The name of a revolutionary committee which played a most important part in France from July 14, 1789, to July 27, 1794. On the first insurrection the Parisian electors convened, and under the above name appointed a standing committee, which, on the eve of the taking of the Bastile (July 13, 1789), established the Parisian militia or national guard. A decree of the constituent assembly, May 21, 1791, divided the commonalty of Paris into 48 sections, electing a mayor and 16 administrators, to which a municipal council of 32 members and another board of 96 notables were added. On Nov. 10, 1791, Petion was elected mayor; Robespierre, Bil-laud-Varennes, and Tallien entered the general council, while Manuel held the office of attorney, and had Danton as his first assistant. Henceforth the commune acted in concert with the Jacobins, and on the night of Aug. 10, 1792, established themselves as the insurrectionary commune, declared all other authorities suspended, and soon became the ruling power, and spread terror among the royalists by the slaughters of September. Next they joined the Montagnards, and organized the insurrectionary movements which resulted in the fall of the Girondists, May 31 and June 2, 1793. During the reign of terror they remained faithful adherents of Robespierre until his overthrow.

Their very name was suppressed by the constitution of the year III., under which the city of Paris was divided into 12 distinct municipalities, and the commune entirely lost its political importance. II. A revolutionary attempt to establish absolute municipal self-government in Paris in 1871. First openly begun by the resistance of the national guard to the regular forces on March 18, in some degree organized by the municipal elections of the 26th, and assuming definite shape through the formal proclamation of the commune on the 29th, it was finally suppressed by the troops of the national government two months later, after having in the interval become complicated with attempts to carry out various notions of socialism, and with other schemes of revolution apparently not comprehended in the original design, and certainly not stated as a part of it. The red republicans and the more violent reformers of Paris had, since the dethronement of Napoleon III. and the proclamation of the republic in September, 1870, never ceased to attack what they considered the conservative character of the government of national defence then established, and to demand more radical measures, especially such as should tend toward decentralization, municipal independence, and the introduction of something approaching a federative system made up of self-governing communes.

Diligently and sincerely advocated by many of the leading radical politicians, and industriously propagated for their own purposes by political agitators, revolutionists, and adventurers in the city, these opinions gained ground very rapidly among the people. They already formed one of the many articles in the political programme of the working men's societies, especially in that of the widespread Internationale. By many they were undoubtedly accepted understandingly and with due knowledge of the end to be gained; but they were largely used as a political device by demagogues and the lowest order of revolutionary popular leaders, who represented to the laboring classes the establishment of municipal self-government as the beginning and the means of various more or less vaguely stated reforms in their condition. Thus the cry of "Vive la commune!" used intelligently by the few, became besides, like so many similar cries before it, the expression of the discontent and the somewhat aimless though violent agitation of the revolutionary proletarians.

This agitation, though its expressions were generally confined to the radical clubs - like that of the Salle Favie at Belleville, that of the Alcazar, and many others - had already broken out several times during the German siege of Paris in riotous demonstrations originating in one of the suburbs Montmartre, Belleville, or La Villette, and having for their object the possession of the hotel de ville. The most important of these was that of the 31st of October, 1870, when the mob, infuriated by the news of the surrender of Metz and the defeat at Bourget, fairly gained possession of the place, and even of the members of the government in session there at the time, but were compelled to withdraw by the national guard, though only on condition that a vote determining the confidence or want of confidence of the people of Paris in the government of national defence should immediately be taken. This vote was ordered for Nov. 3, when the government was sustained by overwhelming majorities; but the radical leaders had shown their growing power, and this riot was the most unmistakable herald of the coming insurrection.

Finally, when the long series of French defeats and unsuccessful sorties terminated in the surrender of the capital to the Germans, and the idea, "The government .has betrayed us," gradually gained ground among the people, the national guard began to waver, then to join openly in the clamor, until finally, by making the first really formidable insurrectionary movement, they themselves became as it were the leaders in the revolutionary attempt from which they had before comparatively stood aloof. On the triumphal entry of the German army into Paris, March 1, 1871, detachments of the nationals, who had by express stipulation been suffered to remain under arms " for the preservation of order," made hostile demonstrations in violation of the agreement of the government, erecting barricades in several portions of the city, and remaining in an attitude of resistance; and they placed themselves in still more decided opposition to the authorities by their refusal, in spite of the formal order of Gen. Aurelle de Paladines, the commandant, to give up the artillery which had been removed on Feb. 26 from the pare Wagram and other places, ostensibly to preserve it from falling into the hands of the Germans. Thus taken into their possession under cover of a purpose which, though in direct violation of the armistice agreement, passed for a patriotic one, this artillery proved one of the chief sources of their strength in the beginning of the insurrection.

The government did not at first attribute to this direct resistance to its authority the importance which it possessed; and in the interval of temporizing policy which followed, the insurrection grew stronger with great rapidity. The first step taken, the commune leaders won adherents by thousands. The negotiations of the authorities with the Germans aided them; for not only was there a great number of the people to whom the thought of peace on the apparently inevitable terms was, from purely national pride and patriotic feeling, almost unbearable, but there was also a perhaps still larger class, composing the worse portion of the national guard especially, which saw in the end of the war the end also of their living at government expense, and looked forward to the return of hard labor, the enforcement of creditors' claims, the collection of rents, and a thousand evils they had evaded during the war. Both these classes, and many more, flocked eagerly to the standard of the commune, whose leaders raised the cry, "The republic is in danger!" and in a few days the insurrection became too formidable to be checked. An organized body now appeared as its head.

