Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/70

 and proceeded on its route, avoiding the horrible massacre which took place at the same point on the following day.

At 5 o'clock, when the cortège descended the Boulevard St. Michel and passed before the Palais de Justice, the numbers exceeded five thousand, and the people who thronged the steps manifested open sympathy, particularly at each cry of "Vive l'Assemblée Nationale!"

After the passage of the friends of order, the battalions in charge of the Etat-Major in the Place Vendome took formidable precautions. Two pieces of cannon threatened the Rue de la Paix, and two more the Rue Castiglione; the circulation was also stopped, and piquets were placed at the corners of the streets leading to those localities.

The Central Committee now commenced to make many arbitrary arrests and requisitions, among the latter one million francs from the Bank of France; also to occupy the different posts by National Guards, strangers in the districts; in consequence of which the men of order belonging to the Guards, held public meetings in the various arrondissements, and decided upon energetic measures for the protection of their respective quarters.

The Central Committee had delegated the citizen Tony-Mollin as Mayor of the 6th Arrondissement, in place of M. Hérisson. A short time after M. Herbert Leroy, one of the Adjoints of the Mairie, accompanied by a numerous crowd, arrived and took possession of his municipal cabinet, Tony-Mollin being at that moment absent. But this success was of short duration; for shortly after, Citizen Lullier, one of the chiefs of the insurgents, presented himself with three battalions of the National Guard and reinstated M. Tony-Mollin.

A large storehouse of arms, belonging to the Government, in the Rue St. Dominique, and another on the Boulevard de Latour-Maubourg, was broken into by a mob in sympathy with the insurgents, and completely plun