rive, headed by men in plain clothes. Under the Empire
such men were called spies. The women found praying are turned out,
those who do not obey promptly enough, with blows. This done, the guards
retire. What they had come there for is not known. But what we are
certain of is, that they will begin again to-morrow in this same church,
or in another. The days resemble each other as the children of an
accursed family. What frightful catastrophe will break this shameful
monotony?

XLVIII.

Eh! What? It is impossible! Are your brains scattered? I speak
figuratively, awaiting the time when they will be scattered in earnest.
It must be some miserable jester who has worded, printed, and placarded
this unconscionable decree. But no, it is in the usual form, the usual
type. This is rather too much, Gentlemen of the Commune; it outsteps the
bounds of the ridiculous; you count a little too much this time on the
complicity of some of the population, and on the patience of others.
Here is the decree:

[Illustration: THE COLUMN IN THE PLACE VENDOME.

Erected by the first Napoleon to commemorate his German campaign of
1805.

An imitation of the Column of Trajan, at Rome, slightly taller.

It cost 1,500,000 francs!]

"THE COMMUNE OF PARIS,

"Considering that the Imperial column of the Place Vendome is a
monument of barbarian, a symbol of brute force, of false glory, an
encouragement of military spirit, a denial of international rights,
a permanent insult offered by the conquerors to the conquered, a
perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the
French Republic, namely: Fraternity,

"Decrees:

"_Sole article_.--The Colonne Vendome is to be demolished."

Now I must tell you plainly, you are absurd, contemptible, and odious!
This sorry farce outstrips all one could have imagined, and all that the
Versailles papers said of you must have been true; for what you are
doing now is worse than anything they could ever have dared to imagine.
It was not enough to violate the churches, to suppress the
liberties,--the liberty of writing, the liberty of speaking, the liberty
of free circulation, the liberty of risking one's life or not. It was
not enough that blood should be recklessly spilled, that women should be
made widows and children orphans, trade stopped and commerce ruined; it
was not enough that the dignity of defeat--the only glory
remaining--should be swallowed up