THE PLACE VENDOME AND LA ROQUETTE.
THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE COMMUNE.
FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.
II.
I shall not pass abruptly from my first account, drawn up at the end of March, respecting the tragedy of the Place Vendôme, to that written at the end of May, concerning the invasion of the Madeleine, my detention at the Préfecture de Police and at Mazas, and the transcendent crimes of the Commune which I witnessed at La Roquette.
What was the opinion of the few politicians left in Paris respecting the strange events they witnessed, the accomplices and auxiliaries of the Commune, and the degree of responsibility the national and international element would incur in its follies and crimes?
We must render this justice to the victorious insurgents of the eighteenth of March—that the power of dissimulation was the weakest of their traits and the least of their cares. If they aimed at imitating Carnot, Danton, and Robespierre, they made no pretensions of rivalling Richelieu, Mazarin, and Talleyrand. With a moderate degree of coolness, curiosity, and discernment, it was easy to gain access to their larder, and ascertain the ingredients of the viands to be served up to us each day. They had too slight a dash of moral sense to be preoccupied with questions of honor and propriety. The absoluteness of their aims made them completely insensible to delicacy of means and diffidence as to appearances. Therefore, the politicians who had not
fled before the heroes of the Internationale did not waste their time. If they were nearly deprived of action, they could, at least, be observant, communicate the result of their impressions, and acquire a reasonable conviction respecting the operation of the revolutionary engine, with its numerous springs and mysterious propelling forces, not revealed by the press of the Commune, and therefore escaping the attention of the vulgar.
I have already protested against the weakness, blindness, or connivance of the republican mayors and deputies of Paris, who, immediately after the massacres of the Place Vendôme, became reconciled to the agents of the central committee, disbanded and dispersed the battalions of the national guard still faithful to the cause of order, and gave Paris up to an association of adventurers and outlaws, some of unknown origin, others notorious for their conflicts with the laws of their own countries, and all for their savage hatred of every social institution.
Instead of subsequently acknowledging their weakness or error, the majority of the radical republicans continued their campaign against the national assembly with a persistence and hypocrisy that cannot be sufficiently stigmatized. To preserve the republic, they emboldened and strengthened the Commune, thus sacrificing to their political idol the peace, prosperity, honor, and existence
of their country. The Commune did not conceal its affection for such auxiliaries, but its caresses were to some of a more serious and compromising nature.
Formerly, the most ultra never dreamed of giving up their patriotism. It was reserved for the members of the Commune to divest themselves of this old prejudice of all nations. They vehemently demanded, during the siege of Paris by the Prussians, the most extreme measures—a general sortie, “des battailles torrentielles,” and fighting to the last. When conspiracy made them masters of Paris, their violence and ferocity against the Prussians changed to obsequious devotedness and civilities of the most amicable nature. Their dishonest protestations were displayed in the columns of the official journal of the Commune with a coolness that makes one blush. The delegate of foreign affairs treated the Prussians, who had just lacerated and humiliated France, and bombarded its capital, as if they were our most faithful allies, and were sacrificing themselves heroically for our safety.
The generals of the Commune, who had been imprisoned some weeks before by the government of the national assembly as Prussian spies and agents, made no change in their patriotic course. The delegate of war, General Trochu, recalled at the tribune, “is making a series of rigorous arrests, the object of which is to assure to the enemy the freedom the pending negotiations confer on them.”
The politicians and chemists of the Commune proved they had been in a good school by borrowing two ideas of M. de Bismarck and M. de Moltke, the very names of which now inspire horror—the system of hostages and the use of petroleum. To ensure the entire payment of the exorbitant requisitions on the invaded
provinces, and somewhat avenge the limited enthusiasm manifested by the humiliated and suffering inhabitants, the Prussians retained the most notable individuals as hostages, and sent them to the prisons of Germany. Citizens Ferré and Raoul Rigault found this system too ingenious and convenient not to be adopted. They took as hostages, and imprisoned them at Mazas and La Roquette, the priests and laymen who, according to the opinion of these servile imitators, had been more devoted to social and national interests than to those of anarchy and demagogism.
Fourteen months ago, a peculiar dictionary was discovered in the headquarters of the Internationale, in which was a list of such words as nitro-glycerine and picrate of potassium, and a recipe for sulphurate of carbon, and the chlorate and prussiate of potassium. At the end of the recipes were these words, significant of the uses to which they were to be applied: “To throw from the windows: to be thrown into the gutters.” If the most formidable of recipes is not to be found there, it is because the citizens of the Commune had not yet learned in the school of Prussian engineers the art of destroying houses and monuments by means of petroleum.
In continuing the account of the horrible deeds of the Commune, I find consolation as a Frenchman in the thought that the murderers and incendiaries of Paris denied not only their God, but their country, and that they were members not only of a criminal, but a foreign league.
I.
THE CLOSING OF THE MADELEINE.
