Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/119

 each word of it cries loudly for justice and vengeance, which will not be delayed. The violence of our enemies proves their weakness. They murder whilst the Republicans combat. The Republic must conquer!"

"The people of Versailles murder the Republican prisoners and mutilate the corpses in a horrible manner, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. The gates of Paris are closed, and no one can leave. We have hostages in our hands. Let the Commune issue a decree, and let its men act. For every head of a patriot which falls under the hands of the Versailles authorities, let that of a Bonapartist, Orleanist, or Legitimist of Paris roll in the dust as a reply. Well! So be it. The Assembly wills it. A reign of terror!"

In the mean time Citizen Assi, the late President of the Central Committee, had been committed to prison for having made a speech at one of the sittings of the Commune, in which he declared that that body was going beyond its legal powers, and that it had no right to march on Versailles; that they should not give way too much to the ignorant masses, and that the better class of men were becoming alienated, instead of converted by their decrees. For this intemperate speech he was quietly placed in prison, where he remained several days before it was known outside the Commune. General Cluseret's star was now in the ascendant, and, as delegate of war, he covered the walls of Paris with decrees emanating from the War Department. He issued an address to the National Guards, in which he blamed the increasing use of gold bands, stripes, etc., on their uniform; pointed out to them, that as working men, who have accomplished a great revolution, they should not blush for their origin; the movement had been made in the name of virtue against vice, of duty against abuse, of honesty against corruption, and had triumphed for that very reason, and