Ah! your brothers of the army! They are your brothers because they fraternised and threw up the butt-ends of their muskets. In your family you acknowledge no brotherhood except those who hold the same opinion.
“This time, our brothers of the army would not raise their hands against the holy ark of our liberty.”
Oh! So the guns are a holy ark now. A very holy metaphor, for people not greatly enamoured of churchmen.
“Thanks for all; and let Paris and France unite to build a Republic, and accept with acclamations the only government that will close for ever the flood gates of invasion and civil war.
“The state of siege is raised.
“The people of Paris are convoked in their sections to elect a Commune. The safety of all citizens is assured by the body of the National Guard.
“Hôtel de Ville of Paris, the 19th of March, 1871.
“The Central Committee of the National Guard:
“Assy, Billioray, Ferrat, Babick, Ed. Moreau, Oh. Dupont, Varlin, Boursier, Mortier, Gouhier, Lavallette, Fr. Jourde, Rousseau, Ch. Lullier, Blanchet, G. Gaillard, Barroud, H. Geresme, Fabre, Pougeret.”[[15]]
There is one reproach that the new Parisian Revolution could not be charged with; it is that of having placed at the head men of proved incapacity. Those who dared to assert that each of the persons named above had not more genius than would be required to regenerate two or three nations would greatly astonish me. In a drama of Victor Hugo it is said a parentless child ought to be deemed a gentleman; thus an obscure individual ought, on the same terms, to be considered a man of genius.
But on the walls of the Rue Drouot many more proclamations were to be seen.
“RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE.
“LIBERTÉ, EGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ,
“To the National Guards of Paris.
“CITIZENS,—You had entrusted us with the charge of organising the defence of Paris and of your rights.”
Oh! as to that, no; a thousand times, no! I admit—since you appear to cling to it—that Cannon are an ark of strength, but under no pretext whatever will I allow that I entrusted you with the charge of organising anything whatsoever. I know nothing of you; I have never heard you spoken of. There is no one in the world of whom I am more ignorant than Ferrat, Babick, unless it be Gaillard and Pougeret (though I was national guard myself, and caught cold on the ramparts for the King of Prussia[[16]] as much as anyone else). I neither know what you wish nor where you are leading those who follow you; and I can prove to you, if you like, that there are at least a hundred thousand men who caught cold too, and who, at the present moment, are in exactly the same state of mind concerning you “We are aware of having fulfilled our mission.”
You are very good to have taken so much trouble, but I have no recollection of having given you a mission to fulfil of any kind whatever!