THE PLACE VENDOME AND LA ROQUETTE.
THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE COMMUNE.
FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.
It would be difficult to find in the history of human revolutions a spectacle at once as burlesque and terrible as that just presented by the too celebrated Commune of Paris. It began with a long trail of blood at the entrance of the Place Vendôme, and signalized its wretched end by the horrible massacre of La Roquette. A witness of these two bloody scenes, I shall depict them with but few comments, but with perfect exactness of detail. At the risk of being incomplete, I shall only relate what I saw. In speaking of the confinement at Mazas and the massacres at La Roquette, I shall barely add some incidents, the truth of which was vouched for by the companions of my cruel captivity. Comments would only weaken the impressiveness of these facts. I leave my readers to draw their own conclusions from a moral and social point of view, only remarking that the first account, relating to the events that transpired in the Place Vendôme during the latter half of March, was drawn up a few days after they occurred.
Though the first essays of the Commune were not marked by the nameless horrors that drew upon its end the reprobation of all civilized nations, I have thought it right not to alter my first account. Perhaps some observations may not appear sufficiently severe, and others not wholly justified by the events. I give them to the public as they were
noted down at the time. By comparing the account written at the end of March with that of the end of May, an exact idea may be formed—I was going to say a faithful photograph may be had—of the revolutionary condition of Paris at the beginning and the end of the Commune. We may thereby be enabled to judge of the development, during this short interval, of a brutal revolution—the implacable enemy of all institutions, human and divine.
In spite of the mingled emotions of horror and disgust I feel in recalling the men and the deeds I speak of, I may be permitted to manifest two feelings that prevail over all others in the depths of my soul—a redoubling of constant sympathy for the unhappy city of Paris, only rendered dearer by its misfortunes, and an ardent gratitude for the infinite mercy of God, which preserved me, contrary to all human expectation, from the bullets of a herd of assassins more shameless and lower than their predecessors of 1793.
I.
THE PLACE VENDÔME ON THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTY-FIRST OF MARCH.
I passed a great part of Tuesday, the twenty-first of March, in discussing with some political friends the intolerable situation of things at Paris, effected by the triumphal mob of Saturday, the eighteenth. We all
deplored and denounced that unjustifiable attempt at the national sovereignty which suddenly drew on us the danger of Prussian occupation of the city and the horrors of civil war—perhaps both of these scourges. Our indignation was profound. One blamed the government for having too readily abandoned Paris to the danger of insurrection; another maintained that by establishing itself at Versailles with the national assembly, and defending the environs of Paris, it saved France. Another declaimed with bitterness, sometimes against the culpable indifference of the national guards, which left everything to be done, and sometimes against the audacity and wickedness of the leaders of the mob that, without any pretext, was dragging France, all bleeding from the wounds incurred in war, into a bottomless abyss. We all felt there was something beneath all this: it was the shameful defection of a part of the troops of the line which had rendered such cruel misfortunes possible. If the army were to countenance the insurrection, that would decide the fate of France—Galliæ finis!
It was easier to deplore the gravity of the evil than to point out a practical means of remedying it. There was great diversity of opinion respecting the latter. Should recourse be had to material force or to a spirit of persuasion and conciliation? The use of material force might inflame the rebellious party still more, and cover Paris with blood and ruins. The success of moral influence was hardly possible with insurgents who began by assassinating Generals Lecomte and Clément Thomas, and deliberately advocated a social revolution.
At three o’clock, a well-known inhabitant of the Place Vendôme, who had already distinguished himself by
his courage in the insurrection of June, 1848, in which he was one of the first wounded, came to announce to me the formal intention of the national guards of his battalion to retake the place from the insurgents come from the faubourgs. He thought that by a bold stroke they might effect their object without a shot. It is sure that the friends of order wished by all means to avoid the shedding of blood. Some moments after, one of my friends, who bears one of the great political names of France, and is destined to render his country eminent service, after the example of his family, because he is at once a man of superior intelligence and disinterestedness, very liberal and very religious, announced to me that the national guards of his arrondissement were animated with the best intentions, and comprehended the urgent necessity of maintaining order in the midst of the inextricable chaos into which we had fallen. He was himself a powerful example of the resolution and self-sacrifice inspired by an enlightened and generous patriotism. A retired officer from the time of his marriage, he had organized, at the beginning of the war, the national guards of that section of the country in which his estate was. Later, when the army of General Chanzy made his evolution from the Loire toward the Sarthe, he resumed his military life, and took an active part as captain of the staff in the operations and struggles of the army of the west. The very day he returned to civil life, he took the cars to spend some days at Paris, where several members of his family awaited him. He arrived there on the eve of the eighteenth of March. Instead of returning to the country, like so many other Parisians, he enrolled his name the following day as a simple member of the national guards, resolved
to recede before no danger or fatigue, and to serve the cause of order at Paris as he had been serving the cause of the national honor in his province. We should not despair of the future prosperity of a country in which there is still a great number of examples of similar devotedness. He did not think of returning to the country till the day after the mayors and deputies of Paris, doubtless unwittingly serving the interests of demagogism much more than the demagogues themselves, thought they were making a conciliatory move by yielding to their wishes, inviting the Parisian electors to illegal elections, disbanding the battalions of the national guard, wholly devoted to the cause of order, and thus destroying the sole material and moral support that still remained to the better portion of Paris. These mayors and deputies, whose imprudence and want of foresight no human tongue could express, declared they had saved everything, and they had lost everything. They ascended to the Capitol as in triumph, and they had led us to the Tarpeian Rock. They pretended to avoid the shedding of blood, and chose the surest means of shedding it in torrents. My friend agreed with me that next to the hideous stand of the battalions of the line that had entered into a pact with the mob, nothing could be more disastrous than the inexplicable compromise entered into by these mayors and deputies. There was not a day on which I did not apply to them the dilemma that I formerly applied to the government of the emperor in the guêt-à-pens of Castelfidardo: “Either dupes or accomplices.”[41]
At five o’clock, an old deputy who had been brutally excluded from the legislative body in the favorable time of official candidature, because he would not renounce his opinions of freedom and control, gave me some interesting details respecting the pacific manifestations that had just met with an unhoped-for success. A great number of citizens, of all ages and of every rank, had traversed the principal quarters unarmed, crying, “Vive l’Ordre! Vive la France! Vive l’Assemblée Nationale!” They everywhere meet with cordial sympathy. The battalion that guarded the Bourse presented arms as they passed. The battalions of the faubourgs, that held the Place Vendôme, endeavored in vain to prevent their passing, and the person who from the balcony of the staff wished to address them in order to justify the insurrectionary movement, was interrupted by enthusiastic acclamations in favor of order and the national assembly.
