"'Did you approve that order?'" asked the "World's" reporter.
"'Yes; why not? Of course I approved it. I went at once to La Roquette, to be present at the execution. We were one hundred and fifty men, but one hundred and twenty of them slunk away, and only thirty remained for the work we came for.'
"'And what did you do?'
"'Ma foi! I don't particularly care to say what I did; it might injure me here where I have got work. We called out the men we came to shoot, and we shot them as that kind of thing is generally done. We took them down into a courtyard, put them against a wall, and gave the order to fire; that was all.'
"After a minute's silence, Mégy added: 'It was all M. Thiers' fault. We offered to give him up the hostages if he would give us Blanqui; but he refused, and so we shot them. After the execution I fought to the last. I escaped from Paris in a coal-cart, and went to Geneva. I have had work in London and in Birmingham, and now I have got work in New York.'"
He went on to affirm that there was a large colony of Communists in that city; that America needed revolutionizing as much as France; that Cardinal McCloskey might find himself in the same position as Monseigneur Darboy; and so on.
I have quoted this interview with Mégy at some length, because it shows the Communists painted by one of their own number. Before the reporter left him, he chanced to pronounce the name of Mr. Washburne. "Washburne is a liar and a cur," cried Mégy, angrily. "Before the Commune ended, some of our people asked him what the Versailles Government would do with us if we surrendered or were conquered. 'I assure you,' he said, 'you would be shot.' During the siege of Paris, Washburne was a German spy. He is a villanous old rascal."
In studying the history of the Commune, it is desirable to remember dates. The whole affair lasted seventy-three days. On March 18 the guns on Montmartre were taken by the populace, Generals Lecomte and Thomas were shot, and the Commune was proclaimed. Military operations were begun April 4. On April 9 Fort Valérien began to throw shells into Paris. From that day forward, the Versailles troops continued to advance, taking possession one by one of the forts and the positions of the Federals. On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles troops began to enter Paris, and fought their way steadily from street to street till Sunday, May 27, when all was over. The hostages were not hostages in the true sense of the word; they had not been given up in pledge for the performance of any promise. They were persons seized for purposes of intimidation and retaliation, as in 1826 the Turks seized the most prominent Christians in Scio.
During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski, its only general with military capacity, was killed,—it is supposed, by one of his own men. The Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and numerous other buildings were fired, the Dominican Brothers were massacred, and the executions in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in other parts of Belleville and at the Prefecture. One of the most diabolical pieces of destruction attempted was that of the Grand Livre.
The Grand Livre is the book kept in the French Treasury in which are inscribed the names and accounts of all those who hold Government securities; and as the French Government is the proprietor of all railroads, telegraph systems, and many other things that in England and the United States are left to private enterprise, the loss of the Grand Livre would have involved thousands upon thousands of families in ruin. For a man to have his name on the Grand Livre is to constitute him what is called a rentier, rentes being the French word for dividends from the public funds.