eing
subject to individual claims. The unknown of Paris were ignorant, and
many of them suffered much from low wages and irregular employment;
these madly grasped at a theory which promised to them a maintenance at
the public expense. The state ought, in their opinion, to provide them
with wages sufficient for their support, they being themselves the
judges of the requisite amount, and the state should find employment,
if it could, for those who were so requited, the amount of labour to
be rendered was also to be decided by the workers. The theory was
substantially that which prevailed among the English Chartists. The
whole subject of this division of feeling and opinion in the provisional
government and in the nation, with the practical results, was thus
clearly set forth by a writer of that day:--"In this conflict of opinion
upon the question of labour, or of communism, is the _resume_ of all the
great events that have taken place in France since the declaration of
the republic on the 24th of February last. This key unlocks them all,
and the efforts of this principle to establish itself, and to overthrow
its opponents, explain events otherwise inexplicable, and show us in the
clearest possible manner what are and what are not the great opposing
forces that have since been at feud. All other forces in France have
been as nothing compared with these two. The friends of monarchy,
whether of the Orleans or the old Bourbon dynasty, and the friends of
Napoleon, have, it is true, endeavoured to make themselves heard; but
their voices have been mere whispers in comparison with the shouts
and hubbub of the communists and anti-communists--of the tricolor
republicans and the republicans of the _drapeau rouge_. Without this
clue to the character of the revolution, the remark of Milton that the
wars of the Saxon heptarchy were as unintelligible as those of kites in
a neighbouring wood, would apply to the proceedings of the Parisians.
Almost each day, after the 24th of February, brought tidings of change
in all the relations betwixt man and man. There was fighting one
day, embracing the next; every rotation of the hand brought to view
a wonderful and unexpected change of figures in the political
kaleidoscope. Day after day, in endless succession, there were mouthings
of tumid, florid, and often unintelligible speeches, and of still more
unintelligible and mysterious theories for the regeneration of mankind.
Every speech and newspape