The Commission placarded that all the powers were concentrated in its hands, and feeling the necessity of strengthening itself, invited the municipal council and the club of the National Guard to send three delegates each. The council named David Bosc, Desservy, and Sidore; the club, Bouchet, Cartoux, and Fulgeras. The next day they made a moderate proclamation: "Marseilles has wished to prevent the civil war provoked by the circulars of Versailles. Marseilles will support a regularly constituted Republican Government sitting in the capital. The Departmental Commission, formed with the concourse of all Republican groups, will watch over the Republic till a new authority emanating from a regular Government sitting at Paris relieves it." The names of the municipal council and of the club reassured the middle-class. The reactionists continued drawing in their horns, and the army had evacuated the town during the night. Leaving the prefect in the trap into which he had thrust him, the coward Espivent, on the investment of the prefecture, went to hide himself at the mistress's of a commander of the National Guard named Spir, on whom he afterwards conferred the knighthood of the Legion of Honour for this service to moral order. At midnight he sneaked off and rejoined the troops, who, without hindrance from the people, lulled into security by its victory, reached the village of Aubagne, about seventeen kilometres from Marseilles. Thus Marseilles was entirely in the hands of the people. The victory was even too complete for heads prone to exultation. That "city of the sun" is not propitious to soft tints; its sky, its fields, its men all affect crude colours. On the 24th the civil guards hoisted the red flag and already deemed the Commission too lukewarm. Sidore, Desservy, and Fulgeras, regardless of their duty, kept aloof from the prefecture; Cartoux had gone to Paris for information, and so the whole burden weighed upon Bosc and Bouchet, who, with Gaston Cremieux, strove to regularise the movement. Having said that the red flag was inopportune, the detention of the hostages useless, they soon became suspected and menaced. On the evening of the 24th, Bouchet, quite discouraged, gave in his resignation, but, on G. Cremieux' complaint to the club of the National Guard, consented to resume his post. These disagreements were already bruited about the town, and on the 25th the Commission was obliged to announce that "the most perfect accord united it with the municipal council." But the latter on the same day declared itself the only existing power, and called upon the National Guard to rouse from apathy. Trimming between the reaction and the people, it began that miserable play that was to end in ignominy.