e should still persist in thinking
that your axe was of wood, and your guillotine of cardboard!

[Illustration: DUPONT, DELEGATE OF TRADE AND COMMERCE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: The affair of the 30th of April signally disappointed the
chiefs of the insurrection, who decreed the formation of a Committee of
Public Safety, and caused Cluseret to disappear. "The incapacity and
negligence of the Delegate of War having," they said, "almost lost them
the possession of Fort Issy, the Executive Commission considered it
their duty to propose the arrest of Citizen Cluseret, which was
forthwith decreed by the Commune."]

LXXIII.

The Parisian _Official Journal_ says: "The members of the Commune are
not amenable to any other tribunal than their own" (that of the
Commune). Ah! truly, men of the Hotel de Ville, you imagine that, do
you? Have you forgotten that there are such tribunals as court-martials
and assizes?

LXXIV.

M. Rossel is really very unfortunate! What is M. Rossel?[78] Why, the
provisional successor of Citizen Cluseret. It was not a bad idea to put
in the word _provisional_. The Commune had confided to him the care of
military matters, which he had accepted, but with an air of
condescension. This "Communeux" looks to me like an aristocrat. At any
rate he has not been fortunate. Scarcely had he taken upon himself the
safety of Paris, when the redoubt of Moulin-Saquet was surprised by the
Versaillais. This accident was not calculated to enhance the courage of
the Federals. The whole affair has been kept as dark as possible, but
the porter of the house where I live, who was there, has told me strange
things.

"Will you believe, Monsieur, that I had just finished a game of cards
with the captain, and was preparing to have a bit of sleep, for it was
near upon eleven o'clock, when I thought I heard something like the
noise of troops marching. I looked round to see if any one heard it
besides myself, but the men were already asleep, and a circular line of
boots was sticking out all round the tents. The captain said: 'I daresay
it is the patrol from the Rue de Villejuif.'--'Oh, yes,' said I, 'from
the barricade,' and I fell to sleep without a thought of danger. In
fact, there seemed nothing to fear, as the Moulin-Saquet overlooks the
whole of the plain which stretches from Vitry to Choisy-le-Roi, and from
Villejuif to the Seine. It was impossible for a man to approach the
redoubt without being seen