Another: "The weakness of the deputies and of the mayors is one of the causes of the revolution. If the Committee abandons its position and disarms, the Assembly will grant nothing."
Another: "I have just come from the Corderie. The Committee of the second arrondissement is holding a sitting, and it adjures the Central Committee to remain at its post till the elections."
Others were about to speak, when Bonvalet declared that he had come to take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville, not to discuss, and walked off. His superciliousness confirmed the worst suspicions. Those who the evening before had been favourable to making terms said, "These men want to betray us." Behind the mayors the Committee beheld the implacable reaction. In any case, to ask them for the Hôtel-de-Ville was to ask their lives, for the National Guards would have believed them traitors, and punished them on the spot. In one word, compromise had become impossible. The Journal Officiel, for the first time in the hands of the people, and the placards had spoken.
"The election of the municipal council will take place on Wednesday next, 22nd March," decreed the Central Committee. And in a manifesto it said, "The offspring of a Republic whose device bears the great word Fraternity, the Central Committee pardons its traducers, but it would convince the honest people who have believed their calumnies through ignorance. It has not been secret, for its members have signed their names to all its proclamations. It has not been unknown, for it was a free expression of the suffrage of 215 battalions. It has not been the fomenter of disorder, for the National Guard has committed no excess. And yet provocations have not been wanting. The Government calumniated Paris and set on the provinces against her, wished to impose on us a general, attempted to disarm us, and said to Paris, 'Thou hast shown thyself heroic, we are afraid of thee, hence we will tear from thee the crown of the capital of France.' What has the Central Committee done in answer to these attacks? It has founded the Federation, preached moderation, generosity. One of the greatest causes of anger against us is the obscurity of our names. Alas! many names were known, well known, and this notoriety has been fatal to us. Notoriety is cheaply gained; often hollow phrases or a little cowardice suffice; recent events have proved this. Now that our object is attained, we say to the people, who esteemed us enough to listen to the advice that has often clashed with their impatience, 'Here is the mandate you intrusted to us.' There, where our personal interest commences, our duty ends. Do your will. You have freed yourselves. Obscure a few days ago, obscure we shall return to your ranks, and show our governors that it is possible to descend the steps of your Hôtel-de-Ville, head erect, with the certainty of receiving at the bottom the pressure of your loyal and hardy hands."[92] By the side of the proclamation of an eloquence so vivid and so novel the deputies and the mayors placarded a few dry and colourless lines, where they promised to demand of the Assembly that same day the election of all the chiefs of the National Guard and the establishment of a municipal council.
At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight—this was not what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was to place a few posts along the routes of Châtillon and Sèvres, and protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses.
The President, Grévy, who during the whole war had cowered in the provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection, without general views, and without a preamble to explain them. First a bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. Millière alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to prolong them for six months.
Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orléans two generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them, was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions. "I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.[93]
From the first sitting one could see what the struggle between Versailles and Paris was to be. The monarchical conspirators, abandoning their dream for a moment, hastened to do the most urgent work first: to save themselves from the Revolution. They surrounded M. Thiers and promised him their absolute support to crush Paris. Thus this Ministry, that a truly National Assembly would have impeached, became, even through its crime, all-powerful. Scarcely recovered from the fright of their stampede, M. Thiers and his Ministers dared to play the swaggerers. And indeed, would not the provinces hasten to their rescue, as in June, 1848? And proletarians without political education, without administration, without money, how could they be able "to steer their bark"?
In 1831 the proletarians, masters of Lyons, had failed in their attempt at self-government, and how much greater was the difficulty for those of Paris! All new powers had until then found the administrative machine in working order, in readiness for the victor. On the 20th March the Central Committee found it taken to pieces. At the signal from Versailles the majority of functionaries had abandoned their posts. Octrois, street inspection, lighting, markets, public charity, telegraphs, all the respiratory and digestive apparatus of the town of 1,600,000 souls, everything had to be extemporised. Certain mayors had carried off the seals, the registers, and the cash of their mairies. The military intendance left without a farthing six thousand sick in the hospitals and ambulances.[94] M. Thiers had tried to disorganise even the management of the cemeteries.
Poor man! who never knew anything of our Paris, of her inexhaustible strength, her marvellous elasticity. The Central Committee received support from all sides. The committees of arrondissements furnished a personnel to the mairies; some of the small middle-class lent their experience, and the most important services were set to rights in no time by men of common sense and energy, which soon proved superior to routine. The employés who had remained at their posts in order to hand over the funds to Versailles were soon discovered and obliged to flee.