ms at last,
and deliver themselves up as prisoners.

"As to the refractory of Paris, we cannot find words to express the
astonishment we experience at the weakness that has been shown with
regard to them.

"What! we permit that there should still be cowards in Paris? I
thought they were all at Versailles. We allow still to remain
amongst us men who are not of our opinion? This state of things has
lasted too long. Let them take their muskets or die. Shoot them
down, those who refuse to go forward. They have wives and children,
they are fathers of families, they say; a fine reason indeed! The
Commune before everything! And, besides, there must be no pity for
the wives of _reactionaires_ and the children of spies!"

The _bulletins du jour_ are sometimes set forth in gentler terms; but we
have chosen a fair average specimen between the lukewarm and the most
violent.

Then comes the solid, serious article, generally written by a pen
invested with all due authority, by the man who has the most head in the
place. The subject varies according to circumstances; but the main point
of the article is generally to show that Paris has never been so rich,
so free, nor so happy, as under the government of the Commune; and this
is a truth that is certainly not difficult to prove. Is not the fact of
being able to live without working the best possible proof that people
are well off? Well! look at the National Guards; they have not touched a
tool for a whole month, and they have such a supply of money that they
are obliged to make over some of it to the wineshop-keepers in exchange
for an unlimited number of litres and sealed bottles. Then, who could
say that we are not free? The journals that allowed themselves to assert
the contrary have been prudently suppressed. Besides, is it not being
free to have shaken off the shameful yoke of the men who sold France; to
be no longer subjected to the oppression of snobs, _reactionaires_, and
traitors? And as to the most perfect happiness, it stands to reason,
since we are both free and rich, that we must be in the incontestable
enjoyment of it. Finally, after the official dispatches edited in the
style you are acquainted with, and after the accounts of the last
battles, come the miscellaneous news, the _faits divers_; and here it is
that the ingenuity of the writers displays itself to the greatest
advantage.

"Yesterday evening, towards ten