ver; but with such stuff are they amused!

Raoul Rigault, the man who arrests, was breakfasting with Gaston
Dacosta, the man who destroys. These two friends are worthy of each
other. Rigault has incarcerated the Archbishop of Paris, but Dacosta
claims the merit of having loosened the first stone in M. Thiers' house.
But however, Rigault would destroy if Dacosta were not there to do so;
and if Rigault did not arrest, Dacosta would arrest for him.

They talked as they ate. Rigault enumerated the list of people he had
sent to the Conciergerie and to Mazas, and thought with consternation
that soon there would be no one left for him to arrest. Suddenly he
stopped his fork on its way to his mouth, and his face assumed a most
doleful expression.--"What's the matter?" cried Dacosta, alarmed.--"Ah!"
said Rigault, tears choking his utterance, "Papa is not in
Paris."--"Well, and what does it matter if your father is not
here?"--"Alas!" exclaimed Rigault, bursting out crying, "I could have
had him arrested!"[91]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 91: The illegality of his conduct, however, was too
glaring even for the Commune, and he was removed from his post on a
complaint made by Arthur Arnould, to the committee, concerning the
arbitrary arrest of a number of persons. Cournet was appointed to the
Prefecture in Rigault's stead, but the amateur policeman and informer
did not renounce work; he found the greatest pleasure, as he himself
expressed it, in acting the spy over the official spies. This man was a
well-known frequenter of the low cafes of the Quartier Latin, and his
face bore such evidences of his debauched life, that though only
twenty-eight years of age, he looked nearer forty.]

[Illustration: COURNET, MEMBER OF COMMITTEE OF GENERAL SAFETY.]

LXXXV.

The horrible cracking sound that is heard at sea when a vessel splits
upon a rock, is not a surer sign of peril to the terrified crew, than
are the vain efforts, contradictions and agitation at the Hotel de
Ville, the forerunners of disaster to the men of the Commune. Listen!
the vessel is about to heave asunder. Everybody gives orders, no one
obeys them. One man looks defiantly at another; this man denounces that,
and Rigault thinks seriously of arresting them both. There is a majority
which is not united, and a minority that cannot agree amongst
themselves. Twenty-one members retire, they do well.[92] I am glad to
find on the list the names of the few that Paris' still