Four days later, this decree was carried into effect.  Its execution was intrusted to the painter Courbet, who was one of the members of the Commune.  He was a man who, up to the age of fifty, had taken no part in politics, but had been wholly devoted to art.  His most celebrated pictures are the “Combat des Cerfs” and the “Dame au Perroquet.”  He was a delightful companion, beloved by artists, and a personal friend of Cluseret, who had caused his name to be put upon the list of the members of the Commune.

The column of the Place Vendome was one hundred and thirty-five feet high.  It was on the model of Trajan’s column at Rome, but one twelfth larger.  It was erected by Napoleon I. to celebrate the victories of the Grand Army in the campaign of 1805.  He had caused it to be cast from cannon taken from the enemy.  When erected, it was surmounted by a statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes; this, at the Restoration, gave place to a white flag.  Under Louis Philippe, Napoleon was replaced, but in his cocked hat and his redingote, but Louis Napoleon restored the imperial statue.

“On May 16,” says Count Orsi, “a crowd collected at the barricades which separated the Place Vendome from the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione.  To the Place Vendome itself only a few persons had been admitted by tickets.  At the four corners of the square were placed military bands.  Ropes were fastened to the upper part of the column, and worked by capstans.  The monument fell with a tremendous crash, causing everything for a few moments to disappear in a blinding cloud of dust.  To complete the disgrace of this savage act, the Commune advertised for tenders for the purchase of the column, which was to be sold in four separate lots.  This injudicious and anti-national measure inspired the regular army at Versailles with a spirit of revenge, which led them on entering Paris to lose all self-possession, so that they dealt with the insurrection brutally and without discrimination.”

It would be curious to trace the history of the various members of the Council of the Commune.  A few have been already alluded to; but the majority came forth out of obscurity, and their fate is as obscure.  Eight were professional journalists.  Among these were Rochefort, Arnould, and Vermorel.  Arnould was probably the most moderate man in the Commune, and Vermorel was one of the very few who, when the Commune was at its last gasp, neither deserted nor disgraced it.  He sprang on a barricade, crying:  “I am here, not to fight, but to die!” and was shot down.  Four were military men, of whom one was General Eudes, a draper’s assistant, and one had been a private in the army of Africa.  Five were genuine working-men, three of whom were fierce, ignorant cobblers from Belleville; the other two were Assy, a machinist, and Thiez, a silver-chaser,—­one of the few honest men in the Council.  Three were not Frenchmen, although generals; namely, Dombrowski,