Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/25

 Rh Mont Valerien well munitioned and occupied by 1,000 Versaillese soldiers.

On the 21st the Central Committee suspended the sale of pledged goods, forbade landlords to evict their tenants till further notice, and prolonged the voucher bills for a month. The same day the Radical deputies and mayors made a protest against the elections announced for the next day, as illegal—falsely alleging, at the same time, that the Assembly had guaranteed the maintenance of the National Guard, the Municipal elections at an early date, and other things. The Press and all the Respectability of the capital joined in a chorus of denunciation of the elections and of the Committee's action. A rabble of swell mobsmen and fancy men paraded the Place de la Bourse, shouting "Down with the Committee!" "Long live the Assembly!" The hostility of a few of the arrondissements was so great that it became necessary to postpone the elections till the following day.

All this time Versailles, its recently-arrived Assembly, and all their hangers-on, were in a state of abject and grovelling panic. News came in of revolts in several towns of the departments, and there was an hourly dread of the approach of the battalions of the National Guard. The subsequently confirmed forger, Jules Favre, delivered an harangue in the Chamber, denouncing the insurrection in choice expletives and bristling with threatenings and slaughter at Paris—an harangue which the cowering crew of terrified reactionists applauded with wild extravagance, almost falling on the forger's neck in their enthusiasm.

The next day the black-coated rabble spoken of above, together with some journalists and others, with Admiral Suisset at their back, again set forth, many of them with arms concealed in their clothes, this time towards the Place Vendôme, the object being to expel the National