y make fun of me, and they would be perfectly right.'

"'Why should people make fun of you?'

"'Because, because----' I stammered.

"He left me no time to finish. 'Because you are a small man,' he said.
'Well, I am a small man, too, and an ugly one into the bargain. I can
assure you that the world will hear as much of me before long as if I
had been an Adonis and a Hercules.' With this he disappeared, and I have
not seen him since."

My purpose in reporting this conversation is to show that the Commune,
with all its evils, might have been prevented by the so-called
government of Versailles, if its members had been a little less eager to
get their snug berths comfortably settled.

To return for a moment to Ferre and his companions, who, without
exception, were sober to a degree, though many were probably fond of
good cheer. The English writers, often very insufficiently informed,
have generally maintained the contrary, but I know for a fact that,
among the leaders of the movement, drunkenness was unknown. Ferre
himself was among the soberest of the lot: the few evenings I saw him he
drank either cold coffee or some cordial diluted with water.
Nevertheless, it was he who was directly responsible for the death of
Archbishop Darboy, whom he could and might have saved.

In every modern tragedy there is a comic element, and in that of the
Commune the comic parts were, to a certain extent, sustained by Gambon,
Jourde, and a few others whom it is not necessary to mention. Gambon was
one of the mildest of creatures, and somewhat of a "communard malgre
lui." He would have willingly "left the settlement of all these vexed
questions to moral force," and he proposed once or twice a mission to
Versailles to that effect. He was about fifty, and a fine specimen of a
robust, healthy farmer. His love of "peaceful settlement" arose from an
experiment he had made in that way during the Empire, though it is very
doubtful whether strictly logical reasoners would have looked upon it as
"peaceful." Gambon had been a magistrate and a member of the National
Assembly during the Second Republic, and voted with the conservative
side. The advent of the Empire made an end of his parliamentary career,
and, in order to mark his disapproval of the Coup-d'Etat and its sequel,
Gambon refused to pay his taxes. The authorities seized one of his cows,
and were proceeding to sell it by auction, when Gambon, accompanied by a
good many of his former const