by Guy Endore
“We had a few words of rather friendly discussion. Knowing me of the party, he was unwilling to be too severe but he warned me to be careful of speaking out of turn. Indeed, he, himself, was a dangerous man, and he is one of those whom I have set down as infected by Bertrand, and he was to prove it shortly.
“I did not think then that I was to see him under a soutane, and with a cross hanging over his belly, sooner than I was to find myself in such attire.”
This rather curt conclusion to the fate of Gois in Aymar Galliez’ script is readily expanded, for the history of the last few days of the Commune has been meticulously compiled.
The reader will recall that the delegate to the ex-Prefecture of Police had arrested many people, especially of the clergy, to keep as hostages. The avowed and widely published threat was that the Commune of Paris would kill two hostages for every one of their party shot by the government of Versaillles.
The chief purpose of the Commune, however, seems to have been to intimidate Adolphe Thiers to return Blanqui, who was being held a prisoner by the Versaillists. The captive Archbishop of Paris, threatened with death unless Blanqui was returned, himself wrote a letter to Thiers, in which he pleaded that Blanqui be exchanged for himself. Among other things he said that Blanqui, the Communist, was of no value to the Commune and not to be feared, for the Commune followed none of his ideas. “If he were associated with the Commune, far from being a help, he would only be a new element of discord in the party.”
But Thiers refused. The efforts of the American Ambassador failed, as did the efforts of many others. Some Communards claimed that Thiers wanted the archbishop killed so as to rouse the populace against the Commune. This seems really far-fetched, and if the Commune suspected as much, nothing was easier than not to slay the archbishop. But perhaps it was too late to exercise clemency. The Versailles army was marching on Paris. A gate was taken, the army poured in, barricades were thrown up. Terrific street-fighting ensued. Every window might conceal a Communist with a gun, fighting like a cornered rat. This last week was one of no mercy.
There is such a thing as a drunkenness that comes from a surfeit of bloodshed. The mob of Paris, outraged by endless murders, howled, but only for more blood, like a man drunk with liquor who, while lying wretched and puking under the table, still craves another drink and yet another.
On the 24th of May, on the third day of street-fighting, a firing squad had come to the prison of La Grande Roquette and demanded six hostages, among them the archbishop, to be executed immediately. For what? It was too late now for a dramatic warning to Versailles to release Blanqui. This was the end. The army of Versailles, circling like a python, was slowly crushing the Commune to death. The ribs of the city were cracking. The air was full of flying death. “While we are still in possession of the archbishop, let us execute him. Tomorrow may be too late.” So the Communards thought.
On the 25th, Clavier, the commissaire who had been in charge of the Piepus affair, came to take the banker, Jecker, out of his cell. The director of the prison wished to see an order before he would consent to release Jecker. Clavier had none, but being of a compliant nature, he wrote one out in the spot and signed it, too. The director accepted the paper at the point of a pistol and found the combined argument exceedingly valid. The banker, who was suspected of having made and concealed millions, had actually been ruined in his Mexican speculation by his fellow bankers, for there is no more loyalty of caste among capitalists than in any stratum of society, although more power for ill and good.
Clavier marched out with his prisoner, and after a fairly long walk, found a quiet and convenient spot, placed his captive against a wall, and while the latter pleaded softly, “Don’t make me suffer,” the order was given to fire. Some gamins of the neighborhood amused themselves by kicking the dead body.
Curiously, the firing was heard by Colonel Gois, who happened to be passing along an adjoining street. He felt this to be a kind of poaching on his special province, he being the head of the court-martial. The two thereupon agreed to join forces.
Clavier and he first had lunch, then they met by appointment and proceeded once more to the Roquette prison. Revolvers were loosened in the holsters and a list of prisoners demanded. The director had learnt his business by this time and complied at once.
