Under the shadow of Notre Dame.
No address, no visible means of support.
Besides which, the railway was out thirteen francs,
thanks to his vagabondage.
A few days in the Prefecture,
fending off rape by professionals,
while the police decided what to do with him
and the city began to sag around everyone’s ears.
The day before his transfer to the cell at Mazas,
the Germans had hammered, split,
and ground the Imperial Army to surrender at Sedan.
The Emperor, bruise-buttocked from his hours
in the saddle, nursing his headache in an opium halo,
contemplated suicide with an articulateness
not previously noted by his familiars.
The Germans wasted no time, slugging towards Paris
as though bound on some record-breaker.
The cannon were polished, swabbed, and loaded
mid-canter, before the first glimpse of the city’s
stone girdle wavered in their field glasses.
From Mazas he was released to the care of Douai,
fussy at his bailer’s womenfolk,
still in his runaway’s clothes,
if newly fumigated, his strip-cut head swimming with lice.
German cannon punched in the brickwork of
Fort Montrouge and Fort d’Issy,
the compass trembled at the edges,
sagged smoking in the middle.
Paris awaited penetration.
The city fell down without him.
***
Le Grand Truc, with his warning jibes
about sausage and politics.
Ask me again and this time I’ll tell you
what I really think!
Fortunate as Polyphemus
before his night of carnage and fame.
Bismarck’s bigness and the double insult
of his whirlwind.
Beating up the master of the house
on the master’s own front lawn,
then ringing the house to better incinerate
the vermin hidden between the walls.
Some of the bloodied master’s servants
hurrying to provision the stone-faced Cyclops
with naptha and tea cakes.
***
Jan 7 ’71 : A handbill, black letters on red, calling for the creation of a Parisian Commune.
Jan 22 ’71 : A public protest spills out from l’Hotel de Ville, turns abruptly and cathartically insurrectional. General Vinoy’s soldiers open fire into the flux of civilians, killing thirty.
Jan 26 ’71 : From one moment to the next, the German bombs stop dropping into the city. Like a flock of blackbirds landing in file, each one closer than the last. And then sudden silence.
Jan 28 ’71 : Armistice.
Feb 19 ’71 : Collar up, head down, the Emperor slips the reins to Thiers.
Feb 24 ’71 : The National Guard drifts in from the front, reuniting at Vauxhall. Protests swirl around the Place de la Bastille. More than one guardsman asks himself on which side of history his next step will find him, short of the demob, the breadline.
Feb 26 ’71 : The cannon of the National Guard are brought home, whistled in with flute and drum to the sandbagged corrals at Belleville and Montmartre.
Mar 1 ’71 : Time for one quick parade by the Germans, in and out Marianne’s unprotected arch (M herself a not-yet fetal anachronism), down the deserted Champs d’Elysee, and then withdrawal to a casual distance, while Thiers and the disappointed steel of the Versaillais determine how best to settle the rat’s hash of the Commune.
Mar 3 ’71 : The National Guard shows its hand (and soul), birthing the Republican Federation from among its fiercest loyalists.
Mar 6 ’71 : Thiers, with an eye on the hour-by-hour simmer of the uncertain future, names Aurelle de Paladines as commander-in-chief of the National Guard. Paladines, veteran of the Crimea, the adventures in Algeria and Sardinia, and only weeks previously commandant of the Army of the Loire and liberator of Orleans, besting von der Tann-Rathsamhausen in a clumsy brawl across the rooftops.
Mar 10 ’71 : The National Assembly confers itself to safety (from whom?) baggaging the 17 miles to the chateaux and gardens of Versailles.
Mar 11 ’71 : General Vinoy drops a pot of coffee on his lap, tells the Republican press to shut its mouth, urges the passage of death sentences on the white-haired, red-minded radical Auguste Blanqui, and on Gustave Flourens, freed from Mazas Prison by his 500 sharpshooters, and soon to be a People’s General.
Mar 17 ’71 : Arthritic, exhausted, Blanqui retires to a friend’s house in Lot to rest and gather his strength for the coming fight. Tipped off, the gendarmerie comb the neighborhood till he is found and arrested. Karl Marx will cite the angry old man’s sequestration as a totemic nail in the Commune’s coffin.
Mar 18 ’71 : Thiers orders the seizure of the National Guard’s cannon, and is repulsed by both the Guard and the citizens of Montmartre. “These are the people’s guns!” The residents of the eastern and central quarters rise up, taking to the streets and boulevards. A mutiny of soldiers ends with the lynching of their own generals, Lecomte and Thomas. Thiers gets himself to Versailles.
Mar 19 ’71 : To The People. Citizens, the People of Paris have escaped the yoke with which they were threatened. Calm, unperturbable in their strength, they have waited fearlessly, ignoring the vast provocation, the shameless madness of those who would lay their hands upon the Republic. This time, our brothers in the Army have refused to lift their hands against the sacred ark of our liberties. Thanks to all, Paris and France have thrown together the foundations of a Republic long wished for, in all of its manifestations, a single government which will close forever the age of invasions and civil wars. The state of siege has been lifted. The People of Paris are summoned by district to hold communal elections. The security of every citizen will be assured by the goodwill of the National Guard.
