s burst open by willing
locksmiths; when the locksmiths are tired, the soldiers of the Commune
help them with the butt-ends of their muskets. They do worse still,
these Communists--they do all that the consciousness of supreme power
can suggest to despots without experience; each day they send honest
fathers of families to their death, who think they are suffering for the
good cause, when they are only dying for the good pleasure of Monsieur
Avrial and Monsieur Billioray. Well! and what is Paris doing all this
time? Paris reads the papers, lounges, runs after the last news and
ejaculates: "Ah! ah! they have put Amouroux into prison! The Archbishop
of Paris has been transferred from the Conciergerie to Mazas! Several
thousand francs have been stolen from Monsieur Denouille! Diable!
Diable!" And then Paris begins the same round of newspaper reading,
lounging, and gossiping again. Nothing seems changed. Nothing seems
interrupted. Even the proclamation of the famous Cluseret, who
threatens us all with active service in the marching regiments, has not
succeeded in troubling the tranquillity and indifference of the greater
number of Parisians. They look on at what is taking place, as at a
performance, and only bestow just enough interest upon it to afford them
amusement. This evening the cannonading has increased; on listening
attentively, we can distinguish the sounds of platoon-firing; but Paris
takes its glass of beer tranquilly at the Cafe de Madrid and its
Mazagran at the Cafe Riche. Sometimes, towards midnight, when the sky is
clear, Paris goes to the Champs Elysees, to see things a little nearer,
strolls under the trees, and smoking a cigar exclaims: "Ah! there go the
shells." Then leisurely compares the roar of the battle of to-day to
that of yesterday. In strolling about thus in the neighbourhood of the
shells, Paris exposes itself voluntarily to danger; Paris is
indifferent, and use is second nature. Then bed-time comes, Paris looks
over the evening papers, and asks, with a yawn, where the devil all this
will end? By a conciliation? Or the Prussians perhaps? And then Paris
falls asleep, and gets up the next morning, just as fresh and lusty as
if Napoleon the Third were still Emperor by the grace of God and the
will of the French nation.

XLVI.

An insertion in the _Journal Officiel_ of Versailles has justly
irritated the greater part of the French press. This is the paragraph.
"False news of the most infam