COMMUNE DE PARIS 167 fences ; and the bombardment of Neuilly and the neighborhood of the Maillot gate had been so incessant as to literally demolish the suburb, and to have rendered necessary long before, for humanity's sake, an armistice of one day (given on April 25) to allow the unarmed inhabitants to go into the city. The substitu- tion of Rossel for Oluseret availed nothing ; the new delegate for war, when he had held office less than ten days, handed in his resig- nation, escaped from the arrest in which he was at once placed, and disappeared. Un- doubtedly an able and earnest man, he was still unable to control the confusion of conflict- ing elements over which he was expected to rule. The military situation was now a des- perate one, nothing but the inner circle of Paris itself remaining to the defenders of the commune. The governing body at the h6tel de ville were compelled to have recourse to the most extreme measures. Their finances, man- aged successively by Yarlin and the much abler Jourde, were in a precarious condition, their forces were disorganized, and they had abandoned all hope of aid from without. They forced from the bank of France repeated ad- vances of money, and compelled the leading railway companies to pay them 2,000,000 francs; but the constant payments to their troops, &c., made their expenditures far ex- ceed their receipts. Few skilful officers re- mained among the commanders of the army, and whole battalions were without chiefs to lead them. Dombrowski, it is true, showed the greatest bravery and energy ; but, with discouraged and ill-disciplined troops (he him- self called them incapables), he could not suc- ceed in the repeated efforts he made to re- store the fortunes of the commune. The whole state of internal as well as military aifairs had changed. While no delegate for war had been appointed to succeed Rossel, and the conduct of the defence was left to a committee headed by Delescluze, to Dombrowski as commander- in-chief, and to the Italian officer La Cecilia as commandant of the principal fortifications, the management of matters within the city had been given over to a committee of public safety, created by the commune about May 1, and en- dowed with almost dictatorial powers. Its first members were Antoine Arnaud, L6o Meillet, Ranvier, Felix Pyat, and Charles Gerardin. Un- der the rule of this body those acts began which were the preludes to the last days of the insur- gent rule. On May 10 the committee decreed the demolition of the house of M. Thiers, an order which was carried into effect without delay. On May 16, late in the afternoon, the column Vendome, the destruction of which had been commanded long before, was over- thrown under the direction of the painter Courbet, in the presence of a great multitude of people. The insurgents seemed to be seized with a fury hardly less than madness. The desperate straits in which they found them- selves called forth the most bitter hatred against the Versailles government. Popular orators harangued the crowds in the streets and in the great republican clubs, inciting them to renewed efforts and to a brave resistance. Bands of women, as in the days of the old French revo- lution, marched through the streets, armed, and exciting the people to vengeance upon " the assassins of Versailles." There was even a large and violent political club composed of women. The hatred against the government was carried to great extremes. The explosion of a large cartridge factory in the avenue Rapp was attributed to government agents, and ex- travagant rumors were circulated as to the barbarities of the Versailles troops. The end of the defence now rapidly approached. The treaty with the Germans had been signed, and, its foreign relations thus settled for the time, the national government concentrated every energy upon the prosecution of the siege. On May 14 Fort Vanves was captured ; Fort Montrouge was almost at the same time abandoned ; and the earthwork constructed behind them by Dombrowski proved entirely useless after the forts themselves were in the enemy's hands. The general's attempted sorties were ren- dered unsuccessful by the refusal of the ma- jority of his now disheartened troops to go far beyond the walls; and the sappers of the national army were thus suffered to carry their works close up under the enceinte. At the gates of Auteuil, Passy, and Point-du-Jour the fortifications were nearly demolished by the constant fire against them. Dombrowski's headquarters near the gate de la Muette be- came entirely untenable. In this state of affairs, when the moment of giving up the de- fence of the southwestern enceinte could not be far off, the general determined to retire to a second series of works which should be con- structed a short distance in his rear, and by which he hoped to hold in check the national army, even after the capture of the outer for- tifications. His plan was skilfully laid, and, had it been carried out as he intended, might have greatly prolonged the struggle. The movement of the troops to the new line of defence was fixed for Sunday, May 21. As projected, it should have been made gradually, so that neither the old line nor the new should be left entirely unprotected until the actual moment for the retreat of the last company from the outer works. But through unskilful management the battalions all retired at once, and for a time, at the middle of the afternoon, the enceinte was absolutely without a guard. Outside, the Versailles troops continued their attack ; when suddenly, in a moment of quiet, they were surprised by the appearance of a man upon the wall, waving a white handkerchief, and apparently signalling for an interview. This was Jules Ducatel, a citizen opposed to the commune, who thus sought to give the national officers information as to the true position of the defence. The condition of the enceinte was ascertained, the Versailles troops
