The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-17

1s49; the events of the last twenty years have
helped to spread and strengthen il, and we
saw In Gambetta's persistence in carrying on
the war, in virtue Of authority derived from
Partisan mob, and refusing to take the sense
of the country at large, striking illustration
of the strong hold il had taken even of the
minds of educated men of the radical school.
When the Assembly met, in 1848, 1t found
the Government workshops in full activity
and the whole working population of Paris
asserting ''the right to labor" The Govern
ment had 6000 men in its employ on the 18th
of March; by the end of the month, 80, 600;
and by the end of April, 100000, and the
numbers were increasing with frightful ra-
pidity. The private factories were ali de-
serted; swarms of lazy and idle men began to
pour in from the country districts. Even
the cooperative associations stopped
their own work and went off to live at Gov
ernment expense? sand large numbers of stu
dents, artists, and writer's followed their ex-
ample. All that anybody had TO do to get
enrolled was to give his name and calling
and address. At first there was some
attempt made to find them something
to do. Parties were even detailed to
plant ''trees of liberty" but of course it
became impossible to find work, and all pre-
tence of finding it was abandoned, and the
huge and motley host was actually divided
into squads and ''brigades," under leaders,
and marched up to draw its pay, over which
there were continual fights. When the AS
sembly met it found nearly two hundred
thousand men living in idleness on the public,
the treasury empty, business totally sus-
pended, and society on the verge of dissolu-
ton. 1t speedily stopped the influx into
Paris, abolished the Luxembourg Commits
sion, ordered the workingmen to prepare to
go to the country to work there, and directed
all idle men between seventeen and twenty
4 -
business. The Reds at once rose in arms,
and fought the three bloody days of June.
The Assembly had taken the place of ''the
Commune" put an end to the great efforts to
abolish hereditary poverty" and, in short,
bad "betrayed the Democratic Republic;"
and the Assembly, of course, represented the
ignorant, brutal, degraded provinces. The
Empire again, which overthrew the Assembly,
and reigned in its stead, was also the pro-
duct of the provincial vote, and, in keeping
down Socialism, was carrying out the will of
the peasants.
Now, if we bear in mind that the ideas
about property, and government, and
labor, and capital, which found expression in
the Socialist experiment in 184S have
been gaining ground pretty steadily under
cover of the Ignorance and silence and re-
preston which the empire created and main
tanned, and that side by side with them has
been growing the worship of the goddess,
'Paris," the centre of enlightenment, and
the fountain of progress, under the influence
of the continued increase of population and
luxury wrought by the Imperial regime,
we shall be able to understand the
frame of mind in which the vast
body of ouvriers, whom the downfall OF
| the empire had thrown out of employ
ment, and whom the loafing during the siege
with arms in their hands and high pay had
utterly demoralized, Witnessed the appear
ance of another Conservative Assembly at
Versailles. To their leaders it meant the dis
appointment of the fierce hopes of years. and
to the men, return to the old round of TOLL
and to both, the subjection of Paris once
more to the degrading yoke of the ''rurals, !"
as they call the country people.
| This term ''rurals' is, in the mouth of a
city Frenchman of any class, an expression of
the bitterest contempt, and the mention of it
brings in one other phenomenon of French
politics which has had much to do with bring
ing about the revolt against the Assembly.
The town population despises and dislikes the
country population, and will not be governed
by it if it can help it. This feeling is found
in all of the great towns, but, of course, is
stronger in Paris than else where. It's origin
is partly historical. 1t was one of the marked
characteristics of the ancient regime, and at
that time found show of justification in the
brutality and degradation of peasant life, and
the transformation of the peasants condition
effected by the Revolution, even if there had
been no very marked difference be-
tween the two classes in our day. But
the difference in character between
| the Frenchman of the city and
the Frenchman of the country is now one of
the most striking features of French society,
and it is made all the more striking by the
fact that it shows itself very soon in the
ouvrier who has come in from the farm after
having reached manhood, almost as markedly
as in the native Partisan. 1t would take more
space than we have at our disposal to describe
it fully, but it may be summed up by saying
that the peasant is cautious, timid grave, un-
enterprising, suspicious, frugal, :laborious,
conservative, religious, full of reverence for
property and family, and all established in
stitutions while his brother in the city is
rash, gay, excitable, adventurous, pleasure
loving, extravagant, without faith in God or
confidence in man or woman, full of con-
tempt for marriage, very icentious, hater
of law and of property, and of all sorts
of restraint and discipline, and
having impatience of labor and passion
for equality as his most powerful springs of
action; gullible, tickle, capable of acts of the
loftiest generosity and of the vilest cruelty
within the same half hour, and swept like the
chaff before the wind by every gust of feeling
that runs through the incoherent mass to
which he belongs. One of the Socialist MEM
bers Of the Constituent Assembly, in 1S4S,
well described the mental and moral condi-
ton OF the town population when he said,
'"The days of obedience are past men feel
themselves to be on an equality, and desire
freedom. This is now the condition of their
minds: they no longer believe, and they wish
To eniOV This Drovokad fron, T a y ooba