.

THE BIRTH OF THE TERRIBLE PARIS COMMUNE.
I .-- Indignation of the Constitutionalists.
Cause of their weakness .-- The Girondins renew the attack.
-- Their double plan.
As the blow has missed the target, it must be repeated.

This is the more urgent, inasmuch as the faction has thrown off the mask and "honest people"[2601] on all sides become indignant at seeing the Constitution subject to the arbitrariness of the lowest class.

Nearly all the higher administrative bodies, seventy-five of the department directories,[2602] give in their adhesion to Lafayette's letter, or respond by supporting the proclamation, so noble and so moderate, in which the King, recounting the violence done to him, maintains his legal rights with mournful, inflexible gentleness.

Many of the towns, large and small, thank him for his firmness, the addresses being signed by "the notables of the place,"[2603] chevaliers of St.Louis, former officials, judges and district-administrators, physicians, notaries, lawyers, recorders, post-masters, manufacturers, merchants, people who are settled down, in short the most prominent and the most respected men.