The concert took place in the Salle des Marechaux: a platform had been erected for the performers. The velvet curtains with their golden bees still draped the windows. From the gallery above I could see all that was going on. The Imperial balcony opens out of it; I went there, and leaned on the balustrade with a certain feeling of emotion. Below were the illuminated gardens, and far away at the end of the Champs Elysees, almost lost in the purple of the sky, rose the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile.

The roaring of the cannon at Vanves and Montrouge reached me where I stood. When the duet of the "Maitre de Chapelle" was over, I returned into the hall; the distant crashing of the mitrailleuse at Neuilly, borne towards us on the fresh spring breeze, in through the open windows, joined its voice to the applause of the audience.

Oh! what an audience! The faces in general looked fit subjects for the gibbet; others were simply disgusting: surprise, pleasure, and fear of Equality were reflected on every physiognomy. The carpenter, Pindy, military governor of the Hotel de Ville, was in close conversation with a girl from Philippe's. The ex-spy Clemence muttered soft speeches into the ear of a retired chiffonniere, who smiled awkwardly in reply. The cobbler Dereure was intently contemplating his boots; while Brilier, late coachman, hissed the singers by way of encouragement, as he would have done to his horses. They were going to recite some verses: I only waited to hear—

"PUIS, QUEL AVEUGLEMENT! QUEL NON-SENS POLITIQUE!"

an Alexandrine, doubtless, launched at the National Assembly, and made my way to the garden as quickly as I could.

There, in spite of the Venetian lamps, all was very dull and dark. The walks were almost deserted, although it was scarcely half-past nine. I took a turn beneath the trees: the evening was cold; and I soon left the gardens by the Rue de Rivoli gate. A good many people were standing there "to see the grand people come from the fete"—a fete given by lackeys in a deserted mansion!



LXXXVIII.

I was busy writing, when suddenly I heard a fearful detonation, followed by report on report. The windows rattled: I thought the house was shaking under me. The noise continued: it seemed as if cannon were roaring on all sides. I rushed down into the street; frightened people were running hither and thither, and asking questions. Some thought that the Versaillais were bombarding Paris on all sides. On the Boulevards I was told it was the fort of Vanves that had been blown up. At last I arrived on the Place de la Concorde: there the consternation was great, but nothing was known for certain. Looking up, I saw high up in the sky what looked like a dark cloud, but which was not a cloud. I tried again and again to obtain information. It appeared pretty certain that an explosion had taken place near the Ecole Militaire-doubtless at the Grenelle powder-magazine, I then turned into the Champs Elysees. A distant cracking was audible, like the noise of a formidable battery of mitrailleuses. Puffs of white smoke arose in the air and mingled with the dark cloud there. I no longer walked, I ran: I hoped to be able to see something from the Rond Point de l'Etoile. Once there, a grand and fearful sight met my eyes. Vast columns of smoke rolled over one another towards the sky. Every now and then the wind swept them a little on one side, and for an instant a portion of the city was visible beneath the rolling vapours. Then in an instant a flame burst out—only one, but that gigantic, erect, brilliant, as one that might dart forth from a Tolcano suddenly opened, up through the smoke which was reddened, illumined by the eruption of the fire. At the same moment there were explosions as of a hundred waggons of powder blown up one after another. All this scene, in its hideous splendour, blinded and deafened me. I wanted to get nearer, to feel the heat of the burning, to rush on. I had the fire-frenzy!

]

Going down to the Quai de Passy, I found a dense crowd there. Some one screamed out: "Go back! go back! the fire will soon reach the cartridge-magazine." The words had scarcely been uttered, when a storm of balls fell like hail amongst us. Each person thought himself wounded, and many took to their heels. It did not enter into my head to run away. From where I was then, the sight was still more terribly beautiful, and the crowd that had withdrawn from the spot soon re-assembled again. Dreadful details were passed from mouth to mouth. Four five-storied houses had fallen; no one dared to think even of the number of the victims. Bodies had been seen to fall from the windows, horribly mutilated; arms and legs had been picked up in different places. Near the powder-magazine is a hospital, which was shaken from foundation to roof: for an instant it had trembled violently as if it were going to fall. The nurses, dressers, and even the sick had rushed from the wards, shrieking in an agony of fear; the frightened horses, too, with blood streaming down their sides, pranced madly among the fugitives, or galloped away as fast as they could from the awful scene.

As to the cause of the explosion, opinions varied much. Some said it was owing to the negligence of the overseers or the imprudence of the workwomen; others, that the fire was caused by a shell. A woman rushed up to us, screaming out that she had just seen a man arrested in a shed in the Champ de Mars, who acknowledged having blown up the powder-magazine, by order of the Versailles government. Of course this was inevitable. The Commune would not let such a good opportunity pass for accusing its enemies. A few innocent people will be arrested, tried with more or less form, and shot; when they are so many corpses, the Commune will exclaim, "You see they must have been guilty: they have been shot!"

As evening came on I turned home, thinking that the cup was now filled to overflowing, and that the devoted city had had to suffer defeat, civil war, infamy, and death; but that this last disaster seemed almost more than divine justice. Ever and anon I turned my head to gaze again. In the gathering gloom, the flames looked blood-red, as if the Commune had unfurled its sinister banner over that irreparable disaster.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 97: Razoua served in a regiment of Spahis in Africa. Becoming acquainted with the journalists who used to frequent the Cafe de Madrid, he was a constant attendant there. He took up literature, and in 1867 published some violent articles in the Pilori of Victor Noir. He afterwards went with Delescluze to the Reveil, where his revolutionary principles were manifested. In the month of February, 1871, he was elected a member of the National Assembly by the people of Paris. After having sat for some time at Bordeaux, he gave his resignation, and became one of the Communal council.

Appointed governor of the Ecole Militaire, he distinguished himself in no way in his position, except by the sumptuous dinners and dejeuners with which he regaled his friends.]



LXXXIX.

I have gazed so long on what was passing around me that my eyes are weary. I have watched the slow decline of joy, of comfort and luxury, almost without knowing how everything has been dying around me, as a man in a ball-room where the candles are put out, one by one, may not perceive at first the gathering gloom. To see Paris, as it is at the present moment, as the Commune has made it, requires an effort. Let me shut my eyes, and evoke the vision of Paris as it was, living, joyous, happy even in the midst of sadness. I have done so—I have brought it all back to me; now I will open my eyes and look around me.

In the street that I inhabit not a vehicle of any kind is visible. Men in the uniform of National Guards pass and repass on the pavement; a lady is talking with her concierge on the threshold of one of the houses. They talk low. Many of the shops are closed; some have only the shutters up; a few are quite open. I see a woman at the bar of the wine-shop opposite, drinking.

Some quarters still resist the encroachments of silence and apathy. Some arteries continue to beat. Some ribbons here and there brighten up the shop-windows: bare-headed shopgirls pass by with a smile on their lips; men look after them as they trip along. At the corner of the Boulevards a sort of tumult is occasioned by a number of small boys and girls, venders of Communal journals, who screech out the name and title of their wares at the top of their voices. But even there where the crowd is thickest, one feels as if there were a void. The two contrary ideas of multitude and solitude seem to present themselves at once in one's mind. A weird impression! Imagine a vast desert with a crowd in it.

