Part 47

It was twenty days since he had landed, and France was his, the people, the soldiers, alike mad with delight, none, to all appearance, dreaming of what renewed miseries this ill-omened return of their worshipped emperor meant.

It meant, as we now know, bloodshed, slaughter, and ruin; it meant Waterloo and St. Helena; it meant a hundred days of renewed empire, and then the final end of the power of the great conqueror. On August 7, less than five months from the date of the triumphant entry to the Tuileries, Napoleon stepped on board the British frigate Northumberland, to be borne to the far-off isle of St. Helena, his future home.

Twenty-five years after the date of these events Napoleon returned again to France, but under very different auspices from those described. On the 29th of November, 1840, there anchored at Cherbourg, amid the salutes of forts and ships, a French war-vessel called the Belle Poule, on which were the mortal remains of the great conqueror, long since conquered by death, and now brought back to the land over which he had so long reigned. On December 8 the coffin was transferred to the steamer Normandie, amid a salute of two thousand guns, and taken by it to the Seine. On December 15 the coffin, placed on a splendid car drawn by sixteen horses, moved in solemn procession through the streets of Paris, attended by the noblest escort the city could provide, and passing through avenues thronged with adoring multitudes, who forgot the injuries the great soldier had done to France and remembered only his fame. The funeral train was received by King Louis Philippe, the royal family, and all the high dignitaries of the government at the Church of the Invalides, in which a noble and worthy final resting-place had been prepared for the corpse of the once mighty emperor. "Napoleon," says Bourrienne, "had again and finally conquered. While every throne in Europe was shaking, the Great Conqueror came to claim and receive from posterity the crown for which he had sacrificed so much. In the Invalides the Emperor had at last found a resting-place, 'by the banks of the Seine, among the French people whom he had loved so well.'"

THE PRUSSIAN WAR AND THE PARIS COMMUNE.

There have been two critical periods in the story of France in which history was made at a rate of rapidity rarely equalled in the history of the world. The first of these was the era of the Revolution and the Napoleonic regime, which has no parallel among human events in the rapidity and momentous gravity of its changes. The second was the period from August, 1870, to the summer of 1871, less than a year in length, yet crowded with important events to an unprecedented degree.

Within that year was fought a great war between France and Germany, in which the military power of France, in an incredibly brief period, was utterly overthrown, and that nation left at the mercy of its opponent. Within the same period the second empire of France came to a sudden and disastrous end, and a republic, the third in French history, was built upon its ruins. Simultaneously a new and powerful empire was founded, that of Germany, the palace at Versailles being the scene of this highly important change in the political conditions of Europe. During this period also a political revolution took place in Italy, in consequence of the French war, and Paris sustained two sieges; the first by the German army; the second and most bitter by the French themselves, fighting against a mob of fanatical revolutionists and ending in a frightful saturnalia of murder, ruin and revenge.

Has there ever been a year in the world's history more crowded with momentous events? Within that year the political status of France, Germany, and Italy was transformed, the late emperor of France suddenly found himself a throneless fugitive, and the people of Paris passed through an experience unparalleled in the diversified history of that ancient city. Of all the sieges to which Paris has been subjected, far the strangest was that in which the scum of the city, miscalled the commune, fought with tiger-like ferocity against the forces of the newly-formed republic, filled with the revengeful and murderous spirit which had inspired the masses in the first revolution.

It is the story of this tragic interlude which we propose here to tell, premising with a brief resume of the events which led up to it.

Louis Napoleon, posing as Emperor Napoleon III. of France, a position which he had been enabled to gain through the glamour of the name of his famous uncle, was infected throughout his reign with the desire to emulate the deeds of the great Napoleon. He hoped to shine as one of the military stars of Europe, and was encouraged by the success of the war which he fomented in Italy. His second effort in this direction was the invasion of Mexico and the attempt to establish an empire, under his tutelage, upon American soil. In this he ran counter to the Monroe Doctrine and the power of the United States and was forced to retire with his feathers scorched and his prestige sadly diminished.

