Some men of the Commune — Cluseret — His opinion of Rossel — His opinion of Bergeret — What Cluseret was fighting for — Thiers and Abraham Lincoln — Raoul Rigault on horseback — ThÉophile FerrÉ — FerrÉ and Gil-PÉrÈs, the actor — The comic men of the Commune — Gambon — Jourde, one of the most valuable of the lot — His financial abilities — His endeavours to save — Jourde at Godillot's — Colonel Maxime Lisbonne — The Editor's recollections of him — General Dombrowski and General la CÉcilia — A soirÉe at the Tuileries — A gala-performance at the OpÉra Comique — The death-knell of the Commune. I have before now spoken of a young medical student in whose company I spent several evenings at a cafÉ on the Boulevard St. Michel, during the Empire. He, like myself, remained in Paris during the siege, and refused to stir at the advent of the Commune. As a matter of course, whenever we met, while the latter lasted, we rarely spoke of anything else. He sympathized, to a certain extent, with the principle, though not with the would-be expounders of it. I knew few, if any, of the leaders even by sight, though I had heard of some, such as, for instance, Jules VallÈs, in connection with their literary work. My admiration was strictly confined to those performances, and I often said so to my friend. "You are mistaken in your estimate of them," he invariably replied. "There are men of undoubted talent among them, for instance, Cluseret; but most of them are like square pegs in round holes. Come with me to-night, and you will be able to judge for yourself; for he is sure to be at the Brasserie Saint-SÉverin." I had never been to the Brasserie Saint-SÉverin, though I had paid two or three visits several years before to the cafÉ de la Renaissance opposite the Fontaine Saint-Michel, at which establishment the Commune may be said to have been hatched. It was there that, in 1866, Raoul Rigault, Longuet, the brothers Levraud, Dacosta, Genton, Protot, and a dozen more were arrested by the Commissary of Police, M. ClÉment. Save on review days I had never seen so many brilliant uniforms gathered together. As far as I can recollect, there was only one civilian in the group pointed out to me. He looked a mere skeleton, was misshapen, and one of the ugliest men I have ever met. I asked his name, and was told it was Tridon. The name was perfectly familiar to me as belonging to one of the most remarkable polemists during the late rÉgime. A little while afterwards, Cluseret came in. My friend introduced me, and we sat talking for more than two hours; and I have rarely been more interested than I was that night. Cluseret spoke English very well, for he had been in America several years, and our conversation was carried on in that language. I have already remarked that I had no intention, at that time, to jot down my recollections, still I was so impressed with what I had heard that I made some rough memoranda when I got home. They are among the papers I have preserved. Cluseret fostered no illusions as to the final upshot of the Commune. "If every man were as devoted to the cause as Kossuth and Garibaldi were to theirs, we should not be able to establish a permanent Commune; but this is by no means the case. Most of the leaders, even those who are not self-seekers, are too visionary in their aims; they will not abate one jot of their ideal. The others think of nothing but their own aggrandisement, and though many are no doubt capable to a degree, they are absolutely useless for the posts they have chosen for themselves. There are certainly exceptions; such as, for instance, Rossel. His technical knowledge is very considerable. If I had to describe him in two words, I should call him Lothario-Cromwell. For, notwithstanding his military aptitudes and his Puritan stiffness in many things, he has too many petticoats about him. In addition to this, he is overbearing and absolutely eaten up with ambition; he is a republican who despises the proletariat; he would fain imitate the axiom of NapolÉon I., 'The tools to those who can use them;' but he forgets that it will not do for a socialistic rÉgime such as we would establish, because it is exactly those that cannot use the tools who wish to be treated as if they could. If they had intelligence enough to use the tools, they would have lifted themselves out of their "For," continued Cluseret, "Bergeret especially thinks himself a heaven-born general. He shows well on horseback, because, I believe, he began life as a stable-lad: so did Michel Ney; but then, Michel Ney served his apprenticeship at fighting, while Bergeret became a compositor, a chef-de-claque, a proof-reader, and, finally, a traveller for a publishing firm. All these are, no doubt, very honourable occupations, but they are scarcely calculated