earness of his position, I
have only two alternatives, either to break the chains which impede
my actions, or to retire.

"I will not break the chains, because those chains are you, and your
weakness,--I will not touch the sovereignty of the people.

"I retire; and have the honour to beg for a cell at Mazas.

"ROSSEL."[83]

Most certainly I do not like the Paris Commune, such as the men of the
Hotel de Ville understand it. Deceived at first by my own delusive
hopes, I now am sure that we have nothing to expect from it but follies
upon follies, crimes upon crimes. I hate it on account of the suppressed
newspapers, of the imprisoned journalists, of the priests shut up at
Mazas like assassins, of the nuns shut up at Saint-Lazare like
courtesans; I hate it because it incites to the crime of civil war those
who would have been ready to fight against the Prussians, but who do not
wish to fight against Frenchmen; I hate it on account of the fathers of
families sent to battle and to death; on account of our ruined ramparts,
our dismantled forts, each stone of which as it falls wounds or
destroys; on account of the widowed women and the orphaned children, all
of whom they can never pension in spite of their decrees; I cannot
pardon them the robbing of the banks, nor the money extorted from the
railway companies, nor the loan-shares sold to a money-changer at Liege;
I hate it on account of Clemence the spy, and Allix the madman. I am
sorry to think that two or three intelligent men should be mixed up with
it, and have to share in its fall. I hate it particularly on account of
the just principles it at one time represented, and of the admirable and
fruitful ideas of municipal independence, which it, was not able to
carry out honestly, and which, because of the excesses that have been
committed in their name, will have lost for ever, perhaps, all chance of
triumphing. Still, great as is my horror of this parody of a government
to which we have had to submit for nearly two months, I could not
forbear a feeling of repulsion on reading the letter of Citizen Rossel.
It is a capitally written letter, firm, concise, conclusive, differing
entirely from the bombastic, unintelligible documents to which the
Commune has accustomed us; and besides, it brings to light several
details at which I rejoice, because it permits me to hope that the reign
of our tyrants is nearly at an end. I am glad to hear that the Commune,