Who takes Bergeret's place? Dombrowski.[49] Who had the idea of doing this? Cluseret. First of all we had the Central Committee, then we had the Commune, and now we have Cluseret. It looks as if Cluseret had swallowed the Commune, which had previously swallowed and only half digested the Central Committee. We are told that Cluseret is a great man, that Cluseret is strong, that Cluseret will save Paris. Cluseret issues decrees, and sees that they are executed. The Commune says, "_we wish_;" but Cluseret says, "_I wish_." It is he who has conceived and promulgated the following edict:
"In consideration of the patriotic demands of a large number of National Guards, who, although they are married men, wish to have the honour of defending their municipal rights, even at the expense of their lives ..."
I should like to know some of those National Guards who attach so little importance to their lives! Show me two, and I will myself consent to be the third. But I am interrupting Dictator Cluseret.
"The decree of the fifth of April is therefore modified:"
The decree of the fifth of April was made by the Commune, but Cluseret does not care a straw for that.
"From seventeen to nineteen, service in the marching-companies is voluntary, but from nineteen to forty it is obligatory for the National Guards, married or unmarried.
"I recommend all good patriots to be their own police, and to see that this edict is carried out in their respective quartern, and to force the refractory to serve."
As to the last paragraph of Cluseret's decree it is impossible to joke about it, it is by far too odious. This exhortation in favour of a press-gang,--this wish that each man should become a spy upon his neighbour (he says it in so many words), fills me with anger and disgust. What! I may be passing in the streets, going about my own business, and the first Federal who pleases, anybody with dirty hands, a wretch you may be sure, for none but a wretch would follow the recommendations of Cluseret,--an escaped convict, may take me by the collar and say, "Come along and be killed for the sake of my municipal independence." Or else I may be in bed at night, quietly asleep, as it is clearly my right to be, and four or five fellows, fired with patriotic ardour, may break in my door, if I do not hasten to open it on the first summons like a willing slave, and, whether I like it or not, drag me in night-cap and slippers, in my shirt perhaps, if it so pleases the brave _sans-culottes_, to the nearest outpost. Now I swear to you, Cluseret, I would not bear this, if I had not, during the last few hungry days of the siege, sold to a curiosity dealer--your colleague now in the Commune--my revolver, which I had hoped naïvely might defend me against the Prussians! Think, a revolver with six balls, if you please, and which, alas! I forgot to discharge!