by Max Hennessy
Immediately Paris was under siege again. The gates clanged shut and, after the failure of the civilian ‘generals’ who had led the disastrous sortie, Gustave-Paul Cluseret, from being an unimportant military man, became leader of the Commune’s army.
‘Didn’t you know the fellow?’ Wolseley asked. ‘In America or something?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Colby admitted. ‘I wasn’t impressed.’
Unexpectedly, the discussion became an invitation to dinner at Wolseley’s club. Wolseley was inclined enough to keep himself to himself for the invitation to be intriguing, and Colby wondered what it entailed, because he suspected that it certainly entailed something.
There was another guest, and his presence raised Colby’s eyebrows, because he hadn’t known Wolseley even knew him or, if he had, could possibly like him. The meal was served quietly in a room separate from the other members, which immediately put Colby on his guard and made him suspect there was dirty work somewhere in the offing. It didn’t take long to bring the talk round to politics and finally to France.
‘Thiers has persuaded the Prussians that it’s in their interest to squash this revolution.’ Wolseley’s guest spoke in a quiet voice, an amused worldly smile playing about his lips. ‘And, since Bismarck’s started to consider it might spread to Berlin, he’s returning four hundred thousand French prisoners of war to help him do it. This time Thiers means business.’ The faint smile came again. ‘He seems to be assuming that if the army couldn’t defeat the Prussians, at least they ought to be able to defeat their own countrymen.’
Colby said nothing, aware that somewhere in this roundabout chit chat there was something unpleasant for him.
‘Does it affect us, sir?’ Wolseley said, affecting a bland disinterest.
‘Yes.’ His guest smiled. ‘If nothing’s produced a reign of terror in Paris so far, this shooting of prisoners will. It will be 1791 all over again and the Commune will doubtless be frightened enough to butcher a few prisoners of its own.’ He smiled at Colby and sipped his wine, clearly not expecting to be among the unlucky ones. ‘They might not all be French either,’ he ended and Colby began to at last see where the conversation was leading. ‘There are British people in Paris wanting to get out.’ The smile had given way to a sombre gravity now. ‘Andrew Gordon, for instance, who’s a Methodist minister. You may have heard of him. Prates a little, but he’s given to holding mass meetings and there’d be quite an uproar if he weren’t saved. George Clarendon–’
‘Fortieth Foot,’ Wolseley put in.
‘–the American Minister’s family.’
‘Friends of mine, as you’re aware,’ Wolseley said.
‘–Lord Wane. Lady Ecclesfield.’
There was a long pause then Wolseley’s guest put his fingertips together and looked at Colby. ‘Lady Ecclesfield’s about to be married to a distant cousin of the Queen’s,’ he said. ‘Can’t imagine why. It’ll do the Queen no good. And Lord Wane’s part of the Royal Household. What he’s doing over there just now, I can’t imagine.’ He looked at Colby again. ‘But you see the problem, I’m sure.’
Colby saw it only too plainly. ‘What about the Foreign Office?’ he asked.
The smile this time was faintly contemptuous. ‘The Prime Minister refuses to be involved, particularly where Lord Wane and Lady Ecclesfield are concerned. Gladstone’s no favourite of the Queen, as you possibly know, and doubtless he sees no reason to concern himself with favourites of hers. The Queen has therefore turned to me.’ The friendliness returned to the smile. ‘I turned to Wolseley here.’
Colby said nothing.
‘They have to be brought back to England,’ the quiet voice went on. ‘We’ve approached Washburne, the American Minister, and he’s more than willing to help. But he insists that they’re not his concern really – which indeed they’re not – and that we should have someone there of our own to handle it.’
‘Can’t the Embassy?’
There was a shrug, a gesture with slim white hands and a moué of sadness. ‘The Embassy is functioning at half-throttle at the moment. The ambassador, Lord Lyons, is not the most enterprising of men. As for his staff, like Washburne’s people, they seem to be spending more time in Versailles than in Paris. After all, that’s where the French government is, and I think they have their hands full. What we need is someone able to handle the business without being hampered by any other responsibilities. Wolseley said you might help.’ The quiet friendly smile came again. ‘The Queen would be grateful to me for solving her dilemma. Grateful to you, too, I suspect.’
