On retracing our steps, we pass by the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. It is hung with black, the mourning of the last Imperialist plébiscite, of which the people of Paris was innocent and became the victim. We cross the Place de la Bastille, gay, animated by the ginger-bread fair. Paris will yield nothing to the cannon; she has even prolonged the annual fair for a week. The swings move to and fro, the wheels-of-fortune turn, booth-keepers cry their sixpenny wares, the mountebanks allure spectators, and promise half their receipts to the wounded.
We go down these great boulevards. A crowd pushes against the Napoleon Circus, where 5,000 people are gathered, filling it from the area to the ceiling. Small flags, each one bearing the name of a department, urge the provincials to group themselves. This meeting has been called by some merchants, who propose to the citizens of the departments to send delegates to their respective deputies, in the belief that the latter may be brought round and peace gained by explanations. A tall, thin man, with a sad face, asks for permission to address the people, and gets upon the platform. It is Millière, whom the crowd cheers. "Peace," said he, "we all wish for it, citizens. But who, then, has commenced the war? Who attacked Paris on the 18th March? M. Thiers. Who attacked her on the 2nd April? M. Thiers. Who has spoken of conciliation, multiplied attempts at peace? Paris. Who has always repulsed them? M. Thiers. Conciliation! M. Dufaure has said, 'Why, insurrection is less criminal.' And that which neither the Freemasons, nor the leagues, nor the addresses, nor the municipal councillors of the provinces could do, you expect to get from a deputation chosen from amongst the Parisians! See, without knowing it, you are enervating the defence. No, no more deputations, but active correspondence with the provinces—there lies salvation!" "This, then, is that energumen whom we are so frightened of in the provinces!" exclaimed our friend. "Yes, and these thousands of men of all conditions, who in common seek for peace, consult each other, answer courteously, these are the demented people, the handful of bandits who hold the capital."
Before the Prince Eugène Barracks we notice the 1,500 soldiers who remained in Paris on the 18th March, and whom the Commune entertains without asking them for any service. At the top of the Boulevard Magenta we visit the numerous skeletons of the St. Laurent Church, arranged in the same order they were found in, without coffins or winding-sheets. Are not interments in churches formally prohibited? Some, however, Notre Dame des Victoires especially, abound in skeletons. Is it not the duty of the Commune to expose these illegal proceedings, which are perhaps crimes?
On the boulevards, from Bonne-Nouvelle to the Opéra, we find the same Paris loitering before the shops, sitting in front of the cafés. Carriages are rare, for the second siege has cut short the provisions for horses. By the Rue du 4 Septembre we reach the Stock Exchange, surmounted by the red flag, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, where readers are sitting round the long tables. Crossing the Palais-Royal, whose arcades are always noisy, we come to the Museum of the Louvre; the rooms, hung with their pictures, are open to the public. The Versaillese journals none the less say the Commune is selling the national collections to foreigners.
We descend the Rue de Rivoli. On the right, in the Rue Castiglione, a huge barricade obstructs the entrance of the Place Vendôme. The issue of the Place de la Concorde is barred by the St. Florentin redoubt, stretching to the Ministry of Marine on its right, and the garden of the Tuileries on its left, with three rather badly directed embrasures eight yards wide. An enormous ditch, laying bare all the arteries of subterranean life, separates the place from the redoubt. The workmen are giving it the finishing stroke, and cover the epaulments with gazon. Many promenaders look on inquisitively, and more than one brow lowers. A corridor skilfully constructed conducts us to the Place de la Concorde. The proud profile of the Strasbourg statue stands out against the red flags. The Communards, who are accused of ignoring France, have piously replaced the faded crowns of the first siege by fresh spring flowers.
We now enter the zone of battle. The avenue of the Champs-Elysées unrolls its long-deserted line, cut by the dismal bursting of the shells from Mont-Valérien and Courbevoie. These reach as far as the Palais de l'Industrie, whose treasures the employés of the Commune courageously protect. In the distance rises the mighty bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. The sight-seers of the first days have disappeared, for the Place de l'Etoile has become almost as deadly as the rampart. The shells break off the bas-reliefs that M. Jules Simon had caused to be iron-clad against the Prussians. The main arch is walled up to stop the projectiles that enfiladed it. Behind this barricade they are getting ready to mount some pieces on the platform, which is almost as high as Mont-Valérien.
By the Faubourg St. Honoré we pass along the Champs-Elysées. In the right angle comprised between the Avenue de la Grande Armée, that of the Ternes, the ramparts, and the Avenue Wagram there is not a house intact. You see M. Thiers "does not bombard Paris, as the people of the Commune will not fail to say." Some shreds of a placard hang from a half-battered wall; it is M. Thiers' speech against King Bomba, which a group of conciliators have been witty enough to reproduce. "You know, gentlemen," said he to the bourgeois of 1848, "what is happening at Palermo. You all have shaken with horror on hearing that during forty-eight hours a large town has been bombarded. By whom? Was it by a foreign enemy exercising the rights of war? No, gentlemen, it was by its own Government. And why? Because that unfortunate town demanded its rights. Well, then, for the demand of its rights it has got forty-eight hours of bombardment!" Happy Palermo! Paris already has had forty days of bombardment.
We have some chance of getting to the Boulevard Péreire by the left side of the Avenue des Ternes. From there to the Porte-Maillot every spot is beset with danger. Watching for a momentary lull, we reach the gate, or rather the heap of ruins that mark its place. The station no longer exists, the tunnel is filled up, the ramparts are slipping into the moats. And yet there are human salamanders who dare to move about amidst these ruins. Facing the gate there are three pieces commanded by Captain La Marseillaise; on the right, Captain Rouchat with five pieces; on the left, Captain Martin with four. Monteret, who commands this post for the last five weeks, lives with them in this atmosphere of shells. The Mont-Valérien, Courbevoie, and Bécon have thrown more than eight hundred of them. Twelve pieces are served by ten men, naked to the waist, their body and arms blackened with powder, in a stream of perspiration, often a match in each hand. The only survivor of the first set, the sailor Bonaventure, has twenty times seen his comrades dashed to pieces. And yet they hold out, and these pieces, continually dismounted, are continually renewed; their artillerists only complain of the want of munition, for the waggons no longer dare approach. The Versaillese have very often attempted, and may attempt, surprises. Monteret watches day and night, and he can without boasting write to the Committee of Public Safety that so long as he is there the Versaillese will not enter by the Porte-Maillot.
Every step towards La Muette is a challenge to death. But our friend must witness all the greatness of Paris. On the ramparts, near the gate of La Muette, an officer is waving his képi toward the Bois de Boulogne; the balls are whistling around him. It is Dombrowski, who is amusing himself with inveighing against the Versaillese of the trenches. A member of the Council who is with him succeeds in making him forego this musketeer foolhardiness, and the general takes us to the castle, where he has established one of his headquarters. All the rooms are perforated by shells. Still he remains there, and makes his men remain. It has been calculated that his aides-de-camp on an average lived eight days. At this moment the watch of the Belvedere rushes in with appalled countenance; a shell has traversed his post. "Stay there," says Dombrowski to him; "if you are not destined to die there you have nothing to fear." Such was his courage—all fatalism. He received no reinforcements despite his despatches to the War Office; believed the game lost, and said so but too often.
This is my only reproach, for you do not expect me to apologise for the Commune's having allowed foreigners to die for it. Is not this the revolution of all proletarians? Is it not for the people to at last do justice to that great Polish race which all French governments have betrayed?