At Versailles they found a wildly excited crowd. The terrified functionaries who arrived from Paris spread terror about them, and five or six insurrections were announced from the provinces. The coalition was dismayed. Paris victorious, the Government in flight--this was not what had been promised. These conspirators, blown up by the mine which they had themselves sprung, raised the cry of conspiracy, spoke of taking refuge at Bourges. Picard had certainly telegraphed to all the provinces, "The army, to the number of 40,000 men, is concentrated at Versailles;" but the only army to be seen was straggling bands of soldiers wandering about the streets. All Vinoy had been able to do was to place a few posts along the routes of Chatillon and Sevres, and protect the approaches to the Assembly by some mitrailleuses. The President, Grevy, who during the whole war had cowered in the provinces, sullenly hostile to the defence, opened the sitting by stigmatising this criminal insurrection "which no pretext could extenuate." Then the deputies of the Seine commenced a procession towards the tribune. Instead of a collective manifesto, they laid before the Assembly a series of fragmentary propositions, without connection, without general views, and without a preamble to explain them. First a bill convoking with the briefest delay the elections of Paris, then another granting to the National Guard the election of its chiefs. Milliere alone thought of the overdue commercial bills, and proposed to prolong them for six months. Till then exclamations only and half-muttered insults had been levelled at Paris, but no formal act of accusation. In the evening sitting a deputy applied this requisite. Trochu made a sortie. In this monstrous scene, which a Shakspere only could depict, the gloomy man who had softly slipped the great town into the hands of William, threw his own treason upon the revolutionists, accusing them of having almost a dozen times brought the Prussians into Paris. And the Assembly, grateful for his services, his hatred, giving him the crown he merited, covered him with applause. Another came to fan this rage. The evening before the National Guards had arrested in a train arriving from Orleans two generals in uniform. One of them was Chanzy, unknown to the crowd, who took him for D'Aurelles. They could not have been released without endangering their lives, but a deputy, Turquet, who accompanied them, was immediately set free. He rushed off to the Chamber, told them a fairy tale, and affected to be much moved in speaking of his companions. "I hope," said the hypocrite, "that they will not be assassinated." This story was accompanied by the furious yelling of the Assembly.[93]