e military leaders
were competent men, such as Cluseret, who had been a general in the
American army during the Civil War, or Rossel, a trained officer of
engineers. But many were foreign adventurers and soldiers of fortune:
Dombrowski, Wrobleski, La Cecilia. The civil administration grew into a
reproduction of the worst phases of the Reign of Terror. Frenzied women
egged on destruction and slaughter, and when at last the national troops
fought their way into the conquered city, it was amid the flaming ruins
of many of its proudest buildings and monuments.

The siege lasted two months. On May 21, the Army of Versailles crossed
the fortifications and there followed the "Seven Days' Battle," a
street-by-street advance marked by desperate resistance by the
Communards and bloodthirsty reprisals by the Versaillais. Civil war is
often the most cruel and the Versailles troops, made up in large part of
men recently defeated by the Germans, were glad to conquer somebody.
Over seventeen thousand were shot down by the victors in this last week.
The French to-day are horrified and ashamed at the cruel massacres of
both sides and try to forget the Commune. Suffice it here to say that
the last serious resistance was made in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise,
where those _federes_ taken arms in hand were lined up against a wall
and shot. Countless others, men, women, and children, herded together in
bands, were tried summarily and either executed, imprisoned, or deported
thousands of miles away to New Caledonia, until, years after, in 1879
and 1880, the pacification of resentments brought amnesty to the
survivors.[4]

Fortunately, M. Thiers had more inspiring tasks to deal with than the
repression of the Commune. One was the liberation of French soil from
German occupation, another the reorganization of the army. With
wonderful speed and energy the enormous indemnity was raised and
progressively paid, the Germans simultaneously evacuating sections of
French territory. By March, 1873, France was in a position to agree to
pay the last portion of the war tribute the following September (after
the fall of Thiers, as it proved), thus ridding its soil of the last
German many months earlier than had been provided for by the Treaty of
Frankfort. The recovery of France aroused the admiration of the
civilized world, and the anger of Bismarck, sorry not to have bled the
country more. He viewed also with suspicion the organization of the army
and t