Volume 1 — CHAPTER IX (continued 2)

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Bordeaux, March 6, 1871.

Thiers asked me yesterday whether I thought it would be advisable for him to bring the state of affairs between France and Germany before the Conference in London.

I did not very well see what there was to submit to the Conference, as the preliminaries of peace were signed and could not be altered. I thought it however better to avoid any discussion on this point, and to say decidedly that in my opinion it would be very unadvisable to do anything of the kind. I told him that I thought it would be a particularly bad opportunity to take, if he wished to consult the European Powers; that the German Plenipotentiary would say, and say with reason, that his Government had entered into a Conference for a specific purpose and was not to be entrapped into an extraneous discussion, that in this view he would no doubt be strongly supported by the Russian, and that probably none of the Plenipotentiaries would approve of a proceeding, which would certainly retard the business for which the Conference had met, and might very likely break it off altogether.

I think Thiers rather asked my opinion pour 'l'acquit de sa conscience,' than from having himself any strong desire to attempt to bring his affairs before the Conference. At any rate he gave a very conclusive argument against doing so himself, for he said that it might have the effect of delaying the Prussian evacuation of the neighbourhood of Paris.

He hopes to get the half milliard necessary to get the Prussians out of the forts on the North side of the Seine, before the end of the month. He speaks altogether more hopefully of the financial prospects than any one else whom I have heard. He says Bismarck was extremely hard about the money, and that the negociation was nearly broken off altogether on the question of Belfort. On this question he believes Bismarck was with him, and had a tremendous fight to obtain leave from the Emperor and Moltke to make the concession. Strange as it may appear Thiers seems really to have a sort of liking for Bismarck personally, and to believe that if he had been let have his own way by the militaires, he would have been much kinder to France.

It has been generally supposed that the Assembly will adjourn to Versailles, and St. Germain has also been mentioned; but Thiers told me yesterday that he should himself propose Fontainebleau. He would like himself to take it to Paris, as soon as the Prussians are out of the forts, but the majority will not hear of putting themselves so near the Belleville mob. I think it will be a great mistake not to go to Paris, and I hope Thiers will pluck up a spirit, and carry his point. He said something about being glad to have me near him at Fontainebleau, but I do not know that it was more than a compliment. At any rate I am myself strongly of opinion that the best thing for me to do is to go to Paris as soon as possible, and re-establish the Embassy there on the normal footing. If there should be (which I doubt) any necessity for my going to Thiers or Fontainebleau or elsewhere for more than a few hours at a time I should still propose to have the headquarters of the Embassy in the Faubourg St. Honoré and to treat my own occasional absence as accidental. In fact to act as I did when invited to Compiègne in the Emperor's time. I hope to be in Paris by the end of this week, or at latest, the beginning of next.

The Ambassador and his staff returned to Paris on March 14, finding the Embassy quite uninjured, no traces of the siege in the neighbourhood, and the town merely looking a little duller than usual. They were enchanted to be back, and little suspected that in three or four days they would again be driven out.

Previous attempts on the part of the Red Republicans to overthrow the Government of National Defence during the siege had met with failure, but Favre's stipulation that the National Guards should be permitted to retain their arms gave the Revolutionary Party its opportunity. The new Government was obviously afraid to act, and matters came to a crisis when an ineffectual and half-hearted attempt was made to remove some guns which had been seized by National Guards. Regular troops brought up against the latter refused to fight and fraternized with their opponents; two generals were shot under circumstances of great brutality, a Revolutionary Central Committee took possession of the Hotel de Ville and proclaimed the Commune, and the Government withdrew such regular troops as remained faithful to Versailles. On March 18, the insurgents were completely masters of the right bank of the Seine, and on the following day an emissary from the French Foreign Office appeared at the Embassy with the information that the Government had been forced to retire to Versailles, and that as it was no longer able to protect the Diplomatic Body at Paris, it was hoped that the Representatives of Foreign Powers would also repair to Versailles with the least possible delay. Nearly all of these did so at once, but Lord Lyons with his pronounced sedentary tastes had had quite enough of moving about and decided to wait for instructions.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Paris, March 20, 1871.

