EPISODES 
 
 Paris Commune 
 
 IN 18 7 1 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 THE LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. 
 
 
 New-York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis: 
 
 BENZÎGER BROTHERS, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE, 
 
 \%^'^ 
 

 Translation Approved hy 
 
 ral^FïVè , His Eminence CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 
 
 Copyright, 1876, by Benziger Bros, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Community of Our Lady of Loretto, . 32 
 
 The Community of the Faubourg St. Martin, . 61 
 The Schools of Belleville, . . . .71 
 
 Arbitrary Arrests under the Commune, . . 83 
 Notes on the Arrest, Imprisonment, and Release of 
 
 the Brothers of St. Nicholas of Issy. . . 101 
 
 Between Two Fires, ..... 119 
 
 The German Church of St. Joseph, . . . 157 
 
 La Villette, ....... 169 
 
 The Community of the Brothers of Bercy, . . 173 
 
EPISODES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PARIS COMMUNE IN 1871 
 
 It was toward the latter end of April that the 
 Commune, represented by one of its members, 
 Drouet du Mousset, and two National Guards, 
 paid its first official visit to our house. These 
 men were courteously received by the Brother- 
 Director, and behaved with the utmost propri- 
 ety ; they greeted us with sundry civil speeches, 
 and contented themselves with making a rapid 
 survey of the establishment. To hear them, you 
 v/ould have thought that the Brothers had noth- 
 ing to fear from the Communist authorities, who 
 were perfectly well disposed toward them ; but, 
 spite of such protestations, two Brothers deemed 
 it prudent, even at that early stage, to get formal 
 leave to quit Paris. 
 
 Except the departure of our two colleagues 
 and the removal of the most precious belongings 
 of the house, such as altar-plate, reliquaries, books, 
 nothing happened for some time of an alarming 
 nature. The schools under our management con- 
 tinued open, and drew the usual number of pupils, 
 the third, in Rue St. Thomas, being alone closed, 
 as the teacher was sick and no one had yet been 
 
8 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 chosen to take his place. The Brothers pursued 
 their duties as district visitors as usual, wearing 
 their habit, that is, a cassock, a long black cloak, 
 and a large three-cornered hat. The mud with 
 which the high authorities of the Commune and 
 the foul newspapers of the period had plentifully 
 bespattered them, had not succeeded in making 
 them unpopular. The good workmen and their 
 children knew that the heart of a friend beat for 
 them under that humble garb ; but now liberty 
 had been noisily proclaimed everywhere, . . . 
 which meant that for the Brothers it was irrevoc- 
 ably gone. To dare openly to wear the livery of 
 Christ was a mortal offense against liberty. This 
 we had done, and were destined soon to feel the 
 consequences of such boldness. 
 
 From Wednesday, May 3d, to Friday, nothing 
 worthy of note occurred, and we were able to 
 hear mass early every morning, as we had among 
 us the Rev. F. Millériot, a refugee priest, who 
 had been turned out of his convent. 
 
 Toward six o'clock, and while we were all 
 assembled in the chapel for meditation, we were 
 disturbed by seven National Guards fully armed. 
 The corporal brought us a note, which he told me 
 to read. It constituted us prisoners in our own 
 house, and gave these men authority to take pos- 
 session of all we had, and to prevent our escape. 
 I feel bound to add, however, that our jailers, 
 during the three days of our imprisonment, show- 
 ed themselves worthy of a better cause. 
 
 The eve of our arrest had witnessed the cere- 
 mony of first communion for the children of 
 the two ward-schools attached to ourcommuni- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 9 
 
 ty ; the teachers would naturally have hastened 
 the next day to marshal their happy pupils, and 
 take them to the thanksgiving mass and other 
 pious assemblies usually held on such occasions ; 
 but might was stronger than custom, and the 
 Brothers were obliged to refrain. Even the 
 Brother who had the care of the refectory, and 
 whom the necessities of his charge called upon 
 to go out marketing, was refused permission to 
 leave the house, and the porter shared the same 
 detention. Reckoning the latter, our community 
 ought to have amounted to twenty-one persons ; 
 but two young Brothers had luckily gone out 
 early in the morning, to hear mass at St. Sulpice ; 
 and when they came back, we called to them from 
 the windows, told them what had happened, and 
 bade them begone. They left at once. 
 
 It was not that our mishap had frightened 
 them, but that they knew their services to be 
 required elsewhere. Each set off at once for 
 his appointed post, one in the second school 
 of the Rue Vanneau, the other in the third of 
 Rue St. Benoit. The latter was soon ousted 
 by four individuals, who took forcible possession 
 in the name of the Commune ; he hid for a few 
 hours in a neighboring house, and then set out 
 for the Rue Vanneau, to help his colleague. The 
 two together held their own till noon ; but the 
 best will in the world could not do justice to the 
 needs of four classes, and two men could not do 
 the work of six. To persevere would have been 
 rashness more than courage ; so they dismissed 
 their numerous scholars, and managed to leavQ 
 Paris the same day in secular costume. 
 
lO EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 While on the subject of the Rue Vanneau school, 
 we are happy to mention Monsieur Roux, assis- 
 tant-teacher in the neighboring school in the 
 Rue du Bac, whom neither threats nor importuni- 
 ties could induce to take the place from which 
 the Brothers had been ousted. Monsieur Roux 
 is a man of honor and '^a conscientious teacher of 
 youth, and it is easy to perceive why he would 
 accept no employment at the hands of the Com- 
 mune, nor agree to the demoralizing method im- 
 posed on the ward-schools by the Communists. 
 The Brothers' school in the Rue Vanneau was 
 therefore closed, as well as that in the neighboring 
 parish of St. Thomas, whose teachers were im- 
 prisoned in No. 14 Rue Fleurus. 
 
 To return to the history of our community. 
 The anxiety which had seized us on our arrest 
 gave place to hope as soon as the corporal in- 
 formed us that a member of the Commune would 
 visit us at eight o'clock, and that we might ex- 
 pect to hear further orders. We were simple 
 enough to believe that these very orders would 
 brmg us relief, and we further comforted our- 
 selves with trust in God's providence. Although 
 in the hands of our foes, were we not equally in 
 those of our heavenly Father? Peace and re- 
 signation thus sustained us. 
 
 Monsieur Drouet du Mousset came between 
 eight and nine o'clock, and in the conversation 
 which he held in my presence with the Brother- 
 Director, reiterated the order forbidding any one 
 to leave the house ; but besides the indignity of 
 being treated as criminals, another trial was in 
 store for us, namely, a forced enrollment in the 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. II 
 
 National Guard. This was signified to the 
 Brother-Director while I was in attendance upon 
 him in the parlor. It was then that I saw that 
 venerable old man, venerable for his years and 
 above all for his virtues and the good he had 
 done in the sixth ward, become a humble suppli- 
 ant, not for himself, but for those young Brothers 
 who relied upon him and whom he loved as his 
 own children. Monsieur Drouet du Mousset 
 seemed inclined to accede to his request, and 
 even promised to use his influence with his col- 
 leagues of the Commune, in order to get this 
 order for enrollment canceled^ A life of three- 
 score years and ten devoted to self-denial and 
 charity leads one to think well of all men, and to 
 trust in a promise without experiencing secret 
 misgivings ; the Brother-Director accordingly 
 believed his interlocutor. For my part, I must 
 say that I was far less sanguine. I did not judge 
 the Communists by their fine speeches, but by the 
 acts they were perpetrating every day. The 
 following circumstance confirmed my suspicions : 
 I was requested to furnish a list of all the 
 Brothers between the ages of nineteen and 
 fifty-five. I answered at first that, since their 
 names were all registered on the lists of citizens 
 kept at the mayoralty, it was surely superfluous 
 to make out a second list ; but a moment's 
 thought showed me the danger of resistance, as it 
 might be made the pretext for worse measures ; so 
 I promised to have the list ready by noon. I 
 gave it in at the appointed hour. While we were 
 thus detained in our own house, the Communists 
 were busy filling our places in the schools of the 
 
12 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 Rue d'Assas and the Rue St. Benoit. Seven Broth- 
 ers usually took charge of the first, and four of the 
 second. Who were the men chosen in their stead 
 I know not ; but this I learnt, that they did not 
 succeed in winning the confidence of the people, 
 and that two thirds of the usual number of pupils 
 were found to be missing as soon as the new 
 teachers were installed. Each school was hence- 
 forth attended by barely more than a hundred 
 boys. Recreation-time was lengthened at the ex- 
 pense of study hours, daily prayer gave way to 
 the singing of the Marseillaise, the crucifix was 
 torn down from its place of honor above the 
 teacher's desk, every sacred picture, even of the 
 Blessed Virgin, disappeared, and the children 
 were pompously told that the}^ were /r^,? / still all 
 this only roused the contempt of the scholars, 
 and occasioned the dissolution of the schools. 
 
 Our arrest was soon known throughout the 
 neighborhood, and among the passers-by in the 
 streets that skirted our house we noticed many 
 who were evidently drawn there only by the sym- 
 pathy and interest they bore us. Among the rest, 
 we were very much touched by some little children 
 who, lying flat on the ground, cried out a hearty 
 " Good morning !" to us under the bars of the 
 garden-gate. 
 
 Our keepers had kindly allowed our pupils to 
 come in to see us, which proved a great comfort 
 to us. Many of them were accompanied by their 
 parents, who eagerly joined in our young visitors' 
 S3m-ipathy, and told us how deeply the}^ felt the 
 loss their children sustained in being deprived of 
 our rninistry. No visit, however, comforted us 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 3 
 
 more than that of Brother Exupérien, the novice- 
 master of the order. Many among us had been 
 his spiritual children and scholars ; his presence 
 and kind words cheered us immensely ; for we 
 haijed anew in his conversation that same earnest 
 and sweet charity which we had seen him display 
 but a short time previous by the ambulances of 
 the four hundred wounded soldiers quartered 
 at Longchamps. 
 
 As I have already mentioned, the infamous 
 Commune had, several days ago, forced Father 
 Millériot to fly from his convent and take refuge 
 with us. In return for our harboring him, he 
 shared with us his cheerfulness and fortitude, 
 inciting us by his pious example and fervent 
 prayers. He was our guest at the table of the 
 refectory, we were his at the spiritual feast of the 
 soul. His presence among us was a great bless- 
 ing, but we could not dream of his remaining with 
 us as a prisoner. I managed to get the news of 
 our arrest sent to him at Saint Sulpice, where he 
 was at the time, engaged in hearing confessions. 
 
 We wished, however, to hear mass and receive 
 holy communion the next day ; but prudence 
 forbade our mentioning Father Millériot. What 
 was to be done ? Our corporal good-naturedly 
 consented to go with a message to the parish 
 priest, who, regardless of danger, was soon among 
 us. I noticed that our National Guards respect- 
 fully saluted him as he entered with his sweet, 
 cheering smile and fearless mien. 
 
 Father Millériot got leave during the day to 
 take away whatever articles he had left in his 
 room ; he came toward evening, and the next 
 
14 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 day being Sunday, he again said mass for us and 
 administered the bread of life to the community. 
 This strengthening food of the soul was sorely 
 needed, for this was to be the day of trial. 
 
 I had been busy, the previous night, thinking 
 of what means we could make use to avoid the 
 decree of the Commune ; for resignation to the 
 Divine Will does not exclude a reasonable degree 
 of prudence."^" My position made it my duty to 
 provide for the safet}'- of' my colleagues, and I 
 was deep in plans for their escape and my own. 
 I then went to them all, and said, " Brethren, let 
 us not lose courage. I have the conviction that 
 God will deliver us to-day, either by human 
 means or in spite of them." The morning drag- 
 ged wearily on ; it was a terrible contrast to the 
 usual Sundays. No service, no catechism, no Sun- 
 day-school, no children to be marshaled to church. 
 Poor little things ! we could not go to them, 
 but they came to us ; and on that day, our visitors 
 were more numerovis than ever. The sight of 
 these faithful little ones was a great comfort. The 
 world knows nothing of the sacred affection with 
 which God fills the hearts of Christian teachers ! 
 The love which father and mother lavish on their 
 family according to the flesh, is none the less 
 abundantly poured forth by the Christian Broth- 
 ers on their numerous brethren in the faith, their 
 children in Christ. 
 
 By way of diverting our minds from the sad- 
 dening effects of this inaction, one of the elder 
 Brothers conceived the bright idea of going up 
 
 * The writer was the Brother Sub-Director of the house of 
 the Brothers of St. Sulpice. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 5 
 
 to his cell and playing, on an accordéon, several 
 of our grand and solemn festival hymns. A ray 
 of hope came to cheer us about noon ; our cor- 
 poral informed us that those Brothers who were 
 either below nineteen or above forty years of age 
 might go out till six o'clock in the evening. A 
 sickly Brother who was over twenty, obtained 
 leave to go to the doctor, on giving his word 
 that he would not fail to be back by the appointed 
 time. Of course every one was at home punctu- 
 ally at the time indicated. 
 
 At half-past one o'clock, a new member of the 
 Commune made his appearance. His name was 
 Salvador ; whether it was his real name or a feign- 
 ed one, I do not know. He Avas accompanied by 
 a secretary, and proceeded to make an inventory 
 of all the furniture and belongings of the house. 
 The secretary was not so severe as he looked, 
 and indeed proved very accommodating when- 
 ever his principal's back was turned. Salvador 
 himself had a quiet, gentle expression, and unless 
 appearances belied him, must have done violence 
 to his feelings when he undertook so odious a task. 
 While the younger and older members of our 
 spiritual family were in church, singing God's 
 praises and earnestly praying for their friends, 
 our only distraction was to watch Salvador lord- 
 ing it in our midst, and superintending the draw- 
 ing up of the inventory. 
 
 The Brother-Director renewed the request he 
 had already made to Drouet du Mousset, regard- 
 ing the free exit from Paris of all his community. 
 Salvador answered that he was at liberty to leave 
 when he pleased, and that this permission ex- 
 
1 6 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE, 
 
 tended to all those whose age exempted them 
 from military service. I was glad of this, for the 
 sake of those among us who were thus formally 
 declared free ; but on the other hand this answer 
 fell on my heart like lead, since it irrevocably 
 confirmed my fears for the eleven of our number 
 whom their age rendered liable to forced enroll- 
 ment. There was no longer any room for hope or 
 doubt. Still, before being torn from our commu- 
 nity and imprisoned in some communist barrack, 
 we were eager to be heard in our own defense. 
 Oneof our number therefore addressed Salvador. 
 
 " Would you object, Monsieur, to fully stating 
 your intentions with regard to our body ?" he 
 said. 
 
 " We simply wish to subject you to the com- 
 mon law," was the answer. 
 
 " But, Monsieur, observe that it is precisely the 
 law which has installed us in our present func- 
 tions, and that you break the law itself by re- 
 moving us or unwarrantably putting other men in 
 our places." 
 
 " I know nothing of that law under which you 
 have lived till now ; but if each one of you can 
 bring good and sufficient reasons why he should 
 be exempted from military service, well and good, 
 I shall look to it, and if the grounds of exemption 
 are serious, you will be exempted. You make a 
 bugbear of the Commune, but you are mistaken ; 
 believe me, the Commune has the good of the 
 country at heart." 
 
 " And is it for our good that we are forcibly 
 detained ?" 
 
 " I hardly see what you have to complain of. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1/ 
 
 True, you are kept confined to your house ; but 
 you want for nothing, and are even allowed to see 
 any one who wishes to communicate with you." 
 
 "Allow me to remark that that is a very small 
 part of the liberty which we have a right to ex- 
 pect. Not only should we be able to open our 
 -doors to whom we choose, but to go forth our- 
 selves whenever we please. You have nothing 
 with which to reproach us ; the people whom you 
 pretend to represent love us, parents are sorry to 
 miss our faces in the schools, and you actually 
 arrest us like criminals, and watch our every 
 movement ! What do you call liberty if you con- 
 sider yourselves authorized so to curtail the liber- 
 ty of your neighbors, and act like irresponsible 
 tyrants?" 
 
 " The ward authorities have signified their 
 desire to get rid of all ecclesiastical schools ; you 
 have already been told so." 
 
 '' And you would treat us like criminals be- 
 cause we have been true to our mission toward 
 youth, and have stood by our post until we have 
 been driven from it ! Ought you not rather to be 
 grateful to us for having continued teaching un- 
 der difficulties until other masters have been ap- 
 pointed over our heads ? Do you mean to call it 
 legal to take us from our schools and force muskets 
 into our hands, while you put in our places men 
 whom you will be obliged to exempt from mili- 
 tary service, although their physical fitness for it 
 is exactly the same as ours ! Is that doing away 
 with. prnnlegcs, as you pretend to do?" 
 
 " Better say at once that you are afraid of 
 serving your countr3^" 
 
1 8 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 " I can answer that charge by referring to very 
 recent events. Were we afraid, when, under the 
 muzzles of the Prussian guns, we went out to 
 nurse the wounded ? Were we afraid when, un- 
 der heavy fire, we carried oiff the heroic victims 
 of war ? Thank God, the followers of the holy 
 De la Salle have proved their courage. I wish 
 one could say as much for all the members of the 
 Commune ! In a word, Monsieur, whenever 
 France has need of us -and our services, she will 
 find us at all times and in all places, for she 
 has no more devoted sons than ourselves ; but 
 it is neither our duty nor is it our business to 
 take part in political questions. We are humble 
 religious, who think of nothing but their work, 
 the education of youth, and, if in times of extra- 
 ordinary necessity, we can stretch a point and 
 become nurses, litter-bearers, grave-diggers even 
 —still in ordinary times we keep to our legiti- 
 mate business, without troubling ourselves whe- 
 ther France is ruled by an emperor, a king, or a 
 directory. To our mind, the best government is 
 that which leaves us free to do most good, and 
 which keeps the national flag free from stain." 
 
 " Very good principles, doubtless ; but practi- 
 cally speaking, it is every citizen's duty to study 
 political questions, since, as a voter, he has 
 something to do with the government of the 
 country." 
 
 " That is just one of the most dangerous falla- 
 cies of the age ; for to allow that every individual 
 has the right to meddle with politics and public 
 matters is, as current events Avill prove, to throw 
 the apple of discord into the ranks of society. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 19 
 
 The principle which you advocate is incompatible 
 with the proper fulfillment of most of life's duties. 
 If I read the papers during school-time, pray who 
 is to look after my pupils ? If I talk politics during- 
 my leisure time, who is to prepare my lecture for 
 to-morrow ? And besides, shall I be any the bet- 
 ter disposed to bring my mind in unison with 
 that of young children, and dwell, for their in- 
 struction, on the most elementary truths, when I 
 shall have filled my brain with political puzzles ?" 
 
 " But the Commune " 
 
 " Do not let us speak of the Commune, Mon- 
 sieur. I warrant you that you will not count me 
 a worshiper of the Commune, and as I have 
 no hope of converting you to my views, it is no 
 use putting that question forward." 
 
 " Still " 
 
 " I ask you, do you believe in your heart that 
 the persecuted can, without perjuring themselves, 
 sing the praises of their persecutors ?" 
 
 " I thought the Gospel made this a duty to 
 3^ou ?" 
 
 " The Gospel commands us to forgive our per- 
 secutors, and we do so most heartily ; but far 
 from making it a duty to accept their reasoning, 
 it bids us resist injustice and untruth, even to 
 death." 
 
 The Brother-Director of the house of St. 
 Eustache, who had just come in, and had joined 
 our group (he wore a secular dress), now took up 
 my words, and insisted on their truth, which he 
 did with singular coolness and ingenuity. Salva- 
 dor, at his wit's end, was glad to escape, and go 
 on with his inventory. 
 
20 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 This discussion lasted three quarters of an 
 hour ; but many parts of it have escaped my me- 
 mory, and others were repeated more than once ; 
 but what I never can forget is the deep indig- 
 nation I felt, and which, I dare say, I must 
 have outwardly manifested. When we had some- 
 what recovered from our excitement, one of my 
 colleagues said to me, *' How angry you were !" 
 I did not and will not deny it ; but if I was angry, 
 I need not be ashamed of it; for such anger as 
 that was never made me lose my presence of 
 mind, and though my excitement was great, it 
 was certainly not inordinate. 
 
 I remember well the earnest attention with 
 which the National Guards hung on our every 
 word and gesture ; one of them would undoubt- 
 edly have felled me with one glance of his eye, 
 could his eyes have done the work of a pistol. 
 Others, again, I am sure, were secretly pleased 
 with the speech and manner of the Brothers. 
 These unfortunate soldiers, whose pay was thirty 
 sous a day, were often heartily tired of the farces 
 in which they were employed. One of our jailers 
 naïvely said to Salvador, " They put you through 
 a pretty cross-examination, didn't they ?" 
 
 The first scene which the Commune made us 
 act was thus over. We had come to the inter- 
 lude, which was much like any other breathing- 
 time between two theatrical scenes. We talked 
 over what had been, and what was preparing for 
 us in the future. 
 
 The second scene is about to begin. 
 
 Apparently the Communists of the sixth ward 
 considered us as very mighty and important per- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. âl 
 
 sohages ; for to Citizen Salvador was soon added 
 another delegate. I do not know his name ; in- 
 deed, many of the members of the Communist 
 government were acting under feigned names; 
 it was, no doubt, of vital importance to them to 
 conceal their own ! 
 
 I believe the new-comer was the head repre- 
 sentative of the Commune in our ward. He de- 
 manded the keys of the house, and spoke of plac- 
 ing his seals on every thing in the building. I 
 ventured to say to him, 
 
 " Do you know, Monsieur, that the greatest 
 happiness of men of our calling is to say our 
 prayers in our own chapel ? Of course, prayer is 
 a good and efficacious thing everywhere," I went 
 on, " but we believe that it has a further power 
 to move God when it is offered up in a place spe- 
 cially consecrated to Him ; and we consider that 
 by denying us entrance into our own chapel, you 
 are seriously curtailing our personal liberty." 
 
 " There you are quite mistaken," was the an- 
 swer, " it is just in order to spare you, and pro- 
 tect your most cherished feelings, that I am go- 
 ing to close your chapel." 
 
 I only smiled ; such an argument was scarcely 
 worth an answer. The delegate went on, 
 
 " Among the National Guards who will be bil- 
 leted here, there may be some who, not sharing 
 your religious convictions, might, if access to the 
 chapel were allowed them, act in such a way as to 
 seem to you blasphemous." 
 
 The Brother from the house of St. Eustache 
 answered for me, 
 
 " I thought that under military discipline, the 
 
22 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 most efficacious ' seal ' was the order given by the 
 commanding officer. I suppose I was mistaken, 
 at least as regards the champions of the Com- 
 mune." 
 
 The citizen delegate now resorted to the last 
 argument of a rrian who knows himself to be in 
 the wrong : he got into a passion, and opening 
 his great-coat, showed us a bit of scarlet ribbon, 
 the badge of his office. 
 
 " What are you meddling with ? Why are 
 you here at all ?" he cried in a threatening voice, 
 which scarcely admitted of a civil reply ; then he 
 added surlily, 
 
 " You deserve to be arrested on the spot."* 
 
 It is of no use to reason with men who care 
 for nothing but might ; one might as well preach 
 to hungry wolves. The Brother-Director of the 
 house of St. Eustache wisely held his tongue, and 
 we all followed his example. Our silence was 
 well-timed, as our Communist friend had an 
 exhortation ready for us. 
 
 " I wonder at your complaints," he said. 
 " Such men as you are ought to practice self- 
 denial, and think themselves honored to suffer for 
 their principles." 
 
 This was the same excuse which Julian the 
 Apostate used to bring forward when he perse- 
 cuted the Christians. 
 
 * This threat was destined to be fulfilled ; the good Brother 
 BerthuUien was too well known to be able to escape the inquisi- 
 tiveness of the Commune : he was allowed to depart this time, 
 but was soon after arrested, for the unpardonable crime of having 
 vigorously helped several of our youngest brothers to escape 
 from Paris. His imprisonment was happily not a long one ; he 
 was released at the end of forty-eight hours. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 23 
 
 ** Monsieur," answered one of the Brothers, 
 "it is not forbidden to defend one's self when 
 unjustly persecuted. St. Paul, whose testimony 
 you will not gainsay, has given us an example of 
 this." 
 
 " Do you mean to make believe that you are 
 persecuted ? What do you complain of ? We 
 treat you with greater consideration than you 
 deserve." 
 
 " Monsieur," I said, " he who has read his- 
 tory, and then finds himself in our present posi- 
 tion, has little room for security." 
 
 " Oh ! you do well to appeal to history. What 
 about St. Bartholomew's Day, etc. etc. ? This 
 is no time to turn your argument against your- 
 self ; but it would need no very deep knowledge 
 of history to know that it is not in your favor. 
 I will confine myself to stating that I may with 
 reason invoke the testimony of history against 
 you, but that you can not justly do so against us. 
 You have been too well treated ; each one of you 
 should have been locked up alone in his own 
 cell. By leaving you together, we give you time 
 to excite each other's passions. We may well 
 take measures against you. Witness the Seminary 
 of St. Sulpice!" 
 
 " Well, Monsieur, the Seminary of St. Sulpice 
 has been grossly belied. All kinds of cock-and- 
 bull stories have been circulated about it, as 
 about many another religious house. It is the 
 work of scurrilous newspapers, and honest men 
 know well enough whom to believe in such mat- 
 ters." 
 
 Our desks had, during this discussion, been 
 
24 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 carried into the infirmary, as our work-room had 
 been chosen as the sleeping apartment of the 
 coming detachment of National Guards. The 
 time was now come for making the inventory of 
 my own cell ; and the tiny room, formerly the 
 abode of peace and silence, was now as noisy as 
 a market-place. Men went in and out, shouting 
 and disputing. It was distressing to witness. 
 
 The Brother-Director joined us again, and, 
 being a man of peace, soon brought about a little 
 outward calm ; still, though there was less talk, 
 there was no better understanding between the 
 contending parties. Our unwelcome visitors left 
 us before we could come to any kind of agreement 
 or compromise. They left toward six o'clock, just 
 as the Abbé Crétineau-Joly came to see us ; and 
 right glad were we all to exchange their sarcasms 
 and sophisms for the kind and enlightened advice 
 which this true friend gave us. He assisted at 
 and took part in the discussion between the 
 Brothers under forty years of age ; each one gave 
 his own views and proposed his plans, and the 
 unanimous conclusion was that we must make 
 our escape. The abbé approved of this scheme 
 before he left the house. 
 
 Our confinement became closer ; neither chil- 
 dren nor grown -persons were henceforth to be 
 allowed to visit us, and our keepers were as vigi- 
 lant as watch-dogs. Charity, however, is inven- 
 tive, and our beloved novice-master, whose visit 
 had twice comforted us, and who had been work- 
 ing hard to obtain our release during the last 
 three days, found some way of disarming the 
 hard heart of the sentinel. He knew what bait 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 2$ 
 
 to throw to a hungry dog. I spoke to him in 
 private of our venturesome scheme, which he 
 cordially approved. The thing was determined 
 upon ; we im/st leave ; but a slight incident 
 nearly spoiled our plan at the outset. Just as it 
 was time to ring for supper, the Brother whose 
 task it was to do so, and who was not in the 
 secret, not seeing the rope in its usual place, said 
 out loud, " Why, the rope is gone !" The corpo- 
 ral, who stood close to him, echoed his remark, 
 and wondered " what had become of the rope ;" 
 but he luckily thought no more of it, so that we 
 were spared further anxiety. 
 
 The venerable Brother-Director knew of our 
 plan, as of course we could not have left the 
 house against his wish ; but to guard against his 
 being in any way compromised, we took care not 
 to ask his advice in forma ; we knew what he 
 thought about it, and it was not necessary that he 
 should speak plainly. We finished our supper, of 
 which we did not partake very heartily ; but to 
 make up for our want of appetite, our jailers 
 showed themselves doughty trencher-men. They 
 had been eating our provisions and drinking our 
 health for the last three days with the greatest 
 gusto imaginable. 
 
 We went up-stairs and saw them all go out;'*;^ . 
 a walk in the spacious courtyard. It was pa,^t 
 seven, the time had come ; and each one of us al- 
 ready wore under his habit a citizen's dress, which 
 for some time forward must replace our beloved 
 costume. There were eleven of us gathered to- 
 gether in one cell that looked into the Rue Jean 
 Bart. A rope (not the bell-rope, for that had 
 
26 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 proved too slender) was attached to the bed-post 
 to help us in our flight. Every one had his little 
 part to play ; some came and went, making a noise 
 in the passages, talking loudly, while others show- 
 ed themselves among the National Guards, etc. 
 etc. ; another had the responsible office of watcher, 
 and with vigilant eyes he scanned the neigh- 
 boring streets, courtyards, and windows. When 
 all was safe, he would cry, " Come quick, one, 
 two — stop a moment," and so on. The escape was 
 at last successfully concluded, under the special 
 favor of the Blessed Virgin, to whom we had all 
 recommended ourselves, and to the great delight, 
 manifested in dumb show, of our poor neighbors. 
 These kind people shared equally the joy of those 
 who had safely reached the street and the anxie- 
 ty of those who remained behind. I should 
 have been the last to leave the house ; but the 
 same Brother who, under the Communists' 
 very noses, had smuggled away the remaining 
 chalice and ciborium, now seemed so delighted 
 at the notion of being the last to go down, after 
 having watched and protected the rest in their 
 perilous departure, that I judged it but charitable 
 not to refuse him this gratification. One of our 
 number remained with him, and they were to fly 
 tQîTether ; but what anxiety the fate of those two 
 was destined to cause me when I found myself 
 safe out of danger, and could get no news of 
 those left behind ! 
 
