A HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1488, 12 May 1873, Page 2

A HISTORY OF THE COMMUNE.

By A Communist. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MELBOURNE ABGUS. Sir.— A younger brother of mine found on the St. Kilda beach a bottle containing a'docnment, written in French^ of which I have made a translation, and send '"the same to you with the original, which you will perceive contains also a few lines in English, addressed to "Lord Redactor of the Daily NieVs," and to the gentlemen of Melbourne and Australia.— Yours, &c. • -„■■ Felix Meyek. St Kilda, April 26. .-:"'■. >. „ [Translation.] ; . "Gentlemen. — Probably you know but very imperfectly the history of events we have recorded at the deportation. We are not able, we regret, to give you a detailed account of deeds accomplished in Europe since 1870 ; but, at least, we hope to furnish you with some information indispensable to those who would judge us with impartiality. . . . . You are aware of the numerous disasters which have befallen France in 1870-71. " A war as badly managed as commenced, an Emperor i^awie,. and un« skilful generals delivering up apart of our army; others giving up by treachery our fortresses and the rest of the Imperial army, On the 4th [Sept.] the proclamation of the Republic gave a new freedom to France. Paris furnished 400,000 men, turned its houses into ambulances, and its forges into arsenals and foundries for cannon. At Gambetta's ' instigation, the province mobilised the Army of the East and that of the Loire. 'Hope wfcMrenewed everywhere with patriotic feeling. The Parisians repulsed the enemy from the plain .of Chatillpn, while the army of the Vofeges 3 held the Prussians in check ; the army of the Loire, also, by the victory of Coulmiers, compelled them to evacuate the whole of the Loire

altogether, and to beat a retreat almost to Versailles. > " But all this had been obtained by the patriotic burst of feeling, and in spite of the will rather than the union of our generals. "Trochuhad in some manner gained the confidence of Paris, and hushed the misgivings of the people; but as . Ie wished for nothing less than the trium] >h of the Republic, he devoted himself to tiring out the patriotism |of the Parisians, and waited for the moment to deliver France and Paris into the hands of the enemy. " Gambetta badly advised and worse served, had placed at the bead of his army such generals as D'Aurelles de Paladines, who, instead of following up a first success, waited for an opportunity to crush in succession, by three corps d'arWe, troops which outnumbered them by six to one, and afterwards deserted the field of battle. "The Army of the Loire fought for seven days without a commander-in-chief , from the Ist of January to the 9fch. D'Aurelles de Paladines had retreated to Cherbourg ; and it was General Chanzy who, having rallied the remnant of the different corps d'arme'e, made headway against the enemy, and accomplished the famous retreat of the Loire. " The month of January was signalised by a last effort of patriotism. The Army of the Loire, commanded this time by Chanzy, fought for three days (the 10th, 11th, and 12th Januar^) at Le Mans, and General de Faidherbe struggled gloriously at St Quentin, but the infamous Trochu kept the Parisians in idleness, and the Prussians detached their corps d'arme'e from the suburbs of Paris, and came afcd crushed our provincial armies under their masses. "But in order to crown this villany and infamy in a fitting manner, the traitor Trochu and his worthy (?) associates, Diucros and Vinoy, after having obtained at Montretout a victory, which they wejre not seeking (for Trochu wished only jto practise a little bloodletting on the National Guard), and under the false pretext of an armistice, surrendered to the enemy all the forts of Paris, with their armament and stores, and signed tho most cowardly capitulation that the annals of any people nave ever recorded. p*^ " From this moment all hope was lost. Tiller the impulse of a panic, easier to jflragine than excuse, France chose representatives cowardly enough to demand 'peace, at any price, even at the price of 'honor. Paris,, indignant, could only ) protest against this. The majority of her \ representative^ withdrew from this • assembly of cowards, but Paris had to bow before the nation. " These representatives, old remnants t of all the infamous Governments, chosen for the occasion from the depth of their mouldy retreats, wished for nothing better than to dig a grave for the beaten-down Bepublic, and to hang a crown on the bleeding remains of mutilated France. " It is thus that, in spite of the written convention of Versailles, followed by a secret treaty with the Prussians, they concentrated troops on Paris, which they endeavored to disarm on the nights of the 17th and 18th of March. But Paris rallied, for it knew that the treaty of Bordeaux did not recognise the Bepublic. The people took up arms, the troops submitted, the Government, was conquered in a few hours. Generals Clement, Thomas, and Lecomte were shot by their own soldiers ; the Central Committee of the National Guard, after having prepared the municipal elections, gave unlimited power to the 'Commune,' which was freely elected by the Parisians, and the struggle was then established between the Commune and the Assembly, to which the name of l Versaillaise ' will be a ' pillar of infamy,' and to which all its members will remain firmly bound. Will you judge the Commune by its actions ? Here are pretty nearly the only decrees which are not of merely municipal importance. " First, the separation of the church and the state ; second, laical and compulsory education, gratuituous to all grades of society ; third, the suppression of permanent armies, and the military defence of the country obligatory on every citizen; and, lastly, the right to live of all classes

