The
Paris proletariat were as jealous and suspicious of the Assembly as the
Assembly of them. The suggestion of a transfer to Versailles instead of
to Paris seemed a direct challenge. Versailles recalled too easily Louis
XIV and the Bourbons. The monarchical sympathies of the Assembly were,
moreover, well known, and the Parisians dreaded the restoration of
royalty. The people were hungry and penniless, and industry and commerce
had almost completely ceased. The city was full, besides, of soldiers
disarmed through the armistice and ready for riot. On the other hand,
the National Guards, a large body of semi-disciplined militia made up,
at least in part, of the dregs of the populace, had been allowed to
retain their weapons, and many of them gave their time to drunkenness,
loafing, and listening to agitators. Some rather injudicious
condemnations of leaders in the October riots merely aggravated the
dissatisfaction. All this led to the Commune.

The leaders of the Commune were, some of them, sincere though visionary
reformers, whose hearts rankled at the sufferings of the poor and the
inequalities of wealth and privilege. The majority were mischief-makers
and cafe orators, loquacious but incompetent or inexperienced, without
definite plans and unfit to be leaders, some vicious and some dishonest.
The rank and file soon became a lawless mob, ready to burn and murder,
imitating, in their ignorant cult of "liberty," the worst phases of the
French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. Still, the Communards have
their admirers to-day, and, as the world advances in radicalism, it is
not unlikely that the Jacobin Charles Delescluze, the bloodthirsty Raoul
Rigault, and the brilliant and scholarly Gustave Flourens will be
considered heroic precursors.

The idea of the Commune was decentralization. It was an experiment
aiming at a free and autonomous Paris serving as model for the other
self-governing communes of France, united merely for their common needs.
It amounted almost to the quasi-independence of each separate town. But
mixed up with the theorists of the Commune were countless anarchist
revolutionaries, followers of the teachings of Blanqui, as well as
admirers of the great Revolution which overthrew the old regime, and
socialists of various types.

The germs of the movement which was to culminate in the Commune were
visible at an early hour. The dissatisfaction of the Radicals with the
moderation of the Government of Nat