ems to me little better than an insult. I see no
reason why the working men should be considered to be less patriotic
than others. That they are not satisfied with Trochu, and that they
entertain different political and social opinions to those of the
bourgeoisie, is very possible. Opinions, however, are free, and they
have shown as yet that they are willing to subordinate the expression
of theirs to the exigencies of the national defence. I go a good deal
among them, and while many of them wish for a general system of
rationing, because they think that it will make the provisions last
longer, they have no desire to pillage or to provoke a conflict with the
Government. I regard them myself, in every quality which makes a good
citizen, as infinitely superior to the journalists who lecture them, and
who would do far better to shoulder a musket and to fall into the ranks,
than to waste paper in reviling the Prussians and bragging of their own
heroism. As soldiers, the fault of the working men is that they will not
submit to discipline; but this is more the fault of the Government than
of them. As citizens, no one can complain of them. To talk with one of
them after reading the leading article of a newspaper is a relief. A
French journalist robes himself in his toga, gets upon a pedestal, and
talks unmeaning, unpractical claptrap. A French workman is, perhaps, too
much inclined to regard every one except himself, and some particular
idol which he has set up, as a fool; but he is by no means wanting in
the power to take a plain practical view, both of his own interests, and
those of his country. Since the commencement of the siege, forty-nine
new journals have appeared. Many of them have already ceased to exist,
but counting old and new newspapers, there must at least be sixty
published every day. How they manage to find paper is to me a mystery.
Some of them are printed upon sheets intended for books, others upon
sheets which are so thick that I imagine they were designed to wrap up
sugar and other groceries. Those which were the strongest in favour of
the Empire, are now the strongest in favour of the Republic. Editors and
writers whose dream it was a few months ago to obtain an invitation at
the Tuileries or to the Palais Royal, or to merit by the basest of
flatteries the Legion of Honour, now have become perfect Catos, and
denounce courts and courtiers, Bonapartists and Orleanists. War they
regard as the most wicked of cri