Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/89



", March 25th, 1871.

":—The question of the moment in Paris, where the legislative power has refused to sit, and from which the executive is absent, is whether the conflict which has arisen between citizens equally devoted to the Republic should be decided by material or moral force. We have the consciousness of having done all that we could for the ordinary law to be applied in the exceptional crisis through which we are passing. We have proposed to the National Assembly all the measures of conciliation of a nature to appease the public mind, and avoid civil war. Your elected mayors have gone to Versailles to convey the legitimate complaints of those who wish that Paris should not be at the same time deprived of its situation as capital and of its municipal rights, which belong to all the towns and communes of the Republic. Neither your elected mayors nor your representatives in the Assembly have succeeded in obtaining a reconciliation. To-day, placed between civil war for our fellow-citizens and a serious responsibility for ourselves, decided on anything rather than permit the shedding of one drop of that Parisian blood which you lately offered for the defence and honor of France, we say to you, Let us terminate the conflict by a vote, and not by arms. We shall thus be investing with the municipal authority honest and energetic Republicans, who, by preserving order, will spare France the terrible danger of an offensive return of the Prussians, and the rash attempts of dynastic pretensions. We said yesterday in the National Assembly that we would take on ourselves the responsibility of all measures that could prevent an effusion of blood. We have done our duty in opening to you our minds. Vive la France! Vive la République!

"Schœlcher, Floquet, Lockroy, Clemenceau, Tolain, Greppo—the Representatives of the Seine present in Paris."