CHAPTER XXXII.
"Nous sommes d'honnêtes gens; c'est par les lois ordinaires que justice sera faite. Nous n'aurons recours qu'à la loi."—M. Thiers à l'Assemblée Nationale, 22 Mai 1871.
"Honest, honest Iago!"—Shakespere.
THE VERSAILLESE FURY—THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES—THE PREVOTAL COURTS—THE DEATH OF VARLIN—THE BURIALS.
Order reigned in Paris. Everywhere ruins, death, sinister crepitations. The officers walked provokingly about clashing their sabres; the non-commissioned officers imitated their arrogance. The soldiers bivouacked in all the large roads. Some, stupefied by fatigue and carnage, slept on the pavement; others prepared their soup by the side of the corpses, singing the songs of their native homes.
The tricolor flag hung from all the windows in order to prevent house-searches. Guns, cartridge-boxes, uniforms, were piled up in the gutters of the popular quarters. Before the doors sat women leaning their heads upon their hands, looking fixedly before them, waiting for a son or a husband who was never to return.
In the rich quarters the joy knew no bounds. The runaways of the two sieges, the demonstrators of the Place Vendôme, many emigrants of Versailles, had again taken possession of the boulevards. Since the Thursday this kid-glove populace followed the prisoners, acclaiming the gendarmes who conducted the convoys,[202] applauding at the sight of the blood-covered vans.[203] The civilians strove to outdo the military in levity. Such a one, who had ventured no further than the Café du Helder, recounted the taking of the Château d'Eau, bragged of having shot his dozen prisoners. Elegant and joyous women, as in a pleasure trip, betook themselves to the corpses, and, to enjoy the sight of the valorous dead, with the ends of sunshades raised their last coverings.
"Inhabitants of Paris," said MacMahon on the 28th at mid-day, "Paris is delivered! To-day the struggle is over. Order, labour, security are about to revive."
"Paris delivered" was parcelled into four commands under the orders of General Vinoy, Ladmirault, Cissey, Douay, and once more placed under the régime of the state of siege raised by the Commune. There was no longer any government at Paris than the army which massacred Paris. The passers-by were constrained to demolish the barricades, and any sign of impatience brought with it an arrest, any imprecation death. It was placarded that any one in the possession of arms would immediately be sent before a court-martial; that any house from which shots were fired would be given over to summary execution. All public places were closed at eleven o'clock. Henceforth officers in uniform alone could circulate freely. Mounted patrols thronged the streets. Entrance into the town became difficult, to leave it impossible. The tradespeople not being allowed to go backwards and forwards, victuals were on the point of failing.
"The struggle over," the army transformed itself into a vast platoon of executioners. On the Sunday more than 5,000 prisoners taken in the neighbourhood of the Père Lachaise were led to the prison of La Roquette. A chief of battalion standing at the entrance surveyed the prisoners and said, "To the right," or "To the left." Those to the left were to be shot. Their pockets emptied, they were drawn up along a wall and then slaughtered. Opposite the wall two or three priests bending over their breviaries mumbled the prayers for the dying.