“THE COMMUNE OF PARIS,

“Considering that the Imperial column of the Place Vendome is a monument of barbarian, a symbol of brute force, of false glory, an encouragement of military spirit, a denial of international rights, a permanent insult offered by the conquerors to the conquered, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the French Republic, namely:  Fraternity,

    “Decrees: 

    “Sole article.—­The Colonne Vendome is to be demolished.”

Now I must tell you plainly, you are absurd, contemptible, and odious!  This sorry farce outstrips all one could have imagined, and all that the Versailles papers said of you must have been true; for what you are doing now is worse than anything they could ever have dared to imagine.  It was not enough to violate the churches, to suppress the liberties,—­the liberty of writing, the liberty of speaking, the liberty of free circulation, the liberty of risking one’s life or not.  It was not enough that blood should be recklessly spilled, that women should be made widows and children orphans, trade stopped and commerce ruined; it was not enough that the dignity of defeat—­the only glory remaining—­should be swallowed up in the shameful disaster of civil war; in a word, it was not sufficient to have destroyed the present, compromised the future; you wish now to obliterate the past!  Funereal mischief!  Why, the Colonne Vendome is France, and a trophy of its past greatness,—­alas, at present in the shade—­is not the monument, but the record of a victorious race who strode through the world conquering as they went, planting the tricolour everywhere.  In destroying the Colonne Vendome, do not imagine that you are simply overthrowing a bronze column surmounted by the statue of an emperor; you disinter the remains of your forefathers to shake their fleshless bones, and say to them, “You were wrong in being brave and proud and great; you were wrong to conquer towns, to win battles; you were wrong to astound the universe by raising the vision of France glorified.  It is scattering to the wind the ashes of heroes!  It is telling those aged soldiers, seen formerly in the streets (where are they now?  Why do we meet them no longer?  Have you killed them, or does their glory refuse to come in contact with your infamy?) It is telling the maimed soldiers of the Invalides, “You are but blockheads and brigands.  So you have lost a leg, and you an arm!  So much the worse for you idle scamps.  Look on these rascals crippled for their country’s honour!” It is like snatching from them the crosses they have won, and delivering them into the hands of the shameless street urchins, who will cry, “A hero! a hero!” as they cry “Thief! thief!” There is certainly purer and less costly grandeur than that which results from war and conquests.  You are free to dream for your country a glory different to the ancient glory; but the heroic past, do not overthrow it, do not suppress it, now especially, when you have nothing with which to replace it, but the disgraces of the present.  Yet, no!  Complete your work, continue in the same path.  The destruction of the Colonne Vendome is but a beginning, be logical and continue; I propose a few decrees: