Astonishment produced a kind of paralysis; anger looked round for an
object on which to vent itself, but hardly knew whom to select. Besides,
people had really insufficient information as to what had happened. The
_Siecle_ printed a fairly turbulent article at once, but no
exciting language in the papers was required. Even a foreigner could
perceive that if it became necessary to defend Paris after a second
defeat, the Empire would be at an end.
The exasperation which had to vent itself was directed at first against
the Ministers, and ridiculously enough the silence imposed on the Press
concerning the movements of the troops (_le mutisme_) was blamed
for the defeat at Weissenburg; then the exasperation swung back and was
directed against the generals, who were dubbed negligent and incapable,
until, ponderously and slowly, it turned against the Emperor himself.
But with the haste that characterises French emotion, and the rapidity
with which events succeeded one another, even this exasperation was of
short duration. It raged for a few days, and then subsided for want of
contradiction of its own accord, for the conviction spread that the
Emperor's day was irrevocably over and that he continued to exist only
in name. A witness to the rapidity of this _volte face_ were three
consecutive articles by Edmond About in _Le Soir_.
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