A little farther up the Boulevard des Italiens I see another acquaintance. "What, still in Paris?" I say, shaking hands with him.--"I am off this evening," he answers.--"Are you condemned to death?"--"No, but I shall be tried to-night."--"The devil! Do you write on the _Figaro_!"--"No, no, it is quite a long story. Three years ago, I made the acquaintance of a charming blonde, who reciprocated my advances, and made herself highly agreeable. In a word, I was smitten. Unfortunately there was a husband in the case!"--"The devil there was!"--"He made inquiries, and found out who I was, and ..."--"And invited you to mortal combat?"--"Oh! no, he is a hosier. But from that day forth he became my most bitter enemy."--"Very disagreeable of him, I am sure, but I do not see how the enmity of this retail dealer obliges you to quit Paris?"--"Why, you see he has a cousin who is elected a member of the Commune."--"I understand your uneasiness; you fear the latent revenge of this unreasonable hosier."--"I am to be tried to-night, but it is not the fear of death which makes me fly. It is worse than that. Those Hôtel de Ville people are capable of anything, and I hear they are going to make a law on divorce. I know the malignity of the lady's husband--and I believe he is capable of getting a divorce, and forcing me to marry her!"
So, under one pretext and another, almost everyone is going away. As for me, I am like a hardened Parisian--my boots have a rooted dislike to any other pavement than that of the boulevards. Who is right, I, or those who are rushing off? Is there really danger here for those who are not ardently attached to the principles of the Commune? I try to believe not. True there have been arrests--domiciliary visits and other illegal and tyrannical acts--but I do not think it can last.[30] May we not hope that the dangerous element in the Commune will soon be neutralised by the more intelligent portion of the Municipal Council, if, indeed, that portion exists? I cannot believe that a revolution, accomplished by one-third of the population of Paris, and tolerated by another (the remaining fraction having taken flight), can be entirely devoid of the spirit of generosity and usefulness, capable only of appropriating the funds of others, and unjustly imprisoning innocent citizens. Besides, even if the Commune, instead of trying to make us forget the bloody deeds with which it preceded its establishment, or seeking to repair the faults of which it has been guilty, on the contrary continues to commit such excesses, thus harrying to its ruin a city which has already suffered so much, even then I will not leave it. I will cling to it to the last, as a sailor who has grown to love the ship that has borne him gallantly in so many voyages, clings to the wreck of his favourite, and refuses to be saved without it.