Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/68

 62 devoted commander. Thus did this valiant soldier of the people pass into history.

The Tuilleries were blazing all this night, as also the "Legion of Honour," the "Council of State," and other public buildings. From early morning of the Wednesday desperate battles were fought at the Palais Royal, the Bank, the Bourse, and the Church of St. Eustache. At 9 o'clock a.m., while a few members of the Commune, who had assembled at the Hotel de Ville, were discussing the situation and contemplating the abandonment of the Municipal Palace, flames shot forth from the roof—how and by whom kindled nobody knew. In an hour the whole place was one vast furnace. The Hotel de Ville destroyed, everything was now transferred to the Mairie of the 11th Arrondissement. This day (Wednesday, the 24th), the official journal of the Commune appeared for the last time.

All surviving semblance of organisation, discipline, or plan was thenceforward practically at an end. Frenzied despair, panic, and anarchy reigned supreme. What remained of the defence was now further hampered and obstructed by the sham-equality craze so congenial to ignorant minds of an anarchist turn. Officers going with important messages which brooked not a moment's delay were seized and compelled to carry hods for barricades, with the words, "There are no more epaulettes to-day," and "Why shouldn't you help to make barricades as well as we?" and the like foolery. To argue that such a thing as "division of functions" was necessary to the success of any social undertaking would, of course, have been useless. So one more nail was hammered into the coffin of the Parisian defence. The shooting of spies, real and supposed, occurred now and then; for at last the good-natured and long-suffering Paris workman had been driven mad with rage