On Monday, the 22d, the order was given to proceed at once, and on the spot, to the execution of all the hostages confined at Mazas. This was kept concealed from the prisoners, but they could not help suspecting it, from the additional gloom growing every moment heavier and more ominous throughout that ever-gloomy building. The guards came and went, exchanging mysterious words among themselves, replying to the questions of the condemned by threatening allusion, or by an affected silence even more significant. However, the director of the prison, moved by a sentiment of humanity, or perhaps of prudence, ventured to represent to the imperious Commune that an execution in a simple house of detention [pg 518] would be contrary to all forms and precedents; and consequently they were ordered to La Roquette, the prison for those condemned to death. It was on this day that the two pious women succeeded in reaching Mazas, and giving to each of the Jesuit priests there four sacred hosts, with conveniences for carrying them around the neck.
Nearly all were transferred to La Roquette late in the evening of May 22d; but there were so many, the wagons were not large enough to hold all, and some were left at Mazas until the next day. What a moment that must have been when the prisoners, so long in solitude, not even knowing who were their companions in misfortune, came from their cells, and, meeting in the office, beheld and recognized one another! Priests, religious, laymen, all surrounded the Archbishop of Paris.
The transit was long and painful. The prisoners, forty in number, were crowded into baggage-wagons belonging to the railway of Lyon, and exposed to the gaze and the insults of all. They had to cross the populous quarters of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Bastile, where the insurrection was still mistress. The convoy went at a walk, between two lines of armed men, followed by the grossest insults and by a maddened multitude. “Alas! monseigneur,” said a priest, leaning towards the archbishop, “look at your people now.”
When they reached La Roquette that night, they were assembled at once, without any other formality, in the hall, called by name, and shown by a person with a lantern to a long corridor on the lower floor; and as each one passed on in the order named, a door opened and closed upon a captive. The darkness was intense; but it is good to remember that in some of the cells there was the Real Presence, shedding light and peace. The Commune was in desperate straits, and it was at first intended to execute the victims as soon as they should arrive at La Roquette; but a few hours were gained through the jealousy of the director. In the cells was a bed, and such a bed!—a pile of straw and a coverlet, and that was all; no tables, not even a chair. Still, Roquette was better than Mazas, for the cells were not vaults, and, though one was locked up, he was not entombed. And, besides, they were permitted to see each other by means of a window between every two cells, and at recreation, which they were allowed to take in a corridor together, and even in some unoccupied cell opening into the corridor. Food was scarce from the first; even bread was rare. F. Olivaint shared some little things which remained to him with the archbishop, and had the happiness, also, of giving him the Bread of the Strong, for which the prelate was overcome with gratitude.
Every hour the Commune was losing ground. It had only strength left for crime, and it hastened, with its dying breath, to order the execution en masse of the hostages of La Roquette. This was modified to sixty at first. At any price the Commune demanded the head of the priests—those hated men who had troubled the world for eighteen hundred years.
About eight o'clock in the evening of May 24, when the prisoners were in their cells, there was heard a confused noise in the distance—the voices of men and of children, a clamor and laughing that was still more terrible, mixing with the [pg 519] clash of arms. It came nearer and nearer, and some fifty rascals, Avengers of the Republic, Garibaldians, soldiers with all kinds of arms, National Guards with all sorts of costumes, gamins of Paris, poured into the prison, hungry for the blood of six victims, their share. They rushed the whole length of the corridor containing the cells of our dear prisoners, and ranged themselves at the head of a small spiral staircase which led to the chemin de ronde. As they passed, each prisoner was pelted through the grating of his cell with a running fire of insult and sentence of death.
Then some one, assuming the office of herald, summoned the prisoners to be ready and to respond each one as his name was called. After that, as each name was pronounced, a door opened, and a victim presented himself. M. Bonjeau, FF. Duguerry, Clerc, Ducoudray, Allard, and Archbishop Darboy were the six chosen. All were present, all were ready, and, in the order named, the procession began. The archbishop and his companions, preceded and followed by this frightful escort, descended the dark, narrow staircase one by one. So unrestrained was the insolence of the captors that their leader was obliged to interfere. “Comrades,” he cried, “we have something better to do than to insult them—that is, to shoot them. It is the command of the Commune.”
No place of execution had been fixed upon. They would have liked to have had it on the spot, but that would give too many witnesses; the first chemin de ronde was in view of the prison windows, and the occupants of the cells on every floor could see all, hear all. So they passed to the second, where they would be sheltered by high ramparts. The victims were ranged in a line at the extreme end of this path, at the foot of the great outside wall.
Those left behind knelt, prayed, and held their breath. The fire of a platoon was heard, followed by a few scattered shots, then cries of Vive la Commune! which told that all was over. There were martyrs now, not victims.
Towards morning the bodies were thrown into a hand-cart and carried to Père la Chaise, where they were tossed into a ditch; no coffins, no ceremony of any kind. “What matters it,” F. Olivaint had said and proved—“what matters it to a Jesuit, who daily sacrifices his heart, once to sacrifice his head?”