We are in a strange state indeed. How it will end, who shall say. The Prussians may be glad of a chance to wipe away the absurdity of their three days' occupation by a more serious entrance, and it may suit their rulers to put down Belleville, with a view to checking the progress of Republicanism. I should think however it would be wiser of them with their hatred of France, to leave the Parisians to accomplish their own ruin.

A good many National Guards have gone out towards Versailles, whether with the view of making a serious attack on the Government and the Assembly remains to be seen. It seems to be doubtful whether there are any troops, except perhaps the Papal Zouaves on whom the Government can depend.

The proclamations of the Central Committee in the Journal Officiel, which I send you officially, are worth reading. They seem to me to be in form much more calm, dignified and sensible than the proclamations of the Government of National Defence used to be. In substance they are not specimens of political knowledge and wisdom.

It is to be hoped that the Assembly will not make matters worse by violent and ill-considered resolutions. I suppose it will be furious with Thiers for having brought it to Versailles, and it is on the cards that it may be really attacked there to-day by the Parisians. Any way, I should not be at all surprised if the Assembly transferred itself to some dismal French provincial town.

Instructions, however, were shortly received to proceed to Versailles, and he betook himself there on the 21st, taking with him Wodehouse and Sheffield, and leaving Malet, Colonel Claremont, Lascelles,[27] and Saumarez[28] at the Embassy.

At Versailles complete ignorance appeared to prevail as to the actual situation; Jules Favre knew nothing, and either the Government had no plan or was not prepared to disclose it; but, as, at all events, during the early stage of the conflict, railway communication with Versailles was not interrupted, it was possible to come up to Paris occasionally at the risk of being seized by the Communists as a spy, and see how matters were progressing.

Thiers, in the early days of the Civil War affected to believe that the revolt would speedily be brought to a satisfactory termination, and the knowledge that he personally was largely responsible for the existing situation doubtless prompted him to minimise the danger as much as possible. By withdrawing the regular troops to Versailles, he had left the well-disposed inhabitants of Paris at the mercy of an armed revolutionary mob, and if a renewed bombardment or fresh Prussian occupation of the town was the result, the fault would have been largely his. The Assembly too found itself in a ridiculous position; it had been brought to Versailles because it had been represented that the Administration could not be carried on away from the capital, and no sooner did it arrive at Versailles than the whole Government was driven out of Paris.

The optimism with which Thiers viewed the progress of events in Paris was not shared by onlookers at Versailles. They could not help seeing that the members of the Central Committee were continually gaining ground, and had now obtained control of the whole or very nearly the whole of the city: that the slaughter of the 'Men of Order' in the Rue de la Paix on March 22, had left the Red Republicans the masters of the day, and that the communal elections on March 26, had given a semblance of regular authority to the revolutionaries. Thiers, who had taken the whole management of the affair into his own hands, and was still unwilling to use force, now endeavoured to conciliate the Communists by a proclamation conceding complete recognition of the municipal franchise, the right to elect all officers of the National Guard, including the Commander-in-Chief; a modification of the law on the maturity of bills of exchange, and a prohibition to house owners and lodging-house keepers to give their lodgers notice to quit. These concessions to blackmail were, however, considered insufficient by the implacable revolutionary leaders, and negotiations broke down when it was demanded that the Communal Council should supersede the Assembly whenever the two bodies might come into collision, and that the control of finance should be vested in the former. It was evident that civil war could no longer be avoided, and in view of the doubts which existed respecting the reliability of the army at Versailles, the gravest apprehensions were felt as to the result of the struggle. Lord Granville was convinced that the Prussians would re-enter Paris and restore the Empire, although the Emperor, while praising the Prussians in the course of a conversation with the Duke of Cambridge, had recently stated that no one could remain in France who was brought there by the enemy.

On March 28, the Commune was proclaimed with much pomp and emblematic ceremony in which Phrygian caps were conspicuous, and a series of decrees appeared shortly in the Journal Officiel, which announced the abolition of conscription, but the compulsory enrolment of all able-bodied men in the National Guard; a remission of lodger's rents; the suspension of the sale of all articles deposited in pawn; and the supersession of the Government at Versailles. A vast number of persons quitted the city before the end of the month, and of those who remained, there were probably many, who, apart from their political sentiments, heartily welcomed so convenient a release from embarrassing liabilities.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Versailles, March 30, 1871.

