Then, knowing we were to undergo the same fate in a few hours, he eagerly proposed to the clergy of our story a lottery which, according to his delicate calculations, would procure him some profits without depriving him of the objects of art he was proud of fabricating. For eight days I was obliged to swallow such humiliations, which revealed poor human nature in quite a new aspect. The selfish proposition of this deceitful employee was rejected promptly, but we concluded to continue our daily gratuity, in gratitude for services he was always promising, and which were never performed.
When he left our story, he always went directly to the office to give an account of what he had seen or heard. We had not only to resist ferocity, but also craftiness and duplicity.
It was in the plans of the Commune that none of the hostages should escape death. The next Sunday, the first object that struck my eyes at the office of La Roquette was the list of their names. There was a horizontal mark against the names of those who were to be shot: when the execution was accomplished, they added a vertical mark, thus forming a cross. Every name had a horizontal line before it. If my memory does not deceive me, they followed the order of the list in the executions.
About two o’clock, three shells from the battery of Père-la-Chaise hit the prison roof only a few mètres above our heads, and covered the court with tiles and fragments of the chimneys. Some of the prisoners protested against the danger of these projectiles exploding in their closed cells and had the doors opened;
others did not seem to heed the stunning incident: absorbed in prayer, they were more preoccupied with eternal than temporal things.
The shells that hit our prison were an indication of the rapid progress of the French troops, but this progress threw us into the most perplexing and intolerable of situations. We could only expect our safety from the Versailles army; we ought, then, in consideration of the general interests of civilization, and our own interests, to desire ardently its triumph. But it was no less evident that the nearer the army approached, the more imminent became our end. Thus the perspective which was our only hope of safety, inevitably announced at the same time our destruction. If the illimitable consolations of religion had not raised us above our misfortunes, we should have been a prey to the anticipated horrors of everlasting woe. In such cruel hours we comprehend the words of the God-Man, who, in the garden of Gethsemani and on Golgotha, drank to the dregs the chalice of all humiliations, all sorrows, and every kind of anguish, in order to sanctify them. “My God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me?” should not be separated from these other words, which exclude all despondency and presage a wonderful recompense: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!”
IV.
LA ROQUETTE—INSURRECTION—DELIVERANCE—CONCLUSION.
The close of the day on Friday was exceedingly gloomy. The same events took place in the interior court of the prison as on Thursday evening. At the sight of the mysterious agent who held a list in his hand, each one said to himself: “My
name is probably inscribed on that list: may God have mercy on me!” I again heard the fatal interrogation from the mouth of an insurgent officer: “Are the soldiers at their post?” From the cells in the building opposite some friendly hands indicated to us by signs that the number to be shot amounted to twelve, fifteen, sixteen!... It was hardly a fourth of those immolated to the hatred of the Commune. Unfortunately, the facts that each one witnessed were limited, as our horizon was restricted to the four corners of our cell, or at most to a part of the story we were in: each one, therefore, could only give some particulars of the changes of fortune and the victims executed.