left in the church a few valuable objects and several hundred francs. The agents of the Commune had a singular longing for money, and when they could not obtain some bank-bills or gold in their expeditions, the places invaded or the persons arrested had to suffer for such a financial disappointment.
At half-past three, the sacristy door burst open. A tall young man, clad à la Robespierre, with a broad red mantle that half-covered him, advanced at the head of a knot of confederates armed with revolvers, and exclaimed in a loud tone: “The church of the Madeleine is closed by order of the committee of public safety.” I was at that moment supplying the unfortunate people whom the régime of the Commune had deprived of work and bread. I had on my choir robes in addition to my ordinary ecclesiastical costume. The inmates of the sacristy were greatly excited. Some who were waiting to go to confession fled. Only one, the wife of an old prefect of the empire, bravely remained to witness this singular spectacle. I approached the judicial agent, and asked to examine the official decree and see if it was authentic. While I was reading it, I saw in his hands two other decrees of the committee of public safety, one prescribing my arrest and the other the suppression of some newspapers that had not conformed to the opinions of the Commune. I thought the signature was that of Ranvier, the mayor of Belleville, one of the most influential members of the Commune and of the committee of public safety. He was an old bankrupt wine-dealer, who had several times been amenable to the laws, and, like all social outlaws, swore an implacable hatred to society. He acquired great popularity in the clubs, after the fourth of September, by advocating
social war, as in the last months of the empire he had advocated the claims of absolute liberty! It was by virtue of this absolute liberty that he had just signed the three decrees, that aimed so many brutal blows at religious, civil, and political liberty.
“Are you the citizen director of the church of the Madeleine?” added the delegate, somewhat irritated at the inspection of the warrant, which seemed to him rather impertinent.
I would willingly have replied like Sganarelle, “Yes and no, according to your wish,” but unfortunately, instead of living any longer in the Paris of Molière, we lived in a city of folly and crime.
“You know perfectly well that the curé of the Madeleine was arrested six weeks ago. It is I who am for the present in his place.” I had not finished these words before he took the second warrant, and exclaimed in thundering tones: “By virtue of a decree of the committee of public safety, the citizen director of the church of the Madeleine is arrested.” The murderers who escorted him, and who belonged to the battalion of the Vengeurs de Flourens, rushed upon me, holding their revolvers against my throat and chest, and bestowing on me a series of names, the most decent of which were “bandit, canaille, crapule, assassin!” One of them, whose stupid ferocity can only be attributed to drunkenness, cried, while endeavoring to adjust his arms: “It is you, vile rabble, who cause the patriots of Paris to be assassinated by the wretches at Versailles: the priests are the murderers of the people: they should all be shot.” I had received these miserable men with politeness and a sentiment of resignation. Their low insults made me flush with indignation and decide to confront them.
“I am not accustomed to hear such language,” said I to their leader.
“If you continue to treat me in this way, I shall seat myself without another word, and force alone shall tear me from this sanctuary.”
He made a sign to his followers to moderate their civic indignation, but without being heeded. I now sought to lead them into a discussion, hoping to appease them and preserve the church from devastation by making them incapable of justifying their acts and outrages. For two hours—hours that seemed ages—I was obliged, under the greatest peril, to defend myself as a man and a priest against these emissaries, who were as ridiculous as they were odious. I will relate the principal points in this interchange of observations.
I first asked why I was arrested. At this question the delegate of the committee of public safety replied by a torrent of accusations and maledictions against the “miserable quarter of the Madeleine, the most hostile in Paris to the régime of the Commune.” He was not wholly wrong in this, for at the last elections the parish of the Madeleine, which comprises about forty thousand inhabitants, did not give more than a hundred votes to the candidates of the Commune. In the eighth arrondissement, where the church is, of about nineteen thousand votes, only five hundred voted for the Communist members. He added: “You must therefore expiate your conspirations in favor of the Versailles assassins.” Here the delegate was no longer right. But it was evident that I was arrested because I was the “citizen director of the Madeleine,” and they would make me expiate the sympathy and concurrence that the parishioners of the Madeleine had the unpardonable offence to refuse the Commune. To gain more time and thus calm their fury, I spoke of political affairs. My observations