"Les generaux qui ont conduit l'entree a Paris sont de grands hommes de guerre."--_M. Thiers a l'Assemblee Nationale, 22 Mai 1871._ MONDAY 22ND--THE VERSAILLESE INVADE THE QUARTERS OF THE EAST--PARIS RISES. At two o'clock Dombrowski arrived at the Hotel-de-Ville, pale, dejected, his chest bruised with stones ploughed up by shot. He told the Committee of Public Safety of the entry of the Versaillese, the surprise of Passy, his useless efforts to rally the men. As he was pressed for news, as they appeared astonished at such a rapid invasion, so little did the Committee know of the military situation, Dombrowski, who misunderstood them, exclaimed, "What! the Committee of Public Safety takes me for a traitor! My life belongs to the Commune." His gesture, his voice, testified to his bitter despair. The morn was warm and bright, as the day before. The call to arms, the tocsin, set three or four thousand men on foot, who hurried towards the Tuileries, the Hotel-de-Ville, and the War Office; but hundreds of others at that moment had abandoned their posts, left Passy, and emptied the fifteenth arrondissement. The Federals of Petit-Vanves came back to Paris at five o'clock, and seeing the Trocadero occupied by the Versaillese, refused to hold out. On the left bank, at the St. Clothilde Square, some officers attempted to stay them, but were repulsed by the guards. "It is now a war of barricades," said they; "every one to his quarter." At the Legion d'Honneur they forced their way; the proclamation of Delescluze had released them. Thus began that fatal proclamation placarded on all the walls:-- "Enough of militarism! No more staff-officers with their gold-embroidered uniforms! Make way for the people, for the combatants with naked arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck! The people know nothing of learned manoeuvres. But when they have a gun in their hands, pavement under their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school!" When the Minister of War thus stigmatises all discipline, who will henceforth obey? When he repudiates all method, who will listen to reason? Thus we shall see hundreds of men refusing to quit the pavement of their street, paying no heed to the neighboring quarter in agonies, remaining motionless up to the last hour waiting for the army to come and overwhelm them. At five o'clock in the morning the official retreat began. The chief of the general staff, Henri Prodhomme, had the War Office precipitately evacuated, without carrying off or destroying the papers. The next day they fell into the hands of the Versaillese, and furnished the courts-martial with thousands of victims.