by Max Hennessy
As Colby had predicted, they had been routed at the polls by the Monarchists, and Adolphe Thiers, a ruthless little man with a round head, steel spectacles and a predilection for dictatorship, had been elected President, something which immediately started the hotheads in Paris talking of self-government. What made it worse was that as the armistice talks with the Germans dragged on, it became clear that France was to lose all Alsace and most of Lorraine, including both Metz and Strasbourg.
‘It’ll mean war in perpetuity,’ Colby said. ‘The French will never lie down under this and, as soon as they’re strong enough, they’ll try to get it all back.’
Despite their rage, there was little the French could do but accept the terms, and they had to suffer the march past of thirty thousand Germans through their capital and endure the sound of German trumpets and German bands. Shop windows were shuttered and draped with black, and savage retribution was dealt to civilians who appeared to be too friendly. As soon as the Germans left, the Parisians made the derisive gesture of scrubbing the pavements with disinfectant.
‘Well,’ Wolseley said, ‘it seems your talk of revolution was a little off the mark. But the Foreign Secretary’s interested in France and so is the Secretary for War, so I think we ought to go and take a look. How do you feel about another visit to Paris?’
The French capital seemed to be haunted by the half-sweetish, half-foetid odour of cooked horseflesh, and its wounds were still visible in smashed and desolate houses and the fading signs outside the shops, Boucherie, Canine et Féline. There seemed to be battalions of women in black, and small portions of siege bread, framed and glazed, were on sale in the novelty shops. Faces were bitter and Colby wasn’t surprised to hear talk of undying hatred for everything German. But the revictualling of the city was almost complete and, as Colby and Wolseley occupied their rooms in a hotel at the bottom of the Champs Elysées, herds of cattle were still being driven in and it was already possible to order a meal in a restaurant.
With Wolseley invited to spend a few days in the country with the American ambassador, Colby was left to himself, and, walking about the city, it didn’t take him long to become aware of a dangerous ferment that was bubbling up. Food had done much to restore the damage done to bodies but there was more than that to be repaired, it seemed. The humiliation of defeat, the peace terms, the drabness of the city and the dangerous French ennui after the drama of the siege were working and the population was existing in a vacuum. The city was still licking its wounds and, under the feeling of peace brought by the warm weather and the spring blossom, there were sharp anxieties and fear. Blood-red posters spattered the walls and, with soldiers everywhere, an alarm from the direction of Montmartre sent him in a hansom to see what was happening.
When Wolseley reappeared, he announced that he was returning to London but was leaving Colby in Paris for another week or two to keep an eye on things.
‘I think everything’s quietening down nicely,’ he said. ‘The American ambassador feels it’s all over now and that, with the prospect of good business and an abundance of food, Paris is recovering.’
‘I disagree, sir,’ Colby said.
Wolseley’s eyes glittered. ‘You have a great gift for telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about,’ he said testily. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘The poorer classes don’t seem to be benefiting from the food, because they can’t afford it, anyway, and I don’t think the new government’s helped them by deciding to end the pay of the men of the National Guard. To most of them it’s been a form of dole. They demonstrated in the Place de la Bastille yesterday. It was nothing but a march past, but it went on from ten in the morning until six in the evening, with bands and their colours draped in black. All the speeches were anti-government. The mood was ugly, sir.’
Wolseley listened quietly, gesturing to him to continue.
‘They also took away from the artillery parks about two hundred cannon which were due to be handed over to the Germans. They claim they were paid for by public subscription during the siege so that they’ve never been the property of the government to hand over. They’ve got them up in Montmartre.’
Wolseley was silent for a moment then he rose and stared out of the window. ‘You must be due for leave,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘I hardly think so, sir.’
‘You’d better take some, nevertheless. And you’d better spend it in Paris. I want to know what happens and so will Cardwell and the Foreign Secretary. But I can’t keep you here officially. You’d better take leave until the business resolves itself. I want someone with an ear to the ground. But this time don’t get involved. If anything happens, come home.’