to make a good general. Still, you should see him: he wears his sash as your officers wear theirs when on duty; he would like the people to mistake it for the grand-cordon of the LÉgion d'Honneur; and his staff is more numerous than that of the late Emperor. You should go and dine at the head-quarters of the military governor of Paris; I am sure you would be very welcome. Marast at the Palais-Bourbon in '48 was nothing to it. If the Commune lasts another three months there will be servants in livery, gold lace, and powder, like in your country. At present, Bergeret has to put up with attendants in faultless black. "Personally," he went on, "I am not fighting for Communism, but for Communalism, which, I need not tell you, is quite a different thing. I fail to see why Paris and Lyons should be judged incapable of managing their own municipal affairs without the interference of the State, while other great provincial centres are considered capable of doing so. The English Government does not interfere with the municipal affairs of London on the plea that it is the capital, with those of Manchester on the plea that it has inaugurated a policy of its own, any more than it interferes with those of Liverpool, Leeds, or Bristol. Your lord-lieutenants of counties are virtually decorative officials, something different from our prefects and our sub-prefects, and your Home Secretary has not a hundredth part of the power of our Minister of the Interior. We wish to go a step further than you, without, however, shirking the financial obligations imposed by a federation. What you would call imperial taxes, we are willing to pay in kind as well as money. This is one of the things we do want; what we do not want is the resuscitation of the So far Cluseret. I am not prepared to say that he was a strictly honourable man, but he was a very intelligent one, probably the most intelligent among the leaders of the Commune. At any rate, his conversation made me anxious to get a nearer sight of some of the latter, and, as they had evidently made the Brasserie Saint-SÉverin their principal resort of an evening, I returned thither several times. A few nights afterwards, I was just in time to witness the arrival of Raoul Rigault, on horseback, accompanied by a staff running by the side of his animal. The whole reminded me irresistibly of Decamp's picture, "La Patrouille Turque." The Prefect of Police was scarcely less magnificently attired than the rest of his fellow-dignitaries. His uniform, if I remember rightly, was blue with red facings, but it is impossible to say, because it was covered everywhere with gold lace. His myrmidons hustled the crowd in order to make room for their chief, and some one laughed: "Mais il n'y a rien de changÉ; c'est absolument comme sous l'Empire." For a moment Rigault sat quite still, surveying the crowd and ogling the women through his double eye-glasses. Then he alighted, and caught sight of my friend and myself standing on the threshold. "Quels sont ces citoyens?" he inquired, taking us in from top to toe, and stroking his long beard all the while. Some one told him our names, at which he made a wry face, the more that mine must have been familiar to him, seeing that a very near relative of mine, bearing the same, had been a special favourite with General Vinoy. He did not think fit to molest us; had he done so, it might have Ever since, my friend and I have been under the impression that we owed our lives to a dark, ugly little man who, at that moment, whispered something to him, and who, my friend told me, immediately afterwards, was the right hand of Raoul Rigault, ThÉophile FerrÉ. That name was also familiar to me, as it was to most Parisians, previous to the outbreak of the war, because FerrÉ was implicated in the plot against Louis-NapolÉon's life, and was tried in the early part of '70 at Blois. Every one knew how he insulted the President, how he refused to answer, and finally exclaimed, "Yes, I am an anarchist, a socialist, an atheist, and woe to you when our turn comes." He kept his word; he was a fiend, and looked one. Whenever there was anything cruel and bloodthirsty going on, he made it a point to be present. He was, though ugly, not half so ugly as Tridon, but one involuntarily recoiled from him. Curiously enough, this very ThÉophile FerrÉ, whom I then saw for the first time, had been the subject of a conversation I had with Gil-PÉrÈs, the actor of the Palais-Royal, on the 25th or 26th of March. I had known Gil-PÉrÈs from the moment he made his mark in "La Dame aux CamÉlias" as Gaudens. To my great surprise, a day or two after the proclamation of the Commune, I heard that he had been cruelly maltreated in the Rue Drouot, that he had narrowly escaped being killed. Two days later, I paid him a