The Boulevards look interminable. There used to be a hundred obstacles between you and the distance; now there is nothing to prevent your looking as far as you like. Here and there a cab, an omnibus or two, and that is all. The passers-by are no longer promenaders. They have come out because they were obliged: without that they would have remained at home. The distances seem enormous now, and people who used to saunter about from morning till night will tell you now that "the Madeleine is a long way off." Very few men in black coats or blouses are to be seen; only very old men dare show themselves out of uniform. In front of the cafe's are seated officers of the Federal army, sometimes seven or eight around a table. When you get near enough, you generally find they are talking of the dismissal of their last commander. Here and there a lady walks rapidly by, closely veiled, mostly dressed in black, with an unpretending bonnet. The gallop of a horse is distinctly audible—in other times one would never have noticed such a thing; it is an express with despatches, a Garibaldian, or one of the Vengeurs de Flourens, who is hoisted on a heavy cart-horse that ploughs the earth with its ponderous forefeet. Several companies of Federals file up towards the Madeleine, their rations of bread stuck on the top of their bayonets. Look down the side-streets, to the right or the left, and you will see the sidewalks deserted, and not a vehicle from one end to the other of the road. Even on the Boulevards there are times when there is no one to be seen at all. However, beneath it all there is a longing to awaken, which is crushed and kept down by the general apathy.

In the evening one's impulses burst forth; one must move about; one must live. Passengers walk backwards and forwards, talking in a loud voice. But the crowd condenses itself between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Solitude has something terrible about it just now. People congregate together for the pleasure of elbowing each other, of trying to believe they are in great force. Quite a crowd collects round a little barefooted girl, who is singing at the corner of a street. A man seated before a low table is burning pastilles; another offers barley-sugar for sale; another has portraits of celebrities. Everybody tries hard to be gay; but the shops are closed, and the gas is sparingly lighted, so that broad shadows lie between the groups.

Some few persons go to the theatres; the playbills, however, are not seductive. If you go in, you will find the house nearly empty; the actors gabble their parts with as little action as possible. You see they are bored, and they bore us. Sometimes when some actor, naturally comic, says or does something funny, the audience laughs, and then suddenly leaves off and looks more serious than before. Laughter seems out of place. One does not know how to bear it; so one walks up and down the corridors, then instead of returning to the play, wanders out again on to the Boulevard. It is ten o'clock—dreadfully late. Many of the cafes are already closed for the night. At Tortoni's and the Cafe Anglais, not a glimmer is visible. The crowd has nearly disappeared. Only a few officers remain, who have been drinking all the evening in an estaminet. They call to each other to hurry on; perhaps one of them is drunk, but even he is not amusing. Let us go home. Scarcely anyone is left in the street. A bell is rung here and there, as the last of us reach our respective homes.

That, Commune de Paris, is what you have made of Paris! The Prussians came, Paris awaited them quietly with a smile; the shells fell on its houses, it ate black bread, it waited hours in the cold to obtain an ounce of horse-flesh or thirty pounds of green wood; it fought, but was vanquished; it was told to surrender, and "it was given up," as they say at the Hotel de Ville; and yet through all, Paris had not ceased to smile. And this, they say, constitutes its greatness; it was the last protestation against unmerited misfortunes; it was the remembrance of having once been proud and happy, and the hope of becoming so again; it was, in a word, Paris declaring it was Paris still. Well, what neither defeats, nor famine, nor capitulation could do, thou hast done! And accursed be thou, O Commune; for, as Macbeth murdered sleep, thou hast murdered our smiles!



XC.

The roaring of cannon close at hand, the whizzing of shells, volleys of musketry! I hear this in my sleep, and awake with a start. I dress and go out. I am told the troops have come in. "How? where? when?" I ask of the National Guards who come rushing down the street, crying out, "We are betrayed!" They, however, know but very little. They have come from the Trocadero, and have seen the red trousers of the soldiers in the distance. Fighting is going on near the viaduct of Auteuil, at the Champ de Mars. Did the assault take place last night or this morning? It is quite impossible to obtain any reliable information. Some talk of a civil engineer having made signals to the Versaillais; others say a captain in the navy was the first to enter Paris.[98] Suddenly about thirty men rush into the streets crying, "We must make a barricade." I turn back, fearing to be pressed into the service. The cannonading appears dreadfully near. A shell whistles over my head. I hear some one say, "The batteries of Montmartre are bombarding the Arc de Triomphe;" and strange enough, in this moment of horror and uncertainty, the thought crosses my mind that now the side of the arch on which is the bas-relief of Rude will be exposed to the shells. On the Boulevard there is only here and there a passenger hurrying along. The shops are closed; even the cafe's are shut up. The harsh screech of the mitrailleuse grows louder and nearer. The battle seems to be close at hand, all round me. A thousand contradictory suppositions rush through my brain and hurry me along, and here on the Boulevard there is no one that can tell me anything. I walk in the direction of the Madeleine, drawn there by a violent desire to know what is going on, which silences the voice of prudence. As I approach the Chaussee d'Antin I perceive a multitude of men, women, and children running backwards and forwards, carrying paving-stones. A barricade is being thrown up; it is already more than three feet high. Suddenly I hear the rolling of heavy wheels; I turn, and a strange sight is before me—a mass of women in rags, livid, horrible, and yet grand, with the Phrygian cap on their heads, and the skirts of their robes tied round their waists, were harnessed to a mitrailleuse, which they dragged along at full speed; other women pushing vigorously behind. The whole procession, in its sombre colours, with dashes of red here and there, thunders past me; I follow it as fast as I can. The mitrailleuse draws up a little in front of the barricade, and is hailed with wild clamours by the insurgents. The Amazons are being unharnessed as I come up. "Now," said a young gamin, such as one used to see in the gallery of the Theatre Porte St. Martin, "don't you be acting the spy here, or I will break your head open as if you were a Versaillais."—"Don't waste ammunition," cried an old man with a long white beard—a patriarch of civil war—"don't waste ammunition; and as for the spy, let him help to carry paving-stones. Monsieur," said he, turning to me with much politeness, "will you be so kind as to go and fetch those stones from the corner there?"



I did as I was bid, although I thought, with anything but pleasure, that if at that moment the barricade were attacked and taken, I might be shot before I had the time to say, "Allow me to explain." But the scene which surrounds me interests me in spite of myself. Those grim hags, with their red headdresses, passing the stones I give them rapidly from hand to hand, the men who are building them up only leaving off for a moment now and then to swallow a cup of coffee, which a young girl prepares over a small tin stove; the rifles symmetrically piled; the barricade, which rises higher and higher; the solitude in which we are working—only here and there a head appears at a window, and is quickly withdrawn; the ever-increasing noise of the battle; and, over all, the brightness of a dazzling morning sun—all this has something sinister and yet horribly captivating about it. While we are at work, they talk; I listen. The Versaillais have been coming in all night.[99] The Porte de la Muette and the Porte Dauphine have been surrendered by the 13th and the 113th battalions of the first arrondissement. "Those two numbers 13 will bring them ill-luck," says a woman. Vinoy is established at the Trocadero, and Douai at the Point du Jour: they continue to advance. The Champ de Mars has been taken from the Federals after two hours' fighting. A battery is erected at the Arc de Triomphe, which sweeps the Champs Elysees and bombards the Tuileries. A shell has fallen in the Rue du Marche Saint Honore. In the Cours-la-Reine the 188th battalion stood bravely. The Tuileries is armed with guns, and shells the Arc de Triomphe. In the Avenue de Marigny the gendarmes have shot twelve Federals who had surrendered; their bodies are still lying on the pavement in front of the tobacconist's. Rue de Sevres, the Vengeurs de Flourens have put to flight a whole regiment of the line: the Vengeurs have sworn to resist to a man. They are fighting in the Champs Elysees, around the Ministere de la Guerre, and on the Boulevard Haussman. Dombrowski has been killed at the Chateau de la Muette. The Versaillais have attacked the Western Saint Lazare station, and are marching towards the Pepiniere barracks. "We have been sold, betrayed, and surprised; but what does it matter, we will triumph. We want no more chiefs or generals; behind the barricades every man is a marshal!"