There seemed little more to be said. Certainly not by Colby. As they left the club he realised the matter had been settled with hardly a word from him.
Wolseley watched the carriage carrying his guest disappear into the darkness, the clip-clop of hooves slowly fading.
‘Not a bad fellow, Disraeli,’ he observed. ‘For a Jew, that is.’
It was no longer possible to get into Paris by train and Colby and Ackroyd had to hire horses. At the Porte Maillot, they were stopped by men of the National Guard, all fiercely whiskered but curiously uncertain of themselves.
Nobody was prepared to take the responsibility of letting them through and several officers and NCOs went into committee for twenty minutes before announcing that they would have to send the request for entry to the Commune-which wasn’t due to be in session until the following day.
‘Send my name to the military commander, Citizen Cluseret,’ Colby suggested.
‘The military commander is far too busy.’
‘Not to see me.’ Colby’s card and a handful of silver changed the sergeant’s mind and he agreed to send a runner at once.
There was a café handy and Colby and Ackroyd sat in the sunshine, drinking cold chablis until the sergeant reappeared. ‘The military commander instructs us to allow you to pass,’ he said.
Cluseret looked older, his beard streaked with grey, his handsome face a little flabbier. He removed the cheroot from his mouth as he saw Colby and rose to shake hands.
‘You once did me a favour,’ he said bluntly. ‘I was in a very difficult situation. What do you want?’
He listened carefully as Colby explained why he was there, then he shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I don’t wish to detain anybody, whatever my comrades might think. Every foreigner eating food in the City leaves just that much less for the Parisians. Perhaps it would be as well to avoid some sort of international incident, too, so let me ’ave the names and they will be issued with passes.’
He escorted Colby to the door. ‘These crapauds ’ave no idea ’ow to conduct things,’ he observed quietly in English as they walked down a corridor lined with slovenly National Guardsmen. ‘Am I supposed to make these objects into soldiers? The ineptitude of the people who run the Commune is quite incredible. They are good for nothing but thinking up resounding titles for their private armies and dressing in a way that would do credit to the Empire. I ’ave ordered no lanyards, no glitter, no gold braid. They will be better for it.’
He was the same cynical Cluseret Colby had met in America, saying what he thought about his colleagues with a recklessness which seemed suicidal.
The apartment near the Luxembourg was still free and Colby paid the rent in advance and moved in quickly. The Embassy, working at half-cock with many of its staff in Versailles, was able to supply the names of stranded Britons, and Washburne, the American Minister, provided those of several Americans. It wasn’t difficult to persuade Cluseret to permit a train to pass through the lines, and the Reverend Andrew Gordon, scourge of the unbelievers, George Clarendon, of the 40th of Foot, Washburne’s family, Lord Wane and Lady Ecclesfield were all unearthed.
A second batch of travellers was also allowed through, but this time their departure was more hurried, because Neuilly, the prosperous village to the west of the city which had largely been spared by the Prussians in January, was close to the railway line and the shells beginning to come from Versaillese guns manned by
returned prisoners of war were starting to fill the hospitals with injured. Shattered bedding, furniture, mirrors and glassware lay in the streets and people were living in cellars praying for the fighting to finish. As the shells reached further and further into the city, haphazardly killing Communards and anti-Communards alike, the splinters were even striking the United States Legation near the Etoile, and Ackroyd, carrying a message to Washburne, brought back a stone foot knocked off a bas relief on the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs Elysées was deserted these days and there were barriers by the Rond Point beyond which no one but soldiers was permitted to go. It was clear that the great attack Thiers was anticipated to launch with his returned army was expected soon and there was a new flood of applications for passports or protection papers, and the Second Secretary who appeared to be running the British Embassy put out a notice that British subjects remained in Paris at their own risk. If the bombardment was achieving nothing else, it was at least encouraging people to leave.
