Paris under the Commune eBook

John Leighton Stuart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 483 pages of information about Paris under the Commune.

Paris under the Commune eBook

John Leighton Stuart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 483 pages of information about Paris under the Commune.

He was subsequently accused of having sold Mont Valerien to the Versailles authorities, arrested, and thrown into the Conciergerie.  He reappeared, however, on the 14th April as commander of the flotilla of the Commune.  Furious with the Central Committee and the Commune he opposed them and was arrested, but contrived to escape from Mazas.  From that moment the general of the Commune put himself in communication with Versailles through the mediation of M. Camus and Baron Dathiel de la Tuque, who agreed with him to organise a counter revolution.  Lullier was now busily employed in endeavouring to make people forget the part he had taken in the insurrection of the 18th March.  He had made it a condition that neither he nor his accomplices, Gomez d’Absin and Bisson, should be prosecuted.  The expenses were calculated at 30,000 francs; of which M. Camus gave 2000 francs to Lullier, but the scheme did not succeed.  Lullier undertook to have all the members of the Commune arrested, and to send the hostages to Versailles.  Lullier is a man of courage, foolhardy even, who never hesitated to fight, and if at the end of the Commune he tried to serve the legitimate government, it was from a spirit of revenge against the men who had refused his dictation, and in his own interest.

VI. (Page 220.)

PROTOT.

Citizen Protot, appointed Delegate of Justice by a decree of the twentieth of April, 1871, was born in 1839.

As an advocate, he defended Megy, the famous Communist general of the fort of Issy, when he was accused of the assassination of a police agent on the eleventh of April, 1870.  This trial, and the ability he displayed, drew public attention for a moment upon him.  Compromised as a member of secret societies, he managed to escape the police, but was condemned in his absence to fines and imprisonment.  Having been himself a victim of the law, his attention was first given to the drawing up of a decree, thus worded:—­

“The notaries and public officers in general shall draw up legal documents which fall within their duty without charge.”

In the discussion on the subject of the confiscation of the property of M. Thiers, he proposed that all the plate and other objects in his possession bearing the image of the Orleans family should be sent to the mint.

VII. (Page 229.)

“And now he thinks:  ’The Empire is tottering,
        There’s little chance of victory.’ 
Then, creeping furtively backwards, he tries to slink away. 
        Remain, renegade, in the building!

“‘The ceiling falls,’ you say! ’if they see me
        They will seize and stop me as I go,’
Daring neither to rest nor fly, you miserably watch the roof
        And then the door,

“And shiveringly you put your hand upon the bolt. 
        Back into the dismal ranks! 
Back!  Justice, whom they have thrust into a pit,
        Is there in the darkness.

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Project Gutenberg
Paris under the Commune from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.