My share of blows and curses; and they lied. 'Tis clean forgotten now: all else remains- And Chastelard is dead. His piteous eyes still gaze up into mine, A chequered day has been this life of mine- And form and loveliness, which stormed men's hearts, I had begun what saintly gospellers Have called my life of blood: my victims dropped Which fall in early frost. I grieved for them. I die to-morrow: 'tis not politic Two suns should shine together, whereof one E'en to the snapping of her gentle heart To grant me death! I would that she were here, And admiration of her constancy! The harlot's bastard! Oh, to see her shrink, To which she lured me with her lying words This only grieves me, that my life has passed The filthy dregs of spite, which well beseemed Yes, and on him whose ghastly face I saw, Ere forth the spectre strode, from out the gloom, And, staggering, clutched his victim silently, Who clung to my skirt and screamed. They wrenched him free, That band of savage devils, and I heard, Even as down I fell, amid his shrieks For mercy, poured to men who knew it not, The last row must be green? All else is done. 6 VE AT PARIS, JUST BEFORE THE END. BY A VICAR OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [There is no matter of more vital moment to England at the present time than the right understanding of the Communal insurrection in Paris. All intelligent information on the subject, then, is or ought to be welcome. The question is not what this or that section of us wish to believe to have been the truth, but what was and is the actual truth-what did the Communal leaders really desire, and what was their actual conduct while in power. I for one regard the insurrection, considering the circumstances under which it broke out, as unpatriotic-the professed objects of it as unattainable, and the revolt as indefensible and wrong. So far I cannot sympathise with the writer of the following paper; but if, as I believe also, the insurrection arose from causes inherent in the modern industrial system-causes which are at work in England as powerfully as in France-it behoves us all to attend to what is said about it by its friends as well as by its enemies.-ED. F. M.] ERSAILLES was always a dull, and file, or even to let the Commune dreary place, with its long know how his troops are arranged, galleries full of battles, few of which and what are his supplies of artillery. I had ever heard of, and its hall of Sometimes the passport-man is very the Marshals, with huge Algerian hard to satisfy: if you are smoothpictures, that let us a little into tongued and voluble-just what a the secret of why Algiers is such spy or an 'emissary' would be sure an unprofitable colony. I was to be-you get off well enough; but soon sick of history told French if, Britonlike, you bridle up at this, fashion, and of gardens and ter- perhaps the sixth inspection of perraces, and bronze boys chasing one son and papers since the day began, another round the smaller stand- and ask if you are living in a Reup fountains, and huge tritons public, and whether they ever did sprawling, and sea-horses wallow- catch a real 'Red' by such tricks as ing, and sea-nymphs tumbling about those, you'll find (though you've in the bigger fountains, where the only been expressing your annoy'great waters' used to play. ance in English) that the way is not smooth for you. Your passport is conned over once more, this time by some particularly amiable-looking gentleman in a white hat and dusty boots, whom you took for a fellowtraveller, and were very nearly making a confidant of; and it is found that it has not been visé by the consul in the last town where Then there is questionyou were. But this time I have no leisure for such thoughts: Versailles is changed; it is no longer dull, far too much the reverse; and as for the galleries, they are cut up into public offices, and bed-chambers and dressing-rooms for the deputies who are waiting to see M. Thiers take Paris, and yet keep to the manifesto, in which he says nothing shall induce him to fire a shell into it. Versailles is not dull. At the railway there is a great crush; for our old enemy, the passport-man, has come to the front again; and move on you mustn't, until he is quite satisfied (as far as my Lord Granville's recommendation or some French mayor's laissez passer can satisfy him) that you have not come with intent to assassinate M. Thiers, or to suborn his generals, or to spread disaffection among his rank ing, and consulting, and badgering, until at last you are informed that it is only par obligeance you are allowed to proceed, and the gentlemen with the ferret's eyes and the yellow facings and white lace look at you as though they were determined to be able to swear to you again, after, no matter how many years. And now you are in Versailles it is late on Sunday afternoon, but Paris, at its fullest, was never so full or so noisy as the Street of Reservoirs; in the Street of the Parish, the eating and drinking shops, nearly all of them, are crowded; and so in almost all the streets and shops. Walking along is like going through the Royal Academy the first Saturday after it is open. As for the gaunt avenue to St. Cloud, usually so desolate, a fair is going on there, with all the fun of French fairs in general, and a great deal specially imported for the occasion. Here are sailors, not a bit like the trim French tars in their glazed hats, with brim turned up Chinese fashion, whom we saw on board the fleet that put into Plymouth some years ago; but roughlooking customers, quite up to their work, which M. Thiers gives them, of carrying all the strongest of the 'enemy's batteries. Sailors, just now, are at a premium here. Much as the French usually prefer soldiers, the red-breeches are in such an equivocal position (returned prisoners, two-thirds of them) that they are looked at somewhat askance. as for the Papal 'Zous,' the heroes of the day-for didn't they always beat the Prussians, and haven't they always beaten the insurgents'? they are too few to satisfy the heroworship of such a multitude as fills this St. Cloud avenue. So the sailors come in for a share of cheery looks and petting, and go rolling about, sailor-fashion, amongst the demi-monde celebrities, and the papas and mammas with their families, and the grave deputies and graver officers, and blue-blouses and their wives or sweethearts, and all the motley crew who are buying, eating, shooting at a mark, playing 'English' or 'Chinese' billiards, tossing at petit bonhomme (the French Aunt Sally), and behaving in general as if they were out for a grand peace-holiday, instead of being gathered there to effect the destruction of their countrymen. And And Garibaldians? No, I didn't see one. After the way in which this same Assembly treated the old man of Caprera, I don't wonder at his men keeping in the background. I travelled part of the way from Chartres with one of them: he was a Norman, and had picked up halfa-dozen words of English by living in Havre. He was going home to his own people to be out of the way: 'I can't go round by Paris,' said he, after he had told us his plan-to get out at a small station and walk across till he struck the line of the west-'I couldn't bear to see them flying at one another's throats after all that has happened. Ça me crèverait le cœur." Poor man! he had his own faith in the Garibaldi family as strong as ever: to hear him talk, you would think that they were never defeated, any more than the Pope's 'Zous;' and in the fight at Dijon, where Ricciotti led them, he assured me they were outnumbered at least four to one. No: Garibaldians would have been out of place at Versailles, where a swarm of little marquises and viscounts (hobereaux-hobbyhawks, as the French call them) howled like the Ephesians in their theatre, because (not long before Paris was taken) M. Tolain, one of the Paris deputies, was called by the Minister of War 'the honourable member.' This was how it happened: there had been another shooting of prisoners-at first the generals and colonels of the Assembly always shot their prisoners when they took them in small batches. For this reason the Archbishop of Paris was seized along with several of his chaplains and archdeacons by the Commune. They said, 'Reverend father, our men get shot like dogs, contrary to all the laws of war or peace. Now you can stop this if you please. Write to Versailles, and tell them that your treatment depends on the way in which they behave to their prisoners.' That is the Commune's |