pt. On the 12th he arrived in Geneva, and two
days later set out for Lyons, accompanied by two revolutionary
enthusiasts, Ozerof and the young Pole, Valence Lankiewicz.

Since the 4th of September a Committee of Public Safety had been
installed at the Hotel de Ville composed of republicans, radicals, and
some militants of the International. Gaspard Blanc and Albert Richard,
two intimate friends of Bakounin, were not members of this committee,
and in a public meeting, September 8, Richard made a motion, which was
carried, to name a standing commission of ten to act as the
"intermediaries between the people of Lyons and the Committee of Public
Safety." Three of these commissioners, Richard, Andrieux, and Jaclard,
were then appointed to go as delegates to Paris in order to come to some
understanding with the Government. Andrieux, in the days of the Empire,
had acquired fame as a revolutionist by proposing at a meeting to burn
the ledger of the public debt. It seems, however, that these close and
trusted friends of Bakounin began immediately upon their arrival in
Paris to solicit various public positions remunerative to themselves,[2]
and, although they succeeded in having General Cluseret sent to take
command of the voluntary corps then forming in the department of the
Rhone, that proved, as we shall see, most disastrous of all.

This is about all that had happened previous to Bakounin's arrival in
Lyons, and, when he came, there was confusion everywhere. Even the
members of the Alliance had no clear idea of what ought to be done.
Bakounin, however, was an old hand at insurrections, and in a little
lodging house where he and his friends were staying a new uprising was
planned. He lost no time in getting hold of all the men of action. Under
his energetic leadership "public meetings were multiplied and assumed a
character of unheard-of violence. The most sanguinary motions were
introduced and welcomed with enthusiasm. They openly provoked revolt in
order to overthrow the laws and the established order of things."[3] On
September 19 Bakounin wrote to Ogaref: "There is so much work to do that
it turns my head. The real revolution has not yet burst forth here, but
it will come. Everything possible is being done to prepare for it. I am
playing a great game. I hope to see the approaching triumph."[4]

A great public meeting was held on the 24th, presided over by Eugene
Saignes, a plasterer and painter, and a man of energy and in