cades across streets, and had discreetly taken them off everywhere. There were then no street-cars in Paris, their introduction being of later date. The stores and saloons were all open, and highly lit. The saloons of Paris stand in groups, and are controlled by the Government. Most of the people

had to retire to their beds without much of an idea of what was likely to come about. They were told the next morning. During the night the official journal of the Government was seized by the revolutionists, and appeared in its next issue as the organ of the Central Committee. The following address stood at the head of the day's news. The people who signed it were all strangers to the most of Paris. The reader probably knows more about many of these signers than did the Parisians regarding any single one of them:

HOTEL DE VILLE, March 19.

CITIZENS: You had charged us with organizing the defense of Paris and of its rights, and we are convinced that we have fulfilled this mission. Aided by your generous courage and your admirable sang froid, we have expelled the Government which was betraying us.

At this moment our mandate has expired, and we again deliver it up to you, inasmuch as we do not pretend to take the place of those whom the popular breath has just overthrown. Prepare yourselves, and immediately make your communal elections, and give us for recompense the only one we ever hoped for - the true Republic. In the meantime we retain, in the name of the people, the Hotel de Ville.

The same morning of the 19th of March appeared the following proclamation by the Thiers Government, signed by all the members:

MARCH 19, 1871.

A body assuming the name of Central Committee, after having seized on a certain number of cannon, has covered Paris with barricades, and has taken possession, during the night, of the Ministry of Justice. It has fired on the defenders of order; it has made prisoners and has murdered in cold blood Generals Clement-Thomas and Lecomte. Who are the members of that Committee? No one in Paris knows them. Their names are new to every one. No one can say even to what party they belong. Are they Communists, Bonapartists, or Prussians? Are they the agents of a triple coalition? Whoever they may be, they are the enemies of Paris, for they are giving it up to pillage; of France, for

they are handing her over to the Prussians; and of the Republic, for they are abandoning it to despotism. The abominable crimes they have committed deprive of all excuse those who would dare to follow them or to submit to them. Will you accept the responsibility of their murders, and of the ruin they are bringing on the country? If so, remain at home. But, if you have any regard for your most sacred interests, rally around the Government of the Republic and the National Assembly.

By 10 o'clock in the forenoon the whole of the Regular Army was on its way to Versailles. About $500,000 in coin had been safely transferred in the night by the Administration. to the new seat of Government. One of the first acts of the Versailles Ministry was to cut all the telegraph-wires entering Paris.

At noon of the 19th the whole public service was in the hands of the Central Committee. At that hour the following statement was posted in the streets:

HOTEL DE VILLE, March 19. CITIZENS: If the Committee of the National Guard were a Government, it might, out of respect for the dignity of its electors, disdain to justify itself, but, as it does not pretend to take the place of those whom the popular breath has overthrown, but in its simple honesty desires to remain exactly within the express limits of its powers, it remains a compound of individualities which have the right to defend themselves.

A child of the Republic, whose motto is the great word" Fraternity," it pardons its detractors, but it wishes to convince honest men, who have accepted the calumny through ignorance, that it has not acted in secret, for the names of all its members were on all its proclamations. If the individuals were obscure, they did not shun the responsibility, which was great. It was not unknown, for it was the free expression of the suffrages of 215 battalions of the National Guard. One of the greatest causes of anger against us was the obscurity of our names. Alas! how many were known-too well known, and that notoriety has often been fatal to us.* One of the last means they employed against us was to refuse bread to the troops who preferred to allow themselves to be disarmed rather than fire upon the people. And they who punish by hunger a refusal to murder, call us assassins! In the first place- we say it with indignation - the sanguinary filth with which they attempt to sully our honor is an ignoble infamy. No order of execution was ever signed by us; the National Guard never took part in the execution of the crime. What interest would either the Guard or ourselves have had in doing so? The charge is as absurd as it is base.

We who were charged with a task which imposed on us a terrible responsibility have accomplished it without hesitation and without fear; and now that we have arrived at the goal, we say to the people who have esteemed us sufficiently to listen to our counsels: "Here is the authority which thou hast confided to us;

*The International trials are here referred to.

where our personal interest commences, our duty ends; do this well; Master, thou hast recovered thy liberty. Obscure a few days back, we are about to return obscure to thy ranks, and show to those who govern that we can descend proudly the steps of the Hotel de Ville, with the certainty of finding at the bottom the grasp of the loyal and robust hand."

