Such was the first act in this lugubrious drama. Two days later, on September 4, France was proclaimed a republic. Before the end of October Bazaine surrendered Metz to the Germans and his great army of 180,000 men was lost to France. The military force of France was vanishing with alarming rapidity. Another event of the period, of interest in this connection, was the loss of the temporal power of the pope, above alluded to. The papacy had been defended by Napoleon III. against the Italian revolutionists, and the withdrawal of the French force from Rome left that city open to the army of Victor Emmanuel. It was occupied in September and became the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In December another important event took place, the King of Prussia being proclaimed at Versailles the head of a new empire of Germany, which embraced all the German states except Austria. Events of great moment, as may be seen, were occurring with startling rapidity. Before the surrender of Bazaine the advance of the German army had appeared before Paris and on September 19 the siege of that city began. Soon it was so closely invested that food could not enter and the only way out was by balloon. The German bombardment did little damage to the great city, which was defended obstinately. But the Germans had a powerful ally within, where the grisly demon of famine threatened the defenders. Meanwhile Gambetta, the most ardent patriot left to France, was seeking with nervous energy to raise fresh armies in the south; Garibaldi, his sword free from duty in Italy, had come to the aid of France; all patriots were called to the ranks and a struggle of some importance took place. But all this practically ceased on the 28th of January, 1871, when an armistice brought the hopeless resistance of Paris to an end. Almost at once the war died out on all sides, the Germans occupied all the forts around Paris, and France lay at the mercy of Germany, after a struggle of six months' duration. The first siege of Paris had terminated; a second and more desperately contested one was at hand. On March 13 the German army around Paris, which had been given the triumph of a march into the conquered city, set out on its return home and the authorities of the new republic prepared to take possession of their freed capital. They were to find the task one of unlooked-for difficulty. On March 18 the revolutionary element of the city rose _en masse_, organized under the name of the Commune, took possession of Paris, and prepared to defend it to the death against the leaders of the new-formed government, whom they contemned as aristocrats.