Paris remains inactive, and watches events as one watches running water.  What does this indifference spring from?  Surprise and the disappearance of the chiefs might yesterday have excused the inaction of Paris, but twenty-four hours have passed over, every man has interrogated his conscience, and been able to listen to its answer.  There has been time to reconnoitre, to concert together; there would have been time to act!

Why is nothing done?  Why has nothing been done yet?  Generals Clement Thomas and Lecomte have been assassinated; this is as incontestable as it is odious.  Does all Paris wish to partake with the criminals in the responsibility of this crime?  The regular Government has been expelled.  Does Paris consent to this expulsion?  Men invested with no rights, or, at least, with insufficient rights, have usurped the power.  Does Paris so far forget itself as to submit to this usurpation without resistance?

No, most assuredly no.  Paris abominates crime, does not approve of the expulsion of the Government, and does not acknowledge the right of the members of the Central Committee to impose its wishes upon us.  Why then does Paris remain passive and patient?  Does it not fear that it will be said that silence implies consent?  How is it that I myself, for example, instead of writing my passing impressions on these pages, do not take my musket to punish the criminals and resist this despotism?  It is that we all feel the present situation to be a, singularly complicated one.  The Government which has withdrawn to Versailles committed so many faults that it would be difficult to side with it without reserve.  The weakness and inability the greater part of those who composed it showed during the siege, their obstinacy in remaining deaf to the legitimate wishes of the capital, have ill disposed us for depending on a state of things which it would have been impossible to approve of entirely.  In fine, these unknown revolutionists, guilty most certainly, but perhaps sincere, claim for Paris rights that almost the whole of Paris is inclined to demand.  It is impossible not to acknowledge that the municipal franchise is wished for and becomes henceforth necessary.

It is for this reason that although aghast at the excesses in perspective and those already committed by the dictators of the 18th March, though revolted at the thought of all the blood spilled and yet to be spilled—­this is the reason that we side with no party.  The past misdeeds of the legitimate Government of Versailles damp our enthusiasm for it, while some few laudable ideas put forth by the illegitimate government of the Hotel de Ville diminish our horror of its crimes, and our apprehensions at its misdoings.