Some bourgeois papers supported Jules Favre and Picard, who had been clever enough to make themselves looked upon as the out-and-outers of the Government; none dared to go so far as to support Trochu, Simon and Ferry. The variety of electoral lists set forth by the republican party explained its impotence during the siege. The men of 1848 refused to accept Blanqui, but admitted several members of the International in order to usurp its name, and their list, a medley of Neo-Jacobins and Socialists, entitled itself "the list of the Four Committees." The clubs and the workingmen's groups drew up lists of a more outspoken character; one bore the name of the German Socialist deputy, Liebknecht. The most decided one was that of the Corderie.
The International and the Federal Chamber of the workingmen's societies, mute and disorganized during the siege, again taking up their programme, said, "We must also have workingmen amongst those in power." They came to an arrangement with the Committee of the twenty arrondissements, and the three groups issued the same manifesto. "This," said they, "is the list of the candidates presented in the name of a new world by the party of the disinherited. France is about to reconstitute herself; workingmen have the right to find and take their place in the new order of things. The Socialist-revolutionary candidatures signify the denial of the right to discuss the existence of the Republic; affirmation of the necessity for the accession of workingmen to political power; overthrow of the oligarchical Government and of industrial feudalism." Besides a few names familiar to the public, Blanqui, Gambon, Garibaldi, Félix Pyat, Ranvier, Tridon, Longuet, Lefrançais, Vallès, these Socialist candidates were known only in the workingmen's centers--mechanics, shoemakers, ironfounders, tailors, carpenters, cooks, cabinetmakers, carvers.[43] Their placards were but few in number. These disinherited could not compete with bourgeois enterprise. Their day was to come a few weeks later, when two-thirds of them were to be elected to the Commune. Now those only received a mandate who were accepted by the middle-class papers, five in all: Garibaldi, Gambon, Félix Pyat, Tolain, and Malon.