Читать книгу Paris under the Commune - John Leighton - Страница 24

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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 The Government which has withdrawn to Versailles committed so many faults that it would be difficult to side with it without reserve.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.