Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/525



Archbishop and other hostages, I thought it my duty not to defer the communication.

"The reunion for the ceremony will take place at the Archbishopric on Wednesday morning (June 7th) at a quarter past ten."

The National Assembly then decided that a deputation, chosen from among the members, should attend the funeral. Although the number of persons composing a deputation of this kind is ordinarily twenty-five, the Assembly saw fit, under the present circumstances, to derogate from its custom, and appointed fifty to show this mark of respect to the Archbishop, and other victims assassinated by the Commune.

On the following day M. Jules Simon read the following projet de loi:

"At the same time that the insurgents, to increase the ranks of their army, took by force all citizens capable of service, leaving them no alternative but to hide, so incurring the greatest perils, or to march in their ranks under their infamous flag against order, liberty, and their country, they laid their hands, without pretext, without a shadow of judgment, on the most eminent and respectable men, announcing that they would keep them as hostages until the end of the civil war.

"Nearly all the priests of Paris were arrested under these conditions, and, at the head of the priests, their Archbishop.

"Several times, by proclamations, by discourses pronounced in the sittings of the Commune, it was declared that if the insurgents taken with arms in their hands were judged and executed at Versailles, the rebels would execute their reprisals on this flock of innocents, not even following the law of retaliation, which did not suffice