The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1871-05-25
DAILY PRESS,
PORTLAND
THURSDAY, MAY %, 1871.

PORTLAND.

Fighting is still going on in the streets OF
PARIS, according to the latest reports received
at the time of this writing, and the slaughter
at the barrcades is not yet ended. But the
Veesaists having burst through the detehs's
on Sunday. the cling since
oc :upied large part Of the city, thefe Is ho
doubtthat by the time this reaches the eye OF
the reader the second siege Paris has endured
within the last nine months will be over.
From the middle of September Till the very
last of January, full four months and hat,
the Prussans beleaguered the city which
yielded only after horse flesh had become |
luxury, after cat flesh was no longer disdain- |
g by the epicure and alter even the Partisan
dandy was fain to regale himself on traits
and mice and such small deer" for many days.
The second seige, extending from the 18th
OF March, when the turbulent thiong at
Montmartre was first guilty of an overt act
OF revolt, till last Sunday, was hardly hall as
long as the first; but perhaps when the story
of that two months is known it will be found
that the sufferings inflicted by the German IN
vader were trifling when compared with those
resulting from the Red Republican insurrec-
tion. During the first siege very little was
endured by the men who kept safe within the
ramparls. 1t was the women and children
who suffered with hunger, while their hus-
bands and fathers, clad in the uniform of the
National Guard, were performing nominal
military service and spending the daily franc
and half they received for it in g lzzing
exhilarating beverages. The women, as
those who observed them personally testify,
did not take an active interest in the pro-
ceedings, and distinguished themselves simply
by their patience and forttude. They were
clamorous neither for surrender nor for
further resistance; they passively endured
their sufferings. In this respect they were
totally unlike our fiery Southern sisters" if
they will permit us to call them so, and I'M
like the Amazons of the first French revolu-
ton. But during the second siege the men
have actually fought. The same National
Guards that ran away in terror from the clat-
ter of their own soup pans when the foreign
er was at the gates of Paris have sacrificed
themselves by hundreds in the civil contest
that we may now hope is about to close.
They have almost indicated the valor for
which the Partisan people were once re-
nowned, but which seemed hopelessly lost
only few months ago. The fighting at the
barricades, after the entrance of the govern
ment troops into the city seems, from the
brief reports we have received, TO have been
carried on by the true descendants of the
men who, behind the same kind of rampalts,
accomplished the revolution of July, 1880,
and overthrow the B0uibons or resisted the
coup d'etat of the second Bonaparte. OPP
posed in their efforts to secure genuine de-
mocracy by the legitimate government of the
country, by the Germans who are still at
their doors and, worst of all, by the moral
force of the whole civilized world they have
also been cursed with frequent treacheIy, or
suspicion of treachery, within their own
ranks, and with All extravaganza of doctrine
and of action on the part of some of their
number that has lost them even the sympa-
thy OF radicals in other lands. Under all
these adverse circumstances their defense of
Paris has not been wholly lacking in courage
and skill.
But what will be the result of that defense
At one time Theirs and the Assembly offered
to guarantee the stability of the Republic
and the municipal independence for which
the Communists were ostensibly fighting, but,
falling to make other concessions, these teims
were rejected. 1t is seriously to be appre-
hended that the exhibition of Partisan law.
Iessness and violence during the last two
months will now occasion a reaction. 1t is
TO be feared that majority of the Assembly,
and perhaps Theirs himself who is reputed
to be an unreliable, insincere, Taeyrandish
Kind OF politician, will regard a limited
monarchy as the only means of insuring pub.
lie order and stable government. If such
feeling should prevail, an Orleans prince,
probably either the Count of Paris or bis un-
Gle, the rich Duke D'Aumale, son of Louis
Philippe, will ascend the throne SO reluc-
family abandoned by that family in conse.
quence of the revolution of 1915 IL is not
impossible that the present head of the pro
vlslonal government, who, as the Prime
Minister OF Louis Philippe, built the fortifi-
cations that have kept him SO long out OF
Paris, may resume his place.