Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/236

 It was currently reported among the adherents of the Commune that there was a growing opposition to the maintenance of Citizen Rossel as Delegate of War.

It was said that Citizen Jourde, Delegate to the Finances, believed himself called upon to resign because, as he said, officials in his position would henceforth be nothing but clerks of the Committee of Public Safety. The Commune, however, refused to accept that resignation. M. Jourde then resumed his mission; but he declared that, in the existing organization at the Hotel de Ville, conflicts appeared to him inevitable between the functionaries at the various ministries and the Committee. These debates did not precisely announce very tranquil days for the men who ruled the capital.

In the meantime the Versailles batteries kept up a regular fire on Issy and the gate of Vaugirard. At the Point du Jour, the gunboats Estoc, Sabre and Perrier cannonaded Meudon, and were replied to by the battery at Brimborion. The bastions 68 and 69 also took part in the contest.

The fighting at Neuilly was of the same unvarying character, consisting of continual struggles in the streets, houses, and barricades, there being on both sides an incessant noise of cannon or musketry, varied by the rattle of the mitrailleuses. At one moment of the day the insurgents had succeeded in capturing the barricade of the Rue des Huissiers, but on the arrival of reinforcements of troops by the Avenue Sainte-Foy, they abandoned the position, and took refuge in the houses. The guns of Courbevoie were then brought to bear on their retreat, and the insurgents were at length forced to retire behind their own barricades.

Several shells had fallen far down the Champs Elysées, in front of the Palais de l'Industrie, and deaths were numerous on that avenue. Notwithstanding this, it was