esults,
the election for a commune was held. The extremest men were chosen
in every quarter of the city, and formed what was called the Council
of the Commune. It held its sittings in the Hotel-de-Ville, and
consisted at first of eighty members, seventy of whom had never
been heard of in Paris before. Its numbers dwindled rapidly, from
various causes, especially in the latter days of the Commune. Among
them were Poles, Italians, and even Germans; two of the eighty
claimed to be Americans.

The first act of the Council of the Commune was to take possession
of the Hotel-de-Ville and to celebrate the inauguration of the
new government by a brilliant banquet; its first decree was that
no tenant need pay any back rent from October, 1870, to April,
1871,--the time during which the siege had lasted. It lost no time
in inviting Garibaldi to assume the command of the National Guard.
This Garibaldi declined at once, saying that a commandant of the
National Guard, a commander-in-chief of Paris, and an executive
committee could not act together. "What Paris needs," he said,
"is an honest dictator, who will choose honest men to act under
him. If you should have the good fortune to find a Washington,
France will recover from shipwreck, and in a short time be grander
than ever."

On April 3 the civil war broke out,--Paris against Versailles;
the army under the National Assembly against the National Guard
under the Commune. The Prussians from the two forts which they
still held, looked grimly on.

At the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon
had been landed thirty years before, a flag of truce was met by
two National Guards. Its bearer was a distinguished surgeon, Dr.
Pasquier. After a brief parley, one of the National Guards blew
out the doctor's brains. When news of this outrage was brought to
General Vinoy, he commanded the guns of Fort Valerien to be turned
upon the city.

At five A. M. the next morning five columns of Federals marched out
to take the fort. They were under the command of three generals,
Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes. With Bergeret rode Lullier, who had
been a naval officer, and Flourens, the popular favorite among
the members of the Commune. The three divisions marched in full
confidence that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them.
They were wholly mistaken; the guns of Fort Valerien crashed into
the midst of their columns, and almost at the same time Flourens,
in a hand-t