he labourer was held simply to
be worthy of his hire, and nothing was proposed beyond such an
organization of labour as would insure a constant supply of work for all
who wanted it, at wages determined rather by considerate adjustment than
unrestricted competition. But the men of the Commune had advanced far
ahead of such old Tories of Socialism and Democracy as LEDRU ROLLIN and
LOUIS BLANC. Still occupied with the one single prospect of their daily
life, and regarding the relations between capital and labour as the
be-all and end-all of existence, they had reached the conclusion that
all capital should be transferred bodily to themselves; that they alone
ought to constitute society, that all other classes should be
dispossessed as worthless, and all established institutions abolished as
effete. They began their demolition with the nation itself. They would
have no nation, no France, no French Government. They renounced not
only all Kings and Emperors, but all Presidents, all Conventions, and
all Parliaments, the latter especially. In the place of such authorities
they proposed to substitute Committees of working men, and to cut up the
country into such areas as Trade Unions might conveniently govern. For
their own particular Union they thought Paris might serve well enough,
and so they stipulated for their own sovereignty within these limits
under the title of the Commune. On those terms--every other species of
authority and power being excluded--they believed they could put into
practice their one idea of turning their own little world upside down
and making the working class everything and other classes nothing. As
they never looked beyond their own workshops, they considered that none
but working people had ever done any duties or suffered any wrongs, and
that no others, therefore, were entitled to any rights. The one object
of their hatred, envy, and antagonism was capital, and they resolved to
take capital into their own hands. For the future they would lead easy
lives, and be the lords instead of the slaves of their old and detested
enemy.

In those pretensions and those desires originated the Revolution just
suppressed. The war thus undertaken was a Civil War, conducted without
the least respect to any laws of war at all. The flight of the
Government left the entire Capital not only with all its resources, but
with all its treasures and all its inhabitants, in the hands of the
insurgents. With these advantages t