[CHAPTER XXII.]
Reign of Terror.—Family Quarrels.—The Alsacians, etc., claim German Nationality.—They leave Paris on our Passes.—Prisoners of Commune.—Priests and Nuns.—Fragments of Shells.—"Articles de Paris."—Fearful Bombardment of "Point du Jour."—Arrest of Cluseret.—Commune Proclamations.—Capture of Paris.—Troops enter by Undefended Gate.—Their Slow Advance.—Fight at the Tuileries Gardens.—Communist Women.—Capture of Barricades.—Cruelties of the Troops.—"Pétroleuses."—Absurd Stories about them.—Public Buildings fired.—Destruction of Tuileries, etc., etc.—Narrow Escape of Louvre.—Treatment of Communist Prisoners.—Presents from Emperor of Germany.
As time passed, the puerilities and atrocities of the Commune kept equal pace. They had taken possession of the public buildings and raised the red flag upon them, suppressing the tricolor. They now passed a decree requiring every man to be provided with a carte d'identité; this, they said, was to protect them against Government spies. They established a bureau of denunciation, where any man who had a grudge against his neighbor had simply to denounce him as a Versailles sympathizer, and he was arrested. They closed the churches, or turned them into clubs. They arrested the priests; they shut up some of the convents, and imprisoned the nuns. They confiscated the gold and silver church plate, and turned it into coin. It was emphatically a "Reign of Terror." It was estimated that within a month after the outbreak of the Commune three hundred thousand people left Paris.
In the clubs they denounced the Legation. They said that Mr. Washburne was about to call in the Germans at the request of the diplomatic corps. They proposed to hang him, and to banish the rest of us. In point of fact, I believe that Mr. Washburne could have called in the German army at any time. He had only to report to General Manteuffel that the lives of the Germans in Paris were in danger, and that he found himself unable to protect them, and Manteuffel would have occupied Paris at once. But Mr. Washburne never entertained an idea of doing this.
Then the Commune began to quarrel among themselves. The Happy Family was at variance. Strange as it may appear, at the beginning of the affair, there were many earnest, honest fanatics in Paris who joined the movement. The first demands of the Commune under the influence of these men were not unreasonable, in American eyes. They asked that they might elect their own prefect, and that Paris should not be garrisoned by Government soldiers. But events soon outstripped these men; and as they found the city given over to organized pillage—the Committee of Public Safety meeting in secret, instead of in the light of open day, as they had promised, and the model republic of which they had dreamed as much a chimera as ever—they withdrew from the Government. Over twenty of them withdrew in a body, and published their reasons for doing so. But the scoundrels who now directed the movement "cared for none of these things." They had used these poor enthusiasts while it suited their purpose; now they threw them overboard, and replied to their manifesto by removing the Committee of Public Safety as too mild, afflicted with scruples, and appointing one of a bloodier type, one of its members a murderer.
During all this time the Legation was beset from morning till night. The Alsacians and Lorrains residing in Paris, whom the treaty had made Germans, but who were nevertheless permitted to choose their nationality, had fully intended to opter for the French, and refused with indignation a German nationality. But when they found that to remain French condemned them to the National Guard, while to become German enabled them to leave Paris, and return to their homes, they came in shoals to the Legation to ask for German passports. It was a renewal of the days before the siege, the days of the German expulsion. Much of Mr. Washburne's time was taken up in visiting German prisoners, and procuring their discharge, and sometimes that of French priests and nuns. To procure the release of Germans was no very difficult task, for the Commune, as I have said, had a wholesome fear of the Teuton, and "Civis Germanicus sum" was an open-sesame to Communist prison-doors. But to release the poor French nuns was a more difficult task. Mr. Washburne effected it in many instances; but it required all his energy and decision.
And here I must remark how much better and more humane it was to do as Mr. Washburne did—to hold such communication with the officials of the Commune as was absolutely necessary, and so save human life, and mitigate human suffering—than to sit with folded arms, and say, "Really, I can have nothing to do with those people," and so let fellow-creatures suffer and perish.