The government, cynical, desperate, turns the administration of Paris over to its various district mayors and the capital’s representatives in the National Assembly.
Mar 20-21 ’71 : At Versailles, the delegation of mayors pleads for reconciliation, is shouted down by the rest of the Assembly. Jules Favre, vice president of the council of ministers, suggests that the city deserves the ugliness ahead, insulting the city with his rapist’s chilly logic.
Mar 21 ’71 : Versaillais troops occupy Mont-Valerin. Encouraged, the reactionaries of the “Amis De L’Ordre” demonstrate on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the Porte Saint-Denis, on Rue Vivienne and at the Treasury.
Mar 22 ’71 : From the Opera to the Place Vendome, a running battle, ending in the bloody defeat of the “Amis”. Large numbers of Parisians from the chic neighborhoods in the west of the city, begin their exodus.
Mar 23 ’71 : Creation of the Commune of Marseilles.
Mar 24 ’71 : Creation of the Commune of Narbonne, the Commune of Saint-Etienne, the Commune of Toulouse.
Mar 26 ’71 : Creation of the Commune of Creusot. Elections held for the Council of the Commune of Paris.
Mar 28 ’71 : Installation of the Council of the Commune of Paris. Official proclamation of the Commune of Paris.
Mar 29 ’71 : The Commune declares that rents due since the moratorium imposed on August 13, 1870, as a consequence of the war, are annulled. Military conscription is abolished.
Apr 2 ’71 : The Commune declares the absolute separation of Church and State, and the subsidy for religious cults is ended. Salaries for civil servants will be ceilinged at 6,000 francs per year. At Courbevoie, Versaillais troops attack the communards, who fall back and regroup in the working class neighborhood of Neuilly. The communards launch a general offensive in the direction of Versailles. Gustave Flourens is caught at Rueil-Malmaison and, once recognized, is shot dead by Captain Jean-Marc Demaret.
Apr 4 ’71 : The communard offensive stalls at Chatillon, with nearly 1,500 fighters taken prisoner and marched to Versailles. The Commune of Marseilles is militarily suppressed.
Apr 5 ’71 : The Commune suspends a number of pro-Versailles newspapers.
Apr 6 ’71 : The Commune debates the legality and necessity of hostages. Persons declared to be complicit with the Thiers government are subject to arrest. The National Guard begins a purge of its ranks, disarming the anti-communards.
Apr 8 ’71 : The Commune declares that a pension will be granted to all who have been wounded in recent events, which extends to widows and orphans of National guardsmen killed in combat.
Apr 11 ’71 : The Commune proposes the creation of a War Council.
April 12 ’71 : The Commune declares that pawnshop redemptions will be interest-free. The archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, held hostage by the Commune, writes to Thiers to register his protest against the government’s summary execution of communard prisoners. He also proposes a prisoner exchange, himself for Blanqui, being held at Morlaix.
Apr 13 ’71 : The Commune agrees upon the demolition of the Vendome column.
Apr 14 ’71 : The Commune forbids arbitrary arrests. The Versaillais artillery begins its four-day bombardment of Asnieres, where a large number of communard troops are barracked.
Apr 16 ’71 : The Commune allows the collective takeover of businesses which the owners have abandoned and encourages the formation of workers’ cooperatives.
Apr 18 ’71 : The Commune decrees that all arrests must be accompanied by a statement of charges made to the suspect.
Apr 19 ’71 : The Commune makes a declaration to the French people in which it details its programme.
Apr 20 ’71 : The Commune shortens the workday, beginning with the banning of night labor at bakeries.
Apr 21 ’71 : The Freemasons attempt a meeting of reconciliation between the Commune and the government of Thiers. Known Freemasons are added to the list of suspicious persons by the gendarmerie at Versailles.
Apr 22 ’71 : The Commune begins to organize the butchers of the municipality.
Apr 23 ’71 : Thiers begins the blockade of Paris, starting with foodstuffs, firewood, medicine, and wine. The blockade also calls for the severest penalty against persons crossing into the city without express written permission by the military command.
Apr 25 ’71 : At Belle-Epine, near Villejuif, a Versaillais cavalry officer takes it upon himself to commit exemplary murder of four communard prisoners. Witnesses regard it as explicit encouragement and precedence. The Commune declares the rights of citizens made homeless by the bombardment to establish themselves in vacant homes and buildings. The Commune debates the reorganization of weights and measures.
Apr 28 ’71 : The Commune ends the system of patronage fines, by which bosses had formerly penalized the wages of their workers.
May 1 ’71 : The Commune creates a Committee of Public Health.