But what he probably proposed to make the great military triumph of his reign came in 1870, when, on a flimsy pretence, a misunderstanding which called only for diplomatic adjustment, he suddenly declared war against Germany and rashly put his armies into the field to cope with that powerful rival. Never had there been a more unwise or suicidal proceeding. In shameful ignorance of the real condition of the army, which he was made to believe was "five times ready," "ready to the last gaiter button," he marshalled against the thoroughly prepared military power of Germany an army ill-organized, ill-supplied, without proper reserves, and led by commanders of appalling incapacity. Maps and plans were bad; strategy was an unknown quantity; no study had been made of the use of the railway in war; almost everything except courage was lacking, and courage without leadership was hopeless against the thoroughly drilled and supplied German army and the science of Yon Moltke, the great German strategist.

Had it been the first Napoleon, he would have made himself sure personally as to "the last gaiter button" and all other details, but with sublime self-satisfaction and inane blindness the Second Napoleon put himself at the head of this unready army, inspired apparently with the "on to Berlin" confidence of the cheering Parisian mob.

He was to be awakened suddenly and painfully from his dream of victory and military fame. The first collision of the two armies took place on August 2. On September 2, just one month later, the derelict emperor was a prisoner of war in the hands of the King of Prussia, together with his army of more than 80,000 men. He had proved an utter failure as a commander, a mere encumbrance, without a plan of campaign, a conception of leadership, or an idea of strategic movements. Recognizing, when too late, his incapacity, he had resigned the general command to Marshal Bazaine, who withdrew with a large army into Metz, and subsequently, in a northward movement for Bazaine's relief, he found himself surrounded at Sedan by an irresistible force and was obliged to surrender to save his army from impending annihilation.

Such was the first act in this lugubrious drama. Two days later, on September 4, France was proclaimed a republic. Before the end of October Bazaine surrendered Metz to the Germans and his great army of 180,000 men was lost to France. The military force of France was vanishing with alarming rapidity. Another event of the period, of interest in this connection, was the loss of the temporal power of the pope, above alluded to. The papacy had been defended by Napoleon III. against the Italian revolutionists, and the withdrawal of the French force from Rome left that city open to the army of Victor Emmanuel. It was occupied in September and became the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In December another important event took place, the King of Prussia being proclaimed at Versailles the head of a new empire of Germany, which embraced all the German states except Austria.

Events of great moment, as may be seen, were occurring with startling rapidity. Before the surrender of Bazaine the advance of the German army had appeared before Paris and on September 19 the siege of that city began. Soon it was so closely invested that food could not enter and the only way out was by balloon. The German bombardment did little damage to the great city, which was defended obstinately. But the Germans had a powerful ally within, where the grisly demon of famine threatened the defenders.

Meanwhile Gambetta, the most ardent patriot left to France, was seeking with nervous energy to raise fresh armies in the south; Garibaldi, his sword free from duty in Italy, had come to the aid of France; all patriots were called to the ranks and a struggle of some importance took place. But all this practically ceased on the 28th of January, 1871, when an armistice brought the hopeless resistance of Paris to an end. Almost at once the war died out on all sides, the Germans occupied all the forts around Paris, and France lay at the mercy of Germany, after a struggle of six months' duration.

The first siege of Paris had terminated; a second and more desperately contested one was at hand. On March 13 the German army around Paris, which had been given the triumph of a march into the conquered city, set out on its return home and the authorities of the new republic prepared to take possession of their freed capital.

They were to find the task one of unlooked-for difficulty. On March 18 the revolutionary element of the city rose en masse, organized under the name of the Commune, took possession of Paris, and prepared to defend it to the death against the leaders of the new-formed government, whom they contemned as aristocrats.

The story of the Commune is a shameful and terrible one. Beginning in a fraternization of the National Guard with the mob, its advent was sealed with murder. In a contest on the 18th for the possession of some cannon General Lecomte ordered his men to fire on the insurgents. They refused. A gentleman standing in a crowd of angry men on the street corner said: "General Lecomte is right." He was immediately seized and quickly recognised as General Clement Thomas, a brave officer who had done gallant service during the siege. This sufficed him nothing with the mob. He and General Lecomte were at once dragged away to prison. At 4 o'clock that same day they were brought out by a party of the insurgent National Guards, and after a mock trial were taken to a walled enclosure and shot down in cold blood. They were the first victims of the mob, which had early begun to burn its bridges behind it.

