But what are these convictions? What is the Commune? The men who sit at the Hôtel de Ville have published no programme, yet they kill and are killed for the sake of the Commune. Oh, words! words! What power they have over you, heroic and most simple people!
In the evening out came a proclamation. There was so great a crowd wherever it was posted up that I had not the chance of copying it; but it ran somewhat in these terms:—
“CITIZENS,—This morning the Royalists have ATTACKED.
“Impatient, before our moderation they have ATTACKED.
“Unable to bring French bayonets against us, they have opposed us with the Imperial Guard and Pontifical Zouaves.
“They have bombarded the inoffensive village of Neuilly.
“Charette’s chouans, Cathelineau’s Vendéens, Trochu’s Bretons, Valentin’s gendarmes, have rushed upon us.
“There are dead and wounded.
“Against this attack, renewed from the Prussians, Paris should rise to a man.
“Thanks to the support of the National Guard, the victory will be ours!”
Victory! What victory? Oh, the bitter pain! Paris shedding the blood of France, France shedding the blood of Paris! From whatever side the triumph comes, will it not be accursed?
NOTES:
[33] On the 1st of April several shots were fired under the walls of Fort Issy, but it was not until the next day, the 2nd of April, at nine o’clock in the morning, that the action commenced in earnest at Courbevoie, by an attack of the Versailles army. The federals, who thought themselves masters of the place, were stopped by the steady firing of a regiment of gendarmerie and heavy cannonading from Mont Valérien. At first the National Guards retreated, then disputed every foot of ground with much courage. In the neighbourhood the desolation and misery was extreme.
The revolution had now entered a new phase; the military proceedings had begun, and it was about to be proved that, the Communist generals had even less genius than those of the Défense Nationale, although it must be admitted that the latter did not know the extent of the resources they had at their disposal. When we remember the small advantage those generals managed to derive from the heroism of the Parisian population, who, during the second siege showed that they knew how to fight and how to die, it is marvellous that many people have gone so far as to regret that the émeute of the 31st of October was not successful, believing that if the Commune had triumphed at that time, Paris would have been saved. All this seems very doubtful now, and opinions have veered round considerably, for it is not such men as Duval, Cluseret, La Cécilia, Eudes, or Bergeret, who could have protected Paris against the science of the Prussian generals.
General Bergeret.