Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/259

 *tions, I feel myself incapable of any longer supporting the responsibility of a command where every one deliberates and no one obeys.

"When a necessity existed for organizing the artillery, the Central Committee of that arm discussed but did not order anything. After two months of revolution, the whole service of your cannons was still dependent on the energy of a few volunteers, whose number is insufficient.

"At my arrival at the Ministry, when I desired to facilitate the concentration of arms, the requisition of horses, the pursuit of men evading service, I asked the Commune to turn to useful account the various Municipalities of arrondissement.

"That body deliberated, but came to no resolution.

"Later, the Central Committee of the Federation came and offered, almost imperiously, its assistance in the administration of the war. Consulted by the Committee of Public Safety, I accepted that aid in the clearest manner, and I transferred to the Central Committee all the information I possessed relative to the organization. Since that time that body has been debating, but has not yet acted. During that delay the enemy enveloped the fort of Issy with adventurous and imprudent attacks, which I should punish if I had the smallest military force disposable.

"The garrison, badly commanded, was seized with panic; and the officers, having debated, drove away Captain Dumont, an energetic man who arrived to command them, and while consulting, evacuated their fort, after having foolishly spoken of blowing it up, a thing more impossible for them than to defend it.

"That was not enough. Yesterday, while every one ought to have been at work or under fire, the chiefs of legions deliberated in order to substitute a new system of