The Paris Commune and those Involved
The Mur des Fédérés, Père-Lachaise Cemetary where the last communards were shot on 28 May 1871. The plaque says: `Aux Morts De La Commune.' 30,000 National Guards men and women were shot by the Marshall MacMahan and the French army in collaboration with the Prussians.

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After the Commune Jean Allemane was sentenced, as a leading National Guardsman, to forced labour for life, and was transported to New Caledonia. While there, a trumped-up charge led to his being condemned to a frightful punishment known as "la crapaudine." ("Crapaud" is French for toad.)
But on his first evening in a cell he heard a low voice...

"Halloo!" came the whisper. "You - Communard!"
"Who's that?" I whispered back.
"It's me, in number two!"
"What do you want of me?"
"Are you in the crapaudine?"

"My legs are chained to a heavy bar and my hands are cuffed behind my back."
"The crapaudine! Well... we'll just have to free you..."
"Free me?"
"That's right!"
"But what can I do?"

"You've only got to do as I tell you..." (continued below)
Among Those involved in the Paris Commune of 1870:
Louise Michel, soldier, orator
Alfred Assolant, author of children's books, the Adventures of Capt. Corcoran
 ...You've only got to do as I tell you."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Not a bit of it! I know who you are. And there isn't one of us in the cell-block who doesn't know that you're only suffering because Charrière hates you."
"I'm glad you know that! But I don't see how I can manage to relieve my torment..." (cont. below)
Gustave Courbet, Painter
...But I don't see how I can manage to relieve my torment..."

"You've only got to follow my instructions. Listen!
First, you must force your arms under your trunk and down behind your legs -"
"Is that possible?"
"Yes! It will be painful - but in the end you'll manage to do it!"
"And then?"

"When you've done that and your hands are down behind your legs, try to get a grip on the iron bar which your ankle-chains are fixed to. Push it over to the left. You'll find that it's possible to manoeuvre one wrist beyond the end of the bar, its right-hand end. Do you understand?"
"I think so..." (cont. below)
Judith David, dancer
Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"Good! Next you must slide the bar to the right, and manoeuvre your other wrist, too, around the other end of the bar.
And then at last your hands will be in front of you!"

He continued. "Next you lift the hem of your prison smock up to your mouth. Use your teeth to draw out a fairly long thread. Wet it with saliva, to make it more rigid, but keep it tight between your teeth! Then push it into the spiral spring which locks the handcuffs. Once it's in, rotate it gently - be very patient! - and when you feel that it's caught, pull!
If the thread breaks, you'll have to start again! If it hasn't caught properly in the spring and the handcuffs don't open when you pull - you'll have to start again! But you can manage to do what others have done before you!
So take heart, Communard! You'll need all your fortitude. But take heart!"...(cont. below)
DesireeDumont, waitress
But take heart!"

I whispered, "I'm grateful to you, and I'll try to follow your instructions and relieve this torture-" and then a thought struck me. "Suppose I manage to free my hands, and then a guard comes into my cell, how can I help being found out?"
"One can hear that you're just as awkward as you were when you first arrived on the island! It's child's play. When you hear someone coming, you place your wrists into the handcuffs and sit with your back to the wall. If a key is put into the lock, wait until it is turned, and at the same moment press hard against the wall. The handcuffs will close and you'll look just the same as when the guard last saw you.
Then when the guard's left, you've only got to go through the same process as before. Remember, it will get easier every time you do it!"...(cont.)
Giuseppi Garibaldi, 'Father of Italy'
Remember, it will get easier every time you do it!"

"Thank you again! I shall try to remember -"
"Wait! Don't start yet!"
"Why not?"
"Because until you're more experienced, forcing your body through the circle of your arms and getting your hands past the bar, is going to be very, very painful. If they come to inspect your cell for some reason, you'll be in no state to get yourself trussed up again in time. So wait until nightfall!"
And the prisoner in number two, who had hoisted himself up to the barred opening from his cell onto the corridor, let himself down again, quietly.

And now another doubt attacked me....(cont. below)
Tony Moilin, doctor
Emile Zola, novelist
And now another doubt attacked me. Prisoners in the other cells must have overheard the advice given me by number two. One of them could inform on me.
But then, what was the point of worrying about something that might never happen? Wasn't the essential thing, now, to try to ease my agony?
To ask this question was also to answer it. I made up my mind to follow the instructions of the fellow-prisoner who had shown me such compassion - and courage. How many people would take the same risk as this convict had just done, to diminish the suffering of a comrade?

