Page:Eleven Blind Leaders (1910?).pdf/4

 '''"INTELLECTUALS" AND WORKERS IN THE PARIS COMMUNE.'''

(From Lissagaray's "History of the Commune of 1871.")

Five deputies only signed the address for the election [for the Communal Council]. The rest of Louis Blanc's group had kept aloof from Paris for several days. These weaklings, having all their life sung the glories of the Revolution, when it rose up before them ran away appalled, like the Arab fisher at the apparition of the genie.

With these mandarins of the tribune of history and of journalism, mute and lifeless, contrast strangely the sons of the multitude—obscure, but rich in will, faith and eloquence. They could indeed "come down the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville head erect," these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the 18th March. Named only to organize the National Guard; thrown at the head of a revolution without precedent and without guides, they had been able to resist the impatient, quell the riot, re-establish the public services, victual Paris, baffle intrigues, take advantage of all the blunders of Versailles and of the mayors, and, harassed on all sides, every moment in danger of civil war, known how to negotiate, to act at the right time and in the right place. They had embodied the tendency of the movement, limited their program to communal revindications, and conducted the entire population to the ballot box. They had inaugurated a precise, vigorous, and fraternal language unknown to all bourgeois powers. And yet they were obscure men, all with an imperfect education, some of them fanatics.

But the people thought with them. Where illustrious bourgeoise bad only accumulated folly upon defeat, these new comers found victory, because they listened to Paris.