e Lausanne Peace Conference and who is Mayor of the
Sixth Arrondissement. He was with M. Philibert Audebrand. We talked
sorrowfully about the taking of Metz.

October 31.--Skirmish at the Hotel de Ville. Blanqui, Flourens and
Delescluze want to overthrow the provisional power, Trochu and Jules
Favre. I refuse to associate myself with them.

An immense crowd. My name is on the lists of members for the proposed
Government. I persist in my refusal.

Flourens and Blanqui held some of the members of the Government
prisoners at the Hotel de Ville all day.

At midnight some National Guards came from the Hotel de Ville to fetch
me "to preside," they said, "over the new Government." I replied that
I was most emphatically opposed to this attempt to seize the power and
refused to go to the Hotel de Ville.

At 3 o'clock in the morning Flourens and Blanqui quitted the Hotel de
Ville and Trochu entered it.

The Commune of Paris is to be elected.

November 1.--We have postponed for a few days the reading of _Les
Chatiments_, which was to have been given at the Porte Saint Martin
to-day, Tuesday.

Louis Blanc came this morning to consult me as to what ought to be the
conduct of the Commune.

The newspapers unanimously praise the attitude I took yesterday in
rejecting the advances made to me.

November 2.--The Government demands a "yes" or a "no."

Louis Blanc and my sons came to talk to me about it.

The report that Alexandre Dumas is dead is denied.

November 4.--I have been requested to be Mayor of the Third, also of the
Eleventh, Arrondissement. I refused.

I went to the rehearsal of _Les Chatiments_ at the Porte Saint Martin.
Frederick Lemaitre and Mmes. Laurent, Lia Felix and Dugueret were
present.

November 5.--To-day the public reading of _Les Chatiments_, the proceeds
of which are to purchase a cannon for the defence of Paris, was given.

The Third, Eleventh and Fifteenth Arrondissements want me to stand for
Mayor. I refuse.

Merimee has died at Cannes. Dumas is not dead, but he is paralyzed.

November 7.--The 24th Battalion waited upon me and wanted me to give
them a cannon.

November 8.--Last night, on returning from a visit to General Le Flo, I
for the first time crossed the Pont des Tuileries, which has been built
since my departure from France.

November 9.--The net receipts from the reading of _Les Chatiments_ at
the Porte Saint Martin for the gun which I have name