This was the central committee of the national guard, a council of leading insurgents, at first under the controlling influence of Blanqui, which had long acted as a half-concealed conspiracy, but now came forward openly. Its power was for a time threatened by another committee claiming to be the regularly elected representatives of a federation of battalions; but a fusion was effected between the two, and the central committee, thus reconstructed, found itself with even greater influence than before. Acting under its orders, the insurgents had taken the cannon on Feb. 26; directed by it, they now possessed themselves of great quantities of arms and ammunition from the fortifications, and took up their principal position in an intrenched camp on Montmartre. They took magazines, compelled the release of public prisoners, and even came into open conflict with small bodies of regular troops, some of whom were induced to join them. They began to call themselves the "federated guards," in distinction from those nationals who had remained loyal.

From its stronghold at Montmartre the central committee issued inflammatory proclamations, demanding that the national guard should have the right to elect all its own officers; that the daily pay (war standard) of one franc and a half should be secured to each of its members until he could obtain work, or the government could obtain it for him; that Gen. Aurelle de Pala-dines should be displaced to make room for a commandant of their own choosing. In what concerned general politics they demanded universal suffrage, and the formal subjection of all military power to the civil authority of the Paris municipality. The greater part of these demands were sent to the minister of the interior, with much of the formality attending the presentation of an ultimatum from a hostile power. - Such was the position of affairs when the new national government, headed by M. Thiers, at last pasrceiving with what they had to deal, determined upon the employment of force. They rapidly collected the troops that could be spared from other employment, and brought the detachments stationed in Paris up to the strength of 30,000 men, including that minority of the national guard that remained loyal.

On March 11 Gen. Vinoy, to whom the task of dealing with the matter was largely intrusted, had, just after the receipt of the demands of the reds, suppressed six of the most violent radical journals, Le Vengeur (the organ of Felix Pyat), Pere Duchene, Le Cri du Peuple, La Bouche de Fer (the organ of Paschal Grousset), La Caricature, and Rochefort's paper, Le Mot d' Ordre. With the exception of this, however, no decisive act had revealed the intentions of the government; the quieter classes of Parisians, with singular blindness, seemed to have no idea of an approaching conflict; the difficulty, if referred to at all, was spoken Of lightly as "the cannon question;" the insurgents on Montmartre remained quiet for several days; and a lull preceded the final crisis which promoted a general sense of security, and gave the outbreak when it came additional violence. On the night of March 17-18, 10,000 of the government troops finally took up positions of attack about the base of Montmartre. These occupied, they pressed on to the summit of the hill, easily overcame the few guards stationed about the camp of the insurgents, took 400 prisoners and several cannon, and before daylight made themselves masters of the place without encountering formidable resistance.

So quietly was this done, that no general knowledge of the movement spread through the other quarters of Paris at the time; the morning papers appeared without mentioning the events of the night, and the victors flattered themselves that the whole trouble was at an end. But some apparently trifling errors in their plan caused them to be very quickly undeceived. Nothing now remained to complete the success but the removal of the cannon; but the arrangements for carrying them away having been incompletely made, a long delay ensued, and meanwhile the news of the affair spread rapidly through the insurgent districts near at hand, and among the federated guards, the fellows of those who had been captured. The general alarm was beaten in the quarters of Belleville and Montmartre; the populace poured into the streets; and about 7 o'clock several battalions of federates, hastily mustered, attacked the government troops, with whom a violent and irregular conflict followed. Suddenly the 88th regiment of the line, among those engaged, threw up the butts of their muskets and went over to the federate side, and their example was followed later by other regular soldiers, while new reinforcements from the hostile quarters reached the insurgents constantly.

Gen. Vinoy had drawn a cordon of troops around the hill, ordering them to permit no one to pass, and planting mitrailleuses covering the various roads of ascent. But these precautions were rendered useless by the fraternization of the soldiers with the people; the insurgents carried off the mitrailleuses, and the few troops remaining loyal saw themselves compelled to withdraw. In the place Pigalle a small body of such troops (200 to 300 men), commanded by Gen. Faron, was cut off from the rest in their retreat, and only succeeded late in the day in cutting a way out after a fierce conflict. Gen. Lecomte and the former commander of the national guards of Paris, Gen. Clement Thomas, deserted by their soldiers, were taken prisoners by the federates and the people, and after being insulted and maltreated by the mob they were led before the central committee, which commanded that they be held as prisoners of war. In spite of this decree, they were taken later in the day by a few federate guards into a little garden near by, and shot, Gen. Thomas, it was said, falling at the fifteenth discharge.

By noon of the 18th the insurgents were once more in full possession of Montmartre and its surroundings, where they set about erecting street barricades and other defences; and toward evening, the government troops having been driven from the field, they penetrated into other quarters of the city, and first took possession of the place Vend6me and the army headquarters there. Soon after dark they occupied the hotel de ville without meeting any resistance; by midnight they were fairly established in it, and the national troops had been withdrawn to Versailles. The morning of the 19th found every attempt at control on the part of the government abandoned, every point in the power of the federate guards, and the central committee the rulers of Paris. Making their headquarters at the hotel de ville, they immediately issued three proclamations, which appeared early in the day; and so short had been the conflict for the possession of the city, that a great part of the people in the distant quarters learned for the first time through the placarding of these manifestoes that a revolution had been effected, and that a new power was fairly established over them.

