From that day onward, anarchist attempts followed one another every week
without interruption. The victims were numerous, and almost all of them
belonged to the poorer classes. These crimes roused public resentment. It was
among domestic servants, hotel-keepers, and the employees of such small shops
as the Trusts still allowed to exist, that indignation burst forth most
vehemently. In popular districts women might be heard demanding unusual
punishments for the dynamitards. (They were called by this old name, although
it was hardly appropriate to them, since, to these unknown chemists, dynamite
was an innocent material only fit to destroy ant-hills, and they considered it
mere child's play to explode nitro-glycerine with a cartridge made of
fulminate of mercury.) Business ceased suddenly, and those who were least rich
were the first to feel the effects. They spoke of doing justice themselves to
the anarchists. In the mean time the factory workers remained hostile or
indifferent to violent action. They were threatened, as a result of the
decline of business, with a likelihood of losing their work, or even a
lock-out in all the factories. The Federation of Trade Unions proposed a
general strike as the most powerful means of influencing the employers, and
the best aid that could be given to the revolutionists, but all the trades
with the exception of the gliders refused to cease work.
The police made numerous arrests. Troops summoned from all parts of the
National Federation protected the offices of the Trusts, the houses of the
multi-millionaires, the public halls, the banks, and the big shops. A
fortnight passed without a single explosion, and it was concluded that the
dynamitards, in all probability but a handful of persons, perhaps even Still
fewer, had all been killed or captured, or that they were in hiding, or had
taken flight. Confidence returned; it returned at first among the poorer
classes. Two or three hundred thousand soldiers, who bad been lodged in the
most closely populated districts, stimulated trade, and people began to cry
out: "Hurrah for the army!"
The rich, who had not been so quick to take alarm, were reassured more slowly.
But at the Stock Exchange a group of "bulls" spread optimistic rumours and by
a powerful effort put a brake upon the fall in prices. Business improved.
Newspapers with big circulations supported the movement. With patriotic
eloquence they depicted capital as laughing in its impregnable position at the
assaults of a few dastardly criminals, and public wealth maintaining its
serene ascendency in spite of the vain threats made against it. They were
sincere in their attitude, though at the same time they found it benefited
them. Outrages were forgotten or their occurrence denied. On Sundays, at the
race-meetings, the stands were adorned by women covered with pearls and
diamonds. It was observed with joy that the capitalists had not suffered.
Cheers were given for the multi-millionaires in the saddling rooms.
On the following day the Southern Railway Station, the Petroleum Trust, and
the huge church built at the expense of Thomas Morcellet were all blown up.
Thirty houses were in flames, and the beginning of a fire was discovered at
the docks. The firemen showed amazing intrepidity and zeal. They managed their
tall fire-escapes with automatic precision, and climbed as high as thirty
storeys to rescue the luckless inhabitants from the flames. The soldiers
performed their duties with spirit, and were given a double ration of coffee.
But these fresh casualties started a panic. Millions of people, who wanted to
take their money with them and leave the town at once, crowded the great
banking houses. These establishments, after paying out money for three days,
closed their doors amid mutterings of a riot. A crowd of fugitives, laden with
their baggage, besieged the railway stations and took the town by storm. Many
who were anxious to lay in a stock of provisions and take refuge in the
cellars, attacked the grocery stores, although they were guarded by soldiers
with fixed bayonets. The public authorities displayed energy. Numerous arrests
were made and thousands of warrants issued against suspected persons.
During the three weeks that followed no outrage was committed. There was a
rumour that bombs had been found in the Opera House, in the cellars of the
Town Hall, and beside one of the Pillars of the Stock Exchange. But it was
soon known that these were boxes of sweets that had been put in those places
by practical jokers or lunatics. One of the accused, when questioned by a
magistrate, declared that he was the chief author of the explosions, and said
that all his accomplices had lost their lives. These confessions were
published by the newspapers and helped to reassure public opinion. It was only
towards the close of the examination that the magistrates saw they had to deal
with a pretender who was in no way connected with any of the crimes.
