But it has rarely been my lot, in the course of my official life, to enjoy an uninterrupted leave of absence. The present was no exception. I was scarcely fairly installed in England, and fighting "my battles o'er again," and showing "how fields were lost", when there came a telegram from Mr. Washburne telling me that there were disturbances in Paris, and that I must return immediately. Some of the National Guard of the Belleville and Montmartre quarters had taken advantage of the confusion reigning immediately after the surrender, and seized several field-guns and mitrailleuses, and carried them off to their fastnesses on Montmartre. They now refused to surrender them; and when the Government attempted to take them, the troops fraternized with the mob, and deserted their generals, Lecompte and Thomas, whom the Communists forthwith shot. It was said that Count Bismarck had urged the disarming of the National Guard at the time of the surrender. Trochu's Government had refused. They must have bitterly regretted it afterward.

On my return I entered Paris by the Gare St. Lazare. That usually peaceful temple of traffic was thronged by Gardes Nationaux—"The National Guard of Order," they called themselves, or were called, to distinguish them from the Communists. These gentlemen appeared to be enjoying themselves. They were comfortably housed in the building, and lounged and chatted there, not without frequent visits to the neighboring cafÉs. I found that they held the Grand Hotel, and the new Opera-house, both strong positions, and within easy supporting distance of each other. They also held the Bourse, the Bank of France, the "Finances," and many other "coignes of vantage." But "coignes of vantage" are of very little use when the heart to defend them is lacking. In a very few days these men, outnumbering the Communists two or three to one, backed by the power of the Government and the wealth of Paris, and by the moral support of the Germans and of the civilized world, had disbanded, taken refuge in flight, and left their families, and their property, and their beautiful city to the tender mercies of the mob.

It was a matter of the utmost astonishment to me, and to every one with whom I conversed, that the National Guard of Order should have behaved as they did. I never understood it till I talked with my barber just after his battalion had disbanded, and before he had escaped to London. They got tired of sleeping away from their families, getting their meals irregularly, and having to pay restaurant-prices for them. They were in a state of disgust, too, with the Government, who refused to pass an act to relieve them from their rents accrued during the siege. My barber was an excellent representative of his class, the petite bourgeoisie; a well-to-do man, employing two apprentices, making a good livelihood, and laying by something for a dot for his children—economical, intelligent, sober. He belonged to the most respectable battalion in the city, that of the quarter of the "Finances." I expressed my surprise at their disbanding. He said that the Government would do nothing for them, so they would do nothing for the Government: it might put down the Émeute itself. So they abandoned their property and their homes and their idolized Paris, shut up their shops, and ran away.

The relations between the Government and the governed in France are difficult for an American to understand. In the United States and in England the Government is our government, its interests are our interests, and we stand by and defend it, not only because it is our duty to do so, but because it is ours. This feeling does not exist in France among the masses, the petit commerce and the peasantry. They look upon the Government as a foreign body which has somehow or other—it matters very little how—got possession of power. As long as it preserves order, prevents crime, insures prosperity, and gratifies vanity by foreign conquests, it is firmly seated; but the moment it ceases to be able to do all this, let it go, and try another.

It is a strange notion of the duties of a Government that it must insure prosperity; but it prevails very generally among the masses in France, and is not unknown among the uneducated classes in other countries. The theory of the Long Island fisherman is more generally acted upon than is acknowledged: "He knew Governor Dix, and he liked Governor Dix, but he hadn't averaged an eel to a pot all summer; and he thought he would try a new governor."

The conduct of the Government, or, rather, that of M. Thiers—for at that time Thiers was the Government, and he might have said with perfect truth, "L'État c'est moi"—has been much and harshly criticised. Whether this criticism is just or not, depends upon the loyalty or disloyalty of the troops. If they were true to their colors and ready to fight the mob, as they afterward did, there never was a more cowardly and disgraceful surrender than the retreat to Versailles, as unwise and unmilitary as it was cowardly, for it discouraged the respectable citizens, and abandoned to the mob all the advantages of position, immense war material, and the unbounded wealth of the capital. It was proceeding upon Artemus Ward's military plan. Artemus said that if he were in a city with fifty thousand men, besieged by an enemy with fifty thousand men, he would open the gates and march out, and let them march in, and then besiege them. Artemus and M. Thiers appear to have studied in the same military school. But if, as Thiers alleged, the army could not be relied upon, but were ready to raise the butts of their muskets "en air" and fraternize with the Communists, then there never was a wiser movement: it was truly a "masterly retreat." Had what Thiers apprehended happened, had the troops fraternized with the mob, a movement which was only an insurrection—a bloody one, it is true, but confined to one city—would have spread over France, and there would have been a repetition, with aggravation, of all the horrors of the first Revolution.

