After their departure the Defenders deliberated. Jules Favre asked Trochu to tender his resignation. But he, the apostle, insisted upon being dismissed by them, fancying thus to cheat history into the belief that he had to the last resisted capitulation.[37] The discussion was growing warm when, at three o'clock in the morning, they were informed of the rescue of Flourens and other political prisoners confined at Mazas. A body of National Guards headed by an adjunct from the eighteenth arrondissement had presented themselves an hour before in front of the prison. The bewildered governor had let them have their way. The Defenders, fearing a repetition of the 31st October, hurried on their resolution replacing Trochu by Vinoy. He wanted to be implored. Jules Favre and Leflo had to show him the people in arms, an insurrection imminent. At that very moment, the morning of the 22nd, the prefect of police, declaring himself powerless, had sent in his resignation. The men of the 4th September had fallen so low as to bend their knees before those of the 2nd December. Vinoy condescended to yield. His first act was to arm against Paris, to dismantle her lines before the Prussians, to recall the troops of Suresne, Gentilly, Les Lilas, to call out the cavalry and gendarmerie. A battalion of mobiles commanded by Vabre, a colonel of the National Guard, fortified itself in the Hotel-de-Ville. Clement-Thomas issued a furious proclamation: "The factions are joining the enemy." He adjured the "_entire_ National Guard to rise in order to smite them." He had not called upon it to rise against the Prussians. There were signs of anger afloat, but no symptoms of a serious collision. Many revolutionists, well aware that all was at an end, would not support a movement which, if successful, would have saved the men of the Defence and forced the victors to capitulate in their stead. Others, whose patriotism was not enlightened by reason, still warm from the ardour of Buzenval, believed in a _sortie en masse_. We must at least, said they, save our honor. The evening before, some meetings had voted that an armed opposition should be offered to any attempt at capitulation, and had given themselves a rendezvous before the Hotel-de-Ville.