visit in his lodgings at Montmartre; for he had been severely, though not dangerously hurt, and was unable to leave his bed. "I am very sorry for your mishap," I said; "but what, in Heaven's name, induced you to meddle with politics?" He burst out laughing, in that peculiar laugh of his which I have never heard before or since, on or off the stage. The nearest approach to it was that of Grassot, but the latter's was like a discharge of artillery, while Gil-PÉrÈs was like that of a musketry volley. "I did not meddle with politics," he replied; "but you know how fond I am of going among crowds to study character. This day last week, I was passing along the Rue Drouot, when I saw a large group in front of the Mairie. I had left home early in the morning, I knew nothing of what was going on in my neighbourhood, so you may imagine my surprise when I heard them calmly discussing the death of "What do you mean?" I said, for I began to think that he was out of his mind. "Well, you know that during the siege I tried to do my duty as a National Guard, and in my battalion was this ThÉophile FerrÉ of whom you have already heard. A most intelligent creature, but poor as Job and ferocious to a degree. He was a study to me, and, of late, he frequently came to see me in the morning. I generally asked him to stay to breakfast, for I liked to hear him talk of the future Commune, though I had not the slightest faith in his visions. I considered him a downright lunatic. About two or three days before this outbreak, he came, one morning, looking as pale as a ghost, but evidently very much excited. Before I had time to ask him the cause of his emotion, he exclaimed, 'This time there is no mistake about it; we are the masters.' I suppose my face must have looked a perfect blank, for he proceeded to explain. 'In two days we'll hold our sittings at the HÔtel-de-Ville, and the Commune will be proclaimed. And now,' he added, 'what can I do for you, citoyen Gil-PÉrÈs? You have always been very kind to me, and I am not likely to forget it when I am at the top of the tree.' "I told him that I'd feel much obliged to him if he could induce Sardou or Dumas to write me a good part, like the latter had done before, because I wanted to be something more than a comic actor. But I saw that he was getting angry. "'Do you mean to tell me,' he almost hissed, 'that you do not want to belong to the Commune?' "'I haven't the slightest ambition that way,' I replied. 'People would only make fun of me, and they would be perfectly right.' "'Why should people make fun of you?' "'Because, because——' I stammered. "He left me no time to finish. 'Because you are a small My purpose in reporting this conversation is to show that the Commune, with all its evils, might have been prevented by the so-called government of Versailles, if its members had been a little less eager to get their snug berths comfortably settled. To return for a moment to FerrÉ and his companions, who, without exception, were sober to a degree, though many were probably fond of good cheer. The English writers, often very insufficiently informed, have generally maintained the contrary, but I know for a fact that, among the leaders of the movement, drunkenness was unknown. FerrÉ himself was among the soberest of the lot: the few evenings I saw him he drank either cold coffee or some cordial diluted with water. Nevertheless, it was he who was directly responsible for the death of Archbishop Darboy, whom he could and might have saved. In every modern tragedy there is a comic element, and in that of the Commune the comic parts were, to a certain extent, sustained by Gambon, Jourde, and a few others whom it is not necessary to mention. Gambon was one of the mildest of creatures, and somewhat of a "communard malgrÉ lui." He would have willingly "left the settlement of all these vexed questions to moral force," and he proposed once or twice a mission to Versailles to that effect. He was about fifty, and a fine specimen of a robust, healthy farmer. His love of "peaceful settlement" arose from an experiment he had made in that way during the Empire, though it is very doubtful whether strictly logical reasoners would have looked upon it as "peaceful." Gambon had been a magistrate and a member of the National Assembly during the Second Republic, and voted with the conservative side. The advent of the Empire made an end of his parliamentary career, and, in order to mark his disapproval of the Coup-d'État and its sequel, Gambon refused to pay his taxes. The authorities seized one of his cows, and were proceeding to sell it by auction, when Gambon, accompanied by a good many of his former constituents, appeared on the scene. "This cow," he shouts, "has been stolen from me by the Imperial fisc, and Jourde was one