Upon the same day the many prisons were opened to all persons incarcerated for political crimes and offenses. Inasmuch as the appropriation of another person's property was only a political offense in the eyes of Citizens Assi, Varlin, and Jourde, it is easy to understand that the scope of the amnesty thus brought about was very extensive. It is thought that about 30,000 "political offenders" were thus added to the loyal constituency of the Central Committee.

In the meantime, the Prussian Army looked on in wonder at the unexpected turn in events. The Commander finally determined to let the Frenchmen settle their troubles in their own. way, at the same time giving notice that, if any act of hostility were directed against his forces, Paris would be treated as an enemy.

The National Government was much perplexed. The many parties represented in the Assembly at Versailles rendered the conduct of a civil war very difficult. In America we well remember the confusing effect which the presence of only one party of opposition in Congress exerted upon the councils of the Republican party, in power during our great civil war. President Thiers was perhaps placed in a position nearly as undesirable to a sane man as that of the reformers at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. Surrounded by at least four distinct political parties, he could count upon unbending hostility from many of the members of the Assembly, and earnest confidence from hardly one. Men like Deputy Louis Blanc, the very god-father of the idea which had grown far past his desire or control, stood up and protested against any extreme mea

sure being planned against Paris. Under the influence of such feelings, the French Government faltered. The young Republic hesitated to follow the repressive policy of the despot who had preceded in the direction of affairs, and attempted to win Paris over by the power of reason. It was thought that there must exist in the National Guard a large element of loyal men, who, if a competent and popular Commander were given to them, would separate from the insurgents, and perhaps render the collapse of the rebellion inevitable, simply by their return to duty. With this hope, Admiral Saisset, a man known to have been liked in the National Guard, was appointed Provisional Commander-in-Chief of that body, and commissioned to grant to the Guard the very reforms which its Central Committee had at one time alleged to be its sole excuse for insurrection. The Guard was thereafter to elect its own officers, the city was to have rights equal to those now possessed by our States in America, and a rent law was conceded which should give the landlord the worst of it. The proclamation making this overture from Versailles was posted conspicuously in Paris, and of course gained many people over to the side of the National Government.

On Thursday, under the direction of the advocates of peaceful measures in quelling the revolt, a large number of loyal Guards, citizens, and Regulars, without arms, marched through the streets, in the hope of gaining numbers and finally effecting a moral demonstration which should awe the Central Committee. The flag of France was borne aloft. This body, in the course of an extended march from the northern boulevards to a point near the Tuileries, was not molested. Its members were frequently refused passage by the Guards at certain points, but a parley usually ended in a continuance of their march.

This day's developments indicated to the Central Committee that the continuance of such movements among the citizens would be destructive to their influence, and it is probable that orders were given Thursday night with especial regard to a recurrence of such processions. It is certain that the means of defense in the square called the Place Vendome, near the

Tuileries, were greatly modified and strengthened that night. Such of the men concerned in the procession of the day as could be found were also taken into custody. During the same night the Bank of France was called upon for $200,000. National Guards who were to be relied upon were placed in charge of certain quarters which were thought to be unfavorably disposed toward the Central Committee. All these arbitrary acts were discussed in meetings of indignant citizens all over the city. The editors of the newspapers of the city combined in an address to the people, appealing to all their sentiments of patriotism in the hope of arousing a spirit which would throw off the yoke freshly put upon them. For this, the editors were warned by the Committee that though, according to the principles of the social reformation just instituted, the liberty of the press was inviolable, yet the personal liberty of the editors was an entirely different matter, and subject to the most sudden cessation. The arsenals of the Government were broken into this same Thursday night. As everybody was empowered to help himself, there was a determined scramble, and as the strong were able to run the crushing gauntlet several times, the spirit of barter was immediately awakened, and guns could be purchased on the streets that night cheaper than ever before, owing to the extent to which competition in their sale had been carried.

On Friday morning the processionists, emboldened by their success of the preceding day, massed together at a specified rendezvous and began a march up and down the boulevards, where a large number of persons could be accommodated. Upon information of this second manifestation, the Central Committee sent a small body of their Guards to disperse this multitude, but the earnestness of the masses of excited Republicans rendered them extremely bold, and the Guards were compelled to either shoot or give way. They did not choose to begin a slaughter, and retreated toward the Place Vendome. Buoyed up with the belief that the happy experiences of Thursday were to be repeated, the procession pushed triumphantly to the square mentioned. The spirit which animated. the multitude-the cheers, waving of hats and handkerchiefs,