RET,--

"You have had me shut up here, and you will be here yourself before
eight days are over.

"GENERAL BERGERET."

On leaving the prison of Mazas, Bergeret was still kept a prisoner for a
time in a magnificent apartment of the Hotel de Ville, decorated with
gilded panneling and cerise-coloured satin. His wife was allowed to join
him here, and he also obtained permission to keep with him a little
terrier, of which he was extremely fond. Shortly afterwards he was
reinstated, took his place again in the Communal Assembly, and was
attached to the commission of war. The beautiful palace of the president
of the Corps Legislatif was now his residence, and there he delighted in
receiving the friends who had known him when he was poor. His invariable
home-dress in palace as in prison, was red from head to foot: red
jacket, red trousers, and red Phrygian cap.

One day, a short time after his release from prison, he said to an
intimate friend:--"Affairs are going well, but the Commune is in need of
money, I know it, and they are wrong not to confide in me. I would lend
them ten thousand francs willingly." The generalship had singularly
enriched the booksellers assistant, Victor Bergeret.]

[Illustration: GENERAL DOMBROWSKI.]

XL.

Who takes Bergeret's place? Dombrowski.[49] Who had the idea of doing
this? Cluseret. First of all we had the Central Committee, then we had
the Commune, and now we have Cluseret. It looks as if Cluseret had
swallowed the Commune, which had previously swallowed and only half
digested the Central Committee. We are told that Cluseret is a great
man, that Cluseret is strong, that Cluseret will save Paris. Cluseret
issues decrees, and sees that they are executed. The Commune says, "_we
wish_;" but Cluseret says, "_I wish_." It is he who has conceived and
promulgated the following edict:

"In consideration of the patriotic demands of a large number of
National Guards, who, although they are married men, wish to have
the honour of defending their municipal rights, even at the expense
of their lives ..."

I should like to know some of those National Guards who attach so little
importance to their lives! Show me two, and I will myself consent to be
the third. But I am interrupting Dictator Cluseret.

"The decree of the fifth of April is therefore modified:"

The decree of the fifth of April was made by the Commune, but Cluseret
does not care a straw for that.