 Some of us bore marks of our perilous de- 
 scent, in the shape of scratched fingers and torn 
 trowsers, but that was nothing. The tenth was 
 less lucky, and sprained his foot. With the help of 
 
EriSODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 2/ 
 
 his next neighbor, he managed to reach a friend's 
 house, where he spent not only the next night, 
 but a whole month. He was well cared for by 
 his hospitable friends, and was one of the first to 
 reappear in the streets after the troops came in 
 from Versailles. Being in plain clothes, he at- 
 tracted the soldiers' notice and was arrested ; but 
 his gentle face, his frank and open speech, and 
 white hands brought him out of trouble. At last 
 he was able to join our community once more, 
 and is now surrounded every day by his usual 
 quota of more than a hundred little boys. 
 
 Meanwhile our National Guards were on the 
 alert ; one of them even took the precaution to 
 sleep on a mattress laid across the threshold of 
 the door, while others ceaselessly patrolled the 
 garden and yard. The good people were wel- 
 come to do so ; they could not disturb oitr rest. 
 The Brother who filled the post of steward went 
 up to bed rather late, and great was his astonish- 
 ment to find, heaped pell-mell on the floor of his 
 room, our habits, which we had slipped off at the 
 last moment : he saw the rope too, and the thing 
 became clear to him. The Brother-Director hav- 
 ing prolonged his prayer till far into the night, 
 made his usual round of the cells ; his heart beating 
 with fear and hope, he went from room to room, 
 and having satisfied himself that the eleven vic- 
 tims chosen by the Commune had made good 
 their escape, he returned to his own cell and 
 knelt in heartfelt gratitude to God. No doubt 
 his prayers gained for us in our flight many an 
 escape from danger, and his wishes followed us 
 like guardian angels to light our path before us. 
 
28 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 The situation was precarious for tiie four vete- 
 rans left at home. How would they get out of 
 the quandary next morning ? The thing seemed 
 simple enough to me ; each of them had free leave 
 to go when he chose, and they had only to avail 
 themselves of this permission and quietly walk off 
 early next morning. How I should have enjoyed 
 this practical joke on the Commune ! The Bro- 
 ther-Director, however, acted with greater consi- 
 deration, and toward eight o'clock himself in- 
 formed the corporal of what had taken place. 
 What anxious moments the latter went throusfh 
 on our account ! At last he decided upon going 
 to the mayoralty with the Brother-Director, and 
 this step it was which gave rise to the report that 
 the venerable old man had been arrested and shot. 
 
 It may be supposed that the news of our dis- 
 appearance was by no means welcome to the 
 Commune ; but the good Brother Director, with 
 great presence of mind, changed the subject, and 
 requested to be allowed to take away the register 
 of the community's receipts and expenses. "Im- 
 possible, citizen," was the curt answer, " we can 
 not at this moment comply with your request; 
 the books are needed here." The Brother there- 
 fore went home, but had scarcely reached the 
 house when four members of the Commune made 
 their appearance. With wonderful foresight, 
 they set a sentry to watch the rope that had 
 helped us in our flight ; it was time, indeed. Sal- 
 vador was among the four grandees who came to 
 verify our hasty departure, and remembering the 
 kindness and frankness with which the good Bro- 
 ther-Director had spoken with him the previous 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 29 
 
 day, he at once taxed him with double-deaUng, 
 and accused him of having- favored our escape. 
 
 " If you did not hold the candle," said he, 
 " doubtless you knotted the rope !" 
 
 The answer was easy ; the Brother-Director 
 had not even been aware of the hour of our de- 
 parture ; besides, had not the Commune provided 
 us with other and lynx-eyed superintendents, had 
 it not even granted the Brother-Director leave to 
 go wherever he chose? This permission and its 
 accompanying measures of securing the doors, 
 etc., surely absolved him from all responsibility 
 in the matter. 
 
 Having stormed and raved, and threatened 
 the house with terrible vengeance, the members 
 of the Commune came to the conclusion that the 
 sooner the four Brothers and the porter left, the 
 better. This was done at once. 
 
 As for us, the night seemed unusually long ; 
 it was not easy to find an asylum for every one at 
 a moment's notice, and one of our number found 
 no refuge till past midnight. So many well-dis- 
 posed people had left Paris in these evil days, that 
 we risked finding a stony, unsympathetic stranger 
 where we had confidently expected to find a 
 warm friend. For my part, I must say that I did 
 not sleep very soundly, in spite of my Tiost's kind 
 welcome, and the trouble he gave himself to pre- 
 pare an excellent bed for me. 
 
 I would not lie down before writing to 
 Brother Bandime, our Assistant ; I wished to put 
 him in possession of all the particulars, that he 
 might prevent our rope from becoming the cause 
 of any further trouble to others, My letter reached 
 
30 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 him on Monday morning, at six o'clock. The eve- 
 ning of the same day, the 7th of May, almost the 
 whole community met once more in liberty at 
 Saint-Denis (a village near Paris), and to crown 
 our joy, we found our beloved Brother-Director 
 among our number. It was quite a family gather- 
 ing, each member meeting the others in holy exul- 
 tation under the eye of their common father, after 
 the danger of a storm in which many had well- 
 nigh perished ! With what joy did we not em- 
 brace each other ! Each was anxious to tell his 
 own story, and curious to hear that of his friends. 
 How had the barriers of the city been passed, by 
 what road or railway, and through which gate or 
 in what disguise had each managed to escape ? 
 and so on ; their questions were endless. One 
 had got out as a mason — his face, hair, clothes, 
 and, above all, his nails bearing plentiful marks of 
 his trade ; another, after a bath of muddy water, 
 and having carefully donned a costume which a 
 rag-picker would rather have put into his basket 
 than on his back, had passed the gates driving a 
 market-gardener's 'cart ; a third, having learned 
 the Commune's own watchword for the day, had 
 quietly sauntered into the waiting-room of one of 
 the railway-depots, and taken his place on the 
 train among a crowd of ordinary passengers ; 
 another had gone through, with unsteady gait, a 
 short pipe in his mouth, and a spade and pickax 
 on his shoulder, making believe to be a drunken 
 railway laborer of the Vincennes road. 
 
 Respectability was at a discount in Paris during 
 those sad days ; so each of us, as he told his story, 
 had to describe himself under an aspect more or 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 3 1 
 
 less dirty, disreputable, and grotesque. It must 
 have been, no doubt, rather difficult to keep up 
 the requisite character to be expected from these 
 various outward disguises ; but alas ! since the 
 Commune had reigned, we had had multiplied 
 examples to profit by and learn from ! 
 
 God and His holy Mother be praised, for 
 their powerful protection never once failed us. 
 As I write these lines, I am again in my little 
 cell, which has become, as before, the abode of 
 peace and silence, while the harsh voices that 
 lately echoed here have most of them been 
 silenced in death. 
 
 The two unhappy men who treated us so cav- 
 alierly were afterward shot. God grant that 
 eternal justice may have been less inexorable to 
 them than the justice of man ! Our house is now 
 once more under the mild rule of our beloved Bro- 
 ther John, the Director, and we can sing with 
 David, " Behold how good it is for brethren to 
 dwell together in unity." True, we found the 
 house much damaged, but what signifies material 
 havoc when the heart is whole ? 
 
 Since our return, Providence has been pleased 
 to protect us against another hidden danger ; for 
 just as one of the Brothers was about to throw a 
 lot of waste paper into the stove in the work- 
 room, he noticed some cartridges lying half hid- 
 den in the ashes. There were no less than seven- 
 ty-six. 
 
 Our days shall be more than ever exclusively 
 devoted to the God of mercies, and our earnest 
 prayer is that He may give us the grace to live 
 in and for Him alone ! 
 
TKE COMMUNITY 
 
 OF 
 
 OUR LADY OF LORETTO. 
 
 68 RUE DES MARTYRS. 
 
 The Brothers of the Rue des Martyrs were 
 among the first to be called to the service of the 
 ambulances, and the last to leave the hospitals. 
 They were also destined to witness the first out- 
 break of that dark drama, which will be known 
 in history under the name of the Paris Commune. 
 It was no longer the wounded on the battle-field 
 whom they were to assist, those who fell with the 
 cry of " Long live our France !" but the wretch- 
 ed victims of French weapons, struck down in 
 the streets of Paris, to the savage cry of " Down 
 with society !" 
 
 The opening scenes of the bloody and shame- 
 ful civil war were enacted right before the Bro- 
 thers' house, and they were obliged to look on at 
 the hopeless spectacle of the triumph of anarchy 
 over order, and of license over discipline. They 
 were compelled to witness, with heavy hearts and 
 tearful eyes, that procession unparalleled in his- 
 tory, of disarmed veterans, hemmed in by a howl- 
 ing mob of " federals," shouting out the Marseil- 
 laise, while the people welcomed them with huz- 
 zas, indicative of victory. 
 
 The noise of the platoon fire which struck 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 33 
 
 down two of our brave generals shook the Bro- 
 thers' house, and the peaceful men feared for a 
 few moments that even their retired garden would 
 be chosen as a convenient spot for similar execu- 
 tions. But the very horrors that surrounded 
 them shielded them from this indignity ; the 
 wounded were heaped in their parlors, the dead 
 strewed their garden, and the federal detachments 
 which two or three times made an attempt to 
 occupy the premises, were so appalled by the 
 gloomy spectacle that they were glad enough to 
 escape the sight of horrors to which they were 
 yet scarcely accustomed. 
 
 That nothing might be wanting in the sinister 
 mise-en-scene of those dark days, two barricades 
 were built under the Brothers' windows, and the 
 steady blows of the pick-ax rooting up the pave- 
 ment, and the dull thud of the stones as they 
 were piled in tiers, could be distinctly heard 
 within the house. Then came the reports of the 
 heavy guns and mitrailleuses which were mounted 
 on this improvised rampart, and which held their 
 own until displaced by our soldiers on the 24th of 
 May. 
 
 The Brothers of Our Lady of Loretto had no 
 peace after the fatal 1 8th of March. Hemmed in 
 on all sides by barricades, and surrounded by the 
 federals, whose watchword it seemed to be to 
 make as much noise as possible, nothing was 
 spared these peaceful citizens, and night and day 
 resounded cursings, bowlings as of wild beasts, 
 tocsin-ringing, musketry and cannonading- They 
 had their fill, indeed, of every noise that was hell- 
 ish and every sight that was heart-rending. 
 
34 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 The poor brothers of Montmartre had to cross 
 no less than four barricades to reach their schools, 
 and on Easter-Tuesday, the Brother-Director 
 judged it prudent to keep the community at home, 
 where they organized temporary classes for such 
 pupils as could still come to them for instruction. 
 
 At last the Communists had a notice posted on 
 the door of the parish-church to the effect that 
 ** all priests were outlaws, and every good citizen 
 was invited to arrest them,"* after which an offi- 
 cial visit was paid to the house in the Rue des 
 Martyrs, and the Brothers were given to under- 
 stand that they and every " black gown" in the 
 ward were included in the decree. This threat 
 did not disconcert the brave teachers. Those 
 who, like the spiritual children of De La Salle, 
 had bravely done their duty during the siege, 
 and faced death a thousand times, knew by expe- 
 rience that there is a Power mightier than the 
 circumstances of war and the cunningly laid traps 
 of men, and on which it is safe to rely in all dan- 
 gers. 
 
 " Do your duty, and let the heavens fall," said 
 our loyal forefathers. This grand old motto, so 
 little known nowadays, is still that of the Chris- 
 tian Brothers, and has led them, of late, to a high 
 degree of renown. 
 
 The Brother-Director troubled himself very 
 little about the threat that had been made against 
 his community, and went calmly on, without fear 
 as without ostentation, providing for the necessi- 
 ties of the house and superintending the number- 
 
 * This strange proclamation was signed by the delegate of the 
 Eighteenth Ward, and bore the mayoralty seal. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 35 
 
 less works of mercy which the times demanded. 
 He never ceased showing himself in the neigh- 
 borhood, and going every day to Montmartre, 
 where the situation was growing hourly more cri- 
 tical as regarded matters of religion and persons 
 in the service of God. Whether it was that God 
 specially watched over his safety, or that his own 
 coolness compelled the admiration of even the 
 most venomous among the federals, it is certain 
 that the " black gown" had never hitherto met 
 with the slightest mishap, when one evening, as 
 he had gone out to help in the escape of Mon- 
 sieur l'Abbé Alvier (a priest who had been de- 
 tained several days in a private house), he was 
 attacked by a National Guard, who followed 
 closely at his heels, heaping upon him insults and 
 threats of every kind. Impatient at this persistent 
 dogging of his step, the Brother turned abruptly 
 round, and calling on the cowardly spy, firmly 
 bade him choose his road, so that he himself might 
 follow the opposite. The federal raised his bayo- 
 net and pointed it at the heart of the religious. 
 The latter was luckily prepared for any thing, 
 and turning the weapon aside with his left hand, 
 with his right felled the aggressor to the earth. 
 A second National Guard then appeared upon 
 the scene, and by his presence put a stop to the 
 proceedings, which might easily have proved fatal 
 to one or other of the adversaries. 
 
 The Brother pursued his way ; but the time 
 thus lost had cost the priest his liberty, and a 
 squad of federals now surrounded the house, 
 while the prisoner himself stood intrepidly await- 
 ing them at the threshold. 
 
36 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 The march of events was not slow ; day by 
 day the Commune thundered forth decrees that 
 could not fail to precipitate the Queen City of 
 modern times into a frightful abyss of deso- 
 lation. Under these circumstances, it was the 
 right, nay, the duty of each man to take all neces- 
 sary steps for the preservation of his goods and 
 chattels from the indiscriminate pillage which 
 could plainly be foreseen. The Brother-Director, 
 therefore, judging that it was time to place in 
 security the valuables of the house, addressed 
 himself to his brother-in-law and his two nephews, 
 who belonged to the Montmartre battalions, and 
 who bravely gave him all the assistance in their 
 power. The removal was rendered the more 
 dangerous by the fact that the house was flanked 
 by barricades that bristled with guns, and was 
 entirely at the mercy of the Federal troops. 
 Still the uniform of the National Guards, con- 
 spicuous as it was among those employed to re- 
 move our valuables, led the barricade watchers to 
 suppose that this was a confiscation ordered by 
 the Commune and carried out in its interest. Not 
 only did they lend their help and countenance, but 
 often shook hands with those whom they thought 
 their own colleagues in the work of destruction. 
 The best of it was that this help, generously re- 
 warded by some of the Brothers' choicest wine, 
 gave rise to much pleasantry at the " black 
 gowns' " expense. '* It was high time," said 
 our noisy patriots, " to take all that these fellows 
 had filched from the people's earnings, and then 
 send them about their business, out of Paris and 
 out of France." I believe they would have burst 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 37 
 
 with rage had they known whose health they 
 were drinking, and whose goods they had so will- 
 ingly helped to secure. No one can form an" 
 idea of what a feverish state of antagonism against 
 religion had been produced by a few clever fanat- 
 ics, among numbers of the lower classes of our 
 Capitol. 
 
 It can not fail to strike the calm and impar- 
 tial investigator into this two months' period of 
 frenzy, that the father of lies must have openly 
 interfered, in order that a people so enlightened 
 and quick-witted as ours should have been brought 
 to believe in such evident as well as odious inven- 
 tions. All were equally blinded, and this willful 
 blindness, which in former times had infected the 
 upper classes of society, had now so thoroughly 
 inoculated the people that it is not too much to 
 say that the turbulent and misguided masses were 
 simply running blindfold into the abyss, and were 
 ready to believe the most monstrous tales, told 
 by the least reliable witnesses. The Brother-Di- 
 rector's male relations had bravely done their 
 share of the work ; for their true object might at 
 any moment have been discovered, and discov- 
 ery would have been followed by a sentence 
 of death. The women of the family were now 
 to take their place, and we can not say that the 
 men distanced them, either in presence of mind 
 or unflinching devotedness of purpose. 
 
 The Brother's sister took in the community's 
 furniture, etc., and kept it at a risk which it is im- 
 possible to gauge by any common standard, and 
 which rose in proportion as the sudden passions 
 of those terrible days exploded on all sides in un- 
 
38 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 punished deeds of violence. After several weeks 
 of continual anxiety, she had, toward the last 
 ■ days of the struggle, to spend several nights 
 watching at the doorstep, to ward off the attacks 
 of the ill-omened p/^ro/eurs and pétroleuses. In this 
 she was ultimately successful, but what was un- 
 avoidable was the storm of shells that raged in 
 her neighborhood. Twenty-one shells from the 
 buttes at Chaumont fell on the devoted house, 
 and about forty smaller projectiles burst upon 
 the beds and house furniture of this good Chris- 
 tian family, whose members were at that time in 
 safe hiding in the cellar."^ 
 
 Another sister of the Brother-Director, after 
 having equally shared in the trouble of providing 
 for the safety of the community's goods and chat- 
 tels, was confined to her bed for six months, 
 through the fatigue, exertion, and anxiety she had 
 gone through in this work of mercy. The school 
 was still going on ; but the Brothers, seven of 
 whom had left, while only five remained at home, 
 could not hope to be unmolested much longer. 
 There would be danger for themselves and vexa- 
 tions for their friends, in a longer avoidance of the 
 search instituted for all those whose age ren- 
 dered them liable to be enrolled in the National 
 Guard. The Brother-Director, having no longer 
 at his command the sums requisite to secure his 
 young friends' safety, took the bold resolution of 
 appealing to the delegate, Monsieur Bayeux-Du- 
 
 * This house, though so critically situated, was providentially 
 spared, and was neither burned down nor irreparably damaged 
 by the shells, while nothing belonging to the Brothers suffered 
 the least harm. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 39 
 
 mesnil. He went in plain clothes, and was at first 
 taken by the Communist for a lay-teacher, and 
 therefore received with great courtesy, the dele- 
 gate expressing his regret that his salary should 
 not have been punctually paid. 
 
 "It was no fault of mine," he added eagerly. 
 " I gave the most express orders that the gentle- 
 men teaching in the schools should be paid before 
 any others. I attach great value to their ser- 
 vices." 
 
 He was going to inquire into the causes of this 
 neglect when his visitor thought it right to en- 
 lighten him as to his identity, adding that he hoped 
 the delegate's expression of interest in teachers 
 did not exclude the ecclesiastical members of that 
 profession. This unexpected revelation had a re- 
 markable and very visible effect on the astounded 
 official. The bare idea of being actually in the 
 presence of a Christian Brother, and having con- 
 versed with him a quarter of an hour without 
 finding out his mistake, was overwhelming to 
 good Monsieur Dumesnil, who no doubt thought 
 that a religious could not be a man like any other ! 
 And how should he get out of that unlucky com- 
 pliment paid to the whole body of schoolmasters! 
 The delegate's sharp wit could not help him 
 out of his quandary, and he thought it best to 
 put a good face on the matter, and order 475 
 francs to be paid over to this corrupter of youth 
 and enemy of the people ^ whom he wished anywhere, 
 in prison or at the Antipodes — rather than here in 
 his own sanctum. 
 
 The citizen delegate had, it is true, been ap- 
 parently more consistent than many of his col- 
 
40 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 leagues might have proved under Uke circum- 
 stances ; but he was none the less wroth at having 
 been thus egregiously taken in ; he was burning 
 to revenge himself speedily ; and two days later, 
 the Brothers received a document signed " Du- 
 mesnil," setting forth the programme of study as 
 regulated by the Commune for the use of pri- 
 mary ward-schools. With this came also a letter, 
 insinuating that, no doubt, the Brothers, being 
 firmly attached to certain dogmas, were therefore 
 unable to follow this programme, and were con- 
 sequently ineligible as teachers. 
 
 The Brother-Director, after due conference 
 with his superiors, replied by a note to the effect 
 that the school in the Rue des Martyrs being in a 
 different position from the simple ward-schools, he, 
 as its head, considered himself at liberty to remain 
 at his post, as director of a free-school, in case the 
 authorities chose to deprive him of his position as 
 salaried teacher of the ward-school. The result 
 of this communication was a summons to appear 
 at the mayoralty, where he defended his propo- 
 sitions one by one, for a whole hour. The citi- 
 zen delegate, at fault on every head, was forced 
 to consent to the Brother's remaining at his 
 post, on condition, however, that the written 
 proofs of the reasons alleged should be presented 
 at his office within three days. 
 
 Unfortunately, it was impossible to get the re- 
 quisite documents together, some bemg in the ar- 
 chi^z^es of the City Hall, where they were carefully 
 preserved, and not to be reached for the purpose 
 of copying them, and others were in the hands 
 of the parish-priest, who was away from home. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COxMmUNE. 4! 
 
 The three days' delay granted to the Brothers 
 was thus of little use save to facilitate their escape 
 from Paris, after which the Brother-Director 
 wrote to Monsieur Dumesnil to explain matters, 
 and beg- him to be content with the writer's word 
 of honor as to the reasons above mentioned. A 
 second summons to the mayoralty was the result 
 of this letter. The Brother's friends begged him 
 not to go ; the invitation, according to them, was 
 only a trap ; but full of confidence in God and 
 in the justice of his cause, he declared that he 
 was determined to see the matter out, and would 
 not desert his post without good reason. A few 
 of the clerks at the mayoralty itself showed their 
 concern for the Brothers by quietly warning the 
 Director. " Take care," they whispered, " you 
 are running unnecessary risks. There has al- 
 ready been some talk of arresting you ; the very 
 perfection of your cause is a point against you ; 
 they can not forgive you for being in the right. 
 Fly while it is yet in your power ; it will be too 
 late when once you are in the delegate's private 
 office." The Brother, however, pressed his rosa- 
 ry to his heart, offered up a silent prayer to the 
 powerful Protectress whose help he had so of- 
 ten experienced before, and with a brave look 
 and a pleasant smile, entered the room which 
 his friends looked upon as a trap whence he 
 would never issue again a free man. " Come 
 what may," thought he, " it will be God's 
 will." 
 
 And God indeed deigned to keep him free for 
 the sake of the five Brothers who needed his 
 wise and beneficent rule, but who waited at home 
 
42 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 in some anxiety, earnestly praying to God to 
 protect and spare him. 
 
 The conversation was stormy, and at last the 
 Brother perceived that the time had come when, 
 after various threats, the citizen delegate would 
 have fain proceeded from words to acts, had it 
 not been for the Brother's admirable coolness, 
 which did not give Monsieur Bayeux-Dumesnil 
 time for the requisite formal order of arrest. He 
 rose with dignity, and firmly said, as he bowed 
 himself out of the room, " Believe me, only force 
 can drive me from my school." He was out of 
 the house before the delegate recovered from his 
 astonishment. But there was no hope of tiding 
 over the danger, and, though determined, as far 
 as he was personally concerned, to risk any thing, 
 the Brother-Director did not consider himself 
 free to endanger the life or liberty of his col- 
 leagues, and therefore busied himself with prepar- 
 ing a plan for getting the remainder of the com- 
 munity safe out of Paris. 
 
 The execution of the hostages was just then 
 hotly discussed in Paris, and every morning 
 some Communist sheet came out with allusions 
 to the law of " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for 
 a tooth," with reference to the pretended cruel- 
 ties practiced by the Versailles troops on the fe- 
 deral prisoners. It was not for that reason that 
 the Brother-Director feared even for the lives of 
 his spiritual children. 
 
 On Monday, the 5th of May, at nine o'clock at 
 night, he set out for the Lyons railway depot, ac- 
 companied by his nephew, the National Guard, 
 and two Brothers in their habits. He himself 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 43 
 
 wore plain clothes. As this group entered the 
 station, all eyes fell on the two Brothers whose 
 height and size would alone have rendered them 
 noticeable, even without the proscribed costume 
 which they wore. 
 
 The captain in command of the post, probably 
 notified beforehand by some secret agent, speedi- 
 1)'- came up, and was carelessly accosted by the 
 Brother-Director, who soon perceived that the 
 worthy had distinguished himself that day at the 
 wine-shops as well as on the barricades. He no- 
 ticed also that the man was by no means savage 
 in his drink, and therefore began by appealing to 
 his sympathies. 
 
 " This National Guard and I," he said, " are 
 neighbors of these two poor Brothers, whom ye 
 should be glad to help out of Paris, since the 
 poor creatures have neither bread nor home, now 
 that their salary as teachers has been stopped. I 
 am sure, captain, you will help us in this work of 
 mercy." 
 
 The captain was silent, but what with the 
 wine and the Director's well-sounding words, he 
 betrayed an emotion capable of being turned to 
 good account. The disguised Brother quietly 
 stepped up to the ticket-office and took two tick- 
 ets. The whole guard was in an uproar, and the 
 lieutenant, seizing the opportunity to distinguish 
 himself at his superior officer's expense, had al- 
 ready detailed a few men to arrest the two Bro- 
 thers, and take them before the Communist au- 
 thorities. 
 
 A few women, of that wretched class who fol- 
 lowed the insurgents as vermin cling to filthy 
 
44 EPISODES OF THÉ PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 animals, were cheering this glorious expedition, 
 and preparing to act a part in the procession. 
 One of them, quite taken in as to the Brother- 
 Director's share in the scene, went up to him, im- 
 pudently rubbing her hands, and with fiendish 
 joy exclaiming, 
 
 " We shall have some fun now !" 
 
 " Indeed ? pray on what score ?" 
 
 " Oh ! about those two tall priests " 
 
 And the whole posse screamed out the decision 
 which the guard had just come to. " Though it 
 is not far from here to Mazas prison," they said, 
 " we will make the most of our time ; you shall 
 see " 
 
 " I may see it, but I shall not think it fun ; for 
 I ^ink it is a cruel shame to prevent these poor 
 Brothers from leaving Paris after they have been 
 turned out of their schools." 
 
 " Oh !" said the hag, " then they are not priests? 
 They are Brothers !" And she sauntered away. 
 Perhaps she was the mother of a family, and re- 
 membered that her children had found kind 
 friends in their masters, the Christian Brothers. 
 At any rate, she no longer seemed inclined to 
 laugh at them. 
 
 The Brother-Director saw that decisive action 
 alone would succeed, and bidding his nephew 
 mingle with the soldiers, whose uniform he wore, 
 to dissuade them from their inhuman designs, 
 he gave the Brothers their tickets, recommend- 
 ing perfect coolness, and promising to go with 
 them to prison, in case they did not succeed in 
 making their escape. As he expected, the senti- 
 nels crossed their bayonets the moment the two 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 45 
 
 presented their tickets at the door of the waiting- 
 room, and their papers were imperiously called 
 for. While they fumbled for them, the Brother- 
 Director and his nephew attracted the attention 
 of the federals, and so disturbed them that the 
 papers were not very carefully examined. Hus- 
 tled by the crowd which was impatiently expect- 
 ing to be let into the waiting-room, the lieutenant 
 could only glance at the baptismal register which 
 cut off one year from each brother's age, and the 
 papers being hurriedly declared genuine, the 
 Brothers were carried on with the stream of im- 
 patient passengers. If the lieutenant changed his 
 mind the next moment, it was too late ; for before 
 he could have searched the carriages for his vic- 
 tims, the whistle of the engine had sounded, and 
 the train was off. 
 
 The Brother-Director went home radiant, and 
 full of gratitude to Providence. The travelers, 
 however, had still some risks to run ; the train 
 stopped a long time at Borcy-Charenton, investi- 
 gations were made in various compartments, and 
 several persons were arrested. God protected 
 His servants, and though the door of their com- 
 partment was twice opened by the federals, no 
 regular search was instituted. The next day, 
 Sunday, at six o'clock in the morning, two other 
 Brothers went to Aubervilliers without the 
 slightest mishap, thanks to the railroad laborers' 
 costume which they had donned. 
 
 An hour later, the fifth Brother escaped in the 
 same direction, in the uniform of a railway in- 
 spector. 
 
IL 
 
 His task thus happily accomplished, the 
 Brother-Director could sincerely thank God and 
 rejoice in the success of his efforts. But under 
 such rude blows, it was scarcely possible as yet 
 to rejoice in earnest. A fortnight ago, all had 
 been astir in the great house ; thirteen Brothers 
 shared with him the charge of a numerous and 
 happy troop of young children ; to-day he was 
 alone, praying and weeping over the crimes 
 daily committed around him, and alone with his 
 anxiety for the future. He wrote thus some 
 months after : " I shall never forget my feelings 
 the first night after the last Brother had left the 
 house. Every thing at home was topsy-turvy. 
 Perhaps at that very moment some of our absent 
 ones were arrested and imprisoned ; and if I per- 
 sisted in remaining at my post, I ran many a 
 grave risk myself Still I could not make up my 
 mind to disappoint the confidence of some poor 
 families and the love of their brave children, and 
 I determined not to discontinue my classes at 
 home. Besides, there was the violence of the 
 Montmartre staff to be dreaded with regard to 
 my two nephews, who were known to be but 
 lukewarm Communists, and whose apathy was 
 ascribed to m}^ influence over them. Were not 
 those poor youths in danger on my account? 
 Their zeal in m}^ defense had not only cost them 
 the confidence of the Communists, but had put 
 them in bad odor with the legitimate government 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 47 
 
 of the country. I could not forget that, having 
 refused to join the ranks of the insurgents, they 
 had at last donned the uniform of the Commu- 
 nists simply to be able to protect me and, if needs 
 be, defend me against untoward acts of violence." 
 
