The Labor enquirer., 1886-03-27
heroisms surprising a thousand Napo-

Il :
Icons. Wellingtons, Washingtons I'd
Grants. But, some may say, what was
the ending of these terrible and unequal
struggles. in which the brave men and
women who manned the rude street
! fortresses, were no match for the SOL
diery of The rulers Did not the barri
cades always have to 3suecumb in the
end to the superior force Of the opposi
tom Aye, true; but from the ruins ol
every barricade crushed in the streets
of Paris has risen star to be sci in the
|sky of Human Progress. From the
smoke and carnage of the Paris barri'
lcades has issued the Republic of France,
and who will dare say in the face of this
and evidence presented that they are not
among the foundation stones of the New
Society soon we hope to see ushered in,
when the peoples of all lands will enjoy
full an d complete Freedom, and the cry
of the oppressed and hungry shall
have died out to be heard again never
more. g.,
The uprising of '4S was put down, but
its effects were so palpably felt upon or
ganized society, that strong political
reaction set in after the defeat of the
people, and the national assembly be-
gan, within the next few months, to take
such decidedly advanced steps towards
shaping the governmental fabric to more
easily and comfortably fit the whole
people, that the aristocracy sat to work
to overthrow the partial republic and
reinstate the monarchy, Ali this ended
in the coup de etat of Louis Napoleon
on December 2, 1851, when in a night
the republican members ofthe assembly
were seized bv force at their homes and
either imprisoned or banished from
France by the Bonapartists. Victor
Hugo, who was one of the republicans.
was banished, and it was he who has
told of that great conspiracy, in work
which he called "The History of a
Crime" Let US pass to the considera-
ton of the Commune of 1871.
AS have said before, we have no au-
thentic history of the event, and I am
confined for data to the letters IA few
pubic but mostly private) which have
been written-some to myself-by those
who were in Paris at the time or had
friends there who told them the story.
But, naturally, these letters speak only
in general terms, and we are without
details I want to say right here that
have received information that history
of the Commune, written bv William
Morris, Belfort Bax and Victor Darve,
was announced to be issued by the Social
League of London on or about the
fifteenth of this month but of course, I
have not vet received copies of it.. .
The Franco Prussian~ war of 1870 is
still fresh in the memory of the most ol
us; how the fool-hardy emperor, who
bore the illustrious name of Napoleon
provoked combat with the almost in
vincible forces of the stolid German
king, William how the tri-color of the
French went down in September, of that
year, at Sedan, and the white flag Of
surrender was held aloft bv. the treach-
| erous hand of the craven emperor; how
16400 Frenchmen bit the dust on the
| blazoned field of Sedan we have all
heard. 1t was while this struggle was
going on outside Paris, and which was
properly siege against the CITY, thai
the people began to mutter at the un.
usual burdens which were being laid
upon them to maintain the idiotic wal
of the emperor. Business was compare
lively at stand-still in the CITY, and
there was terribly increasing misery
and want in the poorer quarters. The
Faubourg st. Antoine again began to
surge in the pangs of hunger; the NUT
terings of justified and holy discon.
tent became prolonged cry for deliver.
ance from the thralldom of ROYALTY rev
cling in war with a rival despot. On
Sunday September the fourth, the en-
pire was declared thing of the past
The emperor was prisoner of the Ger.
! b ole f6a ofar owl
of the army; and the middle class Par
islans, seizing this opportune moment,
made complete by the disconGent of the
common people, reinstated the so-called
Republic. The people for time mis-
took the bauble for the jewel, anc
either joined in the shout "Vive la Re
publique," or looked onin dumbfoundet
silence at the turn which affairs hat
taken. But they we're aroused by tht
announcement of the approach upo1
the city of Bismarck's conquering army
Then Paris became camp, and nearly
every citizen soldier. The defense o
the beautiful city againt the invader
was common cause; and who cal
blame the people if they forgot thei
own tyrants and misery when they
heard the tread of the despot who mad,
war, not for Humanity, but for con
, quest and prize-money. And the gov
ernment, threatened as it was from the
outside. attem pied to strengthen itsel
r internally by filling the empty stomach
it ignored when it thought itself posi-
BILE victor before Sedan.
: The siege was intense; but the cit.
was surrendered early in January, ant