In following with serious attention the various evolutions of the Commune,
we are struck by the contrast between its beginning and its end. Its first essays were rather grotesque than frightful. The statesmen most preoccupied about the quicksands on which it threatened to cast society and the nation did not at first foresee the crimes that are without a name, which made its end one of the most sinister pages in human history. The reason is easily understood. Once masters of Paris, the charlatans and rogues that composed the Commune hoped to become the rulers of France. They saw themselves already at the head of a social revolution, and, encouraged by their unexpected success in the seductive cause of pretended renovation, they set to work in earnest. Hence the deluge of strange and incoherent decrees that became a dead letter, and only served to amuse the careless and frivolous Parisian.
But when the generals of the Commune made an audacious effort to seize Versailles and open communication with their numerous agents in the populous centres of the provinces, they were overwhelmed by the army they thought disorganized or won over to their cause, and all their plans were overthrown. The attempts to excite an insurrection in the large cities failed. The Commune could expect nothing more from the intervention of the departments: its rule was restricted to Paris, and the days of its power were numbered. Then projects of hatred and vengeance succeeded those of social renovation. The monkeys of the Hôtel de Ville gave place to tigers. The prophets and apostles of the Commune lost their sang-froid. The foul Felix Pyat exhausted himself in atrocious invectives, and the fiendish Delescluze evidently preferred to blow up Paris rather than give it up to France.
While the emissaries of the radical
republicans knowingly deceived France and all Europe respecting the condition of Paris, and were circulating their deceitful and imprudent sophisms, dictated by their admiration for the Commune and their hatred of the national assembly, what was the language of foreign journals that cared for nothing about these internal struggles but exactness and impartiality? The correspondent of the Times was not satisfied with comparing Paris to an infernal caldron, in which seethed all human passions, but thus depicted the armed forces of the Commune: “Besides the old and the young, excited by the phraseology of the first revolution, still novel to them, all the villains in Paris are under arms. I have never seen, even in London, so sinister a collection of faces. These men always seem more or less intoxicated. They have not, perhaps, ceased to be so since the eighteenth of March.” Such is the spectacle in the streets and public places: that of the forts and ramparts is of a still more expressive character: “Man is there only a ferocious animal, everywhere scenting blood. We hardly recognize him, and no longer comprehend him.”
The parish service I directed at the Madeleine after the arrest of M. Deguerry encountered but few difficulties. The Commune only made some insignificant requisitions in a civil manner. The qualification of “citizen director of the church of the Madeleine,” given me in the most solemn manner, enlivened me for an instant in the midst of my cares and griefs.
The success of the Versailles army, in giving joy to the respectable people still remaining at Paris, was a source of danger to them. The Commune concentrated, or rather gave up, its civil and military power
into the hands of the committee of public safety and the central committee. On Wednesday, the seventeenth of May, in going to administer the last sacraments to the daughter of a concierge in the Rue de la Victoire, I found the ninth arrondissement hemmed in by the insurgents, who were making frequent arrests. Thanks to one of the most ultra journals of the Commune that I pretended to be reading very attentively, I passed through their inquisitorial ranks unimpeded.
On the eighteenth, which was Ascension day, the church of St. Augustine was closed, and one of the vicars and the organist were imprisoned. All the offices of the day were celebrated at the Madeleine, attended by a numerous and very devout congregation; but, so far from yielding to any illusion about the fate that awaited me, I begged Dr. B. de L——, a parishioner of the Madeleine, to enable me after vespers to see M. Jacquemin, one of the physicians of the prison of Mazas. There was every reason to believe I should soon require his kind services. I was already acquainted with M. de Beauvais, the second physician at Mazas, whose courageous devotedness I was subsequently to experience, and who had already been so thoughtful as to give me news of the curé of the Madeleine and of the Archbishop of Paris. After my interview with Dr. Jacquemin, I felt some embarrassment about returning to my residence. The Rue de la Ville-l’Evêque was filled with an armed band of the national guards. The house of the Sisters of Charity, opposite the Presbytère, was guarded by two sentinels. The sisters had been expelled, and the girls’ school confided to some citoyennes, who, according to the unruly tongues of the quarter, had been replaced at the
prison of St. Lazare by the Sisters of Picpus, who were accused of a series of crimes, each one more extraordinary than the rest. I bought, as on the previous day, one of the ultra journals of the Commune, and, armed with this new kind of a safe-conduct, I took a roundabout way to the Rue la Ville-l’Evêque, in order to avoid the national guards as much as possible. Once their protection would have been eagerly sought against a robber or assassin, but since the reign of the Commune respectable people feared and fled from them as the worst of evil-doers. And the new military organization will doubtless have to undergo a radical transformation, for it will be difficult for it to rise above the moral discredit into which it has fallen.
Some moments after, a Polish priest, who had given himself up with indefatigable zeal to the service of the ambulances, notified me that an order had been signed to close the churches and arrest the priests still in Paris. I went to see one of my devoted confrères, M. de Bretagne, and consult with him about the means of preserving the holy eucharist from profanation. The insurgents had already thrown away or carried off in their cartridge-boxes the sacred elements in some of the churches. At this very time the church of St. Philippe-du-Roule was entered by the insurgents, and for want of priests they arrested two employees who were guarding the church. The Madeleine of the eighth arrondissement was the only church that was still open.