Eight or ten men come flying down the Chaussee d'Antin; they join, crying out, "The Versaillais have taken the barracks; they are establishing a battery. Delescluze has been captured at the Ministere de la Guerre."—"It is false!" exclaims a vivandiere; "we have just seen him at the Hotel de Ville."—"Yes, yes," cry out other women, "he is at the Hotel de Ville. He gave us a mitrailleuse. Jules Valles embraced us, one after another; he is a fine man, he is! He told us all was going well, that the Versaillais should never have Paris, that we shall surround them, and that it will all be over in two days."—"Vive la Commune!" is the reply. The barricade is by this time finished. They expect to be attacked every second. "You," said a sergeant, "you had better be off, if you care for your life." I do not wait for the man to repeat his warning. I retrace my steps up the Boulevard, which is less solitary than it was. Several groups are standing at the doors. It appears quite certain that the troops of the Assembly have been pretty successful since they came in. The Federals, surprised by the suddenness and number of the attacks, at first lost much ground. But the resistance is being organised. They hold their own at the Place de la Concorde; at the Place Vendome they are very numerous, and have at their disposal a formidable amount of artillery. Montmartre is shelling furiously. I turn up the Rue Vivienne, where I meet several people in search of news. They tell me that "two battalions of the Faubourg Saint Germain have just gone over to the troops, with their muskets reversed. A captain of the National Guard has been the first in that quarter to unfurl the tricolour. A shell had set fire to the Ministere des Finances, but the firemen in the midst of the shot and shell had managed to put it out." At the Place de la Bourse I find three of four hundred Federals constructing a barricade; having gained some experience, I hurry on to escape the trouble of being pressed into the service. The surrounding streets are almost deserted; Paris is in hiding. The cannonading is becoming more furious every minute. I cross the garden of the Palais Royal. There I see a few loiterers, a knot of children are skipping. The Rue de Rivoli is all alive with people. A battalion marches hurriedly from the Hotel de Ville; at the head rides a young man mounted on a superb black horse. It is Dombrowski. I had been told he was dead. He is very pale. "A fragment of shell hit him in the chest at La Muette, but did not enter the flesh," says some one. The men sing the Chant du Depart as they march along. I see a few women carrying arms among the insurgents; one who walks just behind Dombrowski has a child in her arms. Looking in the direction of the Place de la Concorde, I see smoke arising from the terrace of the Tuileries. In front of the Ministere des Finances, this side of the barricade is a black mass of something; I think I can distinguish wheels; it is either cannon or engines. All around is confusion. I can hear the musketry distinctly, but the noise seems to come from the Champs Elysees; they are not firing at the barricade. I turn and walk towards the Hotel de Ville: mounted expresses ride constantly past; companies of Federals are here and there lying on the ground around their piled muskets. By the Rue du Louvre there is another barricade; a little further there is another and then another.[100] Close to Saint Germain l'Auxerrois women are busy pulling down the wooden seats; children are rolling empty wine-barrels and carrying sacks of earth. As one nears the Hotel de Ville the barricades are higher, better armed, and better manned. All the Nationals here look ardent, resolved, and fierce. They say little, and do not shout at all. Two guards, seated on the pavement, are playing at picquet. I push on, and am allowed to pass. The barricades are terminated here, and I have nothing to fear from paving-stones. Looking up, I see that all the windows are closed, with the exception of one, where two old women are busy putting a mattress between the window and the shutter. A sentinel, mounting guard in front of the Cafe de la Compagnie du Gaz, cries out to me, "You can't pass here!" I therefore seat myself at a table in front of the cafe, which has doubtless been left open by order, and where several officers are talking in a most animated manner. One of them rises and advances towards me. He asks me rudely what I am doing there. I will not allow myself to be abashed by his tone, but draw out my pass from my pocket and show it him, without saying a word. "All right," says he, and then seats himself by my side, and tells me, "I know it already, that a part of the left bank of the river is occupied by the troops of the Assembly, that fighting is going on everywhere, and that the army on this side is gradually retreating.—Street fighting is our affair, you see," he continues. "In such battles as that, the merest gamin from Belleville knows more about it than MacMahon.... It will be terrible. The enemy shoots the prisoners." (For the last two months the Commune had been saying the same thing.) "We shall give no quarter."—I ask him, "Is it Delescluze who is determined to resist?"—"Yes," he answers.[101] "Lean forward a little. Look at those three windows to the left of the trophy. That is the Salle de l'Etat-Major. Delescluze is there giving orders, signing commissions. He has not slept for three days. Just now I scarcely knew him, he was so worn out with fatigue. The Committee of Public Safety sits permanently in a room adjoining, making out proclamations and decrees."—"Ha, ha!" said I, "decrees!"—"Yes, citizen, he has just decreed heroism!"[102] The officer gives me several other bits of information. Tells me that "Lullier this very morning has had thirty refractaires shot, and that Rigault has gone to Mazas to look after the hostages." While he is talking, I try to see what is going on in the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. Two or three thousand Federals are there, some seated, some lying on the ground. A lively discussion is going on. Several little barrels are standing about on chairs; the men are continually getting up and crowding round the barrels, some have no glasses, but drink in the palms of their hands. Women walk up and down in bands, gesticulating wildly. The men shout, the women shriek. Mounted expresses gallop out of the Hotel, some in the direction of the Bastille, some towards the Place de la Concorde. The latter fly past us crying out, "All's well!" A man comes out on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville and addresses the crowd. All the Federals start to their feet enthusiastically.—"That's Valles," says my neighbour to me. I had already recognised him. I frequently saw him in the students' quarter in a little cremerie in the Rue Serpente. He was given to making verses, rather bad ones by-the-bye; I remember one in particular, a panegyric on a green coat. They used to say he had a situation in the pompes funebres.[103] His face even then wore a bitter and violent expression. He left poetry for journalism, and then journalism for politics.

