Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/142



The possession by the city of Paris of the most extended municipal liberties, distinct from all action or interference from the central power." These delegates state that they arrived at Versailles, and placed themselves in communication with a committee of seven members of the Left, in conjunction with whom they drew up the following outline of the compromise:

"The formation of a Committee of Conciliation, the functions of which would be to place in communication the members of the Government and of the Commune of Paris, each preserving entire freedom of action, and to seek in that exchange of ideas the means of a pacific solution. The course by which that result is to be arrived at appears to consist principally in these dispositions: 'The acceptance by the city of Paris of the Municipal Bill which is about to be voted by the Assembly; elections in Paris in conformity with that law, that is to say, in a few days, under the direction of the Committee of Conciliation; recognition of the right of the Municipal Council thus chosen to submit to the Assembly certain propositions relative to the particular conditions of the city of Paris, the necessity of which the bill already admits in certain respects; and consequently, in order to facilitate the negotiations, the suspension of military operations immediately after the acceptance of those preliminaries at Paris, without prejudice for the present to the question of the arming or organization of the National Guard, which subject shall be reserved for the subsequent examination of the Municipal Council, and for the decision of the National Assembly, when the latter body shall have under consideration the reconstitution of the armed force in France. A general political amnesty!" The report of the delegates then goes on to say: "We waited on M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, who manifested the greatest