f
the people, to which I could not resign myself--a deplorable inaction,
if they understood, a self-treason, if they did not understand, a fatal
neutrality in every case, a calamity of which all the responsibility, we
repeat, recoiled not upon the people but upon those who in June, 1848,
after having promised them amnesty, had refused it, and who had unhinged
the great soul of the people of Paris by breaking faith with them. What
the Constituent Assembly had sown the Legislative Assembly harvested.
We, innocent of the fault, had to submit to the consequence.

The spark which we had seen flash for an instant through the
crowd--Michel de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself
from the Boulevard du Temple--this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne
firstly, then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de
Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the
barricade of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the
Representatives present not to await the hour appointed for the
rendezvous, and Baudin's death. The report which I made myself of what I
had seen, and which Cassal and Alexander Rey completed by adding new
circumstances, enabled us to ascertain the situation. The Committee could
no longer hesitate: I myself renounced the hopes which I had based upon a
grand manifestation, upon a powerful reply to the _coup d'etat_, upon a
sort of pitched battle waged by the guardians of the Republic against the
banditti of the Elysee. The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the
lever--Right, but the mass to be raised, the People, we did not possess.
There was nothing more to hope for, as those two great orators, Michel de
Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had
declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive
engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to
each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare
their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the
Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would
perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, barely
defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and multiplying themselves at
the same time, such was the strategy indicated by the situation. The
Committee adopted it, and sent orders in every direction to this effect.
At that moment we were sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, at the house of
our colleagu