The central committee at the Hôtel de Ville understood so well the bearing of this manifestation that they hastened to take energetic measures to remain masters of the Place Vendôme, and not to allow in it any new manifestations from the friends of order. They sent thither several battalions. Travel was forbidden there and in the neighboring streets; the approaches were rigorously guarded: four pieces of cannon, with cannoneers ready to fire, were set up in the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione.
At nine o’clock, the wife of one of
the employees of the minister of justice came to beg me to carry to her brother the final consolations of religion. I had seen him some days previous, and his end seemed near. It was with the greatest difficulty she had left the Ministère and the Place Vendôme, and she feared it would be impossible for me to return with her. But, unwilling her brother should die without the sacraments of the church, she succeeded by her prayers and tears in reaching me, and was willing to brave everything again in order to enable me to go to him.
I assured her I would unite my efforts to hers, and, though conscious that the ecclesiastical costume had, since the downfall of the empire, been disagreeable to the Parisian revolutionists, I added that we should succeed. I set out that very instant with one of the employees of the church.
The Place and the Boulevard de la Madeleine were quiet and nearly deserted. The Rue Neuve-des-Capucines was livelier. At the entrance of the Place Vendôme, I found myself in presence of the national guards, who did not much resemble those belonging to that quarter. They were very numerous. Their language was in the main rather noisy than threatening. The words “citizen” and “republic” were constantly on their lips. They allowed no one to stop, and showed themselves severely rigid towards the passers-by that wished to contemplate a spectacle so new in this pacific and wealthy quarter.
I had not yet arrived at the angle of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines and the Place Vendôme, when an outpost of the national guards, arms in hand, cried to me in somewhat rough tone: “Citizen, no one is allowed to stop!” It was the very place and the time to stop to accomplish my holy mission. I explained briefly,
but politely, the motive that led me to the Place Vendôme: it was a question of giving a dying person the last succor of religion; and, to leave no doubt of the truth of my statement, I pointed out the lady, bathed in tears, at my side, and the employee of the Madeleine. “It is impossible, citizen,” was uttered on all sides, “the consigne has forbidden it.” I asked to see one of the officers, for I saw plainly I should be obliged to parley, but, in view of a duty so grave and urgent, I resolved to use every means. A sergeant presented himself with that important and somewhat ridiculous air which carries the conviction among the lower ranks that public affairs could not be sustained without him. I explained my wish. “You cannot pass.” I mildly insisted. “The consigne has forbidden it, and to-day he is very rigorous.” I asked the reason of this exceptional severity. “It is, you see, citizen, because the bourgeoisie of this quarter have been making a racket to-day, and this must not be repeated.”
This observation, one of the most characteristic I ever heard in my life, was made with a seriousness which would have dispelled mine at another time less distressing to my heart as a priest and a Frenchman.
Convinced that nothing was to be effected with this sergeant, who was more self-sufficient than wicked, I asked to see the captain. He came to me with a dry and lofty air that the mildness of my language and doubtless the sad motive also that led me to the Place Vendôme speedily modified. After refusing me, and listening to renewed entreaties, he gave me permission to enter the Place Vendôme, on condition that I should remain all night. That was the extent of the right allowed him by the
consigne. Tired of constantly hearing of a consigne who, according to the graphic avowal of the sergeant, was only influenced by his dissatisfaction at the racket that the bourgeoisie of the quarter had been making that day, I replied that I could not accept the condition, that I was very sorry not to be able to understand a refusal which affected a dying person and a family in affliction, and that I would leave the public to judge this fact, since there was no other authority to appeal to.
These words, uttered with an emotion but little restrained, changed the mind of the captain, who vainly sought plausible pretexts to oppose me. He appeared, besides, to be greatly preoccupied with the command he exercised: others were constantly coming to him for orders, and it was evident from his embarrassed manner that he had been more accustomed to receive than to give orders. He ordered one of the national guards to accompany me to the house of the minister of justice, not to lose sight of me for an instant, and to bring me back to the entrance of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines. Notwithstanding the pacific character of my costume, I was treated like one of the suspicious bourgeoisie of the quarter, who could not be pardoned for having made a racket during the day. The insurgents had strengthened their position in the Place Vendôme, to prevent henceforth the manifestations of honest people. They appeared resolved to allow it to be entered only with extreme circumspection, and by persons who resided here.
I proceeded, accompanied by my national guardsman, who was armed.
The Place was poorly lighted. We had scarcely left behind us the group of national guards that barricaded the entrance, than he addressed me
these words in a confused but very respectful tone: “How sad all this is, monsieur l’abbé, and how wrong not to arrange everything so every one can remain at home and quietly attend to his business!” I evidently had with me one of the too numerous workmen of Paris who love order and peace, but who dare not, or who do not know how to, resist the bold ringleaders who take them from their work and lead them astray. The fear of not speaking with sufficient calmness and caution, while I was at once afflicted and exasperated, induced me to be reserved. I merely replied that I shared his sentiments, and that very probably reason would prevail in the end.
