At four o'clock the 117th Battalion of the National Guard takes up its
position before the municipal palace. They are reinforced by a
detachment of _gendarmes_, mounted and on foot, and by companies of
Mobiles, under the command of General Carréard.

General Clément Thomas hastens to address a few words to the 117th;
later, he paid with his life for thus appearing on the side of order.
Finally, General Vinoy arrives, followed by his staff, to take measures
against any renewed acts of aggression. Mitrailleuses and cannon are
stationed before the Hôtel de Ville; the drums beat the _rappel_
throughout the town, and a great number of battalions of National Guards
assemble in the Rue de Rivoli, at the Louvre, and on the Place de la
Concorde; others bivouac before the Palais de l'Industrie, while on the
other side of the Champs Elysées regiments of cavalry, infantry, and
mobiles, are drawn out. The agitators have disappeared, calm is
restored, within the city be it understood, for all this did not
interrupt the animated interchange of shells between the French and
Prussian batteries, and a great number of Parisians, who had twice
helped to disperse the insurgents of October and January, thought
involuntarily of the Commune of the 10th of August, 1793, which headed
the revolution, and said to themselves that there were perhaps some
amongst the present insurgents who, like the former, would rise up to
deliver them from the Prussians. For these agitators have some
appearance of truth on their side: "You are weak and timorous," they cry
to those in power; "you seem awaiting a defeat rather than expecting a
victory. Give place to the energetic, obscure though they may be; for
the men of the great Commune, of our first glorious revolution, they
also were for the greater part unknown. We have confidence in the army
of Paris, and we will break the iron circle of invasion."