Many of the Committee: "No! No!" "We want," said Varlin, "not only the election of the municipal council, but real municipal liberties, the suppression of the prefecture of police, the right of the National Guard to name its chiefs and to reorganise itself, the proclamation of the Republic as the legal Government, the pure and simple remittance of the rents due, an equitable law on overdue bills, and the Parisian territory interdicted the army." Malon: "I share your aspirations, but the situation is perilous. It is clear that the Assembly will listen to nothing as long as the Committee occupies the Hotel-de-Ville. If, on the contrary, Paris intrusts herself again to her legal representatives, I believe they could do more than you." The discussion was protracted until half-past ten; the Committee defending its right to proceed to the elections, the delegates their pretension of superseding the Committee. They at last agreed that the Committee should send four of its members to the second arrondissement. Varlin, Moreau, Arnold, and Jourde were appointed. There they found the whole staff of Liberalism: deputies, mayors, and adjuncts; Louis Blanc, Schoelcher, Carnot, Peyrat, Tirard, Floquet, Desmarets, Vautrain, and Dubail, about sixty altogether. The cause of the people there had a few partisans, sincere, but terribly dismayed by the uncertain future. The mayor of the second arrondissement, Tirard, presided, a Liberal, nervous, haughty, one of those who had helped to paralyse Paris in the hands of Trochu. In his evidence before the Rural Committee of Inquiry, he has mutilated, travestied this sitting, where the Radico-Liberal bourgeoisie laid bare all its baseness. We shall now, for the instruction of and in justice to the people, give the plain truth. The delegates: "The Central Committee does not wish anything better than to come to an agreement with the municipalities, if they will proceed with the elections." Schoelcher, Tirard, Peyrat, Louis Blanc, all the Radicals and Liberals in chorus: "The municipalities will not treat with the Central Committee. There is only one authority--the union of the mayors invested with the delegation by the Government." The delegates: "Let us not discuss the point. The Central Committee exists. We have been named by the National Guard and we hold the Hotel-de-Ville. Will you proceed to make the elections?" "But what is your programme?" Varlin set it forth. He was attacked from all sides. The four delegates had to face twenty assailants. The great argument of the Liberals was that Paris could not convoke herself, but ought to wait for the permission of the Assembly. A reminiscence this of the times of the siege, when they fell prone before the Government of the Defence.