When the men whose punishments involved spending the night in a cell had been locked up, and the guards' nightly tour of inspection was over, I set to my task.
It proved so difficult that I almost gave up hope at the outset. Sweating, and moaning with pain, all I accomplished was to flay my hands and wrists. But I kept on, because success would mean partial relief from the crapaudine which breaks one mentally and physically. And I had been assured that others, in equally desperate straits, had succeeded.

So after the rest which had become essential I resumed my gymnastic struggle.
At long last, at the expense of my skin, and efforts which were made even harder by the need for silence, I surmounted the first, huge obstacle: I'd brought my chained hands down below my trunk, to my legs. I let myself hope that the rest of the procedure would be easier.

I managed the to-and-fro movement of the bar, getting first one wrist, and then the other, past it! I was relieved of a major part of my torment and you can imagine my joy when I saw my arms, scratched and bruised as they were, before me!
Now I only had to continue to follow number two's instructions, to gain the freedom of my hands. Deliverance was near! But what remained to be done called for skill rather than strength... Would I be able to complete the task?

Drawing the hem of my prison smock up to my mouth, I used my teeth to tear out a long thread and then, with the help of my saliva, gave it the stiffness my comrade had spoken of.
Now it was a question of inserting it into the spiral spring which locked my handcuffs. The operation was a delicate one! Twenty times I tried to twist the thread into the spring and, believing I had succeded, pulled gently - only to find that I hadn't managed it after all.
Cursing my clumsiness, and beginning to despair of coming any further, I was pulling once more - and felt a slight resistance - the thread had caught!
Gently, I continued to draw on it and... the handcuffs opened!

No words can express my feelings. I looked at my hands, free at last; then at the handcuffs, now as harmless as they had been murderous a short time ago; and I wondered if I was dreaming.
If some happy person had been able to see my joy, he would certainly have cried out:
"Poor convict! Your ankles are still imprisoned in cuffs attached to an iron bar; the walls of a cell, in the antipodes, separate you from the world of the living; you are at the mercy of your brutal gaolers; and yet you rejoice! How many men would shudder just at the thought of being in your dungeon, and of knowing that they would be prisoners, leading your wretched existence, for the rest of their lives!"

Still, I was now master (to a degree) of my movements. I took pleasure in lying on my back, and then in turning myself in all directions. I would gladly have embraced like a brother the convict, unknown to me, to whom I owed my release from unbroken torment."
Victor Hugo, novelist

The Daily News, 26 May 1871:

"When I returned the Communards were at their last gasp in the Château d'Eau, the Buttes de Chaumont, and Père-Lachaise. On the afternoon of the 28th, after just one week of fighting, Marshal MacMahon announced, `I am absolute master of Paris'. On the following morning I visited Père-Lachaise, where the very last shots had been fired. Bivouac fires had been fed with the souvenirs of pious sorrow, and the trappings of woe had been torn down to be used as bedclothes. But there had been no great amount of fighting in the cemetery itself. An infallible token of close and heavy firing are the dents of many bullets, and of those there were comparatively few in Père-Lachaise. Shells, however, had fallen freely, and the results were occasionally very ghastly. But the ghastliest sight in Père-Lachaise was in the south-eastern corner, where, close to the boundary wall, there had been a natural hollow. The hollow was now filled up by dead. One could measure the dead by the rod. There they lay, tier above tier, each successive tier powdered over with a coating of chloride of lime - two hundred of them patent to the eye, besides those underneath hidden by the earth covering layer after layer. Among the dead were many women. There, thrown up in the sunlight, was a well-rounded arm with a ring on one of the fingers; there, again, was a bust shapely in death. And yonder faces which to look upon made one sudder - faces distorted out of humanity with ferocity and agony combined. The ghastly effect of the dusty white powder on the dulled eyes, the gnashed teeth, and the jagged beards cannot be described. How died these men and women? Were they carted hither and laid out in this dead-hole of Père-Lachaise? Not so: the hole had been replenished from close by. Just yonder was where they were posted up against that section of pock-pitted wall - there was no difficulty in ready the open book - and were shot to death as they stood or crouched."

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