Paris, preach nothing but Communist
doctrines, will deliver up Paris to pillage, and bring France into
her grave, unless the National Guard and the army do not rise with
one accord in the defence of the country and of the Republic."

The Government had many parleys with the insurrectionary National Guards
at Montmartre; at one moment there was a rumour that the guns had been
given up. It appeared that the guardians of this artillery had
manifested some intention of restoring it, horses had even been sent
without any military force to create mistrust, but the men declared that
they would not deliver the guns, except to the battalions to which they
properly belonged. Was there bad faith here? or had those who made the
promise undertaken to deliver up the skin before they had killed the
bear.

Public opinion shaped itself generally in somewhat the following
form:--"If they are tricking each other, that is not very dangerous!"

Many an honest citizen went to bed on the seventeenth of March full of
hope. He saw Paris marching with quick steps towards the
re-establishment of its business, and the resumption of its usual
aspect; the emigrants and foreigners would arrive in crowds, their
pockets overflowing with gold to make purchases and put the industry of
Paris under contributions the French and foreign bankers will rival each
other to pay the indemnity of five milliards.

The dream of good M. Prudhomme[4] was, however, somewhat clouded by the
figure of the Buttes Montmartre bristling with cannon; but the number of
guards had become so diminished, and they seemed so tired of the
business, that it appeared as if they were about to quit for good. The
following chapter will inform you what were the waking thoughts of the
Parisians on the morning of the eighteenth of March.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: PURIFICATION OF THE CHAMPS ELYSEES AFTER
THE DEPARTURE OF THE PRUSSIANS MAR 1871]

[Illustration: BUILDING A BARRICADE. MARCH 18. 1871.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Memoir, see Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2: The police had seized, some time before, in Paris, ten
thousand Orsini bombs, and hundreds of others of a new construction,
charged with fulminating mercury.]

[Footnote 3: The eight gigantic female figures, representing the
principal towns of France: Strasbourg, Lille, Metz, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 4: "Joseph Prudhomme" is the typical representative of the
Parisian middle-class (_Bourgeois_); the honest s