Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/226

 official journal of the Commune announced on the 1st of May that a Committee of Public Safety had been organized, composed of five members, who would possess the most extended powers over all commissions, and all the branches of the Government, and that the persons composing it could not be called before any other jurisdiction than that of the Commune.

Citizens Antoine Arnaud, Léo Meillet, Ranvier, Felix Pyat, and Charles Gérardin were appointed on this important commission.

What was to be the duration of this new power, or its particular attributes, was not known. The decree seemed to indicate that it was to replace the Executive Committee. The Delegate Rossel had asked the Commune for its most absolute co-operation as the price of his inestimable services. Doubtless the proof of that assistance was to be found in the creation of a Committee of Public Safety. Such a step was to be expected—first, because at the Hotel de Ville dictatorship was liked; and second, because, fatally vowed to an imitation of 1793, the natural result was that this word, and the thing itself, equally sinister, should be exhumed.

The garrison of Fort Issy was now three times as strong as at the moment of the evacuation. The fire from the fort was, however, very feeble, as only four 24-pounders remained mounted. A barricade at the foot of the slope in front was also armed with two guns, and two American mitrailleuses, but it was of little avail except to defend the access to the village. The officers of the Commune, however, appeared to be so sensible of the weakness of the whole position, that they established three guns on a small eminence outside the gate of Vaugirard. The re-occupation of Issy was only temporary, to enable the insurgents to establish their heavy artillery on the ramparts. In the meantime, two of the insurgent gunboats were cannonading the heights of Meudon and Brimborion.