After the suppression of the Commune the Assembly of Versailles ordered the re-establishment of the Vendôme column, which was duly set up in 1875. The interior construction of stone was entirely new. So also, as regards form, was the bronze plating, the scrolls being recast from the moulds preserved since the time of the first Empire. It had been decreed that the column should be surmounted by a statue of France. But this idea was not carried out, and, in conformity with another decree, Dumont's statue, as set up by Napoleon III. in 1864, was, after being repaired, put back in its former position. The pedestal at the top of the column has turn by turn been surmounted by the statue of Napoleon disguised as a Roman emperor; by the white flag of the ancient monarchy; by the statue of Napoleon in his ordinary military garb; by the statue of Napoleon once more costumed as a Roman Emperor; by the red flag of the Commune; and finally once again by the most recent statue in classic garb. The French seem at last to understand as a nation that, apart from all question of politics, the Napoleonic period was one of the most glorious of their history. At the corner of the Rue Castiglione stands the magnificent Hôtel Continental; which, independently of its positive attractions, possesses interest as occupying the site on which once stood the Ministry of Finance--burnt to the ground under the Commune in obedience to the famous, or infamous, telegraphic order: "_Flambez Finances_." On the west side of the Place Vendôme is the Ministry of Justice. The Hôtel du Rhin on the south side was the residence of Napoleon III. when he was a member of the National Assembly in 1848, before his election to the post of President, followed by his self-appointment (1851) to the dignity, first of President for ten years and a year afterwards of Emperor. In one of his letters of the 1848 period, inviting a friend to dinner at the Hôtel du Rhin, he apologised for proposing to entertain him at a "cabaret," a pleasantly contemptuous designation which the commodious and well-appointed Hôtel du Rhin scarcely deserved. The Hôtel du Rhin played a certain strategic part towards the end of May, 1871, when on the 23rd the Versailles troops passed through the hotel, and, attacking the insurgents in the rear, captured one of their principal barricades. The proprietor of the hotel, M. Maréchal, is said, on the occasion of the Vendôme column being threatened by the Communists, to have offered them 500,000 francs if they would spare it. "Give us a million and we will see!" was the answer; but the patriotic hotel-keeper, though he had the misfortune to see the column knocked down, lived to behold its restoration.