you did not intercede for anybody, for
the very excellent reason that General Fabrice no more thought of
writing to you, than of giving back Alsace and Lorraine. So we must
search somewhere else for the motive of this sudden eclipse. Some say
there was a quarrel with Dombrowski, that the latter thought fit to
sign a truce without the authority of Cluseret--a truce, what an idea!
Has Dombrowski any scruples about slaughter?--that Cluseret flew into a
great rage; but that his rival got the best of it in the end. You see if
one is an American and the other a Pole, the Commune must have a hard
time of it between the two!

No, neither the evacuation of Fort Issy--in spite of what the _Journal
Officiel_ says--Monseigneur Darboy, nor the quarrel with Dombrowski are
the real causes of the fall of Cluseret. Cluseret's destiny was to fall;
Cluseret has fallen because he did not like gold lace and
embroidery--"that is the question," all the rest are pretexts.

So the noble delegate imagined he could quietly issue a proclamation one
morning commanding all the officers under his orders to rip off the gold
and silver bands which luxuriantly ornament their sleeves and caps![76]
He thought his staff would forego epaulets and other military gewgaws.
Why, the man must have been mad! What would Cora or Armentine have said
if they had seen their military heroes stalk into the Cafe de Suede or
the Cafe de Madrid, shorn of all their brilliant appendages, which made
them look so wonderfully like the monkey-general at the Neuilly fair, in
the good old times, when there were such things as fairs, and before
Neuilly was a ruin. Ask any soldier, Federal or otherwise, if he will
give up his pay, or his jingling sword, or even his rank; he may perhaps
consent, but ask him to rip off his embroidery, and he will answer,
never! How can you imagine a man of sense consenting not to look like a
mountebank?

Another of these absurd prescriptions has done much to lower Cluseret in
public estimation. One day he took it into his head to prevent his
officers from galloping in the streets and boulevards, under the
miserable pretext that the rapid evolutions of these horsemen had
occasioned several accidents. Well, and if they had, do you think a
gallant captain of horse is going to deprive himself of the pleasure of
curvetting within sight of his lady love, for the pitiful reason, that
he may perchance upset an old woman or two or three children? Citizen
Cl