Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-06-07

lurking In the background, enemies long
suspected and feared, and now to be reveal
ed In all their power for evil.
With the opening of the gates began az
emigration Of the respectable classes. Hus.
bands and fathers fastened to rejoin their
families, pr0yincials returned to their prov
inces-one hundred thousand Of the Ma
tional Guard, good citizens, brave, loyal, de.
| voted to the cause of order, are said to have
left Paris at this time. Those who remain.
ed behind were for the most part an armed
mob, demoralised by idleness, by drink, by
the teaching of q handful of rabid Republi.
cans, the master-spirits Of Belleville and
Montmartre.
Too soon the storm burst. There Is n
darker day in the history Of France than
this 18th Of March 1871, on which Paris
found itself given over TO a horde of which
II knew neither the strength nor the raalig-
| nifty, but from which IL feared the worst.
Hideous faces, which in peaceful times Turk
In the depths of a city, showed themselves
I'm the open day, at every street corner, irony
on the lips and menace In the eye. A day
which began with the seizure of the cannon
at Chaumont and Montmartre by the Com
munards, and the desertion of the troops of
the Line 10 the insurgents, ended with the
murder of Generals Lecomte and Clement
| Thomas, and the withdrawal Of the govern
ment and the royal troops to Versailles.
When night fell Paris was abandoned to
a new power, which called itself Central
| Committee of the Federation; and it SEEM
ed that two hundred and fifty battalions Of
the National Guard had become Federals.
They were for the most part Federals with
out knowing why or wherefore. They knew
as little Of the chiefs who were to command
them as that doomed city upon which they
were too soon to establish a reign OF igno-
miny and terror. But the Central Com
mittee, sustained by the International and
its powerful organization, was strong
enough to command In a d~isorganized and
abandoned city; and on the 10Th of March
began the great orgy OF the commune, the
rule of blood and fire. The offal of journal
ism, the scum Of the goals, sat in the seat OF
Judgment. Rigault, Ferre, Eudes, SerizieI
-Blanbuisters, Hebertistes-these were now
the masters of Paris. They held the prisons
they commanded the National Guard. They
made laws and unmade them they drank
and smoke and rioted in the Hotel de Vile;
'sIogS sql pun 'saolUo oIqnd Gun w 'ssQomUs
u! 'ssovlvd III s9rSIo eu93s0o ILaul peg SsqI
when the innocent and the noble were Ian
gushing IN 4 shameful bondage, waiting
for q too probable death. There were those
who asked whether William and Bismarck
would not have been better than these.
For CASTOR Mortemar, an enthusiastic be-
lever In Communism and in International,
1t seemed as il this new reign meant regen.
Grafton. lie was revolted by the murder OF
the two generals, but he saw In that crime
the work OF a military mob. He knew but
little Of the men who were now at the helm.
Assy, one Of the best of them, had protested
against the violence OF his colleagues, and
had been flung into prison. Flourens, the
beloved Of Belleville, was killed in a skirm-
ish with the Versaillais, while the Cum
mune was still young. Hard for a man OF
intellect and honor to believe in the scum
OF humanity which now ruled at the Hotel
de Vile, and strutted in tinsel and feathers,
like mountebanks at n fair. But CASTOR
had faith In the causei IL he doubted the men,
That red rag flying from the pinnacles,
where the tricolor had so lately hung, was,
10 his mind, a symbol of mans equal rights,
the uprising of a down-trodden people, the
divine right Of every man to be his own
master. For this cause he wrote with ali
the fervor and force If his pen.
ITO BE- Continued