Then Maurice, who had escaped unharmed from the slaughter, his nerves still quivering with the fury that had inspired him on the battlefield, was filled with fresh detestation for that so-called government of law and order which always allowed itself to be beaten by the Prussians, and could only muster up a little courage when it came to oppressing Paris.  And the German armies were still there, from Saint-Denis to Charenton, watching the shameful spectacle of internecine conflict!  Thus, in the fierce longing for vengeance and destruction that animated him, he could not do otherwise than sanction the first measures of communistic violence, the building of barricades in the streets and public squares, the arrest of the archbishop, some priests, and former officeholders, who were to be held as hostages.  The atrocities that distinguished either side in that horrible conflict were already beginning to manifest themselves, Versailles shooting the prisoners it made, Paris retaliating with a decree that for each one of its soldiers murdered three hostages should forfeit their life.  The horror of it, that fratricidal conflict, that wretched nation completing the work of destruction by devouring its own children!  And the little reason that remained to Maurice, in the ruin of all the things he had hitherto held sacred, was quickly dissipated in the whirlwind of blind fury that swept all before it.  In his eyes the Commune was to be the avenger of all the wrongs they had suffered, the liberator, coming with fire and sword to purify and punish.  He was not quite clear in mind about it all, but remembered having read how great and flourishing the old free cities had become, how wealthy provinces had federated and imposed their law upon the world.  If Paris should be victorious he beheld her, crowned with an aureole of glory, building up a new France, where liberty and justice should be the watchwords, organizing a new society, having first swept away the rotten debris of the old.  It was true that when the result of the elections became known he was somewhat surprised by the strange mixture of moderates, revolutionists, and socialists of every sect and shade to whom the accomplishment of the great work was intrusted; he was acquainted with several of the men and knew them to be of extremely mediocre abilities.  Would not the strongest among them come in collision and neutralize one another amid the clashing ideas which they represented?  But on the day when the ceremony of the inauguration of the Commune took place before the Hotel de Ville, amid the thunder of artillery and trophies and red banners floating in the air, his boundless hopes again got the better of his fears and he ceased to doubt.  Among the lies of some and the unquestioning faith of others, the illusion started into life again with renewed vigor, in the acute crisis of the malady raised to paroxysmal pitch.