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170 COMMUNE DE PARIS COMO teries poured a constant and heavy fire into it, to which the battery at the Buttes de Chau- mont could not make an adequate reply. An interval of quiet about midnight formed a lull before the final struggle. On Saturday, May 27, the fight was begun early in the morning, before the last two places in which the com- munists still maintained a strong position, the Buttes de Chaumont and the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. There were untaken barricades, too, in the faubourg du Temple and the rue d'Angouleme. The conflict continued fiercely all day, point after point being taken, and it was after 7 at night when Gen. Vinoy's column took the cemetery by storm ; and the battery on the summit of the Buttes held out until the early morning of Sunday, but was captured at last. In the faubourg du Temple one barri- cade still fired upon the national troops after the insurrection had been crushed at every other point. In spite of constant attacks, it still held out on Sunday noon. At last the in- surgents were driven from it, and the Ver- sailles soldiers, charging over its rampart, found among the dead the body of Delescluze, who had thus fought out the struggle to its end. At 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon the firing had ceased throughout the city, and a notice from Marshal MacMahon was posted on the walls, announcing that the civil war was over. Nearly 20,000 prisoners were in the hands of the government; the dead were scattered through half the streets of Paris, and the hos- pitals were crowded with those of both sides wounded at the barricades. Such of the lead- ers as were still living and had not escaped (and among them, to speak only of those yet unmentioned in this sketch, were the half-crazy Lullier, the sanguinary Ferre, and Urbain) were imprisoned to await the sentence of the court martial held later at Versailles. The great majority of the common prisoners were set free soon after the fall of the commune ; a large number were executed at Satory or transport- ed to the penal colonies. The restoration of the injured buildings of Paris was begun at once. The adherents of the insurrection dis- appeared as if by magic, and the future mea- sures of the national government were carried out in perfect quiet. See Beaumont- Vassy's Histoire auihentique de la commune de Paris (Paris, 1871); Moriac's Paris sous la commune (1871) ; Frederic Lock, La commune, deuxieme siege de Paris (1871); Clere, Les Jiommes de la commune (1871); Fetridge, "The Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune in 1871 " (New York, 1871); L 1 Insurrection du 18 Mars (ex- traits des depositions recueillies par la commis- sion d'enquete), by Edmond Villetard (Paris, 1872); Jules Claretie's Histoire de la revolu- tion de 1870-'71 (published in numbers, 1871- '2) ; Harrison's " Apology for the Commune " (essays published in the " Fortnightly Review " for August, 1871). The official accounts of the trials of the communist leaders, begun on Aug. 7, 1871, were published from time to time during the sitting of the court martial, and form a complete record of its proceedings. COMMUNISM. See SOCIALISM. COMNENUS, a Byzantine family, of Italian origin, the members of which played a promi- nent part in the history of the Eastern empire from the middle of the llth to the middle of the 15th century. To this family belonged six emperors of the East (from 1057 to 1185), viz. : Isaac I., Alexis I., John II. , Manuel I., Alexis II., and Andronicus I. In 1204 one of its members conquered Trebizond and a portion of Asia Minor, and founded the empire of Trebizond, which continued in the hands of his descendants till 1461, when it was conquered by the Turks, David Comnenus, the last of the race, being put to death in the following year with all his family by command of Mohammed II. Other members of this family were noted as statesmen, generals, and authors. Attempts have been made to trace the descent of the Bonapartes from a Comnenus who settled in Corsica, but the pedigree has not been satis- factorily made out. COMO. I. A province of Italy; in Lombardy, bounded N. by Switzerland and S. by Milan ; area, 1,048 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 477,642. It is traversed by branches of the Lepontine and Rhaetian Alps and other mountain ridges. It is dotted with lakes, and watered by several rivers, of which the Adda and Ticino are most important. It produces corn, wine, fruit, and silk, and rears horses, mules, and cattle ; con- tains mines of lead, iron, and copper, and quar- ries of white marble ; and possesses manufac- tories of cloth and woollen and silk goods, fire- arms, paper, soap, candles, &c. The people are industrious, and there is at least one elementary school in each commune. Famous in ancient times as lapidaries and masons, many of the inhabitants still follow the same pursuits, and others travel about supporting themselves by the sale of barometers, looking-glasses, and kindred articles manufactured in the town of Como. The province, with the rest of Lombardy, was ceded by Austria to Italy in 1859. II. A city (anc. Comum), capital of the province, situated at the S. end of the lake of Como, 24 m. N. N. W. of Milan ; pop. in 1872, 24,350. It is connected by steam- boat with Camerlata, about a mile distant, and thence by railway with Milan. It has many suburbs along the lake, of which the most extensive are Vico on the west, abound- ing with villas, of which the villa Raimondi or Odescalchi is the most splendid, and St. Agos- tino, the manufacturing suburb. It is the see of a bishop, and has a splendid marble cathe- dral, begun in 1396; a remarkable church of still greater antiquity dedicated to St. Fedele ; a town hall, completed in 1213 ; and a magnifi- cent theatre built in 1813. There are several institutions of charity and learning, including three gymnasia, and a lyceum with a library of 15,000 volumes and a reading room. On a hill south of the city is the lofty tower of the Bara-