Gambetta, by exhorting the people, in his celebrated circular of the
31st of January, to resist to the death, sowed the seeds of civil war:--

"CITIZENS,--

"The enemy has just inflicted upon France the most cruel insult that
she has yet had to endure in this accursed war, the too-heavy
punishment of the errors and weaknesses of a great people.

"Paris, the impregnable, vanquished by famine, is no longer able to
hold in respect the German hordes. On the 28th of January, the
capital succumbed, her forts surrendered to the enemy. The city
still remains intact, wresting, as it were, by her own power and
moral grandeur, a last homage from barbarity.

"But in falling, Paris leaves us the glorious legacy of her heroic
sacrifices. During five months of privation and suffering, she has
given to France the time to collect herself, to call her children
together, to find arms, to compose armies, young as yet, but valiant
and determined, and to whom is wanting only that solidity which can
be obtained but by experience. Thanks to Paris, we hold in our
hands, if we are but resolute and patriotic, all that is needed to
revenge, and set ourselves free once more.

"But, as though evil fortune had resolved to overwhelm us, something
even more terrible and more fraught with anguish than the fall of
Paris, was awaiting us.

"Without our knowledge, without either warning, us or consulting us,
an armistice, the culpable weakness of which was known to us too