PARIS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 28, 5 August 1871, Page 10

PARIS.

We have seen no such vivid description of the condition of Paris and of France as this prophecy of Proudbon, published many years ago :—: — Let the first acts of the National Assembly but disclose reactionary intentions ; let only one rash vote inflame the anger of the people ; let the national representation be violated, and then under the pressure of another dictatorship let the movement be suddenly stifled— and Paris will he Wee a hive surrounded wiihjlames in which the choking burning lees sting each other to death. Then, ■when the Government shall have exhausted all its resources ; when the nation shall have eaten up its savings ; when production and commerce are at an end ; when starving Paris, blockaded by the departments, sending nothing out and no longer able to pay, shall be deprived of all country produce ; when the workmen, demoralized by idleness and the politics of the clubs, shall turn soldiers for the sake of thoir pay and rations j when a million of proletaires [the ignorant, poor, and disorderly, the dangerous classes] shall organize an armed crusade against property 5 when the State shall

"requisition" plate and jewellery to send them to the Mint 5 when domiciliary seizure shall be the only mode of collecting the taxes ; when the pea- ' santa for want of money shall pay their taxes in I kind j when famished bands scour the country and organize pillage 5 when the peasant shall have to take up a gun to watch his crops ; when the workmen, driven by hunger, shall all have given up their bodies ; when prostitution, grief, and want shall have made them mad ; when bands of women, following troops of National Guards, shall celebrate the fetes of the Eepublic by horrible orgies j when the first stack of wheat has been plundered, the first church profaned, the first torch lighted, the first woman outraged ; when the first blood shall have been shed ; when tho first head shall have fallen ; when the abomination of desolation shall have spread all over Prance ; — then you will understand what is implied by a revolution brought about by avocats, accomplished by arti9ts [or perhaps, to give the real signification of thejahraso, by ge)is de JBoheme}, and conducted by writers and poets. The italics are ours.