Massacre by John M. Merriman

Author:John M. Merriman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300174526
Publisher: Yale University Press

The young Montmartre resident Sutter-Laumann, who had gone to work at the mairie of the Eighteenth Arrondissement the day before, was among those drawing fire near place Clichy. He quickly noticed that a good many guardsmen had exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothes in a last-ditch effort to avoid capture and certain death. A barricade at rue Lepic had only about a dozen defenders, and another further up the street only five or six. Resisters seemed either old or very young, with few in between. Twenty women marched towards rue Lepic behind a red flag. However, the guns at Moulin de galette were again quiet, thus offering Communard fighters no encouragement. After an exchange of gunfire between the defenders of the larger barricade further down rue Lepic, the Versaillais swept into nearby buildings and fired from above. Within a few minutes, about half the guardsmen and women had been killed or wounded.

Sutter-Laumann managed to escape the Versaillais attack, moving quickly from place Clichy via rue Véron to reach a barricade further up rue Lepic. The Communard cannons there had no shells. There were still five or six fédérés in position, but they soon retreated. The young Communard went to place Saint Pierre, where Versaillais shells were falling. He learned that line troops had taken boulevard Ornano and that place du Château d’eau was completely surrounded, ravaged by a ‘cyclone’ of shells. From rue Tholozé Sutter-Laumann could see troops in red trousers below at Moulin de galette. Shouts here and there of ‘Long live the Commune!’ and ‘The Versaillais are cowards!’ were not going to be enough. Now came time to think about getting out. At the home of a friend he carefully cleaned his National Guard uniform and waxed his shoes, in the hope of eliminating any trace of combat.65

Suddenly shots resounded outside. Hoping against hope, the father of Sutter-Laumann’s friend assumed that they had been fired by fédérés. But they were not national guardsmen. Almost immediately, Versaillais officers ordered from the street that all widows be shut and one of them demanded to know if there were guardsmen inside. There were eleven in the cellar, including Sutter-Laumann and his friend. When they emerged from the basement they were confronted by the rifles of line troops. An officer barked, ‘Did you serve the Commune?’ ‘No, my lieutenant’, came the reply. ‘Then why are you wearing a National Guard uniform?’ Sutter-Laumann’s response came quickly. He was so dressed because if he had gone out without a uniform that morning he would have risked arrest. Then why had he not gone to Versailles? He told the officer that he was only nineteen years old and lived with his parents. They had not been able to get out of Paris. The interrogator said that he had managed to get to Versailles. Desperate, Sutter-Laumann asked how he could live there with no resources. When the Versaillais replied that his expenses would have been paid, Sutter-Laumann asked hopefully how he could have known that?

Sutter-Laumann made

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