Gois read out the names and marked down fifty, ten being clericals (four of them monks arrested at the Piepus comedy), forty being guards and agents of Imperial days. Fifty. That was all he wanted. He did not have men enough to handle more.
In the prison there was much commotion. The inmates had seen seven go to their death and were frightened. To reassure them and obviate resistance, the guards repeated that this was to be a mere change of prison. Many believed. “We are going to take you to the mairie of Belleville, because they have no more bread here for so many prisoners.” Moreover, the number of names called out was in itself reassuring. One, even six, might be placed before a firing squad, but fifty!
The jailers, passing down the line, unlocked many cells from which no inmates were called out. This was done because several of the older jailers had run away and the men left did not know the prison. Thus was opened the cell in which Jean Robert was locked. His term had long expired but still he was in jail. So that though his name was not called, he thought it an excellent idea to step out as if he heard himself called. There might be a possibility of escape. For months now, he had had no news of his family. He saw men hastily making bundles of their effects. He quickly snatched his own overcoat, his only possession, and ran out.
No effort was made to control the prisoners. The men were simply hustled into a line and marched off to the sound of fife and drum. Some of them were bareheaded. But most had had time to dress and to tie up a few things in a kerchief. The captive guards of Paris of Imperial days took pride in marching smartly. The priests, hindered by their soutanes, dragged behind. All around were the Fédérés, the men of the National Guard, adhering to the Commune, guns held in readiness. Jean Robert, his limbs stiff from years of sitting on the box and months in prison, walked among the clerics.
Robert’s first surprise was to note the crowds on each side of the street. The shouts of anger, the vegetables that came flying, along with kicks and fisticuffs. What was it all about? Why were they shouting: “Death to the hostages!”
“Where are we going?” he asked the monk walking beside him.
“To Golgotha,” the latter answered curtly and resumed his muttered prayers. The coachman, though he had worked for years in Paris, could not recall any place with that name. He wanted more information but was a little shy of interrupting the prayers of the monk a second time.
The guards, fearing that the mob would snatch the prisoners to a sooner death, secured reinforcements from a barricade manned by the 74th battalion. From then on the way was quieter. The column moved up the rue de Paris and turned into the rue Haxo, escorted by an enormous and constantly growing mob.
“No escape for me. Well, another prison, then,” Jean Robert said to himself, and resigned himself with a sigh. Indeed the number of men with guns, the number of escorting boys who had joined with the march, grew every minute. A hundred pairs of eyes were constantly fixed on every prisoner. Jean Robert shrank a little within himself. What if it were to be discovered that he was not supposed to be with this group and he were excluded? Even a change of prison was a novelty to be enjoyed.
At this moment the whole column marched through a long and broad archway into a courtyard and past several small houses, issuing from thence onto what was half an ornamented garden, half a vegetable patch. The prisoners were bunched up against a wall at the higher end. The mob that had poured in continued to howl for the death of the hostages.
Jean Robert’s slow mind began to understand. The escort of the National Guard had protected them from the brutal mob only to bring them here to die in more military style. Surprised, he shouted out, “But they are going to shoot us!” Agreat fear clamped itself around
his heart with claws of steel. He made a move to run forward.
A guard with a far-off, dreamy expression on his face pushed Robert back roughly to the wall and held him there with the stock of his gun, while he continued to think of something else.
“But I’m not guilty! I’m—” Robert cried,
“None of us are guilty,” said the young monk quietly, and sought to lay a consoling hand on him.
“But—” Robert shouted, and angrily shook off that kind hand that wished to force him gently into death. His eyes were popping out of his head. There was a lump in his throat so big that he couldn’t talk without great pain. The saliva drooled from his mouth. “I don’t want to die!” he exploded violently.
“Hush,” said the monk. “We must all learn to die.”
“But I don’t want to die!” Robert cried again. Sweat was beading his brow from the terrible strain of uttering words.