On the following day the leaders of the outbreak met at the Hotel-de-Ville. They all belonged to the International, a secret society formed for the abolition of property, religion, rulers, government, and the upper classes, and the reduction of the community to a state of anarchy or something resembling it. They called upon the citizens to meet in their sections and elect a commune--the new form of government advocated by the Anarchists, in which destruction of all existing institutions was to precede reconstruction from the bottom upwards.

Events now moved rapidly. A delegation from the few men of note left in Paris proceeded to Versailles, where the government of the republic was in session, and demanded that special municipal rights should be given to the people of Paris. The refusal of this request precipitated the insurrection. The furious people at once elected a revolutionary government, choosing the most extreme of the revolutionists, who organized what was called the Council of the Commune. This consisted of eighty members, of varied nationality, seventy of them never having been heard of in Paris before. They had risen from the bottom of the deep sea of anarchy to assume control.

On the 3d of April the civil war broke out--Paris against Versailles, the army under the Assembly of the republic against the National Guard in sympathy with the Commune. The Germans, who still held two of the forts in the vicinity of Paris, looked grimly on at the tragedy about to be played upon the stage which their hands had erected.

The war began with murder. Dr. Pasquier, a distinguished surgeon, bearing a flag of truce, met two National Guards on the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon had been brought ashore thirty years before. After a brief debate one of the soldiers ended the colloquy by blowing out the doctor's brains. As soon as General Vinoy, in command of the army of order, heard of this murderous act he ordered the guns of Fort Varelien to be turned upon the city.

On the following morning five columns of the troops of the Commune marched out to take the fort, lured by the confident impression that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them. They were mistaken. The guns of Fort Varelien hurled death-dealing missiles into their columns and they were quickly in full retreat. Flourens, a scientist of fame who had joined their ranks, fell dead. Duval, one of their generals, was captured and was quickly shot as a traitor. The other leaders were at once sent to prison by the angry Council on their return and the Commune ordered that Paris should be filled with barricades.

Though the Commune had imprisoned the unsuccessful generals, they were infuriated at the execution of General Duval and sought in the dignitaries of the church the most exalted hostages they could find against such summary acts. On the night of the 6th Monseigneur Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests were arrested. The cure of the Madeleine and his vicar had before been seized. Other priests were later taken into custody and the prison at Mazas was well filled with these so-called hostages. The fury of the leaders of the revolt led them to other excesses against religion, the churches being closed, the arms cut from the crosses, and red flags hung in their stead.

The outrages were not confined to the church. In the words of a resident of Paris: "The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity of that sort which means arrest of each other." Before the Council was two weeks old many of its leading members had found their way to prison. Dissensions had broken out in its midst, and the stronger victimized the weaker.

By April 7 a personage calling himself General Cluseret had, as some one expressed it, "swallowed up the Commune." He called himself an American, and had been in the Union service in the American civil war, but no one knew where he was born. He had served in the Chasseurs d'Afrique and in the Papal Zouaves, and after the fall of the Commune escaped from Paris and became a general of the Fenians, nearly capturing Chester Castle in their service.

This man became absolute dictator over the revolted city, with its two million of inhabitants; yet after three weeks of this dictatorial rule his star declined and he found himself in prison at Mazas, to which he had sent so many others.

Leaving these details for the present, we must return to the war, which was soon in full blast. The assault of April 4 repulsed, the guns of Fort Varelien were opened upon the city and the second bombardment of Paris in that memorable year began. The guns of its friends were more destructive than those of its foes, the forts taking part in the bombardment being much nearer the centre of the city. Their shells damaged the Arch of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared; they fell alike on homes, public buildings and churches; alike on men, women and children, friend and foe.