The first proclamation announced the "triumph of the people" over those who had wished to destroy the republic, and exhorted the people of Paris to assemble for communal elections; the second addressed the national guard, and declared that the central committee, having "fulfilled the mission" intrusted to them by their fellows of defending "Paris and their rights," were now ready to surrender their trust to those whom the people should elect in their communal districts; and the third finally fixed the communal elections for the 22d, owing to the urgent necessity for a communal administration. The red flag was hoisted on the hotel de ville, the prefecture of police and the department of finance were taken possession of by prominent insurgents, and the earlier half of the day was spent by the committee in deliberation as to their next action. Strange to say, the general population of the city remained indifferent and passive, though a number of citizens, who recognized Vice Admiral Saisset on the boulevard; begged him to organize some resistance to the reds; he declared, however, that he would not act without orders from Versailles. But a few representatives of the national authority still remained in the city, in the persons of the maires of the various arrondissements.

These met at 3 o'clock at one of the mairies, and, consulting with delegates from the committee, agreed during the evening upon a compromise by which the matter was to be submitted to the national assembly, and the hotel de ville was to be given up to the maires. A peaceful solution of the whole conflict seemed for a moment possible; but when on the morning of the 20th the proper authorities went to take possession of the h6tel, they were told that the committee had retracted its decision, and affairs resumed their old aspect. On that day another proclamation was issued, again stating the rights claimed by the national guard, declaring that the committee would faithfully carry out the preliminary agreements made with the Germans, as the revolution was not concerned with any but home politics, and appealing to the provinces to join in the movement for self-governing communes. This appeal was almost entirely without effect, although Blanqui had already left Paris, undoubtedly with the purpose of securing aid from the rest of France. Attempts at insurrection were indeed made in Marseilles, Lyons, Rouen, Toulouse, and one or two other cities, but all were soon suppressed. Blanqui, so long the head and front of the uprising, was arrested in southern France, and immediately imprisoned.

The communal elections were postponed to the 26th. Vice Admiral Saisset, now acting under official appointment from Versailles, made one more attempt at negotiation by the issue of a proclamation in which the greatest possible concessions were promised; but the time had passed, and, beyond conveying the impression that the government was frightened, the offer produced no effect. Yet, still deceived by the hope of peace, Saisset on the 25th disbanded the defenders of the national government who had organized and rallied around him, and by this step destroyed the last hope of resistance; the only other attempt to excite it having been made by a few citizens who were cut to pieces in the rue de la Paix, March 22. From the 25th no further opposition occurred within the city walls, and Paris was given over to the new regime. In the mean time the committee had taken the mpst energetic military measures for sustaining their power. The federate guards raised complete lines of barricades connecting all the important strategic points of the city; a strict organization was introduced among the 250 battalions that now formed the committee's army; the great stores of ammunition accumulated in Paris during the siege were seized; the number of cannon in the possession of the insurgents was increased by further seizures to 2,000; the defences of the walls were diligently strengthened; the forts, with the very important exception of Mont Valerien, which was in the government's hands, and such of the eastern and northeastern fortresses as the Germans still held, were taken and occupied by the federate troops; and complete preparations were made for the defence of the city against a siege. - On March 26 the elections for 94 members of a communal government occurred in Paris; only 85 were actually chosen, however, owing to the fact that in some cases two sections united upon the same candidate.

It was afterward proved that fewer than 200,000 of the people had voted, and thus that the government party would probably have been in the majority if it had been organized and had dared to cast its ballots; but however this may be, the elections were of course overwhelmingly in favor of the leading candidates of the insurgents. Of these, 13 were members of the central committee, 17 were members of the Internationale, and 20 belonged to what was distinctively known as the Blanqui party. There were also 17 moderate and conservative politicians elected from the wealthier districts of Paris, but they almost immediately resigned. Among all the delegates there were comparatively few whose names were well known. Assi, Varlin, and Duval, prominent members of the international; Felix Pyat, the journalist and litterateur, author of the Chiffonnier de Paris; Raoul Rigault, a cynical and bitter revolutionist, recalling the men of terror of nearly a century before; Paschal Grousset, a journalist admired less for his revolutionary qualities than for elegance and polish of manner; Gustave Flourens, the son of the great physiologist, and himself a man of much scientific and literary cultivation; Vermorel, a journalist of the quartier Latin; Vesinier, the former secretary of Eugene Sue, and himself the author of a few novels; Gam-bon, a hero of the insurrection at Bordeaux; Tridon, a revolutionist of Rigault's school: these were among those elected to the new governing body.

There was also the stern old republican and Jacobin Delescluze, and M. Bislay, an uncompromising republican, to whom the excesses of the commune were entirely foreign. Victor Hugo and Rochefort were also elected, but withdrew without having taken any part in the principal events. Blanqui's name, in spite of his absence, appeared on the lists; he was elected, and a substitute appointed to represent him. Gustave Paul Cluseret, who had already taken part in many insurrections, and was one of the few whose practical knowledge of military affairs could be of advantage to the insurgents, was a candidate, but was not returned until a second election held April 16 to fill vacancies. He may almost be considered a member from the beginning, however, as he held office under the commune from April 3, as will presently be shown. On the 29th the first regular sitting of the newly chosen delegates was held at the hotel de ville. The commune (by which name the new assembly now first officially styled itself) was declared to be the only true and legitimate government of the city; and a Journal officiel de la Commune de Paris was founded, in which a series of decrees was immediately published.