Thiers was generally regarded by the British still in Paris as an ass but they were all well aware that when his attack came he would know where to aim because he had been the Minister responsible for building the city’s defences in the days of Louis-Philippe, and Issy was suggested as the place. That they were dead right was proved at the end of the month when, after a tremendous bombardment, Fort Issy fell. A new request to Cluseret to permit foreigners to leave via the German lines to the east was brushed aside.
‘Later.’ he said. ‘First I must regain Fort Issy.’
Reporting to Washburne that evening, Colby found him looking worried. He had a strong face and wore his long hair swept behind his ears, a typical American with steady eyes, a strong nose and jaw, and a Puritan sternness about his manner and clothes.
‘Cluseret saved Issy,’ he said. ‘Thiers’ army was as slow as usual. The place had been evacuated but Cluseret got his men there before they thought of moving in. Unfortunately, we’ll get no more help from him because he’s been arrested. They say it’s lack of ability, but it can’t be because he’s the only one who has any. There’s a rumour he was planning to sell the Commune to the government.’
‘It would be in character, sir.’
Washburne gestured. ‘I think it’s just the Commune being nervous,’ he said. ‘His successor’s no safer. He’s already being accused of not having the right political spirit, whatever that might be. I guess the Jacobins are in control and they’re talking of shooting the Archbishop and a few hostages – foreign ones if necessary.’
From that moment, Colby’s work, shared with two or three Englishmen and Americans, became more secret, and the removal of people from the Champs Elysées area was done at night. They were hurried to the north-east of the city where the Prussians still lay, and all those young enough to be active were taken inconspicuously on buses to the Jardin des Plantes, from whence they walked to the Porte d’Italie and thence to Sceaux on the road to Orléans. The carriages were kept for the elderly and infirm.
Nobody argued, because by this time it seemed that half Paris wanted to get out and stay out, not only foreigners but Parisians threatened with conscription. The National Guard were entering houses to arrest anyone who failed to answer the call, and thousands of Frenchmen were going into hiding. Some escaped in baskets of dirty linen, some were smuggled out on British or American passports, some disguised themselves as peasants and pretended they were returning to their farms. The city was beginning to look like a city of the dead.
Curiously, the behaviour of the rest of Paris remained surprisingly phlegmatic. Labourers worked at their little plots of ground under the blossom trees and fishermen still sat fishing beneath the bridges of the Seine as cannon balls and shells roared and rattled nearby, and, near the Madeleine on their way to the Luxembourg, Colby and Ackroyd passed a weight-lifter entertaining the crowd.
All those who wished to go had gone by the middle of May, and Colby was thinking once more of leaving himself when a note from Washburne summoned him to the United States Legation.
‘We have two more American citizens, Major,’ he announced. ‘And I’m afraid it’s up to you. Our people are occupied getting as many priests to safety as possible. This Raoul Rigault, who’s running the Committee of Public Safety, has announced his intention of shooting everyone in holy orders, so we’re fully occupied. They’re at Number Seventy-seven, Boulevard Pereire on the way to Neuilly. They couldn’t leave before because one of them was ill and the other was doing the nursing. We were told of them by a family who left yesterday. The name’s Putnam and though they’ve expressed their willingness to leave, they have no transport and are unable to find any.’
Obtaining a carriage was not as easy as it seemed. With the Versaillese on the point of attacking, all horses had been commandeered for guns or escape, and carriages and cabs had disappeared from the streets. It was Ackroyd who remembered the owner of a stables in the Rue de Rennes which they’d used on their previous visit. His horses were old and he was having difficulty feeding them, so that it didn’t take long to persuade him to sell them a carriage, lock, stock and barrel, to be picked up the following morning.
Colby was just finishing his evening meal, half-heartedly listening to the firing from Mont Valérien, when he lifted his head, conscious that the guns seemed nearer. As he listened again he realised that it wasn’t guns he heard, but drums. The sound was growing louder and, as he crossed to the window, the street filled with soldiers heading for the barricades in the west. A cart full of gunpowder rattled along after them and long teams of ragged men, women and children trailed behind, pulling a gun.
