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THE PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED
53
The first event, which occurred at Bern, March 18,
under the leadership of Paul Brousse, was a manifestation
to celebrate the anniversary of the proclamation of
the Commune. All the members of the Jura Federation
were invited to take part, and the red flag was to be unfurled.
Among the most conspicuous in this demonstration
were Brousse, Werner, Chopard, Schwitzguebel,
Kropotkin, Pindy, Jeallot, Ferre, Spichiger, Guillaume,
and George Plechanoff, recently arrived from St. Petersburg.
The participants became mixed up in a violent
affray in the streets, blows were exchanged between them
and the police, but in the effort to tear away the red
flags many of the gendarmes were wounded. The climax
came on August 16 of the same year, when twenty-five
of the manifestants appeared before the correctional tribunal
of Bern, accused "(1) of participation in
a brawl
with deadly instruments, (2) of resisting, by means of
force, the employees of the police." Most of the prisoners
were condemned to imprisonment, the terms varying
from ten days to two months. James Guillaume was
condemned to forty days, Brousse to a month. The latter
and five other convicted foreigners were also banished
for three years from the canton of Bern. (9)
The second of these demonstrations took place in
April in the form of an insurrectionary movement of the
Internationalists of Italy. They chose the massive group
of mountains which border on the Province of Benevent
for the scene of their operations, and made Naples their
headquarters. During the whole of the preceding winter
they were occupied in making their preparations, and
endeavoring to gain the support of the peasants
of the
near-by villages. They instructed all those who joined
their cause from Emilia, Romagna, and Tuscany to be
as soon as the
ready for action the beginning of April,