“On the first serious occasion I showed myself. I was of that little band that assaulted the barracks of the firemen of Villette. Only, there a stupid thing was done. They killed a fireman unnecessarily. I was taken, thrown into prison; but the government of the Fourth of September set us free—from which I concluded that we had done quite right in attacking that barracks and in killing that fireman, even unnecessarily.
“The siege commenced. At once I was against the government, and for the Commune. I marched against the Hôtel-de-Ville on the 31st of October and the 22d of January. I loved revolt for the sake of revolt. An insurgent, I told you at the start, I am an insurgent. I cannot see a club without joining it, an insurrection without running after it, a barricade without bringing my paving-stone to it. That goes with my blood.
“And then, besides, I wasn’t altogether ignorant, and I said to myself: ‘We only need to succeed some day, clear to the foundations, and then in our turn we shall be the government and things will go a little better than with all these lawyers who get behind us during the battle, and who pass ahead of us after the victory.’
“The 18th of March came, and naturally I was in it. I cried ‘Hurrah for the military!’ I fraternized with the soldiers. I went to the Hôtel-de-Ville. I found there a government at work—absolutely as on the 24th of February.
“Now you tell me that that insurrection was not legitimate. That’s possible, but I don’t quite see why. I begin to be muddled, I do, between these insurrections which are a duty and those insurrections which are a crime! I do not clearly see the difference.
“I fired on the Versailles troops in 1871, as I fired on the Royal Guards in 1830, and on the City Guards in 1848. After 1830 I received the medal of July. After 1848, the compliments of Monsieur Lamartine. This time, I’m going to have transportation or death.
“There are some insurrections that please you. You raise columns to them, you give their names to streets, you distribute among yourselves the offices, the promotions, the big salaries; and we others, who made the revolution, you call us—noble citizens, heroes, a nation of brave men, etc., etc. It is with such money that we are paid.
“And then, there are some other insurrections that displease you. As a result of those, you distribute to us exile, transportation, death. Well, see here: if you hadn’t paid us so many compliments after the first, perhaps we would not have done the last. If you had not raised the Column of July at the entrance to our quarter, perhaps we should not have gone to demolish the Vendôme Column in your quarter. Those two penny-trumpets were not in harmony. The one had to discord with the other, and that is what came about.
“Now, I am going to tell you why I threw away my captain’s uniform at the street corner on the 26th of May, why I was in a blouse when I was arrested. When I learned that these gentlemen of the Commune, instead of coming to fire with us upon the barricades, were distributing thousand-franc notes to themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville, shaving their beards, dyeing their hair, and going to hide themselves in caves, I didn’t wish to keep the shoulder-straps they had given me.
“Besides, they embarrassed me, those shoulder straps. ‘Captain Martin,’ that was silly. ‘Insurgent Martin,’ quite as it should be. I wanted to end as I had begun, to die as my father had died, an insurrectionist in an insurrection, a barricader in a barricade.