Within forty-eight hours of Wolseley departing, Ackroyd arrived from London and Colby moved from the expensive hotel at the bottom of the Champs Elysées to an apartment in a flat-fronted block near the Luxembourg. It was so brown it looked like the inside of a cardboard box but Ackroyd had come prepared with summer clothing, money orders on Paris banks and his usual unflappable manner.
‘Your sister was in London, sir,’ he announced. ‘She asked me to tell you that the young lady had called again.’
Colby frowned. ‘What young lady?’
‘The one that called before.’
‘Who is she, dammit?’
‘Your sister didn’t tell me, sir.’
‘Was it the Baronne de Maël, Tyas?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir. I never saw her. And your sister seemed to be playin’ careful. An’ if it was the Baronne, sir, then I should point out that she ain’t there any more because at the moment she’s in Paris.’
Colby jerked round. ‘How do you know, you bloody old rogue?’
Ackroyd allowed himself a superior smile. ‘I took the precaution of directin’ the’ ansom from the station via the Champs Elysées, sir. The house was used as a ’ospital durin’ the siege, the cabby told me, but now the war’s over she’s back in it.’
‘How do you know it’s her, Tyas?’
‘I seen ’er, sir. There was a carriage outside so I instructed the cabby to stop and wait, and eventually she came out.’
There was an unexpected kick at Colby’s heart. He had enjoyed good times with Germaine.
‘How does she look?’ he demanded.
‘Beautiful, sir.’
‘Think I ought to go and see her, Tyas?’
‘No, sir,’ Ackroyd said firmly. ‘She ain’t your cup of tea at all.’
Colby glared. ‘What the hell is my cup of tea?’
‘Not ’er, sir. I can’t imagine ’er ladyin’ it at Braxby or thunderin’ across a field after a fox, covered with mud. Can you?’
Paris seemed almost to be listening for an alarm. The horse-buses were running as usual but people had formed the habit of talking earnestly in cafés and bars and at the corners of the streets. The air was full of excitement and not much business was being done.
Tempted by the knowledge that Germaine was back, Colby toyed with the idea for some time of going to see her but he had a shrewd idea that Harriet would not approve of her. Despite her impeccable breeding, she would not go down well in Braxby and, as Ackroyd had said, he couldn’t really see her smashing through the weather-beaten hawthorns of North Yorkshire after a dog fox in the middle of a misty November day. Nevertheless, there was something about her that drew him. Remembering how once he would have liked to have sunk a hatchet in her head at Gravelotte, he couldn’t imagine why, but he was sufficiently interested to dress himself in tails, cloak and top hat in the hope that he would be more attractive to her.
Ackroyd had just arrived back at his rooms after a day sniffing round the bars and he looked at Colby with alarm. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
Colby tried to appear nonchalant. ‘Thought I’d call on the Baronne de Maël.’
Ackroyd gave a low laugh. He seemed highly amused. ‘Shouldn’t, sir,’ he advised. ‘Not now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it�
�s starting.’
‘What’s starting?’
‘Paris, sir.’
Colby tossed his hat and gloves down. Ackroyd had an uncanny gift for absorbing a political situation quickly.
‘Out with it,’ he snapped. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Them guns they took up to Montmartre – they sent the army up to bring ’em back. Only they were as efficient as usual and forgot the gun teams. The troops went over to the mob and they’ve shot the general in charge.’
The news Ackroyd had brought turned out to be incomplete. The mob had shot not one general, but two, having found another who’d been foolish enough to poke his nose in out of curiosity. They’d been killed in a garden in the Rue des Rosiers, their bodies mutilated by a mob shrieking like lunatics, and other senior officers, including the Minister for War, had barely escaped with their lives. Now, with their nerves far from good after all that had happened since the previous September when the Empire had fallen, Thiers’ government, anxious not to lose their grip on the country even if they lost it on Paris, were withdrawing to Versailles. Behind them went what was left of the regular army, jeered at all the way through Paris by the amazed but delighted Parisians.
