The double marble staircase was filled with people coming and going, whom the sentinels could hardly keep away from the delegate's cabinet. Delescluze signed orders, mute and wan as a spectre. The anguish of those later days had absorbed his last vital powers; his voice was only a death-rattle; the eye and the heart alone lived still in this moribund athlete. Two or three officers calmly prepared the orders, stamped and sent the despatches; many officers and guards surrounded the table. No speeches, a little conversation, among the various groups. If hope had waned, resolution had not grown less. Who are these officers who have laid aside their uniforms, these members of the Council, these functionaries who have shaved their beards? What are they doing here amongst these brave men? Ranvier, meeting two of his colleagues thus disguised, who during the siege had been among the most beplumed, apostrophised them, threatening to shoot them if they did not at once return to their arrondissements. A great example would not have been useless. From hour to hour all discipline foundered. At that same moment the Central Committee, which believed itself invested with power by the abdication of the Council, launched a manifesto, in which it made conditions: "Dissolution of the Assembly and of the Commune; the army to leave Paris; the Government to be provisionally confided to the delegates of the large towns, who will have a Constituent Assembly elected; mutual amnesty." The ultimatum of a conqueror. This dream was placarded on a few walls, and threw new disorder into the resistance. From time to time some greater clamour arose from the square. A spy was shot against the barricade of the Victoria Avenue. Some were audacious enough to penetrate into the most intimate councils.[186] That evening, at the Hotel-de-Ville, Bergeret had received the verbal authorisation to fire the Tuileries, when an individual pretending to be sent by him asked for this order in writing. He was still speaking when Bergeret returned. "Who sent you?" said he to the personage. "Bergeret." "When did you see him?" "Just here, a moment ago." During this evening, Raoul Rigault, taking orders from himself only, and without consulting any of his colleagues, repaired to the prison of Ste. Pelagie, and signified to Chaudey that he was to die. Chaudey protested, said he was a Republican, and swore that he had not given the order to fire on the 22nd January. However, he had been at that time the only authority in the Hotel-de-Ville. His protestations were of no avail against Rigault's resolution. Led into the exercise-ground of Ste. Pelagie, Chaudey was shot, as were also three gendarmes taken prisoners on the 18th March. During the first siege he had said to some partisans of the Commune, "The strongest will shoot the others." He died perhaps for those words. FOOTNOTES: [185] Appendix XVI. [186] Appendix XVII. CHAPTER XXIX.