representative of the free schools, he brought to the service of that board the experience of twenty years, the devout aspirations of his holy community, and the enthusiasm of a spirit earnest in the cause of enlightenment and holy liberty. When he returned to his cell, he resumed the cares of a soul which aimed to be wholly and profoundly immersed in the religious life. He concerned himself about the progress of all his brethren and pupils in observing the rules of the community, well knowing that the best means of doing good to souls is to draw from God the courage and the light which one needs in order to serve them.
Such was the state of affairs at Arcueil when the war broke out. The school then contained nearly three hundred pupils. In an establishment where religion and patriotism were both so warmly cherished, the first thought of every one was to do his utmost to aid France in her struggle against the foreigner. The pupils raised a large contribution for the relief of the victims of the coming campaigns. The religious gave their persons. Three of them joined the ambulances and passed the winter on the fields of battle, while the others devoted themselves in the college premises to taking care of the wounded victims of the siege of Paris. About fifteen hundred sick and wounded soldiers were thus treated in the college ambulance; and it was a devotion all the more meritorious because Arcueil, situated on the French outposts, was constantly under the fire of the German artillery.
After the siege, the school of Arcueil reopened its doors to pupils, and in March resumed its classes and its regular life. Then came the civil war. Placed between Fort Montrouge, Fort Bicêtre, and the redoubt of Hautes Bruyères, the school
found itself within the lines of the Paris Commune. Instead of abandoning their house, the fathers resolved to continue their services to the wounded. They displayed on the front of the building the flag of the Geneva Convention, and, with the aid of the assistant masters whom the peace had collected around them, they began to traverse the battlefields on the south of Paris, gathering up the wounded and burying the dead. Within the college, the poor soldiers, whether regulars or federals, were tended by the charitable hands of the Sisters of St. Martha. At first the communists respected this self-sacrifice. The less violent of them were pleased to be so well cared for by the Dominicans of Arcueil. Many requisitions, nevertheless, were made upon the institution, and the house was ransacked from top to bottom, but nothing was found in it except the evidence of a charity which no rebuffs could discourage. The religious continued with unremitting zeal to relieve the wounded on the field of battle, and awaited patiently the triumph of justice and liberty. A number of battalions of the National Guard were thus brought into contact with the school. Several of them showed gratitude and even a sort of sympathy, but so far as that went everything depended upon the officers. Thus, the 101st Battalion, commanded by one Cerisier, a convict “who had been three times sentenced to death, and believed neither in God nor in man,” far from showing any good-will, seemed hardly willing to forgive the religious for their charitable labors in its behalf.
On the 17th of May, several events happened which greatly excited and alarmed the insurgents. A cartridge factory exploded in the Avenue Rapp, that is to say, within the enceinte of Paris, and at least
six kilometres from Arcueil. Several posts in the valley of the Bièvre were surprised and overpowered at the point of the bayonet. Finally, a few paces from the school, the château of the Marquis de Laplace, occupied by the federals as a barrack, was burned. It was determined that the communists of Arcueil should be held to an accountability for these wholly unconnected occurrences, and the federals required nothing more to justify them in ordering an arrest.
On Friday, the 19th of May, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, the school of Arcueil, which then contained twenty wounded brought in the night before from the field of battle, received a visit from Citizens Leo Meillet and Lucy Pyat, envoys from the Commune of Paris, and wearing the red scarf; Thaler, a Prussian, sub-governor of the Fort of Bicêtre; and Cerisier, commander of the 101st Battalion of the Paris National Guard. While these gentlemen were entering at the main door, the 101st and 120th Battalions surrounded the premises, broke down the enclosure, and forced their way in at every entrance, leaving sentinels here and there with orders to shoot anybody who attempted to go out. At the demand of Leo Meillet, Father Captier presented himself. An order from the Commune was shown him, setting forth no complaint or legal excuse, but commanding all the members of the community, from the prior down to the last of the kitchen servants, to submit themselves to the commands of the delegates. Half an hour was granted them for the necessary preparations. The bell was rung to call the household together, and Lucy Pyat, taking this for a suspicious signal, threatened to shoot the child who had committed such a crime. One by one, the religious, the assistant teachers, the sisters,
the domestics, and the seven or eight pupils remaining in the house gathered around Father Captier. When the word was given to depart, they all fell down upon their knees, and with tears in their eyes asked his blessing. “My children,” he said to them, “you see what has happened. No doubt you are going to be questioned; be frank and sincere, as if you were speaking to your parents. Remember the counsel they gave you when they trusted you to our care; and whatever happens, bear in mind that you must be men who can live and can die like Frenchmen and like Christians. Adieu! May the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost descend upon you, and remain with you always, always!”
Then the fatal journey was arranged. The horses and wagons of the school were seized, and the vehicles were first filled with the sisters and female domestics. They were forbidden any communication with each other by word or gesture, or any signal of farewell, under penalty of being shot. They were taken first to the Conciergerie and afterwards to Saint Lazare (the prison for abandoned women), whence they were released on the Tuesday following by the arrival of the Versailles troops, before the miscreants of the Commune could execute the horrid threats of which they were the objects during these four days. The pupils were also to have been carried off, but, thanks to a misunderstanding on the part of the federal chiefs, their arrest was suspended. Later it was proposed to convey them to the Hôtel de Ville, and even to the barricades, but nothing was done, and they remained tolerably at ease in a remote part of the house, under the signally intelligent and devoted care of the young Jacques de La Perrière,