]

To-day he is spouting forth at a window of the Hotel de Ville. I cannot catch a word of what he says; but as he retires he is wildly applauded. Such applause pains me sadly. I feel that these men and these women are mad for blood, and will know how to die. Alas! how many dead and dying already! neither the cannonading nor the musketry has ceased an instant. I now see a number of women walk out of the Hotel, the crowd makes room for them to pass. They come our way. They are dressed in black, and have black crape tied round their arms and a red cockade in their bonnets. My friend the officer tells me that they are the governesses who have taken the places of the nuns. Then he walks up to them and says, "Have you succeeded?"—"Yes," answers one of them, "here is our commission. The school children are to be employed in making sacks and filling them with earth, the eldest ones to load the rifles behind the barricades. They will receive rations like National Guards, and a pension will be given to the mothers of those who die for the Republic. They are mad to fight, I assure you. We have made them work hard during the last month, this will be their holiday!" The woman who says this is young and pretty, and speaks with a sweet smile on her lips. I shudder. Suddenly two staff officers appear and ride furiously up to the Hotel de Ville; they have come from the Place Vendome. An instant later and the trumpets sound. The companies form in the Place, and great agitation reigns in the Hotel. Men rush in and out. The officers who are in the cafe where I am get up instantly, and go to take their places at the head of their men. A rumour spreads that the Versaillais have taken the barricades on the Place de la Concorde.—"By Jove! I think you had better go home," says my neighbour to me, as he clasps his sword belt; "we shall have hot work here, and that shortly." I think it prudent to follow this advice. One glance at the Place before I go. The companies of Federals have just started off by the Rue de Rivoli and the quays at a quick march, crying "Vive la Commune!" a ferocious joy beaming in their faces. A young man, almost a lad, lags a little behind, a woman rushes up to him, and lays hold of his collar, screaming, "Well, and you, are you not going to get yourself killed with the others?"



I reach the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, where another barricade is being built up. I place a paving-stone upon it and pass on. Soon I see open shops and passengers in the streets. This tradesmen's quarter seems to have outlived the riot of Paris. Here one might almost forget the frightful civil war which wages so near, if the conversation of those around did not betray the anguish of the speakers, and if you did not hear the cannon roaring out unceasingly, "People of Paris, listen to me! I am ruining your houses. Listen to me! I am killing your children."

On the boulevards more barricades; some nearly finished, others scarcely commenced. One constructed near the Porte Saint Martin looks formidable. That spot seems destined to be the theatre of bloody scenes, of riot and revolution. In 1852, corpses laid piled up behind the railing, and all the pavement tinged with blood. I return home profoundly sad; I can scarcely think.—I feel in a dream, and am tired to death; my eyelids droop of themselves; I am like one of those houses there with closed shutters.

Near the Gymnase I meet a friend whom I thought was at Versailles. We shake hands sadly. "When did you come back?" I ask.—"To-day; I followed the troops."—Then turning back with me he tells me what he has seen. He had a pass, and walked into Paris behind the artillery and the line, as far as the Trocadero, where the soldiers halted to take up their line of battle. Not a single man was visible along the whole length of the quays. At the Champ de Mars he did not see any insurgents. The musketry seemed very violent near Vaugirard on the Pont Royal and around the Palais de l'Industrie. Shells from Montmartre repeatedly fell on the quays. He could not see much,—however only the smoke in the distance. Not a soul did he meet. Such frightful noise in such solitude was fearful. He continued his way under shelter of the parapet. In one place he saw some gamins cutting huge pieces of flesh off the dead body of a horse that was lying in the path. There must have been fighting there. Down by the water a man fishing while two shells fell in the river, a little higher up, a yard or two from the shore. Then he thought it prudent to get nearer to the Palais de l'Industrie. The fighting was nearly over then, but not quite. The Champs Elysees was melancholy in the extreme; not a soul was there. This was only too literally true; for several corpses lay on the ground. He saw a soldier of the line lying beneath a tree, his forehead covered with blood. The man opened his month as if to speak as he heard the sound of footsteps, the eyelids quivered and then there was a shiver, and all was over. My friend walked slowly away. He saw trees thrown down and bronze lamp-posts broken; glass crackled under his feet as he passed near the ruined kiosques. Every now and then turning his head he saw shells from Montmartre fall on the Arc de Triomphe and break off large fragments of stone. Near the Tuileries was a confused mass of soldiery against a background of smoke. Suddenly he heard the whizzing of a ball and saw the branch of a tree fall. From one end of the avenue to the other, no one; the road glistened white in the sun. Many dead were to be seen lying about as he crossed the Champs Elysees. All the streets to the left were full of soldiery; there had been fighting there, but it was over now. The insurgents had retreated in the direction of the Madeleine. In many places tricolor flags were hanging from the windows, and women were smiling, and waving their handkerchiefs to the troops. The presence of the soldiery seemed to reassure everybody. The concierges were seated before their doors with pipes in their mouths, recounting to attentive listeners the perils from which they had escaped; how balls pierced the mattresses put up at the windows, and how the Federals had got into the houses to hide. One said, "I found three of them in my court; I told a lieutenant they were there, and he had them shot. But I wish they would take them away; I cannot keep dead bodies in the house." Another was talking with some soldiers, and pointing out a house to them. Four men and a corporal went into the place indicated, and an instant afterwards my friend heard the cracking of rifles. The concierge rubbed his hands and winked at the bystanders, while another was saying, "They respect nothing those Federals; during the battle they came in to steal. They wanted to take away my clothes, my linen, everything I have, but I told them to leave that, that it was not good enough for them, that they ought to go up to the first floor, where they would find clocks and plate, and I gave them the key. Well, Messieurs, you would never believe what they have done, the rascals! They took the key and went and pillaged everything on the first floor!" My friend had heard enough, and passed on. The agitation everywhere was very great. The soldiers went hither and thither, rang the bells, went into the houses; and brought out with them pale-faced prisoners. The inhabitants continued to smile politely, but grimly. Here and there dead bodies were lying in the road. A man who was pushing a truck allowed one of the wheels to pass over a corpse that was lying with its head on the curbstone. "Bah!" said he, "it won't do him any harm." The dead and wounded were, however, being carried away as quickly as possible.



The cannon had now ceased roaring, and the fight was still going on close at hand—at the Tuileries doubtless. The townspeople were tranquil and the soldiery disdainful. A strange contrast; all these good citizens smiling and chatting, and the soldiers, who had come to save them at the peril of their lives, looking down upon them with the most careless indifference. My friend reached the Boulevard Haussmann; there the corpses were in large numbers. He counted thirty in less than a hundred yards. Some were lying under the doorways; a dead woman was seated on the bottom stair of one of the houses. Near the church of "La Trinite" were two guns, the reports from which were deafening; several of the shells fell on a bathing establishment in the Rue Taitbout opposite the Boulevard. On the Boulevard itself, not a person was to be seen. Here and there dark masses, corpses doubtless. However, the moment the noise of the report of a gun had died away, and while the gunners were reloading, heads were thrust out from doors to see what damage had been done—to count the number of trees broken, benches torn up, and kiosques overturned. From some of the windows rifles were fired. My friend then reached the street he lived in and went home. He was told that during the morning they had violently bombarded the College Chaptal, where the Zouaves of the Commune had fortified themselves; but the engagement was not a long one, they made several prisoners and shot the rest.

My friend shut himself up at home, determined not to go out. But his impatience to see and hear what was going on forced him into the streets again. The Pepiniere barracks were occupied by troops of the line; he was able to get to the New Opera without trouble, leaving the Madeleine, where dreadful fighting was going on, to the right. On the way were to be seen piled muskets, soldiers sitting and lying about, and corpses everywhere. He then managed, without incurring too much danger, to reach the Boulevards, where the insurgents, who were then very numerous, had not yet been attacked. He worked for some little time at the barricade, and then was allowed to pass on. It was thus that we had met. Just as we were about to turn up the Faubourg Montmartre a man rushed up saying that three hundred Federals had taken refuge in the church of the Madeleine, followed by gendarmes, and had gone on fighting for more than an hour. "Now," he finished up by saying, "if the cure were to return he would find plenty of people to bury!"

