Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/29

 Rh enthusiastic shouts made the welkin ring. The spies of Versailles declared the whole of Paris infected. The members of the new Commune appeared again and again on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville in response to the deafening shouts which demanded them. Amongst the elected, although the majority were Revolutionists and, at least up to their lights. Socialists, there were a small number of bourgeois Liberals and Radicals chosen, but these very soon found an excuse for backing out of an enterprise which they saw they could not manipulate as they had hoped. At the first meeting of the Commune, the before-mentioned well-meaning bourgeois Beslay was chosen president by virtue of his seniority, and it must be admitted, made a not altogether bad opening speech. The Commune next day proceeded to apportion itself in committees. There was an Executive Committee composed of Lefrancais, Duval, Felix Pyat (the old forty-eighter with a reputation which he owed to the rhetoric he talked and penned), Bergeret, Tridon, Eudes, and Vaillant (the Blanquist, now member of the Chamber). The other committees were Finance, of which Varlin and Jourde were members, Justice, Public Safety, Labour Exchange, Victualling, Foreign Policy, Public Works, and Education.

One of the first acts of the Commune was to grant a complete release from all rent from October, 1870 to July 1871. Thus a vast number of poor people were relieved from a crushing liability which they were utterly unable to meet without ruin. This was all very proper as far as it went, but the Commune omitted to perform two important duties which the situation imperatively demanded, the first was to issue a clear and easily intelligible manifesto explaining its programme and plan of action. The second and if anything still more serious omission was not keeping in touch with the provinces, which immediately after the