Curious, Colby took a cab to Montmartre, but everything seemed quiet. There were crowds of people about and a lot of men in the uniform of the National Guard. The guns were still where they’d been parked, but there was no sign of trouble and dozens of sightseers were strolling about.
The following day the newspapers announced that the city had been taken over by a commune. What a commune was nobody knew. The word had been murmured under the Second Empire and shouted during the siege, but even those who had shouted it loudest weren’t sure what it did. Memories also still recalled the revolution of 1848 and the bombs thrown by crimson-hued left-wingers, yet there seemed remarkably little excitement. Shops remained opened and the theatres were still playing, while the trains in and out of the city still ran. Business even continued to pick up and, unable to resist the strange sensation of being part of a carnival, Colby headed once more for the Champs Elysées, only to find that Germaine had bolted again.
She was worse than a bloody weathercock, he decided. It would be no good thinking of marriage with her. She’d be off to Marseilles or Perpignan at the first hint of thunder.
For once, however, she seemed to have guessed wrong and the reign of terror that had been expected in a city taken over by a mob had not occurred. Apart from the fact that left- wing journals, which had lapsed under Theirs, were allowed to re-open, there was little to suggest change. But, though the streets were quiet and curiously empty, it was impossible to telegraph reports to Wolseley because there was no postal or telegraph service out of the capital. Then, as the days passed, the absence of communication with the outside world suddenly began to seem ominous and, hearing there was to be a demonstration in the Place Vendôme, Colby decided to go and watch it.
The groups of people moving from the Opera and the Bourse seemed to consist chiefly of retired officers, shopkeepers and elderly gentlemen. They carried banners – ‘Time Presses For a Dyke Against Revolution’, ‘For Peace’ and ‘Reunion of the Friends of Order’ – and were marching towards the Rue de la Paix where a barricade had been erected. The National Guard waited in front of it and a shouted order stopped the column.
‘We’re unarmed,’ one of the elderly men shouted back, though Colby noticed bulges in the pockets of a few of the more nervous looking.
‘Go back,’ the Guard commander ordered. ‘My instructions are that you should disperse.’
‘We’re French,’ an old man at the front yelled, waving his stick. ‘We’re Parisians! We have every right to be here!’
When the shouts of ‘Socialist canaille’ started, Colby decided it was growing a little tense and started to look for a doorway where he could shelter. As he edged past, it was obvious that a few of the other sightseers were growing nervous, too, and there was a general movement rearwards by the more doubtful demonstrators and men bundling away their womenfolk. It was difficult to get clear, however, because the pressure from the rear was forcing the leaders closer to the line of National Guardsmen. Rifles were raised and the soldiers were in an ugly mood, and Colby had just found himself a shop doorway when a shot rang out, echoing among the tall buildings around him.
Almost immediately it was followed by a volley, and the square was filled with smoke and the screams of women. The crowd heaved and lurched, as those pressing forward at the back turned and began to run. As it began to crumble, the yelling mass dispersed, bolting for the Rue de Rivoli. Another volley roared out and, in front of the shop doorway where Colby was sheltered, an elderly man wearing the Légion d’Honneur stumbled and fell, his fingers clawing at the wall. As he slowly subsided to the pavement, blood from his breast daubed a red smear across the stonework.
The crowd was bolting now as fast as their legs would carry them. Above their heads, faces were hurriedly withdrawn from windows and, as Colby dragged the wounded man into the shop doorway, he saw the shutters of Worths’, the couturiers, fall into place. The square seemed to be filled with bodies but as the smoke cleared many of them clambered to their feet and began to run. Immediately there was another volley and several of them fell. As the National Guard moved back, their weapons still held at the ready, a few shopkeepers and uninjured moved out to help the dying.