I am now at home. Evening has come at last; I am jotting down these notes just as they come into my head. I am too much fatigued both in mind and body to attempt to put my thoughts into order. The cannonading is incessant, and the fusillade also. I pity those that die, and those that kill! Oh! poor Paris, when will experience make you wiser?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 98: It was known by this time at Versailles in what a desperate condition was the Commune, by the information of persons devoted to order, but who remained amongst the insurgents to keep watch over and restrain them as much as possible.

The Versailles authorities know that, thanks to the well-directed fire of Montretout, the bastions of the Point du Jour were no longer tenable, and that their defenders had abandoned them and had organized new works of defence; nevertheless, the operations were earned on just as systematically as if the fire of the besieged had not ceased for several days, when, on Sunday, the 21st May, about midday, an officer on duty in the trenches, in course of formation in the Bois de Boulogne, perceived a man making signs with a white handkerchief near the military post of Saint Cloud; the officer immediately approached near enough to hear the bearer of the flag of truce, say:—

"My name is Ducatel, and I belong to the service of the Engineers of Roads and Bridges, and I have been a soldier. I declare that your entrance into Paris is easy, and as a guarantee of the truth of what I say, I am about to give myself up;" so saying, he passed over the fosse by means of one of the supports of the drawbridge, in spite of several shots fired at him by Federals hidden in the houses at Auteuil, but none of which reached him.

A few resolute men now passed over the fosse, and arrived without accident on the other side. A few insurgents, who were still there, made off without loss of time, leaving the invaders to establish themselves, and wait for reinforcements.

A short time after a white flag was exhibited in the neighbouring bastion, which bore the number 62, and the fire from Montretout and Mont Valerien was stopped, the infantry of the Marine took possession of the gate, out the telegraphic wires which were supposed to be in communication with torpedoes, while information was immediately despatched to Versailles of these important events.

The division of General Verge, placed for the time under the orders of General Douay, entered the gate at half-past three in the afternoon, and took possession of Point du Jour, after having taken several barricades; at one of these, Ducatel was sent with a flag of trace towards the insurgents, who offered to surrender, but he received a bayonet wound, was carried off to the Ecole Militaire, tried by court-martial and condemned to death, from which he was fortunately snatched by the arrival of the Versailles troops at the Trocadero at two o'clock in the morning.

At the same time, the first corps d'armee (that of General L'Admirault), made its way into the city by the Portes d'Auteuil and Passy, and took up a strong position in the streets of Passy.]

[Footnote 99: At ten o'clock at night, the army had taken possession of the region comprised between the ceinture, or circular railway, and the fortifications, the streets of Auteuil to the viaduct, and the bridge of Grenelle.

At midnight, the movement which had been suspended for a time to rest the troops, was recommenced all along the line.

At two o'clock in the morning, General Douay occupied the Trocadero; and at about four o'clock his soldiers, after a short struggle, captured the chateau of La Muette, making about six hundred prisoners, and then, advancing in the direction of Porte Maillot, they joined the troops of General Clinchant, who had got within the ramparts on that side.

At the break of day, the tricolour floated over the Arc de Triomphe, without the Versailles forces having sustained sensible loss. All this passed on the right bank of the Seine.]

[Footnote 100: The insurrectionists followed a decided and pre-conceived plan. The barricades, which intersected the streets of Paris in every direction, were arranged on a general system which showed considerable skill. Was this ensemble a conception of Cluseret? or a plan of Gaillard, or Eudes, or Rossel? No one now could say which, but at any rate we are able to deduce the plan from the facts and set it out as follows:—

Within the line of the fortifications the insurgents had formed a second line of defence, which runs on the right bank of the river, by the Trocadero, the Triumphal Arch, the Boulevard de Courcelles, the Boulevard de Batignolles, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart; and on the left across the bridge of Iena, the Avenue de la Bourdonnaye, the Ecole Militaire, the Boulevard des Invalides, the Boulevard Montparnasse, and the Western Railway Station. Along the whole extent of this circuit the entrances of the streets were barricades, and the "Places" turned into redoubts.

From this double enceinte of fortifications the lines of defence converged along the great boulevards, the Rue Royale, by the Ministry of Marine, the terrace of the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the Palace of the Corps Legislatif, the Rue de Bourgogne, and the Rue de Varenne. This third enceinte of defence was the pride of the insurgents; they were never tired of admiring their celebrated barricade of the Rue St. Florentin, and that which intercepted the quay at the corner of the Tuileries Gardens on the Place de la Concorde.

This is not all. Supposing that the third line were forced, the insurgents would not even then be without resource. On the left bank of the Seine they fell back successively on the Rue de Grenelle, Rue Saint Dominique, and Rue de Lille, all three closed by barricades; on the right bank they could carry on the struggle by the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, the Rue de la Paix, and the Place Vendome, and even when beaten back from these last retreats, they could still defend the Rue St. Honore and operate a retreat by the Palace of the Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.]

[Footnote 101: In the following proclamation, published on the 21st May, Delescluze stimulated the Communist party, which felt its power melting away on all sides:

"TO THE PEOPLE OF PARIS, TO THE NATIONAL GUARD.

"CITIZENS,—We have had enough of militaryism; let us have no more stuffs embroidered and gilt at every seam!

"Make room for the people, the real combatants, the bare arms! The hour of the revolutionary war has struck!

"The people know nothing of scientific manoeuvres, but with a rifle in hand and the pavement beneath their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school.

"To arms, citizens! To arms! You must conquer, or, as you well know, fall again into the pitiless hands of the reactionaires and clericals of Versailles; those wretches who with intention delivered France up to Prussia, and now make us pay the ransom of their treason!

"If you desire the generous blood which you have shed like water during the last six weeks not to have been shed in vain, if you would see liberty and equality established in France, if you would spare your children sufferings and misery such as you have endured, you will rise as one man, and before your formidable bands the enemy who indulges the idea of bringing you again under his yoke, will reap nothing but the harvest of the useless crimes with which he has disgraced himself during the past two months.

"Citizens! your representatives will fight and die with you, if fall we must; but, in the name of our glorious France, mother of all the popular revolutions, the permanent source of ideas of justice and unity, which should be and which will be the laws of the world, march to the encounter of the enemy, and let your revolutionary energy prove to him that Paris may he sold, but can never be delivered up or conquered.

"The Commune confides in you, and you may trust the Commune!

"The civil delegate at the Ministry of War,

"(Signed)

"CH. DELESCLUZE.

"Countersigned by the Committee of Public Safety:—Antoine Arnauld, Billioray, E. Eudes, F. Gambon, G. Ranvier."

Such was the despairing cry of the insurrection at bay.]

[Footnote 102: See Appendix, No. 9.]

[Footnote 103: There are no private undertakers and funeral furnishers in Paris. It is all done by a company, under the supervision of Government, a very large concern, called the Pompes Funebres.]

