and there was no great leader to animate or to direct popular
enthusiasm.

It was quite true that the respectable classes in Paris had as
much to fear from the Reds as from the Prussians. The mob of Paris
was wild for a commune.

It is not always known what is meant by a commune, and I may be
pardoned if I pause to define it here.

In feudal times cities all over Europe won for themselves charters.
By these charters they acquired the right to govern themselves;
that is, the burghers elected their own mayor and their councilor
aldermen, and this body governing the community was called the
commune. When the feudal system fell in France, and all power was
centralized in the king, city governments were established by royal
edict only. Paris, for instance, was governed by the Prefect of the
Seine,--he had under him the _maires_ of twenty Arrondissements;
and thus it was in every French city. All public offices in France
were in the gift of the Throne.

To Americans, who have mayors and city councils in every city,
municipal taxation, municipal elections, and municipal laws, a
commune appears the best mode of city government. But if we can
imagine one of our large cities possessing the same power over
the United States that Paris wields over France, we shall take a
different view of the matter. Paris governed by a commune, that
commune being elected by a mob and aspiring to give laws to France,
might well indeed have alarmed all Frenchmen. We may judge of its
feeling towards the Provinces from the indignation expressed by