Men just escaped from famine-stricken but glowing Paris found on their arrival at Bordeaux the Coblentz of the first emigration, but this time invested with the power to glut rancors that had been accumulating for forty years. Clericals and Conservatives were for the first time allowed, without the interference of either emperor or king, to trample to their hearts' content on Paris, the atheist, the revolutionist, who had so often shaken off their yoke and baffled their schemes. At the first sitting their choler burst out. At the farther end of the hall, sitting alone on his bench, shunned by all, an old man rose and asked to address the Assembly. Under his cloak glared a red shirt. It was Garibaldi. At the call of his name, he wished to answer, to say in a few words that he resigned the mandate with which Paris had honored him. His voice was drowned in howls. He remained standing, raising his hand, but the insults redoubled. The chastisement, however, was at hand. "Rural majority! disgrace of France!" cried from the gallery a young vibrating voice, that of Gaston Cremieux, of Marseilles. The deputies rose threatening. Hundreds of "Bravos" answered from the galleries, overwhelming the rurals. After the sitting the crowd cheered Garibaldi and hooted his insulters. The National Guard presented arms, despite the rage of M. Thiers, who under the peristyle apostrophized the commanding officer. The next day the people returned, forming lines in front of the theatre, and forced the reactionist deputies to undergo their republican cheers. But they knew their strength, and from the beginning of the sittings opened their attack. One of the rurals, pointing to the representatives of Paris, cried, "They are stained with the blood of civil war!" And when one of these representatives cried, "Vive la Republique!" the majority hooted him, saying, "You are only a fraction of the country." On the next day the Chamber was surrounded by troops, who kept off the republicans. At the same time the Conservative papers united in their hissings against Paris, denying even her sufferings. The National Guard, they said, had fled before the Prussians; its only exploits had been the 31st October and 22nd January. These calumnies fructified in the provinces, long since prepared to receive them. Such was their ignorance of the siege, that they had named some of them several times--Trochu, Ducrot, Ferry, Pelletan, Garnier-Pages, Emmanuel Arago--to whom Paris had refused a single vote.