“CITIZENS,—We have had enough of militaryism; let us have no more stuffs embroidered and gilt at every seam! “Make room for the people, the real combatants, the bare arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck! “The people know nothing of scientific manoeuvres, but with a rifle in hand and the pavement beneath their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school. “To arms, citizens! To arms! You must conquer, or, as you well know, fall again into the pitiless hands of the _réactionaires_ and clericals of Versailles; those wretches who with intention delivered France up to Prussia, and now make us pay the ransom of their treason! “If you desire the generous blood which you have shed like water during the last six weeks not to have been shed in vain, if you would see liberty and equality established in France, if you would spare your children sufferings and misery such as you have endured, you will rise as one man, and before your formidable bands the enemy who indulges the idea of bringing you again under his yoke, will reap nothing but the harvest of the useless crimes with which he has disgraced himself during the past two months. “Citizens! your representatives will fight and die with you, if fall we must; but, in the name of our glorious France, mother of all the popular revolutions, the permanent source of ideas of justice and unity, which should be and which will be the laws of the world, march to the encounter of the enemy, and let your revolutionary energy prove to him that Paris may he sold, but can never be delivered up or conquered. “The Commune confides in you, and you may trust the Commune! “The civil delegate at the Ministry of War, “(Signed) “CH. DELESCLUZE. “Countersigned by the Committee of Public Safety:—Antoine Arnauld, Billioray, E. Eudes, F. Gambon, G. Ranvier.” Such was the despairing cry of the insurrection at bay. [102] See Appendix, No. 9. [103] There are no private undertakers and funeral furnishers in Paris. It is all done by a company, under the supervision of Government, a very large concern, called the _Pompes Funèbres_.