4. The Central Committee calls for elections¶
Core Argument¶
On 19 March, the Central Committee—an anonymous body of working-class and petty-bourgeois men without political pretensions—assumed power in Paris with the singular aim of restoring municipal government. It immediately called for communal elections, rejecting proposals to march on Versailles or consolidate revolutionary authority first. The Committee refused to disavow the executions of Generals Clément-Thomas and Lecomte, fearing to alienate the people, and instead decreed the raising of the state of siege, abolished court-martials, and granted amnesty for political offences. Elections were fixed for the following Wednesday.
When deputies and mayors—including Clémenceau, Millière, Malon, and Louis Blanc—demanded the Committee submit to their authority, the Committee insisted on its mandate from the National Guard. Varlin articulated the movement’s demands: an elected municipal council, genuine municipal liberties, suppression of the prefecture of police, self-organisation of the National Guard, proclamation of the Republic, rent remittance, an equitable bill law, and the exclusion of the army from Paris. The mayors refused to treat with the Committee, arguing that Paris could not convoke itself without permission from the National Assembly. The Committee maintained that the people possessed the right to self-convocation in moments of crisis.
At a midnight meeting, the mayors and deputies promised to expedite municipal elections, but the Committee delegates demanded guarantees. After near-agreement—the Committee would retain control of the National Guard and security while surrendering administrative services—dispute erupted over the proclamation’s heading. The delegates proposed: ‘The deputies, mayors, and adjuncts, in accord with the Central Committee.’ The mayors and deputies refused to appear publicly allied with ‘insurgents’. Louis Blanc, Tirard, and Schoelcher denounced the delegates, with Blanc declaring them insurgents against a freely elected Assembly and insisting that any transaction must remain unacknowledged. Jourde replied that the people of Paris required public consent, then withdrew.
The author laments that no liberal bourgeois voice proposed a genuine alliance: the Committee supplying force and aspirations, the politicians supplying knowledge of realities, presenting a charter to the Assembly, and if rejected, holding elections together. Instead, Varlin alone withstood five hours of combined attack, eventually gave way under protest, then returned to the Hôtel-de-Ville, recognised the snare, and advised rejection of the mayors’ and deputies’ pretensions.