John Leighton

Glorious news! I have seen Lullier again. We had lost Cluseret, lost Rossel; Delescluze does not suffice, and except for Dombrowski and La CÉcilia with his prima-donna-like name, the company of the Commune would be sadly wanting in stars. Happily! Lullier has been restored to us. What had become of him? he only wrote seven or eight letters a day to Rochefort and Maroteau, that I can find out. How did he manage to employ that indomitable activity of his, and that of his two hundred friends, who with their red Garibaldis and blue sailor trousers made him the most picturesque escort you can imagine? Was he meditating some gigantic enterprises the dictatorship that Cluseret had dreamed of and Rossel disdained, was he about to assume it for the good of the Republic? I have no idea; but whatever he has been doing, I have seen him again at the club held in the church of Saint Jacques.

General La CÉcilia.^[89]

Ha! ha! Worthless hypocrites and inquisitors, who for the last eighteen hundred years have crushed, degraded, and tortured the poor; you thought our turn was never to come, you monks, priests, and archbishops! Thanks to the Commune you now preach in the prisons of the Republic; you may confess, if you like, the spiders of your dungeons, and give the holy viaticum to the rats which play around your legs! You can no longer do any harm to patriots. No more churches, no more convents! Those who have not houses in the Champs ElysÉes shall lodge in your convents; in your churches shall be held honest assemblies, which will give the people their rights; as to their duties, that is an invention of reactionists. No more of your sermons or speeches: after Bossuet, NapolÉon Gaillard!

On entering the church of Saint Eustache yesterday, I was agreeably surprised to find the font full of tobacco instead of holy-water, and to see the altar in the distance covered with bottles and glasses. Some one informed me that was the counter. In one of the lateral chapels, a statue of the Virgin had been dressed out in the uniform of a vivandiÈre, with a pipe in her mouth. I was, however, particularly charmed with the amiable faces of the people I saw collected there. The sex to which we owe the tricoteuses was decidedly in the majority. It was quite delightful not to see any of those elegant dresses and frivolous manners, which have for so long disgraced the better half of the human race. Thank heaven! my eyes fell with rapture on the heroic rags of those ladies who do us the honour of sweeping our streets for us. Many of these female patriots were proud to bear in the centre of their faces a rubicund nose, that rivalled in colour the Communal flag on the HÔtel de Ville. Oh, glorious red nose, the distinguished sign of Republicanism! As to the men, they seemed to have been chosen among the first ranks of the new aristocracy. It was charming to note the military elegance with which their caps were slightly inclined over one ear; their faces, naturally hideous, were illuminated with the joy of freedom, and certainly the thick smoke which emanated from their pipes, must have been more agreeable as an offering, than the faint vapours of incense that used to arise from the gilded censers. “Marriage, citoyennes, is the greatest error of ancient humanity. To be married is to be a slave. Will you be slaves?”—“No, no!” cried all the female part of the audience, and the orator, a tall gaunt woman with a nose like the beak of a hawk, and a jaundice-coloured complexion, flattered by such universal applause, continued, “Marriage, therefore, cannot be tolerated any longer in a free city. It ought to be considered a crime, and suppressed by the most severe measures. Nobody has the right to sell his liberty, and thereby to set a bad example to his fellow citizens. The matrimonial state is a perpetual crime against morality. Don’t tell me that marriage may be tolerated, if you institute divorce. Divorce is only an expedient, and if I may be allowed to use the word, an Orleanist expedient!” (Thunders of applause.) “Therefore, I propose to this assembly, that it should get the Commune of Paris to modify the decree, which assures pensions to the legitimate or illegitimate companions of the National Guards, killed in the defence of our municipal rights. No half measures. We, the illegitimate companions, will no longer suffer the legitimate wives to usurp rights they no longer possess, and which they ought never to have had at all. Let the decree be modified. All for the free women, none for the slaves!”

The orator descends from the pulpit amidst the most lively congratulations. I am told by some one standing near me, that the orator is a monthly nurse, who used to be a somnambulist in her youth. But the crowd opens now to give place to a male orator, who mounts the spiral staircase, passes his hand through his hair, and darts a piercing glance on the multitude beneath. It is Citizen Lullier.

This young man has really a very agreeable physiognomy; his forehead is intelligent, his eyes pleasant. Looking on M. Lullier’s sympathetic face, one is sorry to remember his eccentricities. But what is all this noise about? What has he said? what has he done? I only heard the words “Dombrowski,” and “La CÉcilia.” Every one starts to his feet, exasperated, shouting. Several chairs are about to be flung at the orator. He is surrounded, hooted. “Down with Lullier! Long live Dombrowski!” The tumult increases. Citizen Lullier seems perfectly calm in the midst of it all, but refuses to leave the pulpit; he tries in vain to speak and explain. Two women, two amiable hags, throw themselves upon him; several men rush up also; he is taken up bodily and carried away, resisting to the utmost and shouting to the last. The people jump up on the chairs, Lullier has disappeared, and I hear him no more; what have they done with him!

What do you think of all this, gentlemen and Catholics! Do you still regret the priests and choristers who used awhile ago to preach and chant in the Parisian churches? Where is the man, who at the very sight of this new congregation, so tolerant, so intelligent, listening with such gratitude to these noble lessons of politics and morality; where is the man, who could any longer blind himself to the admirable influence of the present revolution? Innumerable are the benefits that the Paris Commune showers upon us! As I leave the church, a little vagabond walks up to the font, and taking a pinch of tobacco,—“In the name of the...!” says he, then fills his pipe; “In the name of the ...!” proceeding to strike a lucifer, adds, “In the name of the ...!”—“Confound the blasphemous rascal!” say I, giving him a good box on the ears. After having written these lines I felt inclined to erase them; on second thoughts I let them remain—they belong to history!

NOTES:

[89] A political refugee, who left his country in 1869 for Prussia, where he taught mathematics in the University of Ulm, and afterwards accepted service under Garibaldi.