May 4 ’71 : The Commune forbids the drawing of more than one salary among the professional class.
May 5 ’71 : The Commune suppresses 7 journals for suspected pro-Versailles leanings. The Commune orders the demolition of the Chapelle Expiatoire commemorating the death of Louis XIV.
May 6 ’71 : Thiers refuses to speak with delegates of the Ligue d’Union Republican seeking a ceasefire.
May 8 ’71 : Thiers delivers an ultimatum to the Parisians.
May 9 ’71 : After intense combat the Fort d’Issy falls to the Versailles forces.
May 10 ’71 : The Franco-German peace treaty is signed in Frankfurt. The French are required to pay [ ] in reparations. All of Thiers’ Parisian properties and assets are seized.
May 11 ’71 : The Commune orders the demolition of Thiers’ house. The Commune suppresses 5 newspapers.
May 13 ’71 : Versailles forces occupy the fort at Vanves.
May 14 ’71 : Thiers refuses the offer to exchange the 74 hostages held by the Commune for Auguste Blanqui.
May 15 ’71 : Open disagreement among members of the Council of the Commune as to how next to proceed.
May 16 ’71 : Demolition of the Vendome column. 44 metres from base to the curve of Napoleon I’s familiar skull, stone at its core, sheathed in the bronze of some 1,250 cannons, wrenched from the enemy at Austerlitz. 4 years to stuff and stiffen, plate and hoist (1806-1810), all while the designers wet-dreamed Trajan’s brute erection. The statue pimpling the glans, like the reservoir-tip of a national condom, had ghosted from the toga’d Corsican to Henri IV (sent into marble exile during the 100-day return of the Emperor from Elba), a bourbonic fleur-de-lys blooming for its share of days and then back to Bonaparte, uniformed. And now laid low, bisected like a great worm by the red-flaggers and freelovers, with Courbet the chief chiseler.
May 17 ’71 : The cartridge and munitions factory on Avenue Rapp explodes. Sabotage is suspected. The Commune decrees the equality of rights for children born out of wedlock and mistresses are allowed to petition for pensions.
May 19 ’71 : The Commune decrees that any members of the Commune accused of collaboration with the government forces will face a court martial with a possible penalty of death if found guilty. Mass arrest of the Dominican order of the convent of Arcueil, suspected of helping the Versailles forces. Hostages begin to be shot on both sides.
May 21 ’71 : Thanks to a treasonous insider large numbers of Versaillais soldiers enter Paris by the gate of Saint-Cloud. This is the beginning of the Semaine Sanglante.
May 22 ’71: Versailles soldiers are in control of the length of the Champs d’Elysee as well as Saint-Lazare and Montparnasse. The use of incendiary mortars in an urban setting. Tacticians take notes, sketch the rising plumes.
May 23 ’71: Montmartre is occupied by the Versailles forces. Large fires break out in various parts of the city, including the Tuileries, gutted by flames, the marble steps a scalloperie of direct hits.
May 24 ’71: The Latin Quarter falls to the Versailles forces and summary executions begin to methodically empty the areas of occupation. L’Hotel de Ville and the Prefecture de Police burn down. The communards execute 6 of their hostages, including Archbishop Darboy.
May 25 ’71 : 5 Dominicans of Arcueil and 9 of their lay assistants are killed in an escape attempt. Intense hand to hand combat at Place du Chateau d’Eau. The Arsenal burns and fireworks are a sniper’s best friend. Every block of the Neuilly neighborhood is mutilated and smoldering. The photographs show winter in May. Throughout the night and into the smoke-riddled morning, Thiers’ men take the city apart, carving acrid meat from the carcass with a clotted cleaver. The bridges of [ ], [ ], and [ ] simply let go of land and sit down in the river, the black water stained blond with dust. Islands of jagged stone shore the shallows, their snapped-off steel cables jutting skyward like rust-red bones. Neuilly is made a special victim, and the first of many neighborhoods where ‘no quarter’ is the order of the hour, the day, the week. The distance is closed with mortars, then machine guns, then rifles, and finally in packed startled corridors and sodden alleys, the merciless eye to eye of bayonet and saber. The mutilation is slow and very personal. Block by block, building by building, floor by floor, room by room, till the butchers hail one another from adjoining rooftops, sharing body-counts in a shouting match.
May 26 ’71 : The Versailles forces control the Saint-Antoine district. On Rue Haxo, an enraged mob massacres 11 nuns, 35 policemen, and 4 decorated veterans of the 2nd Empire.
May 27 ’71: Hard fought battles in Belleville, in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise and on the Buttes-Chaumont.
May 28 ’71 : By early afternoon there is an end to the fighting. Last shots by the communards on Rue Ramponneau.
May 29 ’71 : The fort of Vincennes surrenders. The end of the Paris Commune. 36,000 communards dead by dream’s end. Or, 1 death every 15 seconds for a week. Trials, executions, and deportations of the communard prisoners begin.