At the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon had been landed thirty years before, a flag of truce was met by two National Guards. Its bearer was a distinguished surgeon, Dr. Pasquier. After a brief parley, one of the National Guards blew out the doctor's brains. When news of this outrage was brought to General Vinoy, he commanded the guns of Fort Valérien to be turned upon the city. At five A. M. the next morning five columns of Federals marched out to take the fort. They were under the command of three generals, Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes. With Bergeret rode Lullier, who had been a naval officer, and Flourens, the popular favorite among the members of the Commune. The three divisions marched in full confidence that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them. They were wholly mistaken; the guns of Fort Valérien crashed into the midst of their columns, and almost at the same time Flourens, in a hand-to-hand struggle, was slain. Flourens had begun life with every prospect of being a distinguished scientist. His father had been perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences and a professor in the Collège de France, in which his son succeeded him when he was barely twenty-one. His first lecture, on the "History of Man," created a great impression; but in 1864 he resigned his professorship, and thenceforward devoted all his energies to the cause of the oppressed. In Crete he fought against the Turks. He was always conspiring when at home in Paris; even when the Prussians were at its gates, he could not refrain. He was the darling of the Belleville population, whom in times of distress and trial he fed, clothed, and comforted. Sometimes he was in prison, sometimes in exile. "He was a madman, but a hero, and towards the poor and the afflicted as gentle as a sister of charity," said one who knew him. Of the three generals who led the attack on Mont Valérien, Duval was captured and shot; Eudes and Bergeret got back to Paris in safety. But the latter, in company with Lullier, was at once sent to prison by the Central Committee, and a decree was issued that Paris should be covered with barricades. As the insurgents had plenty of leisure, these barricades were strong and symmetrical, though many of them were injudiciously placed. Whilst the fight of the 4th of April was going on without the gates, the Central Committee was occupied in issuing decrees, by which Thiers, Favre, Simon,--in short, all the legitimate ministers,--were summoned to give themselves up to the Commune to be tried for their offences, or else all their property in Paris would be confiscated or destroyed.