of two "financial delegates" of the Commune. He had been a superior employÉ at the Bank of France, and was considered an authority on financial affairs. It was he to whom the Marquis de Ploeuc, the governor of the Bank, had handed the first million for the use of the Commune. My friend, the doctor, had known him in his former capacity, and often invited him to our table, to which invitation the "paymaster-general" always eagerly responded. One evening, the conversation turned upon the events which had preceded the request for funds. "On the second day of the Commune," he said, "the want of money began to be horribly felt. Eudes proposed that I should go and fetch some from the Bank of France. To be perfectly candid, I did not care about it. Had I been a soldier, I might have invaded the Bank at the head of a regiment; but, to go and ask my former chief for a million or so as a matter of course, was a different thing, and I had not the moral courage. The director of the Bank of France is very little short of a god to his subordinates, and, in spite of our boasted 'Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality,' there is no nation so ready to bow down before its governors as the French. Seeing that I hung back, Eudes proposed to go himself, and did, refusing to take Jourde was by no means a fool or a braggart; he was a very good administrator, and exceedingly conscientious. Like most men who have had the constant handling of important sums of money, he was absolutely indifferent to it; and I feel certain that he did not feather his own nest during the two months he had the chance. But he vainly endeavoured to impress upon the others the necessity for economy. Every now and then he tore his red hair and beard at the waste going on at the HÔtel-de-Ville, where, in the beginning, Assi was keeping open table. Not that they were feasting, but every one who had a mind could sit down, and, though the sum charged by the steward was moderate, two francs for breakfast and two francs fifty centimes for dinner, the number of self-invited guests increased day by day, and the paymaster-general was at his wits' end to keep pace with the expenses. The Central-Committee put a stop to this indiscriminate hospitality by simply arresting Assi, whom I never saw. When the Commune decreed the demolition of the VendÔme column, Jourde was still more angry and in despair. He was, first of all, opposed to its destruction, from a patriotic and common-sense point of view: secondly, he objected to the waste of money that destruction entailed; he endeavoured to cut the Gordian knot by stopping the workmen's pay. Though three or four of his fellow "delegates" were absolutely of the same opinion, the rest sent him a polite intimation that if the necessary funds were not disbursed voluntarily they would send for them, and take the opportunity, at the same time, to "put him against the wall," and make an end of him. That night, Courbet, the painter, who had been the prime mover in this work of destruction, came to the Brasserie Saint-SÉverin from the Brasserie Andler, hard by, to taste the sweets of his victory. His friend, Chaudey, Jourde did not wear a uniform; at any rate, I never saw him in one. I happened to remark upon it one evening, and he then gave me a partial explanation why the others did wear them in so ostentatious a manner. "It is really done to please the National Guards; they mistrust those who remain 'in mufti;' they attribute their reluctance to don the uniform to the fear of being compromised, to the wish to escape unnoticed if things should go wrong. I grant you that all this does not warrant the uniforms most of my colleagues do wear, but to the Latin races the wisdom of Solomon lies in his magnificence, and they trace the elevation of Joseph to its primary cause—his coat of many colours. I am not only 'delegate of finances' and paymaster-general, but head cook and bottle-washer in all that concerns monetary matters to the Central-Committee. I have very few clerks to assist me in my work, and fewer still upon whose honesty I can depend; consequently, I am compelled to do a good deal of drudgery myself. Yesterday I received the fortnightly accounts of Godillot, "'I am positive there is no mistake, monsieur,' he said, 'though I may tell you at once that I made the same remark when I passed the accounts; the number of uniforms seemed to me inordinately large; mais il faut se rendre À l'Évidence, and I ticketed off every item by its corresponding voucher. Still I felt that there is a terrible waste somewhere, and said so to the head of the retail department. "If you will remain "I did remain on that ground-floor for one hour," Jourde went on, "and, during that time, no fewer than eight young fellows came in with vouchers