the Palais de l'Industrie, while on the
other side of the Champs Elysees regiments of cavalry, infantry, and
mobiles, are drawn out. The agitators have disappeared, calm is
restored, within the city be it understood, for all this did not
interrupt the animated interchange of shells between the French and
Prussian batteries, and a great number of Parisians, who had twice
helped to disperse the insurgents of October and January, thought
involuntarily of the Commune of the 10th of August, 1793, which headed
the revolution, and said to themselves that there were perhaps some
amongst the present insurgents who, like the former, would rise up to
deliver them from the Prussians. For these agitators have some
appearance of truth on their side: "You are weak and timorous," they cry
to those in power; "you seem awaiting a defeat rather than expecting a
victory. Give place to the energetic, obscure though they may be; for
the men of the great Commune, of our first glorious revolution, they
also were for the greater part unknown. We have confidence in the army
of Paris, and we will break the iron circle of invasion."

Though the Communists have since then shown bravery, and sometimes
heroism, in their struggle against the Versailles troops, we are very
doubtful, now that we have seen their chiefs in action, whether the
efforts they talked of would have been crowned with success. Their
object was power, and, having nothing to risk and all to gain, they
would have forthwith disposed of public property in order to procure
themselves enjoyment and honours. The few right-minded men who at first
committed themselves, proved this by the fact of their giving in their
resignation a few days after the Commune had established itself.

Tranquillity had returned. In the morning of the 25th, guards patrolled
the Place de la Bastille, the Place du Chateau d'Eau, the Boulevard
Magenta, and the outer boulevards. Paris started as if she had been
aroused from some fearful dream, and the waking thought of the enemy at
her gates stirred up all her energies once more.

The Communists had been defeated for the second time; but they were soon
to take a terrible revenge.

The vow made by the Governor of Paris had been repeated by the majority
of the Parisians, and all parties seemed to have rallied round him under
the same device: vanquish or die. After the forts, the barricades, and
as a last resource, the burning of the city. Who knows? Perhaps the