32. The Versaillese fury¶
Core Argument¶
The defeat of the Paris Commune unleashed a bourgeois repression of such calculated savagery that it far surpassed the ‘atrocities of the Bulgarian type’ then decried across Europe, while the very classes directing the slaughter simultaneously incited global opinion against the Communards. The Versaillese army transformed into a vast execution squad, its operations pre-planned at Versailles before the troops entered Paris. Prevotal courts, their locations and jurisdictions already determined, processed prisoners in seconds at venues like the Châtelet Theatre, where Colonel Vabre presided. Victims were classed by appearance or attitude alone, without name or record, then delivered directly to waiting firing squads. At La Roquette prison, over 5,000 prisoners taken near Père Lachaise were sorted: those directed left were shot immediately, with 1,900 murdered there from Sunday to Monday alone. Women and children were shot alongside men. The press encouraged the carnage, with Figaro and Patrie calling for the extermination of ‘democratic vermin’. Officers never slackened in their ferocity. Varlin was dragged through Montmartre for an hour, sabred, then shot and his corpse dismembered; a lieutenant’s report listed the objects found on his body.
The official report recorded only 877 Versaillese deaths from 3 April to 28 May, against exactly sixty-three hostages executed by the Commune after two months of rule and the massacre of thousands of their own. The chief of military justice admitted 17,000 shot; the municipal council paid burial costs for 17,000 corpses. General Appert’s figure of 20,000 Federals killed was corroborated by officers. The actual total was at least 20,000. Corpses were burned with petroleum at Buttes Chaumont, buried in lime pits, or left rotting in the streets. Massacres lasted until early June, summary executions until mid-month. All social powers applauded: priests celebrated victory in a solemn service attended by the entire Assembly. The Count de Mun described the victims’ bearing as ‘insolence’, while MacMahon admitted they believed they were defending a sacred cause. Foreign journals advocated hanging or medical experimentation on the living bodies of the ‘malefactors’. Young soldiers admitted they had orders to take no prisoners, describing tricking a man into walking ahead before shooting him. A newspaper reported a continuous trail of blood on the Seine. The reign of the Gesu was about to begin.