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The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had
sent him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary
Committee, they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by
evading too decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations
had not yet given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The
combat had been severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights
of Man was in the streets; the ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in
the Passage du Caire, six or seven hundred workmen from the Marais, and
had posted them in the streets surrounding the Bank. New barricades
would probably be constructed during the evening, the forward movement
of the resistance was being precipitated, the hand-to-hand struggle
which the Committee had wished to delay seemed imminent, all was rushing
forward with a sort of irresistible impulse. Should we follow it, or
should we stop? Should we run the risk of bringing matters to an end
with one blow, which should be the last, and which would manifestly
leave one adversary on the ground--either the Empire or the Republic?
The workmen's societies asked for our instructions; they still held in
reserve their three or four thousand combatants; and they could,
according to the order which the Committee should give them, either
continue to restrain them or send them under fire without delay. They
believed themselves curtain of their adherents; they would do whatever
we should decide upon, while not hiding from us that the workmen wished
for an immediate conflict, and that it would be somewhat hazardous to
leave them time to become calm.
458
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