The old revolutionary calendar was restored, March 29 being announced as the 8th Germinal, year 79; laws were issued requiring every healthy citizen from 19 to 40 to serve in the national guard; a provision granting partial remission of rents due since Oct. 1, 1870, was to go into force immediately, and no one could be arrested for the non-payment of such rents; the payment of all due bonds and notes might be postponed for three years from July 1, 1871, quarterly payments being made meanwhile; the daily pay of the national guards was raised to 2 1/2 francs; all articles that had been pawned for a sum not exceeding 20 francs were to be returned to their owners; pensions were to be paid to the widows and orphans of those falling in the insurrection; all factories the possessors of which had left Paris were to become the property of the workmen employed in them; and a variety of minor provisions were to go into effect for similar purposes of relieving and satisfying the adherents to the new power. The commune now proceeded to organization; and the newly elected body found its early sittings the scenes of numberless quarrels.

The military class of delegates had nothing in common either in aim or method with the working men; the journalists and politicians had a thousand theories and creeds; the men whose devotion to the cause was so strong and unselfish as to lift them above personal motives were in the minority; and among the others personal jealousies were constantly displayed. Many members began to neglect attendance on the meetings, and confusion reigned during the sittings at the hotel de ville. After much discussion, however, an executive committee was formed, consisting of Bergeret, Duval, Eudes, Lefrancais, Pyat, Tridon, andVaillant; commissions were formed for the administration of justice, the finances, military affairs, labor, public works, foreign affairs, and instruction, with committees on public safety, on subsistence, etc.; and the conduct of the commune's,government assumed some definite shape. All this time the central committee of the federates, which had announced itself as so eager to give up its power into the hands of the commune, and had even proclaimed its resignation, continued sitting, refusing to keep its word, and insisting upon ratifying every measure of the commune before it took effect. - Both the delegates and their adherents were impatient to move upon Versailles, to gain possession of the national government there, to overpower the officials - " ecraser l'assemblee" as the Pere Duchene expressed it.

The attempt was fixed for April 2. In the forenoon of that day (Sunday) the troops of the commune, to the number of 5,000 to 6,000, were pushed forward in the direction of Mont ValSrien. The national government, perhaps in the hope of still bringing about a settlement of the difficulty, but more probably following the characteristically cautious advice of M. Thiers, to render it manifest that the first direct hostilities came from the other side, sent a flag of truce to meet them. Its bearer was seized and shot, through whose fault does not clearly appear. A battle, or rather a skirmish, ensued, in which the irregular federate guards, not finding among the soldiers that readiness to join them which they expected, but being met with determination, soon gave way before the regular troops, and fled into Paris. Aroused by this defeat, and instructed by experience as to the strength the government now possessed (for the national authorities at Versailles had during the occurrence of the events just related diligently made preparations on their side, and were bringing together an army of 150,000 men, soon placed under the command of MacMa-hon), the commune leaders instantly prepared to renew the fight.

Nearly the whole force in the city was brought together during the evening and night following, and at dawn of the next day (April 3) nearly 90,000 men, divided into three columns, took the field. The centre column, under Bergeret, was to advance in the direction of Meudon, under cover of the southern forts in the possession of the commune; while the left, under Eudes, was to approach Versailles by way of Vaugirard, Mont-rouge, and Ohatillon; and the right, under Duval, pressing forward from the Rond-Point de Courbevoie, was to pass directly under the guns of Mont Valerien (which the communist leaders were led by rumors and appearances to believe evacuated), and advance upon Nanterre and Rueil. The advance of the three divisions was interrupted almost simultaneously in their three directions of inarch by the national troops. Bergeret's column was met by a division of the regulars at Meudon, and driven back; the left, under Eudes, encountered a corps of marines and sailors temporarily constituting a portion of the national army, and was compelled to retreat after a fierce conflict. The column under Duval met with the most disastrous fate of all.

As it passed directly before Mont Valerien, the commander of the fort, to keep up the delusion with regard to its evacuation, reserved his fire altogether until the column had continued its march so far as to bring the main body of the troops within the closest range. Then he began a merciless cannonade, which nearly annihilated the whole centre of the division. That part which had passed on saw itself cut off, and the troops in the rear fled in a panic. Duval was taken prisoner and shot. Gustave Flourens, who was among the troops cut off, succeeded, amid the flight of his soldiers, in gaining a hiding place in a little house not far from Rueil. He was discovered, however, by gendarmes, and after a desperate resistance was struck down and killed by the blow of a sabre, the commune losing in him probably the most brilliant of its leaders. Immediately after the defeat Gens. Eudes and Bergeret were superseded, and Oluseret was intrusted with the whole management of military affairs, under the title of "delegate for war." On the morning of the 4th he himself took command of the communist troops, and some attempts were made to retrieve the disasters of the day before, especially to regain the heights of Cha-tillon, whtch the insurgents had abandoned after their defeat; but they were unsuccessful.

These reverses caused violent dissensions among the members of the commune. Assi, accused of having contributed to them, was arrested; and later, Bergeret's place in the army was taken by a Pole, now first becoming prominent in the insurrection, Ladislas Dombrow-ski, who was also made commandant of Paris. Other changes were brought about among the insurgent leaders, and with them came some decrees and acts of the commune which seemed like the beginning of another reign of terror.

Gen. Cluseret issued orders directing that every man from 17 to 40 must enter the service, and that those disobeying this command would be summarily dealt with. Requisitions were made upon churches and theological and public institutions having property in the city. Several rich men were accused of disloyalty to the commune, and their possessions confiscated. The archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Darboy, and a number of other ecclesiastics and prominent persons, were arrested and held as hostages for communist prisoners in the hands of the national troops. A decree was issued wherein it was stated that the authorities at Versailles had transgressed the rules of civilized warfare, having shot prisoners in their hands; and that the commune would thereafter retaliate for all such cases. A commission (jury d'accusation) to decide upon these matters, upon the fate of all prisoners of war, and upon the punishment of any persons convicted of treasonable connection with the Ver-saillists, was immediately instituted; and the decree established the further rule that three hostages, chosen by lot, should be put to death in retaliation for each prisoner executed by the enemy.

