The idea disgusted me, but I was stuck with him, damn it, and just because I’d killed a priest. Anyway, what about all those generals who kill thousands of men?
«When the message arrives, the image is enlarged by projecting it on a wall.»
Thus we found ourselves at war. Lagrange passed me the odd piece of news every now and then to send on to the enemy, but as Goedsche had said, the Prussians weren’t particularly interested in Paris and were more concerned about finding out how many men the French had in Alsace, at Saint-Privat, at Beaumont, at Sedan.
In the days before the siege, Parisians were still living gaily. In September it was decided to close all entertainment halls, out of solidarity with the plight of the soldiers in action as well as to allow firemen to be sent to the front, but barely a month later the Comédie-Française was given permission to put on performances for the families of dead soldiers, though on a reduced scale, without heating and with candles instead of gas lighting. After that, various productions were resumed at the Ambigu, the Porte Saint-Martin, the Châtelet and the Athénée.
But September marked the beginning of difficult times with the tragedy at Sedan. As soon as Napoleon III had been taken prisoner by the enemy, the empire collapsed and the whole of France fell almost (almost, at that stage) into a state of revolution. The republic was proclaimed, but in the same republican ranks, as far as I could understand, there were two conflicting forces: one wanted to use the defeat as an opportunity for an out-and-out revolution, while the other was ready to sign for peace with the Prussians so as not to succumb to those reforms which, it was said, would have led to out-and-out communism.
By mid-September the Prussians had reached the gates of Paris, had occupied the forts that should have protected the city, and were shelling it. Five months of terrible siege during which starvation was to become the chief enemy.
I understood little and cared less about the political intrigues and the marches in various parts of the city, and felt at such times it was better not to be seen around too much. But the question of food did concern me, and each day I kept up-to-date with the local shopkeepers about what we might expect. When I walked through public gardens like the Jardin du Luxembourg, it seemed at first as if the city had been overrun with livestock, as sheep and cows had been herded inside the city walls. But by October it was said that no more than twenty-five thousand oxen and a hundred thousand rams were left, which was not enough to feed a metropolis.
Slowly households were reduced to frying goldfish, hippophagy was killing off every horse not under the protection of the army, a bushel of potatoes cost thirty francs, and Boissier the grocer was selling a box of lentils for twenty-five. Rabbits were nowhere to be seen, and butchers did not hesitate to display fine, plump cats and, later, dogs. All the exotic animals in the Jardin des Plantes were killed for meat, and on Christmas night, for those with money to spend, a sumptuous menu was on offer at Voisin, with elephant consommé, roast camel à l’anglaise, jugged kangaroo, bear chops au sauce poivrade, antelope terrine with truffles and cat garnished with baby mice, since not only had sparrows vanished from the rooftops but mice and rats were disappearing from the sewers.
The camel was acceptable, and not too bad-tasting, but rats, no. Even in times of siege there were smugglers and black marketeers, and I well remember one (extremely expensive) meal, not in a great restaurant but in a gargote almost on the edge of the city, where along with a few privileged guests (not all belonging to the best of Parisian society, but at such times class differences are forgotten) I was able to taste pheasant and the freshest pâté de foie d’oie.
By mid-September the Prussians had reached the gates of Paris, had occupied the forts that should have protected the city, and were shelling it.
In January, an armistice was signed with the Germans. It allowed them to symbolically occupy the capital in March, and I have to say, it was quite humiliating even for me to watch them parading along the Champs-Élysées in their spiked helmets. They established themselves to the northeast of the city, leaving the French government to control the southwestern side—in other words, the fortresses of Ivry, Montrouge, Vanves, Issy and others, including the heavily fortified stronghold of Mont-Valérien, from which the western part of the capital could be easily bombarded (as the Prussians had shown).
The Prussians then left Paris, and the French government under Thiers was formed. But the National Guard, now getting hard to control, had already seized cannon purchased by public subscription and hidden them at Montmartre, and Thiers sent General Lecomte to recapture them. At first Lecomte ordered his men to shoot at the National Guard and into the crowd, but in the end his soldiers joined the rebels, and he was taken prisoner by his own men. Meanwhile someone, somewhere or other, had recognized another general, General Thomas, who was not well remembered from the repressions of 1848. What was more, he was in civilian dress, perhaps because he was going about his own business, but everyone began to claim he was spying on the rebels. He was led to where Lecomte was waiting, and both of them were shot.
Thiers and the rest of the government withdrew to Versailles, and at the end of March the Paris Commune was proclaimed. Now it was the French government (at Versailles) that besieged and bombarded Paris from the Mont-Valérien fortress, while the Prussians let everyone get on with it. Indeed they were fairly indulgent in allowing people across their lines, so Paris had more food during its second siege than it did in the first: though starved by their fellow countrymen, they were being indirectly supplied by their enemies. And someone, comparing the Germans with the Thiers government, suggested that the kraut eaters were good Christians after all.
While news was arriving of the French government’s withdrawal to Versailles, I received a note from Goedsche telling me that the Prussians were no longer interested in what was going on in Paris and so the pigeon loft and photographic darkroom would be dismantled. But on the same day I received a visit from Lagrange, who appeared to have guessed what Goedsche had written.
«My dear Simonini,» he said, «you must do for us what you were doing for the Prussians, and keep us informed. I’ve just had those two wretches you were working with arrested. The pigeons have returned where they were trained to go, but we can make use of the darkroom materials. We had our own fast line of communication for military information between Issy fort and an attic room in the Notre Dame area. You’ll send us your information there.»
«You’ll send ‘us’—us who? You were, how do you say, a member of the imperial police. You ought to have gone with your emperor. Now it seems you’re speaking as an emissary of the Thiers government.»
«Captain Simonini, I am one of those who remain even when governments go. I’m following my government to Versailles—if I stay here, I’ll end up like Lecomte and Thomas. These lunatics are quick to shoot, but we can give just as good as we get. When we need to know something specific you’ll receive more detailed orders.»
Something specific…Easier said than done, given that different things were going on in different parts of the city—platoons of the National Guard were parading with the red flag and with flowers in their rifle barrels in the same districts where respectable families had locked themselves inside their houses waiting for the return of the lawful government. Among those elected to the Commune, it was impossible to understand, either from the newspapers or from the gossip in the marketplace, who was on which side, since they included laborers, doctors, journalists, moderate republicans, angry socialists and diehard Jacobins who dreamt of returning not to the Commune of 1789 but to the Terror of ’93. But the atmosphere in the streets was of great gaiety. Had it not been for the men in uniform, you might have imagined a large popular celebration. The soldiers were playing what, in Turin, we used to call sussi and here is called au bouchon, while officers strutted about in front of the girls.
This morning I remembered I had among my old belongings a large box full of clippings from that period, which come in handy for reconstructing what my memory alone cannot do. They were from newspapers of all leanings: Le Rappel, Le Réveil du Peuple, La Marseillaise, Le Bonnet Rouge, Paris Libre, Le Moniteur du Peuple and others. I don’t know who read them—perhaps only those who wrote them. I had bought them to see whether they had any facts or opinions that might have been of interest to Lagrange.
I could see how confused the situation was when I met Maurice Joly one day among a confused crowd in an equally confused demonstration. He barely recognized me because of my beard and then, remembering I was a Carbonaro or something similar, assumed I was a supporter of the Commune. For him I had been a kind and generous companion in a difficult time. He took me by the arm, led
