Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/129

 consumption was obliged to draw them from without, and to furnish in exchange the produce of its own handicraft. But Paris could neither work nor barter; so that commerce and industry were both at a stand-still.

Paris, already more than half exhausted by five months of blockade, subsisted only by expending the relics of its savings. Every day that passed constituted a dead loss for the city, and involved the destruction of a capital which was not replaced. The most sanguine of the partisans of the Commune could not contradict it when it was affirmed, that the prolongation of the situation discarded absolutely all hope of a resumption of labor. Total ruin and famine was therefore at the end. Against this fatal consummation it was useless to contend. If Paris was not subjected to the material blockade of the siege, the reason was, that the Government of Versailles did not choose to have recourse to that extremity. An order would have sufficed to stop the arrival of all provisions. The military impotence of the Commune reduced Paris to subsisting only at the good pleasure of Versailles.

Early on the morning of the 7th of April, Mont Valérien awoke the inhabitants of Paris with its thunder, and crowds rushed towards the Arc de Triomphe, from which spot the fort was visible. The National Guards who had supported the Commune had been continually worsted by the regular troops. The latter had gradually advanced, and had, during the last twenty-four hours, gained some decided advantages, particularly at Courbevoie and Neuilly, both in a direct line with the Champs Elysées, and both distinctly visible from the Arc de Triomphe. It was evident that no defeat was anticipated by the Commune in that quarter, as, on the proceeding day, the General commanding the troops in Paris addressed the following letter to the Executive Committee: