Disunion within the Council was fatal, the mother of defeat. It ceased--let the people know this as well as their faults--when they thought of the people, when they rose above these miserable personal quarrels. They followed the funeral of Pierre Leroux, who had defended the insurgents of June, 1848; ordered the demolition of the Bréa church, built in memory of a justly punished traitor; of the expiatory monument, an affront to the Revolution; were not forgetful of the political prisoners still at the Bagnio, and ennobled the Place d'Italie with the name of Duval. All Socialist decrees passed unanimously; for though they differed they were all Socialists. There was but one voice in the Council to expel two of its members guilty of some former offence,[146] and no one even in the thick of the peril dared to utter the word capitulation.
[143] Before the Commission of Inquiry at the Assembly he has assumed the attitude of a Daniel in the lions' den. The meeting, however, contented with hissing him, for Paris let these impotent drones buzz as much as they liked without taking any notice of them.
[145] The minority formed a nucleus of twenty-two members: Andrieu, Arnold, A. Arnould, Avrial, Beslay, Clémence, V. Clément, Courbet, Frankel, E. Gérardin, Jourde, Lefrançais, Longuet, Malon, Ostyn, Pindy, Serraillier, Theisz, Tridon, Vallès, Varlin, Vermorel.
[146] Blanchet, an ex-Capucin and bankrupt, and E. Clément, who under the Empire had offered his services to the police.
ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET--THE RIVALRIES--THE DEFENCE OF THE FORT OF ISSY.
The last act of the second Executive Commission was to name Rossel delegate at War. On the same evening (the 30th April) it sent for him. He came at once, recited the history of famous sieges, and promised to make Paris impregnable. No one asked him for a written plan, and there and then, as on the stage, his nomination was signed. He forthwith wrote to the Council, "I accept these difficult functions, but I want your entire support in order not to succumb under the weight of these circumstances."
Rossel knew these circumstances through and through. For twenty-five days chief of the general staff, he was the best-informed man in Paris as to all her military resources. He was familiar with the members of the Council, of the Central Committee, the officers, the effective forces, the character of the troops he undertook to lead.