Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/551

 In this manner Régère was discovered, and his red beard was unable to resist a serious examination. [One of the nephews of Régère was a staff-officer in the Federal Guard, who, as early as the 22d of May, had taken off his uniform in the quarter of the Elysée, and hidden in a cellar, "to await the course of events."]

Vésinier, editor of the Officiel of the Commune, and, when he fell from those high functions, of the ''Paris Libre'', was arrested at the Hospital of La Pitié. Here he had taken refuge under an assumed name on the 23d of May. He was slightly wounded in the arm, but was never heard to remark at what barricade he had fought.

Citizens Breslier and Greffier, fils, both officers in the battalion called the Avengers of Flourens, particularly sought as the instigators of the conflagration of the Palace of Justice, were finally recognized, and arrested before the ruins of the monument they had destroyed.

Citizen Verdure, belonging to the Central Committee of the Confederation of the National Guard, had disappeared immediately after the entrance of the Versailles troops into Paris, and all the searches made for him had proved vain.

Verdure, however, had been arrested. He had been taken on one of the first days of the struggle in a group of National Guards who had voluntarily surrendered. He had assumed a false name, and hoped, thanks to this artifice, to pass unperceived amidst a crowd of others.

Unfortunately he was recognized by one of his companions of insurrection while on his way to the provost-marshal, who, faithful to the principle of fraternity, hastened to denounce him.

Verdure endeavored at first to deny his identity, but having been confronted with several other Communists, and recognized by them, he was finally obliged to drop the mask and appear in his true character.

The painter Courbet, to whom Paris and France are in