Occasionally new engines of destruction were
advocated--so-called "Satan-fusees," or pumps discharging flaming
petroleum! Another speaker conceived the brilliant idea of keeping all the
wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes on short commons for some days, then
removing them from Paris at the next sortie, and casting them adrift among
the enemy. Yet another imbecile suggested that the water of the Seine and
the Marne should be poisoned, regardless of, the fact that, in any such
event, the Parisians would suffer quite as much as the enemy.
But the malcontents were not satisfied with ranting at the clubs. On
October 2, Paris became very gloomy, for we then received from outside the
news that both Toul and Strasbourg had surrendered. Three days later,
Gustave Flourens gathered the National Guards of Belleville together and
marched with them on the Hotel-de-Ville, where he called upon the
Government to renounce the military tactics of the Empire which had set
one Frenchman against three Germans, to decree a _levee en masse_, to make
frequent sorties with the National Guards, to arm the latter with
chassepots, and to establish at once a municipal "Commune of Paris.
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