Terror. Some of their more impatient members
openly showed their hand, and while at Bordeaux began to upbraid Thiers
for his obstinate neutrality on this question. For his part, the wise
old man had early seen the need of keeping the parties in check. On
February 17 he begged them to defer questions as to the future form of
government, working meanwhile solely for the present needs of France,
and allowing future victory to be the meed of that party which showed
itself most worthy of trust. "Can there be any man" (he exclaimed) "who
would dare learnedly to discuss the articles of the Constitution, while
our prisoners are dying of misery far away, or while our people,
perishing of hunger, are obliged to give their last crust to the foreign
soldiers?" A similar appeal on March led to the informal truce on
constitutional questions known as the Compact of Bordeaux. It was at
best an uncertain truce, certain to be broken at the first sign of
activity on the Republican side.

That activity was now put forth by the "Reds" of Paris. It would take us
far too long to describe the origins of the municipal socialism which
took form in the Parisian Commune of 1871. The first seeds of that
movement had been sown by its prototype of 1792-93, which summed up all
the daring and vigour of the revolutionary socialism of that age. The
idea had been kept alive by the "National Workshops" of 1848, whose
institution and final suppression by the young Republic of that year had
been its own undoing.

History shows, then, that Paris, as the head of France, was accustomed
to think and act vigorously for herself in time of revolution. But
experience proved no less plainly that the limbs, that is, the country
districts, generally refused to follow the head in these fantastic
movements. Hence, after a short spell of St. Vitus' activity, there
always came a time of strife, followed only too often by torpor, when
the body reduced the head to a state of benumbed subjection. The triumph
of rural notions accounts for the reactions of 1831-47, and 1851-70.
Paris having once more regained freedom of movement by the fall of the
Second Empire on September 4, at once sought to begin her
politico-social experiments, and, as we pointed out, only the
promptitude of the "moderates," when face to face with the advancing
Germans, averted the catastrophe of a socialistic regime in Paris during
the siege. Even so, the Communists made two determined efforts to gain
p