Review by E. Belfort Bax: Lissagary’s History of the Commune : (4 December 1886) , by Imogen: A Pastoral Romance From the Ancient
This important work has at last appeared in English, and we do not hesitate to say that it ought to be in the hands of every Socialist. The history of the Commune, as presented in the generally unbiased narrative of Lissagaray, bears a profound moral with it. It is the story of the struggle of noble enthusiasm, genuine disinterestedness and devotion, and, in the ordinary sense great opportunities with foolish vanity, personal squabbles, inefficiency of organization, and pedantry, resulting in the ascendancy of the latter, and consequent general collapse. The Versaillaise entered upon a victory already prepared for them. And it will be so again in the next great popular movement, should due subordination of function and organization not be able to keep the whip hand of mere confusion, cliquishness and faddism. But the moral to be drawn is of more immediate application than to the next popular rising. To compare small matters with great, there are Socialist organisatians (save the m... (From : Marxists.org.)

Glossary of French Terms
Arrondissements — The 20 administrative districts, each with a mayor, into which Paris was divided. Brassardiers — Arm-band wearers. Cantiniere — Canteen woman attached to each battalion. Catafalques — Decorated coffins used in funeral processions. Chassepots — An early type of rifle. Code Napoleon — The French legal code upholding bourgeois property and rights drawn up under Napoleon I but still the basis of the French legal system. Corps Legislatif — Legislative Assembly. Enceinte — The wall around the old city of Paris. Faubourgs — Suburbs. Feuilles-de-route — Travel document issued to a soldier giving the route to be followed and destination, and used for passing from one army unit to another. Franc-tireurs — Irregular soldiers. Gallicans — The Church faction which wanted the independence of the Church in France and que... (From : Marxists.org.)

Author’s Notes
1 The prefect of police, Pietri, attests it: ‘It is certain that on that day the revolution might have succeeded, for the crowd which surrounded the Corps Législatif on the 9th August was composed of elements similar to those which triumphed on the 4th September.’ Enquête sur Le 4 Septembre, Vol. I, p. 253. 2 Let it be understood that I proceed, the words of our adversaries in hand parliamentary inquiries, memoirs, reports, histories: that I do not attribute to them an act or a word which has not been avowed by them, their documents, or their friends. When I say M. Thiers saw, M. Theirs knew, it is that M. Thiers has said, I saw, page 6, I knew, page 11, Vol. I of the Enquête sur let Actes du Gouvernement de la Defense Nationale. It will be the same with all the acts and words of all the official or adverse personages that I quote. 3 See the evidence of the Marquis de Talhouet, re... (From : Marxists.org.)

Appendices
I The Central Committee found in the War Office, and the Officiel of the Commune published on the 25th April, the following letter from the supreme commander of the artillery of the army to General Suzanne: Paris 12th December 1870 My dear Suzanne, I have not found among the young auxiliaries your protege Hetzel, but only a M. Hessel. Is it he who is meant? Tell me frankly what you desire, and I will do it. I will attach him to my staff, where he will be bored, having nothing to do, or else I will send him to Mont Valerien, where he will run less risk than at Paris (this for the parents), and where he will have the air of firing cannons into the air, according to Noel’s method. Unbutton — your mouth, of course. Yours, Guiod The Noel mentioned at that time commanded Mount Valerien. II The role of the Central Committee during the day of... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 36 : The balance-sheet of bourgeois vengeance
The deported men are happier than our soldiers, for our soldiers have fighting to do, while the deportee lives in the midst of the flowers in his garden. (Speech against amnesty by Admiral Fourichon, Navy Minister, session of 17th May, 1876.) It is above all the Republicans who must be adverse to the amnesty. (Victor Lefranc, session of 18th May, 1876.) Two days’ journey from France there is a colony eager for hands, rich enough to enrich thousands of families. After every victory over Parisian workmen the bourgeoisie has always preferred throwing its victims to the antipodes to fecundating Algeria with them. The Republic of 1848 had Nouka-Hiva; the Versaillese Assembly, New Caledonia. It was to this rock, six thousand leagues from their native land, that it decided to transport those condemned for life. ‘The Council of the Government,’ said the reporter on the law, ‘gives the transported a family and a home.’ The machine-gun was more hones... (From : Marxists.org.)

The Central Committee forces the mayors to capitulate
The Central Committee was equal to the occasion. Its proclamations, its Socialist articles in the Officiel, the truculence of the mayors and deputies, had at last rallied round it all the revolutionary groups. It had also added to its members some men better known to the masses. By its order the Place Vendôme was provided with barricades; the battalions of the Hôtel-de-Ville were reinforced; strong patrols remounted the boulevards before the reactionary posts of the Rues Vivienne and Drouot. Thanks to it, the night passed tranquilly. As the elections on the next day had become impossible, the Committee declared they could only take place on the 26th, and said to Paris: ‘The reaction, excited by your mayors and your deputies... (From : Marxists.org.)

The weaknesses of the Council
After an armistice of seventy days, Paris again took up the struggle for France single-handed. It was no longer the territory only which she strove for, but the very ground-work of the nation. Victorious, her victory would not be sterile like those of the battlefield; regenerated, the people would set to the great work of remaking the social edifice; vanquished, all liberty would be quenched, the bourgeoisie turn its whips into scorpions, and a generation glide into the grave. And Paris, so generous, so fraternal, did not shudder at the impending civil war. She stood up for an idea that exalted her battalions. While the bourgeois refuses to fight, saying, ‘I have a family,’ the workman says, ‘I fight for my children.’ Fo... (From : Marxists.org.)

The Commune at Lyons, St. Etienne and Creuzot
All parts of France have united and rallied around the Assembly and the government. (Circular from Thiers to the Provinces, evening of the 23rd.) What was the state of the provinces? For some days, without any of the Parisian journals, they lived upon lying dispatches of M. Thiers, 103 then looked at the signatures to the proclamations of the Central Committee, and finding there neither the Left nor the democratic paragons, said, ‘Who are these unknown men?’ The Republican bourgeois, misinformed on the events occurring during the siege of Paris — very cleverly hoodwinked, too, by the Conservative press — cried, like their fathers who in their time had said, ‘Pitt and Coburg’, when unable to comprehend popular ... (From : Marxists.org.)

The Commune’s last stand
Major Ségoyer was captured by the scoundrels who were defending the Bastille, and, without respect for the laws of war, was immediately shot. (Thiers to the Prefects, 27th May.) The soldiers continuing their nocturnal surprises, got hold of the deserted barricades of the Rue d'Aubervilliers and the Boulevard de la Chapelle. On the side of the Bastille they occupied the barricade of the Rue St. Antoine at the corner of the Rue Castex, the Gare de Lyons, and the Mazas prison; in the third, all the abandoned defenses of the market and of the Square du Temple. They reached the first houses of the Boulevard Voltaire, and established themselves at the Magasins Réunis. In the darkness of the night a Versaillese officer was surprised ... (From : Marxists.org.)

The new Committee at work
At the advent of the new Committee on the 10th May our military situation had not changed within the line from St. Ouen to Neuilly, where both sides faced each other on the same level; but it was becoming serious from La Muette. The powerful battery of Montretout, that of Meudon, of Mont-Valérien, covered Passy with shells and greatly injured the ramparts. The Versaillese trenches extended from Boulogne to the Seine. Their skirmishers were pressing upon the village of Issy, and occupied the trenches between the fort and that of Vanves, which they tried to cut off from Montrouge. The negligence of the defense was still the same. The ramparts from La Muette to the fort of Vanves were hardly armed; our gunboats bore almost alone the fir... (From : Marxists.org.)