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of citizens possessing the sole aristocracy of labor, intelligence, and virtue. " These are our principles for which we have fought, and for which we will suffer; but we are always ready to recommence the straggle. We may be sonquered, : b|ut never disheartened. ! " And let no one come and cover our red flag with mud ! It has been dyed with blood, it is true, but it is with our blood -that it is dyed. "We have thrown down the Column Vendome, a monument of the inumerable crimes of a man unworthy of humanity. We have destroyed the palace of tyrants, a monument of infamy, and a receptacle of shameful vice ! This is yet true. But if you wish to know the incendiaries of the general storehouses, of the Treasury, and of private property, ask the bombs, the incendiaries of Versailles, they can doubtless answer you. " Ask at the railroad of Lyons who has burnt that small dock, after having pillaged it 1 They will throw in your face the execution of a score of hostages, and amongst them the Archbishop of Paris. This bishop, whom they make a standard of, yet they would not exchange him for Blanqui. And do you know how and when he was shot — this man 1. On the 27th of May, then, when the army of Versailles had already shot 300,000 men by combatants already exasperated with rage, excited by the enemy's agents, who have not kept any account of the. order and supplications of a member of the Commune, who made superhuman efforts to oppose the reprisals. " Here is the truth— the strict truth ! I have no need to excuse the facts; history has recorded them to a day ; they are henceforth flagrantly irrefutable. " Can I now speak to you about what we have suffered ? lam going to try to do so in a few words. "At the re-entry aof the troops, pillage and massacres inaugurated an era which only ended at the beginning of June. The regular army, the Army of Order (?), gorged itself for ten days with blood and pillage ; shooting men for wearing the trousers of the National Guard, and sometimes for a golden watch ; killing the women who begged for their husbands' lives, and sending the children to follow the fathers. The Marquis of Gallifet chose, from preference, out of the ranks ~of'iihe" prisoners, old men with white hair, and when he had made a choice, he carried away 93 men. He cried out, at the same time rubbing his hands, • I shall have my 93.' Consequently, a few minutes afterwards the horrible rolling of a mitrailleuse announced that 93 martyrs more had succumbed for the cause of right and justice. Up to the Ist of June they shot people in masses with niitralleuses in all the barracks of Paris ; in the irregular quarters of tha city the ditches of the fortifications were turned into hecatombs of flesh, palpitating, and often yet breathing. As a particular instance, I cite the case of a lad of 15 (almost a child) named Louis Viglat, who, having been shot on the 21st of May at Passy, when the ball entered behind his left ear and lodged in his right cheek, was, even after receiving a finishing blow, saved by some neighbours, who cured him of his wounds, and he was afterwards arrested by the agents of this 'good Government ' when quite convalescent, and was not sent back to his own quarters before the end of July, 1871. "After having shot 36,000 men, they arrested some 60,000, whom they neaped on board hulks in the docks of Satory and in the caves and ditches .of the Orangery of Versailles. There these sufferers were made to regret that they had escaped being shot. " Fifteen thousand men were flung tof ether in an enclosure of 500 metres in jngth, and 330 metres in breadth, without food, during three days, having nothing to drink but stagnant water out of a. pool, the receptacle of the sewerage water from this place. " From the surrounding walls and battlements of the place,, the soldiers could fire among the men, and woe to him who stood up during the night, for 20 shots had their victims from among this mass of human flesh. Some of these unfortunates became mad with rage and grief ; others swam in the gutters, for sometimes the rain came down in torrents ; a number died of want and fatigiue ; and those who had been murdered by the balls of the Army of Order, often remained among the living men until they were in a state of putefraction. "It was not until the sth of June that a blank commenced to be felt at Versailles by the removal of the prisoners upon the hulks. Only the officers, to the number of 1500, remained in the docks of Satory. At the end of this period the Bhooting was suspended, and our situation was ameliorated, but so little, that after my trial I passed a month in the company of 300 companions in misfortune in the stable of 44 horses, which had been abandoned on account of disease. We had only a little rotten straw for beds, infested with rats by thousands, and at this time the thermometer was 21deg. below zero. This was in the month of December, 1871. As food, we had the following allowance twice a day :— 250 grammes of bread, 100 grammes of biscuit, and 100 grammes of fat. You will now perceive that it is not surprising that the great number of sick has compelled us to enter this harbor, which, for our part we deem happy, since it has procured, us the pleasure of entering into relations with Borne of you. " A Communist."