The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1871-07-15

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colleagues on the very evening OF tie 4th Of
September was this Paris, can it, with
any chance Of success, stand a siege by the
Prussian army | did not hesitate to an
sWer in the negative. Some Of my col
leagues here present will warrant the truth
of my words and the persistence OF my
opinion. told them, in these very terms,
that, under the existing state Of things, the
attempt IF Paris to hold ont a siege W the
Prusslan army would be a folly. Without
doubt, | added, it would be heroic folly /;
but that would be all. The events Cman-
aged BY himselD have not given the I.e W
my provision"
This nice little speech Of Trochu was at-
forwards published BY N. GORDON, one a
the mayors present.
Thus, IN the very evening Of the proaa
nation Of the Republic, Trochu' plan was
known to his colleagues to be the cap'tul7-
ton Of Paris. If national defence had been
more than a pretext for the personal gov
eminent IF Theirs, Favre 4 Co, the up
starts OF the Ali of September would have
abdcated on the 5th-would have initiated
the Pals people into Trochu's 'plan," and
called upon them to surrender at once, or to
take their own fate into their own hands.
Instead Of this, the infamous impostors re-
solved uDon. curing the heroic 1Oiy Of
Paris by a regimen of famine and broken
heads, and to dupe her in the meanwhile By
ranting manifeStoes, holding forth that Tro-
chu, the Governor of Paris, will never
capitnlate," and Jules Favre, the Foreign
Minister, will mot cede an inch Of our ter
ritory. nor a stone Of our fortresses." In a
letter 10 Gambetta, that very same Jules
Favre avows that what they were defend
ing" against we're not the Prnssian sol
diers, but the workingmen Of Paris Dur
ing the whole continuance Of the siege, the
BJnapartist cut-throatS, whom lrocLu bad
wisely inrusted with the command Of the
Paris army, exchanged, in their intimate
correspondence, rba!d Jokes at the well
understood mockery Of defence (see, for
instance, the correspondence Of Alphonse
Simon Guiod, supreme commander ut the
artillery Of the Army Of Defence Of Paris,
and Grand Cross Of the Legion Of Honor,
to Suzanne, general Of division Of artillery
a correspondence published by the Jo,rRai
Offciel Of the Commune).
The mask Of impOsture was at last drop
ped on the 23,h of January, 1871. With
The true herosm of utter self debasement,
the Government Of National Defence, 10
their capilulation, came out as the Govern
ment Of France by Bsmarck's prisoners
a part 80 base that Louis Bonaparte hun
self had. at Sedan, shrunk from accepting
il. After tie events of the 18th Of March,
on their wild flight 10 Versailles, the cap
ituIards left in the hands of Paris the doe
umentary evidence Of their treason, to de-
stroy which, as the Commune says in Its
manifesto to the provinces, " those men
would not recoil from battering Paris
into heap Of ruins, washed BY sea Of
blood"
To he eagerly bent upon such a con
summation, some of the leading members
Of the Government Of Defence had, be-
sides, most peculiar reasons of their own.
Shortly after the conclusion Of the ar
mistice, NJ Milliere, one of the representa-,
tives Of Paris to the National Ass emily
now shot by express order Of Jules Fsyre
published a series Of authentic legal dozen
ments in proof that Jules Favre, living in
concubinage with the wife OF drunkard
resident at Algiers, had, By most daring
connection Of forgeries, spread over many
years, cou.l.,e4 10 grasp. in The name IF
the children Of bis adultery, large sue
cession, which made him a rich man, and
that, in lawsuit undertaken BY The legiti-
mate heirs, he only escaped exposure by