If the Parisians take it into their heads that they will be able to palm themselves off as heroes by continuing for a few weeks longer their passive attitude of opposition, they will do so.

What inclines them to submit to conditions now, is not so much the capitulation of Bazaine, as the dread that by remaining much longer isolated they will entirely lose their hold on the Provincials.

That these Helots should venture to express their opinions, or to act except in obedience to orders from the capital, fills them with indignation.
_November 2nd._ The Government has issued the following form, on which a vote is to be taken to-morrow: "Does the population of Paris maintain, Yes or No, the powers of the Government of National Defence ?" The Ultras bitterly complain that the members of the Government agreed to the election of a Commune, on the recommendation of all the mayors, and that now they are going back from their concession, and are following in the steps of the Empire and taking refuge in a Plebiscite.
They, therefore, recommend their friends to abstain from voting.

The fact is, that the real question at issue is, whether Paris is to resist to the end, or whether it is to fall back from the determination to do so, which it so boldly and so vauntingly proclaimed.

The bourgeois are getting tired of marching to the ramparts, and making no money; the working-men are thoroughly enjoying themselves, and are perfectly ready to continue the _status quo_.