for complete uniforms of lieutenants or captains of the staff. Most of them looked to me as if they had never handled a sword or rifle in their lives—yardsticks seemed more in their line; and the airs they gave themselves positively disgusted me; but I do not want another reminder of the Central-Committee about my cheeseparing, so I'll let things take their course. Look, here is a sample of how we deck ourselves out quand nous allons en guerre." I looked in the direction pointed out to me, and beheld a somewhat dark individual with lank, black hair, of ordinary height, or a little below perhaps, dressed in a most extraordinary costume. He wore a blue Zouave jacket, large baggy crimson breeches tucked into a pair of quasi-hessian boots, a crimson sash, and a black sombrero hat with a red feather. A long cavalry sabre completed the costume. Upon the whole, he carried himself well, though there was a kind of swashbuckler air about him which smacked of the stage. I was not mistaken; the scent or the smell of the footlights was over it all. "This is Colonel Maxime Lisbonne, an actor by profession, who has taken to soldiering with a vengeance," said Jourde. "There is no doubt about his bravery, but he is as fit to be a colonel as I am to be a general. It does not seem to strike my colleagues that, in no matter what profession, one has to serve an apprenticeship, and, most of all, in the science of soldiering; Maxime Lisbonne said he would be a colonel, so they, without more ado, made him one. Physically, Dombrowski was almost the counterpart of La CÉcilia, with the exception of the glasses and the small-pox. But while the Frenchman—for CÉcilia was a Frenchman notwithstanding his Italian name—was modest though critical, the Pole was a braggart, though by no means devoid of courage. Up to the very end, he sent in reports of his victories, all of which were purely imaginary. Even as late Among my papers I find a torn programme of a concert at the Tuileries during the Commune. It reads as follows:— Commune de Paris, PALAIS DES TUILERIES Servant pour LA PREMIÈRE FOIS À une oeuvre patriotique GRAND CONCERT Au Profit des Veuves et Orphelins de la RÉpublique. Sous le Patronage de la Commune et du Citoyen Dr. Rousselle. Tout porteur de billet pris À l'avance pourra sans rÉtribution, visiter le Palais des Tuileries. The rest is missing, but I remember that among the artists who gave their services were Mesdames Agar and Bordas; MM. Coquelin cadet, and Francis ThomÉ, the pianist. I did not take my ticket beforehand, consequently was not entitled to a stroll through the Palace previous to the concert. When I entered the Salle des MarÉchaux, where the concert was to take place, I felt thankful that the trial had been spared to me, and I mentally ejaculated a wish that I might never see that glorious apartment under similar circumstances. The traces of neglect were too painful to behold, though I am bound to say that I could detect no proofs of wilful damage. My wish was gratified with a vengeance. A little more than a month afterwards, the building was in I did not stay long; I heard Madame Agar, dressed in deep mourning, declaim "the Marseillaise," and M. ThomÉ execute a fantasia on well-known operatic airs. Some of the reserved seats were occupied by the minor dignitaries of the Commune, but the greater part of the place was filled by working men and their spouses and the very petite bourgeoisie. The latter seemed to be in doubt whether to enjoy themselves or not; but the former were very vociferous, and had evidently made up their minds that the Commune was the best of all possible rÉgimes, seeing that it enabled them to listen to a concert in a palace for a mere trifle. "That's equality, as I understand it, monsieur," said a workman in a very clean blouse to me, at the same time making room for me on the seat next to him. He and his companion beguiled the time between the first and second number on the programme by sucking barley-sugar. About a month later—on Wednesday, May 17th, but I will not be certain—I was present at the first gala-performance organized by the Commune, although the Versailles troops were within gunshot of the fortifications. This time I had taken a ticket beforehand. The performance was to take place at the OpÉra-Comique, and long before the appointed hour the Boulevards and the streets adjoining the theatre were crowded with idlers, anxious to watch the arrival of the bigwigs under whose immediate patronage the entertainment was to be given. The papers had been full of it for days and days beforehand; the posters on the walls had set forth its many attractions. In accordance with traditional usage on such occasions, the programme was a miscellaneous one, and the wags did not fail to remark that the Commune