urbances and darkness. If a few well-intentioned men were among you,
they have fled in horror. Count your numbers, you are but a handful. If
there still remain any among you, who have not lost all power of
discriminating between justice and injustice, they look towards the
door, and would fly if they dared. Yet this handful of furious fools
governs Paris still. Some among us have been ordered to their death,
and they have gone! How long will this last? Did we not surrender our
arms? Can we not assemble, as we did a month ago near the Bank, and deal
justice ourselves without awaiting an army from Versailles? Ah I we must
acknowledge that the deputies of the Seine and the Maires of Paris,
misled like ourselves, erred in siding with the insurrectionists. They
wished to avert street fighting. Is the strife we are witnessing not far
more horrible than that we have escaped? One day's struggle, and it
would have ended. Yes, we were wrong to lay down our arms; but who could
have believed--the excesses of the first few days seemed more like the
sad consequences of popular effervescence than like premeditated
crimes--who could have believed that the chiefs of the insurrection lied
with such impudence as is now only too evident, and that before long the
Commune would be the first to deprive us of the liberties it was its
duty to protect and develope? The "Rurals" were right then,--they who
had been so completely in the wrong in refusing to lend an attentive ear
to the just prayers of a people eager for liberty, they were right when
they warned us against the ignorance and wickedness of these men. Ah!
were the National Assembly but to will it, there would yet be time to
save Paris. If it really wished to establish a definite Republic, and
concede to the capital of France the right, free and entire, of electing
an independent municipality, with what ardour should we not rally round
the legitimate Government! How soon would the Hotel de Ville be
delivered from the contemptible men who have planted themselves there.
If the National Assembly could only comprehend us! If it would only
consent to give Paris its liberty, and France its tranquillity, by means
of honourable concessions!

XLIX.

The delegates of the League of the Republican Union of the Rights of
Paris returned from Versailles to-day, the 14th April, and published the
following reports:--

"CITIZENS,--The undersigned, chosen by you to present your programme