Although, after the arrest of M. Deguerry, a part of the valuables of the church had been carried to a safe place, I employed the first moments of Friday, the nineteenth, in confiding the remainder to some women of the working-classes. I only
left in the church a few valuable objects and several hundred francs. The agents of the Commune had a singular longing for money, and when they could not obtain some bank-bills or gold in their expeditions, the places invaded or the persons arrested had to suffer for such a financial disappointment.
At half-past three, the sacristy door burst open. A tall young man, clad à la Robespierre, with a broad red mantle that half-covered him, advanced at the head of a knot of confederates armed with revolvers, and exclaimed in a loud tone: “The church of the Madeleine is closed by order of the committee of public safety.” I was at that moment supplying the unfortunate people whom the régime of the Commune had deprived of work and bread. I had on my choir robes in addition to my ordinary ecclesiastical costume. The inmates of the sacristy were greatly excited. Some who were waiting to go to confession fled. Only one, the wife of an old prefect of the empire, bravely remained to witness this singular spectacle. I approached the judicial agent, and asked to examine the official decree and see if it was authentic. While I was reading it, I saw in his hands two other decrees of the committee of public safety, one prescribing my arrest and the other the suppression of some newspapers that had not conformed to the opinions of the Commune. I thought the signature was that of Ranvier, the mayor of Belleville, one of the most influential members of the Commune and of the committee of public safety. He was an old bankrupt wine-dealer, who had several times been amenable to the laws, and, like all social outlaws, swore an implacable hatred to society. He acquired great popularity in the clubs, after the fourth of September, by advocating
social war, as in the last months of the empire he had advocated the claims of absolute liberty! It was by virtue of this absolute liberty that he had just signed the three decrees, that aimed so many brutal blows at religious, civil, and political liberty.
“Are you the citizen director of the church of the Madeleine?” added the delegate, somewhat irritated at the inspection of the warrant, which seemed to him rather impertinent.
I would willingly have replied like Sganarelle, “Yes and no, according to your wish,” but unfortunately, instead of living any longer in the Paris of Molière, we lived in a city of folly and crime.
“You know perfectly well that the curé of the Madeleine was arrested six weeks ago. It is I who am for the present in his place.” I had not finished these words before he took the second warrant, and exclaimed in thundering tones: “By virtue of a decree of the committee of public safety, the citizen director of the church of the Madeleine is arrested.” The murderers who escorted him, and who belonged to the battalion of the Vengeurs de Flourens, rushed upon me, holding their revolvers against my throat and chest, and bestowing on me a series of names, the most decent of which were “bandit, canaille, crapule, assassin!” One of them, whose stupid ferocity can only be attributed to drunkenness, cried, while endeavoring to adjust his arms: “It is you, vile rabble, who cause the patriots of Paris to be assassinated by the wretches at Versailles: the priests are the murderers of the people: they should all be shot.” I had received these miserable men with politeness and a sentiment of resignation. Their low insults made me flush with indignation and decide to confront them.
“I am not accustomed to hear such language,” said I to their leader.
“If you continue to treat me in this way, I shall seat myself without another word, and force alone shall tear me from this sanctuary.”
He made a sign to his followers to moderate their civic indignation, but without being heeded. I now sought to lead them into a discussion, hoping to appease them and preserve the church from devastation by making them incapable of justifying their acts and outrages. For two hours—hours that seemed ages—I was obliged, under the greatest peril, to defend myself as a man and a priest against these emissaries, who were as ridiculous as they were odious. I will relate the principal points in this interchange of observations.
I first asked why I was arrested. At this question the delegate of the committee of public safety replied by a torrent of accusations and maledictions against the “miserable quarter of the Madeleine, the most hostile in Paris to the régime of the Commune.” He was not wholly wrong in this, for at the last elections the parish of the Madeleine, which comprises about forty thousand inhabitants, did not give more than a hundred votes to the candidates of the Commune. In the eighth arrondissement, where the church is, of about nineteen thousand votes, only five hundred voted for the Communist members. He added: “You must therefore expiate your conspirations in favor of the Versailles assassins.” Here the delegate was no longer right. But it was evident that I was arrested because I was the “citizen director of the Madeleine,” and they would make me expiate the sympathy and concurrence that the parishioners of the Madeleine had the unpardonable offence to refuse the Commune. To gain more time and thus calm their fury, I spoke of political affairs. My observations
visibly disconcerted my interlocutors. The epithets, canaille, crapule, and assassin, became more and more rare, and their revolvers, at first so actively and impertinently exercised, were returned by degrees to their cases.
Another incident that might have been fatal to me served still more to disconcert them. During the last half of the reign of the Commune, the affair of the bodies found at St. Laurent, Notre Dame des Victoires, and Notre Dame de Lorette had an unfortunate effect. Disregarding the reports of the physicians and what was clearly evident, the revolutionist papers, the Journal Officiel, and the clubs exclaimed at the scandal. The most abominable crimes were imputed to the clergy, against whom a diabolical persecution was excited by extravagant accounts and vile pictures. In vain were these extravagances met by decisive reasons: the reasons themselves became new subjects of crimination and invectives which gave me great concern.
