mediate success. If the French workmen amidst peace failed to stop the aggressor, are the German workmen more likely to stop the victor amidst the clangor of arms? The German workmen's manifesto demands the extradition of Louis Bonaparte as a common felon to the French Republic. Their rulers are, on the contrary, already trying hard to restore him to the Tuileries as the best man to ruin France. However that may be, history will prove that the German working class are not made of the same malleable stuff as the German middle class. They will do their duty.
Like them, we hail the advent of the Republic in France, but at the same time we labor under misgivings which we hope will prove groundless. That Republic has not subverted the throne, but only taken its place become vacant. It has been proclaimed, not as a social conquest, but as a national measure of defense. It is in the hands of a Provisional Government composed partly of notorious Orleanists, partly of middle-class Republicans, upon some of whom the insurrection of June, 1848, has left its indelible stigma.[1] The division of labor amongst the
- ↑ On the 8th of September, 1870, two days after Napoleon III., beaten at Sedan, had surrendered to the King of Prussia, the people of Paris assembled tumultuously in the streets, and the National Guard, armed with muskets, invaded the Corps Législatif. All the deputies were expelled except those of the Left, who were carried off to the Hôtel de Ville, and who, then and there, in compliance with the imperious demands of a vast multitude, proclaimed the Republic. Then Jules Favre, Jules Simon, Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Cremieux, Emmanuel Arago, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, and Picard, by mutual agreement proposed themselves as a Provisional Government of Defense. When their names were read by Favre, the crowd answered by adding those of well-known revolutionists, such as Delescluze and Blanqui; but Favre & Co. cunningly insisted upon having no colleagues in the provisional government that were not deputies of Paris, and the crowd assented, satisfied with the addition of Rochefort. In Lissagaray's words: "This phrenzy of just emancipated serfs made the [bourgeois] Left masters. Twelve individuals took possession of France. They invoked no other title than their mandate as representatives of Paris, and declared themselves legitimate by popular acclamation."—Note to the American Edition.
