be both
infamous and imprudent for you to attempt. You kill Frenchmen who are in
arms against their countrymen,--alas! that is a horrible necessity in
civil war,--but spare the lives and the dwellings of those who are not
arrayed against you, and who are perhaps your allies. It is all very
well to argue that guns are not endowed with the gifts of intelligence
and mercy, and that one cannot make them do exactly what one likes; but
what have you done with those marvellous marksmen who, during the siege,
continually threw down the enemy's batteries and interrupted his works
with such extraordinary precision, and who pretended that at a distance
of seven thousand metres they could hit the gilded spike of a Prussian
helmet? Wherefore have they become so clumsy since they changed places
with their adversaries? Joking apart, in a word, you are doing yourself
the greatest injury in being so uselessly cruel; every shell overleaping
the fortifications is not only a crime, but a great mistake. Remember,
that in this horrible duel which is going on, victory will not really
remain with that party which shall have triumphed over the other, by the
force of arms (yours undoubtedly), but to the one who, by his conduct,
shall have succeeded in proving to the neutral population, which
observes and judges, that right was on his side. I do not say but what
your cause is the best; for although we may have to reproach you with an
imprudent resistance, unnecessary attacks, and a wilful obstinacy not to
see what was legitimate and honourable in the wishes of the Parisians,
still we must consider that you represent, legally, the whole of France.
I do not say, therefore, but what your cause is the best; frankly
though, can you hope to bring over to your side that large body of
citizens, whose confidence you had shaken, by massacring innocent people
in the streets, and destroying their dwellings? If this bombardment
continues, if it increases in violence as it seems likely to do, you
will become odious, and then, were you a hundred times in the right,
you will still be in the wrong. Therefore, it is most urgent that you
give orders to the artillerymen of Courbevoie and Mont Valerien, to
moderate their zeal, if you do not desire that Paris--neutral
Paris--should make dangerous comparisons between the Assembly which
flings us its shells, and the Commune which launches its decrees, and
come to the conclusion that decrees are less dangerous missiles tha