France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

Small sorties continued to be made during October, chiefly with a view of accustoming raw troops to stand fire. On October 28, came news of the surrender of Bazaine at Metz to the Prussians with his army (including officers) of nearly one hundred and ninety thousand men. The universal cry was "Treachery!" The same day that the Prussians forwarded this news into Paris, a small body of German troops was worsted in a sortie beyond St. Denis. These two events roused the turbulent part of the population of Paris almost to frenzy, and resulted in a rising called the émeute of October 31.

The disorderly classes living in the suburbs of Belleville and Montmartre (which have taken the place of the old Faubourg Saint-Antoine), assuming "The Commune" for their war-cry, were led on by such men as Ledru-Rollin, Blanqui, and Félix Pyat.

"The party of the Commune," says M. de Sarcey, "was composed partly of charlatans, partly of dupes,—that is, the real members of the Commune as a party. The rank and file were simply roughs, ready for any mischief, and, we may add, for any plunder."

On the morning of October 31, a great crowd of these men assembled before the Hôtel-de-Ville, then the seat of government. General Trochu, Jules Favre, the Maire of Paris, and even Rochefort, who was a member of the Committee of Defence, harangued them for hours without producing any impression. The days were passed when the mob of Paris could be controlled by a harangue. Finally, the crowd made its way into the Hôtel-de-Ville, and endeavored to force the Committee of Defence to issue a proclamation which would convene the citizens to vote for a commune. The windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville were flung open, in spite of the efforts of the members of the Government, and lists of the proposed Communistic rulers were flung out to the mob.

Meantime the members of the existing Government were imprisoned in their council chamber, and threatened by armed men. Jules Favre sat quietly in his chair; Jules Simon sketched upon his blotting-paper; rifles were pointed at General Trochu. "Escape, General!" cried some one in the crowd. "I am a soldier, Citizen," he answered, "and my duty is to die at my post." One member of the Committee managed, however to escape, and summoned the National Guard to the assistance of his colleagues.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when the troops arrived. At sight of their guns and bayonets the populace, grown weary of its day's excitement, melted away. Before daylight, order was restored. "Thus," says an American then in Paris, "in twelve hours Paris had one Republican Government taken prisoner, another set up, and the first restored."

So peace, after a fashion, returned; but Count Bismarck, learning of these events, was strengthened in his determination to keep Paris shut up within her gates till the factions in the city, in the coming days of famine and distress, should destroy one another.

M. Thiers had almost concluded an agreement for an armistice of thirty days, during which Paris was to be fed, while an election should be held all over France for a National Assembly; but after the disorders of October 31, Count Bismarck refused to hear of any food being supplied to Paris, negotiations were broken off, and the war went on.

Up to this time bread in Paris had been sufficient for its needs, and not too dear. Wine was plenty, but meat was growing scarce. Horses were requisitioned for food. It was the upper classes who ate horse-flesh and queer animals out of the Jardin des Plantes; the working-classes would not touch such things till driven to eat them by absolute famine.

Butter rose to five dollars a pound, cabbages were sold by the leaf. Early in the siege, eggs were three dollars a dozen, and milk soon became unattainable. "Poor little babies died like flies," says an eye-witness. Fuel, too, was growing very scarce and very dear. The women supported their privations bravely, but it is terrible to think what must have been the sufferings of mothers deprived of wholesome food for their little children. The firmness and self-sacrifice of the bourgeoisie were above all praise.