‘No, no, no. Envy will serve only to consolidate the enemy’s strength, proving he is correct in his choice of society! The papers are telling us we have twenty-odd days of supplies left. We need to allow ourselves ten to replenish our provisions if we want to go out en masse to attack the Prussians. If we have not established the Commune within the next few days, if we have not pushed out this government of traitors who have sought only to negotiate a capitulation since the outbreak of war, then all the deprivations we have suffered will have been for naught.’

A member of the National Guard stood up, brandishing a menu.

‘Look what I found! Elephant consommé, truffled antelope kidney, roast camel à l’anglaise, kangaroo stew . . . it’s the Christmas Eve menu from Restaurant Brébant. That’s why they closed the Jardin des Plantes! Because they sold off the exotic animals at outrageous prices to the restaurateurs of the Palais-Royal so the wealthy could gorge themselves while we fed on the tough flesh of old nags.’

Shouts. Nobody was paying attention to Auguste anymore.

‘I’m fed up with cooking rat,’ cried one woman.

‘Try cat! It’s not bad,’ said another.

‘No, kangaroo stew,’ said a third.

Laughter.

The young man remained unperturbed and continued in a voice that he hoped was exhortatory.

‘Citizens, men and women of the Commune . . . today we stand at the one hundredth day of the siege. If you do not seize this, our last chance to unseat this government, when the war is over, we shall be staring darkness in the face for dozens of years to come . . .’

But his words were swallowed by the brouhaha of the crowd.

‘They found 1500 hams in an apartment building on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève which copped a shell . . .’

‘The hams . . . where did they end up?’

‘Let’s search the cellars!’

The sound of explosions cut short the interjections and in a single movement, everybody in the club rushed outside to scan the horizon, trying to work out the origin of the cannon fire.

In the east, the sky was streaked with light and pinpoints of fire.

‘In this fog, it looks like the aurora borealis,’ said the bourgeois woman with the pug.

‘Here we go, they’re bombarding us, the bastards,’ said a member of the Mobile Guard.

Then the members of the Favié Club headed for home, disappearing in little clusters, one after the other, into the dark maw of the unlit streets.

Auguste, for his part, remained rooted to the spot, staring at his feet.

‘The political thinking of these people extends no further than the contents of their plates. Nobody listened to me!’

‘I’m hungry too. Shall we be off?’ answered Clothilde.

Chapter 9

9