At three o'clock in the afternoon came a new element of confusion. An Order of the Day summoned the deputies in Paris to the Hôtel de Ville,çoisRené there to confer on the measures to be taken. The mayors were to be restored to their mayoralties; they were also to send one of their deputy-mayors to the Hôtel de Ville, in order to make up a "consultative commission" there. This Order was signed, "J. Baude, for the Provisional Government" and "Colonel Zimmer, by order of General Dubourg." This audacity on the part of three persons speaking in the name of a government that existed only in so far as it had placarded itself at the street-corners proves the rare intelligence of the French in revolution: such men as these are evidently leaders destined to sway other nations. What a misfortune that, in delivering us from a similar anarchy, Bonaparte should have snatched from us our liberty!
The deputies had again met at M. Laffitte's[242]. M. de La Fayette, going back to 1789, declared that he would also go back to the command of the National Guard. This met with applause, and he proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville. The deputies nominated a "Municipal Commission" consisting of five members, Messieurs Casimir Périer, Laffitte, de Lobau[243], de Schonen and Audry de Puyravault. M. Odilon Barrot was elected secretary to the Commission, which installed itself at the Hôtel de Ville, as M. de La Fayette had done. All these sat promiscuously, beside the Provisional Government of M. Dubourg. M. Mauguin[244], sent as an emissary to the "Commission," remained with it. The friend of Washington ordered the black flag which had been hoisted by the ingenuity of M. Dubourg to be removed.
At half-past eight in the evening, M. de Sémonville, M. d'Argout and M. de Vitrolles arrived from Saint-Cloud. They had hastened to Paris immediately after hearing, at Saint-Cloud, of the repeal of the Ordinances, the dismissal of the old ministers and the appointment of M. de Mortemart to the Presidency of the Council. They appeared before the Municipal Commission in the quality of mandatories of the King. M. Mauguin asked the Grand Refendary if he had written powers; the Grand Refendary replied that "he had not thought of it." The negociations of the official commissaries went no further.