History of the Commune of 1871. Lissagaray
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about the number of those who opposed the plebiscite, while Félix Pyat received 145,000 for his piping in the Combat.[45]
This confused incongruous ballot affirmed at least the republican idea. Paris, trampled upon by the Empire and the Liberals, clung to the Republic, who gave her promise for the future. But even before her vote has been proclaimed she heard coming forth from the provincial ballot boxes a savage cry of reaction. Before a single one of her representatives had left the town, she saw on the way to Bordeaux a troop of rustics, of Pourceaugnacs, of sombre clericals, spectres of 1815, 1830, 1848, high and low reactionists, who, mumbling and furious, came by the grace of universal suffrage to take possession of France. What signified this sinister masquerade? How had this subterranean vegetation contrived to pierce and overgrow the summit of the country?
It was necessary that Paris and the provinces should be crushed, that the Prussian Shylock should drain our milliards and cut his pound of flesh, that the state of siege should for four years weigh down upon forty-two departments, that 100,000 Frenchmen should be cut off from life or banished from their native soil, that the black brotherhood should conduct their processions all over France, to bring about this great conservative machination, which from the first hour to the last explosion, the revolutionists of Paris and of the provinces had not ceased to denounce to our treacherous or sluggish governors.
In the provinces the field and the tactics were not the same. The conspiracy, instead of being carried on within the Government, circumvented it. During the whole month of September the reactionists hid in their lurking-places. The Government of National Defence had only forgotten one element of defence—the provinces, seventy-six departments. Yet they were agitating, showed life; they alone held in check the reaction. Lyons had even understood her duty earlier than Paris; in the morning of the 4th September she proclaimed the Republic, hoisted the red flag, named a Committee of Public Safety.—Marseilles and Toulouse organized regional commissions.—The Defenders understood nothing of this patriotic zeal, thought France disjointed, and delegated to put it right again two Liberal relics very much tainted, Crémieux and Glais-Bizoin, together with a former governor of Cayenne, the Bonapartist Admiral Fourichon.
They reached Tours on the 18th. The patriots hastened thither to meet them. In the west and south, they had already organized Leagues to marshal the departments against the enemy and supply the want of a central impulse. They surrounded the delegates of Paris, asking them for a mot-d'ordre, vigorous measures, the sending of commissioners, and promised their absolute co-operation. The putridities answered, "We are entre nous, let us speak frankly. Well, then, we have no longer any army; all resistance is impossible. We only hold out for the sake of making better conditions." We ourselves witnessed the scene.[46] There was but one cry of indignation: "What! is this your answer when thousands of Frenchmen come to offer you their lives and fortunes?"
On the 28th, the Lyonese broke out. Hardly four departments separated them from the enemy, who might at any moment come to levy a contribution on their city, and since the 4th September they had in vain demanded arms. The municipality, elected on the 16th in place of the Committee of Public Safety, passed its time in squabbling with the Prefect, Challemel-Lacour, an arrogant Neo-Jacobin. On the 27th, instead of any serious measures of defence, the council had reduced by fivepence the pay of the workingmen employed in the fortifications, and appointed Cluseret general in partibus of an army to be created.[47]
The Republican committees of Les Brotteaux, of La Guillotière, of La Croix-Rousse,[48] and the Central Committee of the National Guard decided to urge on the Hôtel-de-Ville, and laid before it on the 28th an energetic programme of defence. The workingmen of the fortifications, led by Saigne, supported this step by a demonstration. They filled the Place des Terreaux, and what with speeches, what with the excitement, invaded the Hôtel-de-Ville. Saigne proposed the nomination of a revolutionary commission, and perceiving Cluseret, named him commander of the National Guard. Cluseret, much concerned for his future, only appeared on the balcony to propound his plan and recommend calm. However, the commission being constituted, he no longer dared to resist, but set out in search of his troops. At the door, the mayor, Hénon, and the prefect arrested him. They had penetrated into the Hôtel-de-Ville by the Place de la Comédie. Saigne, springing upon the balcony, announced the news to the crowd, which, throwing itself upon the Hôtel-de-Ville, delivered the prospective general and in turn arrested the mayor and prefect.
The bourgeois battalions soon arrived at the Place des Terreaux; shortly after those of La Croix-Rousse and of La Guillotière debouched. Great misfortune might have resulted from the first shot. They parleyed. The commission disappeared and the general swooned.
This was a warning. Other symptoms manifested themselves in several towns. The prefects even presided over Leagues and met each other. At the commencement of October, the Admiral of Cayenne had only been able to set on foot 30,000 men, and nothing came from Tours but a decree convoking the election for the 16th.
On the 9th, when Gambetta alighted from his balloon, all the patriots started. The Conservatives, who had begun to creep out of their recesses, quickly drew back again. The ardour and the energy of his first proclamation carried people away. Gambetta held France absolutely; he was all-powerful.
He disposed of the immense resources of France, of the innumerable men; of Bourges, Brest, L'Orient, Rochefort, Toulon for arsenals; workshops like Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons; the seas free; incomparably greater strength than that of 1793, which had to fight at the same time the foreigner and internal rebellions. The centers were kindling. The municipal councils made themselves felt, the rural districts as yet showing no signs of resistance; the national reserve intact. The burning metal needed only moulding.
The début of the delegate was a serious blunder. He executed the decree of Paris for the adjournment of the elections, which promised to be republican and bellicose. Bismarck himself had told Jules Favre that he did not want an Assembly, because this Assembly would be for war. Energetic circulars, some measures against the intriguers, formal instructions to the prefects, would have brightened and victoriously brought out this patriotic fervor. An Assembly fortified by all the republican aspirations, vigorously led, sitting in a populous town, would have increased the national energy a hundredfold, brought to light unhoped-for talents, and might have exacted everything from the country, blood and gold. It would have proclaimed the Republic, and in case of being obliged by reverses to negotiate, would have saved her from foundering, prevented reaction. But Gambetta's instructions were formal. "Elections at Paris would bring back days like June," said he. "We must do without Paris," was our answer. All was useless. Besides, several prefects, incapable of influencing their surroundings, predicted pacific elections. Lacking the energy to grapple with the real difficulties of the situation, Gambetta fancied he might shift them by the claptrap expedient of his dictatorship.
Did he bring a great political revolution? No. His whole programme was, "To maintain order and liberty and push on the war."[49] Crémieux had called the Bonapartists "republicans going astray." Gambetta believed, or pretended to believe, in the patriotism of the reactionists. A few pontifical zouaves who offered themselves, the abject submission of the Bonapartist generals, the wheedling of a few bishops,[50] sufficed to delude him. He continued the tactics of his predecessors to conciliate everybody; he spared even the functionaries. In the department of Finance and Public Instruction, he and his colleagues forbade the dismissal of any official. The War Office for a long time remained under the supreme direction of a Bonapartist, and always carried on an underhand war against the defence. Gambetta maintained in some prefectures the same employés who had drawn up the proscription lists of the 2nd December, 1851. With the exception of a few justices of the peace and a small number of magistrates, nothing was changed in the political personnel, the whole subordinate administration remaining intact.
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