The vaults of the Madeleine were at this epoch filled with bodies. During the siege of Paris by the Prussians, the bodies of several generals and foreigners of distinction had been deposited there till they could be carried to their distant family tombs. I had for several days dwelt on the explanation I could give respecting these bodies so as to silence these furious madmen, but had found none. The time had come when I needed it.
“It is in this miserable parish of the Madeleine,” exclaimed the delegate of the Commune with a smile of contempt and hatred, “that we shall discover the infamy of the priests. I will bet,” continued he, turning toward his agent, “that we shall find here more horrible things than at St. Laurent and Notre Dame
des Victoires. Citizens, let us go down into the vaults!”
The ray of light that I had sought for in vain the three previous weeks all at once beamed into my mind, I found the reason I needed. Though in the power of the dangerous agents of the committee of public safety, I blessed God for his protection.
“I have two observations to make to you,” I replied. “The first is that you will find in the vaults of the Madeleine many more corpses than in the other churches....”
I can still see the delegate laughing with fiendish satisfaction at these words till he nearly fell backwards. “I told you, citizens, that there was more infamy in this church than anywhere else!”
“The second observation, sir, concerns you personally, and from a motive of charity I think it a duty to draw your attention to it. I warn you that several of these bodies belong to illustrious families in Spain, Italy, England, and America, and, if you are rash enough to disturb them, it is with these foreign powers, and not with me, you will have to deal.”
In his place I should have endeavored to dissimulate my embarrassment by doubting this assertion, and requesting to be assured of the fact. But he was not constrained in the least. He waved his hand with a triumphant air, and, as if it were I who proposed to violate the tombs, he exclaimed in the most sonorous manner: “Yes, yes, the Commune will protect these bodies; they shall be protected!”
After this incredible instance of foolishness and incoherency, we may stop. I will only beg pardon for mentioning one of the moral reflections made by one of the emissaries of the Commune at the commencement of this scene. I had occasion
to pronounce the name of God. “Stop,” said he to me, flourishing his revolver, “if God existed and should descend here, it is he I would shoot first!”
It was half-past five. My situation became less critical. These men, at first so ferocious, now treated me with politeness. The most brutal seemed almost ashamed of having insulted me. I was able to request the national guards appointed to watch over the Madeleine not to allow anything to be removed or desecrated. I also begged that the faithful employees of the church might have the liberty of returning home. The delegate charged to arrest me could no longer deceive himself. He became almost affable. I will not mention his name. He sufficiently dishonored the family from which he sprang by his deeds. A week after, by a coincidence worthy of note, he directed from the Madeleine the fight on the Boulevard Malesherbes. More strongly resisted than he had expected, he found himself with two of his agents hedged in by the Versailles troops, and sought shelter in the cellar of the church. An officer of the line shot him with a revolver, fracturing his skull. This prodigal child had become hardened in sin: unworthy of pardon and mercy, he had become incapable of repentance.
I arrived at the préfecture de police at a quarter past six, accompanied by a staff-officer of the Commune. I was as yet but little preoccupied about my situation, but when told that I was to appear at once before citizen Ferré, the préfet de police, who was regarded by men of penetration as another Robespierre, I felt that my case was extremely grave, and that, having but little to hope from man, I should confide myself to the protection of God.
II.
THE PREFECTURE DE POLICE AND MAZAS.
It is no easy matter to describe the singular scene at the préfecture de police, usually so quiet, so disciplined and solemn. This establishment had become noisier and more picturesque than a fair-ground. By way of contrast with the usual proceedings, robbers and other criminals now issued decrees of arrest and imprisonment, and they who were arrested and imprisoned were lovers of order and their duty.
The entrance was guarded by a crowd of national guardsmen, who had stopped drinking and smoking to laugh at the unfortunate victims of the hatred of the committee of public safety, who were arriving in large numbers. I had seen at the Madeleine the delegate who ordered my arrest give the staff-officer appointed to conduct me a five-franc piece to pay for the carriage. This honest man found it more suitable to leave this expense to his prisoner, and keep the five francs himself. It was a little contribution to the expenses of the war that I cheerfully paid. Like the misanthrope of Molière, I was almost glad to see the masters of Paris throw off the mask and add niggardliness to all kinds of violence. It was pleasant to be able to testify that a staff-officer of the Commune, the friend of Ferré and Raoul Rigault, the confidential agent of the committee of public safety, and one of the great dignitaries of the prefecture de police, committed a theft at my expense, and with an unceremoniousness that could not be found among the robbers and pickpockets of the worst quarters of the barriers.
