Their band in full strength hastened to the Paris Avenue at Versailles to receive the prisoners of Chatillon. The whole Parisian emigration, functionaries, elegants, women of the world and of the streets, all came with the rage of hyenas to strike the Federals with closed hands, with canes and parasols, pushing off their kepis and cloaks, crying, "Down with the assassins! To the guillotine!" Amongst these "assassins" was the geographer Elisee Reclus, taken with Duval. In order to give them time to glut their fury, the escort made several halts before conducting their prisoners to the barracks of the gendarmes. They were then thrown into the docks of Satory, and thence carried to Brest in cattle-trucks. Picard wanted to associate all the honest people of the provinces in this baiting. "Never," telegraphed this Falstaff of pustulous aspect, "have baser countenances of a base demagogy met the afflicted gaze of honest men." Already, the evening before, after the assassinations of Mont-Valerien and of Chatou, M. Thiers had written to his prefects, "The moral effect is excellent." Odious repetition of those words, "Order reigns in Warsaw," and "The chassepot has done wonders." Ah! it is well known that it was not the French bourgeoisie, but a daughter of the people who spoke those great words, "I have never seen French blood shed without my hair standing on end." FOOTNOTES: [111] MacMahon, with his _coup-d'oeil_ of Reischoffen and Sedan, saw there 17,000 men. _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_, vol. ii. p. 22. [112] "To Versailles, if we don't want again to resort to balloons! To Versailles, if we don't want to fall back upon pigeons! To Versailles, if we don't want to be reduced to bran bread," &c., &c.--_Le Vengeur_, 3rd April. [113] These details, related in part by the journals of the time, have been completed by numerous comrades of Duval whom we have questioned. In his mutilated, lying, naively cynical book, Vinoy dared to say: "The insurgents threw down their arms an surrendered _at discretion_: the man called Duval was _killed in the affray_." CHAPTER XIII. THE COMMUNE IS VANQUISHED AT MARSEILLES AND NARBONNE. The same sun that saw the scale turn against Paris looked also on the defeat of the people of Marseilles. The paralytic Commission still continued to dose, when, on the 26th, Espivent beat the reveille, placed the department in a state of siege, and issued a proclamation _a la_ Thiers. The municipal council began to tremble, and on the 27th withdrew their delegates from the prefecture. Gaston Cremieux and Bouchet were at once sent to the Mairie to announce that the Commission was ready to withdraw before the council. The council asked for time to consider.