Every moment we met armed groups. As far as I could judge, from rapid glances over the Place, some were discussing with vivacity the events of the day: others, like mercenaries, without dignity and without conscience, appeared to have no other care than to smoke and drink. The insurgents I met did not conceal the suprise that the presence of a priest in their midst during the night caused them. Those who thought I had been arrested, and was on my way to the post of the état-major, where I had seen more than one spy or Prussian led during the siege, did not deprive themselves of the pleasure of aiming a joke or an insult at me. Those who thought I was going to fulfil the duties of the holy ministry saluted me with respect. They were far from resembling in their equipments and deportment the national guards of the quarter of St. Roch or the Madeleine, but when I compared them with those I found the next day in the same place, after the criminal and bloody fusillade upon citizens only guilty of calmly expressing their love of order and their devotedness to the national assembly,
they were comparatively disciplined and civilized.
The ante-room of the minister of justice’s residence was guarded by insurgents, who allowed no one to enter or go out without particular scrutiny. I quickly made known to the leader the object of my mission. He listened to me with evident curiosity and self-sufficiency, and, after affecting to consider, he motioned me to proceed. The court was occupied by another post that watched the entrance to the offices and hôtel of the minister, and the avenue that led through the gardens to the Rue de Luxembourg. No light was to be seen in the apartments. A profound silence reigned everywhere. No other employee remained at the minister’s than the brother-in-law of the young man to whom I was carrying the last consolations of religion. He received them with more calmness and serenity than might have been expected, humanly speaking, of a young man of twenty-two years of age, when one looks forward to a long life; but what a double grief for a family to find themselves at once in the presence of death and a band of insurgents!
A quarter of an hour after, I left the ministère with my national guard, who treated me with a respect more and more deferential. The lady who had gone to the Rue de la Ville-l’Evêque to find me was also struck with his excellent appearance, and commissioned me to give him a small sum of money. I begged him, as delicately as possible, to accept it in aid of his family, who might be in need for want of employment. He seemed very much touched by this generous attention, and, as much to satisfy my curiosity as to prevent the difficulty of expressing his gratitude at a time when he was officially charged with guarding me,
I concluded to address him some questions.
“From what quarter of Paris are you?”
“I am from Bercy, monsieur l’abbé. They sounded the rappel this evening. I set out with my company. They told us we were appointed to a very important patriotic mission. Arrived at the Place Vendôme, we were ordered to guard it rigorously.”
“But why so rigorous a guard in a quarter where there are only very excellent people, who love order and peace above all things?”
“Ma foi, monsieur l’abbé, I know nothing at all about it. Bercy is perfectly quiet. This quarter is no less so. I do not understand it. They ordered us to come, and we had to obey.”
“But did you not at Bercy have confidence in M. Thiers as well as we? Do you prefer Assi, Flourens, Blanqui, and Felix Pyat to him?”
“Our employers have always spoken very highly of him. The good workmen call him a great patriot, and not a mere pretender like so many others. He promised us liberty and work, and would certainly have kept his word. So we have committed a great piece of foolishness in allowing him to go to Versailles. God grant it may not be for a long time!”
“But what becomes of your work all this time? Do you think this state of thing favorable to the interests of the workman?”
“Ah, monsieur l’abbé, work is a thing but little thought of now, and yet the longer we delay resuming it, the more unfortunate we are. There are among us so many sluggards and madcaps!...”
My excellent guard was explaining to me in his own way how the bad workmen, who wished in 1848 to obtain the right to labor, had, since the
siege of Paris, wished to retain the right of doing nothing, when I found myself at the spot whence we had set out. Immediately resuming his most official and patronizing air—“Citizen,” said he to the patrol that guarded the entrance to the Place Vendôme, “let this citizen pass!”
I had promised the family of the poor sick man to visit him again in two or three days. Complicated as the situation of Paris was, and in particular that of the Place Vendôme, treated and occupied as a place taken by storm, in defiance of all right and all decency, by the national guards of the faubourgs in revolt against the laws, I was far from anticipating that I should hasten the next day to the same place in the midst of all the horrors of civil war, to carry the consolations of religion to the honorable inhabitants of Paris, smitten down without any provocation, without any motive, by the bullets of their fellow-citizens.
II.
THE PLACE VENDÔME ON WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY-SECOND OF MARCH.
The next day, the twenty-second of March—henceforth one of the saddest dates in the history of Paris—I was on duty at the church of the Madeleine—that is to say, appointed to receive, from six o’clock in the morning till ten at night, those persons who sought the religious or charitable ministry of the priest, and to afford them all the satisfaction within the limits of possibility.
As the pacific manifestations on the eve had produced a favorable moral effect, it was proposed to renew them during the day, as I learned from some of my friends, known to be devoted to the cause of liberty
and order, so strangely compromised. The aim they had in view and the means to which they had recourse were not only incontestably legal, but also in conformity with the interests and dignity of all the inhabitants of Paris. Therefore, far from concealing them, they openly discussed them, hoping they would be understood and appreciated as they deserved to be. They desired to promote, by means of persuasion and conciliation, respect for order and the laws, disregarded by the bold ringleaders and a part of the national guards led astray. In the midst of ruins accumulated by an unfortunate war, they wished to declare the assembly of the representatives of the country in session at Versailles to be the sole power charged to watch over our destinies, that we should rally around them and await their solution of the inextricable difficulties of the moment. The inhabitants of the Place Vendôme and the neighboring streets, wounded, and not without reason, at seeing their quarter invaded and occupied by the national guards from other quarters, who prevented travel, terrified their families, and paralyzed all commercial transactions, proposed to claim their rights, as inhabitants of the first arrondissement, to become the police of their own quarter. They violated no right, they were not lacking any propriety, in begging the citizens of the arrondissements of Montmartre and Belleville, who were installed there without any notice, to leave it to their own care. Not only are those who live in the Place Vendôme Parisians as well as the inhabitants of Belleville and Montmartre, but it was evident to those who knew Paris that four-fifths of the national guards that held possession of the Place Vendôme on the twenty-first, and especially on the twenty-second of March, had never seen Paris three
years previously. Paris is rather the theatre than the author of the revolutions that take place there.