Below in the garden, the soldiers were disputing about the firing. Some members of the Commune made a vain last effort to stop the crime, but it had gone too far. The public so long urged on by their leaders to shout for blood had become infected with the lust for murder. “Let’s get out of here,” the members of the Central Committee whispered to each other. A moment later, when the shooting began, there was not an important official in sight.
The guards left the prisoners to join the firing squad.
“Here!” Robert shouted, and was about to run after his guard who was moving away. “I’m not one of—”
He got no further. The guard, now distinctly annoyed, forced him back with a vicious blow in the pit of the stomach. Robert clasped his hands over his belly, his mouth yawned for a breath which his paralyzed muscles refused to give him. In an agony of pain, he dropped to one knee.
And the guard moved off and out of range.
The monk, seeing Robert kneeling beside him, turned quietly with his fingers raised: “Ego te absolvo ab onmibus…” The formula for conditional absolution.
Robert was still struggling for air when the firing began. Some fruit trees, still half in blossom, were in the way. Soon their pretty spring foliage was torn to shreds, their branches hung broken, their bark scored and burnt. In lulls while the men reloaded, the wind brought snatches of a waltz from a nearby encampment of German occupation soldiers, who were amusing themselves out of doors in the pleasant weather.
When the victims lay in heaps, revolvers were drawn and endless coups de grâce administered. Bayonets were brought into play. Later, autopsies were to reveal bodies with sixty, seventy bullets in them and as many bayonet wounds.* Many of the firing party, too, bore wounds, inflicted by their own careless comrades.
When the execution was considered complete, Colonel Gois and Clavier investigated. They had lined up fifty men, but they counted fifty-one bodies.
Gois shrugged his shoulders: “Decidedly there’s one too many.”†
They did not wait to examine into the matter more carefully. There was need for hurry. Step by step, barricade after barricade, the Versailles troops were wresting the city from the Communards.
There were still 315 hostages left at La Grande Roquette prison. On the following day a man named Ferré tried to secure them either for a firing squad or as volunteers for fighting on the barricades. But the fighting in neighboring streets was coming so close that he gave up in the midst of things and left the prison with almost every cell door open. The majority of the inmates thought themselves likely to be safer in jail than outside and for greater security proceeded to barricade themselves within their prison. Some tried to escape, and these bold ones fell into the hands of Communards who executed them at once. The next morning the marines had captured the district and the hostages were liberated.
Then began those terrible moments which were so like cataclysms of nature, like earthquakes and avalanches, that words seem incapable of describing them. The retreating Communards had set fire to various public buildings. Groups of men and some of women went about destroying the best structures in the quarters that had to be evacuated. Among these mad women who were setting fire to the best that Paris contained was Sophie de Blumenberg.
On this, the last day before the end, Sophie had not left the 204th battalion. She had taken a pair of boots from a dead boy. They fitted her small feet. Somewhere, too, she had picked up the overcoat of a Zouave uniform.
Several days before, the 204th had been called to protect the barricades of the 9th ward. The battalion was almost wiped out there, for the Versailles forces seized a barricade in the rear, rue Caumartin, and poured a deadly fire into their unprotected backs. Sixteen of the company, taken prisoners, were executed at once and within sight of the remaining few who had been able to retreat to another barricade.
The few survivors of the 204th were now standing about the mairie on the Place Voltaire, and talking about the event, as they had been ever since it had taken place. Sophie, unashamed of her love, continued to make open inquiries. Now, though no one could remember having seen Bertrand on that morning, they nevertheless added his name to the list of dead. It made the disaster the more impressive and formidable. “Dead along with the others,” they commented briefly and shook their heads. They made no attempt to twit her. Their present great desire was to discover how such a calamity could have overtaken them. It seemed to them impossible that their defeat was a natural result of the chances of war. They suspected treason. And this suspicion, after lighting on any number of people, fell at last on Captain de Montfort, who had ordered them to that position, who had specified the placing of the barricades and who had left the one in the rear insufficiently manned, evidently on purpose.
