In
Honor Of The 145th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune -Jean Jacques Paget’s Dream
Jean Jacques Paget, all of age fourteen, son of Francois
Paget the journeyman tinsmith and a known radical thinker, a follower of
Proudhon, around the neighborhood, had not slept a wink the past twenty-four
hours. Well, maybe a couple of winks after they, he and his comrades, had
erected the barricade at the corner of Saint Catherine’s, and he had rested his
eyes for a few minutes. But like the bulletin from the Central Committee of the
National Guard stated every citizen of Paris, every honest democrat, every
person who stood against the depredations of the Thiers government that had
fled to Versailles in panic needed to be vigilant, needed to defend the Commune
with his or her life. And young Paget, leaning for support against some chairs
that had hastily been thrown on the pile was willing, young as he was, to
defend the Commune with his life (and he thought his father too although he was
away at the Hotel de Ville attending to Committee of Public Safety business and
so not at the barricade). He was sure of that, just as sure as he was of the
dream he had of what would come of all this when the dust settled, when they
could take down the barricades and begin life, a people’s commune life, like his father kept arguing with one and all about.
Young Paget, if he had been asked the finer points of political doctrine would have had to confess
that he was unaware of what the programs of Blanqui and Proudhon and like were about but he
knew, knew in a mind’s eye way, what he wanted. First and foremost he
wanted cheap bread for the table; bread so he did not allows feel hungry like now
with bread dear in his growing bones, bones suffering all the suffering a
fourteen year old suffers. He wanted free education so he could learn to read
better, and maybe become a printer or a skilled tradesman and not have to
drudge away in some crummy old factory like the ones that were starting to foul
up the air of the neighborhood. He wanted an end to military service for the
state, the state that had taken his older brother Leon away, Leon who was now a
prisoner of the bloody Germans who were howling at the outer walls of his dear
Paris. Let the Central Committee of the National Guard provide for the defense,
they could do better than that fool Louis Bonaparte had done. He wanted the
banks abolished, or at least controlled some so Paget, Senior, Papa, could
finally end his journeymanship and open his own shop. He wanted the streets
cleaned up too so every time it rained he didn’t get his shoes all mucked up
and smelly for a week. He wanted a house where the roof didn’t leak and there
were not about eight people to each room. He wanted a room of his own, if
possible, no more than two though. He wanted free boat rides on the Seine
although he would not insist on that demand. Mainly though he wanted the
government to leave him and family alone, stop taking their money for
never-ending taxes and keeping Paget, Senior away from his dream. And he
thought he was right, right in the sense that he was feeling that his father
and his friends and comrades could figure out how to run the government without
a lot of muss and fuss, and that was what he really was willing to defend,
defend to the death if necessary if it came to that…
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