In vain the Government put forth proclamations calling on all good citizens, and on the Old National Guard, to put down insurrection and maintain order and the Republic.  The Old Battalions of the National Guard, about twenty thousand strong, had been composed chiefly of tradesmen and gentlemen; these, as soon as the siege was over, had for the most part left the city.  Bismarck’s proposition to Jules Favre had been to leave the Old National Guard its arms, that it might preserve order, but to take advantage of the occasion to disarm the New Battalions.  As we have seen, all were permitted to retain their arms; but the chancellor told Jules Favre he would live to repent having obtained the concession.

The friends of order, in spite of the Government’s proclamations, could with difficulty be roused to action.  There were two parties in Paris,—­the Passives, and the Actives; and the latter party increased in strength from day to day.  Indeed, it was hard for peaceful citizens to know under whom they were to range themselves.  The Government had left the city.  One or two of its members were still in Paris, but the rest had rushed off to Versailles, protected by an army forty thousand strong, under General Vinoy.

A species of Government had, however, formed itself by the morning of March 19 at the Hotel-de-Ville.  It called itself the Central Committee of the National Guard, and issued proclamations on white paper (white paper being reserved in Paris for proclamations of the Government).  It called upon all citizens in their sections at once to elect a commune.  This proclamation was signed by twenty citizens, only one of whom, M. Assy, had ever been heard of in Paris.  Some months before, he had headed a strike, killed a policeman, and had been condemned to the galleys for murder.  The men who thus constituted themselves a Government, were all members of the International,—­that secret association, formed in all countries, for the abolition of property and patriotism, religion and the family, rulers, armies, upper classes, and every species of refinement.  Another proclamation decreed that the people of Paris, whether it pleased them or not, must on Wednesday, March 22, elect a commune.

In a former chapter I have tried to explain the nature of a commune.  Victor Hugo wrote his opinion of it, when the idea of a commune was first started, after the fall of Louis Philippe in 1848.  His words read like a prophecy:—­

“It would tear down the tricolor, and set up the red flag of destruction; it would make penny-pieces out of the Column of the Place Vendome; it would hurl down the statue of Napoleon, and set up that of Marat in its place; it would suppress the Academie, the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honor.  To the grand motto of ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,’ it would add the words, ‘or death.’  It would bring about a general bankruptcy.  It would ruin the rich without enriching the poor.