" On
the subject of sorties the Government promised to conform to the general
desire, and to allow the National Guards to co-operate with the regular
army as soon as they should know how to fight and escape being simply
butchered. To other demands made by Flourens, evasive replies were
returned, whereupon he indignantly resigned his command of the Belleville
men, but resumed it at their urgent request.
The affair somewhat alarmed the Government, who issued a proclamation
forbidding armed demonstrations, and, far from consenting to the
establishment of any Commune, postponed the ordinary municipal elections
which were soon to have taken place. To this the Reds retorted by making
yet another demonstration, which my father and myself witnessed. Thousands
of people, many of them being armed National Guards, assembled on the
Place de l'Hotel de Ville, shouting: "La Commune! La Commune! Nous voulons
la Commune!" But the authorities had received warning of their opponents'
intentions, and the Hotel-de-Ville was entirely surrounded by National
Guards belonging to loyal battalions, behind whom, moreover, was stationed
a force of trusty Mobile Guards, whose bayonets were already fixed.
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