Searches for concealed arms not given up to the communist troops were conducted all over the city; men suspected of being refractaires (those disobeying the order compelling them to serve) were arrested wherever found; and houses were everywhere entered, ostensibly in quest of them. - Meanwhile the national authorities, who had up to the beginning of the month adopted an altogether defensive policy, while strengthening and organizing their own army, had at last begun the most determined offensive operations against the city on the morning of April 7. Marshal Mac-Mahon was in chief command of their forces; Gen. Ladmirault commanded under him on the side toward Mont Valerien, and Gen. Oissey at Chatillon. Early in the day the guns of Mont Valerien opened on the village of Neuilly and its bridges, which were regarded as a key to the defence of Paris on that side, and were held by the insurgents. Under cover of the cannonade the government divisions advanced and attacked the communist troops. A fierce conflict followed, in which the position was taken by the Versailles soldiers after a desperate defence; but later in the day it was again lost, and the night of the 7th found it still held by the insurgents.

The next day the fight was renewed, ending at last in the victory of the national army. Formidable batteries were erected on the ground thus gained, and the guns of these, with those of Mont Valenen, were turned at once against the Maillot gate and the neighborhood of the Arc de Triomphe. The conflict continued until the short period of quiet on the 9 th and 10th, without great successes for either party. On the 11th the insurgents won a decided victory by repulsing a night attack of the national troops on the forts at the south of the city, and especially on Fort Issy. For many days after tins the artillery fire on both sides was constant, being particularly severe in the neighborhood of the Maillot gate; but the infantry battles were infrequent and indecisive. Several further attempts made to storm or surprise the insurgents' forts entirely failed, and though the national army on the whole made a steady but very slow advance, the communists lost no important points until the 17th. On that day Ool. Davoust of the national army captured the chateau de Becon, commanding the positions of Courbevoie and Asnieres; and on the 18th the commune's troops were driven from the village of Bois-Coloinbes, and again from Gennevilliers. On the 19th they were forced back across the Seine. - During all this time events of various importance had occurred in the city, where the principal power was now in the hands of Cluseret, the delegate for war, who became an actual member of the governing body through the supplementary elections, held to fill vacancies, on April 16. A soldier of restless energy and quick decision, he put aside the sentimentalities of the commune leaders, which had led them to intrust the conduct of important affairs to men whose sole merit consisted in their zeal for the cause, and, ruling with the greatest severity over all within his department, he introduced a new military system.

He formed a general staff consisting of Rossel, a brilliant young engineer who now begins to appear prominently in the history of the commune, Col. Henry, Col. Iiazoua, and others having really serviceable military knowledge; he organized the troops, and to his good training and that of Dom-browski must be attributed much of the spirit and skill shown in the defence of the southern forts. The commune's conduct of affairs within the city retained its former features. On April 5 a decree had suppressed, among the papers hostile to the new regime, the Journal des Debate, Constitutionnel, Paris-Journal, and Liberie; later decrees suspended the publication of the Siecle, Temps, Soir, Cloche, Opinion Nationale, and Bien Public. On the 12th a proclamation announced the determination of the commune to demolish the column Vendome. Requisitions were constantly made; arrests were frequent; and among the executions was that of Girot, the commander of a battalion, for refusal to march against the enemy. Dissensions among the members of the commune were continuous; and what with the distress among the people, the lack of aid from the rest of France, and the gradual loss of ground to the national troops, the situation daily became more serious.

In the midst of this unfavorable state of affairs the commune published on April 19 its official "programme," long before proposed. It was a document of considerable length, but announced nothing new, and repeated in general terms what had already been made known in previous proclamations concerning the desired self-government of Paris, the decentralization of France, etc. - On April 25 attention was again concentrated on the military operations, by the proclamation of M. Thiers declaring that a great and final attack on Paris would now be begun, the government being satisfied of the uselessness of further attempts at reconciliation, and having determined to devote its energies to obtaining possession of the city. Immediately there began a vigorous cannonade of the southern forts, and a simultaneous advance of the national troops on the western side of the defences. The fire directed against Forts Issy and Vanves principally proceeded from the second parallel erected by the Germans during their siege, and now taken possession of and refitted by Mac-Mahon. Pressing forward from this, he took the village of Les Molineaux, and thus established a position only a short distance from the walls of Fort Issy. On the night of April 29 he further succeeded in capturing the castle of Issy; and from all these advantageous points . he was enabled to concentrate upon the fort an almost insupportable fire, which reduced it nearly to a ruin within the next three dnys.

About 1 o'clock on the morning of the 30th a panic seized its garrison, and, refusing longer to defend it or obey orders in the midst of such an overwhelming attack, all but a few soldiers fled from their posts, leaving the batteries entirely silent. This defeat was attend-edin Paris with the same consequences that had followed the reverses a month before. The popular excitement and the clamor of soldiers and officers demanded a victim, and this time Cluseret was selected. By a brief decree issued on May 1 he was removed from office and placed under arrest, and Col. Rossel was appointed delegate for war in his place. But Issy was not yet so irreclaimably lost as it seemed. It had been deeply mined; the Versailles troops, knowing this, feared to enter it, and it was again taken possession of by a corps of insurgent volunteers. Taking advantage of the speedy arrival of reinforcements, these made a sortie, and succeeded in driving the nationals from the castle of Issy and the village. The tide of success seemed about to turn when, following the plans of Gen. Cissey, the Versailles troops executed a series of well conceived manoeuvres, took first the village, then the castle, and finally occupied the fort on May 9, without a serious conflict.