 The good Brother might well feel restless and 
 anxious ; but when day dawned, the thing that 
 seemed paramount in his mind was to find out 
 what had been the fate of his runaways. He was 
 determined to find out at any cost what had hap- 
 pened to them, and so set off early in the morn- 
 ing for the Flanders Gate. He meant to go as 
 far as some intermediate station, where he could 
 get the news he wanted, and then return to Paris 
 by the next train. 
 
 He was stopped at the gate. 
 
 " No thoroughfare !" laughed the warder. He 
 turned toward the canal, but there danger and 
 disappointment were lying in wait for him. 
 A few loungers, on the look-out for an opportunity 
 of showing off their zeal, made believe to recog- 
 nize him as a policeman in disguise, and were 
 soon re-enforced by troops of citizens. 
 
 " To the water with the spy ! Drown the 
 traitor !" called out the excited mob, and like 
 hounds on their prey, the people threw them- 
 selves across the Brother's path, and nearly suc- 
 ceeded in cutting off his retreat. He gave a 
 rapid glance at the parapet, meditating a dive 
 into the waters of the canal, but was suddenly 
 struck with another and brighter idea. A few 
 National Guards were looking on at the prepara- 
 tions for "lynching" the victim, and by their 
 derisive cheers, encouraged the mob that they 
 
48 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 should have controlled. The Brother boldly ap- 
 pealed to them, saying, 
 
 " I call upon you, in the name of the law that 
 protects the life and person of every citizen, to 
 protect me against these cowardly aggressors." 
 
 A few voices clamored in reply, 
 
 "Death to the policeman!" 
 
 " You lie !" cried the Brother in a stentorian 
 voice. " Besides, have the courts of justice failed 
 in Paris, that the first chance passer-by should 
 assume the right of judging and executing an 
 inoffensive man?" 
 
 With its proverbial fickleness, the mob now 
 veered round and angrily denounced the Brother's 
 accusefs, who found it wise to seek safety in flight. 
 Meanwhile the Brother made himself known to 
 the federals, his quondam protectors. He was 
 able to convince them of his identity by produc- 
 ing an envelope addressed to himself and bear- 
 ing the mayoralty stamp, and the people grew 
 as inconveniently respectful as they had for- 
 merly been aggressive. The National Guards 
 refused to give him leave to go beyond the walls ; 
 but they willingly allowed him to go and come as 
 he pleased within the aicicntc The Brother was 
 determined not to be beaten. The next morning 
 (Tuesday) saw him at the Eastern terminus, with 
 a trunk full of the Brother's habits. The Na- 
 tional Guards intervened the moment that the 
 traveler and his luggage were set down under 
 the portico. 
 
 " Where are your papers, citizen, and the key 
 of this trunk?" they asked. 
 
 " My papers ? here they are " 
 
EPISODES OF THE TARIS COMMUNE. 49 
 
 '' And the key ?" 
 
 *' Gracious ! where has the key got to?" 
 While he was busy searching one pocket after 
 the other for a key he knew well enough had been 
 left at home, one of the men asked him what 
 were the contents of the box. 
 
 " Well, now, it is full of muskets and cart- 
 ridges." 
 
 '' Whew ! and you suppose we are going to 
 let that pass ?" 
 
 " Oh ! you look so good-natured." 
 
 " Better not trust us," said the sergeant with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Well, we shall see — But where on earth 
 has that key got to ?" 
 
 The federals shook the box backward and 
 forward. 
 
 " There is nothing but linen in it," they de- 
 clared ; " take your muskets along, citizen, and be 
 oflf." 
 
 " But," said the Brother with a distressed air, 
 " I shall want my key for the Prussians." 
 
 " Bah ! perhaps they will be as accommodating 
 as we have been," said the federals as they return- 
 ed the Brother his papers (at which they had not 
 even glanced), and went back laughing to their 
 places. A few hours sufficed for the Brother- 
 Director to satisfy himself of the safety of his run- 
 aways ; but the state of things in general seemed 
 more hopeless than ever, as the solitary Brother 
 returned to the Rue des Martyrs. 
 
 The following day, he sent off a box containing 
 sacred images, and various things of the kind, 
 cunningly hidden among layers of female cloth- 
 
50 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 ing. The trunk was opened and examined, but 
 the federal who discharged this duty suspected 
 nothing, and for his pains got a needle run 
 through his unwary finger. By a strange coin- 
 cidence, this needle was sticking out of a small 
 pin-cushion fashioned in the shape of a Brother's 
 three-cornered hat. The federal did not notice 
 this, but swore loudly that the citizen had 
 brought up his daughter badly, since she could 
 laugh so heartily over the accident that had be- 
 fallen him. The Brother took the hint, and turn- 
 ing, scolded his supposed daughter, who was in 
 reality one of his nieces, and who had already 
 played the federals many a trick during the furni- 
 ture-removal mentioned before. 
 
 These out-door cares nowise prevented the 
 Brother from punctually attending to his in-door 
 work, the classes for children. The delegate 
 found this out, and sent him, by the master chosen 
 to take his place, a pert summons to give up his 
 school. It would not have been safe to resist any 
 longer, but the Brother proposed to make an in- 
 ventory of the school furniture and belongings, 
 which task he managed to spin out for four days. 
 The lay-master was obliged to set a man at the 
 door, with orders to tell the children who might 
 come, that the new school would not open till to- 
 morrow. Somehow or other, eight days passed 
 before " to-morrow " came, and by that time 
 neither master nor pupils seemed very anxious to 
 begin the new system. 
 
 We may say here, that the children of the 
 ninth ward, as well as of Montmartre, never 
 ceased attending the ecclesiastical school as long 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 5 1 
 
 as it was in existence, and uniforml}- showed the 
 firmest attachment to the good Brothers. As 
 their teachers left one by one, they zealously 
 helped the Brother-Director in his difficult task ; 
 and when the latter was forced to tell them that 
 it was impossible to go on thus, they answered his 
 sobs by a storm of tears. The parents were the 
 next to protest. " We will have no other teachers 
 for our children than the Brothers!" they cried as 
 they kissed the Director's hands and overwhelm- 
 ed him with expressions of their good -will and 
 sympathy. These scenes were enacted daily till 
 the Brother-Director had been forced to leave 
 the house. Before his departure, however, he 
 was obliged to interfere in favor of the unlucky 
 lay-teachers, for whom the boys had prepared a 
 characteristic reception. We will use the Bro- 
 ther's own words : 
 
 " Having sufficiently bemoaned themselves, the 
 boys, catching the spirit of the times, actually 
 organized an insurrection. Tables, blackboard, 
 and walls were scribbled over with defiant chal- 
 lenges which I ordered three consecutive times to 
 be rubbed out. Beaten on this head, the boys al- 
 tered their plans, and I luckily found out, before it 
 was too late, that a cudgeling was in store for the 
 masters, who were expected about four o'clock. 
 I also found the inkstands unscrewed, so that at 
 the first installation of the Communist teachers, 
 when the Marseillaise should be intoned, the bot- 
 tles with their contents would be simultaneously 
 flung at the new masters' heads. Of course it 
 was my intention to put a stop to this. I preach- 
 ed gentleness and moderation to the poor chil- 
 
52 EPISODES OF THE PARTS COMMUNE. 
 
 dreii, who for the first time were loth to hearken 
 to my words. Neither entreaties nor arguments 
 could persuade them that they had no right to 
 receive the intruders after this fashion. The elder 
 boys, especially, cried with disappointment at the 
 very thought of giving up their intended re- 
 venge, and nothing less than a peremptory com- 
 mand on my part, and an intimation that by act- 
 ing violently they would but add to my troubles, 
 made them desist at last. 
 
 " Having obtained their promise not to break 
 the peace, and taken leave of my children, whose 
 touching affection has left a life-long impression 
 on my heart, I left the house, without awaiting 
 my successors' arrival. I was thoroughly exhaust- 
 ed, and could not leave my bed for several days 
 after the good Brother-Director of Aubervilliers 
 harbored me with a kind and eager hospitality 
 which I shall never forget." 
 
III. 
 
 While most of the valuables of the house had 
 been removed, a few unwieldy pieces of furniture, 
 and, what was of far greater importance, a beauti- 
 ful statue of Our Lady and a life-size crucifix for- 
 merly set up in the garden, had been left behind. 
 The day after the wholesale plundering of the 
 church of Our Lady of Victory, these holy images 
 were carefully concealed by the Brothers, who 
 dreaded at any moment a similar sacrilegious in- 
 cursion into their house. As long as he had re- 
 mained on the spot to watch over this spiritual 
 treasure, the Brother had scarcely thought of a 
 safer hiding-place, but since he had been forced to 
 leave, the thought tormented him night and day. 
 
 On Sunday, the 20th of May, he determined 
 to get into the town and save the statues at any 
 cost. The following night was fearful ; the guns 
 of Montmartre thundered incessantly, and shook 
 the houses to their foundations. The Brother 
 was now relieved from the duty of managing an- 
 other removal, the triumphant army was effect- 
 ing one on a larger scale ! He thanked God for 
 it, and yet what sad thoughts intruded on his joy 
 at the likelihood of the triumph of order over 
 anarchy ! How much blood was being spilt, how 
 many innocent victims there must be, how many 
 crushed hearts on this wretched night ! He 
 himself was not free from personal fears; his 
 own relatives were in danger both from the fury 
 of the federals and from the probable reprisals of 
 
54 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 the regular troops who were about to enter Paris. 
 The fire of guns and bursting shells, whose lurid 
 light and hissing report were too plainly seen and 
 heard, caused the poor Brother ceaseless torment 
 and cruel uncertainty. It was a frightful situ- 
 ation, and only the thought of the peculiar Provi- 
 dence which had always watched over the follow- 
 ers of De la Salle could give him strength to bear 
 such trials. 
 
 On Saturday, the 26th of May, the good Bro- 
 ther, whom anxiety made restless, set off on foot 
 for Charenton, a neighboring village, to cheer by 
 his presence some of the women of his family, 
 who had taken refuge there, while anxiously 
 awaiting the result of the last struggle in which 
 their husbands, sons, and brothers were now en- 
 gaged. On reaching Vincennes, which he had 
 heard was in the hands of the regulars, but which 
 he found occupied by the federals in a terrible 
 state of excitement, he could not help an anxious 
 thought crossing his mind, concerning his bag in 
 which his habit was packed, and which a whim of 
 the insurgents might at any moment have caused 
 to be opened and searched. 
 
 God, however, was as watchful as ever over 
 His servant, and an honest young peasant whom 
 he met on the road volunteered to give him a lift 
 in his light cart. His new friend, without asking 
 any questions, noticed nevertheless that the Bro- 
 ther cast an anxious glance now and then at his 
 tell-tale bag, and guessing that his luggage caused 
 him some apprehension, quietly took the bag and 
 pushed it under the straw that covered the front 
 of the cart. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 55 
 
 " Never fear," he said cheeringly, " they will 
 never look for it there." 
 
 He spoke truly ; for the straw was never 
 touched, and the valise remained undiscovered. 
 Presently a barricade brought them to a stand-still, 
 and, as bad luck would have it, right in front of a 
 tavern. The Brother judged that it would be un- 
 grateful not to reciprocate the kind offices of the 
 young man by offering him some refreshment. 
 The two got down and went into the wine-shop, 
 where two federals had just taken their seats. 
 They evidently expected their good-will to be 
 catered for at the cost of a bumper, and, to tell 
 the truth, the price was not high, when the pro- 
 tection of two such stalwart men could be thus 
 secured. The Brother did not waste a moment. 
 
 " These citizens will not refuse to join us in a 
 health to all present," he said, and immediately 
 ordered four small bottles of white wine. His 
 voice was firm, though his heart quailed ; for the 
 poor religious shrank from the uncongenial part 
 he had to play in these sad days. " What would 
 any one think of me," he said to himself, " if they 
 could see me in this horrible place, clinking 
 glasses with these men so sinister in look, and so 
 filthy in speech ? But after all, my guardian an- 
 gel sees me, and I only hope he will forgive me 
 for giving him such sorry companions." 
 
 The driver of the light cart was one of those 
 intelligent peasants who know how to hide a 
 marvelously clear understanding under a rustic 
 and simple bearing. Still ignorant of his com- 
 panion's secret, he had guessed nevertheless that 
 the present company was dangerous to his safety, 
 
56 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 and with great tact as well as real kindness, he 
 came to the rescue by the following common- 
 place remark, 
 
 " How shall we get out with our cart ? My 
 uncle and I are going to Charenton, to fetch my 
 baby home, and I shall not like to be out late." 
 
 The baby's father and his supposed relative re- 
 ceived the information they wanted, and left Vin-, 
 cennes in safety. Neither one nor the other for- 
 got to thank God for this escape from what might 
 have turned out a serious danger. 
 
IV. 
 
 The civil war was drawing to a close ; and 
 the religious habit was no longer proscribed in 
 Paris, but the difficulty was now the other way. 
 It was hard to get into the city at all. The au- 
 thorities were obliged to be very cautious, and it 
 was next to impossible to procure passes, unless 
 one happened to be able to produce valid proofs 
 of identity. The Brother-Director of the house in 
 the Rue des Martyrs was destined to learn this 
 by experience. No doubt his unshaven face and 
 neglected, stubby beard gave him some unlucky 
 resemblance to the heroes of the Commune, for 
 he was arrested fully twenty times on his way into 
 the city. 
 
 One of these arrests gave rise to a curious in- 
 cident. The Brother himself tells the story. 
 
 " While walking about a terminus, waiting for 
 the train to leave, I was arrested no less than four 
 times, and I really believed that I should be una- 
 ble to continue my journey that day. At last, 
 however, I managed to get into the car, but ac- 
 companied and watched by two policemen, who 
 were alone with me in this small compartment, 
 from which they in fact had warned off all other 
 passengers. I asked the man opposite me, if he had 
 been detailed to watch me ? 
 
 " ' I am doing my duty,' he ansv/ered curtly. 
 And this was all the answer he vouchsafed to 
 several other questions which I asked. 
 
 " I thought thtit the sight of my photograph 
 
58 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 would prove a satisfactory passport, and so I 
 handed it to m}- g-rini neighbor. 
 
 " ' Brother D ! ' he exclaimed ; ' my old 
 
 master, whom I am always telling- my son about. 
 My son is a scholar at Miart, where I was brought 
 up myself. If you know that good Brother, and 
 are a friend of his, you must be an honest man. 
 1 would answer for you ; but,' he continued, 
 after a few moments' attentive scrutiny of my 
 person, ' if I am not mistaken, you are he. . . 
 My dearest brother ! is it possible ? Fool that I 
 was, not to have known you at once.' 
 
 " The good man threw himself into my arms, 
 crying, 
 
 " ' Now, indeed, I arrest you in good earnest ; 
 not in the name of the law, but in that of friend- 
 ship.' 
 
 '* I had all the trouble in the world to persuade 
 him to release me, which he would not consent to 
 do till I had solemnly promised him a visit at the 
 earliest opportunity at my disposal. I didn't 
 succeed in getting into the city till a few days 
 later." 
 
V. 
 
 " On Saturday, the 3d of June," the Brother 
 goes on to say, " our house was restored to us, 
 and the following Monday, we reopened our 
 schools, to the great delight of the whole neigh- 
 borhood. It would be impossible to reckon the 
 many proofs of friendly interest given us on this 
 occasion, even by the turbulent population of 
 Montmartre. 
 
 " The lay-teacher who had temporarily usurped 
 our place, behaved with perfect propriety, and 
 willingly went back to his old situation as assis- 
 tant-teacher in the school of the Rue de la Vic- 
 toire. 
 
 " Four days after the reopening, our establish- 
 ment had fallen back into its old groove. We had 
 never been more fortunate ; our palmiest days 
 had returned. The numberless children who had 
 left the school for good on the day of our depar- 
 ture, flocked back to their beloved teachers. How 
 many touching meetings did I not witness, and 
 how heartily I sympathized with the parents, who 
 could not find words in which to express their joy 
 at giving us their children once more, that we 
 might train them, as they said, to become good 
 Christians, and to avoid the dreadful crimes which 
 had lately disgraced Paris. 
 
 " This great and blessed work, that of the mo- 
 ral regeneration of society through the Christian 
 training of youth, now absorbs all our energies. 
 God can make good grow out of evil. Let us hope, 
 
6o EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 therefore, that from the national calamities which 
 we have gone through, a new era of zeal, of cle- 
 votedness, and of success may dawn for us, the 
 Christian teachers of the rising generation. This 
 will doubtless be the best balm for the wounds of 
 the nation." 
 
THE COMMUNITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FAUBOURG ST. MARTIN, NO. 59. 
 
 I. 
 
 The trials that fell to the share of the Brothers 
 of the Faubourg St. Martin came upon them long 
 before the time of the Commune. By trials, of 
 course I do not mean the hardships of war and 
 the service of the wounded ; for although these 
 were painful and saddening duties, yet each Chris- 
 tian heart, far from complaining of them, was 
 proud and happy to share in them. 
 
 What I mean by trials was the period of per- 
 secution and sacrilege, which, in a few districts 
 less well disciplined than the rest, the future 
 Communists had succeeded in inaugurating even 
 before they had risen to power. For instance, 
 when the siege of Paris began, and a certain feel- 
 ing of propriety prompted the closing of the thea- 
 tres, the authorities of this quarter, utterly refus- 
 ing to wean the inhabitants from unhealthy and 
 immoral pleasures — dangerous enough at all 
 times, but now an insult to the suffering father- 
 land — boldly seized upon the playground of the 
 school and turned it into a theatre. Actors and 
 actresses of the vilest kind were engaged to per- 
 form in plays that kept the population wide awake 
 until far into the night. 
 
62 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 The day after these performances, which gene- 
 rally ended in shameful license, the poor Brothers, 
 whose rest had been so thoughtlessly disturbed 
 at night by deafening cries, had to efface, be- 
 fore the school began, the sickening marks of the 
 previous revelry. Sometimes even the floor and 
 tables in the school-rooms were not free from the 
 traces of such orgies, and oftener still some 
 breakage either of glass or of furniture was there 
 to show how far the violence of the spectators 
 had gone. 
 
 After the truce, the playground was used as a 
 club for election-meetings, and the pious Brothers 
 tried in vain to close their ears to the frenzied 
 hurrahs with which the enunciation of subversive 
 principles was invariably greeted. The Commu- 
 nists or " Men of March," as they were sometimes 
 called, took care to follow these precedents ; but 
 now to the playground were added the class-rooms, 
 of which the National Guard took possession at all 
 hours, and where they proceeded to the elections 
 of their commanders. The Brothers, who had 
 hitherto patiently submitted to these intrusions, 
 while no one but themselves had been annoyed, 
 now bitterly complained of the interruptions to 
 the studies of the children under their care, and 
 of the ever-recurring elections which forced 
 them to send away their scholars early in the 
 afternoon. They appealed to the authorities, but 
 in vain ; and received no more satisfactory answer 
 than this, that every other business must tempo- 
 rarily give way to the grand business of the or- 
 ganization of the Commune. 
 
 Other anxieties made these daily vexations 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 63 
 
 weigh heavier yet. The decree had gone forth 
 excluding ecclesiastical teachers from the schools, 
 and it was to be expected that local measures 
 would soon be taken against this community in 
 particular. It is true, however, that the good 
 Brothers, who were beloved and appreciated 
 throughout the quarter, constantly received the 
 most flattering marks of the devotion of their pu- 
 pils, and had no personal violence to fear, at 
 least for the moment. The people were unani- 
 mous in their sympathy for them, and were deter- 
 mined to use force to protect them against any 
 aggression. This was in one sense a support 
 to the good men, but on the other hand it was 
 also an additional subject of apprehension ; for the 
 prospect of becoming the cause of a fratricidal 
 struggle was even yet more appalling to these men 
 of peace, than any danger threatening their lives 
 and liberty could ever be. 
 
 On the 15th of April, a delegate of the Com- 
 mune appeared and demanded to know the number 
 of our classes and of the scholars attending them. 
 He made no secret of the ward authorities' inten- 
 tion to replace the ecclesiastical by lay teachers, 
 and alluding to the popularity of the Brothers, 
 concluded with these words, 
 
 " It is true that you will be able to compete 
 with us by opening free-schools. It is well known 
 that you will not be at a loss for the means to do 
 so." 
 
 These last words seemed to imply a threat ; 
 for it was universally known how eager these 
 gentlemen were to lay hands on their neigh- 
 bors' goods. The delegate left the Brother-Di- 
 
64 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 rector in some perplexity. Would it be best to 
 await the course of events, or immediately to 
 place his community beyond the reach of dan- 
 ger ? 
 
 Three days passed thus, when, on the night of 
 the 1 8th, a letter was mysteriously handed to the 
 Brother-Director, informing him that according 
 to certain information the decree had gone 
 forth commanding the forced enrollment in the 
 National Guards of every member of the com- 
 munity within the next forty-eight hours. There 
 was no time to be lost, and it was decided at 
 once to evacuate the house that very night. 
 
 The Brother-Director distributed suits of plain 
 clothes among the Brothers, and gave them each 
 a small sum of money. They dispersed, relying 
 on the divine protection, and found refuge, some 
 in friends', some in relatives' houses. The Bro- 
 ther-Director managed to leave Paris with the 
 five youngest Brothers, whom he would not leave ; 
 and the others succeeded in passing the barriers 
 and fortifications under various disguises. A few 
 days after their dispersion, all were safely housed 
 in branch establishments of their own order. 
 
 I am mistaken in saying all. One of them, 
 Brother A F , who had charge of the al- 
 tar-boys and choristers of St. Joseph's parish- 
 church, was allowed to remain at his post. He 
 was even able to teach his pupils regularly, all 
 through the reign of the Commune, in one of the 
 many halls attached to the old church. 
 
 The people of the neighborhood were furious 
 when they heard of the Brothers' departure. 
 The parents besieged the porters of the various 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 6$ 
 
 schools, expressing their regret and disappoint- 
 ment ; while others, knowing that the Brother- 
 Director had gone to Beauvais, wrote to him in 
 the most warm and sympathetic terms. 
 
II. 
 
 The very day of the Brothers' departure, 
 Citizen Poirson was installed as head-master of the 
 schools of the Faubourg St. Martin. He was three 
 days choosing his assistant-teachers and settling 
 himself in his new situation, while the following 
 prospectus was posted on the closed doors of the 
 school as well as at the mayoralty and other con- 
 spicuous places in the ward : 
 
 " The public are hereby notified that the ward- 
 school for boys, in the Faubourg St. Martin, has 
 just been reorganized under the direction of lay- 
 teachers, and now affords every advantage, moral 
 and intellectual. 
 
 " The teaching (which will be conducted in ac- 
 cordance with the principles of rational philoso- 
 phy) will include reading, writing, grammar, 
 arithmetic, the metrical system, elementary geo- 
 metry, geography, history, rational morality, sing- 
 ing, and artistic and professional drawing. 
 
 " Every boy between the ages of six and fifteen, 
 no matter what may be his nationality or religion, 
 will be admitted on presentation of a card stamp- 
 ed with the mayoralty seal. Those who have 
 formerly attended this school will need no new 
 card of admission. 
 
 " The school will open at eight o'clock in the 
 morning, on the 24th of April. There will be a 
 course of lectures on rational morality and politi- 
 cal economy every Thursday evening, at eight 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 6/ 
 
 o'clock, by Citizen Poirson, attorney-at-law and 
 head-master of the school. The head-master will 
 receive the pupils' parents between the hours of 
 four and nine every evening, Sundays and Thurs- 
 days excepted." 
 
 This enticing programme failed to draw 
 " crowded houses," and if the number of pupils 
 increased as time went on, it was only be- 
 cause the parents, unable to watch their children, 
 and fearful of seeing them roam the streets in these 
 days of terror, preferred to send them to school 
 for safety, thus choosing of two evils the least. 
 
 To the honor of Citizen Poirson be it said, that 
 he behaved like an honest and honorable man. 
 He ordered the Brothers' rooms and cells to be 
 closed, and prevented his assistants taking up 
 their abode in them, or in any way carrying off 
 the personal property which the Brothers had left 
 behind. During the last eight days of the final 
 struggle, he remained in the house the greater 
 part of every night, protecting the house by 
 every means in his power ; and if the porter said 
 true, preventing it on one occasion from being set 
 fire to by a picket of National Guards. After 
 the fall of the Commune, the mayor authorized 
 Citizen Poirson to continue his functions until the 
 Brothers should return ; but Monsieur de Mont- 
 matras, Primary Inspector, refused to ratify the 
 order, and desired the porter to close the doors to 
 the Communist teachers. The next day he sent 
 teachers of his own choosing, who kept the 
 school open till Friday, the second of June, when 
 the Brothers came back and retook possession of 
 their beloved classes. 
 
III. 
 
 Their return was the signal of many a touch- 
 ing scene. 
 
 The Brothers re-entered Paris on foot, carry- 
 ing their bags, and whether by preconcerted 
 plans or by a lucky chance, a certain number of 
 their former scholars met them on the ramparts 
 at the moment of their crossing over. The chil- 
 dren rushed to their beloved masters, cheered 
 them, surrounded them, carried off their satchels, 
 and led them back in triumph through the 
 crowded quarter, where their return was eagerly 
 looked forward to by all. 
 
 When they reached the school, the children 
 assembled there rose unanimously with frenzied 
 screams of joy, clapping their hands and crying, 
 " Hurrah for the Brothers ! Hurrah for the Bro- 
 thers !"* 
 
 The same feelings were shared by many a poor 
 family, and for weeks there was a constant stream 
 of parents coming to congratulate the Brothers 
 on their happy return, and tell them how happy 
 they themselves were to know that their children 
 were once more in safe hands. 
 
 The schools of the Faubourg St. Martin are 
 more prosperous than they ever were, the num- 
 
 * The same eagerness was manifested all over the cit)'-, even in 
 the most revolutionary quarters. Many a man votes for a Com- 
 munist representative who would not send his children an3rwhere 
 but to a Brothers' school. It may seem a paradox, but it is prac- 
 tically true. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 69 
 
 bers of pupils increase so that the mayoralty is 
 forced to put off many an applicant until a va- 
 cancy shall occur, and the boys are stirred, up to 
 active exertion by the thoughts of the lost time 
 they have to make up for, and the wish to com- 
 pensate their dear masters for all the trials 
 through which they have passed. 
 
 As for the teachers themselves, adversity has 
 strengthened and annealed them, so that they out- 
 do themselves in works of mercy and deeds of 
 self-devotion. May they long continue to do so ! 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF BELLEVILLE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Belleville, the hot-bed and last retreat of the 
 insurrection, held it a point of honor not to flag 
 in the persecution directed against all priests and 
 Brothers. 
 
 An order for the arrest of the Brother-Direc- 
 tor was accordingly issued about the end of 
 March, and fifteen men were detailed to carry 
 out the doughty undertaking. It is noteworthy 
 that by some diabolical refinement of anti-reli- 
 gious zeal, the arrest did not take place in the 
 house, but in church, the federals thus procuring 
 themselves the exquisite enjoyment of profaning 
 the house of God while they persecuted one of 
 His servants. 
 
 This prearranged sacrilege did not fail to re- 
 dound to the special honor of its originators, 
 and the Brother-Director having mentioned its 
 outrageous impropriety, was severely taken to 
 task by the delegate before whom he had been 
 brought, who furiously accused him of trying to 
 proselytize within the very walls of the mayoral- 
 ty. This and many other allegations gave rise 
 to a long examination, the minutes of which, oc- 
 cupying several pages, were judged sufficiently 
 important to authorize the detention of the pri- 
 
72 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 soners, and their appearance before the High 
 Court. Luckily enough, a man whose children 
 had been at the Brothers' school, and who knew 
 by experience how groundless were the accusa- 
 tions brought against the prisoners, violently op- 
 posed this measure. Flourens just then happen- 
 ed to come in, and with his usual quick way of 
 cutting the gordian knot, went up to the Bro- 
 ther, seized him by the arm, and dragging him 
 out of the hall, said peremptorily, 
 
 " Go home, and, above all, don't show yourself 
 here again ; it is not the place for men of your 
 cloth." 
 
 Had the good religious been less zealous or 
 less brave, he would have taken this advice as 
 meant to warn him from a dangerous post ; but 
 the Brother-Director made light of the danger, 
 and determined to stand by his flag until death. 
 The community of Belleville, far from flinching, 
 took counsel with their superiors, and agreed not 
 to leave their post till driven from it b}^ main 
 force. 
 
 On the night of the 12th of April, about a 
 quarter to ten, when all the Brothers were in bed, 
 the citizen Prud'homme, one of the most zealous 
 members of the Commune, surrounded the house 
 with his National Guards, and summoned the in- 
 mates to open the doors. He had obtained the 
 necessary order to arrest all the Brothers at one 
 blow. 
 
