A Girl of the Commune

uthbert met an English resident with

the great army of de

shall hang out the English flag and I have no doubt that it will be all right.

, you will keep

for the last three days I have been clearing out nearly all my stock. The demand has been tremendous, and I was glad enough to get rid of it, for even if the place isn't looted by the mob all the liquors might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are

urse I knew they were beggars to talk, but I always thought that there was something in it, and that if it came to fighting they would show up pretty well; but to hear them going on now as to what France will do and doing nothing themselves, gives one a sickener. Then the way as they

s out yesterday evening. There was every café crowded; there was the singing-places fuller than I ever saw them; there were drunken soldiers, who ought to have been with their regiments outside the walls, reeling about the streets. Any one as seed the place would h

id, "they are most extraordinary peop

ere out near Clamart. I heard just now that a lot of the linesmen bolted and never stopped running till

present, but a month of hard work will turn them into soldiers, and I should say better soldiers than the linesmen; but I am afraid they will never make anything out of the National Guard. The only way to do so will be to establish big camps outside the walls and send them all out there and put strict army men in command, with a regimen

be barricades in the streets in no time, and as the soldiers are

uld do, but it is the only th

y son Bob into the cellar for the last four nights. I could not trust the French waiters, and we dug holes and have buried a couple of do

popular in Paris. They have got an idea in their heads that we ought to have declared war against the Germans on

. It will be a job to get them out as we want them, but there

e in and smoke a pipe that evening in his

easting in a public at a time like this. I expect it is about the last time we shall have anything like a supper. Thin

re was the fir

th the Parisians,"

ot quite the spirit in which your peopl

ighest state of indignation, and why, do you think? Because they had to sleep in the open air last night. Are these the men to defend a city? T

elves, I hope,"

--" and he hesitated, "Montmartre this

foul pamphlets and gloat over the abuse of every decently dressed person. They rave against the Prussian

ublic spirit. They see vice more rampant than it was in the days of the Empire. They

resently of showing whether they have more of it than the better class. Personally, I should doubt it." Then he added more seriously, "My dear Dampierre, I can of course guess where you have learnt all this. I know that Minette's father is one of the firebrands of his quarter, and that since she has been e

g. So far there are no signs of that coming man, but doubtless, in time, another Bonaparte may come to the front and crush down disorder with an iron heel; but that will not be until the need for a saviour of society is evident to all. I hope, my dear fellow, you will not be carried away with these visionary ideas. I can, of course, understand your predilections for a Republic, but between

t at this moment the door opened and two

emanded eagerly. "They say the line behaved shamefull

. I have not the least doubt that if the Germans made an attack in full force they would meet with very slight resistance; but they won't do that. They will go to work in a regular and steady way. They will erect batteries, commanding every road out of the town, and will then sit down and starve us out, hastening the process, perhaps, by a bombardment. But all that will take time. There will

né Caillard said. "I have been watching them th

unmarried man in Paris between the ages of sixteen and forty-five should be organized into, you might call it, the active National Guard for continual service outside the walls, while the married men should be reserved for defending the enceinte at the last extremity. The outside force might be but a third of the whole, but they would be w

wo or three of them quietly marched out of the ranks and remonstrated on terms of the most perfect equality, with their colonel as to an order he had given. The maxim of the Republic may do for civil life, though I have not a shadow of belief either in equality or fraternity; nor have I in liberty when liberty means license; whether that be so or not equality is not co

icer if you were sure that

order, whatever it might be, to the best of my power. And now I propose that for this evening we avoid the subject of the siege altogether. In future, engaged as we are likely to be, we shall hardly be able to avoid

d that if the Germans knocked me on the head it would be no loss either to myself or to society in general. It is true that after he had finished he cooled down a bit and made a number of suggestions from which I gathered that if the whole thing were altered, my idea of the background altogether chan

had subsided

an his bite, and I have no doubt he will take a

né said, ruefully. "You are a spoiled child

must hold a committee of inspection on your work to-morrow; none of us have see

ind what you say about our pictures. Your criticisms do not hurt. One would no more think o

y good one on the whole, and after a few little changes it will satisfy even Go

w most of the fellows in the company we certainly could secure all those who have not any candidate they

y. I shall have my note-book in my pocket, and I have no doubt that when we are lying waiting for our turn to come, I shall have lots of opportunities for jotting down little bits that will work into the great battle picture which is to have the place of honor some day in the Salon. I think it will certainly be pleasant to have one

tely determined

y of you put my name down, two or three votes t

paper into small slips

mind telling you who I am going to vote for. It is Henri Vancour. This is a matter in which it should b

dy in their hands and they were on the point of writing when he spoke, and almost all would have given their votes either for René Caillard

ice was seldom heard in the chorus of jokes and laughter, but when asked for an opinion he gave it at once concisely and decidedly. He was of medium height and squarely built. His face was cast in a rough mo

we condemn him. We will hope for the best, but so far predictions have been so wrong that it would be better to wait

e in the first line, but you will take a good place in the second. You will turn out your pictures regularly and the work will always be good and solid

, he would be calm in danger, as he was calm at all other times, and he certainly would show no lack of coura

will do my best. A man can't say more than that. Why you should have fixed upon me I cannot

d Henri Vancour was declared elected first Lieutenant of the company composed entirely of the art students, the Captain being Fran

re; his failing, if he has one, will be that he may want to keep us there too long. It is quite as necessary when you ar

priate costumes, selected by the majority of the Franc-tireurs. They had already had three days' drill and had learned to form from line into column and from column into line, to advance as skirmishers and to rally on the centres of the companies. The

re getting on well, men. Two more mornings' work and we wil

lankets that formed part of their uniform. "Let each man bring with him three days' provisions in his bag,"