[Footnote 104: Jules Valles was one of the most conspicuous among the men of the 18th of March. He had been journalist, working printer, a clerk at the Hotel de Ville, editor of a newspaper, pamphleteer, and cafe orator in turn, but always noisy and boastful. Andre Gill, the caricaturist, once drew him as an undertaker's dog, dragging a saucepan behind him, and the caricature told Valles' story well enough. In face he was ugly, but energetic in expression, almost to ferociousness.

He was born at Puy, in 1833, and on leaving the college of Nantes, came to study law in Paris, but politics occupied him chiefly, and he soon got himself shut up in Mazas as a political prisoner. After some time spent in confinement, he obtained his liberty, and published at Nantes, a pamphlet under the title of "Money: by a literary man become a journalist;" and the pamphlet, having gained him some slight popularity, he was engaged, later, on the Figaro, to write the reports of the Bourse, and in the meantime he eked out his slender salary by working as a clerk at the Hotel de Ville. When Ernest Feydeau brought out the Epoque, in 1864, Jules Valles published a few articles in its columns, and a little later became a writer on the Evenement, with the magnificent salary of eighteen thousand francs a year. A month afterwards, he was without occupation again, but he soon re-appeared with a new journal of his own, La Rue, La Sue, in its turn, however, only lived during a few numbers, and Jules Valles now took up cafe politics, and practised table oratory at the Estaminet de Madrid, where he fostered and expounded the projects which he has since brought to so fearful a result.

In 1869, he became one of the most inveterate speakers at election meetings, and presented himself as a candidate for the Corps Legislatif. He was not elected, but the profession of opinions that he then made was certain to obtain him a seat in the Communal Assembly. One of the last articles in the Cri du People of Jules Valles announced the fatal resolution of defending Paris by all possible means. An article finishing with this prophetic sentence, "M. Thiers, if he is chemist enough will understand us."]



XCI.

It is imprudent to go out; the night was almost peaceable, the morning is hideous. The roar of musketry is intense and without interruption. I suppose there must be fighting going on in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. I start back, the noise is so fearful. In the Cour Trevise not a person to be seen, the houses are closely shut and barred. On a second floor I hear a great moving of furniture, and hear quite distinctly the sound of sobbing, of female sobbing. I hear that the second floor of the house is inhabited by a member of the Commune and his family. I am about to go up and see if I can be of any help to the women in case of danger, when I see a man precipitately enter the Court. He wears a uniform of lieutenant; I recognise him, it is the porter. He stops, looks around him, and seeing that he is alone, takes his rifle in both hands and throws it with all his strength over the high wall which is on the left hand of the Court. That done, he rushes into the house. There I distinctly hear him say to his wife, "The barricade is taken, give me a blouse, they are at Montmartre. We are done for!" I think, the porter must have made a mistake, and that the battery is not taken yet, for I hear the whistling of a shell that, seems to come from Montmartre. The deafening clamour on all sides redoubles, all the separate noises seem to confound themselves in one ceaseless roar, like the working of a million of hammers on a million of anvils. I can scarcely bear it; my hands clutch the door-posts convulsively. I lean out as far as I can, but see nothing but a company of soldiers preceded by two gendarmes, who are entering the Court. They stop before the door of the house. Several of them go in, and then I hear the sound of a door suddenly opened and shut, and heavy steps on the wooden floor. I feel myself trembling; this man they have come to arrest—are they going to shoot him here, in his own apartment, before his wife? Thank God, no! The two gendarmes reappear in the street holding the prisoner between them; his hands are bound; the soldiers surround them, and they are going to march away, when the man, lifting up his arms, cries fiercely, "I have but one regret, that I did not blow up the whole of the quarter." At this instant the window above is opened, and a woman with grey hair leans out, crying, "Die in peace, I will avenge you!" At these words the soldiers arrest their steps, and the two gendarmes re-enter the house. They are going to take the wife prisoner after having taken the husband. I fall back into a chair horrified; I shut my eyes not to see, and I press my hands on my ears, not to hear the dreadful sound of the musketry, but the horrible shrill noise is triumphant, and I hear it all the same.



XCII.

Oh! those that hear it not, how happy they must be; they will never understand how fearful this continuous, this dreadful noise is, and to feel that each ball is aimed at some breast, and each shell brings ruin in its train. Fear and horror wrings one's heart and maddens one's brain. Visions pass before one's eyes of corpses, of houses crushing sleeping inmates, of men falling and crying out for mercy! and one feels quite strange to go on living among the crowds that die!

I have been out a little while, a ball whistled over my shoulder, and flattened itself against an iron bar on a shop front. I heard a mass of glass shiver into fragments on the pavement. I determined to return home.

On my way back, I had to pass in front of a liqueur shop, the door of which was open, and several men were talking there. I stopped to learn the news. Montmartre is taken; the Federals had not opposed much resistance; but a great deal of firing had gone on in the side streets and lanes. Seven insurgents were surrounded. "Give yourselves up, and your lives will be saved," cried out the soldiers. They replied, "We are prisoners;" but one of them drew his revolver and shot an officer in the leg. Then the soldiers took the seven men, threw them into a large hole, and shot them from above like so many rabbits. Another man told me that he had seen a child lying dead at the corner of the Rue de Rome. "A pretty little fellow," he said, "his brains were strewed on the pavement beside him." A third, that when all the fighting was over at the Place Saint-Pierre a rifle shot was heard, and a captain of Chasseurs fell dead. The major who was there, looked up and saw a man trying to hide himself behind a chimney pot; the soldiers got into the house, seized him on the roof, and brought him down into the Place. What did the insurgent do, but walked up to the major, smiling, and hit him a blow on the cheek. The major set him up against a wall, and blew his brains out with a revolver. Another insurgent who was arrested, made an insulting grimace at the soldiers; they shot him. On the southern sides of Paris, the operations of the army have not been so fortunate as on this. In the Faubourg St. Germain it advances very slowly, if it advance at all. The Federals fight with heroic courage at the Mont-Parnasse Station, the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and the Croix-Rouge; from the corners of the streets, from the windows, from the balconies proceed shots rarely ineffective. This sort of warfare fatigues the soldiers, particularly as the discipline prevents them from using the same measures. At Saint-Quen, likewise, the march of the troops is stayed; the barricade of the Rue de Clichy holds out, and will hold out some time. In other quarters the advantages gained by the Versaillais are evident. Here and there some small show of resistance is offered, but the insurgents are flying. I cannot tell whether all these floating rumours are true. As I return home, I look round; in the Rue Geoffrey-Marie, near the Faubourg Montmartre, I see a National Guard alone in the middle of the street, nothing to screen him whatsoever; he loads his rifle and fires, loads and fires again; again and again! Thirty-three times! Then the rifle slips to the ground, and the man staggers and falls.



XCIII.

This morning, the 23rd, after a combat of three hours, the barricade of the Place de Clichy has not yet yielded. Yet two battalions of National Guards had, at the beginning of the fight, reversed their arms, and were fraternising with the soldiers on the Place de la Maine, a hundred and fifty yards from the scene of the fray. The cracking of the rifles, the explosion of shells, and the sound of mitrailleuses filled the air. The smell of powder was stifling. Dreadful cries arose from the poor wounded wretches; and the whizzing projectiles from Montmartre rent the air above in their fiery course. "Beneath us," said an inhabitant of Batignolles who gave me these particulars, "beneath us the city lay like a seething caldron."

