Fire And Water—The effect of fire on the fountains of the Place de la Concorde and the Château d’Eau—Hirondelles de Paris
Eight or ten men come flying down the Chaussée d’Antin; they join, crying out, “The Versaillais have taken the barracks; they are establishing a battery. Delescluze has been captured at the Ministère de la Guerre.”—“It is false!” exclaims a vivandière; “we have just seen him at the Hôtel de Ville.”—“Yes, yes,” cry out other women, “he is at the Hôtel de Ville. He gave us a mitrailleuse. Jules Vallès embraced us, one after another; he is a fine man, he is! He told us all was going well, that the Versaillais should never have Paris, that we shall surround them, and that it will all be over in two days.”—“Vive la Commune!” is the reply. The barricade is by this time finished. They expect to be attacked every second. “You,” said a sergeant, “you had better be off, if you care for your life.” I do not wait for the man to repeat his warning. I retrace my steps up the Boulevard, which is less solitary than it was. Several groups are standing at the doors. It appears quite certain that the troops of the Assembly have been pretty successful since they came in. The Federals, surprised by the suddenness and number of the attacks, at first lost much ground. But the resistance is being organised. They hold their own at the Place de la Concorde; at the Place Vendôme they are very numerous, and have at their disposal a formidable amount of artillery. Montmartre is shelling furiously. I turn up the Rue Vivienne, where I meet several people in search of news. They tell me that “two battalions of the Faubourg Saint Germain have just gone over to the troops, with their muskets reversed. A captain of the National Guard has been the first in that quarter to unfurl the tricolour. A shell had set fire to the Ministère des Finances, but the firemen in the midst of the shot and shell had managed to put it out.” At the Place de la Bourse I find three of four hundred Federals constructing a barricade; having gained some experience, I hurry on to escape the trouble of being pressed into the service. The surrounding streets are almost deserted; Paris is in hiding. The cannonading is becoming more furious every minute. I cross the garden of the Palais Royal. There I see a few loiterers, a knot of children are skipping. The Rue de Rivoli is all alive with people. A battalion marches hurriedly from the Hôtel de Ville; at the head rides a young man mounted on a superb black horse. It is Dombrowski. I had been told he was dead. He is very pale. “A fragment of shell hit him in the chest at La Muette, but did not enter the flesh,” says some one. The men sing the Chant du Départ as they march along. I see a few women carrying arms among the insurgents; one who walks just behind Dombrowski has a child in her arms. Looking in the direction of the Place de la Concorde, I see smoke arising from the terrace of the Tuileries. In front of the Ministère des Finances, this side of the barricade is a black mass of something; I think I can distinguish wheels; it is either cannon or engines. All around is confusion. I can hear the musketry distinctly, but the noise seems to come from the Champs Élysées; they are not firing at the barricade. I turn and walk towards the Hôtel de Ville: mounted expresses ride constantly past; companies of Federals are here and there lying on the ground around their piled muskets. By the Rue du Louvre there is another barricade; a little further there is another and then another.[[100]] Close to Saint Germain l’Auxerrois women are busy pulling down the wooden seats; children are rolling empty wine-barrels and carrying sacks of earth. As one nears the Hôtel de Ville the barricades are higher, better armed, and better manned. All the Nationals here look ardent, resolved, and fierce. They say little, and do not shout at all. Two guards, seated on the pavement, are playing at picquet. I push on, and am allowed to pass. The barricades are terminated here, and I have nothing to fear from paving-stones. Looking up, I see that all the windows are closed, with the exception of one, where two old women are busy putting a mattress between the window and the shutter. A sentinel, mounting guard in front of the Café de la Compagnie du Gaz, cries out to me, “You can’t pass here!” I therefore seat myself at a table in front of the café, which has doubtless been left open by order, and where several officers are talking in a most animated manner. One of them rises and advances towards me. He asks me rudely what I am doing there. I will not allow myself to be abashed by his tone, but draw out my pass from my pocket and show it him, without saying a word. “All right,” says he, and then seats himself by my side, and tells me, “I know it already, that a part of the left bank of the river is occupied by the troops of the Assembly, that fighting is going on everywhere, and that the army on this side is gradually retreating.