John Leighton

Certainly I nursed no vain illusions. What you had done, gentlemen of the Commune, had enlightened me as to your value, and as to the purity of your intentions. Seeing you lie, steal, and kill, I had said to you, “You are liars, robbers, and murderers;” but truly, in spite of Citizen FÉlix Pyat, who is a coward, and Citizen Miot, who is a fool; in spite of MilliÈre, who shot rÉfractaires, and Philippe, whose trade shall be nameless; in spite of Dacosta, who amused himself with telling the Jesuits at the Conciergerie, “Mind, you are to be shot in an hour,” and then an hour afterwards returning to say, “I have thought about it, and it is for tomorrow;” in spite of Johannard, who executed a child of fifteen guilty of selling a suppressed newspaper; in spite of Rigault, who, chucking the son of Chaudey under the chin, laughingly said to him, “Tomorrow, little one, we shall shoot papa;” in spite of all the madmen and fools that constituted the Commune de Paris, who after being guilty of more extravagances than are necessary to get a man sent to the Madhouse of Charenton, and more crimes than are sufficient to shut him up in prison at Sainte-PÉlagie, had managed, by means of every form, of wickedness and excess, to make our beloved Paris a frightened slave, crouching to earth under their abominable tyranny; in spite of everything, I could not have dreamed that even their demoniac fury could have gone so far as to try to burn Paris, after having ruined it! Nero of the gutter! Sardanapalus drunk with vitriol! So your vanity wanted such a volcano to engulf you, and you wished to die by the light of such an auto-da-fÉ. Instead of torches around your funeral car, you wished the Tuileries, the library of the Louvre, and the Palace of the Legion of Honour burnt to ashes, the Rue Royale one vast conflagration, where the walls as they fell buried alive women and children, and the Rue de Lille vomiting fire and smoke like the crater of Vesuvius.

Palais de Justice, Partly Destroyed. Sainte Chapelle, Saved.

It has pleased you that thousands of families should be ruined, their savings scattered in the ashes of the vanished papers of the burnt MinistÈre des Finances and the Caisse des dÉpÔts. In seeing that the art-galleries of the Louvre had remained intact, only its library burnt, you must have been seized with mad rage. How! Notre Dame not yet in flames? Sainte-Chapelle not on fire? Have you no more petroleum, no more flaming torches? The cry “To Arms!” is not enough, you must shout “To Fire!” Would you consume the entire city, and make of its ruins a horrible monument to your memory?

Do not say, “We have not done this; it is the people who are working out their own revenge, and we stand for nothing, we are as gentle as lambs. Ranvier would not hurt a fly.” Away with all this pretence; were you not on the balcony of the HÔtel de Ville with your blood-red scarfs, uttering your commands? The populace, deceived and blinded, have but obeyed you. Do not all the circumstances leading to this stupendous catastrophe, reveal an elaborate and digested plan, determined long beforehand? Did we not read this notice, daily, in your official journal: “All those who have petroleum are requested immediately to declare the quantities in their possession?” Was there not a quick-match extinguished in the quarter of the Invalides that was to have communicated the flames to barrels of powder placed, long ago, in the great sewers? Yes, what has taken place you had decreed. If the disasters have not been more terrible, is it not, that, surprised at the sudden arrival of the troops, you had not the time to finish your preparations? Yes, you are the criminals! It was Eudes who gave out the petroleum to the PÉtroleuses; it was Felix Pyat who laid the train of gunpowder. It is Tridon who said: “Take care that the phials be not uncorked.” The public incendiary committee has well performed its duty! Wicked criminals! Execrable madmen! May Heaven bear me witness that my heart abhors revenge, is always inclined to pardon—but for these! What chastisement can be great enough to appease the wrath of justice! What vow of repentance could be offered up fervent enough to be received in Heaven, even at the moment when, struck down by balls, they offer their lives as expiation? Misguided humanity!

NOTES:

[107] FerrÉ, the friend of Raoul Bigault, and his colleague in the Commission of General Safety, like the latter, had inhabited the prisons for a considerable time for his political writings, seditious proposals, plots against the state, etc. He is a small man about five feet high, and very active. He signed with avidity the suppression of nearly all the journals of Paris, and the sentence of death of a great number of unfortunate prisoners, with the approbation of Raoul Bigault. He willingly undertook to announce to the Archbishop of Paris that his last hour had arrived. The following order, drawn up by him, was found on the body of an insurgent:—“Set fire to the Ministry of Finance immediately, and return here.
4 Prairial, An 79.
(Signed) TH. FERRÉ.”
See Appendix, No.10.]