r article breathed only peace and goodwill
towards all men, yet almost every ordinance of the government was
directed towards the organisation of armed men. There were assemblings
of the people, reviews, marchings, and counter-marchings, hasty
summonings at all hours, the beating of the _rappel_, and the
sounding of the tocsin, in the dead of night and the early dawn. The
'Marseillaise Hymn' and the 'Mourir pour la Patrie,' were sung in
every street, court, and alley, and were heard on the pillow of every
recumbent citizen. Journalism became a power of tremendous magnitude and
extent. People read leading articles by torchlight, and shouted out to
the moon apostrophes to liberty, ay, 'liberty, equality, fraternity.'
These three talismanic words, too often devoid of meaning in the
apprehension of those who shouted them with a fervour sufficient to
split the ears of the groundlings. Liberty? every man doing what he
deemed best, seemed to be the interpretation of the mob. Equality?
every man trying to get above every other man, seemed its natural
consequences. Fraternity? every man knocking down every other man who
happened to be of a different way of thinking from himself, was the
manner in which the men of the _faubourgs_ seemed to construe it. Such
seemed to be the epitome of the French revolution; but it was not so.
There was order amid disorder; two principles were at work; and the
revolution--so frivolous in its details, so momentous in its results;
exhibiting so much talent and energy, so much vanity and folly, so much
honesty and treachery, such kind feelings and such malignant passions,
such planting of trees and cutting of throats, such recommendations
of order, such instances of disorder, so much wisdom producing so much
folly, so much goodness mingled with so much wickedness, so much
gravity combined with so much levity, such long speeches and such brief
epigrams--was quite explainable wherever the mind was able to grasp
it as a whole, and see the operation of the two great and all pervading
principles which we have mentioned."

The party of the communists in the provisional government comprised
three members--Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc, and Albert. This number, being
small in proportion to the whole, offended the socialists; but Lamartine
and Arago possessed such influence with the three "reds," that they were
for a time induced to co-operate with the rest for the general good, and
in a system of rational govern