican Government, now in existence, depended largely on the political complexion of the new members. To the sur- prise of most, the members elected were eighty-six Mode- rate Republicans (supporters of M. Thiers), thirteen Radi- cals, who would generally support his measures, two Legitimists, three Orleanists, and one Bonapartist. The Triumphal Entry into Berlin. The final treaty ratified, and the larger part of the German troops withdrawn from France, there was a strong desire throughout Germany to commemorate, by a grand festal day, the victories of the German arms. The Government willingly responded to the demands of the people, and it was determined to have the triumphal pro- cession at Berlin, and on the same occasion to unveil the equestrian statue of Frederick William III. (father of the Emperor), which had long been in process of erection, but was now completed. The 16th of June was the day fixed upon for the festal occasion ; and as it would have been too tedious and altogether iir, octicable to have the great mass of the army there, it v v '^cided to have only representative troops take part ' oue procession. The first division of the Emperor's Guards held the first place on the right, and were present in full ranks ; on the left was a combined battalion of the King's Grenadiers, the arm of the service to which the Emperor belonged, and which he commanded before he came to the throne. The representatives of these regiments, and of the bands of music connected with them, numbered 1,062 men. The second division consisted of the comftiTiec? 6atta- E£ »8 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE; of the German army, representing by a single sub- ordinate officer or soldier, each infantry regiment of that grand army. They numbered six hundred and eighty- eight men, and bore with them eighty-one standards, eagles, and banners ca[)tured from the B'rench. On their left was a combined sqii'idron of cavalry, one hundred and thirty representatives of the entire regular cavalry force of the German army, and forming a most brilliant array. These were followed by a combined battery — six bat- teries of artillery — representing the whole artillery force of the army, with one hundred and thirteen men, and these in turn by the representatives of the train, the en- gineers, pontoniers, commissaries, purveyors, etc., as well as the medical and sanitary departments, the chaplains, etc., sixty-three men in all. A deputation from the marines followed. To each division there was attached a guard either of infantry or cavalry. Commanding these divisions were the great generals of the war, the Prince Augustus of Wiirtemberg, the Counts of Brandenburg, Generals ManteufFel, Von Pape, Dannenberg, Aivensleben, TUmpling, Von Goeben, etc. The Triumphal Way for this occasion was the noble Unter den Linden, into which the procession, entering by the gate of Halle, came. As the forty-five thousand troops forming the procession approached the gate, the Emperor, his staff, and cortege rode along the lines to review them. The civic dignitaries of Berlin, under the gigantic equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, waited to wel- come the troops. Field-Marshal von Wrangel and other superannuated officers led the procession. The fighting staff, led by Blumenthal, chief of the staff of the Crown Prince, followed. Then came the military governors, succeeded by corps commanders, and other commanders of tlie armies. Next came Prince Bismarck, Count Moltke, and llerr von Roon, who were received with tempestuous cheering. They were followed by the Em- peror William, the Crown Prince on a chestnut horse, Prince Frederick Charles on a bay horse, and most of the other German princes in glittering uniforms. fgle sub- of that eighty- tndarda, >n their fiundred cavalry ')rilliant iix bat- \ry force en, and the en- as well aplains, t>m the aelied a g these Prince en burg, isleben, for this ich the cession Jortege igantic wel- other jhtinsr ^rowij mors, nders ^ount with Em- lorse, f the OR, THE RED REBELLION OF 1871. 99 With steady tramp came the stalwart infantry guard. Drums might beat, and the music swell in might}' volumes, but the tremendous cheering prevented their sound from being heard. Thus, amid the waving of handkcrcluefs and clai)ping of hands and loud vocifera- tions of the populace, the long anaconda-shaped mass of fighting men entered the city. On passing through the gate the Emperor halted and received an address of con- gratulation from a bevy of young ladies of Berlin, and kissed the speaker, Friiulein Bltisar. At the head of Unter den Linded he received an address from the burgomaster of the city, who was accompanied by the magistrates. The procession passed along Unter den Linden under the symbols of victory and between the captured caniion (more than two thousand in number), flanked by a sea of human beings rising in billows to the tops of the houses. The procession passed the Palace, the University, and the Opera House, to a .icre the statue of Blucher stands in bronze, where the members of the Imperial Diet were also assembled. Here the Emperor wheeled his horse around, and with the royal princes, generals, and mem- bers of the staff on either side, the troops marched past in review. The squadron of horsemen mad*^ a gallanii show. From the terraces of tlie Imperial Castle royal ladies smiled and showered greetings on the conquerors. The appearance of the men was superb, and the enthu- siasm of the great masses of spectators, as chey passed by, was unbounded. Each regiment as it entered the Pariser Platz, where the crowd was the gi-eatest, was cheered with unfailing enthusiasm. Some of the regiments, well known to the Berliners and others, which had particular- ly distinguished themselves during the campaign, received special ovations, the people breaking into their ranks, crowning them witli wreaths, and overwhelming them with flowers. The troops formed three sides of a square in the Lust- Garden, around the veiled statue of William III. In front of the fighting men stood the musicians and trum- peters in three ranks. Fronting the Palace was the 100 PARIS UNDER THE COMMUNE. standard-bearers, with the captured trophies from the hall and museum. Behind all were the full-medalled veterans, invalids, old warriors, yeom^jn of the palace, and royal gendarmes. The seats fronting on the Palace were packed with the officers and guards of the garrison, and around the statue gradually collected a dense grouo of Ministers, Councillors of State, municipal officers^ and clergymen. The Emperor and suite and the Princes entered the square, and took positions under the awning between the fountains. The troops presented arms, and the bearers of the trophies laid them at the foot of the statue amid the loud and prolonged roll of the drums, while the cathedral choir burst into a hymn of praise, and the Chaplain-General, standing on the steps of the monument, afterwards offered a short prayer. Prince Bismarck then approached the Emperor, and asked leave to unveil the statue. The Emperor bowed, and Bismarck moved his hand, when the canvas fell from the statue, while the drums rolled, trumpets blared, and the standards of the guards were lowered toward the statue. The troops presented arms and cheered load- ly, and a salute was fired of 101 guns, the church bells broke into an instantaneous ringing, while out of the tur- moil the national air resolved itself. The Emperor, helmet in hand, then approached his father's -statue and walked slowly around it. Then, standing at the foot of the statue he addressed the vast audience, closing with these words — •• This monument, which was projected in a time of profound peace, now becomes the memorial of one of the most brilliant, though bloodiest of modem wars. May the peace so dearly achieved be a lasting one !" Congratulatory despatches were received from all the Oerman cities, and Vienna, through its German citizens, gave utterance to its rejoicings over a united and victori- ous Germany. 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