CHAPTER XV THE COMMUNE AND VICTOR HUGO I had gone away from Paris eleven days before, and had then left a sad city. The sadness had been painful, the result of a great misfortune which had been unexpected. No one had dared to look up, fearing to be blown upon by the same wind which was blowing the German flag floating over yonder beyond the Arc de Triomphe. I found Paris now effervescent and grumbling. The walls were placarded with many-colored posters, and all these posters contained the wildest harangues. Fine, noble ideas were side by side with absurd threats. Workmen, on their way to their daily toil, stopped in front of these bills. One would read aloud, and the gathering crowd would begin the reading over again. And all these human beings, who had just been suffering so much through this abominable war, now echoed these appeals for vengeance. They were very much to be excused. This war, alas! had hollowed out under their very feet a gulf of ruin and of mourning. Poverty had brought the women to rags, the privations of the siege had lowered the vitality of the children, and the shame of the defeat had discouraged the men. Well, these appeals to rebellion, these anarchist shouts, these yells from the crowd, shrieking: “Down with thrones! Down with the Republic! Down with the rich! Down with the priests! Down with the Jews! Down with the army! Down with the masters! Down with those who work! Down with everything!”—all these cries roused the benumbed hearers. The Germans, who fomented all these riots, rendered us a real service without intending it. Those who had given themselves up to resignation were stirred out of their torpor. Others, who were asking for “revenge,” found an aliment for their inactive forces. None of them agreed. There were ten or twenty different parties, devouring each other and threatening each other. It was terrible! But it was the awakening. It was life after death. I had among my friends about ten of the leaders of different opinions, and all of them interested me, the maddest and the wisest of them. I often saw Gambetta at Girardin’s, and it was a joy to me to listen to this admirable man. What he said was so wise, so well balanced and so captivating! This man with his heavy stomach, his short arms, and huge head, had a halo of beauty round him when he spoke. And he was never common, never ordinary. He took snuff, and the gesture of his hand when he brushed away the stray grains, was full of grace, He smoked huge cigars, but could smoke them without annoying anyone. When he was tired of politics and talked literature, it was a rare charm, for he knew everything and quoted poetry admirably. One evening, after dinner at Girardin’s, we played together the whole of the scene in the first act between _Hernani_ and _Doña Sol_. He was not handsome, like Mounet-Sully, but he was just as admirable in it.