Issy lost, the communists found the key to the whole position on the S. W. side of the city in the hands of the enemy. Point after point fell into their possession; a new parallel was established in the southern part of the Bois de Boulogne, within less than 800 yards of the Paris enceinte; and a violent attack began on the inmost circle of defences. On the extreme west the national army had also met with successes. The constant fire from Mont Valerien and the many batteries established on that side had gradually beaten down the insurgent defences; and the bombardment of Neuilly and the neighborhood of the Maillot gate had been so incessant as to literally demolish the suburb, and to have rendered necessary long before, for humanity's sake, an armistice of one day (given on April 25) to allow the unarmed inhabitants to go into the city. The substitution of Rossel for Oluseret availed nothing; the new delegate for war, when he had held office less than ten days, handed in his resignation, escaped from the arrest in which he was at once placed, and disappeared. Undoubtedly an able and earnest man, he was still unable to control the confusion of conflicting elements over which he was expected to rule.

The military situation was now a desperate one, nothing but the inner circle of Paris itself remaining to the defenders of the commune. The governing body at the hotel de ville were compelled to have recourse to the most extreme measures. Their finances, managed successively by Varlin and the much abler Jourde, were in a precarious condition, their forces were disorganized, and they had abandoned all hope of aid from without. They forced from the bank of France repeated advances of money, and compelled the leading railway companies to pay them 2,000,000 francs; but the constant payments to their troops, etc, made their expenditures far exceed their receipts. Few skilful officers remained among the commanders of the army, and whole battalions were without chiefs to lead them. Dombrowski, it is true, showed the greatest bravery and energy; but, with discouraged and ill-disciplined troops (he himself called them incapables), he could not succeed in the repeated efforts he made to restore the fortunes of the commune. The whole state of internal as well as military affairs had changed.

While no delegate for war had been appointed to succeed Rossel, and the conduct of the defence was left to a committee headed by Delescluze, to Dombrowski as commander-in-chief, and to the Italian officer La Cecilia as commandant of the principal fortifications, the management of matters within the city had been given over to a committee of public safety, created by the commune about May 1, and endowed with almost dictatorial powers. Its first members were Antoine Arnaud, Leo Meillet, Ranvier, Felix Pyat, and Charles Gerardin. Under the rule of this body those acts began which were the preludes to the last days of the insurgent rule. On May 10 the committee decreed the demolition of the house of M. Thiers, an order which was carried into effect without delay. On May 16, late in the afternoon, the column Vendome, the destruction of which had been commanded long before, was overthrown under the direction of the painter Courbet, in the presence of a great multitude of people. The insurgents seemed to be seized with a fury hardly less than madness. The desperate straits in which they found themselves called forth the most bitter hatred against the Versailles government.

Popular orators harangued the crowds in the streets and in the great republican clubs, inciting them to renewed efforts and to a brave resistance. Bands of women, as in the days of the old French revolution, marched through the streets, armed, and exciting the people to vengeance upon "the assassins of Versailles."There was even a large and violent political club composed of women. The hatred against the government was carried to great extremes. The explosion of a large cartridge factory in the avenue Rapp was attributed to government agents, and extravagant rumors were circulated as to the barbarities of the Versailles troops. - The end of the defence now rapidly approached. The treaty with the Germans had been signed, and, its foreign relations thus settled for the time, the national government concentrated every energy upon the prosecution of the siege. On May 14 Fort Vanves was captured; Fort Montrouge was almost at the same time abandoned; and the earthwork constructed behind them by Dombrowski proved entirely useless after the forts themselves were in the enemy's hands.

The general's attempted sorties were rendered unsuccessful by the refusal of the majority of his now disheartened troops to go far beyond the walls; and the sappers of the national army were thus suffered to carry their works close up under the enceinte. At the gates of Auteuil, Passy, and Point-du-Jour the fortifications were nearly demolished by the constant fire against them. Dombrowski's headquarters near the gate de la Muette became entirely untenable. In this state of affairs, when the moment of giving up the defence of the southwestern enceinte could not be far off, the general determined to retire to a second series of works which should be constructed a short distance in his rear, and by which he hoped to hold in check the national army, even after the capture of the outer fortifications. His plan was skilfully laid, and, had it been carried out as he intended, might have greatly prolonged the struggle. The movement of the troops to the new line of defence was fixed for Sunday, May 21. As projected, it should have been made gradually, so that neither the old line nor the new should be left entirely unprotected until the actual moment for the retreat of the last company from the outer works.

But through unskilful management the battalions all retired at once, and for a time, at the middle of the afternoon, the enceinte was absolutely without a guard. Outside, the Versailles troops continued their attack; when suddenly, in a moment of quiet, they were surprised by the appearance of a man upon the wall, waving a white handkerchief, and apparently signalling for an interview. This was Jules Ducatel, a citizen opposed to the commune, who thus sought to give the national officers information as to the true position of the defence. The condition of the enceinte was ascertained, the Versailles troops pushed forward, and by the end of the afternoon the national army began to enter the city by the St. Cloud gate. A large body of men took possession of the interior of the fortifications, extended along the walls, opened the other southwestern gates to their fellows, occupied without resistance the interior line of works erected by Dombrowski, and drove the few communist soldiers already in their new positions there back to a second series of defences prepared still further from the outer circle. By midnight more than 75,000 national soldiers were within the enceinte.

