The gentlemen of the Hôtel de Ville might sing this song with a few slight variations. The Gulf of Otranto was not their starting point, but the Buttes Montmartre; though to make up for it they were eighty in number. On arriving at C——, no, I mean, the decree of the Colonne Vendôme, they were a few more than ten, but not many. What charming stanzas in imitation of Victor Hugo might Théodore de Banville and Albert Glatigny write on the successive desertions of the members of the Commune. The first to withdraw were the maires of Paris, frightened to death at having been sent by the votes of their fellow-citizens into an assembly which was not at all, it appears, their ideal of a municipal council. And upon this subject Monsieur Desmarest, Monsieur Tirard, and their adjoints will perhaps permit me an unimportant question. What right had they to persuade their electors and the Friends of Order, to vote for the Commune of Paris if they were resolved to decline all responsibility when the votes had been given them? Their presence at the Hôtel de Ville, would it not have infused—as we hoped—a powerful spirit of moderation even in the midst of excesses that could even then be foretold? When they have done all they can to persuade people to vote, have they the right to consider themselves ineligible? In a word, why did they propose to us to elect the Commune of Paris if the Commune were a bad thing? and if it were a good thing, why did they refuse to take their part in it? Whatever the cause, no sooner were they elected than they sent in their resignations. Then the hesitating and the timid disappeared one after another, not having the courage to continue the absurdity to the end. Add to all this the arrests made in its very bosom by the Assembly of the Hôtel de Ville itself, and you will then have an idea of the extent of the dilemma. A few days more and the Commune will come to an end for want of Communists, and then we shall cry, “Haste to the poll, citizens of Paris!” And the white official handbills will announce supplementary elections for Sunday, 16th of April.
But here comes the difficulty; there may be elections, but not the shadow of an elector. Of candidates there are enough, more than enough, even to spare; Toting lists where the electors’ names are inscribed; ballot-urns-no, ballot-boxes this time-to receive the lists; these are all to be found, but voters to put the lists into the ballot-boxes, to elect the candidates, we seek them in vain. The voting localities may be compared to the desert of Sahara viewed at the moment when not a caravan is to be seen on the whole extent of the horizon, so complete is the solitude wherever the eager crowd of voters was expected to hasten to the poll. Are we then so far from the day when the Commune of Paris, in spite of the numerous absentees, was formed—thanks to the strenuous efforts of the few electors left to us? Alas! At that time we had still some illusions left to us, whilst now.... Have you ever been at the second representation of a piece when the first was a failure? The first day there was a cram, the second day only the claque remained. People had found oat the worth of the piece, you see. Nevertheless, though the place is peopled only with silence and solitude, the claque continues to do its duty, for it receives its pay. For the same reason one sees a few battalions marching to the poll, all together, in step, just as they would march to the fighting at the Porte Maillot; and as they return they cry, “Oh! citizens, how the people are voting! Never was such enthusiasm seen!” But behind the scenes,—I mean in the Hôtel de Ville,—authors and actors whisper to each other: “There is no doubt about it, it is a failure!”
NOTES:
[59]
On leaving the gulf of Otranto
There were thirty of us there,
But on arriving at Cadiz
There were no more than ten.
LIV.
And what has become of the Bourse? What are the brokers and jobbers saying and doing now? I ask myself this question for the first time, as in ordinary circumstances, the Bourse is of all sublunary things that which occupies me the least. I am one of those excessively stupid people, who have never yet been able to understand how all those black-coated individuals can occupy three mortal hours of every day, in coming and going beneath the colonnade of the “temple of Plutus.” I know perfectly well that stockbrokers and jobbers exist; but if I were asked what these stockbrokers and jobbers do, I should be incapable of answering a single word. We have all our special ignorances. I have heard, it is true, of the Corbeille,[[60]] but I ingeniously imagined, in my simple ignorance, that this famous basket was made in wicker work, and crammed with sweet-scented leaves and flowers, which the gentlemen of the Bourse, with the true gallantry of their nation, made up into emblematical bouquets to offer to their lady friends. I was shown, however, how much I was deceived by a friend who enlightened me, more or less, as to what is really done in the Bourse in usual times, and what they are doing there now.
I must begin by acknowledging that in using the worn metaphor of the “temple of Plutus” just now, I knew little of what I was talking about.
The Bourse is not a temple; if it were it would necessarily be a church or something like one, and consequently would have been closed long ago by our most gracious sovereign, the Commune of Paris.
The Bourse, then, is open; but what is the good of that? you will say, for all those who haunt it now, could get in just as well through closed doors and opposing railings; spectres and other supernatural beings never find any difficulty in insinuating themselves through keyholes and slipping between bars. ‘Poor phantoms! Thanks to the weakness of our Government, which has neglected to put seals on the portals of the Bourse, they are under the obligation of going in and coming out like the most ordinary individuals; and a Parisian, who has not learned, by a long intimacy with Hoffmann and Edgar Poë, to distinguish the living from the dead, might take these ghosts of the money-market for simple boursiers. Thank heaven! I am not a man to allow myself to be deceived by specious appearances on such a subject, and I saw at once with whom I had to do.