As soon as the men began to build upon this supposition, they found more and more valid reasons. Three were outstanding. First, Montfort’s aristocratic ancestry and demeanor, his love of cantering around on his horse in his blue and gold uniform and shouting down his orders from above, all convincing evidence of relations with Versailles. Second, his natural jealousy of Bertrand, which would be likely to lead him to treachery in an effort to erase his rival. Third, his insistence on that day, during a little altercation among the officers, that the barricades should be here and there and manned thus. Usually he had taken little part in discussions of military strategy.
To this was added a story which was true, and which someone now thought of for the first time. A few days before, Captain de Montfort had come up to the Ministry in the rue Saint-Dominique. He was slightly drunk and in an ugly mood. His wild gestures caused the guard to raise his bayonet and prevent the captain’s entry. Montfort was beside himself with fury. He called down curses on the whole guard. And noticing that they were from the 204th battalion, which he knew was Bertrand’s, he sneered: “The two-hundred-fourth, huh? You fellows seem to be a rare pack of scoundrels. That’s a battalion that needs a good purging.”
Sophie cared little about the decimation of the 204th at the Madeleine, but the fact that Barral had gotten rid of Bertrand in this fashion made her sick with grief. A grief which rapidly boiled over into a wild desire for vengeance.
It was Captain Barral de Montfort’s misfortune just then to come riding along on horseback in the direction of the barricade on Boulevard Voltaire. And Sophie, seeing him first, pointed him out with her finger, yelling: “There’s the dirty traitor!” He heard her voice and reined in his prancing steed.
With cries of: “Kill him! Kill the traitor!” a dozen soldiers raced up to him, a score of arms seized him and yanked him from his saddle. He was tossed, thrown about, dragged toward the mairie, until his beautiful uniform was a mass of rags, his features lost amid bruised and swollen flesh. Sophie, catching a glimpse of him through the mob that surrounded him, opened her mouth in horror. She wanted to run away but restrained herself: “Serves him right, the traitor!” She had completely forgotten that for several months now she, herself, had been aiding Barral in precisely this sort of treachery.
The mairie was crowded with women sewing sacks to hold e
arth for the barricades. Ferré and Genton, two officers there, decided that a trial must be held. “It must be regular, men,” they shouted over the tumult. The captain was taken out on the square, which was massed with soldiers and curious spectators. Many did not know what was happening. But they heard the cry of traitor and took it up.
It was slow business plowing through the mob with a prisoner whom everyone wished to injure. Progress was further impeded by a long line of hearses, draped in red flags, which were climbing up the hill to Père-Lachaise. “His turn now!” someone cried. And the impatient mob repeated the phrase in a hundred variations.
Genton and Ferré kept repeating to the men who barred the advance: “It’s got to be regular. We must be just. The Commune has decided to bring him up before the court-martial.” This assurance, and the commanding position that Genton seemed to occupy with his scarlet sash about his waist, allowed the escort and their prisoner to finally cross the square and reach the rue Sedaine.
A shop on this street had become the new headquarters of several battalions. A revolutionary tribunal was improvised on a moment’s notice. Colonel Gois took charge. Genton and Ferré assumed the rôle of assessors. It was a mere parody of justice. There was not an iota of evidence to implicate Barral de Montfort. He had been vain, yes; imperious, yes; and negligent, perhaps; but of communications with Versailles, of treachery of any kind, nothing.
The judges wished to save Montfort, whom they knew well and whose cousin Edouard Moreau was a member of the Central Committee and one of the big men of the Commune. But in the face of the mob, they did not dare proclaim him innocent. The prisoner himself would not speak, could not perhaps speak. His eyes were closed by puffy bruises; blood ran from the corner of his tightly shut mouth. He sat in impassive silence. Only once he murmured, but so low that his voice scarcely carried to the judges: “I’m innocent. Who dares call me a traitor?”