 One of them, luckily, happened to have been 
 for some time a school-fellow of his at the Mans 
 seminar}'- ; they recognized each other, and Prud'- 
 homme, under the softening influence which the 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 73 
 
 memory of one's school-days always exercises on 
 the mind, offered to allow the community a 
 night's rest instead of immediate imprisonment 
 in the police-court. The Brothers gladly avail- 
 ed themselves of this gracious reprieve ; sentries 
 were placed at every door, a picket was ordered 
 to occupy the porter's lodge, and Prud'homme 
 left the house with a promise to allow the Bro- 
 thers free egress till the morrow, provided they 
 promised in return not to carry away any thing 
 with them, and to leave only two Brothers be- 
 hind, as teachers. Those he chose were his own 
 former school-fellow and the Brother who had 
 charge of the " first class." 
 
 The Brother-Director had willingly agreed to 
 these conditions ; but a certain suspicious stir and 
 whispering which occurred the following morn- 
 ing, and above all a glance at the school prospec- 
 tus which the Commune proposed as a substi- 
 tute for the former course of study, made him 
 change his mind, and leave no one to bear the 
 brunt of the coming struggle. The house was 
 rid of its holy occupants before sunset, and there- 
 fore entirely at the disposal of the Commune. 
 
 Prud'homme soon repented his temporary 
 clemency, and for some time patiently waited his 
 victims' return, thinking one or other of them 
 would surely venture back to save some of their 
 possessions. He was, however, mistaken, as none 
 of them risked a visit to such a dangerous place, 
 when duty no longer demanded their presence. 
 Self-interest could not draw them back, when 
 self-devotion was no longer necessary, and seeing 
 this, the delegate's fury broke loose, and a price 
 
74 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 was set upon the Brothers' heads. Bills were 
 posted all over Belleville, offering fifteen francs for 
 the apprehension of a Brother, and thirty for 
 that of the Brother-Director. The objects of his 
 resentment had not even left the ward. They 
 had been hospitably welcomed by a Christian 
 family of the neighborhood, and having staid 
 there in safety for a whole month, thought them- 
 selves sure of an asylum until better days should 
 dawn. But alas ! their hosts were soon warned 
 that their house was suspected of harboring the 
 zvorst kind of clericals ; and as this rumor was 
 sure, sooner or later, to reach the highest autho- 
 rities, the Brothers deemed it prudent, as well 
 for their own sake as for that of their friends, to 
 leave their hiding-place without delay. 
 
 But where and how should they go ? The 
 Brother-Director thought it best to escape be- 
 yond the barriers of Paris. The usual disguises 
 were procured, and each one set off to do the 
 best he could for himself With God's help, they 
 all met again the same evening at St. Germain, 
 at the house of a INIonsieur Fleury, where they 
 had agreed to rendezvous. 
 
 Having consulted with their superior, the 
 Brothers again left this retreat for Noyon, where 
 they remained until the 2d of June, when they 
 were recalled to Paris, to open their schools 
 again. One of them. Brother Germier, had not 
 accompanied them, and staid in the Belleville 
 quarter, doing all the good he could, and during 
 the very last days of the Commune and Reign of 
 Terror, went boldly to the mayoralty to claim all 
 that wt^s undestroyed among the plundered be- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 75 
 
 longings of his house. Having described, in a 
 letter which we have seen, the events of this last 
 terrible week, especially in the quarter which he 
 inhabited, Brother Germier, who, with incredible 
 coolness and courage, had never ceased teaching 
 in the Ménilmontant school, adds, *' I take ad- 
 vantage of these last few days to collect together 
 and bring back several things of ours which the 
 Communists carried off and stored at the mayor- 
 alty. I am also having our rooms cleaned — they 
 were in a filthy state — and a few beds prepared 
 for the Brothers. I am also getting the class- 
 rooms ready, so that the children may not be al- 
 lowed to run wild in the streets an)^ longer." 
 The simplicity and heroism of this conduct is be- 
 yond praise, when we remember under what cir- 
 cumstances these words were penned. Besides his 
 anxiety for the safety of his colleagues (of whom 
 he could get no news), he suffered cruelly on his 
 own account. Blasphemous cries echoed from 
 the loved house which prayer and godly connec- 
 tion had endeared to his heart ; and worse than 
 all, the innocent and blameless children, souls 
 created in the image of God, were taught, before 
 his very face, that tlicre is 710 God save matter. 
 This definition, which speaks for itself, is contain- 
 ed in a little book of which numberless copies 
 were scattered about among the Brothers' little 
 scholars. This was a profanation more heart- 
 rending still, and before which that of sacred but 
 inanimate objects paled in the sight of him who 
 was so devoted to God's holy service. 
 
IL 
 
 The house had been ransacked, and bore 
 every trace of the filthiest disorder. Not one 
 room was fit to live in, and, indeed, the Brothers 
 were obliged to sleep and eat out of their own 
 house for ten days after their return. The school, 
 however, was reopened on the 5th of June. 
 
 The terror inspired by the Commune had 
 been such that not only was the Brothers' forci- 
 ble eviction not opposed by a single voice on the 
 part of the citizens, but even their most devoted 
 adherents had not dared to show them the least 
 token of sympathy, and for fear of compromising 
 themselves, never said so much as " God speed !" 
 to their friends. We shudder at this sad example 
 of moral cowardice ! It is almost better to have 
 to do with open foes, whose strength and purpose 
 are well known, than with these lukewarm, half- 
 hearted friends who stand silently looking on at 
 the evil deeds that their craven hearts still repro- 
 bate. 
 
 It was only on their return that the Brothers 
 learnt how favorable to them was the public 
 opinion of Belleville. It was the same in all the 
 places where priests and nuns were hunted like 
 wild beasts ! When all was safe again, peo- 
 ple were loud in their protestations of sympathy 
 and regret. We incline to believe that a practi- 
 cal comparison between the old state of things 
 and the new had much to do with this popular 
 reaction in their favor. The reader will be able 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 'J'] 
 
 to judge of this, by a sketch of the events that 
 happened after the expulsion of the Brothers from 
 the public schools. 
 
 Prud'homme considered his seminary educa- 
 tion a guarantee of his fitness to regulate the 
 teaching of youth. No one surpassed him — this 
 we will own — in undermining every pious custom 
 and religious principle instilled by the Brothers 
 into the minds of their scholars. 
 
 On the day following the Brothers' departure, 
 one of the children innocently a^sked if the open- 
 ing prayer was to be said. Prud'homme jumped 
 up in a towering passion, and frightened the child 
 out of his wits, by swearing that the first boy who 
 should mention God's name should be hung from 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " Good Frenchmen and brave patriots," said 
 he, " should know no other prayer than our na- 
 tional hymn." 
 
 So he started the Marseillaise^ and the fright- 
 ened children followed his lead at the top of their 
 voices. The next thing the furious delegate pro- 
 ceeded to do was to seize a hammer, and calling 
 to his aid several of the older boys, he smashed 
 every crucifix, holy-water font, and statuette 
 he could find ; the younger children were ordered 
 at the same time to pull down and tear the prints 
 and devices. This done, the whole house was 
 served in the same way ; not a thing escaped the 
 delegate's iconoclastic fury. 
 
 But this as 3^et was nothing : the word and 
 teaching of God soon followed the palpable re- 
 minders of His goodness and mercy. Bibles, 
 catechisms, sacred history books, were all ruth- 
 
78 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 lessly destroyed, and in their stead was put a 
 sort of little Masonic Catechism, of which we 
 have already quoted the opening words, and 
 whose very title, " God judged by Science ; or. Re- 
 ligion versus Freemasonry ; by Edward Rouillier," 
 sufficiently showed its unfitness for an infant 
 mind, even though it had not been full of the 
 most infamous and corrupt propositions. 
 
 It would be hard to describe the amount of 
 blasphemy and lies which the author has crowd- 
 ed into those eighteen tiny pages, the front of 
 which contains the following doctrines : 
 
 " That the only true, useful, necessary, and 
 possible knowledge of God is found in true sci- 
 ence ; 
 
 " That the knowledge of God, as taught by 
 theology, in the recesses of seminaries, and in 
 the gloom of the altar, is a lamentable error ; 
 
 " That theology and metaphysics are out of 
 date ; and 
 
 " That the reign of positivism has begun, the 
 golden age has dawned, science is the mistress of 
 the world !" 
 
 Poor science ! poor world, indeed ! we do not 
 quite perceive how such doctrines will contribute 
 to the progress of science or the happiness of the 
 world ; and wonder how — putting doctrine aside 
 — such subjects could have been seriously and 
 deliberately set before the mind of infants ! 
 
 Free-thinkers pretend — and make this dictum 
 the chief accusation against ecclesiastical schools 
 — that a child's liberty of conscience must be 
 guaranteed, and that before he reaches the age of 
 reason, he should therefore be taught no belief. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 79 
 
 We might retort that this system is precisely the 
 same as that which should deprive a babe of its 
 mother's milk, until it should be old enough to 
 choose its own food for itself! But let us drop 
 this argument, and carry the war into the enemy's 
 country. You forbid us to sow in the child's 
 mind the seed of our forefathers' belief; because, 
 forsooth, you respect his right to choose between 
 God and matter ? Well, so be it ; but are you not 
 bound to leave him equally free, and not teach 
 him your system till he can choose it of his own 
 accord ? Yoit are to have the right of teaching 
 error and darkness, where we are denied the 
 right of carrying the light of truth ! Yoii, are to 
 speak of our God to insult Him, while we are for- 
 bidden to speak of Him, that we may make His 
 name known and loved! The unfairness of this 
 plan is too evident, and here as well as else- 
 where we recognize the singular talent, which the 
 Communists always displayed, for securing the 
 " lion's share." 
 
 Besides the little book we have mentioned 
 above, the newspaper, " Père Duehêne," was the 
 teachers' favorite literature. No doubt the 
 filthy language and the plentiful blasphemies of 
 this distinguished sheet gave a high seasoning 
 to their daily instructions. We question whether 
 this unfortunately too popular style was cal- 
 culated to elevate the standard of thought 
 among the working classes. Luckily the ex- 
 periment was too short to be thoroughly suc- 
 cessful ! 
 
 Those disquisitions on "■ clericals," and " black- 
 gowns," not proving sufficiently highly spiced for 
 
80 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 the ambitious successors of the Christian Bro- 
 thers, they adopted a yet more efficacious plan, 
 and composed short dictations to be addressed 
 to the pupils, containing edifying allusions to the 
 former teachers. A few of these, left astray on 
 the desks, fell into the writer's hands. We re- 
 spect our readers' modesty too much to copy 
 them verbatim, and will only say, that every folly 
 and impiety of the eighteenth century is here 
 dressed in a modern garb, and conveyed in a 
 style so utterly unsuited to childhood that even 
 the writers of such balderdash are forced to ap- 
 peal to the " Citizens," " Fathers of families," thus 
 showing clearly that the boy is only held as a go- 
 between, an intelligent parrot, whose business it 
 is to take home these infamous sheets, and intro- 
 duce them into the household. In this way did 
 the Communists make use of the home influence 
 of childhood, which the Brothers had employed 
 so differently, and with such different results for 
 years ! 
 
 The new teachers, however, only succeeded 
 in over-reaching themselves ; for the principles 
 which they would fain have made popular only 
 disgusted and demoralized the children, and even 
 frightened the parents. 
 
 Many of the latter noticing anxiously, and not 
 without good cause, the spirit of insubordination 
 and the foul language which were gaining ground 
 among the young people, and finding that revolu- 
 tionary principles, glibly repeated by thoughtless 
 children, had the effect of undermining paternal 
 authority and domestic peace, did not hesitate in 
 most instances to go to the root of the evil, by 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 8 1 
 
 forbidding the little ones to go to school at all. 
 The classes were deserted little by little, and 
 the discouraged masters wondered what spells 
 those Brothers threw over their scholars to 
 keep them at school ! A natural spell enough, 
 and one which the zeal, affection, and kind- 
 ness of the followers of De La Salle soon 
 brought into use again when they reopened 
 their schools. . The rising generation was soon 
 collected once more at the foot of the crucifix, 
 and the delighted parents gratefully acknow- 
 ledged that the Brothers were the only teachers 
 fitted to educate the children of the workinsf- 
 classes. 
 
 The municipality is not behindhand in treat- 
 ing them with all possible consideration, and we 
 may say with truth in the words of Holy Writ, 
 
 " As gold is refined in the furnace," so the 
 crucible of adversity has enhanced the value of 
 the Christian Brothers in the eyes of the people, 
 and proved their fortitude in the eyes of God. 
 
ARBITRARY ARRESTS 
 
 UNDER 
 
 THE COMMUNE 
 
 I. 
 
 A Jourriey to St. Denis — The Brave Captain of Batignolles — Devot- 
 cdncss of a Mayoralty Offi-cial. 
 
 As soon as Paris became accessible to out- 
 siders, our novitiate in the Rue Oudinot was be- 
 sieged with Brothers, who came from all sides to 
 see with their own eyes whether our house had 
 escaped the general wreck. They had all feared 
 for this cradle of the order, which they knew had 
 been abandoned by the directors, and which they 
 dreaded could not escape the flames and smoke 
 which they had seen hanging over the devoted 
 capital like a funeral pall. 
 
 They feared to find the house a shapeless 
 mass of ruins, and were overjoyed, when they 
 came, to find it full of their colleagues. It was a 
 great day when we all met and compared notes 
 with each other, having under our very eyes the 
 broken crucifixes and statues as witnesses of the 
 dangers through which we had passed, and the 
 providential escapes which we had accomplished. 
 
 Every one had a story of thrilling interest to 
 tell, and we soon learnt each other's experiences 
 during the terrible days that \Yere past. I will 
 
84 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 begin by giving a sketch of the adventures that 
 befell our brethren of Clichy. 
 
 The Clichy house went through every kind of 
 vexation : it was broken into, searched, sacked, 
 and finally turned into a powder-magazine. The 
 Brothers were arbitrarily arrested ; the balls and 
 shells rained around the garden and cloisters, and 
 once a formal order was given to set fire to the 
 
 establishment. We will let Brother tell 
 
 his own story : 
 
 " No one," he says, " thought of deserting his 
 post during the bloody struggle. There were 
 eight of us, and we all continued to wear our 
 habit and teach in the school. 
 
 " On the 20th of April, we received a letter 
 from Brother Albert, the Visitor, telling us that 
 he was at St. Denis, and would be rejoiced to 
 hear some news of us. He also begged us to tell 
 him what we knew of our colleagues of Levallois 
 and Neuilly. This letter was brought to the 
 Brother-Director by a brave lady, the sister of 
 the Brother-Purveyor of St. Denis. He was 
 about to intrust her with the answer, when Bro- 
 ther A and I begged him to let us take an 
 
 answer in person. We reminded him of the de- 
 light this surprise would cause Brother Albert, 
 and told him that under the circumstances a per- 
 sonal interview would be of more use than a mere 
 letter. The Brother-Director somewhat hesi- 
 tatingly granted our request, recommending 
 straightforward answers if we were questioned, 
 and bidding us keep to the high-road, and turn 
 back at the first serious obstacle with which we 
 ghoulcl meet. Taking his letter to the Visitor, 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 85 
 
 we started on Sunday, the 23d of April, at one 
 o'clock. It was the day of the Good Shepherd. 
 
 " Every thing seemed to favor us at first. The 
 people, and even the National Guards whom we 
 passed, looked kindly upon us and bowed ; we 
 began to be ashamed of having been afraid ; we 
 might soon be laughing at our own fears. 
 
 " ' Halt ! ' suddenly cried a sentry on the out- 
 post of a group of National Guards, near the 
 Mayoralty of St. Ouen, * where is your per- 
 mit ? ' 
 
 " ' We have none,' said Ave, and prepared to 
 turn back at once. 
 
 " ' Why don't you ask for one at the mayor- 
 alty ? They will not refuse you leave to go 
 about as peaceable citizens,' was the man's re- 
 joinder. This advice seemed sound, and we fol- 
 lowed it. We obtained the requisite permit with- 
 out difficulty, and, once more reassured as to our 
 fate, we started again. We did not know that 
 this paper, however formal it might be, had but a 
 relative value, and that the whim of a drunken 
 sot wearing the Communist's uniform, was of 
 sufficient weight to render invalid the most so- 
 lemnly attested legal document in the world. 
 We learnt this sad fact at the junction of the 
 Northern Railroad and the Rue de la Révolte. 
 Two warriors, the one a sergeant, the other a 
 corporal, leaped from a carriage coming at 
 racing speed from the direction of St. Ouen. 
 Brandishing their muskets and revolvers, and 
 barring the road, they cried out, 
 
 " ' Where are you going ? ' 
 
 " ' To St. Denis.' 
 
86 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 "■ ' Exactly — that you may betray us to the 
 Versailles troops.' 
 
 '' ' Not at all ; simply to see one of our supe- 
 riors.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! your stories are well known, but they 
 won't get over us.' 
 
 " The sergeant made a furious dive at my 
 permit. 
 
 " ' Your paper is good for nothing ; the man 
 who signed it had no authority to do so. It was 
 either a mistake or it was treachery, and he 
 shall pay dearly for his folly. Follow us to the 
 picket.' 
 
 " We wished now that we had turned back at 
 St. Ouen, as our Brother-Director had urged us 
 to do when he told us to avoid unnecessary dan- 
 ger. It was too late to repent now. The cap- 
 tain of the picket was away ; but his men knew 
 well enough where to put their hands upon him. 
 He was soon before us, drunk and staggering, 
 swearing and hiccoughing at the same time, glar- 
 ing with inflamed eyes upon us, and growling 
 against the rascals who could not give him a 
 moment's rest. We were inclined to agree with 
 him there ; it was not of our own accord that 
 we had disturbed him. 
 
 " ' Look sharp ! ' he cried gruffly. ' Four men 
 and a corporal, take these fellows to the Mont- 
 martre Committee.' And without more ado, he 
 faced toward the tavern once more. 
 
 " ' But, captain,' we called after him, ' we are 
 citizens of Clichy.' 
 
 " He did not hear us, biit our protest was not 
 in yaipj 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 8/ 
 
 '* ' To Montmartre ! ' cried some. 
 
 " ' No, to Clichy,' said otiiers ; ' they are 
 right ; if they belong to Clich}^, let them go to 
 Clichy.' 
 
 " A stalwart man, with a stentorian voice, 
 rushed after the captain, and overtaking him, 
 said, 
 
 " ' Captain, it is to Clichy, not to Montmartre, 
 these citizens must go.' 
 
 " ' Let them go anywhere, and leave me in 
 peace,' said the captain, as he pursued his way. 
 A few men surrounded us and hurried us back to 
 Clichy. We were taken to the mayoralty, where 
 our identity was proved, and where we met the 
 Brother-Director whom rumor had already ac- 
 quainted with our case. The corporal under 
 whose guardianship we were delivered us over 
 to him, having first made us sign an agreement 
 not to leave the house for two or three days. 
 This formality caused us no little apprehension. 
 The corporal looked wicked, and we were soon 
 to learn the reason why he had exacted this pro- 
 mise. We had begun to flatter ourselves that the 
 matter had blown over, when this man made his 
 appearance once more, having only gone to head- 
 quarters, to solicit stricter decrees against us. 
 He brought back with him a warrant summoning 
 us to appear before the committee sitting at Bat- 
 tignolles. The Brother-Director tried m vain to 
 smother his grief; he could not tell whether he 
 should ever see us again ; nevertheless we were 
 obliged to leave him and follow the pitiless cor- 
 poral. A short time before this second arrest and 
 just after the first, the Brother-Director had ad- 
 
88 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 dressed himself to Monsieur Dubois, an official of 
 the mayoralty, but a man devoted to our house. 
 He had laid the case before him and asked his 
 advice. Monsieur Dubois had reassured him, and 
 told him to trust to him, should the worst come 
 to the worst. 
 
 " I had not forgotten this, and begged our 
 jailer to stop on our way, that I might see Mon- 
 sieur Dubois ; the request was peremptorily 
 refused. We were walking between four bayo- 
 nets, the corporal strutting in front in high glee 
 at the feat he had achieved. The people, how- 
 ever, flocked to see us pass, not jeering, but sym- 
 pathizing ; our children's parents were deeply af- 
 fected, and here and there we heard threats, mur- 
 murs, and cries of ' Shame ! ' We felt comfort- 
 ed, but our corporal was furious. So it continued 
 till we arrived at the city gates, when Monsieur 
 Dubois met us. The secretary of his office had 
 told him what had happened, and he had set 
 off to overtake us. The drawbridge would not 
 be lowered for another hour, and our friend 
 made use of that time to endeavor to soften our 
 guards. It was to no purpose. Threats, entrea- 
 ties, orders were of no avail. The authority of 
 the law paled before that of the soldiers in those 
 days, and at last the corporal cried out impa- 
 tiently, 
 
 "' My orders are peremptory, and I mean to 
 execute them to the letter. If you interfere by so 
 much as another word, I will order my men to 
 fire on you.' Our protector was forcibly silenc- 
 ed, but consoled himself with the hope that by 
 accompanying us to the tribunal, he would be 
 
EPISODES OE THE PARIS COMMUNE. 89 
 
 able to free us. New disappointment! The 
 drawbridge was lowered, escort and prisoners 
 crossed over, but Monsieur Dubois was at once 
 stopped by the sentries. He told them of his 
 official position, and of his presence here on busi- 
 ness. 
 
 '' ' Your permit ? ' 
 
 " He had none, and all the other papers he 
 exhibited failed to satisfy the sentry. Monsieur 
 Dubois was forced to go home to his mayoralty, 
 while we were hurried to Batignolles. We were 
 supported by faith in Him without whose per- 
 mission not a hair falls from our heads, and also 
 by these parting words of our kind friend, 
 ' Whatever happens, don't get anxious. If you 
 are not free by to-morrow, I will come and claim 
 your persons.' 
 
 " Our corporal handed us over to the picket 
 of the Batignolles Mayoralty, commanded by a 
 captain of the Thirty-third Battalion, and went in 
 alone to speak to the committee. The captain 
 took us into a little room that served as his office, 
 and having heard the circumstances of our arrest, 
 gave rein to his indignation. 
 
 "'It is lamentable — unheard of!' he said. 
 ' The wretches will ruin us and themselves. 
 They are hurrying us on to destruction. We 
 wish that the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 
 should be real things, not mere sounds, and how 
 do they justify these ridiculous arrests — fourteen 
 in one day, as to-da}^, for instance ? What honest 
 man could bear such a system ? As for me and 
 my men, we have had enough of it.' 
 
^b ÉPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 " On hearing the corporal's voice outside, call- 
 ing for us, we stepped out among the soldiers. 
 
 " ' Here,' said the man, ' is an order to carry 
 these citizens to the Central Police-Court ; please 
 to detail the men who will execute it, captain.' 
 
 " ' None of my men feel inclined to interfere 
 in such matters,' said the captain. 
 
 " ' But the committee ?' 
 
 " ' When the committee order the arrest of 
 villains or traitors, they may rely on our concur- 
 rence ; but if they choose to wony peaceable and 
 loyal citizens, they may look for jailers and hang- 
 men anywhere else, but not in our ranks.' 
 
 " The corporal grew pale with shame and an- 
 ger, and ordered us out of the place. 
 
 " ' What are you going to do with us ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 " ' Oh ! do not concern yourselves,' he answer- 
 ed sneeringly, concealing his fury for fear of excit- 
 ing the sympathy of the guards in our favor. ' I 
 am going to take you to the Central Police-Court, 
 where you will be confronted with the employé of 
 St. Ouen, who gave you an illegal permit. It is 
 he who is principally to blame, and he shall pay 
 for all.' 
 
 " This was a downright lie. The employé had 
 not even been arrested, and there was no one to 
 confront us with. Seeing a hack, the corporal 
 ' confiscated ' it, and putting us inside, drove off. 
 We reached the court at eleven o'clock ; the old 
 clock in St. Louis' Palace was just striking the 
 hour. 
 
IL 
 
 The Central Police-Court — A Night in Prison — A Cornmissary's 
 Kindness. 
 
 " We were taken up-stairs into a large, ill-light- 
 ed room, where a man sat alone at a table loaded 
 with meat and wine. He interrupted his hearty 
 supper to take from the corporal the papers re- 
 lating to our arrest, and left the room to consult 
 his superiors. He came back in ten minutes, and 
 took us to the secretary's office on the ground 
 floor. 
 
 " This man very civilly begged us to be seated 
 while the corporal made his accusation, during 
 which he said much the same as the captain at 
 BatignoUes, as to the folly of such conduct. This 
 over, he pushed the paper and inkstand toward 
 our accuser and said shortly, 
 
 " ' Make your report and leave us.' 
 " As soon as we were alone with the secretary, 
 I rose and stood near his desk, asking the ques- 
 tion, 
 
 " ' What do you think of our case, monsieur? * 
 " ' I think,' said he contemptuously, pointing 
 to the corporal's papers, 'that among all this, 
 there is not one serious accusation — except per- 
 haps this : that you were going to St. Denis to 
 tell the Versailles troops that there was a powder- 
 magazine in your house, so that they might fire 
 on it and blow up the whole neighborhood.' 
 
92 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 " We protested loudly ; but controlling my 
 temper, I answered, 
 
 " ' This accusation will not hold water, as you 
 will soon see. True, we have a powder-maga- 
 zine in the house which the National Guards 
 have put there to our great discomfort ; but we 
 have six of our community and our superior him- 
 self (who sent us to St. Denis) in the house, where 
 we were to have gone back to-night. We should 
 be made to deliberately plan our own destruc- 
 tion. Besides, we are fond of our poor neighbors, 
 and they of us. Do you suppose we should wan- 
 tonly devote their persons and property to use- 
 less destruction ? ' 
 
 " ' True,' assented the secretary, ' I think it ex- 
 tremel}?- unlikely.' 
 
 " He was silent for a few minutes ; then said, 
 in a tone of dejection, 
 
 " ' I fear the stupid zeal of some of us will ruin 
 us all. If it was not so late, gentlemen, 1 would 
 take it upon m3^self to release you at once ; but 
 since at this late hour, you are better off here than 
 in the streets, you had better wait till to-morrow. 
 The commissary himself will then set you free, 
 which, after all, will be more proper. I will send 
 for mattresses for you.' 
 
 " We thanked him, but preferred remaining in 
 our arm-chairs. Neither the secretary nor we 
 cared to sleep much, so we amicably discussed 
 the matter, and I told him how well the people 
 and the National Guards of CUchy had behaved. 
 
 " ' It is the duty of every one,' he said, ' to pro- 
 tect honorable and peaceable men.' 
 
 " The secretary's kindly manner emboldened 
 
ÉPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 93 
 
 me to ask a question that had been on the tip of 
 my tongue ever since we had entered the police- 
 court. 
 
 " ' We have had no news from our Paris houses 
 for several weeks,' I hazarded, ' and are very- 
 anxious about the possible fate of some of our su- 
 periors, particularly an old man, Brother Calix- 
 tus. We heard that he had been arrested, and 
 have had no further news. Could you tell us, 
 therefore, whether he is here or at Mazas ? ' 
 
 " The secretary carefully examined his books. 
 
 " '■ His name is not down on the list,' he said, 
 * and I conclude that he has not been imprisoned, 
 probably not even arrested. But others of your 
 colleagues have been, and some are still in con- 
 finement.' 
 
 " At last, sleep got the better of us, and we were 
 forced to drop the conversation. It was daylight 
 when we woke, and though we were stiff and 
 tired, we could not deny that worse might have 
 happened to us than a night's confinement in the 
 police-court. The commissary came about nine 
 o'clock, and hardly had he glanced over the re- 
 port of our case, prepared by the secretary, than 
 he said, 
 
 " ' You are perfectly free, gentlemen, to go 
 where you like.' 
 
 " I remarked that we knew too much now, not 
 to be anxious to have our papers duly attested. 
 
 "'You mean,' he said smilingly, 'that you 
 would like a permit? Certainly, you have a 
 right to one ; here it is.' 
 
 " ' We have one more request to make,' I add- 
 ed, ' and your kindness emboldens us. Clichy is 
 
94 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 very far, we are ver}" tired, and our friends mlist 
 be anxious about us. A carriage would there- 
 fore not be an unnecessary luxur)% if we only 
 had two francs to pa}^ for it as far as the gates.' 
 
 " The commissary kindly sent for a hack, and 
 gave us two francs. 
 
 " ' We will repay you when we come to thank 
 you,' was our parting promise. And we started 
 at a great pace, till, on passing a bridge, we met 
 Monsieur Dubois, and told him Avhat happened. 
 He was unfeignedly glad, and shaking hands with 
 us said, 
 
 " * So my task is reduced to a formality ? ' 
 
 " We asked him to go back to the police-court 
 with us and thank the commissar}^, at the same 
 time begging him to become our creditor for the 
 two francs, and thus discharge our obligation to 
 the kind-hearted magistrate. 
 
 This done, we went on to the Hotel de Ville, or 
 the City Hall, where Monsieur Dubois wished to 
 get us some paper from the supreme authority 
 which would secure us against further aggres- 
 sions. 
 
 " * So you like these "black-gowns" ?' said one 
 of the officials indulgently. 
 
 " ' Very much, and so do all the decent people 
 of Clichy.' 
 
 " ' Well then, keep them with you as long as 
 you choose.' 
 
