I have studied all the large cities of Europe from a political and social point of view. For reasons too extended to be enumerated here, not one is like Paris, the rendezvous of all suspicious and corrupt characters--of the unfortunate who are at variance with the laws of their own country, and of men of no class who are ready to become revolutionary agents--and these are the worst of all. After the siege it had endured, the state of agitation and prostration resulting from so great a struggle, so much suffering, and so many deceptions, could not fail to attract the leading charlatans and rogues of all parts of Europe. It is not to the honor of the popular class at Paris, the most frivolous and the most credulous in the world, that these new-comers met with a success beyond their expectations, for they became in a moment our masters. Thanks to this cosmopolitan invasion, and also to the departure of too large a number of genuine Parisians who feared the Prussian bombardment less than the mob of international agents, Paris, the brilliant centre of elegance, art, and of intellect, as well as a financial and political centre, became, according to the expressive comparison of the _Times_, an infernal caldron, which terrified all Europe, and in which mingled and seethed all human passions. The party that was playing its part at Paris was not Parisian or French, but exclusively social. It was a flock of birds of prey, a herd of roaming wild beasts, who had hastened from the four cardinal points to fall on the capital of France, which a five months’ siege had weakened. The International agents wished to found the Commune, and, to realize the idea of the Commune, which especially clings to locality, home, the fireside, the steeple, the associations and traditions of domestic interest, they summoned to Paris all their boon companions of the Old and the New World, and forced the real inhabitants of Paris to take refuge in the provinces or abroad. It was a revolting cynicism, pregnant with disaster. At half-past two, some persons, filled with terror and indignation, entered the Madeleine to inform me of a sinister catastrophe. The agents of the pacific manifestation, who had proposed on the eve to traverse the principal streets of the city, crying, _Vive la République! Vive l’Ordre! Vive l’Assemblée Nationale!_ had become the victims of a horrible ambuscade. After passing through the Rue de la Paix, a large number of respected citizens of Paris, unarmed, and influenced only by the patriotic desire of securing, by the most inoffensive means and for the benefit of all good citizens, the triumph of equity, law, and a spirit of conciliation, had been met at the entrance of the Place Vendôme by a murderous fusillade from the insurgent national guards. The reports of the number of the killed and wounded varied, but it must have been considerable.