"Millière was brought in when we were breakfasting with the general at the restaurant De Tournon, near the Luxembourg. We heard a great noise, and went out. I was told, 'It is Millière.' I took care that the crowd did not take justice into its own hands. He did not come into the Luxembourg; he was stopped at the gate. I addressed myself to him, and said, 'You are Millière?' 'Yes, but you know that I am a deputy.' 'That may be, but I think you have lost your character of deputy. Besides, there is a deputy amongst us, M. de Quinsonnas, who will recognise you.'
"I then said to Millière that the general's orders were that he was to be shot. He said to me, 'Why?'
"I answered him, 'I only know your name. I have read articles by you that have revolted me' (probably the articles on Jules Favre). 'You are a viper, that one crushes under one's feet. You detest society.' He stopped, saying, with a significant air, 'Oh, yes! I indeed hate this society.' 'Well, it will remove you from its bosom; you are going to be shot.' 'This is summary justice, barbarity, cruelty.' 'And all the cruelty you have committed, do you take that for nothing? At any rate, since you say you are Millière, there is nothing else to be done.'
"The general had ordered that he was to be shot at the Panthéon, on his knees, to ask pardon of society for all the ill he had done. He refused to be shot kneeling. I said to him, 'It is the order; you will be shot on your knees, and not otherwise.' He played a little comedy, opening his coat, and baring his breast before the firing party. I said to him, 'You are acting; you want them to say how you died; die quietly, that will be the best.' 'I am free in my own interest and for the sake of my Cause to do as I like.' 'So be it; kneel down.' Then he said to me, 'I will only do so if you force me down by two men.' I had him forced on his knees, and then his execution was proceeded with. He cried, 'Vive l'humanité!' He was about to cry something else when he fell dead."[197]
An officer ascended the steps, approached the corpse, and discharged his chassepot into the left temple. Millière's head rebounded, and, falling back, burst open, black with powder, seemed to look at the frontispiece of the monument.
"Vive l'humanité!" The word implies two causes. "I care as much for the liberty of other people as for that of France," said a Federal to a reactionist.[198] In 1871, as in 1793, Paris combats for all the oppressed.
The Bastille succumbed about two o'clock. La Villette still struggled on. In the morning the barricade at the corner of the boulevard and of the Rue de Flandre had been surrendered by its commander. The Federals concentrated in the rear along the line of the canal, and barricaded the Rue de Crimée. The Rotonde, destined to support the principal shock, was reinforced by a barricade on the quay of the Loire. The 269th, which for two days had withstood the enemy, recommenced the struggle behind the new positions. This line from La Villette being of great extent, Ranvier and Passedouet went to fetch reinforcements in the twentieth arrondissement, where the remnants of all the battalions took refuge.
They crowded round the Mairie, that distributed lodgings and orders for food. Near the church the waggons and horses were noisily put up. The headquarters and different services were established in the Rue Haxo at the Cité Vincennes, a series of constructions intersected by gardens.
The very numerous barricades in the inextricable streets of Ménilmontant were almost all turned against the boulevard. The strategical route, which on this point overlooks the Père Lachaise, the Buttes Chaumont, and the exterior boulevard, was not even guarded.
From the heights of the ramparts the Prussians were discernible in arms. According to the terms of a convention previously concluded between Versailles and the Prince of Saxony, the German army since Monday invested Paris on the north and east. It had cut off the Railway of the North, manned the canal line from St. Denis, posted sentinels from St. Denis to Charenton, erected barricades on all the routes. From five o'clock in the evening of Thursday 5,000 Bavarians marched down from Fontenay, Nogent, and Charenton, forming an impenetrable cordon from the Marne to Montreuil; and during the evening another corps of 5,000 men occupied Vincennes, with eighty artillery pieces. At nine o'clock he invested the fort and disarmed the Federals, who wanted to return to Paris. He did still better—trapped the game for Versailles. Already during the siege the Prussians had given an indirect support to the Versaillese army; their cynical collusion with the French conservatives showed itself undisguised during the eight days of May. Of all M. Thiers' crimes, one of the most odious will certainly be his introducing the conquerors of France into our civil discords, and begging their help in order to crush Paris.