I must, however, mention one advantage at La Roquette of which we were deprived at Mazas: the cellular discipline was not as rigorous. The prisoners could at certain moments of the day see each other in the court, or in the passage of the story they occupied. Each window lights two cells separated by a strong partition, but between the partition and the grating of the window, common to both cells, is a space through which the occupants can talk, and even pass a book. I could thus exchange some pious thoughts and fortifying resolutions with my neighbor, the Abbé Amodru. During the day we spoke of God, of death, eternity, of the assistance we could render our companions: during the night, we regarded with horror the lugubrious fires that seemed to be devouring the whole city.
The very night of our arrival, a battery of seven large marine pieces set up at Père-la-Chaise began to discharge shells and petroleum-bombs on different parts of Paris. As it was only a few mètres from our prison, it shook our cells and stunned us with the frightful detonation, and the whir of the projectiles passing above our heads. This battery did not cease its incendiary work till the following Saturday, the twenty-seventh of May, at half-past three, the moment when the regular army gained possession of the cemetery. Some days before my arrest, Citizen
Delescluze declared in a proclamation, little noticed, that the miserable advocates of the government of the fourth of September, ready in words to defend us against the Prussians behind the forts, ramparts, and barricades, had given everything up to them; but the Communists would show themselves faithful to their plan of defence against the royalists—“after the ramparts, the barricades; after the barricades, the houses; after the houses, fire and the mine.” This great criminal should have kept his word.
We were permitted on Wednesday morning to hold communication with one another. But the director gave the strictest orders that there should be none whatever between us and the soldiers. When the soldiers were not in one of the courts of the prison, we were shut up in our cells.
I observed M. l’Abbé Beyle, one of Mgr. Darboy’s vicar-generals, in one of the windows of the first story of the western building. He immediately recognized me, and informed me by some intelligible signs that the hostages would have recreation together in one of the courts, and that M. Deguerry would be very glad to see me and obtain news of the parish of the Madeleine.
At noon the wardens ordered us to descend. I was affected at the thought that I was about to see our archbishop and vicar-generals, my curé, and some of my friends belonging to the clergy and religious orders of Paris. I stationed myself before the door through which they would come out of the western building. The archbishop was the first to appear. He was hardly recognizable, such frightful ravages had privations and sufferings wrought on his frail and delicate constitution. He was immediately surrounded by the priests of the eastern building. The laymen were not
less eager to manifest their respectful sympathy. While he was addressing me a friendly word, and I was kissing his hand, M. Deguerry entered the court. I had been for ten years one of his vicars at the Madeleine. Knowing his great need of an active life and a certain impressionability of his character, I expected to find him enfeebled, discouraged, and ill after two months’ confinement in the cell of a prison. Happily, there was nothing of the kind. His face was fresh and healthy, and his conversation cheerful and enlivening. In spite of his seventy-four years, he was as erect as ever. He, as well as the archbishop, had undergone much suffering, but privations and trials had made no inroads upon his strong constitution.
With the exception of a quarter of an hour I passed with Mgr. Surat, Père Olivaint, M. Bayle, M. Petit, the chief secretary of the archbishop, M. Moléon, the curé of St. Séverin, and some other confrères, I passed the whole time of recreation with M. Deguerry. He was desirous of news concerning his clergy and parish. The closing of the Madeleine greatly distressed him, but, when he heard that nothing had been injured or desecrated, he resumed his serenity. He said little of the humiliating treatment of Raoul Rigault, and the ennui and sufferings of his long imprisonment in the cells of Mazas. So far from retaining any bitterness in his heart, he wished “to consecrate the few years he still had to live in doing as much good as possible to those who had been persecuting the clergy and injuring the cause of religion; in adapting the charities and the ministry of the times to the exceptional wants of Paris; and in showing that by abandoning Jesus Christ and his holy teachings, peoples, as well as individuals, only meet with deceptive
illusions and material and moral ruin.”
We quote these words to show that M. Deguerry had no grave fears respecting his situation. The archbishop and he both knew that the death of the hostages had been discussed by the Commune, but they were convinced that these threats would never be executed. What reasons had they for such an assurance? Had they received an absolute promise? Were they ignorant of the revolutionary orgies of Paris, and the brutal hatred of its tyrants? Did they think, having nothing to reproach themselves for, that no one could conceive the idea of putting them to death? I was vainly endeavoring to find an explanation of this assurance when Mgr. Darboy joined us.