The beating of drums and the sharp trumpet-calls mixed in this monstrous din, and were every now and then lost in the tremendous noise of the firing.

About half-past one the sounds grew quieter; the barricade was taken. The insurgents were retreating to La Chapelle and Belleville in disorder; the soldiers of the line rushed like a torrent into the Avenue de Clichy, leaving a tricolour flag hoisted upon the dismantled barricade.

Here and there, in the streets, the struggle had not ceased. In the Rue Blanche a rifle-shot proceeded from a ground-floor; the man was taken and executed outside his own door. The artillery was moving up the Rue Chaptal towards Montmartre and La Chapelle. The day was very hot; pails of water were thrown over the guns to quench their burning thirst. All the young men who were found in the streets were provisionally put under arrest, for they feared everyone, even children, and horrible vengeance and thirst for blood had seized upon all. Suddenly an isolated shot would be heard, followed a minute or two after by five or six others. One knew reprisal had been done.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, when the quarters of Belleville and Clichy were pretty well cleared of troops, two insurgents were walking, one behind the other, in the Rue Leonie. The one who walked last lifted his rifle and fired carelessly in the direction of the windows; the report sounded very loudly in the silent street, and a pane of glass fell in fragments to the ground. The insurgent who was in front did not even turn his head; these men seem to have become quite reckless and deaf to everything.

What the troops feared the most were the sharp-shooters hidden in the houses, aiming through little holes and cracks; suddenly a snap would be heard, and the officers would lift their glassed to their eyes; more often nothing was to be seen at all, but if the slightest shadow were visible behind a window curtain, the order was, "Search that house!" The executions did not take place in the apartments. Now and then an inhabitant or two were brought down into the street, and those never returned!



XCIV.

It is the middle of the night; and I awake with a terrible start. A bright red light streams through the panes. I throw open the window; the sky to the left is one mass of dark smoke and lurid streaks of light—it is a fire, Paris on fire![105] I dress and go out. At the corner of the Rue de Trevise a sentinel stops me, "You can't pass." I am so bewildered that I do not think of noticing whether he is a Federal or a soldier. What am I to do, where am I to go? Although an hour ago balls were whistling around, there are now people at every window. "The Ministere des Finances is on fire! the Rue Royale! the Louvre!" The Louvre! I can scarcely avoid a cry of horror. In a minute the enormity of the disaster has broken upon me. Oh! chefs-d'oeuvre without number! I see you devoured, consumed, reduced to ashes! I see the walls tottering, the canvases fall from the frames and shrivel up; the "Marriage of Canaan" is in flames! Raphael is struggling in the burning furnace! Leonardo da Vinci is no more! This was, indeed, an unexpected calamity! Fortune had reserved this terrible surprise for us! But I will not believe it, these rumours are false, doubtless! How should these people who inhabit this quarter know what I am ignorant of? Yet over our heads the sky is tinged with black and red!



A strange smell fills the air, like that of a monstrous petroleum lamp just lighted. That dreaded word, petroleum, makes me shudder. Once distinctly I hear the sound of a vast body falling heavily. Not to be able to obtain information is terrible; not to know what is going on, while all around seems on fire; the day is beginning to break, the musketry and the cannonading commences afresh, it is a hell, with death for its girdle! In front of me I see the corner of a building lighted up by the fire, on which little spirals of smoke are reflected from the distant conflagration. I rush home, I want to hide myself, to sleep, to forget. When I am in my room, I see through the white curtains of the window a bright light. I tremble and rush to the window! It is the gilt letters of a signboard, on the opposite side of the way, that are darting forth brilliant flashes, borrowed from the distant flames.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 105: The 24th May the COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY issued these cold-blooded decrees:—

"Citizen Milliere, at the head of one hundred and fifty fuse-bearers, is to set fire to all houses Of suspicious aspect, as well as to the public monuments of the left bank of the Seine.

"Citizen Dereure, with one hundred and fifty fuse-bearers, is charged with the 1st and 2nd Arrondissement.

"Citizen Billioray, with one hundred men, is charged with the 9th, 10th, and 20th Arrondissements.

"Citizen Vesinier, with fifty men, has the Boulevards of the Madeleine and of the Bastille especially entrusted to him.

"These Citizens are to come to an understanding with the officers commanding the barricades, for the execution of these orders.

"DELESCLUZE, REGERE, RANVINE, JOHANNARD, VESINIER, BRUNEL, DOMBROWSKI.

"Paris, 3 Prairial, year 79."

]

]



XCV.

Certainly I nursed no vain illusions. What you had done, gentlemen of the Commune, had enlightened me as to your value, and as to the purity of your intentions. Seeing you lie, steal, and kill, I had said to you, "You are liars, robbers, and murderers;" but truly, in spite of Citizen Felix Pyat, who is a coward, and Citizen Miot, who is a fool; in spite of Milliere, who shot refractaires, and Philippe, whose trade shall be nameless; in spite of Dacosta, who amused himself with telling the Jesuits at the Conciergerie, "Mind, you are to be shot in an hour," and then an hour afterwards returning to say, "I have thought about it, and it is for tomorrow;" in spite of Johannard, who executed a child of fifteen guilty of selling a suppressed newspaper; in spite of Rigault, who, chucking the son of Chaudey under the chin, laughingly said to him, "Tomorrow, little one, we shall shoot papa;" in spite of all the madmen and fools that constituted the Commune de Paris, who after being guilty of more extravagances than are necessary to get a man sent to the Madhouse of Charenton, and more crimes than are sufficient to shut him up in prison at Sainte-Pelagie, had managed, by means of every form, of wickedness and excess, to make our beloved Paris a frightened slave, crouching to earth under their abominable tyranny; in spite of everything, I could not have dreamed that even their demoniac fury could have gone so far as to try to burn Paris, after having ruined it! Nero of the gutter! Sardanapalus drunk with vitriol! So your vanity wanted such a volcano to engulf you, and you wished to die by the light of such an auto-da-fe. Instead of torches around your funeral car, you wished the Tuileries, the library of the Louvre, and the Palace of the Legion of Honour burnt to ashes, the Rue Royale one vast conflagration, where the walls as they fell buried alive women and children, and the Rue de Lille vomiting fire and smoke like the crater of Vesuvius.



It has pleased you that thousands of families should be ruined, their savings scattered in the ashes of the vanished papers of the burnt Ministere des Finances and the Caisse des depots. In seeing that the art-galleries of the Louvre had remained intact, only its library burnt, you must have been seized with mad rage. How! Notre Dame not yet in flames? Sainte-Chapelle not on fire? Have you no more petroleum, no more flaming torches? The cry "To Arms!" is not enough, you must shout "To Fire!" Would you consume the entire city, and make of its ruins a horrible monument to your memory?

