The banners and a numerous delegation were introduced into the Hotel-de-Ville, the members of the Council waiting to receive them on the balcony of the staircase of honour. The banners were fixed along the steps. These standards of peace by the side of the red flag, this small middle-class joining hands with the proletariat under the proud image of the Republic, these cries of fraternity dazzled, brightened up even the most downcast. Felix Pyat indulged in a rhapsody of words and rhetorical antitheses. Old Beslay was much more eloquent in a few words broken by true tears. A brother solicited the honour of being the first to plant on the rampart the banner of his lodge, _La Perseverance_, founded in 1790, in the era of the great federations. A member of the Council presented the red flag: "Let it accompany your banners; let no hand henceforth turn us against each other." And the orator of the delegation, Thirifocq, pointing to the banner of Vincennes: "This will be the first to be presented before the ranks of the enemy. We will say to them, 'Soldiers of the mother country, fraternise with us, come and embrace us.' If we fail, we shall go and join the companies of war." When the delegates left the Hotel-de-Ville, a free balloon, marked with the three symbolical points, made an ascent, here and there dropping the manifesto of the Freemasons. The immense procession having shown the Bastille and the boulevards its mysterious banners, frantically applauded, arrived about two o'clock at the cross-roads of the Champs-Elysees. The shells of Mont-Valerien obliged them to take the bye-streets on their way to the Arc-de-Triomphe. There a delegation of all the venerables went to plant the banners at the most dangerous posts, from the Porte-Maillot to the Porte-Bineau. When the white flag was hoisted on the outpost of the Porte-Maillot the Versaillese ceased firing. The delegates of the Freemasons and some members of the Council, appointed by their colleagues to accompany them, advanced, headed by their banner, into the Avenue of Neuilly. At the bridge of Courbevoie, before the Versaillese barricade, they found an officer who conducted them to General Montaudon, himself a Freemason. The Parisians explained the object of their manifestation, and asked for a truce. The general proposed that they should send a deputation to Versailles. Three delegates were chosen, and their companions returned to the town. In the evening silence reigned from St. Ouen to Neuilly, Dombrowski having taken upon himself to continue the truce. For the first time for twenty-five days the sleep of Paris was not disturbed by the report of cannon. The next day the delegates returned. M. Thiers had hardly deigned to receive them, had shown himself impatient, irritated, decided to grant nothing and to admit no more deputations. The Freemasons then resolved to march to battle with their insignia.