Liberals, if it was in good faith that you called for decentralisation under the Empire; Republicans, if you have understood June, 1848, and December, 1851; Radicals, if you really want the self-government of the people, listen to this new voice, avail yourselves of this marvellous opportunity.
But the Prussian! What does it matter? Why not forge arms under the eye of the enemy? Bourgeois, was it not in sight of the foreigner that your ancestor Etienne Marcel tried to remake France? And your Convention, did not it first act in the very midst of the hurricane?
What did they answer? Death to Paris!
The red sun of civil discord melts veneer and all masks. There they are side by side as in 1791, 1794, and 1848, Monarchists, Clericals, Liberals, Radicals, all of them, their hands raised against the people—one army in different uniforms. Their decentralisation is rural and capitalist federalism; their self-government, the exploitation of the budget by themselves, just as the whole political science of their statesmen consists only in massacre and the state of siege.
What bourgeoisie in the world after such immense disasters would not with careful heed have tended such a reservoir of living force? They, seeing this Paris capable of engendering a new world, her heart swelled with the best blood of France, had but one thought—to bleed Paris.
CHAPTER IX.
"Toutes les parties de la France sont unies et ralliées autour de l'Assemblée et du gouvernement."—Circulaire de M. Thiers à la Province, le 23 au soir.
THE COMMUNE AT LYONS, ST. ETIENNE, AND CREUZOT.