as wrong to oppose
it, and if it be odious and immoral, we ought not to continue it."

What on earth had he then to do in the Commune?

"Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?"]

[Footnote 94: "REPUBLICAN FEDERATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.

"Central Committee.

"To the People of Paris! To the National Guard!

"Rumours of dissensions between the majority of the Commune and the
Central Committee have been spread by our common enemies with a
persistency which, once for all, must be crushed by public compact.

"The Central Committee, appointed to the administration of military
affairs by the Committee of Public Safety, will enter upon office from
this day.

"This Committee, which has upheld the standard of the Communal
revolution, has undergone no change and no deterioration. It is today
what it was yesterday, the legitimate defender of the Commune, the basis
of its power, at the same time as it is the determined enemy of civil
war; the sentinel placed by the people to protect the rights that they
have conquered,

"In the name, then, of the Commune, and of the Central Committee,
who sign this pact of good faith, let these gross suspicions and
calumnies be swept away. Let hearts beat, let hands be ready to
strike in the good cause, and may we triumph in the name of union
and fraternity.

"Long live the Republic!

"Long live the Commune!

"Long live the Communal Federation!

"The Commission of the Commune, BERGERET, CHAMPY, GERESME, LEDROIT,
LONGLAS, URBAIN.

"The Central Committee. "Paris, 18th May, 1871."

]

LXXXVI.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The day had been splendid and the
sun shone brilliantly on Caesar still standing on the glorious pedestal
of his victories. Outside the barricades of the Rue de la Paix and the
Rue Castiglione, the crowd was standing in a compact mass, as far as the
Tuileries on one side and the New Opera House on the other. There must
have been from twenty to twenty-fire thousand people there. Strangers
accosted each other by the title of Citizen, I heard some talking about
an eccentric Englishman who had paid three thousand francs for the
pleasure of being the last to climb to the summit of the column. Nearly
every one blamed him for not having given the money to the people.
Others said that Citizen Jourde would not manage to cover his expenses;
Abadie[95] the engineer had asked thirty-two thousand francs to