The experts chosen by the courts discovered nothing that enabled them to
determine the engine employed in the work of destruction. According to their
conjectures the new explosive emanated from a gas which radium evolves, and it
was supposed that electric waves, produced by a special type of oscillator,
were propagated through space and thus caused the explosion. But even the
ablest chemist could say nothing precise or certain. At last two policemen,
who were passing in front of the Hotel Meyer, found on the pavement, close to
a ventilator, an egg made of white metal and provided with a capsule at each
end. They picked it up carefully, and, on the orders of their chief, carried
it to the municipal laboratory. Scarcely had the experts assembled to examine
it, than the egg burst and blew up the amphitheatre and the dome. All the
experts perished, and with them Collin, the General of Artillery, and the
famous Professor Tigre.
The capitalist society did not allow itself to be daunted by this fresh
disaster. The great banks re-opened their doors, declaring that they would
meet demands partly in bullion and partly in paper money guaranteed by the
State: The Stock Exchange and the Trade Exchange, in spite of the complete
cessation of business, decided not to suspend their sittings.
In the mean time the magisterial investigation into the case of those who had
been first accused had come to an end. Perhaps the evidence brought against
them might have appeared insufficient under other circumstances, but the zeal
both of the magistrates and the public made up for this insufficiency. On the
eve of the day fixed for the trial the Courts of justice were blown up and
eight hundred people were killed, the greater number of them being judges and
lawyers. A furious crowd broke into the prison and lynched the prisoners. The
troops sent to restore order were received with showers of stones and revolver
shots; several soldiers being dragged from their horses and trampled
underfoot. The soldiers fired on the mob and many persons were killed. At last
the public authorities succeeded in establishing tranquillity. Next day the
Bank was blown up.
From that time onwards unheard-of things took place. The factory workers, who
had refused to strike, rushed in crowds into the town and set fire to the
houses. Entire regiments, led by their officers, joined the workmen, went with
them through the town singing revolutionary hymns, and took barrels of
petroleum from the docks with which to feed the fires. Explosions were
continual. One morning a monstrous tree of smoke, like the ghost of a huge
palm tree half a mile in height, rose above the giant Telegraph Hall which
suddenly fell into a complete ruin.
Whilst half the town was in flames, the other half pursued its accustomed
life. In the mornings, milk pails could be heard jingling in the dairy carts.
In a deserted avenue some old navvy might be seen seated against a wall slowly
eating hunks of bread with perhaps a little meat. Almost all the presidents of
the trusts remained at their posts. Some of them performed their duty with
heroic simplicity. Raphael Box, the son of a martyred multi-millionaire, was
blown up as he was presiding at the general meeting of the Sugar Trust. He was
given a magnificent funeral and the procession on its way to the cemetery had
to climb six times over piles of ruins or cross upon planks over the uprooted
roads.
The ordinary helpers of the rich, the clerks, employees, brokers, and agents,
preserved an unshaken fidelity. The surviving clerks of the Bank that had been
blown up, made their way along the ruined streets through the midst of smoking
houses to hand in their bills of exchange, and several were swallowed up in
the flames while endeavouring to present their receipts.
Nevertheless, any illusion concerning the state of affairs was impossible. The
enemy was master of the town. Instead of silence the noise of explosions was
now continuous and produced an insurmountable feeling of horror. The lighting
apparatus having been destroyed, the city was plunged in darkness all through
the night, and appalling crimes were committed. The populous districts alone,
having suffered the least, still preserved measures of protection. The were
paraded by patrols of volunteers who shot the robbers, and at every street
corner one stumbled over a body lying in a pool of blood, the hands bound
behind the back, a handkerchief over the face, and a placard pinned upon the
breast.
It became impossible to clear away the ruins or to bury the dead. Soon the
stench from the corpses became intolerable. Epidemics raged and caused
innumerable deaths, while they also rendered the survivors feeble and
listless. Famine carried off almost all who were left. A hundred and one days
after the first outrage, whilst six army corps with field artillery and siege
artillery were marching, at night, into the poorest quarter of the city,
Caroline and Clair, holding each other's hands, were watching from the roof a
lofty house, the only one still left standing, but now surrounded by smoke and
flame. joyous songs ascended from the street, where the crowd was dancing in
delirium.
"To-morrow it will be ended," said the man, "and it will be better."
The young woman, her hair loosened and her face shining with the reflection of
the flames, gazed with a pious joy at the circle of fire that was growing
closer around them.
"It will be better," said she also.
And throwing herself into the destroyer's arms she pressed a passionate kiss
upon his lips.
Read next: BOOK VIII - FUTURE TIMES#CHAPTER S4
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