ment. To those two great men France was
deeply indebted; their appearance was at times sufficient to still a
tumult.

The three communist members of the government gradually became more
exacting, and at last the influence of the philosophical republicans and
statesmen, who were associated with them, failed to keep within bounds
the communist sympathies of these hot-headed and imprudent men. In an
evil hour, Lamartine and some of his colleagues, who, like him, had
just notions of state affairs, and correct views of political economy,
conceded to Ledru Roll in and his brothers of the _drapeau rouge_ a
certain organisation for the employment of labour. From that hour the
doom of the new republic was sealed--it was the beginning of the end.
Men of property and sagacity stood aloof. M. Goodcheaux resigned, and
many official persons of eminent knowledge and experience followed his
example. Meanwhile Paris was kept in continual apprehension by popular
demonstrations, and commercial failures shook the public credit. The
working population became more and more dissatisfied, and menaced public
order and the existence of all rational government.

The provisional government called a constituent assembly, and the
representatives of the people were to assemble in Paris on a certain day
in April, but the assemblage was afterwards deferred to the 4th of May.
Ledru Rollin addressed a circular to the prefects and other departmental
and commercial authorities, urging upon them the support of republican
candidates at the elections. This measure Ledru Rollin and some of his
colleagues justified on the ground that there were already parties
whose reactionary efforts might be successful in returning Orleanist,
Buonapartist, or ultramontane representatives, who might form a majority
in the assembly, or, at all events, a minority large enough to embarrass
the republic. By republican members, however, Rollin and Louis Blanc
meant socialists, and this effort on their part to influence by official
means the returns of the constituent assembly, destroyed all confidence
in their justice, impartiality, and toleration. Rollin defended the
measures he had adopted in terms, if possible, more imprudent than the
measures themselves, and Albert and Blanc went still further in their
indiscreet words, as well as excited zeal. The result was that moderate
men not only lost confidence in them personally, but became apprehensive
of the designs and tendency of