Revolutionists and rioters belong to all parts of France and Europe, and in disastrous times they hasten to Paris, hoping to catch fish in the troubled waters.
I have studied all the large cities of Europe from a political and social point of view. For reasons too extended to be enumerated here, not one is like Paris, the rendezvous of all suspicious and corrupt characters—of the unfortunate who are at variance with the laws of their own country, and of men of no class who are ready to become revolutionary agents—and these are the worst of all. After the siege it had endured, the state of agitation and prostration resulting from so great a struggle, so much suffering, and so many deceptions, could not fail to attract the leading charlatans and rogues of all parts of Europe. It is not to the honor of the popular class at Paris, the most frivolous and the most credulous in the world, that these new-comers met with a success beyond their expectations, for they became in a moment our masters. Thanks to this cosmopolitan invasion, and also to the departure of too large a number of genuine Parisians who feared the Prussian bombardment less than the mob of international agents, Paris, the brilliant centre of elegance, art, and of intellect, as well as a financial and political centre, became, according to the expressive comparison of the Times, an infernal caldron, which terrified all Europe, and in which mingled and seethed all human passions.
The party that was playing its part at Paris was not Parisian or French, but exclusively social. It was a flock of birds of prey, a herd of roaming wild beasts, who had hastened from
the four cardinal points to fall on the capital of France, which a five months’ siege had weakened. The International agents wished to found the Commune, and, to realize the idea of the Commune, which especially clings to locality, home, the fireside, the steeple, the associations and traditions of domestic interest, they summoned to Paris all their boon companions of the Old and the New World, and forced the real inhabitants of Paris to take refuge in the provinces or abroad. It was a revolting cynicism, pregnant with disaster.
At half-past two, some persons, filled with terror and indignation, entered the Madeleine to inform me of a sinister catastrophe. The agents of the pacific manifestation, who had proposed on the eve to traverse the principal streets of the city, crying, Vive la République! Vive l’Ordre! Vive l’Assemblée Nationale! had become the victims of a horrible ambuscade. After passing through the Rue de la Paix, a large number of respected citizens of Paris, unarmed, and influenced only by the patriotic desire of securing, by the most inoffensive means and for the benefit of all good citizens, the triumph of equity, law, and a spirit of conciliation, had been met at the entrance of the Place Vendôme by a murderous fusillade from the insurgent national guards. The reports of the number of the killed and wounded varied, but it must have been considerable.
At the same time, I saw from the outer colonnade of the Madeleine the shops hastily shut up and people fleeing in disorder from the direction of the Place Vendôme. Every face expressed wrath and consternation. Some national guards of the eighth arrondissement hastened to rally around the church to watch over the public security.
I made inquiries about the condition
of the wounded, and was told they were being carried home, and that several belonged to the parish of the Madeleine, which includes the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendôme. As I did not know the address of the victims, and knew from an experience of ten years that the members of the parish had the Christian habit of summoning the priest to the aid of the dying, I waited with emotion for them to have recourse to my ministry.
At four o’clock no one had come, and I was ignorant of the name and address of any of the wounded. At half-past four there was a report that some of the killed and wounded remained on the Place Vendôme, and that there were detained there some of those engaged in the pacific manifestation, among others, the father of a young man from the Rue Tronchet, whose skull had been fractured by a ball, and whom the insurgents refused to deliver up. Other details were added of such a revolting character that I could scarcely credit them. I ordered the Madeleine to be closed—took with me all that was necessary for the administration of the sacraments, and went by way of the boulevards towards the Place Vendôme, resolved, as on the preceding night, to recede before no obstacle to my reaching the victims who might need religious aid. The Boulevard de la Madeleine, generally so lively and brilliant, was almost deserted. The inhabitants were inquiring in a low tone, and in terror, about the incidents of the bloody drama that had just taken place in the neighborhood. Some soldiers only, who had joined the insurgents four days previously, were passing along with a careless and almost satisfied air. If these unhappy men were aware of the frightful event that then preoccupied all Paris,
they only retained a glimmering of moral sense. Already unworthy to bear the name of a soldier, they would no longer merit to bear that of man.
At the entrance of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines, which leads from the Boulevard de la Madeleine to the Place Vendôme, I was stopped by a group of people, who from a distance were regarding with mingled sentiments of curiosity and terror the patrols of the mob scattered along the street. “Do not go any further, monsieur l’abbé,” cried several persons to me in trembling voices, more charitable than brave. “If you go among those wretches, you are lost! We have seen them fire upon inoffensive men who were bearing away the wounded at the entrance of the Rue de la Paix.” I made no reply to what was dictated more by fear than reason, and came to the first patrol stationed before the Crédit Foncier. All the houses of the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines were closed, and this street, one of the liveliest of the quarter, seemed like a tomb. The head patrol, a jolly young fellow, with a face as red as blood, advanced towards me, and, solemnly raising his sabre to attest his authority, which I had no intention of disputing, ordered me to stop. I explained to him, without concealing my sadness, the object of my mission: “I am going as a priest belonging to the parish of the Madeleine to see the wounded on the Place Vendôme.” He immediately motioned with his sabre for me to pass; this was his only reply. Was he aware of the effect of this sinister beginning of civil war upon the condition of Paris? I doubt it—to parade and appear important seemed to be his principal care. The other national guards, vigilant and with their hands on their loaded arms, resembled sentinels in face of the enemy, without their discipline and proper carriage.
The second patrol, stationed in the middle of the street, allowed me to pass without objection. It was composed, like the first, of national guards of all ages, but not of all conditions: they were from the most uncivilized class of the faubourgs. Their accoutrements were not uniform or neat. Some appeared quite satisfied; they were the youngest; others had a less blustering manner; but all felt an instinctive joy to rule over the most brilliant part of Paris, and inspire the citizens with a lively terror.