 " Thus ended the matter, and our kind friend 
 was radiant as he came back to us and accom- 
 panied us home. 
 
 "We had not been away ver}^ long, yet we 
 found things worse than we had left them the 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 95 
 
 previous da}-. The fire from the batteries was 
 twice as fierce, and shells were bursting on all 
 sides. Musketry was incessant, and the walls and 
 shop-fronts were torn to pieces by the frequent 
 projectiles. We had good reason to tremble for 
 our own safety, since we were literally standing 
 on a volcano, and the least spark might have 
 caused an explosion. The Commune had sent 
 two barrels of powder, four hundred shells, and 
 half a dozen cases of cartridges, to be stored at 
 Clich}^ ; and our house proving convenient, the 
 dangerous stores had been piled up in the parlor. 
 The Brother-Director having remarked that the 
 smallest missile they were raining all around us, 
 would cause the whole neighborhood to blow up, 
 the Communist chieftain answered with a brutal 
 laugh, 
 
 " 'Well, you will all go up in good company.' 
 " ' But think of our children, our pupils ! ' 
 " ' Well, they will jump higher than the rest ; 
 that is natural enough at their age.' 
 
 " The Director, though trying to smile at these 
 jokes, gained his point and succeeded in getting 
 the powder, etc., removed to the cellar. He su- 
 perintended the removal himself; for such was 
 the carelessness of those employed in the work 
 that an accident was by no means unlikely. The 
 danger was now lessened, though the firing still 
 continued on all sides, and we really seemed 
 oppressed by a living nightmare." 
 
III. 
 
 The Adventures of a Belgian Brother-^His Presence of Mind- 
 saves his Life. 
 
 One of our Brothers at last grew so nervous 
 that he begged to be sent to Belgium, his native 
 country, where he hoped to find that rest which 
 his health absolutely required. The Brother- 
 Director and Monsieur Dubois accordingly es- 
 corted him out of town, intending not to leave 
 him before he reached St. Denis, or some other 
 safe place. His papers were duly signed, but 
 the unluckly Mayoralty of St. Ouen was destined 
 once more to become our stumbling-block. A 
 wicked-looking corporal — corporals seemed pe- 
 culiarly fatal to our poor Brothers — loftily ignor- 
 ing the permit, stopped the carriage and told the 
 occupants that they could go no further. Monsieur 
 Dubois wished to proceed and take no notice, but 
 the man seized the horses' heads and tried to turn 
 them back. Just then the adjutant comes up, and, 
 with a voice husky with rage, cries out, " I com- 
 mand you to bring the carriage into the mayor- 
 alty court-yard." There was nothing for it but 
 to give way. Monsieur Dubois entered the office 
 to make a complaint and explain matters, but the 
 Brother-Director was kept out among the guards, 
 exposed to their drunken jests. One of them 
 forced a rifle into his hands. " I have no objec- 
 tion," said the Brother, smiling; "I don't know 
 much about the handling of this toy ; but I should 
 not need many lessons, if my country required 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 97 
 
 me to use it in her defense." The Brother's frank 
 and steadfast look, and his simple, forcible words, 
 shamed the federals out of their brutality, and 
 he was left unmolested. 
 
 The Belgian Brother had meanwhile found a 
 friend and fellow-countryman in the adjutant, and 
 aided by sundry glasses of brandy, was quietly 
 negotiating for his liberation. The Flemish 
 tongue, together with this liquid seasoning, 
 worked wonders, and the adjutant offered to see 
 his compatriot as far as St. Denis, as, by going 
 himself, he could protect him from any further 
 vexation or insult. Monsieur Dubois and the 
 Brother-Director were left at liberty to return 
 to Clichy, which they were not slow in doing. 
 It was lucky, for they had scarcely left when a 
 hurried order came, to send the Brother-Director 
 to Mazas Prison. The Belgian Brother had not 
 yet left when this order arrived. 
 
 Furious at having missed a victim which a 
 higher authority had thus delivered over to them, 
 the National Guards wreaked their vengeance on 
 the remaining prisoner. Instead of taking him 
 to St. Denis, as they had promised, they dragged 
 him from the Committee at Montmartre to the 
 Central Police-Court, then to the Belgian Em- 
 bassy, and from the embassy back to the police- 
 court, under pretext of having his papers signed 
 again. The poor man was distracted ; this 
 journey did not certainly bid fair to give him 
 the peace he sought. At last he was taken back 
 to St. Ouen, and after another disagreeable delay 
 at that post, was finally sent off in the direction 
 of St. Denis, whence he easily reached Noyon. 
 
IV. 
 
 The Bf others in the Comnmnist Ambulances — Tenible Death of 
 Coloml Lett f ant — The Powder-Magazine saved. 
 
 The march of events was rapid ; the Commu- 
 nists lost ground day by à.?ij ; the hour of our 
 deliverance was at hand ; but the struggle only 
 grew the fiercer and the number of victims 
 increased daily. 
 
 On the tenth of May, we were summoned to 
 attend the wounded at the Ambulance of the Sis- 
 ters of Charity. The Brother- Director appealed 
 to our bravery and devotedness ; we all gladly 
 responded, and it was settled that we should re- 
 lieve one another day and night at this true 
 Christian work of mercy. God be thanked, we 
 never shrank one moment before our terrible task, 
 which we accomplished under all sorts of disad- 
 vantages up to the very day of the Versailles 
 troops' entrance into Paris. 
 
 What fearful sights afflicted our eyes ! What 
 terrible deaths shocked our Christian feelings ! 
 For instance, the citizen Lenfant, a federal colonel, 
 came to Clichy to strengthen the position of the 
 Commune, already tottering as it then was. This 
 man shrugged his shoulders as he spoke of the 
 asses who had preceded him ; things would have 
 been very different, had Jie been called sooner ! 
 While planning grand things for the defense of 
 the post, and waiting for an opportunity of dis- 
 playing his military talent, he took care to line 
 his pockets well, and, as greedy as he was boast- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 99 
 
 ful, he fixed his efforts particularly on the house 
 of General Begnier (the Emperor's first aide-de- 
 camp)^ which he ransacked from top to bottom. 
 On the 1 2th of May, this wretched man was 
 struck by a ball which went clean through his 
 body, as he lay in bed. He was indeed not 
 Avorthy to die a soldier's death, even in a bad cause. 
 He was taken to the ambulance and died the third 
 day. x\fter he had been placed in his coffin, a 
 woman purporting to be his wife ordered a 
 lighted taper to be put on each side of the corpse. 
 A citizen who happened to come in shortly after 
 this, was terribly shocked, and delivered himself 
 thus concerning the " outrage": 
 
 " What ! place candles, the symbol of a reli- 
 gious idea, at the head of a brave fellow who all 
 his life was proud of having no creed and fol- 
 lowing no ritual ! Why, it is an insult to his 
 memory! Let the candles be removed." 
 
 At these words, the wife ordered the coffin to 
 be put in the ground, as quickly and unconcerned- 
 ly as if it had been a dog's. 
 
 We were nearing the end. On the morning 
 of the 22d of May, two artillery-men sent by Dom- 
 browski demanded admittance to our house. 
 Their business was to set fire to the powder- 
 magazine in the cellar. Dombrowski, when he 
 gave this order, was determined to be revenged 
 on the Thirty-fourth Battalion, which had refused 
 to leave Clichy to guard the ramparts. The two 
 artillery-men had been well paid for their hellish 
 mission ; but man proposes and God disposes. 
 One of the men suddenly said to the other, 
 
 " By the by ! what have these National 
 
lOO EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 Guards done? They would not leave their own 
 district ; where's the harm ? Since Clichy had 
 to be guarded, too, was it not better to intrust 
 the task to them than to strangers? I have 
 made up my mind that I'll not fire the magazine." 
 
 "Very well," said his comrade, " do as you 
 like. I am not going to steal my money. I can 
 do the job alone." 
 
 " I tell you, you shall not. I've been thinking 
 it over ; it's a wicked thing to do, and you shall 
 not do it any more than I shall." 
 
 " Indeed ! who is to prevent me from execut- 
 ing my orders?" 
 
 " Myself." 
 
 " Come, you are joking ; let us go on " 
 
 " You shall not go. Enough ! if you put an- 
 other foot forward, I will blow your brains out." 
 And the man cocked his revolver. 
 
 "Ah! you think you can frighten me !" said 
 the other. 
 
 *' Not at all. I know you are too plucky for 
 that. I will convince you by arguments, not by 
 fright. Trust me, we had better not burden our 
 consciences with a crime so utterly useless." 
 
 " Well, now, perhaps you are right, after all ! 
 That will not save the Commune, and it will make 
 hundreds of innocent victims." 
 
 " Just so ! let us cut !" 
 We all heard this dialogue, and seeing the men 
 leave the neighborhood, threw ourselves on our 
 knees to thank God for our escape. A few hours 
 later, we were welcoming our own troops, who 
 overran the whole house, to our mutual delight. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ARREST, IMPRISONMENT, AND RELEASE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BROTHERS OF ST. NICHOLAS OF ISSY. 
 
 Sir : You have asked me for a few of the de- 
 tails of our arrest and imprisonment ; I am most 
 happy to gratify your curiosity. I think that 
 by going back a few months, I can show you how 
 little our Brotherhood, with its essentially popu- 
 lar character, deserved the peculiarly brutal treat- 
 ment which it received at the hands of the mob. 
 
 Toward the beginning of September, 1870, 
 the rumors of an approaching siege caused us to 
 disperse the nine hundred scholars which our 
 house at Vaugirard generally harbors. 
 
 A detachment of Brothers — the full number of 
 the community was sixty — remained to take care 
 of an ambulance or temporary hospital we had 
 ourselves organized, and where for four months 
 a hundred and ten soldiers were cared for and 
 fed wholly at our expense. The rest of the com- 
 munity, about forty in number, went to other 
 hospitals or battle-fields as litter-bearers. 
 
 As soon as peace was concluded, we set to work 
 to repair the damages caused by the Prussian shells. 
 On the ist of March, 1871, to the great delight of 
 
I02 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 the parents, we reopened our schools for boys. 
 We already had three hundred scholars, when, on 
 the ist of May, the house was broken into by the 
 Sixty-fourth Battalion of National Guards. Shells 
 began to rain round us again, and we felt bound 
 to send the children back to their homes. Those 
 whose parents lived out of Paris, we sent to our 
 great house at Vaugirard. 
 
 More than sixty shells fell on the house and 
 garden of St. Nicholas during the first week in 
 May ; but for all that, we had three battalions of 
 the National Guard quartered upon us, and fed 
 them well too, while there were also a hundred 
 and fifty wounded men requiring our care. On 
 Sunday, the 7th of May, I had in the house, be- 
 sides six Brothers whose services were no longer 
 required, twenty-one young gardeners, whose 
 lives were seriously endangered. It was my du- 
 ty to provide for their safety. I intended to take 
 them to our farm at Igny, which was under my 
 jurisdiction, and where they could wait for better 
 times, while at the same time they could find 
 congenial employment. I communicated my plan 
 to Monsieur Regère, commandant of the One 
 Hundred and Forty-sixth Battalion, and who, 
 with his staff, had been quartered in one of 
 our best rooms for the last four days. Both 
 he and Monsieur Crosse, his adjutant, seemed 
 very well disposed toward us. He quite ap- 
 proved my plan. Since it was impossible to 
 cross the lines of the Versailles troops, it was set- 
 tled that we had better go through Charenton, and 
 skirting the city (which was the shortest way), 
 turn back again toward Igny. He gave us a 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 103 
 
 formal permit, and so did Monsieur Minard, the 
 Mayor of Issy. I left four Brothers in the house, 
 partly to watch proceedings, partly to look after 
 the wounded. Nine of our oldest employees who 
 suffered as much from the insolence of the Nation- 
 al Guards as any of ourselves, also remained to 
 help the Brothers. Monsieur l'Abbé Armât, our 
 chaplain, who had devoted himself to the spi- 
 ritual care of the wounded and dying federals 
 all through the war, was loth to leave his post, 
 and so did not accompany us ; but the very same 
 day, Monday, a Freemason visited the ambulance, 
 and found him there. The man raved and 
 stormed, saying it was incredible that another 
 clerical should still be found in this neighborhood. 
 The priest had to leave the same night, and hid 
 himself with some friends in Paris. Had he re- 
 mained a moment longer, he would probably have 
 been shot. We started at eight o'clock in the 
 morning, on Monday, the 8th of May. Two Bro- 
 thers from the ward-school of Issy had joined our 
 company ; one of them was afterward killed on 
 his escape from Mazas Prison; the other was 
 wounded. We were twenty-nine in all. The 
 sentries at Iss}^ and Vannes let us pass without 
 even a question ; but at Montrouge the officer in 
 charge, a sub-lieutenant of the fourth company of 
 the One Hundred and Fourteenth Battalion, 
 an ill-favored, saturnine man, made us prison- 
 ers, under the pretense that his colonel must 
 himself see our permit. I saw that we had 
 fallen into a trap. At noon we were taken three 
 hundred yards further, and put into a large 
 shed, where the colonel, we were told, would 
 
I04 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 soon come to us. At half-past four, a captain on 
 some " staff," with a harsh voice and an unplea- 
 sant manner, appeared on horseback ; then a com- 
 missary on foot, whose outward man reminded 
 me of an escaped convict ; then two more com- 
 missaries in a carriag-e. A cab was also brought, 
 anti all our parcels and bags politely stowed away, 
 to relieve us of them (?) We never saw them 
 again. They contained our most necessary cloth- 
 ing and that of our employees. Unfortunately, 
 some of the bags also contained a few articles of 
 church plate which we had carried off, fearing 
 that our house might be pillaged or set on fire 
 during our absence. If our baggage was put into 
 a cab, we, on the other hand, had to foot it all 
 the way. 
 
 We were placed in double file, and surround- 
 ed by National Guards of the Sixty-fifth Battalion, 
 who, it is only just to say, behaved much better 
 than those of the One Hundred and Fourteenth. 
 The captain in a hoarse voice ordered them to 
 shoot us at the slightest sign of resistance. 
 This was quite superfluous ; for our young 
 friends, one of whom was hardly fourteen, were 
 frightened out of their wits, and surely not with- 
 out good cause. We Brothers tried to be as 
 quiet and resigned as it was possible for poor 
 human nature to be under the circumstances. 
 
 The lieutenant commanding the escort was a 
 fine young man of twenty-five, who seemed quite 
 proud of the task assigned him. We were taken 
 from Montrouge to the police-court, through the 
 main street of Vannes, and Maine avenue, etc. In 
 the more populous districts, a halt was often 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 105 
 
 purposely made, that we might be gazed upon 
 by the bystanders. The people were told that 
 we were Versailles prisoners, and had fired on 
 the National Guards, and a thousand other lies 
 that excited them and made them insult us the 
 more. The furious cries of "Death to them!" 
 grew worse as we reached the fortifications, and 
 got into the faubourg of Vannes. Here, had not 
 the National Guards kept them off, several women, 
 true viragoes, would fain have torn out our eyes 
 and bitten our noses off. Allow me to interrupt 
 my narrative a moment, to tell you how the con- 
 duct of the crowd saddened our hearts. True, 
 we did not wear our habit ; but our guards pro- 
 claimed loudly enough that we were Brothers, 
 and it was impossible that I especially, who, in 
 my public capacity, have had to do with so many 
 men, should not have been recognized. I learnt 
 afterward that I had been. " So," I said to my- 
 self, " this is the way you are rewarded by the 
 very class to whose interests you have devoted 
 thirty-six years of incessant labor." 
 
 I am glad to say that many of our pupils did 
 what their parents should have done ; they bowed 
 or stretched out their hands, but our guards 
 pushed them violently back. I am also bound to 
 say that the further we got into the city, the bet- 
 ter was the change noticeable in the crowd. We 
 saw many sad faces and a great number of women 
 holding their handkerchiefs to their eyes. 
 
 Near the gates of the Luxembourg we met 
 one of the Brother-Directors who was a special 
 friend of mine ; he was in plain clothes, and, anx- 
 ious to see what this new pageant was, he min- 
 
I06 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 gled with the crowd. He recognized me at once, 
 and with tears in his eyes gave me a look of sym- 
 pathy which I immediately returned ; but our 
 guards having noticed this, seized him, and put- 
 ting him between four National Guards, compelled 
 him to follow us on our way to the Central Po- 
 lice-Court. What shall I say of this terrible 
 place, which, if I lived for centuries, I never 
 could forget? 
 
 It is no doubt a pity that this fine building 
 should have been burned down ; but, indeed, noth- 
 ing else could cleanse it from the foul air, heavy 
 with obscenity and blasphemy, that clung about 
 its halls and corridors. Such language seemed 
 to be the daily common talk of the men who sat 
 there as magistrates, and we seem yet to hear the 
 disgusting echo of it afflicting our ears. 
 
 We were most brutally treated, and the 
 thought of what our blessed Lord suffered for us 
 was all that kept me resigned under such insults. 
 While I was standing perfectly defenseless, some 
 one struck me a violent blow on the head, and if 
 a little urchin of ten or twelve did not buffet me 
 and spit in my face, it was certainly not from the 
 want of encouragement on the part of one of our 
 guards, probably his father. Another federal 
 put his revolver to my temple, and threatened to 
 blow my brains out if I but stirred a hand's 
 breadth. 
 
 We were thoroughly searched, and every thing 
 we possessed taken from us. Besides the slender 
 funds of the house, I had on me various small 
 sums, collected penny by penny, and each destin- 
 ed to some particular work of charity, such as 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. IO7 
 
 that of the propagation of the faith. The 
 wretches actually crowed over this " find." 1 
 was sorry to lose the money, but far more to 
 know what a vile use they would doubtless make 
 of it. Our poor employees lost the last penny of 
 their savings, and our young gardener was actual- 
 ly robbed of his single one-franc piece (about 
 twenty cents). 
 
 I must pass over many details of this dreadful, 
 endless night, partly because it would take me 
 too long to relate them, partly because decency 
 forbids my mentioning some of them. I spoke 
 but little to these men, but my very looks seemed 
 to irritate them ; three times I was confined in a 
 separate and dark room, because I did not dis- 
 creetly look away from our guards. I told one 
 man who threw this in my face, that people whose 
 conscience was light could afford to hold their 
 heads high. Another asked me why I had doffed 
 my habit ? 
 
 I told him " because I pleased, and I supposed 
 that under a republic I covdd at least enjoy the 
 liberty of choosing my own dress." He answered 
 that I had done well to leave off that " garment 
 of iniquity." Another individual before whom I 
 was cited immediately after this, seemed to me a 
 butcher's apprentice. He had the physique of 
 one, mighty, nervous arms and a herculean 
 frame. He liked to display the former ; for the 
 sleeves of his scarlet flannel shirt were tucked 
 up far above the elbows. This "judge" ask- 
 ed me almost the same questions, even that 
 about m}^ habit. I answered him in the same 
 strain as 1 had used with his comrade ; only this 
 
I08 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 man, instead of calling the habit ignominious, 
 called it a noble badge. 
 
 I answered him thus : '' So noble do I esteem 
 it, citizen, that I shrink from exposing it to the 
 insults it too surely provokes in these days." 
 
 After being questioned, searched, and robbed, 
 we were thrown pell-mell into a room where ten 
 persons would barely have had room to circulate. 
 I have said elsewhere that we were twenty-nine. 
 In my capacity of head of the troop, I was put into 
 a small wooden closet, ill-smelling to a degree, 
 whence I could hear every thing that was going 
 on around me. We were just beginning to feel 
 rested, when one of our persecutors again ap- 
 peared on the scene, a man who had declared be- 
 fore our young men that he was Thouret, the 
 great-nephew of the elder Thouret, of Terrorist 
 memory, and that he burned to emulate his great- 
 uncle's example. He evidently told us a lie ; for, 
 from what we learned subsequently, I concluded 
 that it was Dacosta or Raoul Rigault with whom 
 we had been confronted. This Citizen " Thouret " 
 having desired the Brothers to stand while he 
 spoke, and having intimated to them that before 
 the throne of God, the last should be first, and 
 the first last, made them a speech according to 
 his preaching humor. He heaped the vilest epi- 
 thets on us ; then turning to the young men, who 
 scarcely paid attention to him, told them that the 
 Brothers had misinformed them. They had told 
 them that there was a God, which was false ; there 
 was no such thing as eternity, and no such place 
 as hell ; God's justice was a myth, but man's was 
 to be feared, and man's only. Then came the 
 
EPISODES OF THE TARIS COMMUNE. IO9 
 
 most awful blasphemies against God, our Blessed 
 Lady, and the saints, after which he said, " I am 
 but one man, you cowards, and you are many ; 
 why don't you attack me ? None of you dare do 
 it !" This was the courage of the men of the Com- 
 mune. Having sneeringly wished us good-night. 
 Citizen Thouret slammed the door behind him 
 with such violence that the whole house shook. 
 A few moments later, a company of National 
 Guards came to escort us to the " depot." It was 
 now three o'clock. At the "depot" we found 
 a number of our Brothers, and could talk with 
 them at our leisure. It was a paradise compared 
 to the prison whence we had just come ; but our 
 joy was soon rudely disturbed by an abrupt 
 order, on the eleventh of May, commanding us to 
 be taken to Mazas Prison. Only the Brothers 
 were thus sentenced, and it was a sore trial to be 
 torn from our employees, and especially the young 
 apprentices whose guardian and father I con- 
 sidered myself to be. I tried to hope that these 
 youths would soon regain their freedom ; for after 
 all, what had they done, and had they not already 
 undergone trials enough, an imprisonment of four 
 days and the loss of the Httle they possessed? 
 But I was mistaken ; for on the following day, 
 Friday, they were brought to Mazas, where their 
 imprisonment lasted as long as our own. 
 
 My cell was a small room, six feet by nine. 
 The furniture was scarcely luxurious, consisting 
 of a table fixed into the wall, and a chair fastened 
 to it with a chain ; a watering-pot filled with 
 water, which served for drinking as well as wash- 
 ing, a hammock in lieu of a bed, a mattrçss and 
 
no EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 two coverlets. A very small window let in just 
 enough air not to suffocate me. Of course, as I 
 have said, every sacred thing, books, rosaries, 
 Bibles, etc., had all been taken from us at the 
 police-court, and I had not even been able to 
 save a little medal of our Lady, the gift of an old 
 friend, and from which I had never parted for 
 thirty-six years. It was far more precious to me 
 than all the money I possessed. In this spiritual 
 desolation, I was overjoyed to find in the table- 
 drawer a little book of devotion. I knew that my 
 friend, and the friend of all the prisoners and sol- 
 diers of this terrible place. Monsieur Germain- 
 ville, had done me this service. The good man 
 little knew what a treasure his " Christian's 
 Manual " would one day prove to me, and I my- 
 self, who had often handled it when I was free, 
 little suspected the comfort it would one day 
 procure me. It is a blessed work to supply the 
 poor prisoner with good books. 
 
 On Monday, the 15th, I was brought before the 
 magistrate, a youth of eighteen, for all that he 
 put on such a serious and contemptuous air. 
 With a look of infinite self-importance he glanced 
 over the written accusations made against lis 
 (which, to judge from their volume, must have 
 been very serious), and proceeded to ask all kinds 
 of silly questions, to which I answered as patient- 
 ly as I could. He also spoke about my not wear- 
 ing my habit, and suddenly said, 
 
 " Prisoner, what are you accused of?" 
 " I should be glad if you could tell me what," 
 I retorted ; " for to this day I have failed to disco- 
 ver my crime." 
 
EPISODES OF THE TARIS COMMUNE. Ill 
 
 He said no more, and there ended my interro- 
 gatory. As I noticed that the youth — for he was 
 not worthy of the title of magistrate — was dictat- 
 ing a report of my case to a registrar or clerk 
 much older than himself, and much less self- 
 sufficient, I hazarded a few words. 
 
 " I beg, monsieur," I said, " that what I am 
 about to say may be mentioned in the report." 
 
 " What is it?" he asked. 
 
 " This : that my colleagues and myself have 
 been shamefully treated at the Central Police- 
 Court; and especially that, being perfectly de- 
 fenseless, I was violently struck on the head." 
 
 He agreed that this was illegal, and the clerk 
 went so far as to pity us. Then the "judge," 
 having inserted my complaint in the report, 
 made the following remark : 
 
 " It is true, however, that priests and Brothers 
 have done so much harm to the republic that 
 these outrages, though illegal, are excusable." 
 
 " Are you quite sure," I asked, " that the 
 Brothers have done harm to the republic ?" 
 
 "Oh! undoubtedly," he answered. 
 
 " Well," said I, raising my voice, " allow me 
 to make one remark. Four months ago, the 
 republic was already proclaimed, and the news- 
 papers, even the most ' advanced ' sheets, had no 
 words with which adequately to express their 
 admiration for the Brothers." 
 
 He interrupted me, saying that we certainly 
 had behaved well on the battle-field, and were 
 entitled to great praise on that account. I an- 
 swered, 
 
 " And pray what have we done since, to for- 
 
112 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 feit this praise and be vilely imprisoned as we 
 are at present ? What we did four months ago, 
 we were doing- again only a fortnight since. We 
 had six hundred wounded at Longchamps, and 
 nursed them just as devotedly under the Com- 
 mune as we should under any other govern- 
 men. 
 
 Then I gave him an account of our occupa- 
 tions, nine days ago, at our house at Issy, and 
 bowing to him, took my leave. I had already 
 made acquaintance with our good jailers, who, 
 luckily for us, were by no means Communists. 
 The Brothers and I shall never forget their kind 
 attentions to us during our imprisonment. I 
 will take this opportunity of publishing their 
 names : Lefebvre and Goudin, both of them old 
 soldiers. I hope that Madame Thiers, to whom 
 I subsequently had the honor of recommending 
 them, will not have forgotten them. Old Lefeb- 
 vre, as soon as he saw me, hastily asked, "They 
 questioned you, did they ? Will they set you 
 free ?" 
 
 " My good friend," I answered, " I fear not; 
 but I have made up my mind to it." 
 
 On the 25th, between eight and nine o'clock in 
 the morning, one of them mysteriously pushed 
 back the wicket of my cell, and hurriedly whis- 
 pered, 
 
 " Be ready, for the door may be opened at 
 any minute ; and once you are out, cut and run." 
 
 I confess that, for the first time since my 
 arrest, I felt an indefinable fear creep over me. I 
 trembled and shivered and my heart beat thick 
 and fast. I knew that our lives were in re^I 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. II 3 
 
 danger, and that ovir jailers were doing their 
 best to save us. It was the tone rather than the 
 words which conveyed this impression to my 
 mind, but I found later that I had not been mis- 
 taken. 
 
 The Director Garreau, formerly a convict at 
 Mazas, and consequently a right-hand man of the 
 Commune, had proposed, on his OAvn responsi- 
 bility, to have us shot that morning, and then 
 blow up the prison ; but the chief employees had 
 protested so vigorously that this double crime 
 was not attempted. They asked this man, what 
 had the prisoners done to deserve death? Then 
 they argued that they themselves were the 
 fathers of families, and were in no hurry to die. 
 If he had taken the precaution to send his wife 
 away several days ago, he should remember that 
 their families were just as dear to them. Gar- 
 reau, finding himself thus opposed by his subordi- 
 nates, went out about eight o'clock, to procure 
 new orders from the Commune. A few shells 
 had fallen on the prison the night before, and the 
 same noise had waked us up that morning. At 
 nine o'clock, an awful explosion shook the build- 
 ing, which was singularly adapted to echo any 
 sound of the kind, as it consisted of six immense 
 wings radiating from a high rotunda. This 
 shell, which was immense, caused the greatest 
 consternation among the prisoners ; many who 
 dreaded such a death got quite delirious, and 
 knocked frantically at the doors of their cells, 
 crying to the keepers, " Open the cells ! open 
 quick." The latter were quite willing to do so, 
 and Ave were soon in the courtyard. I noticed 
 
114 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 that we were among- the first, and it was an un- 
 speakable delight to us to breathe the fresh air 
 once more. It was only then that I learnt of the 
 imprisonment of our young apprentices under the 
 same roof as ourselves. They and the Brothers 
 soon gathered around me, and also a Brother- 
 Director from the Rue Oudinot. The prisoners 
 numbered seven hundred and fifty. Among the 
 rest was the venerable priest, Monsieur Crose, 
 the chaplain of La Roquette prison, an old man 
 so beloved by all the keepers that they had pre- 
 vented him from being drafted off to Mazas the 
 previous Monday, as were all the other priests. 
 At La Roquette his life would have been in 
 greater danger than here at Mazas. 
 
 The Brothers were about forty, all told. A 
 few seminarists from St. Sulpice were there too. 
 I was astonished to meet my old friend Monsieur 
 Poitevin, an official of the Foreign Office, whose 
 attenuated appearance shocked me greatly ; he 
 had evidently suffered much during his confine- 
 ment. There were also deserters, thieves, etc., 
 among the motley company, and even a few 
 Communists ; for although the saying goes that 
 wolves respect each other, the Communists cer- 
 tainly sent their colleagues to prison whenever 
 their own individual star happened to be in the 
 ascendant. I suppose it was these men who 
 raised the cry of " Long live the Commune !" the 
 moment they regained their liberty. Still it was 
 not to the Commune that they owed their free- 
 dom ; for I afterward heard that when Citizen 
 Garreau returned at eleven o'clock with two dele- 
 gates, and found the birds fiown, he got into a 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. II 5 
 
 most terrible passion. He stormed and stamped, 
 and would fain have blown up the building- ; but 
 the keepers had the pluck and presence of mind 
 to resist his mad orders. The}^ at last disarmed 
 him and locked him up in a cell, whence he was 
 taken the next day — Friday — by the Versailles 
 troops, and shot in the courtyard of the prison. 
 
