What a quantity of luggage! Even those who had the good fortune of witnessing the emigration before the siege would never have supposed that there could be so much luggage in Paris. Well-to-do looking trunks with brass ornaments, black wooden boxes, hairy trunks, leathern hat-boxes, and cardboard bonnet-boxes, portmanteaux and carpet bags are piled up on vehicles of every description, of which more than ten thousand block up the roads leading to the railway stations. Everybody is wild to get away; it is whispered about that the Commune, the horrid Commune, is about to issue a decree forbidding the Parisians to quit Paris. So all prudent individuals are making off, with their bank-notes and shares in their pocket-books. I see a man I know, walking very fast, wearing a troubled expression on his face. I ask him where he is going.—“you do not know what has happened to me?” he cries. I confess I do not.—“The most extraordinary thing: I am condemned to death!”—“You!” I exclaim.—“Yes! by the Commune!”—“And wherefore?” I ask.—“Because I write on the Figaro.”—“Why, I never knew that!”—“Oh! not very often; but last year I addressed a letter to the Editor, to explain to him that my new farce called ‘My Aunt’s Garters’ had nothing at all to do with ‘My Uncle’s Braces,’ which is by somebody else. You understand that I did not want to change the title, which is rather good of its kind, so I wrote to the Figaro, and as my letter was inserted, and as the Commune condemns all the contributors.... You see ...!”—“Perfectly! Why, my dear fellow, you ought to have been off before. Of course you go to Versailles?”—“Why, yes.”—“By the railway?” I cannot help having a joke at his expense.—“Yes, of course.”—“Well, if I were you, I would not, really; the engine might blow up, or you might run into a luggage train. Such things do happen in the best of times, and I think the Commune capable of anything to get rid of so dangerous an adversary.”—“You don’t mean to say,” says the poor little, man in a tremor, “that they would go to such lengths! Well, at any rate I will travel by the road.”^[29]

A little farther up the Boulevard des Italiens I see another acquaintance. “What, still in Paris?” I say, shaking hands with him.—“I am off this evening,” he answers.—“Are you condemned to death?”—“No, but I shall be tried to-night.”—“The devil! Do you write on the Figaro!”—“No, no, it is quite a long story. Three years ago, I made the acquaintance of a charming blonde, who reciprocated my advances, and made herself highly agreeable. In a word, I was smitten. Unfortunately there was a husband in the case!”—“The devil there was!”—“He made inquiries, and found out who I was, and ...”—“And invited you to mortal combat?”—“Oh! no, he is a hosier. But from that day forth he became my most bitter enemy.”—“Very disagreeable of him, I am sure, but I do not see how the enmity of this retail dealer obliges you to quit Paris?”—“Why, you see he has a cousin who is elected a member of the Commune.”—“I understand your uneasiness; you fear the latent revenge of this unreasonable hosier.”—“I am to be tried to-night, but it is not the fear of death which makes me fly. It is worse than that. Those HÔtel de Ville people are capable of anything, and I hear they are going to make a law on divorce. I know the malignity of the lady’s husband—and I believe he is capable of getting a divorce, and forcing me to marry her!”

So, under one pretext and another, almost everyone is going away. As for me, I am like a hardened Parisian—my boots have a rooted dislike to any other pavement than that of the boulevards. Who is right, I, or those who are rushing off? Is there really danger here for those who are not ardently attached to the principles of the Commune? I try to believe not. True there have been arrests—domiciliary visits and other illegal and tyrannical acts—but I do not think it can last.^[30] May we not hope that the dangerous element in the Commune will soon be neutralised by the more intelligent portion of the Municipal Council, if, indeed, that portion exists? I cannot believe that a revolution, accomplished by one-third of the population of Paris, and tolerated by another (the remaining fraction having taken flight), can be entirely devoid of the spirit of generosity and usefulness, capable only of appropriating the funds of others, and unjustly imprisoning innocent citizens. Besides, even if the Commune, instead of trying to make us forget the bloody deeds with which it preceded its establishment, or seeking to repair the faults of which it has been guilty, on the contrary continues to commit such excesses, thus harrying to its ruin a city which has already suffered so much, even then I will not leave it. I will cling to it to the last, as a sailor who has grown to love the ship that has borne him gallantly in so many voyages, clings to the wreck of his favourite, and refuses to be saved without it.

NOTES:

[29] The following is a document which completely justifies these apprehensions:—
“30th March—The Commune of Paris—Orders from the Central Committee to the officer in command, of the battalion on guard at the station of Ouest-Ceinture.
“To stop all trains proceeding in the direction of Paris at the Ouest-Ceinture station.
“To place an energetic man night and day at this post. This man is to mount guard with a beam, which he is to throw across the rails at the arrival of each train, so as to cause it to run off the rails, if the engine-driver refuses to stop.

“HENRI, Chief of a Legion.”

[30] Vexatious measures accumulated:
The pacific M. Glais-Bizoin was arrested in a tobacconist’s shop, where he was, doubtless, lighting a reactionary cigar. He fancied at first that there had been a mistake, but he was taken before the Committee, which caused him, however, to be liberated.
M. Maris Proth, a writer in Charivari, which is certainly not a royalist journal, was arrested on the following day, and detained for a longer time.
On the same day a search was made at the house of the publisher Lacroix.]

Gambon.