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At this recital Bailly did not hesitate to proclaim martial law, and to unfurl the red flag, the last resource against sedition. On their side, the mob, alarmed at the aspect of the red flag floating from the windows of the Hôtel-de-Ville, despatched twelve of their number as a deputation to the municipality.
The Hôtel-de-Ville, situated near the cathedral, is one of those singular edifices which have been built at different times, and which consist of all styles of architecture seen in ancient buildings. The mode in which these edifices have been built forms rather an interesting study. Nothing is regular no fixt plan has been drawn out all has been built as necessity required.
There is, of course, in this townling, of not six thousand souls, a theatre, which is greatly resorted to. One old church has been turned into a theatre at Arbois, and another into the Halles, a third into the Hotel-de-Ville, a desecration we Protestants can but behold with aversion.
During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski, its only general with military capacity, was killed, it is supposed, by one of his own men. The Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and numerous other buildings were fired, the Dominican Brothers were massacred, and the executions in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in other parts of Belleville and at the Prefecture.
An obelisk of granite, about sixty feet high, said to be the only antique one in France, stands on the place of the Hôtel-de-Ville.
At sight of their bayonets the insurgents fled, but concentrated their forces on the Hôtel-de-Ville. This again they evacuated when cannon were pointed against it, and the cause of order was won. General Cavaignac, who had just come home from Algeria, was made War Minister, and the clubs were closed. Louis Blanc was sent into exile.
The parliament, the exchequer-chamber, and the Hotel-de-Ville demanded peace; and the shouts of Peace! peace! resounded in the streets. A great crowd of people assembled on the Greve; and thither the butchers came with their company of about twelve hundred persons, it is said. They began to speak against peace, but could not get a hearing.
Ernest Picard, meanwhile, had been very active in devising plans for the recapture of the Hotel-de-Ville and providing for the safety of various Government departments. Nevertheless, the insurgents made themselves masters of several district town-halls.
Bailly, the mayor of Paris, harangued them, and gave them extraordinary work. They went to it for a moment, and then quitted it, being speedily attracted by the mob becoming dense and uttering cries of hunger. The crowd betook itself from the Hôtel-de-Ville to the Jacobins, from the Jacobins to the National Assembly, clamorous for the forfeiture of the crown and the republic.
O evening sun of July, how at this hour thy beams fall slant on reapers amid peaceful, woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages; on ships far out in the silent main; on balls at the Orangerie at Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar officers; and also on this roaring Hell-porch of an Hotel-de-Ville.
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