ower of our Minister of
the Interior. We wish to go a step further than you, without, however,
shirking the financial obligations imposed by a federation. What you
would call imperial taxes, we are willing to pay in kind as well as
money. This is one of the things we do want; what we do not want is the
resuscitation of the Empire. I am not speaking at random when I tell
you that there are rumours about traitors in our camp, and that,
according to these rumours, the struggle against the Versaillese troops
would be a mere pretext to sweep the deck for the unopposed entry of an
imperial army into Paris. Whence would that army be recruited? From
among the prisoners going to leave Germany, who have been worked all the
while in the interest of the Napoleonic dynasty. After all, we have as
much right to overthrow the Government of Versailles as the Government
of Versailles had the right to upset the Empire. Their powers are by no
means more valid by virtue of the recent elections, than was the power
of Louis-Napoleon by virtue of the plebiscite of 1870. Does M. Thiers
really think that he is a better or greater man than Abraham Lincoln,
who treated the Southerns as belligerents, not as insurgents?"

So far Cluseret. I am not prepared to say that he was a strictly
honourable man, but he was a very intelligent one, probably the most
intelligent among the leaders of the Commune. At any rate, his
conversation made me anxious to get a nearer sight of some of the
latter, and, as they had evidently made the Brasserie Saint-Severin
their principal resort of an evening, I returned thither several times.

A few nights afterwards, I was just in time to witness the arrival of
Raoul Rigault, on horseback, accompanied by a staff running by the side
of his animal. The whole reminded me irresistibly of Decamp's picture,
"La Patrouille Turque." The Prefect of Police was scarcely less
magnificently attired than the rest of his fellow-dignitaries. His
uniform, if I remember rightly, was blue with red facings, but it is
impossible to say, because it was covered everywhere with gold lace. His
myrmidons hustled the crowd in order to make room for their chief, and
some one laughed: "Mais il n'y a rien de change; c'est absolument comme
sous l'Empire." For a moment Rigault sat quite still, surveying the
crowd and ogling the women through his double eye-glasses. Then he
alighted, and caught sight of my friend and myself standing on the
threshold. "Que