After waiting three hours, I was
summoned before citizen Ferré, the member of the Commune delegated to the ex-préfecture de police, which signifies in common language the préfet de police. He appeared to be from twenty-six to thirty years of age. He was no longer the ten-years student and the burlesque writer for the small journals of the Latin quarter, who gave himself up to pleasure on those rare festivals when the proceeds of his pen allowed him to revel at the public balls at the crossway of the Observatory. He had exchanged his worn clothes for a more elegant suit, his old pointed hat for a cap with gold spangles. Carelessly seated in a superb arm-chair in the luxurious office where Delessert, Maupas, and Pietri had labored, he gave orders to his subordinates with the solemnity and self-sufficiency of a pasha. I am mistaken; the great pashas I saw while travelling in the East were only inferior rulers beside him; he realized with admirable precision the fantastic idea I had formed of a Chinese mandarin of the first class.
After making a salutation which he doubtless did not find proportionate to his dignity, I requested permission in respectful and sufficiently humble tones to appear as promptly as possible before the juge d’instruction. He interrupted me in a dry and haughty tone: “Be silent, citizen. You are here to listen to me, and not to talk!”
I had never met with so humiliating a reception. It is true I had never been in the presence of insolence personified. I immediately drew from my pocket a number of the Journal Officiel de la Commune which I had been carefully keeping for three days, and which contained a recent decree by virtue of which all individuals arrested should appear before the juge d’instruction within
twenty-four hours or be restored to liberty.
“I wished at first, sir,” I firmly replied, “to solicit a favor, now I claim a right. By virtue of the decree of the Commune which I am going to read to you, I demand the right to appear within twenty-four hours before a juge d’instruction.”
Our arrogant mandarin shrugged his shoulders, and smiled, as if to say, “Here is a simpleton who still believes in the decrees of the Commune!”
“Captain, conduct this citizen to prison,” was his only reply. On Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of May, at half-past seven in the evening, I noticed through the bars of my cell my mandarin transformed into a bloodthirsty tiger, crossing the court of La Roquette and giving orders for the immediate execution of the Archbishop of Paris, M. Bonjean, M. Deguerry, and their three companions.
My situation assumed a more gloomy aspect than I had anticipated. I had been arrested as one of the last hostages, and was at the mercy of a band of ruffians who were exasperated to madness by the approach of the Versailles army. I did not lose courage in my misfortunes. Convinced by the example of the staff-officer who had robbed me of five francs that I still had one means of alleviating my lot, I henceforth placed all my confidence in the infinite mercy of God, without forgetting a generous distribution of pieces of a hundred sous. I immediately slipped two into the hands of my jailer, who was profuse in his bows, and gave me an exceptional testimony of his gratitude, in his way, by shutting me up in the cell that had been occupied by M. Deguerry. I told him that, lacking everything, I must absolutely write my friends that evening, and begged him not to send my letter
through the office. As he objected, I told him I needed money, and, if I were not at once supplied, I should not be able to acknowledge, as was my practice, the kind services of the good officials with whom I had to deal. At this, what had been impossible was instantly effected.
I wrote to the Presbytère of the Madeleine for money and other effects; then I added what I considered very important, and wished not to be seen at the office, that they must not speak to any one of my arrest, or write me a single line, or, especially, take any steps for my release. To pass unperceived and confounded in the crowd of prisoners was my only chance of safety. I remained faithful to this principle to the end.
Having had no food since ten o’clock in the morning, I asked for something to eat. They told me it was too late, that the dinner was at five o’clock, and the regulations allowed nothing afterwards. The same accident occurred several times, and owing to other obstacles I was no more fortunate about sleeping. I will say, for the edification of those who wish to get an idea of the régime of the Commune, that at the end of ten days’ imprisonment I returned home, after having dined twice and slept two hours and a half. My friends declared that I looked ten years older; but, knowing the truly French elasticity of my temperament, I consoled them with the assurance that ten days of freedom would make me ten years younger, which has proved true.
During the night, prisoners were continually being brought in. Among them were some members of the national guards of the Commune, who, through insubordination and drunkenness, became my companions in captivity. They kept up a terrific
noise. Some cried as loud as they could bawl: “Vive la République! Vive la Commune!” Others thought they were at a club, and, all speaking at once, advocated in discordant tones the abolition of capital, the death of the priests, the freedom of woman, and other benefits of social revolution.
Just after midnight, a confederate officer was brought into one of the neighboring cells who was indebted to too copious libations for the eloquence of a Demosthenes and the strength of a Hercules. This patriot thought himself confronting the Prussians, among whom he made frightful carnage. “Now it is your turn, you bully of a Bismarck! Now you, William, you rascal! You shall see what a patriot and a republican can do!” Then he would throw himself on to the door of his cell, and pound and kick it. This continued till daybreak. The heroic avenger of the national honor made me forget for a time the singular insolence of Ferré, and more than once I laughed at his manly eloquence and glorious feats in battle. I took pleasure in retaining, in the midst of the extravagances and crimes of the Commune, a bitter remembrance of the crushing and humiliating proceedings of Prussia.
