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 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.)

Eleanor Marx’s translation of Lissagaray’s History was made from a manuscript revised by the author and approved by Karl Marx. Lissagaray himself regarded it as the definitive edition of his work. Editing has therefore been confined to a minimum, though some minor mis-translations from the original French have been corrected and a number of anachronistic terms, generally derived directly from the French, have been revised to make their meaning clearer. Other French terms recurring in the text are expanded in the glossary provided. Lissagaray’s own appendices and notes, which contain valuable documentation of the events described, are reproduced in full. A general index has been added to this edition together with a full index... (From : Marxists.org.)

Paris on the eve of death
The Paris of the Commune has but three days more to live; let us engrave upon our memory her luminous physiognomy. He who has breathed in thy life that fiery fever of modern history, who has panted on thy boulevards and wept in thy faubourgs, who has sung to the morning of thy revolutions and a few weeks after bathed his hands in powder behind thy barricades, he who can hear from beneath thy stones the voices of the martyrs of sublime ideas and read in every one of thy streets a date of human progress, even he does less justice to thy original grandeur than the stranger, though a Philistine, who came to glance at thee during the days of the Commune. The attraction of rebellious Paris was so strong that men hurried thither from America to be... (From : Marxists.org.)

The ‘Lefts’ betray Paris
We took Paris with cannons and politics. (Thiers, Inquiry into the 18th of March.) Who was the great conspirator against Paris? The Extreme Left. On the 19th March, what remained to M. Thiers wherewith to govern France? He had neither an army, nor cannon, nor the large towns. These possessed arms, and their workmen were on the alert. If that lower middle-class which makes the provinces endorse the revolutions of the metropolis had followed the movement, imitated their kindred of Paris, M. Thiers could not have opposed to them a single regiment. In order to subsist, retain the provinces, and induce them to provide the soldiers and the cannon that were to reduce Paris, what were the resources of the leader of the bourgeoisie? A word and a han... (From : Marxists.org.)

Women of the Commune and the opposing armies
The glorious flame of Paris still hid these failings. One must have been enkindled by it to describe it. Beside it the Communard journals, in spite of their romanticism, show pale and dull. It is true the mize en scène was unpretending. In the streets, in the silent boulevards, a battalion of a hundred men setting out for the battle or returning from it; a woman who follows, a passer — by who applauds — that is all. But it is the drama of the Revolution, simple and gigantic as a drama of Aeschylus. The commander in his vareuse, dusty, his silver lace singed, his men greyheads or youths, the veterans of June 1848 and the pupils of March, the son often marching by the side of the father. This woman, who salutes or accompanie... (From : Marxists.org.)