The "Ultras" hope to found on a war _a outrance_ a democratic republic, and dream of the successes of the First Revolution.

The politicians hardly know what they want.

Their main idea is to keep up for their own purposes that centralization which has so long been the bane of this country.

If they agree to terms before Paris has given France an example of heroism, they fear that her supremacy will be compromised; if they allow the insulation to continue, they fear that the Provinces will accustom themselves to independent action; if a Constituent Assembly be elected whilst free communication between Paris and the rest of France is interrupted, they fear that this Assembly will consist of local candidates rather than those, as has heretofore been the case in all French Legislative Chambers, who are imposed upon the departments by a central organization in the capital.
The position of the Government is a singular one.

They obtained last Thursday a large majority on their plebiscite, because it was fully understood that "oui" meant peace; indeed, on many bulletins, the words "and peace" were added to the "oui." They have imprisoned the leaders of those who revolted to the cry of "no armistice!" Their friends the bourgeois trusted to them to put off the municipal elections until after the war, and they rallied to their defence to the cry of "no Commune!" In each arrondissement a mayor and two adjuncts have been elected, and these mayors and adjuncts have only to meet together in order to assume that right to interfere in public affairs which converts a municipality into a commune.