On Saturday morning I wrote to M. Moiré, the juge d’instruction, asking to be heard in the course of the day. At half-past three I received a reply. It was an order to Mazas. No illusion was longer possible. The advocates of legal forms must expect to be shot without form—a respect for which would doubtless have been a poor consolation in falling under the bullets of assassins, but it is well to observe that such judicial modes are unknown among the cannibals themselves. Among the prisoners who accompanied me were,
with other ecclesiastics, the Abbé Laurent Amodru, the vicar of Notre Dame des Victoires, and the Abbé de Marsy, the vicar of St. Vincent de Paul. Both came to me and manifested a sympathy that began to cheer the gloomy perspective of Mazas. M. de Marsy was full of animation, and his cordial devotedness was of more benefit to us in a moral than a material sense. And I became inseparably attached to M. l’Abbé Amodru. He was my neighbor again at La Roquette, and his encouraging example, even more than his precious religious ministrations, aided me in enduring the greatest trials in that fearful abode. I wish to give him a public testimony of my profound gratitude. We were transported in one of those cellular vehicles, the very sight of which inspires horror and disgust, and arrived at Mazas at half-past five. They kept us shut up nearly two hours in a kind of grated cage, which made me wish for one of those which contain the wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes.
Though separated from one another, we were able nevertheless to exchange some words. “It is an indignity,” exclaimed a young national guardsman, who had refused to serve the Commune, “to shut us up in this way as if we were robbers!”
“Cheer up,” replied an old man with a cultivated and sympathetic voice. “In these days, honest men are placed here, and robbers are left without.”
Exhausted with fatigue, I could neither sit down, lie down, eat, nor read. I can understand these rigorous precautions for the disciples of Cartouche, Troppman, and Dumolard. Would there have been any great social danger in shutting us up in an apartment where there was a bench? I learned afterward that the Archbishop of Paris had the same
preliminary ceremony to undergo, which almost reduced him to agony. When my turn came to go to the register’s office, I was very much exasperated, and not at all disposed to conceal my dissatisfaction; and I had begun to observe that mildness and patience only served to aggravate our troubles with the emissaries of the Commune, while a timely and vigorous protestation obtained some alleviation. The registrar, in taking a long and minute description, demanded my name—“The Abbé Lamazou, Vicar of the Madeleine.” I never failed to articulate this title distinctly. It edified some, irritated others, and proved to all that by my profession I did not necessarily belong to the family of those accused of robbery, brigandage, or assassination, for whom the prison of Mazas was intended.
Having entered the establishment, they pointed toward a door. I supposed it was my cell. By no means: it was a bath-room. As vagabonds and criminals are not always models of neatness and health, I understood the necessity of making them take a bath at their entrance into prison. I also comprehend that recourse may be had to this easy means of ascertaining if a dangerous criminal has not concealed in his clothes some weapon or some document that may compromise him. When the warden ordered me to undress in order to take a bath, I was for a moment confounded. The sight of a dirty bath-room and a smoking rag, that perhaps had just wiped the body of some foul vagrant of the barriers, quite restored my energy.
“I will not take a bath.”
“The regulations require it: you must submit to them.”
“I tell you once for all, that I will not take a bath, if you shoot me.”
“Well, in your place I would act the same,” replied the warden in a most friendly tone. “I am distressed at all that has been going on here for some time. Only, as the director of the prison is a furious partisan of the Commune, if he were aware of your resistance, he might subject you to rigorous treatment. I will close the door for a few minutes, and you will be reported as having taken your bath.”
I thanked him warmly. Some wardens of the former administration still remained at Mazas and La Roquette. They not only manifested a cordial respect for us, but rendered us the most valuable assistance. Of all the marks of sympathy that I received after my deliverance, none affected me more than the letters and calls of my old wardens of Mazas and La Roquette. Among those who came to see me was the warden of the bath-rooms at Mazas. There were then, among the hordes of the Commune, who were a disgrace to the human race, some men who honored it by their conscientiousness, their courage, and their moral dignity.
Although the day was nearly at an end, I was not at the end of my tribulations. The cell in which I was shut up seemed most objectionable. It was exceedingly cold, and, as I had been laid up with an attack of bronchitis, it might bring on inflammation of the lungs. It was on the ground, and immediately facing the interior entrance to the main part of the prison. I knew the populace might take Mazas by force and give a second edition of the days in September. I should then be one of the first at hand. Finally, and this was decisive, I had fallen into the hands of a Communist warden, who, seeing me exhausted, having had no nourishment since morning, gave no other proof of his solicitude
than examining my pockets, my books, and even my portemonnaie.
The next morning I asked to see one of the physicians of the prison. It was Dr. de Beauvais’s day, whom I had already seen at the Madeleine. As he was under the surveillance of the agents of the Commune, I made no sign of recognition. I made known to him the intolerable treatment I had received, the bad state of my health, and the physical impossibility of remaining in my cell. I added that I simply wished to inform him of my situation, but by no means to claim a favor.
He replied that, in consequence of my state of health, I had a right to change my cell. He ordered one to be given me in the first story.
The energy of my language had such an effect on the infirmarian and pharmaceutist of the prison that they hastened to manifest their sympathy. My new warden was perfect. In spite of the severity of the discipline, I could, thanks to them, obtain news of M. Deguerry, Mgr. Darboy, Mgr. Surat, and of M. Bayle, the vicar-general of Paris, who was in my neighborhood. Hitherto I could only give an idea of their trials and those of the other hostages of the Commune by relating my own, only most of them had been incarcerated seven weeks, and I only four days.