Before I came to the third patrol, placed at the opposite end of the street, I noticed on the pavement many stains of blood. It was in fact only a few steps distant that, only a short time before, the victims of the fusillade fell. I will not attempt to describe the anguish that filled my soul at the sight of this blood of my countrymen, shed by insurgents without country and without God. In the midst of my great distress I recalled the sublime cry of Monseigneur Affre: “Let my blood be the last shed!” I ardently prayed in my turn that the blood of these innocent and peaceful victims might be the last poured out, but it was to be feared that the revolutionary and social crisis, that weighed on Paris like a horrible nightmare, would only end, as it had commenced, by a terrible effusion of blood.
There was no difference between this patrol and the preceding, except that it was more actively vigilant. The chief of the national guards that formed it, and who seemed surprised to behold me, having asked where I was going, and what I was going to do, sent two men to conduct me to the post that guarded the entrance to the Place Vendôme. During the siege of Paris, I one day passed along the formidable defences of the Point-du-Jour at Auteuil. The consigne
there was of a different degree of mildness and condescension from that at the entrance of the Place Vendôme, which the insurgents evidently wished to make their headquarters, and where they were entrenching themselves. The national guards that defended the entrance were less blustering, but more numerous and more decided, than those of the evening before. They allowed me to pass without hindrance; many of them must have felt that where the dead and dying are to be found is the proper place for a minister of Jesus Christ. A sentinel was ordered to accompany me to the Ministère de la Justice, where I intended to go first. He possessed neither the intelligence nor the politeness of the national guard that escorted me the night before. He was rather an animated machine than a man. Not a word, not a gesture, not a change in his features! After wondering what he was thinking of, I ended by doubting if he thought at all. I should render him this justice—that, from a material point of view, he discharged his commission with irreproachable exactitude.
I experienced an undefinable impression in the Place Vendôme, produced by a twofold contrast, the remembrance of which will not be effaced to the latest moment of my life.
This Place, with which Louis XIV. adorned Paris, was first called the Place des Conquêtes, to recall the brilliant victories which had secured to France the fine provinces which we have just lost a large part of, after most lamentable reverses. The sumptuous edifices, built according to Mansard’s plans, which form the contour, render it in an architectural point of view the finest Place in Europe. Destined by Louis XIV. to bring together the royal library and imprimerie, the academies, the
mint, and the hôtel of foreign ambassadors; now inhabited by wealthy families, rich travellers, and some of the government officials; situated between the garden of the Tuileries and the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens; entered at its two extremities by the Rues de Castiglione and de la Paix, through which pour wealthy merchants and elegant promenaders, it became on the twenty-second of March the theatre of uproar and civil war: it was covered with blood, and occupied by an armed crowd, in which prevailed the most sinister faces from the worst quarters of Paris.
The national guards of Bercy that I had seen the night before were models of civilization and distinction compared with these. Some were rather boys than men. They appeared to be only sixteen or seventeen years of age. As proud as they were surprised to carry a gun, they only sought for an opportunity or a pretext to use it. Those who have witnessed the revolutions of Paris know that armed children are capable of atrocious misdeeds. Sprung from the lowest grades of society, destitute of all moral sense, they care but little what cause they have to defend or what enemy to attack: their highest ambition is to display their audacity and to fire off their guns. As I am only relating the things I witnessed myself, I shall not speak of the fiendish part taken, according to some spectators, by a boy in the fusillade which had just shot down too great a number of pacific and honorable citizens. Many of the insurgents were in a state of overexcitement, proceeding less from their political and social opinions than from a too copious absorption of wine and other liquors: this is on days of revolutionary storms another category of insurgents capable of
everything because they have lost all moral sense. There was but little care and uniformity about their accoutrements. Some had on only a part of the uniform of the national guards: others wore a képi and a blouse. A great number of the képis were not numbered. Here and there were to be seen some red sashes.
In this nameless multitude might also be remarked men of fifty or sixty years, whose ferocious and degraded faces excited the worst suspicions respecting their moral instincts and their previous relations with the legal authorities. I at once saw that many of them were foreigners, particularly Italians and Poles. What a contrast between such insurgents, hardly to be found in June, 1848, in the lowest parts of Paris, and the imposing architectural splendor of one of the finest squares in the world! I could not express the effect of this mingling of poetic beauty and foul deformity upon me.
Another contrast no less sad rent my heart. The side of the Place Vendôme toward the Rue de la Paix was sprinkled with blood; now and then the wounded and dead were carried by; and over these spots of human blood, by the side of these unfortunate victims of civil war, a great number of insurgents, perhaps the very ones who without any motive or provocation had shot them down, were laughing, eating, drinking, and amusing themselves, as if they were celebrating the happiest event of their lives.
In going to the Ministère de la Justice, I had to pass through several groups of varied physiognomy. They were generally astonished to see the ecclesiastical garb among them. I acknowledge that, if I had not had a mission of sacerdotal obligation to accomplish, I should hardly have procured them this surprise,
notwithstanding my natural love of observation. Some—a small number, however—received me with coarse insults and horrid laughter. A few steps from the Ministère de la Justice, a national guardsman, who was talking and gesticulating with uncommon vivacity, stopped to address me, while shaking his fist at me, this singular apostrophe: “When shall we be delivered from those wretches?” I will not relate other pleasantries of this nature of which I was the butt: this one is only too much. Their authors had doubtless learned to know and judge the clergy by the violent diatribes of citizens Blanqui and Félix Pyat.
Others, on the contrary, saluted me with a respect and cordiality which I was careful to return politely. They were honest workmen who had doubtless had intercourse with their parish priests, or whose children attended the catechism classes or the schools of the religious congregations, and received a benefit which they understood how to appreciate. There were strange contrasts in this mixture. Not to forget a single characteristic detail, I caught some observations that denoted on the part of their authors serious regrets for the dreadful catastrophe which terrified the whole city.
