The Ancients Custom having once given the name of "the ancients" to our pre-Christian ancestors, we will not throw it up against them that, in comparison with us experienced people, they ought properly to be called children, but will rather continue to honor them as our good old fathers. But how have they come to be antiquated, and who could displace them through his pretended newness? We know, of course, the revolutionary innovator and disrespectful heir, who even took away the sanctity of the fathers' sabbath to hallow his Sunday, and interrupted the course of time to begin at himself with a new chronology; we know him, and know that it is - the Christian. But does he remain forever young, and is he today still the new man, or will he too be superseded, as he has superseded the "ancients"? The fathers must doubtless have themselves begotten the young one who entombed them. Let us then peep at this act of generation. "To the ancients the wor...
On the 5th of May last the celebration of the centenary of the French Revolution began by the commemoration of the opening of the States-General at Versailles, at the same date, in the memorable year of 1789. And Paris—that city which in January last so clearly manifested its dissatisfaction with Parliamentary rule—heartily joined in the festivities organized to celebrate a day when parliamentary institutions, crossing the Channel, went to take firm root on the Continent. Must we see in the enthusiasm of the Parisians one of those seeming contradictions which are so common in the complicated life of large human agglomerations? Or was it the irresistible attraction of a spring festival which induced the Parisians to rush in flock... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Commune of Paris-Permanence of sectional assemblies -- Distrust of executive power -- Local power necessary to carry out Revolution -- National Assembly tries to lessen power of districts -- Municipal law of May -- June 1790 -- Impotence of attacks of Assembly -- Municipal law ignored -- Sections the center of revolutionary initiative -- Civic committees -- Increasing power of sections -- Charity-bureaux and charity workshops administered by sections -- Cultivation of waste land Our contemporaries have allowed themselves to be so won over to ideas of subjection to the centralized State that the very idea of communal independence-to call it "autonomy" would not be enough-which was current in 1789, seems arrange nowadays. M. L. Foubert,1 when speaking of the scheme of municipal organization decreed by the National assembly on May 21, 1790, was quite right in saying that "the application of this scheme wou...