Up and down the boulevards on that Tuesday rushed scores of hoarse, unshaven camelots with their latest song. “N’en Parlons Plus,” they shouted. Then (in some cases) the chorus was chanted:
“Le cauchemar est fini; car la France est vengée,
Qu’importe que l’on a gracié Dreyfus?
La nation entière, heureuse et soulagée,
N’a plus qu’un désir—c’est qu’on n’en parle plus.”
But there remained Fort Chabrol. Neither “sanity” nor “order” could prevail in Paris whilst Jules Guérin was defying the Government from his window, and hurling missiles at its public servants, and discharging revolvers at the heavens. As the camelots were selling their song on the boulevards, as Paris was rejoicing in cafés that the “Affaire” was now “buried,” Jules Guérin still walked his roof, and his assistants leant dejectedly against the chimney-pots: and M. Lépine, Chief of the Police, was on his side preparing an attack on the stronghold. A few journalists were let into the secret. At ten o’clock on the night of Tuesday, the 12th September—the thirty-seventh and last night of the siege—MM. les journalistes were permitted to penetrate through the lines of policemen and of Municipal and Republican Guards that guarded the dark, gloomy rue de Chabrol. Not a light in the citadel. But shadowy forms were to be distinguished on the roof. And at a window, smoking a cigarette, stood Jules Guérin, in his sombrero.
“Mon vieux Jules, it is for to-night. Be reasonable and come out,” shouted a journalist; and he was promptly pulled backwards and called to order by a policeman. But M. Millevoye, the Anti-Semite deputy and editor of La Patrie, was permitted to converse with the rebel on the condition that he urged him to surrender.
“He swears he will fight to the death,” stated M. Millevoye to an officer. Very pale and agitated was the deputy. Very excited were the journalists, who had provided themselves with sandwiches, flasks and strong oil of eucalyptus with which to ward off contamination. Calm was the Chief of the Police, when he appeared on the scene with various officials and announced that the pompiers and their engines were on the way.
It was a cold, disagreeable night. The clatter of horses’ hoofs—up came a detachment of the mounted Republican Guard. The hissing of fire-engines; here were the pompiers. A distant babel of voices, for now, at one o’clock in the morning, all kinds and conditions of Parisians had heard of the impending attack on the citadel, and had hastened to the barriers—only to find themselves refused admittance to the grim, besieged thoroughfare. From my side of the barrier I beheld—beyond it—stalwart market-people from the Halles, Apaches in caps and scarlet waistbands, ragged old loafers, revellers from Maxim’s and the stifling, frenzied night-restaurants of Montmartre.
“Impossible to pass,” declared the policeman. An officer of the Municipal Guards facetiously kept up the refrain: “Not President Loubet; not his Holiness the Pope; not even the bon Dieu, could I possibly allow to pass.” Songs from the Apaches. Naïve exclamations from the simple market-women.