em, while the head of the column, diverted by
a flanking movement of General Vinoy, was driven back on Reuil and cut
to pieces there.

Then Maurice, who had escaped unharmed from the slaughter, his nerves
still quivering with the fury that had inspired him on the battlefield,
was filled with fresh detestation for that so-called government of law
and order which always allowed itself to be beaten by the Prussians, and
could only muster up a little courage when it came to oppressing Paris.
And the German armies were still there, from Saint-Denis to Charenton,
watching the shameful spectacle of internecine conflict! Thus, in the
fierce longing for vengeance and destruction that animated him, he
could not do otherwise than sanction the first measures of communistic
violence, the building of barricades in the streets and public squares,
the arrest of the archbishop, some priests, and former officeholders,
who were to be held as hostages. The atrocities that distinguished
either side in that horrible conflict were already beginning to manifest
themselves, Versailles shooting the prisoners it made, Paris retaliating
with a decree that for each one of its soldiers murdered three hostages
should forfeit their life. The horror of it, that fratricidal conflict,
that wretched nation completing the work of destruction by devouring
its own children! And the little reason that remained to Maurice, in
the ruin of all the things he had hitherto held sacred, was quickly
dissipated in the whirlwind of blind fury that swept all before it. In
his eyes the Commune was to be the avenger of all the wrongs they
had suffered, the liberator, coming with fire and sword to purify and
punish. He was not quite clear in mind about it all, but remembered
having read how great and flourishing the old free cities had become,
how wealthy provinces had federated and imposed their law upon the
world. If Paris should be victorious he beheld her, crowned with an
aureole of glory, building up a new France, where liberty and justice
should be the watchwords, organizing a new society, having first swept
away the rotten debris of the old. It was true that when the result
of the elections became known he was somewhat surprised by the strange
mixture of moderates, revolutionists, and socialists of every sect and
shade to whom the accomplishment of the great work was intrusted; he
was acquainted with several of the men and knew them to be of extremely
mediocre abili