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[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE THE COLUMN OF JULY (HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF)]

PARIS

UNDER THE COMMUNE:  OR,

THE SEVENTY-THREE DAYS OF THE

SECOND SIEGE

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, SKETCHES TAKEN ON THE SPOT, AND PORTRAITS
(FROM THE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS).

BY JOHN LEIGHTON, F.S.A.,

&C.

LONDON:

1871.




     Socialism, or the Red Republic, is all one; for it would
   tear down the tricolour and set up the red flag. It would make
   penny pieces out of the Column Vendome. It would knock down
   the statue of Napoleon and raise up that of Marat in its
   stead. It would suppress the Academie, the Ecole
   Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honour. To the grand device
   Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, it would add "Ou la mort."
   It would bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the
   rich without enriching the poor. It would destroy labour,
   which gives to each one his bread. It would abolish property
   and family. It would march about with the heads of the
   proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and
   empty them by massacres. It would convert France into the
   country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts,
   silence thought, and deny God. It would bring into action
   these two fatal machines, one of which never works without the
   other--the assignat press and the guillotine. In a word, it
   would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in fever, and
   after the grand horrors which our fathers saw, we should have
   the horrible in all that was low and small.

(VICTOR HUGO, 1848.)




PREFACE.


Early in June of the present year I was making notes and sketches,
without the least idea of what I should do with them. I was at the
Mont-Parnasse Station of the Western Railway, awaiting a train from
Paris to St. Cloud. Our fellow passengers, as we discovered afterwards,
were principally prisoners for Versailles; the guards, soldiers; and the
line, for two miles at least, appeared desolation and ruin.

The facade of the station, a very large one, was pockmarked all over by
Federal bullets, whilst cannon balls had cut holes through the stone
wall as if it had been cheese, and gone down the line, towards Cherbourg
or Brest! The restaurant below was nearly annihilated, the counters,
tables, and chairs being reduced to a confused heap. But there was a
book-stall and on that book-stall reposed a little work, entitled the
"Bataille des Sept Jours," a brochure which a friend bought and gave to
me, saying, "_Voila la texte de vos croquis_," From seven days my ideas
naturally wandered to seventy-three--the duration of the reign of the
Commune--and then again to two hundred and twenty days--that included
the Commune of 1871 and its antecedents. Hence this volume, which I
liken to a French chateau, to which I have added a second storey and
wings.

And now that the house is finished, I must render my obligations to M.
Mendes and numerous French friends, for their kind assistance and
valuable aid, including my confreres of "_The Graphic_," who have
allowed me to enliven the walls with pictures from their stores; and
last, and not least, my best thanks are due to an English Peer, who
placed at my disposal his unique collection of prints and journals of
the period bearing upon the subject--a subject I am pretty familiar
with. Powder has done its work, the smell of petroleum has passed away,
the house that called me master has vanished from the face of the earth,
and my concierge and his wife are reported _fusilles_ by the
Versaillais; and to add to the disaster, my rent was paid in advance,
having been deposited with a _notaire_ prior to the First Siege.... But
my neighbours, where are they? In my immediate neighbourhood six houses
were entirely destroyed, and as many more half ruined. I can only speak
of one friend, an amiable and able architect, who, alas! remonstrated in
person, and received a ball from a revolver through the back of his
neck. His head is bowed for life. He has lost his pleasure and his
treasure, a valuable museum of art,--happily they could not burn his
reputation, or the monument of his life--a range of goodly folio volumes
that exist "_pour tous_."

L.

LONDON, 1871




CONTENTS.


PREFACE

CONTENTS

LIST OF PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER--The 30th October, 1870--The Hotel de Ville
invaded--Governor Trochu resigns--A Revolt attempted--Meetings, Place de
la Bastille--The Prussians enter Paris--Hostility of the National Guard

I. The Memorable 18th of March--Line and Nationals
Fraternise--Discipline at a Discount

II. Assassination of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas

III. Proclamation of M. Picard--The Government retires to Versailles

IV. The New Regime Proclaimed--Obscurity of New Masters

V. Paris Hesitates--Small Sympathy with Versailles

VI. The Buttes Montmartre

VII. An Issue Possible--An Approved Proclamation

VIII. Demonstration of the Friends of Order

IX. The Drama of the Rue de la Paix--Victims to Order

X. A Wedding

XI. The Bourse and Belleville

XII. Watching and Waiting

XIII. A Timid but Prudent Person

XIV Some Federal Opinions

XV. Proclamation of Admiral Saisset--Paris Satisfied.

XVI. A Widow

XVII. The Central Committee Triumphs

XVIII. Paris Elections

XIX. The Commune a Fact--A Motley Assembly

XX. Proclamation of the Elections

XXI. A Batch of Official Decrees--Landlord, and Tenant

XXII. Re