History of the Commune of 1871

by Lissagaray

The hopes for amnesty became now a certainty. No doubt this was the boon by which the reparative Chamber would signalise its joyous advent. A convoy of convicts was about to set sail for New Caledonia. Victor Hugo summoned the President, MacMahon, to adjourn the departure until the discussion and the certainly favourable decision of the two Chambers. A petition, hurriedly organised, in a few days had over a hundred thousand signatures. Soon the question of the amnesty effaced all others, and the Ministry insisted upon an immediate discussion.

Five propositions had been laid on the table. One only demanded the full and complete amnesty. The others excepted the crimes qualified as common crimes, and amongst which were classed newspaper articles. The Chamber appointed a commission to draw up a report. Seven commissioners out of ten declared against all the propositions.

The new layers were manifesting themselves. It was always this same middle-class, bare of ideas and courage, hard to the people, timid before Cæsar, pettifogging and jesuitical. The workmen already shot down in June, 1848, by an Assembly of Republicans were to see in 1876 a Republican Assembly rivet the chain forged by the Rurals.

The motion for a full and complete amnesty was supported by those same Radicals who had combated the Commune or abetted M. Thiers. They were now the democratic lions of a Paris without a Socialist press, without popular tribunes, without a history of the Commune, watched by the courts-martial, always on the look-out for more victims, bereft of all revolutionary electors. In this town which he had helped to bleed, there were arrondissements which disputed the honour of electing Louis Blanc. The deputy of Montmartre was the same man who, on the 18th March, had congratulated Lecomte on the capture of the cannon, M. Clémenceau.

He made a jejune, garbled, timid exposé of the immediate causes of the 18th March, but took good care not to touch upon the veritable causes. Other Radicals, in order to make the vanquished more interesting, strove to lower them. "You are absolutely mistaken as to the character of this revolution," said M. Lockroy very grandly. "You see in it a social revolution, where there has really been only a fit of hysterics and an attack of fever." M. Floquet, nominated in the most revolutionary arrondissement, the one in which Delescluze had fallen, called the movement "detestable." M. Marcou wisely declared that the Commune was "an anachronism."

No one even in the Extreme Left dared courageously to tell the country the truth. "Yes, they were right to cling to their arms, these Parisians, who remembered June and December; yes, they were right to maintain that the monarchists were plotting for a revolution; yes, they were right to struggle to the death against the advent of the priest." No one dared to speak of the massacres, to call the Government to account for the bloodshed. They were even less outspoken than the Enquête Parlementaire. It is evident from this weak and superficial discussion that they only wanted to redeem their word given to their electors.

To advocates who stooped so low the answer was easy enough. As M. Thiers and Jules Favre had done on the 21st March, 1871, the Minister Dufaure pertinently set forth the true question at issue. "No, gentlemen," said he, "this was not a communal movement; this was in its ideas, its thoughts, and even in its acts, the most Radical revolution which has ever been undertaken in the world." And the reporter of the Commission: "There have been hours in our contemporary history when amnesty may have been a necessity, but the insurrection of the 18th March cannot from any point of view be compared with our civil wars. I see a formidable insurrection, a criminal insurrection, an insurrection against all society. No, nothing obliges us to give back to the condemned of the Commune the rights of citizens." The immense majority applauded Dufaure, singing the praises of the courts-martial, and not a Radical had the courage to protest, to defy the Minister to produce a single document, a single regular judgment. It would be easy to retort to this Extreme Left: "Silence, pharisees, who allow the people to be massacred and then come supplicating for them; mute or hostile during the battle, grandiloquent after their defeat." Admiral Fourichon denied that the convicts of the Commune are put on the same footing as the others; denied their ill-treatment; said the convicts lived in a very garden of flowers. Some intransigents having stated that "The torture has been re-established," this delicious answer was vouchsafed them, "It is we whom you put to the torture."

On the 18th May, 1876, 396 noes against 50 ayes rejected the full and complete amnesty. Gambetta did not vote. The next day they discussed one proposition of amnesty, which excluded those condemned for acts qualified as common crimes by the courts-martial. The Commission again rejected this motion, saying that it must be left to the mercy of the Government, which had promised a considerable number of pardons. The Radicals discussed a little to save appearances. M. Floquet said, "It is not on a question of generosity and mercy that we should ever doubt of the intentions of the Government;" and the proposition was thrown over.

Two days after, in the Senate, Victor Hugo asked for the amnesty in a speech in which he drew a comparison between the defenders of the Commune and the men of the 2nd December. His proposition was not even discussed.

Two months after, MacMahon completed this hypocritical comedy by writing to the Minister-at-War, "Henceforth no more prosecutions are to take place unless commanded by the unanimous sentiment of honest people." The honest officers understood. The condemnations continued. Some persons condemned by default, who had ventured to return to France on the strength of the hopes of the first days, had been captured; the sentences against them were confirmed. The organisers of workingmen's groups were mercilessly struck when their connection with the Commune could be established.[266] In November, 1876, the courts-martial pronounced sentences of death.[267]