No doubt they were beaten. They had left their dead and their money on the field; but Paris would not forget the volleys fired at the Voreux, and the blood of the empire, too, would flow from that incurable wound. And if the industrial crisis was drawing to an end, if the workshops were opening again one by one, a state of war was no less declared, and peace was henceforth impossible.
Sans doute ils étaient vaincus, ils y avaient laissé de l'argent et des morts; mais Paris n'oublierait pas les coups de feu du Voreux, le sang de l'empire lui aussi coulerait par cette blessure inguérissable; et, si la crise industrielle tirait a sa fin, si les usines rouvraient une a une, l'état de guerre n'en restait pas moins déclaré, sans que la paix fut désormais possible.