If, among the insurgent battalions chosen to fire on the inoffensive inhabitants of Paris, there were some to deplore the horrors of civil war, how many might not have been found in the other battalions! If the ringleaders could be separated from those whom they lead, and the deceivers from the deceived, the number of the latter would be considerable, and the former somewhat modified. One of the most serious faults of the workman of Paris is the incredible facility with which he enters into all the hollow schemes of
the rogue and the charlatan who tempt him, and sacrifices to their mad ambition and culpable projects his peace, his property, his honor, and his life.
My guide, or rather my guard, appeared insensible to the insults as well as to the salutations I received on the way. Arms in hand, always impassible and solemn, it was only now and then he cast toward me an inquisitorial glance, as if to assert his authority and my dependence.
I made known the object of my mission to the leader of the post at the Ministère de la Justice. He was a young and well-bred officer. He listened to me with attention, and replied, after saluting me twice with a politeness full of respect, that I was at liberty to do all I wished.
I found the sick person I had seen the evening before in the hôtel of the minister of justice, exhausted by excitement that was hastening his end. He could see from his sick-bed all that occurred on the Place. In one corner of the apartment his sister, endowed with the higher Christian virtues, and an aged lady whom I did not know, but who was probably their mother, were weeping over the public as well as their own private woes. I had promised the sick person the night before to visit him again in three or four days, but as I could not enter the Place Vendôme without indicating the precise place I wished to go to, and could not have a better means of ascertaining where the victims of the fusillade had been transported, I briefly explained the reason of my unexpected call and gave him some religious encouragement, which was to be the last. I learned that the dead and wounded removed from the Place had been carried to one of the neighboring houses occupied by the administration
and the ambulance of the Crédit Mobilier. I hurried thither.
The Ministère de la Justice was as silent and deserted as on the preceding night. Four sentinels were posted between the court and garden; a fifth at the door of the hôtel had the air of guarding most conscientiously an absent excellency.
In going out, I sought with a discreet glance for my solemn guard, to become anew his prisoner. The officer who had received me a few moments before informed me he had sent him back to his post. From that moment I could go where I pleased.
At the Crédit Mobilier I met two bodies that were being carried to their relatives. I was told that one was M. Molinet, one of the most pious and exemplary young men of the parish. He had been shot down by the side of his father, who, notwithstanding his inexpressible grief, had been torn from the body of his only son and carried as a prisoner to the staff-officer of the Place. After offering up a prayer for these two unfortunate victims, I inquired for the apartment to which the wounded had been carried.
The consternation and terror that reigned among the inhabitants of the Place Vendôme may be imagined from the sinister events that had occurred before their eyes, and the dangers of all kinds with which they were threatened. Stupor was depicted on the faces of the concierges of the Crédit Mobilier. These good people were hardly willing to half-open the door of their lodge, and muttered something vague which was not an answer to my question. At last they sent with me to the salle of the wounded a charming child of eight or ten years of age. He examined with more curiosity than fear the strange features of the citizens of Montmartre and Belleville who occupied the vestibule.
The number of the wounded in the ambulance was six. They were still on the litter on which they had been brought. Two infirmarians, who wore the red cross of the International society, were zealously attending to them: a cantinière of somewhat free manners also manifested an equal desire to aid them. The insurgents that frequented the rooms behaved with propriety; they spoke in low tones, and instead of the care which they were not fitted to bestow, the most of them manifested a sympathy mingled with curiosity. Beyond this, their faces displayed no emotion; my presence did not astonish them; they discreetly retired when I approached the sufferers. No one appeared to me mortally wounded. Nevertheless, I administered religious aid to one of them at his own request, and confined myself to giving the rest as much encouragement as possible, for which they earnestly thanked me. They all belonged to the bourgeoisie. The last to arrive lived in the Rue Meyerbeer, and did not appear to be more than thirty years old. He told me he was to have set out that very evening to join his wife and children in the country, but wished before leaving to perform the part of a good citizen by joining in the manifestation. He had been wounded three times, but not dangerously.
At the entrance of the room a young man seized with frightful convulsions had been laid down on the parquet. He was partly dressed as a soldier of the line, and partly as a national guardsman. He was doubtless one of the too numerous soldiers who had united with the insurgents, and been drawn into serving their sad cause. The fusillade from the ranks of his new colleagues, and the numerous victims they had just shot down, must have caused a violent fit
of remorse. He was not wounded, but only had a sudden nervous attack, that affected him in a manner painful to behold. He did not appear to understand anything, and was suffering from contractions and contorsions of a truly frightful character. I approached him—tried to calm him with some kind words, and then recommended him aloud to the care of the two infirmarians of the International society. The national guards who surrounded him appeared touched to see manifested for one of their number an interest equal to that I had just shown for the victims of devotedness to the cause of law and order.
Before leaving the Place Vendôme I wished to ascertain if any of the victims had been taken to the ambulance of M. Constant Say. This was one of the six ambulances I was appointed to visit during the siege, to administer religious aid and awaken the moral sense of the soldiers who were sick or wounded. This ambulance was kept in perfect order. More than once, in observing the meals of the wounded, I envied them the healthful and abundant nourishment served up to them during the interminable months of December and January. They were treated as real members of the family, and were truly the spoiled children of the house. They were daily visited by one of the most celebrated physicians of Paris, who lavished on them the most intelligent care, and by the minister of Jesus Christ, who no less kindly spoke to them of God, their souls, their absent mothers, and of their temporal and eternal welfare. It could not be otherwise in a family whose extensive industrial establishment and inexhaustible charity are such a benefit to the laboring classes of Paris. I had the consolation of seeing all the soldiers who were taken
to this ambulance leave it better Christians and better Frenchmen.
