Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/420

 The soldiers then began to search the house, and soon laid their hands upon Rigault, who, having given his name, followed them quietly.

They then descended the Rue Gay-Lussac, leading their prisoner to the Luxembourg. When at the Rue Royer-Collard they met a colonel of the staff, who asked his name. Rigault replied with a shout of "Vive la Commune! à bas les assassins!"

He was forthwith placed against the wall and shot. His body lay abandoned at the entrance of the street for twenty-four hours, and presented a frightful spectacle. His head, surrounded by hair and beard, glued with blood, was horrible to see. The left side of the face was entirely crushed, and formed an undistinguishable mass, while the right eye, which alone remained, stood open, fixed and haggard in its expression.

Early in life Raoul Rigault had felt himself made for a double vocation, that of forming conspiracies and of doing the police on a large scale. These two specialties would seem at first sight to exclude each other, but he managed to conciliate two things apparently so hostile. Friend and disciple of L. A. Blanqui, he is believed to have derived his strange tastes from the French Mazzini. In his youth he had entered several schools, attempted a little of everything without any success, particularly the preparation for the Polytechnic School; and from these different failures at his examinations he had drawn a feeling of envy and hatred of others which prompted him to destroy everything. One is tempted to believe that the defeats which he had undergone counted for something in the extravagance of his radicalism.

His old father—a most honorable man—and his brother, a young man, sensible and well-bred, had both attempted at different times to bring back this prodigal son to his family, but always without success. He was entirely