Sunday was, relatively speaking, a comfortable day. I guessed, on Monday morning, from the general sound of the tocsin, that the Versailles troops must have entered Paris. The pharmacist and wardens confirmed the supposition. “Courage,” they said to me, “perhaps in a few hours, or to-morrow at the latest, you will be free.”
I offered up my thanksgivings to God, and hailed the first dawn of light on Tuesday as the happy day
of my deliverance, and the deliverance of all my companions in captivity.
III.
LA ROQUETTE—MASSACRE OF THE HOSTAGES—FOUR DAYS OF AGONY.
A brilliant sun lighted the prison of Mazas. We were, then, about to return to Paris, from which we seemed a thousand leagues distant, though within its limits; we were to behold once more those who were dear to us, and endeavor, according to the measure of our strength, to heal the moral and material wounds made by the most shameful and odious of régimes that ever burdened a civilized people. I forgot all my fatigues, all my sadness, all my anguish, in the reawakening of hope and life. I prayed with the enthusiasm of an exile who had despaired of ever seeing his country again, and to which he was, by an unexpected event, about to be restored.
At a quarter before ten, the door of my cell was opened. A warden I did not know ordered me to collect my effects and go down. My deliverance, then, was nearer at hand than I had hoped. All my things were packed in a few minutes. I took all the money out of my purse except enough to pay for a carriage and give the driver a generous pourboire. I was too happy not to wish to make those around me happy. In descending I distributed all the money I possessed. They shut me up in one of the compartments of the prison parlor. After some minutes, they took me to the director, who asked me if I had any observations to make. “None,” said I, “unless that I am ignorant why I am brought here.”
His face, and the faces of the
agents who surrounded him, seemed very ferocious, but I knew they had been indebted to the insurrection for their places at Mazas, and must therefore be dissatisfied to see Paris restored to France and to itself. In my heart I pardoned all the ill that had been done me. Nevertheless, one thing astonished me, that I did not see Mgr. Darboy, M. Deguerry, or Père Olivaint, or any of the priests who had been transported with me from the préfecture de police to Mazas. I spied a warden I knew. I asked him where I might expect to find the curé of the Madeleine. He replied with tears in his eyes: “He left last evening with the archbishop and several other gentlemen! May God watch over you!”
I could not describe the impression made on the happiest of men by this mysterious reply and the frightened appearance of the warden. I questioned him, but he disappeared in a passage. What had happened to my companions? What was going to happen to me?... I sought an explanation to this mystery—but it was beyond my comprehension. Suddenly a word, a single word, pronounced, I know not by whom, I know not where, resounded in my ear like a thunderbolt: “La Roquette!”... To this voice from without, an interior voice instantly replied: “La Roquette, the prison of those condemned to death!”...
This frightful thunderbolt, which precipitated me into an abyss a thousand times more fearful than that from which I thought I had issued, was enough to dismay a nature more strongly tempered than mine. I was dismayed and broken down, and yet, after the poignant griefs and enervating perplexities that had overwhelmed me for two months, I had at least the advantage of knowing my certain
fate. My conscience gave me the consoling testimony that I was a victim of my fidelity to duty; my courage revived at the thought of the numerous and illustrious captives who had suffered more than I, and whose examples I only had to follow to die as a priest and a Frenchman. I cried with the royal Psalmist: “But I have put my trust in thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my God, my lot is in thy hands.” This lifting of my heart to God sufficed to give me firmness and the serenity of Christian resignation.
When they shut me up in one of the grated cages in the vestibule of Mazas, the warden charged with this painful task secretly pressed my hand, and informed me that the Archbishop of Paris, the curé of the Madeleine, and most of the other hostages had gone to La Roquette, where we were now to be taken. His pressure of my hand and the consternation of his face were more eloquent than all he could say. It was a comfort truly providential to find the Abbé Amodru again in the cage next mine. Our impressions were the same. Thanks to the signs we agreed upon when we left the préfecture de police, we could give each other absolution. We must find ourselves in the presence of death to comprehend the nothingness of all human things; there is then no longer any difficulty in praying, in repenting, in pardoning our fellow-men, and in trusting wholly in the mercy of God.
One by one the cages opened and shut with a lugubrious noise, and I was surrounded with hostages destined for La Roquette. I was surprised to find several under complete illusion respecting our situation. Some thought we were about to be restored to liberty, and others did not seem to comprehend the significance of
our being sent to La Roquette. It was not best to enlighten them yet, but I resolved to do so at a later moment. With almost certain death staring us in the face, I thought it proper, and especially more Christian, to modify my attitude. Until now I had taken an energetic stand against the agents of the Commune, and sometimes expressed my indignation. I now resolved to speak but little, to pray a great deal, to encourage those of my companions who should need it, and to arm myself with patience and meekness toward our persecutors.
