19. Formation of the Committee of Public Safety¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 19: Formation of the Committee of Public Safety¶
This chapter traces the Commune's turn toward revolutionary authoritarianism through the creation of a Committee of Public Safety, a decision born of military desperation and political romanticism rather than strategic clarity. The narrative opens with Thiers's calculated intransigence: he knew the Commune's weaknesses but also his own army's fragility, and used the conciliators—from the utopian Considérant to the cynical Girardin—as foils to demonstrate his resolve. The Freemasons' intervention provides the chapter's dramatic centrepiece. On 21 April they sought an armistice at Versailles, receiving Thiers's infamous reply—"There will be some houses riddled, some persons killed, but the law will be enforced"—which they posted throughout Paris. Five days later, 10,000 brethren from fifty-five lodges assembled at the Carrousel, processing through the city with sixty-five banners never before displayed publicly, including the white banner of Vincennes bearing the inscription "Love one another." The procession to the ramparts momentarily halted Versaillese fire; the truce brought Paris its first undisturbed night in twenty-five days. But Thiers refused the subsequent deputation, and the Freemasons resolved to march to battle with their insignia.
The evacuation of Fort Issy on 30 April shattered the fragile morale. Mégy, the commander, panicked when the fort found itself surrounded at dawn, spiking cannon so hastily they were repaired the same evening. Cluseret and La Cécilia arrived with reinforcements and reoccupied the position by six o'clock, but the damage was done. Cluseret was arrested that evening, leaving behind only the bizarre legacy of cannon buried at the Trocadero, supposedly to breach Mont-Valérien. The panic provided the pretext for the Committee of Public Safety. Miot, "one of the best-bearded men of 1848," demanded its creation "without phrases" on 28 April; the vote was initially tied. After Issy, the title carried by 34 votes to 28, the full project by 48 to 23. The chapter's polemic sharpens here: the author condemns this as "parody of the past," a "revolutionary pasticcio" that jarred with the proletarian character of the insurrection. The Romanticists of the Council, with only "a smattering of the history of the Revolution," seized on the high-sounding title, forgetting that the original Committee had torn Chaumette, Jacques Roux, and "the best friends of the people" from the Hôtel-de-Ville. Félix Pyat, who had egged on Miot, argued that the words "Public Safety" belonged to the same epoch as "French Republic" and "Commune of Paris"—a logic the author treats as risible. Tridon voted no: "I dislike useless and ridiculous cast-off old clothes." Vermorel: "They are only words, and the people have too long taken up with words." Longuet declared he no more believed in "words of salvation than in talismans and amulets."
The minority—twenty-two members including Andrieu, Beslay, Courbet, Frankel, Longuet, Malon, Tridon, Vallès, Varlin, and Vermorel—refused to nominate candidates, deeming abstention "the only dignified, logical, and politic attitude." This left the ballot with only thirty-seven votes, producing a Committee of Ranvier, A. Arnaud, Léo Meillet, Charles Gérardin, and Félix Pyat. The author's verdict is damning: the minority "could never understand that the Commune was a barricade, not a government." They strained "the reaction against the principle of authority to the verge of suicide," fancying even in exile that the Commune perished through its authoritarian tendencies. The chapter closes with a portrait of Pyat as the Council's toxic presence—a "Barrère of the boards," insinuating, foaming, patriarchal, claiming the Commune as "my child," yet capable of "infamous calumny" against colleagues like Vermorel. The disunity was "the mother of defeat," though the author notes that on all Socialist decrees the Council voted unanimously