nly hope you could reasonably have
conceived was that of profiting by the first moment of surprise and
disorder, which the victorious revolt had occasioned among the small
number of hesitating soldiery which then constituted the whole of the
French army; to surprise Versailles, inadequately defended, and seize,
if it were possible, on the Assembly and the Government. Your sudden
revolution wanted to be followed up by a brusque attack, there would
then have been some hope--a faint one, I confess, but still a hope, and
this plan of Bergeret, by the very reason of its audacity, should not
have been condemned by you, who have only succeeded through violence and
audacity, and can only go on prospering by the same means. Now what do
you mean to do? To resist the whole of France? To resist your enemies
inside the walls, besides those enemies outside, who increase in numbers
and confidence every day? Your defeat is certain, and from this day
forth is only a question of time. You were decidedly wrong to put
Bergeret "in the shade" as they say at the Hotel de Ville,--firstly,
because he amused us; and secondly, because he tried the only thing that
could possibly have succeeded--an enterprise worthy of a brilliant
madman.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: General Bergeret, Member of the Central Committee,
Delegate of War, &c., was a bookseller's assistant. He emerged in 1869
from a printing-office to support the irreconcileable candidates in the
election meetings.

Events progressed, and on the 18th of March Victor Bergeret reappeared,
resplendent in gold lace and embroidery, happy to have found at last a
government, to which Jules Favre did not belong.

When Bergeret, who never had any higher grade than that of sergeant in
the National Guard, was made general, he believed himself to be a
soldier. A friend of this pasteboard officer said one day, "If Bergeret
were to live a hundred years, he would always swear he had been a
general."

On the 8th April, Victor Bergeret was arrested by order of the Executive
Commission for having refused obedience to Cluseret, a general too, and
his superior, and he was incarcerated in the prison of Mazas, where he
remained for a short time, until the day when Cluseret was shut up there
himself. In fact, Cluseret went into the very cell which Bergeret had
just quitted, and found an autograph note written on the wall by his
predecessor, and addressed to himself. The words ran thus:--

"CITIZEN CLUSE