 Liberty, however, was a questionable boon 
 just then ; we jumped from the frying-pan into 
 the fire as it were ; for at the very gates of Mazas, 
 we found the federals piling up barricades, and 
 indiscriminately forcing every man to take part 
 in their work — as useless as it was cruel — and 
 even to don a uniform and take up a rifle. Few 
 of us escaped this grisly masquerade ; but thanks 
 to my good legs, I and the Director of the Rue 
 Oudinot managed to get away in safety. 
 
 After a mad run, which God alone guided 
 to a safe end, we found ourselves gathered to the 
 number of twelve persons on the Avenue of St. 
 Mandé. A worthy man of the name of Mathier 
 harbored us for thirty-one hours (in these emer- 
 gencies one is apt to reckon by hours), and we can 
 never be thankful enough for his well-timed hos- 
 pitality. We and his own family were pretty 
 well exposed to danger of some sort ; for his house 
 stood between two fires, the federals still occu- 
 pying the barrier of the " Throne " whence their 
 fire was incessant, and the Versailles troops gain- 
 ing ground step b}^ step on the opposite side. It 
 was not until five o'clock in the evening that we 
 could see, as well as hear, the regular troops. 
 We feared that we should have to wait another 
 twenty-four hours before we were in their hands ; 
 
Il6 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 but the barricade gave way at seven o'clock, and 
 to our great delight, the bloody red flag was 
 torn down and the tricolor planted in its stead. 
 
 Having caught the eye of an officer of the 
 regulars, we asked him whether we could start 
 in safety for our respective homes ? We were 
 anxious to allay the fears of our friends and well- 
 wishers, the more so as the newspapers had that 
 very day circulated a report that seventy Chris- 
 tian Brothers had been shot at Mazas. The offi- 
 cer told us we might go, and we were not slow 
 in taking advantage of his permission. How glad 
 we were to pass by our own army ; the soldiers 
 and officers knew us at once, though we Avere not 
 in our habit, and asked us for news of the hosta- 
 ges, particularly His Grace the Archbishop. Our 
 keepers had told us nearly the whole truth, and 
 we had but sad news to give our friends of the 
 army. 
 
 Twenty -five members of the Issy community 
 were missing, and it was not till three or four 
 days later that I had the consolation of knowing 
 that God had providentially saved my whole 
 flock. Our gratitude was naturally unbounded, 
 the more so as our house remained standing, so 
 that we were enabled to open our school at once. 
 T trust that we shall diligently continue our efforts 
 in favor of our dear young scholars, even should 
 we have no better prospect for the future than an 
 " ovation " of the kind which we received on the 
 8th of May, on our way from Montrouge to the 
 Central Police-Court. We intend also to put up 
 a statue in honor of St. Joseph, to whom we made 
 several novenas during our captivity, and whose 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. II^ 
 
 powerful intercession we gladly acknowledge, 
 for surely nothing less was required to save us 
 and our house from the imminent dangers that 
 surrounded them. 
 
 I remain, Monsieur, your humble servant in 
 Christ, Brother Pothius. 
 
 IsSY, June II, 1871 
 
BETWEEN TWO FIRES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Providence, for some inscrutable end, deliv- 
 ered over the capital of the old Christian king- 
 dom of France to the irresponsible fury of that 
 nameless power which ruthlessly makes experi- 
 ments on the lives of nations, and seeks through 
 the ruins of every social system some new form 
 in which it may definitely embody itself. It 
 covets no ideal dominion only, but a very mate- 
 rial empire, and has given us lately many proofs 
 of its rapacious nature ; we have felt its grasping 
 hand and heard its frantic voice, and our eyes 
 yet seem to gaze on the bloody sketch it has 
 shown us of its intended dominion. In truth, we 
 may say that we have had a foretaste of the rule 
 of the Beast. 
 
 The peculiar watchword of this latest iorm of 
 revolution — said Raoul Rigault to myself — will 
 be, '' Death to religion, to ritual, to priests," and 
 he informed me further on, that, " as long as one 
 single man in the land dares pronounce the name 
 of God, all our labor will have been in vain, and 
 we shall not be able to lay the sword and rifle 
 aside." 
 
 1 do not purpose to recount what every one 
 
120 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 knows, nor even to tell all I know ; but the mist 
 of forgetfulness is already thickening around us, 
 and it is not well that such portentous details 
 should be forgotten. Rigault's words struck me 
 deeply. They have the very ring of realistic and 
 positivist dictuvis. We have even seen them 
 drawn to their legitimate conclusion. Rigault 
 himself, carried away by a seething flood of con- 
 flicting opinion, did not forget his first principles. 
 Witness the bloody walls of La Roquette. 
 
 The humblest and most popular representatives 
 of Christianity were not exempt from this deadly 
 hatred, and not even the Genevan Cross was able 
 to shield from persecution the men who watched 
 by the bedside of the wounded and the dying. 
 The army and the whole country were witnesses 
 of the charity of the Christian Brothers, those 
 incomparable nurses and powerful assistants of 
 the press ambulances. 
 
 The Commune, however, ferreted them out 
 and arrested them on the very field where their 
 useful charity was exercised. The savage cry was 
 first, " Down with Black-gowns ! let them hide 
 their habit !" but it soon grew to this, " Nay, let 
 them get out of this place, and go to join Darboy. 
 Death to the Brothers !" 
 
 The ambulances had already been deprived of 
 their principal organizer and secretary-general of 
 the committee. Monsieur de la Grangerie, who 
 had been imprisoned at La Roquette. Dr. De- 
 marquay, now the chief and responsible represen- 
 tative of the work, accepted my offers of service. 
 He took the medical department, while I attended 
 to the outdoor work. He has said to me since 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 121 
 
 that it will always be one of the most hon- 
 orable deeds of our lives, to have done what we 
 could to protect the poor Brothers from the fury 
 of the Commune. 
 
 How was this done ? A short sketch of the 
 facts relating to the presence of the Brothers in 
 our midst, Avill explain matters. I must crave 
 forgiveness beforehand for a certain coarse hand- 
 ling of some situations, as I wished to paint from 
 nature, without gloss and without palliation. 
 
 While I was busy negotiating for the libera- 
 tion of Monsieur de la Orangerie, Dr. Demar- 
 quay, according to our preconcerted plan, was 
 trying to secure, through Dr. Claude, the official 
 physician of the Commune, the immunity of the 
 Brothers of the Longchamps ambulance from any 
 immediate vexation. This was to be effected 
 simply by a change of costume. The City Hall 
 authorities had made no secret of the dislike of 
 the Commune for all religious symbols, but until 
 now the habit alone had been proscribed. The 
 revolutionary fever, however, grew every mo- 
 ment so much hotter that new regulations and 
 restrictions followed each other very quickly, a 
 fact which was proved the next day after I had 
 received the following letter from Dr. Claude : 
 
 " I send you an order for seventy uniforms of 
 the National Guard ; you can procure them at 
 the military stores, and are requested to clothe 
 the Brothers in them at once. 
 
 "City Hall, April ii, 1871." 
 
 On the 1 2th, I sent men to get this order 
 executed, and gave them the letter and necessary 
 papers. They were brutally received, and their 
 
122 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 request denied. " The Commune was not going 
 to serve out cloth for such a purpose, indeed ! 
 It was only for the patriots to use it. The 
 Brothers might cut their own habits short or 
 tuck them inside their trowsers," etc. 
 
 On the 1 6th, five days later, when I spoke to 
 the two Mays, Elias and Gustavus, the Commu- 
 nist Comptrollers, the prejudice against the 
 Brothers had risen to such a height that their 
 very lives were no longer considered safe. 
 
 Meanwhile Monsieur de la Grangerie had been 
 released from La Roquette. Citizen Raoul Ri- 
 gault, whom I had importuned four times for the 
 promise, at length gave it to me in the following 
 refined language, " You are anxious about these 
 brutes ? Well, after all, it is nothing to me if the 
 carrion rots at La Roquette or elsewhere. T will 
 make you a present of it — no need to thank me — 
 the dogs are not worth it ! But you shall be 
 answerable for them ; and take good care that they 
 do not interfere with us in any way ; for I shall 
 hold you responsible ;" Raoul Rigault had taken 
 back his pledged word, and we had nothing but 
 chance to depend upon for safety. 
 
 Since that promise too, the vexations had 
 grown more intolerable than ever. Not a day 
 passed without some young doctor or apothecary 
 of the press ambulances being arbitrarily arrested. 
 They were insulted in the very discharge of their 
 duties, and it was precisely one of these ever- 
 recurring attacks that impelled me to go to the 
 two Mays, to find out if I could what were Dic- 
 tator Cluseret's dispositions toward our body. 
 
 Dr. Hargé, a Belgian physician of the Long- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 123 
 
 champs ambulance, was with me. We were 
 waiting our turn in a showy anteroom, when a 
 young woman, dressed in a long purple satin 
 train, swept by us and sat down to wait. We 
 bowed as she drew near us, and in return, she 
 settled herself boldly on a chair in front of us and 
 began a most curious conversation. I was quite 
 at my ease, for she evidently expected no cour- 
 tesy from us. We knew at once that our inter- 
 locutrix was the " Citizeness" Eudes. We learnt 
 from her lips the truth about our position. 
 
 She told us that it was settled that we should 
 be suppressed, because our agents as well as the 
 agents of the Versailles authorities were Chris- 
 tian Brothers. These devoted men were to be 
 seized, incorporated in the National Guards, and 
 sent to the most perilous advanced posts and 
 trenches of the Commune. The emplo3^ees of the 
 press ambulances were to be distributed among 
 the battalions where surgeons were scarce. As 
 to our original organization, it might perhaps be 
 allowed to stand, provided we would consent to 
 receive as nurses women chosen by herself 
 (" Citizeness" Eudes), and whom she was already 
 gathering together. She placed herself at my dis- 
 position, added this woman, and would be happy 
 to help us in our philanthropic and humanitarian 
 task. 
 
 The '' citizeness" evidently thought highly of 
 the favor she so candidly offered us. We were 
 to be the only ambulance of the great Commune ; 
 for her views were so liberal that she meant to 
 swallow up every organization in one gigantic 
 whole. As if to enhance the inestimable value of 
 
124 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 her protection, she drew a feeling sketch of our 
 present unfortunate condition, and sympathized 
 with us for being the only ambulance still ruled 
 by clericals, who, no doubt, imposed upon us 
 at every turn. She feared we were blinded by 
 their intrigues, and pitied us accordingly. She 
 said, moreover, that it was conceivable that 
 under such a régime as General Trochu's the cun- 
 ning hypocrisy of a false patriotism should have 
 deceived such intelligent and brave citizens as 
 Ricord, Demarquay, and others ; but that it was 
 marvelous that the Commune had failed to open 
 their eyes to the danger they ran. For her part, 
 she was fully convinced that the Brothers were 
 blackguards. The most intelligent among them 
 were spies in the monarchical interest ; the rest, 
 whether nurses or litter-bearers, etc., were a 
 flock of fanatical brutes who courted death 
 through pure fanaticism, like stupid cattle (! !) 
 They worry and torture the mind of the wounded 
 and dying ; and she had good reasons for believ- 
 ing that they even poisoned, with infinite ingenu- 
 ity, those patriots whose morals they had not 
 been able to corrupt. It was the bounden duty 
 of the Commune to break up this nest of disorder, 
 whose chiefs deserved to have their heads cut off 
 and carried in procession on the tallest pikes ; but 
 since the citizens were averse to Quixotism, it 
 would be sufficient to place these marplots in the 
 van of the army and in the trenches, where they 
 would at least be useful to shield the lives of the 
 patriots. 
 
 This slight sketch (which is rather below than 
 above the reality) will serve to show how far I 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 25 
 
 had drawn out the Citizeness Eudes, when she 
 rose and offered me her hand {Jiorrcsco rcfercns .'). 
 She swore that she would use her influence to 
 obtain the simple expulsion of the Brothers from 
 the service of our ambulance, and that she would 
 even beg for time to be granted them to disguise 
 their ignoble persons and escape, though their 
 appearance in disguise must doubtless be more 
 disgusting than even their natural looks. 
 
 I was really alarmed at what I had heard 
 from this woman, who at this moment happened 
 to be all-powerful. Her behavior as a street- 
 Clorinda- had completely fascinated the sol- 
 diers of the southern forts, where her husband 
 was in command. She had herself loaded and 
 fired the first gun that thundered from the fort of 
 Issy, and often paraded before the troops with a 
 rifle slung over her shoulder and a revolver in her 
 hand. She told me herself that she had many a 
 time put down her barker to pick up under fire the 
 victims of the revejtge and fury of Versailles. Her 
 popularity obliged the War Delegate reluctantly 
 to stand this virago's continual presence and fre- 
 quent interference during his hours of business, 
 and I knew that her intervention in the ambu- 
 lance question was likely to be fatal to our hopes. 
 
 I was confirmed in my views on this matter by 
 my subsequent interview with the Comptroller- 
 General May. He did not know of my conver- 
 sation with Citizeness Eudes, and repeated what 
 I had already learnt ; but his language at least 
 was far more decent. He advised me to see the 
 
 * A warlike heroine of Tasso's poem, " The Deliverance of 
 Jerusalem" {Gieritsakmmc Libemta). 
 
126 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 War Delegate Cluseret, and to obtain, if possi- 
 ble, a definite answer, which would determine 
 my own line of action, and he ended by pro- 
 mising me an interview with the great man as 
 soon as possible. The next day, the i8th of 
 April, I saw the Comptroller again, before pre- 
 senting myself before Cluseret. Dr. Demarquay 
 and Monsieur de la Grangerie were with me. 
 May took me aside and told me that the latter's 
 presence was unfortunate. " There are two apples 
 of discord in your case," he said to me. " One is 
 Monsieur de la Grangerie ; the other, the Chris- 
 tian Brothers. I hope you may get clear off; at 
 any rate, I will come with you, and stand between 
 you and the delegate." 
 
 Cluseret was at dinner when we were ushered 
 into his office. He came up to us with a napkin 
 in his hand and a Tyrolese hat on his head. 
 
 " What do you want of me ?" he asked. 
 
 The Comptroller gave our names and a sketch 
 of our business. Monsieur de la Grangerie had 
 just begun to speak, when Cluseret dryly inter- 
 rupted him, 
 
 " So you are Monsieur de la Grangerie ? You 
 have been arrested ? Rigault set you free again, 
 you say ?" Then turning to Dr. Demarquay and 
 me, he continued, " The press ambulances are a 
 hot-bed of reaction and a nest of spies. It is useless 
 for you to protest. I have made up my mind 
 about it. You are harboring just as many spies 
 as you have Brothers in your employment. I 
 have proofs of what I say. I shall come to a final 
 decision to-day, and you will learn it through the 
 columns of the Official" 
 
EPISODES OF THE TARIS COMMUNE. 12/ 
 
 " Ver^ well," I answered ; " but who is going 
 to guarantee the personal freedom of my em- 
 ployees ?" 
 
 " I have neither explanation nor guarantee to 
 give you. Wait till the Official comes out." 
 
 '' Very well, citizen delegate ; in that case, the 
 devoted men, whether Brothers or physicians, 
 whom you leave thus exposed to an indefinite 
 threat, will be justified in looking after their own 
 safety. It would be too ridiculoiis if their charita- 
 ble zeal should leave them open to personal dan- 
 ger. I therefore give you notice that you will 
 have to provide instanter for six hundred wounded 
 men whom we now deliver over to your care." 
 
 Cluseret was taken aback. 
 
 ** Well," he said, '' I give you twenty-four 
 hours to provide for the safety of your staff and 
 employees. Within that time the law will have 
 
 decided." 
 
 " At any other time," I answered, " your word 
 would have been enough for me ; but, as it is, 
 circumstances may at any moment render it null 
 and void. I beg you will give me a written 
 assurance which may serve to protect us against 
 the vexations and counter-orders of the first citi- 
 zen whose whim opposes your decree." 
 
 Citizen Cluseret turned on his heel ; but chang- 
 ing his mind, sat down and scrawled a few lines, 
 which he stamped with the mark of his private 
 office. With an insolent, almost threatening nod, 
 he took leave of us, and retreated to his dining- 
 room. The paper bore these words : 
 
 " The press ambulance is temporarily allowed 
 
128 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 to subsist, and is subject only to the orders of Dr. 
 
 Courtillier, the head surgeon of the army. 
 
 "(Signed), G. Cluseret, 
 
 " War Delegate. 
 " Paris, April i8, 1871." 
 
 The Comptroller beckoned me aside as we 
 were going down the stairs. 
 
 " A word in season," he whispered ; " get rid 
 of the Brothers in all haste, and let La Orangerie 
 lie hidden out of sight. Do not hesitate, and do 
 not trust the very ground you stand upon. Clu- 
 seret is furious. The Brothers will be arrested, 
 and La Orangerie (who is in bad odor, though I 
 don't know why) will be shot. Throw every 
 thing overboard, if you care to keep the ambu- 
 lances. It might be safer to let the whole thing 
 go, but it is useless trying to keep it as it is ; )^ou 
 will lose all and endanger yourself." 
 
 The situation was critical. Monsieur de la 
 Orangerie declared that he had no intention of 
 fighting these filibusters, and, having had enough 
 of their sweet rule during his twelve days' captiv- 
 ity, meant to put his person in safety at once. He 
 bade us good luck, but left us with the advice that, 
 under the circumstances, it was madness to persist 
 in keeping the Brothers. 
 
 But the dismissal of the Brothers was not a 
 feasible thing, unless we chose to risk the entire 
 breaking up of our ambulance. Four hundred 
 soldiers could not thus be left to shift for them- 
 selves, although some were well enough to take 
 up their rifles in the same unworthy cause for 
 which they had already suffered. On the other 
 hand, I could not make up my mind to the intro- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 29 
 
 duction of the civilian element, whether male or 
 female, with which the Commune probably meant 
 to saddle us. There was only one chance left, 
 that of obtaining military nurses. I was aware 
 that a certain number of soldiers belonging to 
 the hospital service were imprisoned in the Mili- 
 tary School. I went to the sub-overseer of hos- 
 pitals, Démissols, and proposed my ultimatum, 
 either to disband our corps on the spot, or to con- 
 tinue our services with the help of regular sol- 
 diers, which we had a right to demand, since our 
 ambulances were under the control of the War 
 Department. The plan was immediately commu- 
 nicated to the overseer, who seemed particularly 
 pleased with it, and pledged himself to obtain 
 Cluseret's consent. I wrote the following letter 
 then and there : 
 
 " To THE Citizen Delegate, Comptroller's 
 Department : 
 Citizen : I beg to inform you that we have 
 come to the conclusion to dispense with the male 
 ecclesiastical nurses attached to our ambulance, 
 circumstances being such as to deprive us 
 of their experience and devotedness. You will 
 be pleased to replace them by a sufficient number 
 of military nurses, to be put at our disposal. 
 Our medical staff will, under these conditions, 
 continue to take care of the wounded. 
 
 "N. COTTE, 
 ^^ Director of the Longchamps Ambulance ^ 
 
 This done, I went to Brothers Calixtus and 
 Bandime, Brother Philip's assistants, and told 
 them that the state of things was such as to ne- 
 
I30 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 cessitate the dismissal and even dispersion of their 
 body. The next morning, a commissariat officer 
 arrived at Longchamps, at the head of a detach- 
 ment of military nurses. He showed me a letter 
 he had received from the sub-overseer of military 
 
 hospitals. It ran thus : 
 
 Paris, April i8, 1871. 
 
 " To Citizen Gagedois, 
 
 " Commanding the detachment of military nurses at the 
 Military School : 
 
 " I am deputed to beg you to take the neces- 
 sary steps for the transport of 105 military nurses, 
 whom you will please take, at eight o'clock to- 
 morrow morning, to the director of the press am- 
 bulances at Longchamp barracks. You are re- 
 quested to place yourselves at the director's dis- 
 posal. This corps of men is destined to take the 
 place of the Christian Brothers, whom we have 
 ordered to leave that post. 
 
 " Health and brotherhood. 
 
 '' Demissols, 
 " Sub-overseer of Military Hospitals.'" 
 
 The Brothers' sudden departure, and the sub- 
 stitution of the military element, gave rise to a 
 manifestation of public opinion that was not de- 
 void of interest even to those well versed in the 
 phenomena of popularity. The federal wounded 
 were not the least affected among our men, nor 
 the last to complain loudly of the bad treatment 
 of men whose zeal and disinterested kindness 
 they had quickly learned to reverence. The com- 
 mandant of a Montmartre battalion swore that 
 he would complain to the Commune, and that his 
 men, when they should learn the facts of the case, 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I31 
 
 would bear him out in protesting- against such a 
 cowardly abuse of authority. Most of the fede- 
 rals, when first brought to the ambulance, had 
 evinced a marked repugnance to, not to say a fierce 
 hatred against, the Brothers. " What is the use," 
 said they, " of getting our limbs broken for the 
 sake of the red flag, if we are to fall into the 
 hands of clericals for our pains ?" 
 
 They spoke very differently now. 
 
 " Go and get killed, citizens, do !" they would 
 say spitefully, " that the soldier rabble may get 
 the upper hand after all." 
 
 These feelings continued, and the remem- 
 brance of the expelled Brothers kept up, by com- 
 parison, a kind of undercurrent of hostility 
 against the military employees ; I had reason, 
 however, to congratulate myself on the summary 
 course I had adopted. 
 
IL 
 
 It was chiefly in their capacity as teachers of 
 youth that the Christian Brothers were obnox- 
 ious to the Commune. The only ward where they 
 were scarcely persecuted at all was the Six- 
 teenth. The Communist delegate for this ward 
 was Citizen Napias-Piquet, a friend and pupil 
 of Prudhon, and formerly an attorney. He had 
 been a convict for a few years, for what crime I 
 do not know, and was one of those men whom I 
 shall call Utopian economists. He thought little 
 of the young and inexperienced leaders of the 
 Commune or the City Hall deliberations, which 
 he would fain have seen directed toward the 
 problems of social economy. Capital, property, 
 and the organization of labor were his hobbies. 
 
 " But don't you see," I used to say to him, 
 " that your friends don't care a straw about all 
 that ; that they settle all these questions sum- 
 marily and uniformly, by seizing for the sake of 
 destruction, and destroying for the sake of sei- 
 zure ; that they are busy with quite different ques- 
 tions ; that they care no more for communal or 
 local matters than they do for the Koran, and, 
 finally, that what they want is chaos everywhere 
 in order that they themselves may have the op- 
 portunity of climbing to the top of the tree ?" 
 
EPISODES OF THE TARIS COMMUNE. 1 33 
 
 Napias allowed that most of these men were 
 somewhat young, rather enthusiastic, and fond of 
 destruction, but he swore that at bottom they 
 were the best-hearted people possible. He was 
 in hopes that the world would soon see that, once 
 the ground was cleared, these chaotic intelli- 
 gences would prove themselves to be endowed 
 with considerable powers of organization. Napias 
 was an enthusiast, not to say a monomaniac, on 
 this subject. 
 
 The Citizen Napias-Piquet became a candidate 
 for the Commune at the supplementary elections, 
 and was beaten by Citizen Songuet, who polled 
 200 votes. Napias got 75, I believe. It was no 
 doubt to console him for his defeat that he was 
 allowed to retain his former post in the ward, 
 with the title of Delegate Extraordinary of the 
 Committee of Public Safety. He was particu- 
 larly detailed to superintend confiscations, sei- 
 zures of goods, expulsions, and other operations 
 of this kind. Though he still looked upon me 
 as a hopeless reactionist, I began to gain a hold 
 on this mistaken but far from bad man, through 
 my willingness to engage in discussions concern- 
 ing the organization of labor. The questions of 
 the day I wisely eschewed. I used my influence 
 in every critical case that presented itself, and 
 God knows they were neither few nor far be- 
 tween. I used it chiefly, perhaps, in favor of the 
 Christian Brothers of this ward. Time after 
 time. Citizen Napias showed me peremptory or- 
 ders from the agents of the Commune, who 
 thought him uncommonly slow in his operations 
 against the Brothers' house at Passy. He so 
 
134 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 skillfully let things lay, that the final catastrophe 
 overtook him before he allowed any one to mo- 
 lest the Passy communit3^ His personal feel- 
 ings were opposed to the violence of his party. 
 He had known Father Brumaud and the Trap- 
 pists of Masagran in Algeria, and always spoke 
 of them with respect and affection. He consid- 
 ered the persecutions of the Commune reprehen- 
 sible to the last degree and worthy of the dark 
 ages, and often affirmed that he preferred to un- 
 dergo the worst punishments the Commune 
 might have in store for him, rather than lend 
 himself to its useless as well as wicked passions. 
 He considered it his duty, on the contrary, as an 
 honest man and a patriotic citizen, to do all in 
 his power to counteract the frenzied enthusiasm 
 which would lead astray the legitimate socialist 
 movement of the i8th of March. 
 
 In return, I think it my duty to recall, in 
 favor of this misguided man, every word or inci- 
 dent that may tend to allay, at least as far as he 
 is concerned, the disgust excited by the memory 
 of those who have served in the ranks of the 
 Commune. 
 
 One day. Citizen Napias secretly accompanied 
 me to the Brothers' house. Rue Oudinot. We 
 spoke with Brothers Calixtus, Bandime, and Exu- 
 périen. As we left, Napias glanced back at the 
 large building, and, seizing my arm, said, " Do 
 you know what society ought to do ? It ought 
 to copy those men. That's the true Commune. 
 Instead of persecuting them, we ought to study 
 them ; instead of evicting them, build on their 
 plans ; that's the Commune of the future ! All 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 35 
 
 other questions are a pure loss of time, including 
 the religious question, which is nothing more 
 than a peculiar phase of the psychological evo- 
 lution of the species." 
 
 I was dumbfounded, but more than ever con- 
 vinced that the man had good in him despite 
 his subversive theories. 
 
 The usual agents of the Commune were un- 
 luckily not quite so well disposed, and the Bro- 
 thers, except at Passy, were left no rest day or 
 night. Witness the campaign of Citizen le Moussu 
 against the Brothers of the Rue de Fleurus. 
 On Sunday, the 7th of May, I received a visit 
 from Brother Exupérien. He was in plain clothes, 
 and sustained his part of an attorney to the very 
 life. He told me that Le Moussu had seized the 
 furniture of the Brothers' school, Rue de Fleurus, 
 and, what was worse, had placed sentries to 
 watch the Brothers whom he had found there in 
 the discharge of their duties. He had vouch- 
 safed no explanation, but the very facts of the 
 case spoke for themselves. Either the number 
 of the hostages was about to be increased, or the 
 advance-guard of the army was to be replenished 
 from the body of Christian Brothers. Brother 
 Exupérien did me the honor to believe in my 
 good faith, and had come to appeal to me for help. 
 
 It was a ticklish case, and the ground might 
 give way beneath my feet at any moment, for I 
 was in bad odor with the central authorities, to 
 whom I was officiously denounced, lately, on some 
 pretext or another. Besides this, the officials of 
 the Sixth Ward, such as Urbain, Le Moussu, etc., 
 were particularly tough customers to deal with. 
 
136 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 Urged, However, by an irresistible desire to serve 
 a cause so dear to my heart, I deliberated on the 
 best means to reach my end and relieve the poor 
 Brothers, and early the next morning, putting 
 my trust in Providence, I invaded Le Moussu' s 
 sanctum, and abruptly asked to see the citizen on 
 business. My manner, and still more m}' dress 
 (conspicuously official), had the usual success, and 
 I was ushered in without delay. 
 
 As I dared not compromise my only cnance 
 of success by a hasty plunge in media res, it will 
 be understood that the conversation flagged now 
 and then. The citizen's face was not reassuring. 
 After a time, he asked me what I really wanted, 
 for he was in a hurry and had an appointment. 
 
 " Well, citizen," I answered, " I shall be glad 
 if the proposal I am about to make were submit- 
 ted to the consideration of the Council." 
 
 " Well, what is it ? We will see about it." 
 
 " If I have troubled you personally about it, 
 it is onl}' because it happens to be beyond the 
 authority of Citizen Napias-Piquet, the Delegate 
 of the Committee of Public Safety in the ward 
 where I live. I believe your authority is as 
 great as his ?" 
 
 This question had the desired effect, and I 
 was soon listening to a man who was fully alive 
 to the importance of his protection, and who 
 gladly paraded his omnipotence. It was easy 
 enough now to make my proposal. I did it 
 boldly, making believe to chime in with my 
 friend's opinions. I spoke in warm terms of the 
 terrible scenes of carnage on our ramparts, and 
 complained bitterly of our insufficient staff of 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I37 
 
 employees, and, above all, of the cowardly reluc- 
 tance of the citizens to devote themselves to the 
 service of the ambulances. At last I hazarded 
 my plan. 
 
