leaving the National Guards and linesmen to promenade in good fellowship
three abreast, dispersing themselves about the outer boulevards and
about Paris. Indeed, I have just seen a drunken couple full of wine and
friendship, strongly reminding one of a duel ending in a jolly
breakfast. And who is to blame for this? Nobody knows. All agree that it
is a bungle,--the fault of maladministration and want of tact.
Certainly the National Guards at Montmartre had no right to hold the
cannons belonging to the National Guards, as a body, or to menace the
reviving trade and tranquillity of Paris, by means of guns turned
against its peaceful citizens and Government officials; but was it
necessary to use violence to obtain possession of the cannons? Should
not all the means of conciliation be exhausted first, and might we not
hope that the citizens at Montmartre would themselves end by abandoning
the pieces of artillery[7] which they hardly protected. In fact, they
were encumbered by their own barricades, and they might take upon
themselves to repave their streets and return to order.

Monsieur Thiers and his ministers were not of that opinion. They
preferred acting, and with vigour. Very well! but when resolutions are
formed, one should be sure of fulfilling them, for in circumstances of
such importance failure itself makes the attempt an error.[8]

Well! said the Government, who could imagine that the line would throw
up the butt ends of their muskets,[9] or that the Chasseurs, after the
loss of a single officer, would turn their backs upon the Nationals, and
that their only deeds should be the imbibing of plentiful potations at
the cost of the insurgents? But how could it be otherwise? Not many days
since the soldiers were wandering idly through the streets with the
National Guards; were billeted upon the people, eating their soup and
chatting with their wires and daughters, unaccustomed to discipline and