Paris under the Commune: The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs)Leighton, John
History
Paris under the Commune: The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs)
Leighton, John
Paris (France) -- History -- Commune, 1871
A balloon! A balloon! Quick! A balloon! There is not a moment to be
lost. The inhabitants of Brive-la-Gaillarde and the mountaineers of
Savoy are thirsting for news; let us shower manna on them. Write away!
Pierre Denis! Pump in your gas, emulators of Godard! And may the four
winds of heaven carry our “Declarations” to the four quarters of
France! Ah! ah! The Versaillais—band of traitors that they are!—did not
calculate on this. They raise soldiers, the simpletons; they bombard
our forts and our houses, the idiots! But we make decrees, and
distribute our proclamations throughout the country by means of an
unlimited number of revolutionary aeronauts. May they be guided by the
wind which blows across the mountains! How the honest labourers, the
good farmers, the eager workers of the departments will rejoice when
they receive, dropping, from the sky, the pages on which are inscribed
the rights and duties of the man of the present day! They will not
hesitate one single instant. They will leave their fields, their homes,
their workshops, and cry, “A musket! a musket!” with no thought that
they leave behind them women without husbands, and children without
fathers! They will fly to us, happy to conquer or die for the glory of
Citizen Delescluze and Citizen Vermorel! What ardour! What patriotism!
Already they are on their way; they are coming, they are come! Those
who had no fire-arms have seized their pickaxes or pieces of their
broken ploughs! Hurrah! Forward! March! To arms, citizens, to arms!
Hail to France, who comes to the rescue of Paris!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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