—Street fighting is our affair, you see,” he continues. In such battles as that, the merest gamin from Belleville knows more about it than MacMahon.... It will be terrible. The enemy shoots the prisoners.” (For the last two months the Commune had been saying the same thing.) “We shall give no quarter.”—I ask him, “Is it Delescluze who is determined to resist?”—“Yes,” he answers.[[101]] “Lean forward a little. Look at those three windows to the left of the trophy. That is the Salle de l’État-Major. Delescluze is there giving orders, signing commissions. He has not slept for three days. Just now I scarcely knew him, he was so worn out with fatigue. The Committee of Public Safety sits permanently in a room adjoining, making out proclamations and decrees.”—“Ha, ha!” said I, “decrees!”—“Yes, citizen, he has just decreed heroism!”[[102]] The officer gives me several other bits of information. Tells me that “Lullier this very morning has had thirty réfractaires shot, and that Rigault has gone to Mazas to look after the hostages.” While he is talking, I try to see what is going on in the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Two or three thousand Federals are there, some seated, some lying on the ground. A lively discussion is going on. Several little barrels are standing about on chairs; the men are continually getting up and crowding round the barrels, some have no glasses, but drink in the palms of their hands. Women walk up and down in bands, gesticulating wildly. The men shout, the women shriek. Mounted expresses gallop out of the Hôtel, some in the direction of the Bastille, some towards the Place de la Concorde. The latter fly past us crying out, “All’s well!” A man comes out on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville and addresses the crowd. All the Federals start to their feet enthusiastically.—“That’s Vallès,” says my neighbour to me. I had already recognised him. I frequently saw him in the students’ quarter in a little crémerie in the Rue Serpente. He was given to making verses, rather bad ones by-the-bye; I remember one in particular, a panegyric on a green coat. They used to say he had a situation in the pompes funèbres.[[103]] His face even then wore a bitter and violent expression. He left poetry for journalism, and then journalism for politics.
Jules Vallès, Commissioner Of Public instruction[[104]]
To-day he is spouting forth at a window of the Hôtel de Ville. I cannot catch a word of what he says; but as he retires he is wildly applauded. Such applause pains me sadly. I feel that these men and these women are mad for blood, and will know how to die. Alas! how many dead and dying already! neither the cannonading nor the musketry has ceased an instant. I now see a number of women walk out of the Hôtel, the crowd makes room for them to pass. They come our way. They are dressed in black, and have black crape tied round their arms and a red cockade in their bonnets. My friend the officer tells me that they are the governesses who have taken the places of the nuns. Then he walks up to them and says, “Have you succeeded?”—“Yes,” answers one of them, “here is our commission. The school children are to be employed in making sacks and filling them with earth, the eldest ones to load the rifles behind the barricades. They will receive rations like National Guards, and a pension will be given to the mothers of those who die for the Republic. They are mad to fight, I assure you. We have made them work hard during the last month, this will be their holiday!” The woman who says this is young and pretty, and speaks with a sweet smile on her lips. I shudder. Suddenly two staff officers appear and ride furiously up to the Hôtel de Ville; they have come from the Place Vendôme. An instant later and the trumpets sound. The companies form in the Place, and great agitation reigns in the Hôtel. Men rush in and out. The officers who are in the café where I am get up instantly, and go to take their places at the head of their men. A rumour spreads that the Versaillais have taken the barricades on the Place de la Concorde.—“By Jove! I think you had better go home,” says my neighbour to me, as he clasps his sword belt; “we shall have hot work here, and that shortly.” I think it prudent to follow this advice. One glance at the Place before I go. The companies of Federals have just started off by the Rue de Rivoli and the quays at a quick march, crying “Vive la Commune!” a ferocious joy beaming in their faces. A young man, almost a lad, lags a little behind, a woman rushes up to him, and lays hold of his collar, screaming, “Well, and you, are you not going to get yourself killed with the others?”
