In the kiosques are the caricatures. Thiers, Picard, and Jules Favre figure as the Three Graces, clasping each other's paunches. This fine fish, the _maquereau_, with the blue-green scales, who is making up a bed with an imperial crown, is the Marquis de Gallifet. _L'Avenir_, the mouthpiece of the _Ligue_. _Le Siècle_, become very hostile since the arrest of Gustave Chaudey; and _La Vérité_, the Yankee Portalis's paper, are piled up, melancholy and intact. Many reactionist papers have been suppressed by the prefecture, but for all that are not dead; for a lad, without any mystery about him, offers them to us.
Read, search, find one appeal to murder, to pillage, a single cruel line in all these Communard journals excited by the battle, and then compare them with the Versaillese papers, demanding fusillades _en masse_ as soon as the troops shall have vanquished Paris.
Let us follow those catafalques that are being taken up the Rue de la Roquette, and enter with them into the Père Lachaise cemetery. All those who die for Paris are entombed with obsequies in the great resting-place. The Commune has claimed the honour of paying for their funerals; its red flag blazes from the four corners of the hearse, followed by some comrades of the battalion, while a few passers-by always join the procession. This is a wife accompanying her dead husband. A member of the Council follows the coffin; at the grave he speaks not of regrets, but of hope, of vengeance. The widow presses her children in her arms, and says to them, "Remember and cry with me, 'Vive la République! Vive la Commune!'"[176]
On retracing our steps, we pass by the mairie of the eleventh arrondissement. It is hung with black, the mourning of the last Imperialist plébiscite, of which the people of Paris was innocent and became the victim. We cross the Place de la Bastille, gay, animated by the ginger-bread fair. Paris will yield nothing to the cannon; she has even prolonged the annual fair for a week. The swings move to and fro, the wheels-of-fortune turn, booth-keepers cry their sixpenny wares, the mountebanks allure spectators, and promise half their receipts to the wounded.
We go down these great boulevards. A crowd pushes against the Napoleon Circus, where 5,000 people are gathered, filling it from the area to the ceiling. Small flags, each one bearing the name of a department, urge the provincials to group themselves. This meeting has been called by some merchants, who propose to the citizens of the departments to send delegates to their respective deputies, in the belief that the latter may be brought round and peace gained by explanations. A tall, thin man, with a sad face, asks for permission to address the people, and gets upon the platform. It is Millière, whom the crowd cheers. "Peace," said he, "we all wish for it, citizens. But who, then, has commenced the war? Who attacked Paris on the 18th March? M. Thiers. Who attacked her on the 2nd April? M. Thiers. Who has spoken of conciliation, multiplied attempts at peace? Paris. Who has always repulsed them? M. Thiers. Conciliation! M. Dufaure has said, 'Why, insurrection is less criminal.' And that which neither the Freemasons, nor the leagues, nor the addresses, nor the municipal councillors of the provinces could do, you expect to get from a deputation chosen from amongst the Parisians! See, without knowing it, you are enervating the defence. No, no more deputations, but active correspondence with the provinces--there lies salvation!" "This, then, is that energumen whom we are so frightened of in the provinces!" exclaimed our friend. "Yes, and these thousands of men of all conditions, who in common seek for peace, consult each other, answer courteously, these are the demented people, the handful of bandits who hold the capital."