r the national defense."[7]

Turning again to Guillaume, we find "At noon many thousands of men
pressed together on the _Place des Terreaux_. A delegation of sixteen of
the national dock-yard workmen entered the Hotel de Ville to demand of
the Municipal Council the reestablishment of their wage to three francs
a day, but the Council was not in session. Very soon a movement began in
the crowd, and a hundred resolute men, Saignes at their head, forcing
the door of the Hotel de Ville, penetrated the municipal building. Some
members of the Central Committee of Safety of France, Bakounin,
Parraton, Bastelica, and others, went in with them. From the balcony,
Saignes announced that the Municipal Council was to be compelled to
accept the program of the red proclamation of September 26 or to resign,
and he proposed to name Cluseret general of the revolutionary army.
Cluseret, cheered by the crowd, appeared in the balcony, thanked them,
and announced that he was going to Croix-Rousse" (the working-class
district).[8] He went there, it is true, but not to call to arms the
national guards of that quarter. Indeed, his aim appears to have been to
avoid a conflict, and he simply asked the workers "to come down _en
masse_ and without arms."[9] In the meantime the national guards of the
wealthier quarters of the city hastened to the Hotel de Ville and
penetrated the interior court, while the Committee of Safety of France
installed itself inside the building. There they passed two or three
hours in drawing up resolutions, while Bakounin and others in vain
protested: "We must act. We are losing time. We are going to be invaded
by the national bourgeois guard. It is necessary to arrest immediately
the prefect, the mayor, and General Mazure."[10] But their words went
unheeded. And all the while the bourgeois guards were massing themselves
before the Hotel de Ville, and Cluseret and his unarmed manifestants
were yielding place to them. In fact, Cluseret even persuaded the
members of the Committee of Safety to retire and those of the Municipal
Council to return to their seats, which they consented to do.

Bakounin made a last desperate effort to save the situation and to
induce the insurgents to oppose force to force, but they would not. Even
Albert Richard failed him. The Revolutionary committee, after parleying
with the Municipal Councillors, then evacuated the Hotel de Ville and
contented itself with issuing a statement to the effect that