22. Conspiracies against the Commune¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter dissects the intricate web of conspiracies that Versailles orchestrated against the Paris Commune, exposing a sordid underworld of mercenary plotmongers, swindlers, and double agents who exploited the Commune’s administrative negligence. Lissagaray’s central argument is that these conspiracies, while ultimately failing to deliver a single gate of Paris, succeeded in disorganising the Commune’s services and draining its resources through systematic fraud. The narrative thrust is a forensic unmasking of the principal conspirators and their methods, drawn from Versaillese reports, mutual denunciations, and intelligence gathered during exile.
Key claims include the existence of multiple, often competing, conspiracy rings operating simultaneously. Colonel Corbin organised clandestine National Guard battalions to seize strategic points during a general attack. Charpentier and Domalain recruited thousands of phantom volunteers, extracting hundreds of thousands of francs from Versailles before being outflanked by Le Mere de Beaufond, whose more sophisticated plan involved provoking defections and paralysing services from within. Lissagaray provides specific evidence: the tracing of barricade plans by Captain Piguier, the report that no torpedoes were laid, and the brassard plot uncovered when a seamstress sought wages from the Hôtel-de-Ville. The chapter details two failed attempts to surrender the Dauphine gate—on 3 May and again on 12-13 May—the first foiled by incompetent coordination, the second known to the Committee of Public Safety.
The historical context is the siege of Paris and the Commune’s final weeks, with Versailles seeking to avoid a costly frontal assault. Lissagaray draws on unpublished reports copied from originals, Versaillese publications, and the testimony of exiles. He notes that M. Thiers favoured internal subversion over military entry, against the wishes of MacMahon and the army, who preferred a triumphal conquest.
The polemic is directed against the conspirators themselves—dismissed as “vulgar sharpers” and “Jonathan Wilds of the gutter”—and against the republican pretensions of figures like Lullier, Du Bisson, and Ganier d’Abin, who claimed to save the Republic while taking Versailles’ money. Lissagaray also indicts the Commune’s own functionaries for imprudence, citing Cournet’s failure to improve security and the open bravado of spies on the boulevards. The chapter’s contempt is reserved for the entire enterprise: a realm of blackguardism where swindlers pocketed hundreds of thousands of francs while delivering nothing of military value, yet still managed to corrode the Commune’s defences from within.