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Paris Under the Commune, Or, the Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege
Paris Under the Commune Or the SeventyThree Days of the Second Siege Author:John Leighton Subtitle: With Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, Portraits From the Original Photographs, and a Map of Paris Showing the Parts Damaged or Destroyed General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1871 Original Publisher: Bradbury, Evans Subjects: Paris (France) History / Europe / France Travel / Europe... more » / France Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: DISCIPLINE AT A DISCOUNT. 31 soldiers were wandering idly through the streets with the National Guards ; were billeted upon the people, eating their soup and chatting with their wives and daughters, unaccustomed to discipline and the rigour of military organisation; enervated by defeat, having been maintained by their officers in the illusion of their invincibility; annoyed by their uniform, of which they ceased to be proud, the humiliated soldier sought to escape into the citizen. Were the commanding officers ignorant of the prevailing spirit of the troops ? Must we admit that they were grossly- deceived, or that they deceived the Government, when the latter might and ought to have been in a position to foresee the result ? Possibly the Assembly had the right to coerce, but they had no right to be ignorant of their power. They must have known that 100,000 arms (chassepots, tabatieres, and mnskets) were in the hands of disaffected men, clanking on the floors of the dealers in adulterated wines and spirits, and low cabarets. The fact is, the Government took a leap in the dark, and wondered when they found the position difficult. II. At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a dense group of linesmen and Nationals in one of the streets bordering on the Elysee-Montmartre. The person who told us this did not recollect the name...« less