Lasnier was arrested the next day. The Committee had just laid hands upon the tricolor armlets which the National Guards of order were to have worn on the entry of the army. The woman Legros, who made them, neglected to pay the girls in her employ. One of them, believing that the work was done on account of the Commune, went to ask for her wages at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Inquiries made at the woman Legros' put them on the traces of Beaufond and his accomplices. Beaufond and Laroque managed to hide; Troncin-Dumersan packed off to Versailles. Charpentier thus remained master of the field. Corbin urged him to organise his men by tens and hundreds, and traced him out a whole plan by which to get possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville immediately after the entry of the troops. Charpentier, always imperturbable, diverted him day by day by news of fresh conquests, spoke of 20,000 recruits, asked for dynamite to blow up the houses,[163] and in true Pantagruelic style gobbled up the considerable sums made over to him by Durouchoux.
After all, the whole gang of conspirators did not succeed in surrendering one single gate, but they lent considerable aid in disorganising the services. Still great care should be taken in availing oneself of their reports, often inflated with imaginary successes to justify the disbursement of the hundreds of thousands of francs that they pocketed.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] All the unpublished reports that I quote and on which I rely have been copied from the originals.
[159] Appendix XI.
[160] Appendix XII.
[161] "It was better to take possession of the town by main force," said the apostolic Comte de Mun (Enquête sur le 18 Mars, vol. ii. p. 277). "Thus right manifests itself in peremptory manner"—the right of carnage, no doubt. "It was better that it should not be said that we had got in by the back-door."
[162] It has been stated that a Polish officer of Dombrowski's staff, killed afterwards during the street fight, was the agent in this attempted treason. I have been unable, in spite of a minute search, to discover the least proof of this imputation.
[163] See a letter from Colonel Corbin, quoted in the Histoire des Conspirations sous la Commune, a work by A. J. Dalsème, arranged in the form of a novel, but containing some documents.