29. On the barricades¶
Core Argument¶
By 24 May 1871, the Commune’s defensive position had collapsed. Brunel abandoned the Rue Royale barricade after two days; the Hôtel-de-Ville was evacuated around eight in the morning and set alight, the Official Journal appearing for the last time. The War Office relocated to the mairie of the 11th arrondissement. Delescluze protested the retreat, predicting it would demoralise the combatants. Communications were severed; staff officers were stopped at barricades and forced to carry paving stones. A young staff officer, the Count de Beaufort, was executed by his own battalion after a confrontation. Dombrowski’s funeral was held at Père Lachaise; Vermorel gave a speech calling for death in battle. On the left bank, the Versaillese took the Panthéon almost without a fight, and massacres began immediately. Rigault was captured and shot.
At the mairie, Delescluze proposed that the Commune’s members, wearing their scarfs, review the battalions on the Boulevard Voltaire and lead them forward. This was met with enthusiasm. Defences were prepared at the Bastille and the 11th arrondissement. The Versaillese captured the Northern Railway station but were held at the Strasbourg line and the Buttes Chaumont. Only the Butte aux Cailles, under Wroblewski, mounted a successful offensive, repulsing four assaults. By day’s end, the Federals held only the 11th, 12th, 19th, and 20th arrondissements, plus parts of the 3rd, 5th, and 13th. Massacres intensified; the legend of the pétroleuses led to hundreds of women being shot on suspicion. Thiers told the Assembly that the soldiers’ conduct inspired foreign admiration.
At half-past seven, a delegate of the Public Safety Commission demanded six hostages be executed in retaliation for Versaillese shootings. Thirty guards entered La Roquette prison. The delegate selected Archbishop Darboy, President Bonjean, banker Jecker, and Jesuits Allard, Clerc, and Ducoudray; Jecker was replaced by Curé Deguerry. The hostages were taken to the exercise-ground. Darboy protested he had written twice to Versailles. Bonjean asked who condemned them; told ‘the justice of the people’, he replied this was not the right justice. The officer told them to blame the Versaillese, who were shooting prisoners. The firing party killed them; Darboy survived the first volley but was finished by a second. The text comments that revolutions’ blind justice punishes in the first-comers the accumulated crimes of their caste.
By eight o’clock the Versaillese closed on the Porte St. Martin barricade. That night they bivouacked in a fan-shaped line from the Pont-au-Change, through the thirteenth arrondissement and the Faubourg St. Martin, to the fortifications, about to close at Belleville. Paris burned furiously; numerous buildings were ablaze. The Versaillese batteries fired blindly from the Panthéon, Trocadéro, and Montmartre. The text defends the Federals against charges of arson, noting Versaillese shells set fire to at least as many buildings, and that the bourgeoisie who advocated burning everything before the Prussians now called the people scoundrels. At eleven o’clock, Delescluze was told of the executions; he asked how they died, then exclaimed ‘What a war!’ but recovered, saying ‘We shall know how to die.’ All night, despatches demanded cannon and men.