THE FREEMASONS JOIN THE COMMUNE—THE FIRST EVACUATION OF THE FORT OF ISSY—CREATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY.
M. Thiers was fully acquainted with the failings of the Commune, but he also knew the weakness of his army. Besides, he piqued himself upon playing the soldier before the Prussians. In order to appease his colleagues, eager for the assault on Paris, he received haughtily the conciliators, who multiplied their advances and their lame combinations.
Everybody intermeddled, from the good and visionary Considérant down to the cynic Girardin, down to Saisset's ex-aide-de-camp Schœlcher, who had replaced his plan of battle of the 24th March by a plan of conciliation. These encounters became the common topics of raillery. Since its pompous declaration, "All Paris will rise," the Ligue des Droits de Paris had been altogether sunk out of sight. It was perfectly understood that these Radicals were in search of some decent contrivance to back out of the peril. At the end of April their sham movements served only as a foil to set off the courageous conduct of the Freemasons.
On the 21st April the Freemasons, having gone to Versailles to ask for the armistice, complained of the municipal law recently voted by the Assembly. "What!" M. Thiers replied, "but this is the most liberal one we have had in France for eighty years." "We beg your pardon, and how about the communal institutions of 1791?" "Ah! you want to return to the follies of our fathers?" "But, after all, are you then resolved to sacrifice Paris?" "There will be some houses riddled, some persons killed, but the law will be enforced." The Freemasons had this hideous answer placarded in Paris.
On the 26th they met at the Châtelet, and several proposed that they should go and plant their banners on the ramparts. A thousand cheers answered. M. Floquet, who, with an eye to the future, had sent in his resignation as deputy, together with MM. Lockroy and Clémenceau, protested against this co-operation of the small middle-class with the people. His shrill voice was drowned in the enthusiastic cries in the hall.[143] On the motion of Ranvier, the Freemasons went up to the Hôtel-de-Ville, preceded by their banner, where they were met by the Council in the Court of Honour. "If at the outset," said their spokesman, Thirifocq, "the Freemasons did not wish to act, it was because they wanted to have certain proof that Versailles would not hear of conciliation. They are ready to-day to plant their banner on the rampart. If one single ball touches it, the Freemasons will march with the same ardour as yourselves against the common enemy." This declaration was loudly applauded. Jules Vallès, in the name of the Commune, tendered his red scarf, which was twisted round the banner, and a delegation of the Council accompanied the brethren to the Masonic temple in the Rue Cadet.
They came three days after to redeem their word. The announcement of this intervention had given great hope to Paris. From early in the morning an immense crowd encumbered the approaches to the Carrousel, the rendezvous of all the lodges; and, despite a few reactionary Freemasons, who had protested in a placard, at ten o'clock 10,000 brethren, representing fifty-five lodges, had gathered in the Carrousel. Six members of the Council led them to the Hôtel-de-Ville in the midst of the crowd and a lane of battalions. A band, playing music of solemn and ritual character, preceded the procession; then came superior officers, the grand-masters, the members of the Council, and the brethren, with their wide blue, green, white, red or black ribbon, according to their grade, grouped around sixty-five banners that had never before been displayed in public. The one carried at the head of the procession was the white banner of Vincennes, bearing in red letters the fraternal and revolutionary inscription, "Love one another." A lodge of women was especially cheered.
The banners and a numerous delegation were introduced into the Hôtel-de-Ville, the members of the Council waiting to receive them on the balcony of the staircase of honour. The banners were fixed along the steps. These standards of peace by the side of the red flag, this small middle-class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled, brightened up even the most downcast. Félix Pyat indulged in a rhapsody of words and rhetorical antitheses. Old Beslay was much more eloquent in a few words broken by true tears. A brother solicited the honour of being the first to plant on the rampart the banner of his lodge, La Persévérance, founded in 1790, in the era of the great federations. A member of the Council presented the red flag: "Let it accompany your banners; let no hand henceforth turn us against each other." And the orator of the delegation, Thirifocq, pointing to the banner of Vincennes: "This will be the first to be presented before the ranks of the enemy. We will say to them, 'Soldiers of the mother country, fraternise with us, come and embrace us.' If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war."
When the delegates left the Hôtel-de-Ville, a free balloon, marked with the three symbolical points, made an ascent, here and there dropping the manifesto of the Freemasons. The immense procession having shown the Bastille and the boulevards its mysterious banners, frantically applauded, arrived about two o'clock at the cross-roads of the Champs-Elysées. The shells of Mont-Valérien obliged them to take the bye-streets on their way to the Arc-de-Triomphe. There a delegation of all the venerables went to plant the banners at the most dangerous posts, from the Porte-Maillot to the Porte-Bineau. When the white flag was hoisted on the outpost of the Porte-Maillot the Versaillese ceased firing.
The delegates of the Freemasons and some members of the Council, appointed by their colleagues to accompany them, advanced, headed by their banner, into the Avenue of Neuilly. At the bridge of Courbevoie, before the Versaillese barricade, they found an officer who conducted them to General Montaudon, himself a Freemason. The Parisians explained the object of their manifestation, and asked for a truce. The general proposed that they should send a deputation to Versailles. Three delegates were chosen, and their companions returned to the town. In the evening silence reigned from St. Ouen to Neuilly, Dombrowski having taken upon himself to continue the truce. For the first time for twenty-five days the sleep of Paris was not disturbed by the report of cannon.
The next day the delegates returned. M. Thiers had hardly deigned to receive them, had shown himself impatient, irritated, decided to grant nothing and to admit no more deputations. The Freemasons then resolved to march to battle with their insignia.