Paris remains inactive, and watches events as one watches running
water. What does this indifference spring from? Surprise and the
disappearance of the chiefs might yesterday have excused the inaction
of Paris, but twenty-four hours have passed over, every man has
interrogated his conscience, and been able to listen to its answer.
There has been time to reconnoitre, to concert together; there would
have been time to act!
Why is nothing done? Why has nothing been done yet? Generals Clément
Thomas and Lecomte have been assassinated; this is as incontestable as
it is odious. Does all Paris wish to partake with the criminals in the
responsibility of this crime? The regular Government has been expelled.
Does Paris consent to this expulsion? Men invested with no rights, or,
at least, with insufficient rights, have usurped the power. Does Paris
so far forget itself as to submit to this usurpation without
resistance?
No, most assuredly no. Paris abominates crime, does not approve of the
expulsion of the Government, and does not acknowledge the right of the
members of the Central Committee to impose its wishes upon us. Why then
does Paris remain passive and patient? Does it not fear that it will be
said that silence implies consent? How is it that I myself, for
example, instead of writing my passing impressions on these pages, do
not take my musket to punish the criminals and resist this despotism?
It is that we all feel the present situation to be a, singularly
complicated one. The Government which has withdrawn to Versailles
committed so many faults that it would be difficult to side with it
without reserve. The weakness and inability the greater part of those
who composed it showed during the siege, their obstinacy in remaining
deaf to the legitimate wishes of the capital, have ill disposed us for
depending on a state of things which it would have been impossible to
approve of entirely. In fine, these unknown revolutionists, guilty most
certainly, but perhaps sincere, claim for Paris rights that almost the
whole of Paris is inclined to demand. It is impossible not to
acknowledge that the municipal franchise is wished for and becomes
henceforth necessary.
It is for this reason that although aghast at the excesses in
perspective and those already committed by the dictators of the 18th
March, though revolted at the thought of all the blood spilled and yet
to be spilled—this is the reason that we side with no party. The past
misdeeds of the legitimate Government of Versailles damp our enthusiasm
for it, while some few laudable ideas put forth by the illegitimate
government of the Hôtel de Ville diminish our horror of its crimes, and
our apprehensions at its misdoings.
Then—why not dare say it?—Paris, which is so impressionable, so
excitable, so romantic, in admiration before all that is bold, has but
a moderate sympathy for that which is prudent. We may smile, as I did
just now, at the emphatic proclamation of the Central Committee, but
that does not prevent us from recognizing that its power is real, and
the ferocious elements that it has so suddenly revealed are not without
a certain grandeur. It might have been spitefully remarked that more
than one patriot in his yesterday evening walk on the outer boulevards
and in the environs of the Hôtel de Ville, had taken more _petit vin_
than was reasonable in honour of the Republic and of the Commune, but
that has not prevented our feeling a surprise akin to admiration at the
view of those battalions hastening from all quarters at some invisible
signal, and ready at any moment to give up their lives to defend ...
what? Their guns, and these guns were in their eyes the palpable
symbols of their rights and liberties. During this time the heroic
Assembly was pettifogging at Versailles, and the Government was going
to join them. Paris does not follow those who fly.