ought to have struck out something original instead of blindly following the precedents of tyrants; but in reality the Commune had no choice. Few of the principal artists of the subsidized theatres were available, and there was an evident reluctance to co-operate among some of those who were; hence it was decided to give fragments of such operas or comedies, calculated to stimulate still further the patriotic and republican sentiments with which the majority of the spectators were credited. There had been less difficulty in recruiting the orchestra, and a very fair band was got together. A great many invitations had been issued; All the entrances had been thrown open, and around every one there was a considerable gathering, almost exclusively composed of National Guards in uniform, and women of the working classes, who enthusiastically cheered each known personage on his arrival. The latter were too magnificent for words, the clanking sabres, resplendent uniforms, and waving plumes only paled in contrast with the toilettes of their female companions who hung proudly on their arms. For them, at any rate, "le jour de gloire Était arrivÉ." The crowd, especially the fairer portion of it, was decidedly enthusiastic, perhaps somewhat too enthusiastic, in their ultra-cordial greetings and recognition of the ladies, so suddenly promoted in the social scale. MÉlanie and Clarisse would have been satisfied with a less literal interpretation of "Auld Lang Syne," as they stepped out of the carriages, the horses of which belied the boast that at the end of the siege there were 30,000 serviceable animals of that kind left. The performance had been timed for half-past seven; at half-past eight, the principal box set apart for the chiefs of the new rÉgime was still empty. As I have already said, disquieting rumours had been afloat for the last few days with regard to the approach of the Versailles troops, the guns had been thundering all day long, and, what was worse, for the last forty-eight hours no "startling victory" had been announced either on the walls of Paris or in the papers. Some of the "great men," among the audience in the stalls and dress-circle, and easily to be distinguished from the ruck of ordinary mortals, professed themselves unable to supply authentic information, but as the performance had not been countermanded, they suggested that things were not so bad as they looked. The theatre was crammed from floor to ceiling, and the din was something terrible. The heat was oppressive; luckily the gas was burning low because the companies were as yet unable to provide a full supply. There were few people out of uniform in either stalls or dress-circle, but the upper parts were occupied by blouses with a fair sprinkling of cloth coats. The women seemed to me to make the most infernal noise. The two stage-boxes were still empty; in the others there At about a quarter to nine the doors of the stage-boxes were flung back, and the guests of the evening appeared. But alas, they were not the chief members of the Commune, only the secondary characters. It is doubtful, though, whether the former could have been more magnificently attired than were the latter. Their uniforms were positively hidden beneath the gold lace. Immediately, the band struck up the inevitable "Marseillaise;" the spectators in the upper galleries joined in the chorus; the building shook to its foundations, and, amidst the terrible din, one could distinctly hear the crowds on the Boulevards re-echoing the strains. The occupants of the state boxes gave the signal for the applause, then the curtain rose, and Mdlle. Agar, in peplos and cothurnus, recited the strophes once more. When the curtain fell, the audience rushed to the foyer or out into the open air; at any rate, the former was not inconveniently crowded. Among those strolling up and down I noticed the lady of the diamonds, on the arm of a rather common-looking individual in a gorgeous uniform. I believe I caught sight of the American Minister, but I will not be certain. This time the curtain rose upon an act of a comedy; the spectators, however, did not seem to be vastly interested; they were evidently waiting for the duo to be sung by Madame Ugalde and a tenor whose name I do not remember. He was, I heard, an amateur of great promise. Scarcely had Madame Ugalde uttered her first notes, when a bugler of the franc-tireurs of the Commune stepped in front of an empty box and sounded the charge. The effect was startling. The audience rose to a man, and rushed to the exits. In less than five minutes the building was empty. I had let the human avalanche pass by. When I came outside I was told that it was a false alarm, or, rather, a practical THE END. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. |