In short, save the delegation of Labour, where they did work, the fundamental delegations were unequal to their task. All committed the same fault. During two months they had in their hands the archives of the bourgeoisie since 1789. There was the Cour des Comptes (a judicial board of accounts) to disclose the mysteries of official jobbery; the Council of State, the dark deliberations of despotism; the Prefecture of Police, the scandalous under-currents of social power; the Ministry of Justice, the servility and crimes of the most oppressive of all classes. In the Hotel-de-Ville there lay deposited the still unexplored records of the first Revolution, of those of 1815, 1830, 1848, and all diplomatists of Europe dreaded the opening of the portfolios at the Foreign Office. They might have laid bare before the eyes of the people the intimate history of the Revolution, the Directory, the first Empire, the monarchy of July, 1848, and of Napoleon III. They published only two or three fascicles.[142] The delegates slept by the side of these treasures, heedless, as it seemed, of their value. The Radicals, seeing these lawyers, these doctors, these publicists, who allowed Jecker to remain mute and the Cour des Comptes closed, would not believe in such ignorance, and still affect to unriddle the enigma with the word "Bonapartism." A stupid accusation, given the lie by a thousand proofs. For the honour even of the delegates the bitter truth must be told. Their ignorance was not simulated, but only too real. To a great extent it was the offspring of past oppression. FOOTNOTES: [131] Appendix VI. [132] Appendix VII., report by Theisz. [133] Appendix VIII. [134] There were five parks--the Hotel-de-Ville, the Tuileries, the Ecole Militaire, Montmartre, Vincennes. In all, including the artillery of the forts and that of the open country, the Commune had more than 1100 cannon, howitzers, mortars, and mitrailleuses. [135] The second Central Committee was composed of forty members, of whom twelve only had formed part of the first Committee. [136] "Do you know," said he to Delescluze, "that Versailles has offered me a million?" "Be silent!" answered Delescluze, turning his back upon him. [137] He was arrested on the 20th March in his private room in the Palace of Justice, where he had given the procureur-general a rendezvous. [138] He was recognised as he asked for his passport at the prefecture of police. [139] The correspondent of the _Times_ wrote in the number of 9th May: "The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopaedic instruments--a superficial falsehood. The mattress and straps struck me as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of brutal force which no disease at present known would justify."