The charitable young pharmacist of the prison, who, the night before, so gladly announced our approaching liberation, was stationed in a corner of the vestibule to give us a last proof of his sorrowful sympathy. This was not only a kind but a courageous act at a moment when a single smile of compassion might be regarded as treason. A week after, a young man, kneeling by the body of M. Deguerry in the lower chapel of the Madeleine, stopped me to express his joy and his grief. It was the pharmacist of Mazas.
An enormous cart, surrounded by armed national guards, awaited us in the first court. I at once bethought myself of the carts that during the Reign of Terror conveyed the victims of the committee of public safety to execution. And we too were to go in the same direction, toward the Barrière du Trône. Such coincidences could not fail to strike any one familiar with our revolutionary history. Fifteen prisoners mounted the cart, among whom I noticed M. Chevriaux, the principal of the Lycée at Vanves, who bravely wore his ribbon of the Legion of Honor; Père Bazin; M. Bacues, the director of St. Sulpice; an honest workman, and some members of the national guards,
guilty of not having sacrificed to the idol of the day. They were mostly ecclesiastics.
We were told that the reason we had not been sent to La Roquette the night before with the first hostages dispatched was that a third vehicle could not be procured. Mgr. Darboy, Mgr. Deguerry, Mgr. Surat, and M. Bonjean had suffered very much at Mazas: the prolonged severity of the prison discipline had, in particular, shaken the archbishop’s health. They had been obliged, only a few hours before his departure for La Roquette, to apply blisters to him. But they all showed themselves, by their firmness and patience, superior to their sad condition.
At the sight of M. Perny and M. Houillon, apostolic missionaries in China, whom the Commune had stupidly arrested on their way through Paris, M. Deguerry said to Mgr. Darboy: “Only think of those two Orientals coming to seek martyrdom in Paris! Is it not curious?” On the way, they had to encounter the threats and outrages of a rabid mob. Men en blouse, ragged children, and women, or rather furies, wished to stop and enter the vehicles: “A bas les chouans et les calotins!”—“Stop, we wish to cut them in pieces!”
It was revolting, monstrous, and yet something still more hideous was reserved for us. We were insulted in our turn, not by the multitude, but by the national guards who had charge of us. I could understand the threatening attitude of an over-excited mob, led away by its bad instincts and the speeches of demagogues, but I had never seen, or thought it possible, that an armed force could basely insult and threaten those whom they were officially deputed to escort to a place of punishment. I had not suspected such a degree of vileness in human nature,
and felt rather humiliated than indignant. “Ah! citizen,” said one of these tigers armed with a képi and a chassepot, “you reckon on the arrival of the Versailles assassins! Well, this morning we cut them off at the Porte d’Auteuil with our mitrailleuses: twenty thousand prisoners are in our hands. The chouans and their accomplices will have the fate they merit.” An ecclesiastic of the Faubourg St. Antoine, who had been embittered by his trials, wished to take up for the Versailles army. I tried to make him comprehend that reserve and silence were the safest and most suitable course for us.
I asked the national guardsman at my right the quarter he was from. He replied that he belonged to the battalion of Charonne. It was more and more manifest that the old suburbs of Paris ruled and kept Paris in terror. The quarters St. Martin, St. Antoine, and St. Marceau were no longer rulers of this great city, but the citoyens of Belleville, Montmartre, La Villette, Ménilmontant, Charonne, and Montrouge, that is to say, the districts that a few years ago were not a part of Paris, that had municipalities and material interests distinct from Paris, and had made a most vigorous resistance to their annexation to the city. But the head of the second empire conceived a pride in reigning over a capital containing two millions of inhabitants, and the thickly settled suburbs were violently annexed to Paris. He wished to eclipse Babylon and ancient Rome. To make his way through his capital, innumerable boulevards must be opened, bordered by sumptuous edifices. To seek the fresh air of the Bois de Boulogne, he must traverse immense avenues peopled with all the
wealthy idlers in the world, and consequently new legions of workmen were summoned from every point of the compass, who concentrated themselves like an army ranged in battle in the annexed zone.
A humble journalist, I had pointed out, as a great social danger, the tendency of the empire to separate Paris into two parts, one peopled by the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, and the other by workmen, outcasts, and the dissatisfied from the entire world. My criticisms and sad forebodings were recompensed by officious remonstrances, domiciliary visits, and the seizure of my papers. The course of the empire had, then, been fatal to France in a political point of view, since compression had only served to debase its inhabitants and organize all kinds of social conspirations; fatal in a religious point of view, for the affairs of Rome alarmed the consciences of Catholics, and the clergy, so respected in 1848, became the objects of prejudice and hatred, the bitter fruits of which we were reaping; and fatal in a military sense, for France was humbled and crushed by a foreign power.
I will declare, for the political honor of the eminent men whose opposition to the empire I shared, that at the time I thought I was about to be put to death in prison and render the Supreme Judge a strict account of my actions, far from regretting a stand that some of my friends and ecclesiastical superiors had blamed and treated as “passion politique,” everything at Mazas and La Roquette, everything in Paris and the whole of France, assured me I had not taken a wrong course; that, on the contrary, I had served the cause of religion and of my country.
TO BE CONTINUED.