It had become obvious that the division of administration between Bordeaux and Paris was making government difficult. The Assembly, still suspicious of Paris, decided to transfer its place of meeting to Versailles. But Paris itself was in a state of nervous hysteria as a result of the long and exhausting siege (_fièvre obsidionale_). The Paris proletariat were as jealous and suspicious of the Assembly as the Assembly of them. The suggestion of a transfer to Versailles instead of to Paris seemed a direct challenge. Versailles recalled too easily Louis XIV and the Bourbons. The monarchical sympathies of the Assembly were, moreover, well known, and the Parisians dreaded the restoration of royalty. The people were hungry and penniless, and industry and commerce had almost completely ceased. The city was full, besides, of soldiers disarmed through the armistice and ready for riot. On the other hand, the National Guards, a large body of semi-disciplined militia made up, at least in part, of the dregs of the populace, had been allowed to retain their weapons, and many of them gave their time to drunkenness, loafing, and listening to agitators. Some rather injudicious condemnations of leaders in the October riots merely aggravated the dissatisfaction. All this led to the Commune. The leaders of the Commune were, some of them, sincere though visionary reformers, whose hearts rankled at the sufferings of the poor and the inequalities of wealth and privilege. The majority were mischief-makers and café orators, loquacious but incompetent or inexperienced, without definite plans and unfit to be leaders, some vicious and some dishonest. The rank and file soon became a lawless mob, ready to burn and murder, imitating, in their ignorant cult of "liberty," the worst phases of the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. Still, the Communards have their admirers to-day, and, as the world advances in radicalism, it is not unlikely that the Jacobin Charles Delescluze, the bloodthirsty Raoul Rigault, and the brilliant and scholarly Gustave Flourens will be considered heroic precursors. The idea of the Commune was decentralization. It was an experiment aiming at a free and autonomous Paris serving as model for the other self-governing communes of France, united merely for their common needs. It amounted almost to the quasi-independence of each separate town. But mixed up with the theorists of the Commune were countless anarchist revolutionaries, followers of the teachings of Blanqui, as well as admirers of the great Revolution which overthrew the old régime, and socialists of various types.