Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/224

 and responded to the Executive Committee in the following letter:

", 30th April.

":—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter charging me provisionally with the functions of Head of the War Department.

"I accept the difficult task thus imposed upon me, but I require your most absolute co-operation in order not to succumb under the weight of present circumstances.

"Salutation, and Fraternity,

"."

The new functionary at once issued two orders, one directing General Wroblewski to extend his command to the whole of the left bank of the Seine, both for the troops and the forts from Ivry to Issy; and the other declaring the Citizen Gaillard, sen., was charged with the construction of a second line of barricades immediately inside the fortifications, as well as a third at the Trocadéro, Montmartre, and the Pantheon. New barricades were also to be erected at four points on Place de la Concorde; those at the corner of Rue Royale and Rue Rivoli to be veritable fortresses. Every one was put to work, and Rossel seemed to imbue the waning spirit of Paris with new life.

The following remarkable correspondence was exchanged between the major commanding the trenches of the army of Versailles and Commandant Rossel, and posted on the walls of Paris, May 1st:

", April 30, 1871.

"In the name of the Marshal commanding in chief, we, Major of the Trenches, call on the head of the insurgents collected in the Fort of Issy to surrender, with all his men, within the space of one quarter of an hour.

"If the said commander declares, in writing, that he