The Paris Commune
Source: Père Duchêne, no. 62, 27 Floréal 79 (May 17, 1871);
Translated: from the original for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2012.
There’s another thing we have to keep an eye on.
The sewers.
It seems there are cops who circulate there.
Who disguise themselves as National Guardsmen.
All this so they can shoot patriots in the back when they go into combat.
It’s that shrimp [1] who’s sending us this fucking bunch.
Probably to take revenge for our having demolished his house and sold the fucking baubles he purchased with the earnings of his treasons.
This comes to us via the sewers:
A patriot, a friend of Père Duchêne, told him a story that made him laugh his ass off.
It’s too damn funny.
One of those good-for-nothing cops who entered Paris through a sewer grate found himself lost in the fucking muck.
And got it into his head to get out through a manhole cover.
The good-for-nothing tried to raise the cover.
And his arm got stuck.
Unlucky fuck, the cop.
And he confessed that far from being a good patriotic fédéré he was a gendarme.
And that he had to join his friends at the Minimes barracks
Citizens: we have to watch out for the barracks, too.
It is said that gendarmes are being hid in several of these places.
Dammit, they have to be dislodged.
Citizen members of the Commune, keep an eye on this.
Cops are trying to fuck us up.
And if we catch any more of them, quick, into the muck for them.
These worthless bastards shouldn’t be handled gently.
Keep your eyes open, patriots.
And in any case, you can recognize a copper by his face.
It doesn’t look like a patriot’s
It’s simple: it smells of cops.
And it'll be impossible to get this wrong when everyone will carry a carte de civisme.
This is a harsh measure
And the patriots should be grateful to the citizen members of the Committee of Public Safety for it.
1. Adolphe Thiers