Stretched on the shop floor, the old man was breathing in a heavy snoring noise and as Colby bent over him, opening his shirt to find the wound, a woman knelt alongside him and lifted her dress to wrench at the white cotton of her petticoat. Tearing it free, she tried to staunch the blood with it, but an artery seemed to have been severed and her fingers became reddened with it. Sitting back on her heels, she put her hands to her face and began to sob.
‘It’s too late,’ she said.
It was indeed, Colby thought. Blood had been spilt. The people he had seen laughing on the boulevards, feeling that the Commune could not affect their lives, now knew different. The rift between Paris and Versailles had gone beyond reconciliation. There would be no terms now and precious little else but hatred.
It seemed to be time to go home.
Seven
There was a great deal of speculation. The threat to established order which had risen in Paris seemed clear heresy, yet travellers returning from France showed a surprising sympathy with the fact that the Commune was trying to provide liberties the British had been enjoying for generations.
Watching the newspapers at Wolseley’s request, the only thing that drew Colby’s attention was a name he recognised among the newly-elected leaders, and it didn’t take long to discover that the ‘Citizen Paul-Gustave Cluseret’, who figured among the military officers of the Commune was that same Cluseret he had saved from being lynched in America. Enquiries revealed that his career since had followed a predictable path. He had acquired the American citizenship he had so much desired and had even got himself into American politics, but he had been unable to keep his fingers out of dangerous pies and, involved with a group demanding Irish freedom, had been forced to leave America and had turned up in England to take part in an attack on Chester Gaol. With the British police also after him, he had fled to France where he had been arrested for sedition against Napoleon, but, claiming American citizenship, had merely been deported, only to return when the Empire fell, to take his place in the ranks of the Commune.
There was still no sign of Germaine and Colby could only imagine she was enjoying herself in the South of France once more. Caroline Matchett had disappeared from the face of the earth and, with nobody else on the horizon, he was even beginning to eye the Rector’s daughter with a measure of speculation. He wanted to get married and was conscious that she was not unaware of his interest. Since his great-grandfather had founded the regiment, it was not unlikely Claude Cosgro’s ambitions notwithstanding – that, because tradition demanded it, he would in time become its commanding officer, and wife to a caval
ry colonel carried a lot of weight in the shires.
His job in London finished, he was due to return to the regiment, but Wolseley seemed unwilling to let him go, claiming that he hadn’t yet finished with France. Certainly London still lapped up stories from Paris. By comparison England seemed remarkably dull, with nothing to raise the eyebrows beyond the scandal of Lord William d’Eresby fleecing his mistress of thousands and then eloping with her maid, and the Prince of Wales being accused of adultery with Lady Mordaunt and having to go into the witness box to deny it. The Illustrated London News and the Graphic both had correspondents and artists in France, all making the most of the extraordinary situation of a capital city defying its own government, but they seemed able to find remarkably few incursions into civil liberties and no commandeering of private property beyond the seizure of two right-wing newspapers. But, Colby noticed, there were other, more private, reports that landed on his desk that mentioned soldiers and policemen shot without trial for no other reason than that they had served the Empire. Justice, in fact, seemed to have come to a stop because, like the postal officials, the Paris judges had wisely disappeared.
It was still possible to move in and out of the city without trouble, however, food was available, and the hatred engendered by the shootings in the Place Vendôme seemed to be dying. The Commune had been established and correspondents were even beginning to suggest that Thiers would have to climb down and treat with its leaders. But then, in the first days of April, Thiers’ cavalry fell on a Communard outpost and shot the lot, and a massed sortie in retaliation showed that the Commune was no more efficient than the Empire. Utterly smashed, its leaders were caught and shot out of hand, and at once hostages were arrested, among them the Archbishop of Paris, his Vicar-General and a host of priests, nuns and foreigners.
