Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/122



5th instant is modified thus:
 * pendence, even at the price of their life, the decree of the

"From the age of seventeen to nineteen service in the war companies will be voluntary; and from nineteen to forty obligatory for the National Guards, married or not.

"I urge all good patriots to themselves perform the police of their quarters, and to force the disobedient to serve.

, "Delegate to the War Office."

This continual menace of an armed requisition was to all men of a certain age a veritable punishment. The Octroi gates and railway stations were held by the insurgents, and every sort of ruse was invented to escape this danger or vexation—the most common one, until discovered, was that of hiring a fiacre with an old driver, changing clothes and putting the coachman inside, then changing back when outside the walls. Another—still more ridiculous—was that of buying a return ticket at the station. The stupid blockheads sometimes at the door thought one would never buy a return ticket unless he intended coming back!

The poet Bergerat passed through the gate in a charcoal cask.

The Belgium and Swiss legations were invaded by young men with all their papers in order, showing they were citizens of those countries. As for our own legation, it was next to an impossibility to catch a glimpse of Mr. Washburne. His doors were always surrounded by a crowd of from five hundred to a thousand Alsatians or Lorrainians. The German authorities having claimed these provinces, the officer in command of the Prussian forces at St. Denis had notified the Commune that these citizens must be exempt from all military service; and it was truly surprising what a number of young men spoke