A column of infantry under Col. Piquemal took the barricade protecting the bridge of Crenelle, and surprised and captured troops on the Troca-dero. So rapid were the movements of the national forces that the insurgents at work on a battery at the Arc de Triomphe were simir larly surprised and driven from their works, which were at once occupied and used against the batteries at the foot of the Champs Ely-sees, which were still in the power of the communists. Gen. Cissey took possession of the greater part of the district of Vaugirard and the Champ de Mars, and at once secured himself in the position. With the dawn of Monday morning the more distant quarters of Paris learned with surprise that the Versailles troops were in possession of a large portion of the city. But the victory was by no means won. In the quarters of the capital where the commune was strongest the insurgents thronged to the barricades, prepared for a last desperate resistance. Though it is true that many who would willingly have yielded were forced to this last defence, there was still a great body of men who rallied loyally for the cause to which they had shown such hearty devotion, and the fights of the last five days of the commune's existence'saw instances of fidelity to it such as only the most sincere conviction could have called forth from its followers, whether deluded or intelligent.

Hurriedly organizing their troops and planning their defence, the leaders turned all their available force to the erection of barricades in every part of the city still in their possession. Proclamations were posted on the walls, inciting the citizens to fight to the last, and officers rode through the streets calling upon the people to make a supreme effort for the sake of their liberties. These appeals met with little response in the wealthier quarters of Paris, where the Versailles troops were greeted with every sign of welcome, but produced the greatest effect in the regions which were the insurgent strongholds, where even women and children fought at the barricades with an energy and fury equal to that of the men. The operations of the national army went steadily on during Monday and Tuesday. Following a systematic plan by which it was designed to advance simultaneously on both sides of the Seine, to take possession of the important strategic points along the outskirts of the city, and thus to form an almost unbroken cordon which could be gradually narrowed until the whole body of the insurgents should be exterminated or taken, the troops were divided into five columns.

One of these, forming the right wing and commanded by Cissey, was to operate on the left bank of the Seine, pressing on from the western part of the city toward the quartier Latin; two others, under Vinoy and Douay, were to pursue a course through the centre of the city; and the remaining two, under Clinchant and Ladmirault, were to pass over the hardest ground of all, making their way directly through Montmartre and the portion of the city lying beyond it. To begin the advance of this last named division, it was first of all necessary to take possession of the plateau of Montmartre itself. On Tuesday morning, the 23d, the attack was begun. Many of the leading points around it were gained without difficulty; but for hours a strong and well defended barricade in the rue Lepic kept up a formidable resistance, and it was noon when it was finally carried by a storming party after a desperate conflict. The further defence was slight, and by 2 o'clock the height was in the possession of the national troops. There remained only the place Pigalle, the very cradle of the insurrection, which still refused to yield. Dombrowski commanded its barricade, and under his direction it maintained for two hours a most desperate defence, only ending when the communist leader fell, mortally wounded.

By night the whole of this chief communist stronghold was won. On the same day (Tuesday) the division on the left bank of the Seine had overcome one barricade after another, the insurgents defending themselves with scarcely less desperate valor than at Montmartre, and, after a day of the most violent conflict, had possessed themselves of the greater part of the 14th arrondisse-ment, and taken the positions most important for further movements, by which it was intended to partially surround and press in upon the quartier St. Germain. The centre column, advancing on the points held by the insurgents near the middle of Paris - the barricades in the place de la Concorde, near the Tuileries, in the place Vendome, and elsewhere in the best known portion of the city - encountered everywhere the same furious resistance as in the other quarters. The place Vendome was only taken by an overwhelming assault made at the same time on both sides, from the rue de la Paix and the rue de Castiglione. One by one the barricades in the boulevard Malesherbes and the boulevard Haussmann were taken; the neighborhood of the Grand Opera, which was strongly defended, followed after a desperate conflict at the northern end of the rue Halevy. The great barracks of Bonne Nouvelle were also captured by Gen. Ladmirault. On Wednesday morning the Bourse was taken; and the centre column was in possession of the whole surrounding quarter, and prepared to press on with the divisions of the right and left, advancing and gradually concentrating their forces in the direction of the east of Paris, toward the last important strongholds of the commune, at the hotel de ville and the chateau d'Eau. - Meanwhile the insurgents, gradually falling back, had recourse to that method of combined defence and revenge which gave the last days of this insurrection a terrible feature unknown to any previous revolution or civil war, however desperate.

Organized incendiarism began, and fires broke out in every quarter of Paris. On the bodies of dead insurgents were found orders directing the burning of whole districts, and others directing the destruction of public buildings. All through Tuesday smaller fires had been set; and now, on Wednesday morning, just as the preparations we have noticed were complete, the Tuileries was discovered to be in flames; and hardly was this known before the Palais Royal, a whole side of the rue Roy-ale, and then the distant hotel de ville itself, were found to be burning also. A panic spread through the city, among the national troops as well as the people; extravagant rumors as to the intended destruction of all Paris by fires kindled with petroleum spread abroad; and now began a day perhaps the most terrible ever seen in the French capital since the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The national troops, already greatly embittered by the obstinate resistance of the commune, and now excited beyond control by the attempt of the insurgents to render their victory useless, and, as it seemed, to destroy the city, began a series of arrests and executions which soon passed all bounds of even apparent justice, and became *a slaughter of all who chanced to fall under the slightest suspicion.