The Commune are going ahead in Paris. The great comfort the Government and the Assembly here have, is that the similar movements in other great towns have failed, and that thus it is plainly Paris against all France. Their great hope appears to be that the members of the Commune will quarrel among themselves, and that their social measures may be so thoroughly socialist, as to rouse resistance among the Parisians. In the meantime however the delay seems dangerous; the working classes are said to be going over more and more completely to the Commune, and the effect of a completely successful revolution in Paris on the other towns may yet be serious. Bismarck is said to have given Thiers a limited time (a fortnight or three weeks) to set things straight, and to have declared that, when that time is up, the Germans must step in.

As a matter of fact, the conduct of the Germans does not seem to have left anything to be desired. They allowed the numbers of the French troops, which had been fixed under the armistice at 40,000, to be indefinitely increased: they gave facilities for the return of the prisoners in Germany, and even gave the French Government to understand that the assistance of German troops might be counted upon if necessary. Tact is not generally supposed to be a marked German characteristic, but Thiers admitted to Lord Lyons that the 'offer had been made with so much tact and delicacy, that, while of course it could not be accepted, the Government had been able to pass it by, without appearing to understand it.'

In the meanwhile, in spite of much dissatisfaction, Thiers was determined not to be hurried, and both he and Jules Favre declined to believe either that there was any danger of excesses being committed at Paris, or that the Commune was gaining strength in consequence of the delay. These opinions were not in the least shared by the public at large; the general impression being that each day's delay added to the strength of the Commune, discouraged the party of order and increased the exasperation of that party against the Government and the National Assembly; it was believed too that if excesses were committed they would inspire the well-disposed citizens with terror rather than with a spirit of resistance.

Fortunately for the cause of order, the Communists soon afforded an opportunity for testing the temper of the Versailles troops. On April 2, the National Guards came into collision with the regulars at Courbevoic, were heavily worsted, and such prisoners as were taken were summarily shot. The engagement showed that the army could be depended upon, and that there need be no further fears with regard to a policy of resolute repression; nevertheless there was little sign on the part of Thiers of following up the success that had been gained, and he made the remarkable excuse that the military ignorance of the insurgents and the eccentricity of their movements rendered military operations against them correspondingly difficult. Little progress had been made towards the end of April, although righteous retribution had overtaken Thiers in the invasion of his house in the Place St. Georges, and in the violation by National Guards of the sanctity of the apartment of his mother-in-law.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Versailles, April 21, 1871.

I suppose we shall get back to Paris, or to the ruins of it, some day; and certainly the affairs of the Commune are looking more gloomy than they did, but I must leave to Thiers the responsibility of the perpetually renewed declaration that we shall be there in a few days. The sooner it comes the better, for the delay is very dangerous for Thiers himself and for the country. The great towns in the south will hardly be kept under if Paris remains in rebellion much longer, and Thiers will find it very difficult to hold back the monarchical majority in the Assembly.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Versailles, April 25, 1871.

I don't hear any guns, but I suppose after what Thiers said to me last night, that the grand attack upon Fort Issy is going on. I shall go or send to some safe point of view, as soon as I get the Messenger off.

It was high time to begin, for the apparent weakness of the Government is producing lamentable effects. Colonel Playfair's reports of the spread of a very serious insurrection in Algeria are confirmed by recent telegrams, and there is said to be rather an alarming movement in Savoy, not with a view to reunion with Italy, but rather to a junction with Switzerland.

I do not trouble you with any of the programmes for the attack on Paris which are in everybody's mouth here. The favourite notion is that, with or without getting their half milliard, the Germans are to give up the forts, or all of them except St. Denis, to the French; who are then either to attack Paris on the north, or to complete the investment of it. Military big-wigs say that Thiers has not men enough to carry out such a plan. Financial authorities say that he has no chance of obtaining the money till he is already master of Paris; and Jules Favre says positively that Paris will not be bombarded or blockaded. The value to be given to this affirmation of Jules Favre cannot go beyond there being no present intentions to make a regular general bombardment or to reduce the place by famine. I urge him and Thiers to give warning in time to enable foreigners to withdraw, but I doubt the foreigners getting any warning beyond that which Malet has given already, and I doubt the English being persuaded to go; but I shall do all I can about it.