 '' The Brothers who helped us during the 
 siege have been since incapacitated from hospital 
 service. Other hard tasks, for which they are 
 perfectly well fitted, have also been put beyond 
 their reach. Of course it is most just that, under 
 the present system, they should be forbidden to 
 teach, but why, instead of keeping them idle or 
 enrolling them in the National Guard, not com- 
 pel them to take up once more, for the sake of 
 our wounded, a task both hard and dangerous 
 and disliked b}^ the laity, who naturally prefer to 
 die sword in hand ? No matter if the Brothers 
 shrink from this, let them be compelled to do so. 
 It is useless to say that I know nothing of them 
 as Brothers, but simply as citizens in soldier's 
 dress. For my part, I claim them as litter-bear- 
 ers whenever I can lay hands on them. The 
 Passy men have mysteriously disappeared, but 
 Citizen Napias, whose advice I asked, told me 
 that you have a certain number of them at your 
 disposal in the Rue de Fleurus, and in the name 
 of our humanitarian service, I came to claim 
 them." 
 
 Le Moussu looked embarrassed, and stammer- 
 ed, 
 
 " I could have done yesterday what is no 
 longer in my power to-day. Those villains 
 escaped last night. I hardly see how they 
 managed it ; they must have had determined 
 accomplices somewhere. But your notion seems 
 
138 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 a good, practical one, and I will do my best to 
 further its execution. The strictest orders have 
 been issued for their apprehension, and all or 
 the greater number will no doubt be recaptured. 
 I give you my word they shall be sent to you, on 
 one condition only. They are to do reall}'- hard 
 work, you understand ? You shall have all those 
 that fall into my hands." 
 
 I was going to leave, but Citizen le Moussu 
 begged me to follow him to the Council-room. 
 The event of last night, the flight of the Bro- 
 thers, was being hotly discussed, and, through all 
 the coarse jokes which it provoked, an under- 
 tone of impatient disappointment, which highly 
 amused me, was very noticeable. Le Moussu 
 renewed my proposal, which was generally ap- 
 proved. Only one dissentient voice was raised ; 
 it was that of Citizen Urbain, who sneered bitter- 
 ly at Le Moussu's ready belief in the clericals' 
 promptitude to devote themselves to the public 
 good on the order of the State. This objection 
 evidently told ; it even staggered the confident 
 Le Moussu. I hastened to remark that Citizen 
 Urbain was quite right, but that I knew an in- 
 fallible means of securing the Brothers' obe- 
 dience. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " The orders of their own superiors." 
 " Ah! indeed! you are joking ! Where are 
 you to find them ; how are you to induce them to 
 co-operate with you ?" 
 
 " It may be difficult, but I can manage it." 
 *' By chloroform ?" laughed an army-surgeon. 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARTS COMMUNE. 13g 
 
 " I think ethereal arguments will suffice, citi- 
 zen doctor," I answered. 
 
 " Seriously," said another, " let us consider. 
 Citizen le Moussu has not got to the end of his 
 confiscation-list ; the Brothers must have some 
 movable or immovable property left somewhere 
 in the city, and if so, it will sooner or later 
 be knov/n to him. A negotiation skillfully 
 directed with a view to ulterior operations of 
 this kind, will make the superiors cautious 
 enough." 
 
 This possible combination of affairs seemed 
 very laughable, and provoked much coarse merri- 
 ment in the assembly. According to my invari- 
 able custom, when dealing with these citizens 
 and their promises, I took care to note down in 
 writing the concessions I had obtained. Mean- 
 while, Le Moussu had the following list drawn up 
 for me. 
 
 " Paris, May 8, 1871. 
 
 " List of Christian Brothers escaped from the 
 Rue de Fleurus, and whom, wherever found, the 
 Citizen Cotte (Director of the Press Ambulances) 
 is authorized to claim for hospital service, and 
 whom the municipality of the Sixth Ward is or- 
 dered to deliver over to said citizen, be the runa- 
 ways arrested singly or all together. 
 
 "(Signed) Citizen Le Moussu. 
 
 " Sabatier, born October loth, 1845. 
 
 " Williams (John), born December 15th, 1848. 
 
 " Bondarel (John Baptist), born March 25th, 
 1848. 
 
 '* Torcheux (Joseph), born November 5th, 
 1845. 
 
140 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 " Bachelet (Aimé), born October 28th, 1831. 
 
 " Chabrier (John), born April 25th, 185 1. 
 
 ''Rouel (Michael), born July 17th, 1836. 
 
 " Estival (Bernard), born June 20th, 1839. 
 
 " Saby (Vitalis), born June 30th, 1841. 
 
 " Thomas (John Peter), born November i6th, 
 
 1843. 
 
 "Chaignet (John), born April i6th, 1825. 
 
 " Bouthol (John Francis) born February i6th, 
 1834. 
 
 '• Thomas (John Peter), born April i6th, 1825. 
 
 "Choi (John), born May 24th, 185 1. 
 
 " Foussat (Marianus), born July 30th, 1852." 
 
 I took this list to our good Brother Bandime, 
 and begged him to let me have every Brother he 
 could spare me. I then communicated his an- 
 swer to Citizen le Moussu, and thus satisfactorily 
 provided a refuge open to the persecuted mem- 
 bers of the Brotherhood, who would henceforth 
 always find a home at the Longchamps Ambu- 
 lance. It was a great boon to seven or eight of 
 them, to my certain knowledge. 
 
III. 
 
 The Longchamps Ambulance quietly continued 
 its work amid dangers and vexations of all kinds, 
 and the medical staff waited patiently, in daily 
 hopes of a speedy end to its labors. At first, the ri- 
 diculous was often mingled with the tragic, as each 
 day and almost each hour caused some new and 
 unexpected change of the basis of operations. Now 
 Claude was uppermost with his centralizing 
 policy, now Courtillier with his eternal subdivi- 
 sions ; in the twinkling of an eye, Roussel was 
 before you, then a flank movement brought Ras- 
 toul upon you. But after a little while, things be- 
 gan to change ; the day had gone by when sud- 
 den movements and forced marches were of any 
 avail. The Versailles guns had spoken, and 
 gloom and horror reigned everywhere. Corpses 
 literally heaped the floor of our chapel, now 
 transformed into a dead-house. The Official 
 still stuck to its invariable bulletin, " Two dead 
 and three wounded." One daj^ however, Ostyn, 
 the editor, came in his red scarf to inspect our 
 wards, and I incline to the belief that he did not 
 know the extent of the untruths he spoke when 
 he boasted before the wounded prisoners of the 
 progress of the federal arms, the nvimberless vic- 
 tims on the Versailles side, and the comparative- 
 
Î42 EPISODES OE THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 ly insignificant loss in the Communist ranks. 
 The fearful noise of the guns and the rattling of 
 the shot and shell were a pleasant comment on 
 his encouraging words. Dr. Demarquay gave me 
 a look ; I caught his meaning, and took Ostyn to 
 the dead-house, thus bringing him abruptly face to 
 face with one hundred and seventeen corpses laid in 
 two rows, their limbs shattered by the mitraille. 
 At the other end of the ward, on the steps of the 
 denuded altar, the coffins were being prepared. 
 
 " Here you have the ' two or three ' victims 
 of the Official,'' said Dr. Demarquay. " And from 
 this sight," I added, "you may be able to imagine 
 the impression made by such bulletins on those 
 who come here daily to seek their friends." 
 
 The editor paled visibly, and left the hospital, 
 his feet dragging in the blood that stained the 
 floors. The next day, the Official forgot to men- 
 tion the statistics of the fight. 
 
 The flagging energy of the defense, the deser- 
 tion and insubordination of whole battalions, soon 
 resulted in the triumph of the more violent party 
 at the City Hall. " Refractories" were hunted 
 down, and forced to fill up the ranks of the fede- 
 rals. The milder measures of Cluseret, Roussel, 
 and other Communist theorists were superseded 
 by the summary proceedings of the Central 
 Committee, and of Citizen Delescluze. The 
 change struck terror into all, and with terror 
 came meanness. Secret denunciations daily in- 
 creased the number of the victims, or at least the 
 hostages. Even the citizens in high authority 
 thought of nothing but of pointing the sword at 
 
ÉPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I43 
 
 the heart of some colleague, that they might at 
 least save their own skin. 
 
 Though I did m}' best to keep strictly within 
 the limits of my own official position, I was not 
 destined to escape this detestable plague of secret 
 denunciations. Threatening notices rained on me 
 day by day, and every hour brought with it 
 some new danger to be guarded against, some in- 
 trigue to be unraveled ; now and then my spirit 
 flagged under this load of petty annoyances. 
 Dr. Demarquay shared my troubles, and toge- 
 ther we strove to cheer each other and bear our 
 burden manfully. He, too, daily received warn- 
 ings such as this : " You are no longer safe ; the 
 end is near and will be fatal ; you will be arrested 
 and shot." 
 
 For my part, I used to get letters like the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 " War Department, May 14. 
 
 " Citizen Director : How the deuce does it 
 happen that I heai complaints made every day 
 about the Christian Brothers, who are nursing 
 the sick in your ambulance ? The last complaint 
 comes from the mayoralty of the Seventh Ward, 
 and was addressed to the Inspector of the Cen- 
 tral Committee. If you have any Brothers, pray 
 get rid of them quietly, or else you may see them 
 expelled under your nose by a squad of National 
 Guards, armed with special orders from the Com- 
 mune. This would be equally disagreeable for 
 you and for myself. 
 
 " Health and brotherhood. 
 
 " (Signed) Dr. Semerie." 
 
144 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 Citizen Sémerie was at that time Director- 
 General of the hospital service. In private, he 
 would speak confidently of the near downfall of 
 the Commune, but in public, and when jealously 
 watched by the Central Committee, he took most 
 summary measures, and loudly threatened every 
 one that approached him. 
 
 " In these times," he said to me, "one must 
 howl with the wolves. There is no alternative 
 save a ready shot, of which there are plenty to 
 be had for the asking. Your life, and mine, and 
 that of an}' one, is of no more value to these mad- 
 men than a penny pipe to be shot at for practice. 
 You are evidently obnoxious to some one ; and if 
 it is still time, I advise you to ' cut your stick.' " 
 
 Such advice was certainly not calculated to 
 cheer me, and besides I could not help thinking 
 of the following sa3^ing, which I had heard not 
 long ago : 
 
 " If I happened to be accused of having 
 pocketed the towers of Notre Dame, I should 
 take care to put a hundred miles between myself 
 and my accusers." 
 
 I could not gainsa}- that, according to the 
 gentlemen of the Commune, I was not irreproach- 
 able. The novitiate house of the Brothers in the 
 Rue Oudinot had been turned into a hospital. A 
 notice to that effect was posted up outside, and 
 the flag of the Geneva Cross floated over the 
 building. Those Brothers whom sickness or old 
 age had prevented from making their escape had 
 fled here for refuge, and in the mean while helped 
 us to nurse the wounded. We had transferred a 
 hundred of the latter from Longchamps, where 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I45 
 
 the shells constantly reached us, to this branch 
 hospital; but although in secular costume, our 
 helpers the Brothers had been recognized and 
 denounced by former patients, so that, in view of 
 my promise not to employ any more religious in 
 our ambulance service, Dr. Demarquay and I 
 were liable to serious accusation. It was held a 
 crime deserving of capital punishment to have 
 " treacherously given over the federal wounded 
 into the hands of proscribed and disguised cleri- 
 cals." This was the basis of the accusations made 
 against me at all times. Citizen Sémerie, who had 
 only recently been promoted to a position of au- 
 thority, was unaware of the existence of the 
 branch hospital of the Rue Oudinot, and did not 
 know what to make of these persistent denuncia- 
 tions, since I swore positively that we harbored 
 no Brothers at Longchamps. My evasive an- 
 swers were about to be unpleasantly sifted, and I 
 was in a brown study about the best course to 
 pursue, when I received the following letter : 
 
 " War Department, Paris, May 19, 1871. 
 
 " Citizen Director: If this is a joke, I must 
 say it is a detestable one. At least every two 
 days I hear complaints against the press ambu- 
 lances, on account of the religious who are em- 
 ployed there, and who clash with the National 
 Guards. These communications evince an annoy- 
 ing persistence. For God's sake, and especially 
 for the safety of your ambulance, get rid of any 
 religious you may have, under whatever disguise 
 they may be ! It is impossible, under existing 
 circumstances, to keep and protect such people, 
 
146 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 and I warn you again, that it will end by you all 
 being either evicted or arrested by a battalion of 
 National Guards. If there is any mistake, send a 
 letter to the newspapers and justify yourself, for 
 I assure you these complaints are incessant, and 
 come from all quarters of the city. 
 
 "Dr. SÉMERIE. 
 
 " P. S This is ' private and confidential,' but I 
 shall nevertheless be obliged, for form's sake, to 
 send an inspector to investigate the case." 
 
 The storm was about to break ; there was not 
 a moment to be lost. A quarter of an hour after 
 I received his letter, I was closeted with Dr. Sé- 
 merie, and frankly explained the situation to him. 
 No finessing was, in this case, so useful as a 
 straightforward confession of facts, and indeed I 
 had no wish but to get out of the difficulty. This 
 explained the secret denunciations and also the 
 interference of the Seventh Ward authorities. 
 My sincerity was now proved. 
 
 " If the Brothers are surprised in their hiding- 
 place," said Sémerie, " they are doomed men. 
 They are supposed to have fled. If they are 
 caught, the brunt of the blow will fall on them ; 
 they will be taken as hostages." 
 
 I represented to him that the few who were in 
 the Rue Oudinot were either bedridden or occu- 
 pied in nursing the bedridden. 
 
 "Yes," he said, " their condition 07C£-/ii to ap- 
 peal to the humanity of our rulers, but this is no 
 time for theories. These gentry (the Communists) 
 know and feel that their game is up. They have 
 staked their lives, and will stop at nothing. Do 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I47 
 
 you suppose you can appeal to their compassion, 
 when they would not even hesitate to destroy the 
 whole city ? Nothing and no one are safe. Be- 
 lieve me, and do not let us trifle with the situa- 
 tion, I am ready to help you, but I don't care 
 about risking my life. What I can do, I will ; es- 
 pecially by delaying the Inspector's visit. I will 
 find some pretext for that, never fear. Let allXho. 
 religious leave, even the bedridden. It is far bet- 
 ter for their own people to take them away any- 
 where, than for the federals to carry them off to 
 the " infirmary" of Mazas or La Roquette ! If 
 you care for them, be firm, and save them spite 
 of themselves." 
 
 I knew the men who had now played their 
 last stake too well not to agree with Dr. Séme- 
 rie. At first, I thought of sending the wounded 
 of Rue Oudinot back to Longchamps, so that the 
 Brothers might not have the additional sorrow of 
 leaving their duties. But a little thought soon 
 persuaded me that this would be an unwise pro- 
 ceeding, as the empty house would immediately 
 be confiscated and remain at the mercy of the 
 Commune. Then I decided, instead, to send part 
 of our military nurses and medical staff from 
 Longchamps to Rue Oudinot, for the Brothers be- 
 ing then gone, all ground for complaints would 
 be taken away, and no mvestigation could harm 
 us any longer. Dr. Sémerie approved of this 
 plan, drew up a ** claim" on the house abandoned 
 by the Brothers, No. 27 Rue Oudinot, and pro- 
 mised to present it himself to the Central Com- 
 mittee. He then sent it on to me thus coimter- 
 signed ; 
 
148 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 " Claim found valid and approved. 
 
 " (Signed) Bergeret." 
 
 Armed with this warrant, I went to Rue Ou- 
 dinot, and explained all to the Brothers, They 
 saw the urgent necessity of a speedy removal, 
 but it was indeed heart-rending to witness these 
 venerable old men's grief at leaving home, and 
 their hurried preparations. It was sad to think 
 of the necessity that drove them forth in disguise, 
 homeless and penniless, into an unsympathizing 
 world. Brother Calixtus, whose great age made 
 this trial peculiarly hard to him, touchingly de- 
 plored his fate and that of his infirm companions, 
 but Brother Bandime, a younger and stronger 
 man, and more of a Parisian, tried to hide his 
 emotion, and to think seriously of the practical 
 measures to be taken under the circumstances. 
 
 I could do nothing to soften the blow or make 
 their exit less painful to them, but while remind- 
 ing them of the probable shortness and sharpness 
 of the coming decisive struggle, I promised faith- 
 fully to do my utmost to protect the house which 
 we intended to occupy as a means of saving it. 
 
 It now remained for me to provide for the 
 transfer of six hundred wounded and the rest of 
 the hospital belongings. I went to the sub-over- 
 seer, Démissols, and told him of our exposed po- 
 sition at Longchamps, and the absolute necessity 
 of removing our wounded to a place of greater 
 safety. 
 
 "I understand your perplexity," he answered, 
 " and will manage to get you out of it. Deles- 
 çluze shall sign this paper, giving you leave to 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I49 
 
 choose one of the several places herein mention- 
 ed, and to order as many carriages as may be ne- 
 cessary for the transfer of the hospital." 
 
 I showed him the paper signed by Bergeret, 
 but he answered sharply, 
 
 "Come, citizen, I know all aboutit. The Exe- 
 cutive Committee discussed the matter in my pres- 
 ence. You imposed upon Sémerie's credulity, 
 and he imposed on Bergeret. Both were una- 
 ware of the house being the head-quarters of the 
 Brothers. You are forbidden to occupy that 
 building. The Central Committee has its own 
 designs upon it, and, besides, it is going to be 
 searched from cellar to garret." 
 
 Again were my plans defeated ! I tried to in- 
 sist, but Démissols got angry. 
 
 " Enough, citizen," said he, " we can not afford 
 to joke any more. You have been too busy in fa- 
 vor of those Brothers ; you have just committed 
 a fresh indiscretion on their behalf, and 1 shall not 
 abet you in it. Go where you like, to the Arch- 
 bishop's house, to the northern, western, or Orleans 
 terminus, but to Rue Oudinot you shall not go. 
 Here is your permit, signed by Delescluze. Leave 
 Longchamps and keep quiet. Some people are 
 watching you with the eyes of a cat ; I only hope 
 they may not claw you like the same amiable ani- 
 mal. For my part," added Démissols in a whis- 
 per, " I begin to feel hot here, and shall make my- 
 self scarce. It is high time. They are going to 
 set fire to the city, which is a game I do not re- 
 lish. You hold my last official autograph in your 
 hand." 
 
 I told all my experiences ot this day to Dr. 
 
I50 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 Demarquay, who agreed with me that our de- 
 parture from Longchamps must be speedily 
 arranged. The plateau was no longer safe, being 
 constantly under fire. Two men had been 
 wounded lately in the tents, and fragments of 
 shell dropped through the torn roofs and fell be- 
 tween the patients' beds. A partial and leisurely 
 transfer was no longer possible ; it must be hur- 
 ried and immediate, and not a soul must be left 
 behind. Our arrangements were all made the 
 same night. The next day, the 20th of May, at 
 eight o'clock in the morning, a hundred carriages 
 filled the neighboring streets, trying in vain to 
 reach the hospital, with which during the night 
 all communication had been cut off Citizens 
 Gaillard and Dereure were superintending the 
 barricades to be erected to check the inevitable 
 oncoming of the regular troops. These patriots, 
 with their characteristic contempt for all human 
 life not their own, had not chosen that the 
 Longchamps hospital, already riddled with shot, 
 should prove the slightest obstacle to their pro- 
 ceedings. I was furious, but after three hours 
 spent in vain endeavors, I at length procured, 
 through Citizens Napias and Songuet, an order 
 authorizing us to demolish one barricade. We 
 were thus enabled to leave Longchamps. Dr. 
 Demarquay and I had agreed to ignore the pro- 
 hibitions of the Committee, and to go straight to 
 our chosen destination, Rue Oudinot. We accord- 
 ingly took possession of the house. 
 
 Our first precaution was to take the best mea- 
 sures we could to prevent any damage being 
 done to the establishment. This was not easy 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 151 
 
 with such a mixed crew as ours. We had to 
 check the rapacity of 120 military nurses and 200 
 convalescent federals, who seemed to consider 
 the house their legitimate booty. Dr. Demar- 
 quay took possession of the community-room, 
 while the Brothers' cells were assigned to the 
 medical staff and non-commissioned officers. A 
 few rooms mentioned to me by Brother Bandime 
 were locked up altogether. The library was 
 secured from harm by being given up to those 
 who had the charge of the hospital clothing. 
 The administrative officers established them- 
 selves in the ground-floor rooms, while I chose 
 for myself the drawing-school, which was full 
 of small things of some value. A few thefts 
 there certainly were, but nothing very costly 
 was stolen, and two severe punishments, with a 
 threat of a more summary nature still, were 
 enough to hold our people in check. 
 
 A vague rumor reached us on Sunday, the 
 2ist, that the army was not far off now. We 
 were all together in the dining-room. The meals 
 were here, as at Longchamps, the only breath- 
 ing-time of the medical staff, whose devotion to 
 their duties was incessant. The whole day was 
 one long strain on the nerve and the moral 
 endurance of our physicians and surgeons ; we 
 spent all our time in bringing in the wounded 
 from under the very muzzles of the guns, or in 
 performing operations, which became at last so 
 numerous that our head men never got a mo- 
 ment's rest from morning till night. Now, how- 
 ever, we began to see some chance of release, 
 and our conversation grew more animated than 
 
152 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 before. We had just sat down to table, when a 
 group of scared faces appeared at the door. 
 
 " The house is surrounded !" cried a sergeant. 
 " They are outside, and crying out for the Direc- 
 tor." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 *' The federals." 
 
 And indeed there was part of a battalion, the 
 One Hundred and Twenty-second, filling the 
 yard. Amid general consternation, we rose 
 quickly, and I went toward the yard, from which 
 a long passage separated us. 
 
 " We are in for it this time !" whispered one 
 of the administrative officers, who had gathered 
 a few of our men together. The confusion and 
 noise in the main yard were indescribable. Rifles 
 were stacked in shining array by the great door. 
 My appearance was greeted by a dead silence ; 
 our freedom, and most likely our lives, hung by 
 a thread. 
 
 " I wish to see the officer in command," I said 
 to the foremost men, in a loud, firm voice. 
 
 " The commandant !" cried several. 
 
 There was a stir among the men, and an offi- 
 cer stepped forward. 
 
 " Citizen," he asked, "are you the Director?" 
 
 "Allow me," I interrupted. " Before you ex- 
 amine me, let me know who you are yourself? 
 who sent you ? what do you want here ?" 
 
 " I am the commandant of this detachment, 
 and have been sent here to garrison the house. I 
 care for nothing but my orders. If you are the 
 Citizen Director, you will have to cry quarter." 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 153 
 
 " Have you any written order? Show it to 
 me." 
 
 The officer drew out his pocketbook, and un- 
 folded a large sheet stamped with the official 
 stamp of the Central Committee. The order 
 was evidently genuine. 
 
 " The Central Committee !" I cried, as I fell 
 back a step or two. " This is none of their busi- 
 ness ; you may go back and tell them that I snap 
 my fingers in their faces." 
 
 Blank astonishment. Silence, I must support 
 the advantage my boldness has given me, so I 
 take a dive into the newspaper litigo, and go 
 ahead. 
 
 " Ha ! so you think you are going to get the 
 upper hand so easily, do you ? You think that 
 we have been working hard and risking our lives 
 every day for two months only to dance to the 
 tune of people who lord it at the Govermnent 
 Tavern ! and that, too, while you are being cut 
 down by thousands and we have not men enough 
 to go and pick you up ! See here, that is Dr. 
 Demarquay, an eminent surgeon, and thirty or 
 forty other physicians and surgeons, the best in 
 Paris, getting no rest night or day, nursing the 
 wounded citizens ! They have six hundred men 
 to look after ; what does the Central Commit- 
 tee care for that? Six hundred cripples, eh? what 
 does it matter ; let the dogs live or die ; they are 
 useless anyhow ! And then they tell you, who 
 come so readily to take their places, ' See, there is 
 a house that will suit you ; go and take it, make 
 a barrack of it.' And I say to you, by all that 
 is sacred, you shall not ! It is the refuge of your 
 
154 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 wounded comrades, the home of the friendless, 
 and you may come to it yourselves for aught 
 you know, and thefi you shall be taken care of 
 like the rest. You understand ? Then leave this 
 place at once. I swear to you I will not give in, 
 and the first who comes a step nearer is a dead 
 man !" 
 
 A murmur of acquiescence ran through the 
 troops. 
 
 " The citizen has the gift of the gab — he 
 isn't wrong either. What are we doing here, 
 after all, and what business is it of ours ? This 
 is a hospital, not a barrack." 
 
 The officer spoke for all ; and addressing me, 
 " Citizen," he said, " don't get angry over it. I 
 have executed my orders. You don't want us 
 here. Very well, we are quite content to go ; 
 that's about as much as we care about it all ! If 
 they are anxious to turn you out, they can send 
 more men. Now then, friends, right about face !" 
 
 The retreat was delayed by the free distribu- 
 tion of a few gallons of wine among the patriots. 
 We improved the opportunity by dropping a 
 careless hint, here and there, of the vicinity of 
 the regular troops, who had already seized on 
 the Trocadéro. This information frightened even 
 the thirstiest of our guests, and they made haste 
 to rejoin the bulk of their comrades posted out- 
 side, to whom they communicated a regular panic. 
 The large battalion that had approached us in 
 such fine order retreated in scattered knots, each 
 man looking cautiously over his shoulder, and 
 skirting the wall with great pertinacity. 
 
 When the warriors had left us, and we were 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 55 
 
 carefully closing the doors, we came upon sundry 
 rifles and sabres, dropped in the hurry of the 
 flight. A tin box containing the stamp of the 
 One Hundred and Twenty-second Battalion was 
 also picked up ; this I subsequently gave to 
 Brother Philip, who put it among the records of 
 the house, where it is kept as a souvenir of the 
 dangers that once threatened the devoted building. 
 
 The struggle within the city lasted for a whole 
 week. The shells flew in all directions over our 
 heads, and, what was worse, the insurgents sta- 
 tioned in the attics of neighboring houses often 
 made a mark of us. A shell once burst on our 
 roof, and one evening a rattling fire of smaller 
 projectiles, from the direction of the belfry of the 
 Sacred Heart Church, smashed all the windows 
 of the hall where we sat at supper. This was no- 
 thing to what we had to undergo in the moral or- 
 der. 
 
 The neighborhood was averse to us, and if we 
 showed ourselves outside the doors, we were sa- 
 luted with sour looks and biting jests. " Brutes ! 
 they have turned the poor Brothers out, and 
 sacked their house. They'll have a day of reck- 
 oning yet !" 
 
 This antagonism grew worse and worse, when 
 -the troops at last gained the mastery and garri- 
 soned the neighborhood, and it ended in our be- 
 ing denounced to the military authorities as in- 
 veterate Communists ! Dr. Demarquay especial- 
 ly was pointed out as a dangerous man, and it 
 was believed at one time that his arrest had been 
 decided upon. Thus, after having steered our 
 bark through manifold dangers, it was decreed 
 
156 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 that we should gather a meed of personal mis- 
 trust and misapprehension, and be coldly looked 
 upon by every party. 
 
 Our character was a little redeemed when the 
 Brothers came back, and we gladly gave up the 
 house to its legitimate owners. But I believe 
 that even then the people secretly taxed the good 
 religious with a too merciful behavior toward 
 us, so deep was the popular resentment against 
 the stupid instigators of bootless persecutions, 
 and so true their dormant love for these " best 
 friends of the poor," whose enemies vv^e had, for 
 a time, been obliged to appear. 
 
 N. COTTE, 
 Late Director of the Press Ambulaiices 
 of Lo7igchamps^ 
 
THE GERMAN CHURCH OF ST. JOSEPH. 
 
 I. 
 
 Paris, according' to its Avonted characteristic 
 vitality, was already shaking off the evil effects 
 of a foreign v/ar ; bidding adieu to its enforced 
 seven months' holiday, and putting on the garb 
 of cheerful every-day labor ; sending its children 
 to school, and making them forget, in the renewed 
 ardor of study, the unhealthy excitement of mili- 
 tary life, when all of a sudden the unchecked 
 passions of a few desperate men shattered this 
 budding prosperity even as the whirlwind sud- 
 denly drives a host of lowering clouds across a 
 bright summer sky. 
 
 The heroic city whose dogged resistance to the 
 invader had drawn upon it the attention and ad- 
 miration of all Europe, now became the helpless 
 prey of every horror and disaster engendered 
 by an insurrection the like of which history had 
 never yet witnessed. 
 
 This parricidal war, breaking out as it did at 
 the very moment when the vital forces of the na- 
 tion and of every individual should have been 
 
158 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 steadily directed toward the healing of the 
 wounds made by the siege in the body politic, 
 was, for this very reason, more reprehensible and 
 despicable in its nature than it would have been 
 at any other time. Miracles of patriotism and of 
 self-devotion were needed to blot out the sad re- 
 membrance of the greatest reverse ever experi- 
 enced in the glorious annals of France, but it was 
 far otherwise, and a 3^et worse disgrace was at 
 hand. The war began under the windows of the 
 German Church of St. Joseph. 
 
