A MOB PANICKED BY THE ARMY ADVANCE AND ITS EXECUTIONS SHOOTS 50 PRISONERS. COMMUNE MEMBERS TRY BUT FAIL TO SAVE THEM
(On May 26)
A second mass shooting gave Versailles another justification for its violence: See the caption under the picture of wealthy Parisians greeting Versaillais troops.
-- Main source: Mes Cahiers rouges, un peu de vérité sur la mort des otages (My Red Notebooks, a Bit of Truth on the Death of the Hostages), pp. 68-127 by Maxime Vuillaume, toward 1910. He examined records, followed the route from prison to execution site and spoke with witnesses.
Another Crimes of the Commune montage
The horde seeks revenge on people who have no tie with the fighting but who side with Versailles: " 'They've been shooting our own in heaps! And you want to spare such people!' " cries an elderly combattant, aiming his revolver at a Commune official who tries to protect the prisoners.
# # #
Commune soldiers demand that all remaining prisoners be handed over. With their platoon and about 30 "lost boys" they march with trumpets, singing a drinking song, through screaming crowds to empty terrain next to Belleville's eastern rampart.
The sight that rue Haxo presented was terrifying. Between howls of the mob one heard the clash of battle. Fugitives rushed to the nearby gate in the rampart to try to cross the Prussian lines.
Mixed with the whistling of bullets and the boom of shells were the sounds of German music just beyond the rampart buffer.
-- Vuillaume, p.114
Commune officials have fallen back to a nearby inn, at 78 rue Haxo. From a corner window they see the crowd, the hostages and the empty terrain. They try to prevent the massacre.
"Cournet, Délégué [Minister] of Security, ties on his red shawl and tries to speak. The crowd covers his voice. He is threatened.
Varlin makes superhuman efforts. He asks his colleagues and several friends to join him in the space where the crowd is about to bring the prisoners.
-- ' No,' Roulier [a cobbler, member of the Commission of Labor] objects. " 'It must not be said that members of the Commune were present.' "
"All efforts to tear them [the hostages] from death were then useless. Those horrified by the useless disaster could only throw themselves into the battle or flee.[... ]
Varlin went back to signing orders, to delivering orders and money for requisitions, with apparent calm.
Suddenly shots broke out."
# # #
A memorial at the Belleville cemetery honors the murdered
guards:
# # #
The description (click to enlarge the photo) unquestioningly accepts the versaillais version, ignoring the terrified mob and the attempts of the Commune members to save the victims. As well, errors show that the writer has not consulted Valles's easily available text. The subject does not interest him.
"The shooting took place behind the cemetery wall at the Villa des Otages, 85 rue de Haxo."The cemetery wall is a 10-minute walk from the site of the shooting. The writer takes the montage at face value, not bothering to visit the site.
# # #
On the street next to the site where the shooting took place is this sign:
"On May 26, 1871, 50 hostages from the prison of la Roquette, mostly priests, Paris Guards and policemen, were taken there and slaughtered without judgement. [...]"
"Eugène Varlin and members of the Central Committee tried in vain to oppose the massacre. But nothing could stop the crowd, made desperate by the exactions and summary executions of the Versaillais, who were reconquering Paris street by street, house by house.
Firing-squad shootings, first a few isolated shots then a long, long salvo that seemed never to end... (Jules Vallès, The Insurgent, 1885)"
The misinformation
is all the more reason to appreciate
a panel that, exceptionally,
gives accurate information and says what counts.
.
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