During these tempests at the Hôtel-de-Ville the Central Committee had sent for Rossel, reproached him with the placard of the afternoon, and the unusual number of copies printed. He defended himself acrimoniously. "It was my duty. The greater the danger, the greater the duty to make it known to the people." Yet he had done nothing of the kind on the surprise of the Moulin-Saquet. After his departure the Committee deliberated at length. Some one said, "We are lost if we get no dictatorship." For some days this idea was uppermost in the Committee. The latter voted quite seriously that there should be a dictator, and that the dictator was to be Rossel. A deputation of five members gravely went to fetch him; he came down to the Committee, pretended to reflect, and finally said, "It is too late. I am no longer delegate. I have sent in my resignation." Some waxing angry with him, he rebuked them and left. In his cabinet he found the Commission of War, Delescluze, Tridon, Avrial, Johannard, Varlin, and Arnold, who had just arrived.
Delescluze explained their mission. Rossel listened very calmly; said that though the decree was unjust, he submitted to it. He then described the military situation, the rivalries of all kinds that had continually clogged him, the weakness of the Council. "It has not known," said he, "how to utilise the Central Committee, nor how to break it at the opportune time. Our resources are quite sufficient, and I am ready, for my own part, to assume all responsibility, but on the condition of being supported by a strong and homogeneous power. I could not in the face of history take upon myself the responsibility for certain necessary repressions without the assent and support of the Commune." He spoke at great length in that clear and nervous style that twice in the Council had won over his most decided adversaries. The Commission, much struck by his arguments, withdrew to another room. Delescluze declared that he could not make up his mind to arrest Rossel till the Council had heard him. His colleagues were of the same opinion, and left the ex-delegate under the guard of Avrial and Johannard, who the next morning conducted him to the Hôtel-de-Ville. Avrial stayed with Rossel in the questor's office, while Johannard went to apprise the Council of their arrival.
Some wanted Rossel to be heard; the greater number, distrustful of themselves, were afraid lest his voice should again bring round the Council, maintained that his hearing was contrary to equity, and cited the example of Cluseret, who had been arrested without being heard, as though one injustice could sanction another. The admission of Rossel was refused.
Ch. Gérardin, a member of the Council, repaired to the questor's office. "What has the Commune decided?" said Avrial. "Nothing yet," answered Ch. Gérardin, who nevertheless had just left the sitting, and seeing Avrial's revolver on the table, he said to Rossel, "Your guardian fulfils his duty conscientiously." "I do not suppose," answered Rossel hurriedly, "that this precaution concerns me. Besides, Citizen Avrial, I give you my word of honour as a soldier that I shall not seek to escape."
Avrial, very tired of his post as sentry, had already asked the Council to relieve him. Receiving no answer, he thought he might leave his prisoner under the guard of a member of the Committee of Public Safety—for Ch. Gérardin had not yet been discharged from his functions—and he proceeded to the Council. When he returned, Rossel and Ch. Gérardin were gone. The ambitious young man had slunk like a weasel out of this civil war into which he had heedlessly thrown himself.
One may divine whether Pyat was sparing of adjectives against the fugitive. The new Committee having just been informed of the discovery of two conspiracies, launched a desperate proclamation: "Treason had slipped into our ranks. The abandonment of the fort of Issy announced in an impious placard by the wretch who surrendered it, was only the first act of the drama. A monarchical insurrection in our midst coinciding with the surrender of one of our gates was to follow. All the threads of the dark plot are now in our hands. Most of the culprits are arrested. Let all eyes be open, all arms ready to strike the traitors!"
This was going off into melodrama when cold blood and precision were wanted. And the Committee boasted strangely when it pretended to have arrested "most of the culprits" and that it held "in its hands all the threads of the dark plot."
FOOTNOTES:
[152] On the 3rd May they had voted that the public should be admitted, and even charged two members to find a suitable hall; but the decree was not executed, although in the Hôtel-de-Ville itself there was the splendid St. Jean Hall, which might have been prepared in a few hours.
[153] The reports in the Officiel, confided to inexperienced writers, who abridged or amplified at pleasure, again altered at the printing-office, frequently interrupted by the formation of secret committees, give but a very vague idea of these sittings.