The bombardment, in spite of Jules Favre's assurance, took place shortly, and did infinitely more harm than that of the Germans. Amongst other buildings which suffered was the Embassy, but until the closing days of the struggle in May, those members of the staff who had been left there, appear to have suffered no inconvenience; and the relations of Malet with the self-constituted officials of the Commune were perfectly amicable, as far as can be judged. Malet, whose management of a trying situation was marked by much good sense and tact, found no difficulty in getting on with Paschal Grousset, the Délègué aux Affaires Etrangères (also described by his adversaries as Etranger aux Affaires), and his relations with this important personage were no doubt greatly facilitated by a brother who acted as private secretary: 'a very pleasant little fellow, willing to put his brother's signature to anything.' Paschal Grousset had good reason to congratulate himself subsequently upon the pains which he had taken to ensure the safety of foreigners in Paris and for the friendly disposition which he had shown. When the Versailles troops obtained possession of the city, he was captured and would in all probability have been shot in company with other Communist leaders if unofficial representations in his favour had not been made by Lord Lyons. He was transported, but subsequently returned to Paris under an amnesty, and, years after, was the cause of a comic incident at the house of a lady formerly connected with the British Embassy. This lady, hearing a terrific uproar in her anteroom, came out to see what was the matter and found Paschal Grousset engaged in a violent altercation with her maître d'hôtel. It turned out that the latter, who was an ex-gendarme, had been in charge of Paschal Grousset when the latter was seized by the Versailles Government, and that he now strongly resented his former prisoner appearing in the character of an ordinary visitor.

One of the most abominable acts of the Commune had been the seizure of the Archbishop of Paris, together with a number of priests, and the holding of them as hostages for the good treatment of Communist prisoners. No secret was made of the fact that under certain circumstances they would be shot, and efforts were set on foot by various parties—the American Minister, the British Government, and the German authorities—to prevent so horrible a catastrophe. The intervention of the American Minister, Mr. Washburne, only caused irritation. 'They are very angry here with Mr. Washburne,' wrote Lord Lyons on April 28, 'for interfering about the Archbishop, and they are still more displeased with him for being so much in Paris. In fact, although he has a room here he is much more in Paris than at Versailles. Thiers observed to me last night that my American colleague had a conduite très singulière. They would not stand this in a European representative, but they allow a great latitude to the American, partly because he and his Government have nothing to say to European politics, and partly because they cannot well help it.' An attempt made by direction of Lord Granville met with no better success, for the Versailles Government firmly refused to make the exchange of the revolutionary leader Blanqui, asked for by the Commune, and would only go so far as to promise in private, that the latter's life should be spared under certain circumstances.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Versailles, May 16, 1871.

The poor Archbishop has been constantly in my thoughts, both before I received your letter of the 13th and since. The state of the case is simply this. The Commune will not release him on any other terms than the release of Blanqui; and the Government positively refuses to give up Blanqui. Every one agrees that intervention with the Commune is worse than useless; in fact does harm. You will see from my Confidential Despatch of to-day, that I have gone as far as possible with Thiers on the subject, but without success. I cannot hope that I have done any good, but I have certainly done no harm. Thiers spoke to me freely and confidentially, but absolutely refused (or rather said positively that it was impossible) to give up Blanqui. I perhaps went rather far in speaking to M. Thiers even in the way I did, but I think it will be a comfort to remember that we did all that could be done.

I understand that the Archbishop does not suffer any positive hardship or privation beyond being kept a close prisoner, but I fear his health is giving way in some degree under the pressure of anxiety and confinement.

Perhaps the most painful feature in the whole matter has been the conduct of the Vicar General, the Abbé Lagarde, who was sent to Versailles on parole to negociate the release of the Archbishop. Notwithstanding the entreaties of the Archbishop himself, and the exhortations of everyone here, he declined to redeem his promise and has thereby materially injured the Archbishop's position, and given force to the Communist pretext that no trust can be put in priests. I am afraid he is still out of Paris.