It was only necessary that a man or woman should be pointed at as petroleur or petroleuse; they were shot down without inquiry or mercy. Houses were searched and those hidden in them were brought into the streets and killed. Many entirely innocent shared the fate of the leaders like Vermorel and Rigault, both of whom fell by these summary executions. A court martial was established in the centre of the city, but even for those who were brought before it there was in most cases only a hurried form of trial. New fires were continually lighted, either by concealed incendiaries, of whom many were taken with the implements for the work in their hands, or by petroleum bombs from the barricades and the districts still in possession of the communists. During this week of conflagrations there were consumed or partially burned, besides a great number of private houses, the palais de justice, the prefecture of police, the palace of the legion of honor, the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, the grenier d' abondance, several churches, many large mercantile establishments and minor public buildings; all this besides the more important conflagrations at the hotel de ville, the Tuileries, and the Louvre. As though the events we have related were not enough to make this day (the 24th) sufficiently terrible, there occurred before its end a massacre which has left the darkest stain on the career of the commune.

It has already been stated that the archbishop of Paris and numerous other prominent men had been arrested and confined as hostages for communists in the hands of the national troops. They were now in the prison of La Roquette. In accordance with an order of the commune, they were taken from their cells at 8 o'clock on Wednesday evening, and shot by a file of soldiers in the courtyard of the prison. - During the whole of Wednesday, in spite of the distraction caused by the fires, the troops had steadily continued the manoeuvres by which they were gradually closing around the last insurgent strongholds. Around the burning hotel de ville the communists contested every step of advance with desperate bravery. It was late on Wednesday night before the building, then in flames in four places, was at last abandoned. On the left bank of the Seine the resistance was still more obstinate, and it was only on Thursday afternoon that the Versailles soldiers succeeded in driving the insurgents from their last strong position on the Buttes-aux-Cailles, after the bloodiest contest since the entry into the city. Still fighting, the communists fell back to the manufactory of the Gobelins, which they set on fire. Here was their last desperate defence on this side of the river.

Prisoners in their hands were forced to man the barricades, and afterward were shot down after freedom had been scoffingly promised them. After a violent struggle the Versailles troops gained possession of the whole district, and with it of the last contested spot on the left bank. Forts Bicetre and Ivry, the only fortresses still held by the commune, were also taken on Thursday. On the right bank the troops were pressing upon the faubourg St. Antoine, and after a hard struggle the place de la Bastille was taken on Friday, and the insurgents of the district forced back to the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. On the right bank, too, the chateau d'Eau, the chief defence of the quarter of Belleville, remained. Throughout Thursday and till Friday morning it was still untaken, and it was defended with a valor befitting its importance as one of the final strongholds. At last the insurgents gradually gave way, and, still fighting, retreated eastward through the streets toward the Buttes de Chaumont, where they had a formidable battery. The quarter of Belleville showed itself the firmest in resistance and the last to yield of all. Every point was fiercely contested as the fight went on, and the Versailles troops forced their way only step by step.

Friday night came, and the quarter was still in the communists' power, though the national army, forming now almost a half circle, pressed in upon it, and the guns of their batteries poured a constant and heavy fire into it, to which the battery at the Buttes de Chau-mont could not make an adequate reply. An interval of quiet about midnight formed a lull before the final struggle. On Saturday, May 27, the fight was begun early in the morning, before the last two places in which the communists still maintained a strong position, the Buttes de Ohaumont and the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. There were untaken barricades, too, in the faubourg du Temple and the rue d'Angouleme. The conflict continued fiercely all day, point after point being taken, and it was after 7 at night when Gen. Vinoy's column took the cemetery by storm; and the battery on the summit of the Buttes held out until the early morning of Sunday, but was captured at last. In the faubourg du Temple one barricade still fired upon the national troops after the insurrection had been crushed at every other point. In spite of constant attacks, it still held out on Sunday noon.

At last the insurgents were driven from it, and the Versailles soldiers, charging over its rampart, found among the dead the body of Delescluze, who had thus fought out the struggle to its end. At 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon the firing had ceased throughout the city, and a notice from Marshal MacMahon was posted on the walls, announcing that the civil war was over. Nearly 20,000 prisoners were in the hands of the government; the dead were scattered through half the streets of Paris, and the hospitals were crowded with those of both sides wounded at the barricades. Such of the leaders as were still living and had not escaped (and among them, to speak only of those yet unmentioned in this sketch, were the half-crazy Lullier, the sanguinary Ferre, and Urbain) were imprisoned to await the sentence of the court martial held later at Versailles. The great majority of the common prisoners were set free soon after the fall of the commune; a large number were executed at Satory or transported to the penal colonies. The restoration of the injured buildings of Paris was begun at once.

The adherents of the insurrection disappeared as if by magic, and the future measures of the national government were carried out in perfect quiet. - See Beaumont-Vassy's Histoire authentique de la commune de Paris (Paris, 1871); Moriac's Paris sous la commune (1871); Frederic Lock, La commune, deuxieme siege de Paris (1871); Clere, Les hommes de la commune (1871); Fetridge, "The Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune in 1871" (New York, 1871); L'Insurrection du 18 Mars (ex-traits des depositions recueillies par la commission d'enquete), by Edmond Villetard (Paris, 1872); Jules Claretie's Histoire de la revolution de 1870-71 (published in numbers, 1871-'2); Harrison's " Apology for the Commune" (essays published in the " Fortnightly Review " for August, 1871). The official accounts of the trials of the communist leaders, begun on Aug. 7, 1871, were published from time to time during the sitting of the court martial, and form a complete record of its proceedings.