Little Sisters
and the old nurslings were at rest again, and the house was just as
silent and peaceful as if it were no abominable resort of plotters and
conspirators.

But if I had been the Commune of Paris, would I not have shot that
captain!

LVIII.

The people of the Hotel de Ville said to themselves, "All our fine
doings and talking come to nothing, the delegate Cluseret and the
commandant Dombrowski send us the most encouraging despatches in vain,
we shall never succeed in persuading the Parisian population, that our
struggle against the army of Versailles is a long string of decisive
victories; whatever we may do, they will finish by finding out that the
federate battalions gave way strangely in face of the iron-plated
mitrailleuses the day before yesterday at Asnieres, and it would be
difficult to make them believe that this village, so celebrated for
fried fish and Paris Cockneys, is still in our possession, unless we can
manage to persuade them that although we have evacuated Asnieres, we
still energetically maintain our position there. The fact is, affairs
are taking a tolerably bad turn for us. How are we to get over the
inconvenience of being vanquished? What are we to do to destroy the bad
impression produced by our doubtful triumphs?" And thereupon the members
of the Commune fell to musing. "Parbleu!" cried they, after a few
moments' reflection--the elect of Paris are capable of more in a single
second than all the deputies of the National Assembly in three
years--"Let decrees, proclamations, and placards be prepared. By what
means, did we succeed in imposing on the donkeys of Paris? Why, by
decrees, by proclamations, by placards. Courage, then, let us persevere.
Ha! the traitors have taken the chateau of Becon, and have seized upon
Asnieres. What matters! quick, eighty pens and eighty inkstands. To
work, men of letters; painters and shoemakers, to work! Franckel, who is
Hungarian; Napoleon Gaillard, who is a cobbler; Dombrowski, who is a
Pole; and Billioray, who writes _omelette_ with an h, will make perhaps
rather a mess of it. But, thank heaven! We have amongst us Felix Pyat,
the great dramatist; Pierre Denis, who has made such bad verses that he
must write good prose; and lastly, Vermorel, the author of '_Ces
Dames_,' a little book illustrated with photographs for the use of
schools, and '_Desperanza_,' a novel which caused Gustave Flaubert many
a nightmare. To work, comrades, to work! We