Before the National Guard of Order disbanded, several well-intentioned efforts were made by officers of rank to effect an organization among the citizens against the insurgents. Admiral de Saissy either volunteered, or was sent by the Government, to take command. He made his head-quarters at the Grand HÔtel, within a stone's-throw of the Communists intrenched in the Place VendÔme. Here they were isolated, far from their supports at Belleville and Montmartre. Why the Admiral did not place a battery in position in the Tuileries Gardens, commanding the Place VendÔme by the Rue Castiglione, or why he did not simply starve the Communists out, I never knew: probably he could not depend upon his men. I am confirmed in this belief by a circumstance which happened within my own observation. Two or three French gentlemen called at the Legation one morning, to say that a young American friend, a Mr. Delpit, of New Orleans, had been arrested by the Communists, and was then a prisoner in the Place VendÔme, and would probably be dragged that day before a Communist court-martial, condemned, and shot. Mr. Washburne was at Versailles. I immediately sent his private secretary, an attachÉ of the Legation, furnished with all the necessary documents, to his relief. In a very short time Mr. M'Kean returned, after a most successful mission. He had seen Delpit, he had seen the insurgent authorities, and they had promised to discharge their prisoner that very day. They did so. The next day he came up to thank us for our prompt intervention in his behalf, which had undoubtedly saved his life. I naturally asked him how he happened to be arrested. He said that he had gone to see Admiral de Saissy, whom he knew, at the Grand HÔtel; that the Admiral was very anxious to send a dispatch to a distant part of the city; that the Admiral's aid was ready to start, but that there appeared to be a very unanimous indisposition on the part of the officers of the National Guard to accompany him; that thereupon he volunteered. The Admiral jumped at the offer, and said, "You will go, I know; you are an American; you are not afraid." A French commander must have been very much provoked by the conduct of the officers about him to use such language in their presence. Delpit and the aid started, but had gone but a little way, when they were surrounded by a squad of the insurgents, who ordered them to halt. Delpit drew his revolver, and threatened to shoot, while he told his companion to run. The aid escaped. The insurgents leveled their pieces, and were about to fire, when Delpit, seeing that his companion had escaped, concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, and surrendered. They disarmed him, treating him very roughly, and one of them—a negro—spat in his face. They shut him up in a cellar in the Place VendÔme, and it was likely to go hard with him, when M'Kean appeared upon the scene. Delpit told me that when they found that he was cared for by the Legation, their conduct changed marvelously. They treated him with the greatest respect, and the colored brother who had spit in his face was particularly marked in his attentions. Delpit has since distinguished himself as a poet. His work on the siege of Paris was crowned by the Academy, and he is the author of a successful play, which means much in France.

But Admiral de Saissy had had enough of it. He gave it up, and went back to Versailles. The National Guard of Order disbanded, and King Mob reigned triumphant.

At first King Mob was a good-natured monarch. He collected a lot of pitch-pine torches, and lighted them on top of the VendÔme Column. The effect was good. He made bonfires, fired off guns, organized processions, made speeches; in fact, behaved like any first-class American city on the Fourth of July. This did not last long, however. The tiger soon showed his claws. The party of order, having given up their arms and disbanded, proceeded to organize what they called a "dÉmonstration pacifique," designed to produce a moral effect upon a horde of savages. They paraded the streets in large numbers unarmed. The first day's procession was rather a success. It was a novelty, and took. The second day's was not so successful. They marched up the Rue de la Paix, intending, in the grandeur of their moral strength, to pass straight through the Place VendÔme, the tiger's lair. The barricades were to disappear at their approach, the insurgents were to throw themselves into their arms, and there was to be one huge kiss of peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as set down in the bills. The barriers did not melt away, and the insurgents refused to kiss and make friends. On the contrary, they opened fire on the procession, and several of its numbers were killed. It was a well-meant effort, but Quixotic to the last degree.

And now the tiger had tasted blood, and his appetite grew by what it fed on. But his rage increased by degrees, advancing from one atrocity to another, till it culminated in the slaughter of the hostages.

There was a mixture of the ridiculous with the infamous in the early acts of the Commune. Its members were very numerous; so, for working purposes they appointed a "Committee of Public Safety," which very soon belied its name. These men appointed the ministers. To call a man "Minister of War" was not democratic, so they called him "citoyen dÉlÉguÉ au MinistÈre de la Guerre." The title of "General" they found inconsistent with the simplicity of republican institutions, and so suppressed it. "Colonel" could pass muster, but "General" was too aristocratic for their dainty ears. Then they found that, like other mere mortals, they must live and provide for their families. It was so much easier to pillage a shop than to work! The shop-keeper should be proud to contribute to the well-being of the brave defenders of the Republic! Then they published a decree seizing all the workshops, that they might be occupied by Communist workmen on the co-operative system. A jury was to be appointed—by the Commune, of course—to assess the value of the property, and compensation was to be made to the owner. As a practical measure, this was not a success. The workmen found it pleasanter to play soldier, and to take what they wanted, than to work even on the co-operative system. So the workshops generally remained in the hands of their owners. Next they commenced the work of demolition, and almost equaled the great Haussmann in this respect. They pulled down the house of M. Thiers (the Assembly has since built him a better one); and they passed decrees to tear down the houses of Jules Favre and other members of the Government, and confiscate their property. Happily the patriots to whom the execution of these decrees was intrusted were not perfectly immaculate; they could generally be seen. In this way much less irreparable injury was done than might have been expected.

One of their follies was the destruction of the Colonne VendÔme. An eminent artist—Courbet—who was a member of the Commune, said that it offended his artistic taste. Others of this band of brothers said that it perpetuated the victory of war over peace; that it kept alive a feeling of triumph in the conquerors and revenge in the conquered; that the peoples should be brothers, etc., etc. So they pulled it down; and the present Government forthwith rebuilt it, and the courts have condemned M. Courbet to pay the expense.

When the Column was pulled down, all the shop-windows within half a mile were pasted over with strips of paper to prevent their being broken by the shock. It fell, and people two hundred yards off did not know that any thing unusual had happened. It was a question much discussed how far the prostrate Column would reach. Its length was generally much overestimated. It was thought that it would extend at least one hundred feet into the Rue de la Paris. It did not enter the street, nor even cross the Place VendÔme. The bronze plates were nearly all saved. Some few were disposed of by the Communist soldiers. One was sold by a sailor to a lady for five hundred francs. He afterward denounced her to the Government, and got five hundred francs more for doing so. A profitable transaction! One was sold to an American, and made the voyage to New York, where it was found by the French Consul, reclaimed, and returned to Paris.