At three o'clock, Langlois, the competitor of Lullier, announced himself. He was full of confidence in himself, and had already sent his proclamation to the _Journal Officiel_. "Who are you?" the sentinels asked him. "General of the National Guard," answered Langlois. Some deputies of Paris, Lockroy, Cournet, &c., accompanied him. The Committee consented to receive them. "Who has named you?" said they to Langlois. "M. Thiers." They smiled at this aplomb of a madman. As he pleaded the rights of the Assembly they put him to the test; "Do you recognise the Central Committee?" "No." He decamped to run after his proclamation. The night was calm, fatally calm for liberty. By the gates of the south Vinoy marched off his regiments, his artillery, and his baggage to Versailles. The disbanded troops jogged along peevishly, insulting the gendarmes.[88] The staff, true to its traditions, had lost its head, and left in Paris three regiments, six batteries, and all the gunboats, which it would have sufficed to leave to the current of the river. The slightest demonstration of the federals would have stopped this exodus. Far from thinking of closing the gates, the new commander of the National Guard--he boasted of it before the council of war--left open all issues to the army. FOOTNOTES: [81] This order enjoining the troop to file off in the midst of the National Guards was drawn up in pencil by a captain. Lecomte copied it in ink without changing a word. The court-martial has denied this, in order to glorify this general, who died so pusillanimously. [82] Five to six hundred, says M. Thiers; fourteen men per battalion, says Jules Perry. _Enquete sur le 18 Mars._ [83] M. Thiers in the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_ says, firstly, "We let them defile," then, twenty lines farther, "We repulsed them." Leflo has not concealed the fright the Council was in: "The moment seemed critical to me. And I said, 'I think we are done for; we shall be carried off;' and indeed the battalions had only to penetrate into the palace and we were all taken to the last man. But the three battalions marched off without saying anything."--Vol. ii. p. 80. [84] The report of the _Enquete sur le 18 Mars_ said that "the Committee did not hesitate on the afternoon of the 18th March to take possession of all the administrations." This is if not a lie, intended to palliate the stampede of M. Thiers,--one of the grossest proofs of the ignorance of this report, which attributes the manifestation of the 24th of February to an order of the Central Committee. [85] See Appendix II., the details of the proceedings of the Central Committee during this day, told by one of its members. [86] Vinoy has the impudence to say in his book _L'Armistice et la Commune_: "The general assembled his men, and _sword in hand_ he bravely placed himself at the head of his troops."