it is but six months since you demanded war, and
now you want only barricades. Why should the allies fear your doctrines,
when you cannot even control yourselves?... How could you sustain a
siege, when you weep over the absence of an actress?

"But, finally, do you not understand that, by the rules of modern
warfare, the capital of a country is always the objective point of its
assailants? Suppose our army defeated on the Rhine, France invaded, and
defenceless Paris falling into the hands of the enemy. It would be the
death of the administrative power; without a head it could not live. The
capital taken, the nation must submit. What do you say to that?"

The reply is very simple. Why is society constituted in such a way that
the destiny of the country depends upon the safety of the capital?
Why, in case our territory be invaded and Paris besieged, cannot the
legislative, executive, and military powers act outside of Paris? Why
this localization of all the vital forces of France?... Do not cry out
upon decentralization. This hackneyed reproach would discredit only
your own intelligence and sincerity. It is not a question of
decentralization; it is your political fetichism which I attack. Why
should the national unity be attached to a certain place, to certain
functionaries, to certain bayonets? Why should the Place Maubert and the
Palace of the Tuileries be the palladium of France?

Now let me make an hypothesis.

Suppose it were written in the charter, "In case the country be again
invaded, and Paris forced to surrender, the government being annihilated
and the national assembly dissolved, the electoral colleges shall
reassemble spontaneously and without other official notice, for the
purpose of appointing new deputies, who shall organize a provisional
government at Orleans.

"If Orleans succumbs, the government shall reconstruct itself in the same
way at Lyons; then at Bordeaux, then at Bayonne, until all France be
captured or the enemy driven from the land. For the government may
perish, but the nation never dies. The king, the peers, and the deputies
massacred, VIVE LA FRANCE!"

Do you not think that such an addition to the charter would be a better
safeguard for the liberty and integrity of the country than walls and
bastions around Paris? Well, then! do henceforth for administration,
industry, science, literature, and art that which the charter ought
to prescribe for the central government and common defence.