in the shameful disaster of civil war;
in a word, it was not sufficient to have destroyed the present,
compromised the future; you wish now to obliterate the past! Funereal
mischief! Why, the Colonne Vendome is France, and a trophy of its past
greatness,--alas, at present in the shade--is not the monument, but the
record of a victorious race who strode through the world conquering as
they went, planting the tricolour everywhere. In destroying the Colonne
Vendome, do not imagine that you are simply overthrowing a bronze column
surmounted by the statue of an emperor; you disinter the remains of your
forefathers to shake their fleshless bones, and say to them, "You were
wrong in being brave and proud and great; you were wrong to conquer
towns, to win battles; you were wrong to astound the universe by raising
the vision of France glorified. It is scattering to the wind the ashes
of heroes! It is telling those aged soldiers, seen formerly in the
streets (where are they now? Why do we meet them no longer? Have you
killed them, or does their glory refuse to come in contact with your
infamy?) It is telling the maimed soldiers of the Invalides, "You are
but blockheads and brigands. So you have lost a leg, and you an arm! So
much the worse for you idle scamps. Look on these rascals crippled for
their country's honour!" It is like snatching from them the crosses
they have won, and delivering them into the hands of the shameless
street urchins, who will cry, "A hero! a hero!" as they cry "Thief!
thief!" There is certainly purer and less costly grandeur than that
which results from war and conquests. You are free to dream for your
country a glory different to the ancient glory; but the heroic past, do
not overthrow it, do not suppress it, now especially, when you have
nothing with which to replace it, but the disgraces of the present. Yet,
no! Complete your work, continue in the same path. The destruction of
the Colonne Vendome is but a beginning, be logical and continue; I
propose a few decrees:

"The Commune of Paris, considering that the Church of Notre Dame de
Paris is a monument of superstition, a symbol of divine tyranny, an
affirmation of fanaticism, a denial of human rights, a permanent
insult offered by believers to atheists, a perpetual conspiracy
against one of the great principles of the Commune, namely, the
convenience of its members,

"Decrees:

"The Church of Notre Dame shall be dem