As to the rest, during the entire siege, the solicitude of the Parisians for the sick and wounded soldiers was truly admirable, and the praise I am bound in justice to accord to the ambulance of M. Constant Say, may be equally given to the rest I was appointed to visit: the ambulances of M. Frottin, formerly mayor of the first arrondissement, in the Rue St. Honoré; that of M. Jourdain, a member of the Institute, in the Rue du Luxembourg; of Dr. Moissenet, a physician of the Hôtel Dieu, in the Rue Richepanse; of Madame Dognin, of the Point-du-Jour at Auteuil; and, finally, the ambulance bravely founded and directed at Grenelle by some laboring women of ardent faith, and a devotedness that works wonders, and transferred after the bombardment of Grenelle to the magnificent hôtel of M. le Comte Mercy d’Argenteau on the Rue de Suresne.
I was also aware that there were still some wounded soldiers in M. Say’s ambulance. The brutal invasion of the Place Vendôme had prevented me from visiting them the two days previous. To go there, I was obliged to cross the entire Place. It seemed more like a field of battle than a Place. Here were stacks of arms, there were caissons full of supplies, further on were delegates of the central committee of the Hôtel de Ville, who where transmitting orders with feverish haste, and everywhere were the insurgents who had just fired, and who were ready to take fresh aim.
I had no longer an armed guard to accompany me. During my walk, which I frankly acknowledge would have seemed much shorter on ordinary occasions, I was again an object of insult and sarcasms not highly seasoned with wit from some, of respect
and sympathy from others, and of astonishment or indifference from the greatest part. I had never seen so great a number of persons eating and drinking. Their appetite only gave out after complete exhaustion of the means of gratifying it. It is true that, to the demoralized workmen who abound in Paris, the word riot signifies the time for good eating, and still better drinking, and no work at all.
Against the railing that surrounds the column were squatting several national guardsmen, to whom a cantinière dealt out liquor. The oldest was certainly not eighteen. At my approach one of them, who had doubtless been a chorister in some church, instinctively made a respectful bow. A second, who made some pretensions to delicate wit, pointed at me with his sabre, uttering a laugh more stupid than malicious. A third, and this became more serious, loaded, or pretended to load, his musket, which he pointed at me. At the same time the cantinière encouraged him with atrocious words, that no delicate ear would pardon me for relating. I had had for seven months so many occasions to recommend my soul to God, that I thought it opportune to do so once more. Nevertheless, not to take things too seriously, I recalled the amusing reply made me by an excellent man, from the neighborhood of St. Sulpice, who was obliged, after the three first days of bombardment on the left side by the Prussians, to seek refuge in the vicinity of the Madeleine. When I approved of his prudent decision, he replied, “In fact, I could not reasonably pass every night in recommending my soul to God!”
I arrived at my ambulance without any harm but a momentary fright. None of the victims of the
fusillade had been brought here. I found my dear wounded ones in a fair way to be healed, but very much depressed by what was passing around them, and humiliated especially by the shameful defection of a part of the troops on the deplorable day of Saturday, the eighteenth.
My sacerdotal mission was ended. In returning across the Place Vendôme, I was not the witness or the object of any occurrence that merits attention. The dense line of insurgents that guarded the entrance of the Place from the Rue de la Paix opened for me to pass. The patrol, who remembered having allowed me to enter, asked no questions in permitting me to go out. I met a man in the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines who was covering a real pool of blood with sand. There was no change in the manner of the patrols: the street was still like a tomb. Nearly in front of the Crédit Foncier, a shop-keeper of respectable appearance timidly opened one of the doors of his shop, and asked permission to pass from the last patrol toward the boulevard, which was not more than fifty yards from me. He appeared so alarmed, and his face was so extremely pale, that the patrol, proud of the fear he inspired, did not fail to avail himself of so favorable an opportunity of amusing himself at the other’s expense. He questioned him with an affected solemnity which would have excited my laughter in less tragical times, addressed him a long and severe recommendation, and when the man turned, more dead than alive, toward the boulevard, the youngest of the band, who hid the malicious hilarity of a gamin under the gravity of a judge, took his gun, and pointing it toward the shop-keeper, who happily was not aware of such a salute, had the air
of saying: “If the rest of the bourgeoisie resemble this one, Paris is certainly ours.”
I was as much saddened at the dejected and disconcerted appearance of most of the inhabitants of this quarter, as I had been alarmed by the boldness and audacity displayed on the Place Vendôme by the workmen of the faubourgs, old criminals and revolutionists from all countries, who held possession of it. There was more stupor than indignation among the former. They hardly ventured to the doors of their houses, they spoke in low tones for fear of being compromised. This unfortunate attitude of the lovers of order only encouraged the energy and boldness of the enemies of society. I comprehended for the first time how a handful of factionists had been able in 1793 to terrify and decimate the better part of the community, who were ten times as numerous. The very day when the lovers of order will say to those of disorder, with the same energy and firmness as God to the waves of the sea, “Thou shalt go no further!” Paris will have no more to fear from anarchy and revolution, and France will no longer oscillate between the equally deplorable extremes of despotism and license.
If this simple and impartial account, intended to cast a little light upon one of the saddest and most execrable episodes of the revolution of the eighteenth of March, could also have the effect of calling the more particular attention of the lovers of order and stability, of whatever nation and party, to the dark aims of the International league of demagogues
who, under the mask of workingmen’s associations, prudential interests, and mutual protection, aim at the denial of God, the destruction of family and country, of public capital and private savings, of the domestic and political hierarchy—in a word, the destruction of all those principles which are the foundation of society; and also of thoroughly convincing the better classes of Paris and all the larger cities of France, that the promoters of disorder and anarchy, though now recruiting from the lowest social grades of Europe, are only strong in consequence of their own inaction and regard for self; that such power is only derived from their own want of discipline and energy; that they would only have to enroll, organize, and assert themselves to utterly destroy it—I shall have realized one of my most ardent wishes, and labored in my sphere of action for the consolidation of the social edifice and of public order, so profoundly shaken.
It was nearly six o’clock when I reached home. I had passed a little more than three-quarters of an hour among the insurgents and the wounded of the Place Vendôme. God alone knows with what emotion and earnestness I implored him that I might never be subjected again to such a trial to my heart as a priest and a Frenchman.