 The school was at first rendered inaccessible by 
 two barricades, which completely inclosed it. It 
 was necessarily shut for a few days, but the chil- 
 dren of the neighborhood soon grew familiar with 
 the forbidding aspect of the federals, ventured to 
 climb the barricades, and at last knocked some- 
 what hesitatingly at our door. They seemed scared 
 at first, and looked about them as if they dread- 
 ed to see some fell apparition in the very school- 
 room ; but gradually they were emboldened, and 
 even greeted us with a knowing air, which would 
 have been amusing had we not feared the effects 
 and dangerous example of that passionate, misdi- 
 rected enthusiasm, or rather excitement, which 
 was daily gaining ground in the minds of the peo- 
 ple, and even drew into its vortex persons hither- 
 to justly considered models of respectable and 
 peaceful citizens. 
 
 The school was reopened, spite of some irri- 
 table drawbacks, such as the absence of a few 
 scholars, the departure of others, and a general 
 restlessness among those who remained. Our fears 
 had been but too true : the children, excited by 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 59 
 
 the feverish moral atmosphere around them, grew 
 violent, unruly, and utterly forgetful of those 
 principles of veneration upon which alone a solid 
 education can be built. 
 
 The future seemed darker every day, and a 
 new press now appeared, as if to add to the gen- 
 eral confusion by its foul language and unheard- 
 of license. The worst passions of the people were 
 sedulously aroused and inflamed ; no principle 
 was safe from scurrilous attack, no person from 
 arbitrary arrest and a lodging in Mazas prison. 
 It was high time for Christian men and women to 
 practice the gospel teaching to the letter, to live 
 as if each day were to be their last, and be ready 
 at any moment to leave all things, even liberty 
 and life itself. 
 
 Every outward excess that could characterize 
 the most blasphemous revolutionary outbreak 
 had been perpetrated ; generals had been shot 
 like dogs ; the twelve bishops and hundreds of 
 priests imprisoned and threatened with death ; 
 the churches sacked and defiled ; monks and nuns 
 turned out and declared unfit to teach youth, and 
 still the Brothers of St. Joseph's Church, though 
 living in one of the turbulent quarters of the city, 
 had not yet been molested. Except the anxieties 
 and vexation inseparable from the situation it- 
 self, nothing prevented them from continuing 
 their works of mercy. The first trouble which 
 they experienced at the hands of the government 
 was the following. 
 
 The commissariat department which had been 
 established during the siege in the school-yard, 
 had been reorganized for the benefit of the fede- 
 
l6o EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 rals, and the municipality now proposed to install 
 a certain number of young " citizenesses" as cooks 
 and barmaids. One might guess that the women 
 chosen by the Commune would scarcely be the 
 crème de la crime of the neighborhood ; it was far 
 more likely that they would be recruited from the 
 ranks of the convicts in esse or in posse of the St. 
 Lazarus Prison. 
 
 No matter who they might be, the Brothers' 
 rule peremptorily forbade the presence of women 
 within their establishments. The Brother-Direc- 
 tor represented to the delegates of the Commit- 
 tee that the house belonged neither to the State 
 nor to the city corporation, but was the private 
 property of a few rich families of Alsace and 
 Lorraine, who had appropriated it to the service 
 of their poor countrymen, of whom a large num- 
 ber lived in this quarter of Paris. He himself, as 
 the Director of the house and the representative 
 of the owners, was alone responsible for the use 
 to which the premises were put, adding, how- 
 ever, that the house and grounds having been de- 
 voted, during the siege, to a legitimate and hu- 
 manitarian purpose, he had no objection to extend 
 the permission and allow such a purpose to be 
 still fulfilled — on this condition, however, that men 
 only should be employed in the cooking and dis- 
 tributing departments. It was not seemly, he 
 continued, that the centre of benevolence, charity, 
 and Christian teaching should be turned into a 
 den of prostitution. 
 
 The delegate stared, and left the house some- 
 what disconcerted at this bold and honest decla- 
 ration. 
 
EPISODES QF THE PARIS COMMUNE. l6l 
 
 " I will report your objection and proposai to 
 the competent authorities," said he. 
 
 He did not return, and the Brother gained his 
 point ; the " citizenesses" were expelled, and a 
 non-commissioned officer of the National Guard 
 detailed to the superintendence of the govern- 
 ment stores in our yard. 
 
 Things, however,' grew worse; the Jesuit Fa- 
 thers of the German mission were the first to be 
 turned out, then the Sisters in charge of the girls' 
 schools, and at last the Brothers, who could stand 
 their ground no longer, were forcibly expelled. 
 It was on the 20th of April that, having procured 
 foreign passports, and safely hidden awa)^ their 
 costl}'- sacred possessions, the Brothers, still wear- 
 ing their habit, dispersed, with the hope that God 
 would protect their house in the city, and bring 
 them back to it in safety when the storm should 
 have at last spent its fury. 
 
IL 
 
 Our heart fails us as we look back on the 
 scenes of disgusting profanity which followed the 
 Brothers' departure. 
 
 The officer in charge of the commissariat at 
 once gave the order to break in pieces, and throw 
 into the gutter, the beautiful statue that adorned 
 the cloister-yard. Luckily enough, he was pre- 
 vented from personally superintending the exe- 
 cution of his orders by a more serious call on his 
 time and attention — namely, the wish to make 
 acquaintance with the contents of the altar. The 
 men, meanwhile, were loth to proceed to such 
 lengths, and remembering the unvarying kind- 
 ness of the poor Brothers, hid the statue, and told 
 their superior officer that they had destroyed it. 
 
 There was no one, however, to prevent the 
 second act of sacrilegious folly which the intoxi- 
 cated man now committed. He and a worthy 
 friend, of the same stamp as himself, dressed them- 
 selves in the cassocks, cloaks, and hats left behind 
 them by the Brothers, and, thus accoutred, took 
 a prayer-book under each arm, and paraded the 
 streets, crying, " Long live the Commune !" and 
 carefully making prolonged halts at every tavern 
 which they passed. 
 
 The inhabitants, thinking that the Brothers 
 had come back, rushed to their doors and win- 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 163 
 
 dows to behold the singular sight of religious 
 cheering the Commune and the enemies of God and 
 all religion, but soon discovering their mistake, 
 they drew in their heads, and kept their com- 
 ments to themselves. Even if they did not dare 
 openly to cry " Shame !" on the profane travestie, 
 they had at least enough decency left not to 
 countenance it b}'' their presence. 
 
 The Central Committee had not yet abandon- 
 ed its original idea of lodging at St. Joseph's 
 some of the future heroines known as pétroleuses, 
 and whose fanatical zeal had already become so 
 conspicuous as to call for some outward reward. 
 The neighborhood, however, was not quite ripe for 
 this innovation, and there was some reason to be- 
 lieve that not only the inhabitants of the ward, 
 but even the soldiers at the commissariat depot, 
 would be unwilling to receive the ladies gra- 
 ciously. 
 
 The doughty warrior above mentioned under- 
 took to protect them. Armed to the teeth, he 
 welcomed and established them in their new 
 quarters ; but the last vestige of respectability fled 
 at their approach, and no man who valued his 
 good name would have any thing more to do 
 with the house. 
 
 Then began the era of disgusting bacchanalian 
 orgies, and the yards and buildings that had 
 formerly echoed the hymns and psalms of Chris- 
 tian singers, now rang with the howls of maniacs 
 whose filthy songs might well have driven away 
 all holy guardian angels, and called up in their 
 stead the legions of hell. 
 
 The inhabitants of the neighborhood will never 
 
164 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 forget the prolonged nightmare which these dis- 
 gusting scenes kept up for weeks in their midst. 
 At last came the day of reckoning, when the 
 Commune urgently needed all its supporters, 
 whom, doubtless in view of this emergency, it 
 had skillfully posted in places whence they might 
 be ready to answer to its call. The dregs of so- 
 ciety were upheaved, and these wretched satel- 
 lites of the Commune came forth from every hole 
 and corner to do their shameful work. Spell- 
 bound Paris saw them pass from the drunkenness 
 of beasts to that of demons, from the intoxication 
 of wine to that of blood. The distance from a 
 drunken threat to a bloody or fier}^ execution 
 was not great, and it is this that makes us shud- 
 der so at the details of those ill-fated days. 
 
Ill 
 
 After an enforced absence of six weeks, and 
 many wanderings through the provinces, the 
 Brothers of St. Joseph's Mission were enabled to 
 return and reopen their schools. Their home- 
 coming was a triumphal " progress : " children and 
 parents vied with each other in welcoming them 
 back. But if this reception was festive, the aspect 
 of the poor house was pitiable enough ; the 
 " abomination of desolation " had had free sway 
 there ; every trace of shameful excesses was 
 there in its naked hideousness ; an intolerable 
 stench, in which the fumes of wine, brandy, blood, 
 and powder were horribly mingled, filled the 
 rooms ; the walls were scrawled over with ob- 
 scene, blasphemous, or threatening sentences, and 
 broken forms, rickety desks, torn pictures, and 
 heaps of broken glasses and bottles strewed the 
 class-rooms and yards of the house. 
 
 " And yet," says one of the Brothers, " we 
 hardly knew whether to mourn what we had lost, 
 or rejoice over what we had been permitted to 
 keep ! It might have been so infinitely worse !" 
 In truth, the material damage to the build- 
 ing was slight : in one or two places a shell 
 had burst through the roof, and a few windows 
 had been broken by discharges of musketry ; that 
 
l66 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 was all. We have already described the awful 
 state in which the last tenants had left the class- 
 rooms and many others ; but on the other hand, 
 the chapel, the library, the community-room, etc., 
 were in perfect preservation. It seems that this 
 part of the house had been purposely closed, and 
 reserved for the last day of the intended sack and 
 burning of all religious houses over the city. 
 The rapid advance of our troops alone prevented 
 the consummation of this last enormity. 
 
 The moral losses undergone by the Brothers 
 were less easy to make up for than the material 
 ruin of their buildings. Few houses in Paris 
 were so crippled by the Avar as the German Church 
 of St. Joseph. The foreign war and the German 
 exodus from the capital were heavy blows in 
 themselves; the patrons of the church were gone, 
 and two hundred children had left the schools ; 
 out of six classes, two had been necessarily sup- 
 pressed. Even the full complement of these re- 
 maining classes was seldom present at one and 
 the same time. Many children were kept at 
 home to help in the daily earnings or household 
 labors that had become of such paramount im- 
 portance to many families formerly well off, and 
 the privations of their home-life communicated to 
 those children who did attend school a certain 
 mental sluggishness very difficult to overcome. 
 This moral drawback is disappearing by degrees, 
 but the school has deteriorated in point of numbers. 
 Those one hundred and eighty children whom 
 circumstances drove to other neighborhoods — 
 where are they ? what has become of them ? how 
 many may have died or become vagrants ? The 
 
EPISODES OE THE PARIS COMMUNE. 167 
 
 revolution chooses its victims, as well as its 
 agents, among all classes of society, indiscrimi- 
 nately, whether on the threshold of life or on the 
 brink of the grave, among honest wives and 
 mothers or among the daughters of shame. 
 How true a word was that which a writer of our 
 day has uttered, saying that this upheaval was a 
 delirium, a fierce madness ! Indeed, it was a 
 madness, portentous and hellish, a blast from 
 the mouth of the abyss itself. 
 
 St. Joseph's Mission-School now only reckons 
 two hundred and forty out of its former five hun- 
 dred scholars, and even this reduced number 
 bears the indelible stamp of the trials that have 
 gone over their heads. Their poor little famish- 
 ed faces show the ravages of hunger and cold 
 and nakedness, and, what is worse, their young 
 hearts bear bitter witness to the harm done by 
 undue popular excitement. 
 
 We must not omit to say that the zeal, chari- 
 ty, and devotedness of the Brothers have fully 
 risen to the level of their new and more arduous 
 task, that they do not shrink from their hard du- 
 ties, and know that the road before them is not 
 strewn with roses ; but they have a firm belief in 
 the help of God, and, strong with a divine 
 strength, they will overcome all obstacles, and 
 prove once more to the world that a Christian 
 education is the first and most sacred right of the 
 family and the nation. 
 
LA VILLETTE. 
 
 As in ail other distant quarters of the capital, 
 the Brothers, notwithstanding the many services 
 they had rendered the people, could not depend 
 on the friendly offices of the inhabitants of La 
 Villette. The respectable part of the population 
 was entirely cowed by the federals, who had made 
 these distant quarters their peculiar stronghold. 
 The citizens no longer dared to raise their voices in 
 favor of any cause which they had at heart, not 
 even that of their own liberty of thought and 
 speech. This terrorism was the mainspring of 
 the revolution, which, by this means, was ena- 
 bled to defy our army for two long weary months, 
 during which it held Paris literally choked in its 
 iron hand. 
 
 By the middle of April, the Brothers found 
 the place too hot to hold them ; serious danger 
 was to be apprehended, while, on the other hand, 
 there was no work of mercy left within their 
 power. To remain at their post in useless inacti- 
 vity was irksome to them, as well as imprudent ; 
 still they hesitated ; but, on the i8th of April, 
 they were warned that if they did not soon de- 
 camp, the federals would not be slow to take 
 
I/o EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 them into custody. They left the house that 
 evening, and the porter, with a few brave well- 
 wishers, remained to effect a safe transfer of the 
 most precious possessions of the community. 
 This was done the same night, without mishap 
 of any kind. 
 
 The next day, all was quiet, and the porter, 
 thinking it had only been a false alarm, already 
 regretted the Brothers' hasty departure, when, 
 on the next day but one, a delegate of the Com- 
 mune and several subordinates made their ap- 
 pearance. He was very angry to find the " birds 
 flown," but as yet no disorder took place in the 
 house, and after a search, resulting in the cap- 
 ture of a few habits and other articles, which 
 were piled on a cab and carried away, the dele- 
 gate took himself off, and ingloriously brought 
 away the poor porter as a trophy of his raid. 
 The latter was accused of being an " unpatriotic 
 citizen" for having allowed the clericals to escape. 
 According to the Communist code of morals, it is 
 a meritorious act to denounce or spy upon the 
 man whose bread you eat. 
 
 The municipal authorities did not think fit, 
 however, to punish the porter for this crime, 
 and released him with a reprimand, whereupon 
 the faithful fellow returned to his post, as he had 
 promised the Brothers to do, and remained there 
 watching over his masters' interests until they 
 came back. It was through him and some of the 
 children that we learned that the delegate had 
 touched nothing in the house, and that the sub- 
 sequent havoc was the work of the freethinkers 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 171 
 
 installed there by the Commune as teachers of 
 youth. 
 
 Among other things, a large statue of the 
 Blessed Virgin excited the greatest fury. The 
 image of the Divine Infant was first torn from his 
 Mother's arms ; then the head was chopped off, 
 then the body of the statue cut in pieces, and the 
 whole made into a bonfire. The altar in the chapel 
 was broken in pieces ; every religious symbol shar- 
 ed the same fate, and the tabernacle in particu- 
 lar provoked the most ingenious demonstrations 
 of hatred. Every thing in the shape of pictures, 
 statues, books of devotion, belonging to the 
 school-room, was first broken, torn, or trampled, 
 and finally destroyed by fire. 
 
 These things were all done before the chil- 
 dren and with their help, but the greater part of 
 these boys were far from approving in their hearts 
 what their hands were forced to do. Many openly 
 expressed their indignation and refused their help. 
 One of them, a boy of thirteen, had the courage 
 to say to the head-master, 
 
 " Take care ; it is God whom you are insult- 
 ing, and he will punish you." 
 
 The child spoke true : the unhappy man was 
 shot, only a few yards from the school-walls, the 
 day the troops entered the city. 
 
 As for the Brothers, their return was hailed 
 as a special providence, and I doubt if those who 
 were loudest in denouncing them before the loth 
 of March, 1871, would care to turn them out again, 
 since they have had such an excellent opportuni- 
 ty of comparing them with the Communist teach- 
 ers of youth ! 
 
THE COMMUNITY 
 
 BROTHERS OF BERCY. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Brothers' house in the Twelfth Ward 
 was broken into by the Communists on the 19th 
 of March, 1871, and knowing themselves to be 
 especially open to the attacks of the federals in 
 this district — one far from the centre of Paris — 
 the good religious determined to use the great- 
 est circumspection in their dealings with the Ad- 
 ministrative Committee. 
 
 It was not long before the decree was pro- 
 mulgated which substituted the blood-red flag 
 for the tricolor ; the Brother-Director was sum- 
 moned to give in his adhesion, and as he did 
 not seem eager to do so, a delegate and a commis- 
 sary, both wearing the red scarf of office and 
 armed with murderous revolvers, presented 
 themselves at the house, and saw the flag hoisted 
 in their presence. 
 
 Then came the general election all over Paris 
 for candidates to the Commune. A delegate of 
 the Central Committee, escorted by a commis- 
 
174 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 sary and four ruffianly-looking men, brought an 
 order to the Brothers requesting them to leave 
 the doors of the house open till midnight. No 
 objection was made to the arbitrary command, 
 though it was perfectly superfluous, as hitherto 
 the voters had always gone to the polling-booths 
 through the Rue Nicolai. As it happened, no one 
 but the delegate and his suite passed through the 
 open gates of the yard that day. 
 
 A few days later, the Brother-Director was 
 obliged to consent to the installment of a registry- 
 office for volunteers in one of the lower rooms of 
 the house, which office might just as well have 
 been put anywhere else. The delegate presiding 
 at this operation was a demagogue of the first 
 water, and gladly gave the poor Brothers a 
 sketch of the proposed Communist policy to- 
 ward their order. The Brother-Director hav- 
 ing hazarded some observation not relished by 
 the man with the red scarf, the latter half drew 
 his sword and thundered out, 
 
 " Don't you know, fool, that this house and 
 all its contents are ours, and that I can turn you 
 all out if you make the shadow of a difficulty ?" 
 
 These vexations had hitherto not interfered 
 with the works of the Brothers m their capa- 
 city of teachers, a position still tacitly recog- 
 nized as theirs only. The school was better 
 attended than ever, for parents were too anxious 
 to prevent their children from mingling 
 with the crowds in the streets not to be par- 
 ticular about sending them to school. One 
 day, a federal came to demand admittance for 
 his son, and the Brother-Director told him as 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1/5 
 
 considerately as he could that, the number of 
 scholars being complete, he could only write 
 down his boy's name for the first vacancy that 
 should occur. (The ward authorities fix the 
 number to be received in these schools.) The 
 man was astonished that his uniform should not 
 have been able to command more attention, and 
 even create a place for his son, and left the house 
 in high dudgeon. The very same day. Citizen 
 Philip, to whom the federal complained, issued 
 an order to the effect that any child brought by a 
 National Guard should be admitted at once and 
 without examination. 
 
 This was the first attack on the liberty of the 
 school, but it was to be feared that public atten- 
 tion having once been drawn to it, it would not 
 escape further measures of as arbitrary a nature. 
 
 The registry-office had meanwhile become 
 the regular meeting- room of the municipality, 
 who constantly held special sessions there, so 
 that the poor Brothers were often obliged to sit 
 up half the night waiting for the breaking up of 
 the endless meetings of a committee self-con- 
 stituted a " court-martial." The Brothers were 
 thus half dead with fatigue, and could not even 
 watch through the night without dreading some 
 ever-possible new contingency. Indeed, what vio- 
 lent measures might not those men be capable of, 
 after a long discussion ending in a drinking-bout, 
 and when they had worked themselves up to be- 
 lieve that the safety of society and the regenera- 
 tion of the world lay in their hands ? 
 
 Beyond the local circle of La ViUette, things 
 were growing desperate, and it was not difficult 
 
176 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 to foresee that a day would soon come when the 
 habit of a religious would become an offensive 
 object in the sight of all officials. We had a 
 proof of this in a few days. If it was acci- 
 dental, it was likewise significant. 
 
 On the 17th of April, as the Brother-Director 
 was crossing the Rue Charenton, he was stopped 
 by one of those wretched men with demon's 
 faces whom one never sees save in times of social 
 revolution, who, with uplifted fist, exclaimed, as 
 he spat in the Brother's face, 
 
 " You carrion ! your time is short ! I will 
 have your life before long!" 
 
 The street was crowded, and if no one cheered 
 this wretch nor followed his example, neither did 
 any one bravely come forward and cry " Shame !" 
 upon such an outrage. The Brother went his 
 way as meekly as our Divine Master has enjoined 
 us all to do under similar circumstances, but his 
 soul was sad within him. His tears, driven back 
 by an indomitable will, fell like bitter, scorching 
 drops on his soul. If the tree is known by its 
 fruits, what could he think of the maddened po- 
 pulace who can stand by and see God's messen- 
 gers insulted, even if it does not join in the insult ? 
 
 A prudent and reliable friend to whom he re- 
 lated this incident gave him this advice : 
 
 *' Brother, this is a sign of the times — a straw 
 that shows which way the wind blows. Great 
 events are at hand ; you will need all your cour- 
 age and fortitude, and perhaps sooner than you 
 imagine." 
 
 On the morrow, the 1 8th of April, late in the 
 evening, a friend of the house came hurriedly with 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. I// 
 
 the news that it had been decided to arrest the 
 whole community the following morning, at six 
 o'clock. This contingency having been foreseen, 
 every thing had long been in readiness, and the 
 superiors had given the necessary orders before- 
 hand. There was no delay, and the Brothers 
 were gone before dawn. 
 
 The delegates came at six o'clock, and found 
 the house empty. The boys arrived an hour or 
 two later, and learned from the disappointed fe- 
 derals that the " birds had flown." (Their lan- 
 guage, however, was somewhat more forcible, 
 but we do not feel inclined to reproduce it.) 
 The children were bolder than the grown men, 
 who dared not lift up their voices in favor of the 
 best friends of the poor. They, on the contrary, 
 were lavish of tears and regrets for themselves, 
 sympathy for their persecuted teachers, and, 
 above all, bitter invectives against the persecu- 
 tors. It was a regular insurrection, which each 
 child did his best to foster, on his return home, 
 in the bosom of his family. 
 
 What had become of the Brothers ? They 
 had communicated with a friend. Monsieur Bour- 
 geois, who had hired a few carriages, with which 
 he met them in Reuilly Square, so that, on leav- 
 ing their house, they left Paris for good. A few 
 did not leave the city ti-U evening, and the Bro- 
 ther-Director, like a gallant captain who is the 
 last to leave the sinking ship, remained till all 
 had got safely away. The federal who was so 
 anxious to capture the Brothers might look else- 
 where for new laurels, for God and Monsieur 
 Bourgeois had swiftly put the community far 
 beyond their reach. 
 
178 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 A few days previous to their departure, the 
 Brothers had stored their furniture, etc., in a safe 
 place, under the care of a few respectable neigh- . 
 bors, who, with praiseworthy zeal, looked after 
 it as if it had been their own. All would have 
 gone well, had not a woman who had discovered 
 the hiding-place sold her knowledge to the 
 Commune, whether through greed or spite 
 none can tell. The delegates were delighted 
 to be able to lay hands on the property, since the 
 owners had outwitted them. They sent to the 
 place pointed out to them, confiscated whatever 
 suited them best, and drew up an official inven- 
 tory of the rest. They were disappointed to find 
 neither wine nor church-plate, and proceeded in 
 consequence back to the house, where they must 
 surely find — so they argued — some secret store 
 of valuables. They turned every thing inside 
 out, broke open locked doors, smashed the pa- 
 neling and the walls, tore down the partitions, 
 and even searched the well. They could not 
 understand how any body of men could be able 
 to live without brandy, and only buy sufficient 
 wine for every day's consumption, and therefore 
 concluded that the hiding-place must be deeper 
 or further yet. In hopes of finding it, they next 
 proceeded to tear up the boarding of the ground- 
 floor rooms. 
 
 The porter's wife had been dragged along 
 with them in this search, and seriously threatened 
 unless she would disclose what she truly said 
 would be difficult to confess, since there was no- 
 thing hidden anywhere in the house. They took 
 her away and imprisoned her for twenty-four 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 1 79 
 
 hours, using every conceivable means to make 
 her betray the hiding-place of the Brother-Direc- 
 tor, tJie villaifi, the blackguard, who, when remov- 
 ing his things, had not had the grace to buy wine 
 for his successors, but who, thank goodness, could 
 not be far, since the strictest orders had been 
 given for his apprehension if he attempted to 
 pass the gates. 
 
IL 
 
 The Communist delegates made a great show 
 of the ceremony of installation of the Brothers' 
 successor. The same scenes were renewed as 
 elsewhere : crucifixes, statues, and pictures dis- 
 appeared under the hammer and the axe ; the 
 Marseillaise was frantically intoned. The dele- 
 gates and their friends, it is true, had to play the 
 part of audience as well as of actors, for only a 
 few children answered the summons of the muni- 
 cipal authorities. The benches which under the 
 Brothers' management were so densely filled that 
 there was not a vacant seat to be had, remained 
 pretty well empty as long as the Christian teach- 
 ers were absent. 
 
 What more emphatic mark of approval could 
 the ecclesiastical system of education crave ? 
 The satellites of the revolution cover it with 
 the mud of sarcasm and libel ; the federals sack 
 and profane its temples ; but, individually and as 
 fathers of families, one and all bow to it as the 
 only true system, and will intrust their children 
 to none but the Brothers. The real popular opin- 
 ion, the household opinion of each father, has 
 never been more clearly proved. 
 
 We will draw a veil over the horrors of the 
 last week of the insurrection at Bercy. Such 
 
EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. l8l 
 
 sketches are stale now, and we leave the rest to 
 our readers' imaginations. Instead of that, we 
 will pass to the 2d of June, the day on which the 
 Brothers took possession of their house and 
 school, and where the warmest and most respect- 
 ful sympathy was, here as elsewhere, showered 
 on them. 
 
 The sight of the religious habit amid these 
 streets yet strewn with blood and ashes, is hailed 
 as a sign of returning prosperity, an earnest of 
 future peace. The people themselves wonder at 
 the sudden respect for these men, a respect they 
 so little dreamed of possessing when they formerly 
 eyed them with suspicion or indifference. What 
 is it that has kindled this unwonted feeling? The 
 moral greatness of the Brothers has only been 
 revealed to the ordinary citizen by the sight of 
 men who have proved themselves stronger than 
 fate and more powerful than persecution. The 
 parents' esteem is only outdone by the children's 
 love for these same Christian teachers. 
 
 But a greater honor yet has been paid them, 
 and has proved to the world how far the terrible 
 risks which the Brothers have undergone have 
 served to put in bold relief their unspeakable 
 fortitude and latent worth. This is the warm 
 welcome extended to them by the former ward 
 authorities, who were already established in their 
 old functions. 
 
 "These gentlemen," writes the Brother-Di- 
 rector, '' received me with a flattering and un- 
 usual cordiality. Their welcome surprised me 
 the more because I was used to very different 
 manners in the old times of their administration. 
 
^ 
 
 182 EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. 
 
 The mayor was especially solicitous concerning 
 the vexations he feared we had suffered during 
 his enforced absence from office ; in a word, the 
 local authorities simply overwhelm us with con- 
 siderate attentions." 
 
 How true it is that God causes " all things to 
 work together for good," and that from the 
 direst evils he knows how to bring comfort and 
 joy to those who, bowing to the storm, have 
 taken trials at his hands as if they were the 
 choicest gifts of his love ! 
 
 FINIS. 
 
THE 
 
 CATHOLIC PREMIUM-BOOK LIBRARY. 
 
 fIRST SERIES. Svo. With Frontispiece. 
 
 BeauUruUy Bound in Imitation Cloth, with Sides and Bacli in Black 
 and Gold. 
 
 PRICE PER VOLUME, 50 CENTS. 
 
 Bertha ; or. The Consequences of a Fault. 
 
 Captain Bougemont ; or, The Miraculous Conversion. 
 
 Cassilda ; or. The Moorish Princess of Toledo. 
 
 Episodes of the Commune. 
 
 The Adventures of a Casket. 
 
 The Better Part ; or. Scenes from Beal Life. 
 
 The Fisherman's Daughter. 
 
 The Great-Grandmother's Secret. 
 
 The Priest of Auvrigny. 
 
 The Village Steeple. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 12m. With Frontispiece. 
 
 Tastefully Bound in Imitation Cloth, with full Gilt Sides and Back, 
 
 PRICE PER VOLUME, 35 CENTS. 
 
 Life of Our Blessed Lord— His Life, Death, and Besurrection. 
 Life of the Ever-Blessed Virgin, from Her Conception to Her 
 
 Assumption. 
 Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. 
 The Holy Isle ; or. Lives of the Most Notable Irish Saints. 
 The Diary of a Confessor, and Other Tales. 
 
 THIRD SERIES. 18mo. With Frontispiece. 
 
 Attractively Bound in Imitation Cloth, with full Gilt Sides and Back. 
 
 PRICE PER VOLUME, 15 CENTS. 
 
 Adolphus ; or. The Good Son. 
 
 A Broken Chain : An Episode of the French Revolution. 
 Nicholas ; or. The Be^ward of a Good Action. 
 Nina and Pippo ; or. The Lost Children of Mount St. Bernard. 
 The Baker's Boy ; or. The Besults of Industry. 
 The Last Days of the Papal Army ; or. The Siege and Occupa- 
 tion of Eome, in September, 1870. 
 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
 
 New- York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. 
 
 T/ie usual DiscoiDit to Academies, Colleges, and Schools. 
 
v^