Jules Favre was also approached on the subject, but nothing could be got out of him, and the only chance of success seemed to depend upon a peremptory demand of the Germans for his release, the Commune being completely at their mercy. This action the German authorities found themselves unable to take, and in spite of the frequently expressed opinions of Thiers and others that the lives of the hostages were in no real danger, they were all massacred in cold blood during the final days of the street fighting.

By the middle of May, most people were of opinion that there was nothing to prevent the troops entering Paris whenever they pleased, and that the sooner they did so, the less resistance they would encounter. Thiers, however, still refused to run any risks, and it was not until nearly the close of the month that the insurrection was completely suppressed, amidst scenes almost unprecedented in modern times.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Versailles, May 26, 1871.

The state of Paris is heart-breaking. The night I spent there (24th) was calculated to give one an idea of the infernal regions. Fires in all directions, the air oppressive with smoke and unpleasant odours, the incessant roar of cannon and musketry and all kinds of strange sounds. For the 48 hours before my arrival, the members of the Embassy and all in the house were in imminent danger; a fire raging in the next street but one, shells falling on the roof which might set fire to the house at any moment, and shot flying so fast on both sides that escape in case of fire would have been hardly possible. It is a great satisfaction to me that every one in the house behaved well. Of the members of the Embassy I was quite sure, and all the men servants appeared to have shown pluck and alacrity in rushing to the places where the shells fell, in order to extinguish the fire in case of need. Malet has a first-rate head, and directed everything with his usual coolness and self-possession.

One bit of a shell is said to have fallen in the garden yesterday morning, but it certainly did no mischief, and there was no appearance of danger while I was there. I cannot, however, feel quite comfortable so long as the insurgents hold the Buttes de Chaumont. They must, I should hope, be on the point of being driven out at the moment I write. Little or no intelligence of what was going on in the town could be obtained. The least inconvenience on leaving one's own house was to be seized upon to form a chain to hand buckets. Sentries stopped our progress in almost every direction: arrests were frequent and summary executions the order of the day. I hope it will really all be over by to-night. Sad as it all is, I felt a satisfaction in finding myself in the old house again, and am impatient to return to it for good. I hope to do so directly I can without cutting myself off from uninterrupted communication with you.

The fate of the hostages is what makes me the most anxious now. All the accounts we do receive are hopeful, but we have no positive assurance of their being safe. The Nuncio came back from his expedition to the Crown Prince of Saxony much pleased with himself for having undertaken it, and very grateful to me for having suggested it. He was referred by the Crown Prince to General Fabrice, who told him, that by order of Prince Bismarck, he was doing all that could be done to save the Archbishop. He even hinted that he had tried offers of money.

Thiers is trying the patience of the Assembly by keeping in office Jules Favre, Picard and Jules Simon, who were members of the Government of National Defence and of the violent Republican opposition under the Empire. The contempt and disgust of the Parisians of every shade of opinion for the Government of National Defence appears unbounded. They consider it to have been a Government which had neither courage nor capacity, and was equally inefficient in defending the city against the enemy, and maintaining order and authority inside. By the country at large, and still more, by the monarchical representatives in the Assembly, the members of that Government, by their conduct before and after the 4th September are held to have been the cause of all the present horrors.

Notwithstanding all this, Thiers seems to rule the Assembly completely, however much the members may grumble in private. His troubles with them will begin when Paris is at last subdued.

I went to Favre with the offer of the firemen directly the telegram was decyphered. He took it up to Thiers who immediately accepted it.

The Commune, which terminated in an orgy of blood, flame, and insensate fury, had lasted for rather more than two months. Amongst those who originated the movement were some who honestly believed that they were merely advocating municipal freedom, and others who thought that the existence of the Republic was threatened by a reactionary Assembly; but the control eventually fell into the hands of revolutionaries whose aim it was to destroy the foundations of society. It showed human nature at its worst, and the ferocity of the reprisals on the part of the Government created almost as much repulsion as the outrages which had provoked them. Now, however, with the restoration of order, a new era was about to dawn; the ceaseless disasters which had overwhelmed the country since the end of July, 1870, had come to an end, and within an almost incredibly short period, France recovered that place amongst the great nations of the world, which seemed at one time to have been irretrievably lost.

END OF VOL. I.

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