fanatics of resistance had already made out the plan of destruction
which served later for the Commune. It has been proved that nothing in
this work of ruin was impromptu.

The news of the convention of the 28th of January, the preliminary of
the capitulation of Paris, was thus very badly received, and M.
Gambetta, by exhorting the people, in his celebrated circular of the
31st of January, to resist to the death, sowed the seeds of civil war:--

"CITIZENS,--

"The enemy has just inflicted upon France the most cruel insult that
she has yet had to endure in this accursed war, the too-heavy
punishment of the errors and weaknesses of a great people.

"Paris, the impregnable, vanquished by famine, is no longer able to
hold in respect the German hordes. On the 28th of January, the
capital succumbed, her forts surrendered to the enemy. The city
still remains intact, wresting, as it were, by her own power and
moral grandeur, a last homage from barbarity.

"But in falling, Paris leaves us the glorious legacy of her heroic
sacrifices. During five months of privation and suffering, she has
given to France the time to collect herself, to call her children
together, to find arms, to compose armies, young as yet, but valiant
and determined, and to whom is wanting only that solidity which can
be obtained but by experience. Thanks to Paris, we hold in our
hands, if we are but resolute and patriotic, all that is needed to
revenge, and set ourselves free once more.

"But, as though evil fortune had resolved to overwhelm us, something
even more terrible and more fraught with anguish than the fall of
Paris, was awaiting us.

"Without our knowledge, without either warning, us or consulting us,
an armistice, the culpable weakness of which was known to us too
late, has been signed, which delivers into the hands of the
Prussians the departments occupied by our soldiers, and which
obliges us to wait for three weeks, in the midst of the disastrous
circumstances in which the country is plunged, before a national
assembly can be assembled.

"We sent to Paris for some explanation, and then awaited in silence
the promised arrival of a member of the government, to whom we were
determined to resign our office. As delegates of government, we
desired to obey, and thereby prove to all, friends and dissidents,
by setting