Just before the war some discipline was attempted. Some tried to move the deputies of the Left, and met them at Crémieux'. They found them stupefied, more afraid of a _coup-d'état_ than of the Prussian victories. Crémieux, pressed to act, answered naïvely, "Let us wait for a new disaster, as, for instance, the fall of Strasbourg."
It was indeed necessary to wait, for without these shadows nothing could be done. The small Parisian middle-class believed in the extreme Left, as it had believed in our armies. Those who wished to do without them failed. On the 14th the friends of Blanqui attempted to raise the outlying districts, attacked the quarters of the firemen of La Villette, and put the sergents-de-ville to flight. Masters of the field, they traversed the boulevard up to Belleville, crying, "Vive la République! Death to the Prussians!" No one joined them. The crowd looked on from afar, astonished, motionless, rendered suspicious by the police agents, who thus drew them off from the real enemy--the Empire. The Left pretended to believe in the Prussian agent, to reassure the bourgeoisie, and Gambetta demanded the immediate trial of the prisoners of La Villette. The Minister Palikao had to remind him that certain forms must be observed, even by military justice. The court-martial condemned ten to death, although almost all the accused had had nothing to do with the affray. Some true-hearted men, wishing to prevent these executions, went to Michelet, who wrote a touching letter on their behalf. The Empire had no time to carry out the sentences.
Since the 25th MacMahon was leading his army into the snares laid by Moltke. On the 29th, surprised and beaten at Beaumont l'Argonne, he knew himself overreached, and yet pushed forward. Palikao had written to him on the 27th: "If you abandon Bazaine we shall have the Revolution in Paris." And to ward off the Revolution he exposed France. On the 30th he threw his troops into the pit of Sedan; on the 1st September the army was surrounded by 200,000 enemies, and 700 cannons crowned the heights. The next day Napoleon III. delivered up his sword to the King of Prussia. The telegraph announced it; all Europe knew it that same night. The deputies, however, were silent; they remained so on the 3rd. On the 4th only, at midnight, after Paris had passed through a day of feverish excitement, they made up their minds to speak. Jules Favre demanded the abolition of the Empire and a Commission charged with the defence, but took care not to touch the Chamber. During the day some men of tried energy had attempted to raise the boulevards, and in the evening an anxious crowd pressed against the railings of the Corps Législatif, crying: "Vive la République." Gambetta met them and said, "You are wrong; we must remain united; make no revolution." Jules Favre, surrounded on his leaving the Chamber, strove to calm the people.