A _coup-de-main_ would have been easy, and some rich bourgeois wanted to try it. The men were there and the manoeuvres agreed upon. At midnight the Commission was to be carried off and the prefecture taken possession of, while Espivent was to march on the town so as to get there by daybreak. An officer was despatched to Aubagne. The general refused under the pretext of prudence, but his retinue revealed the true motive of the refusal. "We," they told the messenger, "have stolen away from Marseilles like thieves; we want to re-enter it as conquerors." Such a performance seemed rather difficult with the army of Aubagne, 600 or 700 men, without _cadres_ and without discipline. One single regiment, the 6th Chasseurs, showed a more martial carriage. But Espivent relied upon the sailors of _La Couronne_, the National Guards of order, in continual relations with him, and above all, on the well-known supineness of the Commission. The latter tried to strengthen itself by the adjunction of delegates from the National Guard. They voted the dissolution of the municipal council, and the Commission convoked the electors for the 3rd April. This measure, if taken on the 24th March, might perhaps have settled everything, but on the 2nd April it was only a stroke in the air. On the 3rd, at the news from Versailles, Espivent sent an order to the chiefs of the reactionary battalions to hold themselves in readiness. In the evening, at eleven o'clock, Garibaldian officers came to inform the prefecture that the troops at Aubagne were moving. The Commission recommenced its old refrain: "Let them come; we are ready to receive them." At half-past one they decided to beat the retreat, and towards four o'clock some men mustered at the prefecture. About a hundred franc-tireurs established themselves at the station, where the Commission had not even thought of placing a battery. At five o'clock Marseilles was on the alert. Some reactionary companies appeared at the Place du Palais de Justice and in the Cours Bonaparte; the sailors of _La Couronne_ were drawn up before the Bourse; the first shots were fired at the station. Espivent's troops presented themselves at three points--the station, the Place Castellane, and La Plaine. The franc-tireurs, notwithstanding a fine defence, were soon surrounded and obliged to retreat. The Versaillese shot the Federalist stationmaster under the eyes of his son, a child of sixteen, who threw himself at the feet of the officer, offering his life for his father's. The second stationmaster, Funel, was able to escape with only a broken arm. The columns of La Plaine and L'Esplanade pushed their advanced posts as far as 300 yards from the prefecture.