Chapter LXXXV

The horrible cracking sound that is heard at sea when a vessel splits upon a rock, is not a surer sign of peril to the terrified crew, than are the vain efforts, contradictions and agitation at the Hôtel de Ville, the forerunners of disaster to the men of the Commune. Listen! the vessel is about to heave asunder. Everybody gives orders, no one obeys them. One man looks defiantly at another; this man denounces that, and Rigault thinks seriously of arresting them both. There is a majority which is not united, and a minority that cannot agree amongst themselves. Twenty-one members retire, they do well.[92] I am glad to find on the list the names of the few that Paris’ still believes in, and whom, thanks to this tardy resignation, it will not learn to despise. For instance, Arthur Arnould. But why should they take the trouble to seek out a pretext? Why did they not say simply: “We have left them because we find them full of wickedness; we were blinded as you were at first, but now we in our turn see clearly; a good cause has been lost by madmen or worse, and we have abandoned it because, if we were to stay a moment longer, now that we are no longer blinded, we should be committing a criminal act” Such words as these would have opened the eyes of so many wretched beings, who are going to their deaths and think they do well to die! As to those who remain, they must feel that their power is slipping from them. They did not arrest or detain Rossel; it would seem as if they dared not touch him because he was right in thinking what he said, although he was very wrong to say it as he did. While the Commune hesitates, the military plans of the Versaillais are being carried out. Vanves taken, Montrouge in ruins, breaches opened at the Point-du-Jour, at the Porte-Maillot, at Saint-Ouen; the Communists have only to choose now, between flight and the horrors of a terrible death struggle! May they fly, far, far away, beyond the reach of vengeance, despised, forgotten if that be possible! I am told that the Central Committee is trying now to substitute itself for the Commune, which was elected by its desire.[93] One born of the other, they will die together.

]

NOTES:

[92] An important document has just made the round of the Communal
press—the manifesto of the minority of the Commune, in which
twenty-one members declare their refusal to take any farther part in
the deliberations of the body, which they accuse of having delivered
its powers into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and thus
rendering itself null. This declaration is signed by:—Arthur Arnould,
Avrial, Andrieux, Arnold, Clémence, Victor Clément, Courbet, Franckel,
Eugène Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy,
Sérailler, Tridon, Theisz, Varlin, Vermorel, Jules Vallès.
Adding to these twenty-one secessionists, twenty-one members who
have resigned:—Adam, Barré, Brelay, Beslay, De Bouteiller, Chéron,
Desmarest, Ferry, Fruneau, Goupil, Loiseau-Pinson, Leroy, Lefèvre,
Méline, Murat, Marmottan, Nast, Ulysse Parent, Robineat, Rane,
Tirard;
Three who have not sat: Briosne, Menotti Garibaldi, Rogeard;
Two dead: Duval, Flourens;
One captured: Blanqui;
One escaped: Charles Gérardin;
Five incarcerated: Allix, Panille dit Blanchet, Brunel, Emile
Clément, Cluseret;—
Out of 101 members elected to the Commune on the 26th of March and
the 16th of April, only forty-seven now remain:—Amouroux, Ant.
Arnaud, Assy, Babick, Billioray, Clément, Champy, Chardon, Chalain,
Demay, Dupont, Decamp, Dereure, Durant, Delescluze, Eudes, Henry
Fortuné, Ferré, Gambon, Geresme, Paschal Grousset, Johannard,
Ledroit, Langevin, Lonclas, Mortier, Léo Meiller, Martelet, J.
Miot, Oudet, Protot, Paget, Pilotel, Félix Pyat, Philippe, Parisel,
Pottier, Régère, Raoul Rigault, Sicard, Triquet, Urbain, Vaillant,
Verdure, Vésmier, Viart.

[93] “REPUBLICAN FEDERATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.

“Central Committee. “To the People of Paris! To the National Guard!

“Rumours of dissensions between the majority of the Commune and the
Central Committee have been spread by our common enemies with a
persistency which, once for all, must be crushed by public compact.
“The Central Committee, appointed to the administration of military
affairs by the Committee of Public Safety, will enter upon office
from this day.
“This Committee, which has upheld the standard of the Communal
revolution, has undergone no change and no deterioration. It is
today what it was yesterday, the legitimate defender of the
Commune, the basis of its power, at the same time as it is the
determined enemy of civil war; the sentinel placed by the people to
protect the rights that they have conquered,
“In the name, then, of the Commune, and of the Central Committee,
who sign this pact of good faith, let these gross suspicions and
calumnies be swept away. Let hearts beat, let hands be ready to
strike in the good cause, and may we triumph in the name of union
and fraternity.
“Long live the Republic!
“Long live the Commune!
“Long live the Communal Federation!

“The Commission of the Commune, BERGERET, CHAMPY, GERESME, LEDROIT,
LONGLAS, URBAIN.
“The Central Committee.
“Paris, 18th May, 1871.”

[94] Arnould is a man of about forty-seven years of age, small in
stature, lively and intelligent. He has written in many of the
Democratic journals of Paris and the provinces; and his literary
talents are of a good kind. Being connected with Rochefort’s journal,
the _Marseillaise_, he was sent by the latter to challenge Pierre
Bonaparte, and was a witness at the trial which followed the murder of
Victor Noir.
Although naturally drawn by his connections into the movement of
the eighteenth of March, he always protested loudly against the
arbitrary acts of the Commune, and it is surprising that he did not
fall under accusation, by his colleagues. He opposed particularly
the proposals for the suppression of newspapers. “It is prodigious
to me,” he said, in full meeting of the committee, “that people
will still talk of arresting others for expressing their opinions.”
He voted against the organisation of the Committee of Public Safety
on the ground:—
“That such an institution would be directly opposed to the
political opinions of the electoral body, of which the Commune is
the representative.”
He protested most energetically against secret imprisonment—
“Secret incarceration has something immoral in it; it is moral
torture substituted for physical.
“I cannot understand men who have passed their life in combating
the errors of despotism, falling into the same faults when they
arrive at power. Of two things one: either secret imprisonment is
an indispensable and good thing; or, it is odious. If it was good
it was wrong to oppose it, and if it be odious and immoral, we
ought not to continue it.”
What on earth had he then to do in the Commune?
“Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?”