This deputation went out to Versailles on the 20th of March,--two days before the proposed election for members of a commune. On the 21st, while all Paris was awaiting anxiously the outcome of the mission, there was a great "order" demonstration in the streets, and hopes of peace and concord were exchanged on all sides. The next day, the order demonstration, which had seemed so popular, was repeated, when a massacre took place on the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. Nurses, children, and other quiet spectators were killed, as also old gentlemen and reporters for the newspapers. One of the victims was a partner in the great banking house of Hottinguer, well known to American travellers. The most popular man at that moment in Paris seemed to be Admiral Seisset, who had commanded the brigade of sailors which did good service in the siege. He went out to Versailles to unite his efforts to those of the _maires_ and the deputies in favor of giving Paris municipal rights; but M. Thiers and his ministers were firm in their refusal. When this was known in Paris, great was the fury and indignation of the people. In vain had Louis Blanc entreated the Assembly at Versailles to approve conciliatory measures; and when that body utterly refused to make terms with a Parisian mob, M. Clémenceau said, as he quitted their chamber: "May the responsibility for what may happen, rest upon your heads." The mission to Versailles having been productive of no results, the election for a commune was held. The extremest men were chosen in every quarter of the city, and formed what was called the Council of the Commune. It held its sittings in the Hôtel-de-Ville, and consisted at first of eighty members, seventy of whom had never been heard of in Paris before. Its numbers dwindled rapidly, from various causes, especially in the latter days of the Commune. Among them were Poles, Italians, and even Germans; two of the eighty claimed to be Americans. The first act of the Council of the Commune was to take possession of the Hôtel-de-Ville and to celebrate the inauguration of the new government by a brilliant banquet; its first decree was that no tenant need pay any back rent from October, 1870, to April, 1871,--the time during which the siege had lasted. It lost no time in inviting Garibaldi to assume the command of the National Guard. This Garibaldi declined at once, saying that a commandant of the National Guard, a commander-in-chief of Paris, and an executive committee could not act together. "What Paris needs," he said, "is an honest dictator, who will choose honest men to act under him. If you should have the good fortune to find a Washington, France will recover from shipwreck, and in a short time be grander than ever." On April 3 the civil war broke out,--Paris against Versailles; the army under the National Assembly against the National Guard under the Commune. The Prussians from the two forts which they still held, looked grimly on.