FullReads

“Au revoir, Maurice!”

They waved their hands once more in a parting salute, yielding to the fatality that decreed their separation in that manner, but each none the less securely seated in the other’s heart.

The extraordinary occurrences of the next and the succeeding days crowded on the heels of one another in such swift sequence that Maurice had scarcely time to think. On the morning of the 19th Paris awoke without a government, more surprised than frightened to learn that a panic during the night had sent army, ministers, and all the public service scurrying away to Versailles, and as the weather happened to be fine on that magnificent March Sunday, Paris stepped unconcernedly down into the streets to have a look at the barricades. A great white poster, bearing the signature of the Central Committee and convoking the people for the communal elections, attracted attention by the moderation of its language, although much surprise was expressed at seeing it signed by names so utterly unknown. There can be no doubt that at this incipient stage of the Commune Paris, in the bitter memory of what it had endured, in the suspicions by which it was haunted, and in its unslaked thirst for further fighting, was against Versailles. It was a condition of absolute anarchy, moreover, the conflict for the moment being between the mayors and the Central Committee, the former fruitlessly attempting to introduce measures of conciliation, while the latter, uncertain as yet to what extent it could rely on the federated National Guard, continued modestly to lay claim to no higher title than that of defender of the municipal liberties. The shots fired against the pacific demonstration in the Place Vendome, the few corpses whose blood reddened the pavements, first sent a thrill of terror circulating through the city. And while these things were going on, while the insurgents were taking definite possession of the ministries and all the public buildings, the agitation, rage and alarm prevailing at Versailles were extreme, the government there hastening to get together sufficient troops to repel the attack which they felt sure they should not have to wait for long. The steadiest and most reliable divisions of the armies of the North and of the Loire were hurried forward. Ten days sufficed to collect a force of nearly eighty thousand men, and the tide of returning confidence set in so strongly that on the 2d of April two divisions opened hostilities by taking from the federates Puteaux and Courbevoie.

It was not until the day following the events just mentioned that Maurice, starting out with his battalion to effect the conquest of Versailles, beheld, amid the throng of misty, feverish memories that rose to his poor wearied brain, Jean’s melancholy face as he had seen it last, and seemed to hear the tones of his last mournful au revoir. The military operations of the Versaillese had filled the National Guard with alarm and indignation; three columns, embracing a total strength of fifty thousand men, had gone storming that morning through Bougival and Meudon on their way to seize the monarchical Assembly and Thiers, the murderer. It was the torrential sortie that had been demanded with such insistence during the siege, and Maurice asked himself where he should ever see Jean again unless among the dead lying on the field of battle down yonder. But it was not long before he knew the result; his battalion had barely reached the Plateau des Bergeres, on the road to Reuil, when the shells from Mont-Valerien came tumbling among the ranks. Universal consternation reigned; some had supposed that the fort was held by their comrades of the Guard, while others averred that the commander had promised solemnly to withhold his fire. A wild panic seized upon the men; the battalions broke and rushed back to Paris fast as their legs would let them, while the head of the column, diverted by a flanking movement of General Vinoy, was driven back on Reuil and cut to pieces there.

Then Maurice, who had escaped unharmed from the slaughter, his nerves still quivering with the fury that had inspired him on the battlefield, was filled with fresh detestation for that so-called government of law and order which always allowed itself to be beaten by the Prussians, and could only muster up a little courage when it came to oppressing Paris. And the German armies were still there, from Saint-Denis to Charenton, watching the shameful spectacle of internecine conflict! Thus, in the fierce longing for vengeance and destruction that animated him, he could not do otherwise than sanction the first measures of communistic violence, the building of barricades in the streets and public squares, the arrest of the archbishop, some priests, and former officeholders, who were to be held as hostages. The atrocities that distinguished either side in that horrible conflict were already beginning to manifest themselves, Versailles shooting the prisoners it made, Paris retaliating with a decree that for each one of its soldiers murdered three hostages should forfeit their life. The horror of it, that fratricidal conflict, that wretched nation completing the work of destruction by devouring its own children! And the little reason that remained to Maurice, in the ruin of all the things he had hitherto held sacred, was quickly dissipated in the whirlwind of blind fury that swept all before it. In his eyes the Commune was to be the avenger of all the wrongs they had suffered, the liberator, coming with fire and sword to purify and punish. He was not quite clear in mind about it all, but remembered having read how great and flourishing the old free cities had become, how wealthy provinces had federated and imposed their law upon the world. If Paris should be victorious he beheld her, crowned with an aureole of glory, building up a new France, where liberty and justice should be the watchwords, organizing a new society, having first swept away the rotten debris of the old. It was true that when the result of the elections became known he was somewhat surprised by the strange mixture of moderates, revolutionists, and socialists of every sect and shade to whom the accomplishment of the great work was intrusted; he was acquainted with several of the men and knew them to be of extremely mediocre abilities. Would not the strongest among them come in collision and neutralize one another amid the clashing ideas which they represented? But on the day when the ceremony of the inauguration of the Commune took place before the Hotel de Ville, amid the thunder of artillery and trophies and red banners floating in the air, his boundless hopes again got the better of his fears and he ceased to doubt. Among the lies of some and the unquestioning faith of others, the illusion started into life again with renewed vigor, in the acute crisis of the malady raised to paroxysmal pitch.