Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/13

city being taken and at every reverse, threatening demonstrations against the impotent Provisional Government were made. Twice a revolution was on the point of being accomplished—on the 31st of October, 1870, and on the 22nd of January, 1871. Of course, resistance to the foreign enemy was what was uppermost in all minds and the demands of the Parisian masses for the establishment of a Commune were largely based on reminiscences of the wonders effected in this connection by the first Paris Commune in 1792–3. On the 31st of October the Hotel de Ville, the seat of the Government, was invaded by an angry crowd, some demanding a committee of public safety, some the revolutionary Commune. The National Guards, disgusted, refused to come to the Governmental assistance. The members of the Government were made prisoners, and Flourens and Blanqui, the two well-known popular leaders, for a few hours got the upper hand. But it was impossible to effect anything. Anarchical confusion and a babel of tongues reigned throughout the municipal headquarters. Finally, towards evening the reactionists succeeded in stirring up some battalions of the National Guard to release and reinstate the members of the Government. They used the names of Flourens and Blanqui as a bogey to scare the timid and the middle-class. Thus the day ended in a fiasco from a revolutionary point of view. The resuscitated Government was compelled, however, to proclaim an amnesty to all who had played a part in the proceedings, but subsequently, in violation of all pledges, Blanqui was arrested, and, after the siege, put on his trial for the share he had taken, and Flourens was arrested and imprisoned within a few days. The result of the 31st of October was to strengthen the hands of the Government of National Defence, which, following the example of the deposed emperor, demanded and obtained a plebiscite of