Here ends my first account, drawn up at the end of March. I need not add that my prayer was not granted. The Commune was founded in blood and terror, and was to end in a fiendish debauchery of madness and crime.
TO BE CONTINUED.
[41] Here is what, according to the Paris Journal of Versailles for the 18th of May, citizen Raoul Rigault wrote from the préfecture of police to citizen Floquet, one of the unhappy instigators of this pretended compromise:
“My dear Floquet, you have decided then to set out with Villeneuve and the prefect Lechevalier for Bordeaux. We are too much united in our sentiments for you not to feel the importance of your mission. The league of the republican union, in pleading its own cause, pleads ours. As to your 9,500 francs, I will endeavor to furnish them, though it is difficult to procure remittances.”
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Biographical Sketch of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan, O.S.D. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1871.
The great success of the original life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan, foundress of the Third Order of Dominican Nuns in England, and the edification it has given to thousands of readers everywhere, have induced her sisters and admirers to prepare an abridged life for more general reading.
The abridgment is in every respect a creditable performance. In beauty of diction, as well as in the subject-matter treated, superior ability in biographical style is very discernible. The paper, printing, and binding are also of the first class.
All who are interested, either from motives of faith or even of curiosity, in the surprising revival of the Catholic religion in England within the last half-century, will be cheered and delighted by the perusal of this new edition, as it may be called, of the life of one of the greatest agents in this wonderful work of God. The cheapness of the work, moreover, puts it within easy reach of all Catholic readers.
School-Houses. By James Johonnot. Architectural Designs by S. E. Hewes. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. 1871.
Undoubtedly the subject treated in this work is one of considerable importance, involving, as it does, the health and future prospects as well as the present comfort of the rising generation. No doubt, also, there is immense room for improvement in the internal arrangements of the buildings in which so large a portion of the time of the young, and especially of children, is to be passed; above all, as regards the points of
light, heating, and ventilation. The construction particularly of country school-houses is also certainly open to change for the better, and many good suggestions are made and designs furnished by the authors. Some of these designs, however, strike us as being unnecessarily ornate. The latter part is occupied with the questions of furniture, apparatus, grounds, etc., and with many illustrations of chairs, desks, globes, and other appliances, which will be found useful and interesting. The book is finely printed, and beautifully bound.
Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth. Written in four books. By John Eusebius Nieremberg, S.J., native of Madrid, and translated into English by R. S., S.J., with a Preface by the Rev. Peter Gallwey, S.J. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1871.
This beautiful volume forms the first of a series of works, under the title of “St. Joseph’s Ascetical Library,” undertaken by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in England. It is no novelty in itself, though it will probably be new to almost all who see it in its present form. The author was born at Madrid in 1590, and died in 1658; and this translation of his work was made nearly two hundred years ago, in 1673, and has that charm of quaintness and simplicity which it is now in vain to imitate.
The title might convey the idea that the treatise before us was a very abstract and mystical one, unsuited to the generality of readers. But such an idea would be soon dispelled by a glance at some of the headings of its chapters, such as, “How Incommodious a Thing Sleep is,” “How Penances and Corporal Afflictions help Us,” and “That we
must rise Fervorously to our Morning Prayer.” It is practical enough for any one, perfectly clear, intelligible, and interesting; and, at the same time, no one can find in it any want of devotion or spirituality.
It is divided into four books, as stated in the title; the first, second, and fourth treating of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways respectively; the third being concerned with “What Belongs to a most Perfect Practical Performance of Our Actions,” which illustrates in detail the general principles laid down in what precedes.
We are under great obligations to the editors for having brought into notice, and into general use, as we trust, this treasure of Catholic piety. It will be of inestimable value to all who desire to lead a really spiritual life and to practice the “adoration” of which it treats, which is nothing else than complete self-renunciation and devotion, in the true sense of the word, to God and to his service.
Ignatius Loyola, and the Early Jesuits. By Stewart Rose. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
We have several excellent biographies of St. Ignatius in the English language, but the present one is likely, we think, to become the most popular. It is carefully compiled, written in that literary style and with those graphic sketches of surrounding circumstances which modern taste demands, and published in an elegant manner. Its principal distinctive excellence consists in the portraiture of the early life of Ignatius as the accomplished, valiant, and Christian knight, whose noble and chivalrous character formed the basis of his future heroic sanctity. We welcome any work which may make the illustrious founder of the Society of Jesus and his Institute better known both to Catholics and Protestants, and we hope for a wide circulation for this ably and charmingly written biography.
Mount Benedict; or, The Violated Tomb. By Peter McCorry. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.
The burning of the convent in Charlestown, and the accompanying horrors of that fearful night, are subjects worthy of a graphic description, well calculated to point a moral and adorn a tale. We confess our disappointment in this volume, written, no doubt, with a good design. The conversations are weak and pointless, and too much of the book is occupied with the irrelevant talk of the “conspirators.” We protest against the introduction of oaths into story-books. The interest of the story is marred by these faults.
Mr. P. Donahoe, Boston, announces as in press an account of the “Passion Play” at Oberammergau, Bavaria, from the pen of the Rev. George W. Doane, Chancellor of the Diocese of Newark. It will be dedicated to the Rt. Rev. J. R. Bayley, D.D., Bishop of Newark.
The Catholic Publication Society will publish, early in November, Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Latest Historian, by James F. Meline. This book will contain the articles which appeared in The Catholic World on Mr. Froude, as well as a great deal of new matter. In fact, the articles as they appeared in The Catholic World are almost entirely rewritten, and many new facts produced. It will be a complete refutation of Mr. Froude’s romance of history.
* * * * *
Erratum.—In the article on “The Reformation not Conservative,” p. 733, 1st column, 16th line from the bottom, for French sovereigns read Frank sovereigns. Christendom was founded some centuries before there was a French sovereign or a French kingdom, in the modern sense of the word French, or France. The Franks were a Germanic race, and the German was their mother-tongue.