At that moment, Ackroyd pushed his head round the door. ‘The Versaillese ’ave got inside, sir,’ he said. ‘By the Point du Jour. Somebody opened the gate for ’em. They’re fighting near the Avenue des Ternes. Any moment now the Boulevard Pereire will be in the line of fire.’
As they left the apartment, people were standing on street corners and in the doorways of shops and bars, staring towards the west. Every now and then they were brushed aside by workmen wearing officers’ swords and sashes, as swarms of ragged troops rushed past to take up defensive positions. The sound of firing was growing louder and, as the traffic towards the west grew to a flood, they had to push their way through it to the Rue de Rennes.
The owner of the stable had vanished but the horse and carriage were there. Colby backed the animal into the shafts and harnessed it himself, then climbing to the box, drove it into the street to be met by a cavalcade of ragged horsemen, followed by half a dozen guns rumbling over the cobbles. He seemed to be across the route of the Versaillese advance and as he neared the Boulevard Pereire, he saw a young man holding a white flag start to wave it frantically. Immediately, one of the men on horseback stopped his horse alongside him, drew out a pistol and placing it against his head, shot him dead. Further down the street, a group of Communards were driving a monk and three nuns in wide-winged starched hats towards a barricade that had been built across the street. More troops were running up, their weapons swinging, their red banners tilted forward, and one of the men fell. Bullets were clipping the top of the barricade, puncturing sandbags and striking splinters from stones and boxes and old doors as the nuns were forced to climb to the top in an attempt to stop the firing. As they watched, two of them were hit and collapsed, rolling down the other side out of sight.
There was a lot of smoke now and they could hear the thud of artillery, the rattle of musketry and the grinding roar of mitrailleuses. Men were yelling that a Versaillese battalion had broken through and they saw men running back, some without weapons, yelling they had been betrayed.
Number Seventy-seven, Boulevard Pereire, was untouched by artillery fire but not far away there was a house with a large hole on the first floor and rooms riddled with shell splinters. Inside, the flying wreckage of the windows had ruined carpets and curtains and furnishings. Number Seventy-seven was unlocked and appeared to be empty. As they entered, the firing increased a
nd the roar of musketry sent them to the top floor windows to watch what was happening. As they looked out, shells began to fall among a column of marching Communards which immediately broke and began to head back at full speed. As it crumbled into a horde of terrified men and women, tumbling and rolling under the wheels of carriages and ammunition carts, frightened horses bolted, dragging empty vehicles or the fragments of broken shafts, then men began to throw down their weapons and bandoliers and shout the same old vicious cry of betrayal with which they had heralded every defeat since the war against the Prussians had started the previous year.
‘Generals’, their horses lost, came running back among the shouting workmen and the limping old men and women carrying dead sons. Here and there a body sprawled on the pavement, or a shattered carriage lay lopsided in the gutter with the equipment that had been thrown away by the fleeing troops. The trees in the Boulevard Pereire were being cut now by flying shell splinters and the ground was covered by grape, canister, shot, broken shells and flattened bullets. There was a gun in the garden of the house opposite and the men working it had knocked down the wall to allow them to pass through. Near the hole were the bodies of four National Guardsmen.
Thinking the people they were seeking might be hiding, they searched the house from attic to cellar. There was no sign of them and the terrified horse in the street was snatching at the reins. Thinking it would break free and bolt, they were just on the point of leaving when Colby’s eyes fell on a group of brick-built outhouses at the bottom of the garden and it occurred to him the Americans they were seeking might have hidden there. Through the dusty window, he saw a wheelbarrow and tools and plant pots on a bench. There was no sign of life but, as he turned away, he heard a cry that sounded more delighted than scared, and the door burst open.
As he swung round, his jaw dropped and his eyes widened, as memory raced back at a stretch gallop.
‘Jesus Christ in the mountains!’ he yelled. ‘Gussie Dabney! What in God’s name are you doing here?’
