Alpha and Omega of the Second Empire.



IV

FROM REVOLUTION TO SIEGE

The Government of National Defence--The Army of Paris--The Return
of Victor Hugo--The German advance on Paris--The National Guard
reviewed--Hospitable Preparations for the Germans--They draw nearer
still--Departure of Lord Lyons--Our Last Day of Liberty--On the
Fortifications--The Bois de Boulogne and our Live Stock--Mass before
the Statue of Strasbourg--Devout Breton Mobiles--Evening on the
Boulevards and in the Clubs--Trochu and Ducrot--The Fight and Panic
of Chatillon--The Siege begins.


As I shall have occasion in these pages to mention a good many members
of the self-constituted Government which succeeded the Empire, it may be
as well for me to set down here their names and the offices they held.
I have already mentioned that Trochu was President, and Jules Favre
Vice-President, of the new administration. The former also retained his
office as Governor of Paris, and at the same time became Generalissimo.
Favre, for his part, took the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. With him and
Trochu were Gambetta, Minister of the Interior; Jules Simon, Minister of
Public Instruction; Adolphe Cremieux, Minister of Justice; Ernest Picard,
Minister of Finance; Jules Ferry, Secretary-General to the Government, and
later Mayor of Paris; and Henri Rochefort, President of the Committee of
Barricades. Four of their colleagues, Emmanuel Arago, Garnier-Pages,