Do not say, "We have not done this; it is the people who are working out their own revenge, and we stand for nothing, we are as gentle as lambs. Ranvier would not hurt a fly." Away with all this pretence; were you not on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville with your blood-red scarfs, uttering your commands? The populace, deceived and blinded, have but obeyed you. Do not all the circumstances leading to this stupendous catastrophe, reveal an elaborate and digested plan, determined long beforehand? Did we not read this notice, daily, in your official journal: "All those who have petroleum are requested immediately to declare the quantities in their possession?" Was there not a quick-match extinguished in the quarter of the Invalides that was to have communicated the flames to barrels of powder placed, long ago, in the great sewers? Yes, what has taken place you had decreed. If the disasters have not been more terrible, is it not, that, surprised at the sudden arrival of the troops, you had not the time to finish your preparations? Yes, you are the criminals! It was Eudes who gave out the petroleum to the Petroleuses; it was Felix Pyat who laid the train of gunpowder. It is Tridon who said: "Take care that the phials be not uncorked." The public incendiary committee has well performed its duty! Wicked criminals! Execrable madmen! May Heaven bear me witness that my heart abhors revenge, is always inclined to pardon—but for these! What chastisement can be great enough to appease the wrath of justice! What vow of repentance could be offered up fervent enough to be received in Heaven, even at the moment when, struck down by balls, they offer their lives as expiation? Misguided humanity!



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 106: This Milliere, formerly an advocate and writer on the Marseillaise, was a native of St-Etienne, and fifty-four years of age, a cool speaker, and advocate of advanced ideas, that got him several imprisonments. In March 1870 he was taken from the prison of Sainte-Pelagie to give evidence at Tours against Pierre Bonaparte for the murder of Victor Noir, where his lucid depositions told greatly against the prisoner. When regaining his liberty he became more revolutionary than ever, writing during the siege in the Patrie en Danger. At the peace he became one of the members for Paris, and sat at Bordeaux and Versailles, agitating social subjects and the law of lodgers. About the 10th of April he took part with the Commune, and at the entrance of the troops was taken at the Luxembourg after having fired six rounds from a revolver, was shot on the steps of the Pantheon, and died as he opened his shirt front, shouting, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Liberte! Vive l'Humanite!"]



[107]

XCVI.

With three friends I stood upon the roof of a house near the new opera, watching what was passing around. The spectacle was such, that horror paralyses every other sentiment, even that of self-preservation. Consternation sits encircled by a blazing atmosphere of terror! The Hotel de Ville is in flames; the smoke, at times a deep red, envelops all, so that it is impossible to distinguish more than the outlines of immense walls; the wind brings, in heavy gusts, a deadly odour—of burnt flesh, perhaps—which turns the heart sick and the brain giddy. On the other side the Tuileries, the Legion d'Honneur, the Ministere de la Guerre, and the Ministere des Finances are flaming still, like five great craters of a gigantic volcano! It is the eruption of Paris! Alone, a great black mass detaches itself from the universal conflagration, it is the Tour Saint-Jacques, standing out like a malediction.

One of the three friends, who are with me on the roof of the house, was able, about an hour ago, to get near the Hotel de Ville. He related to me what follows:—

"At the moment of my arrival, the flames burst forth from all the windows of the Hotel de Ville, and the most intense terror seized upon all the inhabitants blocked up in the surrounding quarters, for a terrible rumour is spread; it is said that more than fifty thousand pounds of powder is contained in the subterranean vaults. The incendiaries must have poured the demoniacal liquid in rivers through the great halls, down the great staircases, from the very garrets, to envelop even the Salle du Trone. The great fire throws a blood-red glare over the city, and on the quays of the Institute. Night is so like day that a letter may be read in the street. Is this the end of the famous capital of France? Have the infamous fiends of the committee for public safety ordered, in their cowardly death-agony, that this should be the end? Yes, it is the ruin of all that was grand, generous, radiant, and consolatory for our country that they have decided to consummate, with a chorus of hellish laughter, in which terror and ferocity struggle with brutal degradation.

"In the midst of this horror, confused rumours are circulated. It is said that the heat will penetrate to the cellars and cause an explosion of whole quarters. Then what will become of the inhabitants, and the riches that they have accumulated? The heat is overwhelming between the Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville—that is, over the space of about a mile. The two barricades of the Rue de Rivoli and of the Rue de la Coutellerie, near which are the offices of the municipal services—the lighting of the city, the octroi, waters, sewers, etc.,—will not be taken until too late, in spite of the energy with which the army attacks them. It is feared that the flame will reach the neighbourhood of the great warehouses, so thickly do the burning flakes fall and scatter destruction. The barricades of the quays are still intact, it will be another hour yet before they are taken. The firemen are there furiously at work, but their efforts are insufficient! It would take tons of ammonia to slake the fury of the petroleum which flows like hot lava upon the place from the Hotel de Ville, and the horrible reflection reddens the waters of the Seine, so that the current of the river seems to flow with blood, which stains the stones as it dashes against the arches of the bridge!"

These scenes are being pictured to me as I gaze upon the terrible conflagration, and all that is told me I seem to see. An irresistible longing to be near seizes me. I am under the power of an invincible attraction. I lean forward, my arms outstretched; I run a great risk of falling, but what matters? The sight of these almost sublime horrors has burnt itself into my very brain!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 107: Ferre, the friend of Raoul Bigault, and his colleague in the Commission of General Safety, like the latter, had inhabited the prisons for a considerable time for his political writings, seditious proposals, plots against the state, etc. He is a small man about five feet high, and very active. He signed with avidity the suppression of nearly all the journals of Paris, and the sentence of death of a great number of unfortunate prisoners, with the approbation of Raoul Bigault. He willingly undertook to announce to the Archbishop of Paris that his last hour had arrived. The following order, drawn up by him, was found on the body of an insurgent:—"Set fire to the Ministry of Finance immediately, and return here.

4 Prairial, An 79.

(Signed) TH. FERRE."

See Appendix, No. 10.]



XCVII.

She walks with a rapid step, near the shadow of the wall; she is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now, in the hands of this woman, contains the dreadful petroleum liquid. As she passes a poste of regulars, she smiles and nods; when they speak to her she answers, "My good Monsieur!" If the street is deserted she stops, consults a bit of dirty paper that she holds in her hand, pauses a moment before the grated opening to a cellar, then continues her way, steadily, without haste. An hour afterwards, a house is on fire in the street she has passed. Who is this woman? Paris calls her a Petroleuse.[109] One of these petroleuses, who was caught in the act in the Rue Truffault, discharged the six barrels of a revolver and killed two men before being passed over to execution. Another was seen falling in a doorway of a house in the Rue de Boulogne, pierced with balls—but this one was a young girl; a bottle filled with petroleum fell from her hand as she dropped. Sometimes one of these wretched women, might be seen leading by the hand a little boy or girl; and the child probably carrying a bottle of the incendiary liquid in his pocket with his top and marbles.



Used as a Federal Ambulance Hospital.]



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 108: On the Wednesday succeeding the explosion of the powder-magazine in the garden of the Luxembourg, which unroofed a portion of the palace, and destroyed the windows, and did fearful damage to the surrounding houses, all the Communeux disappeared from the neighbourhood. The following night four men returned, bringing a quantity of petroleum with them. They gave orders that the six hundred wounded men who were then lying in the Palace should be taken away immediately. They had commenced their sinister project, and were pouring the petroleum about in the cellars, when the soldiers of the Brigade Paturel were informed of it, and arrived in time to prevent its execution. The criminals were taken and shot on the spot.]

[Footnote 109: The incendiaries formed a veritable army, composed of returned convicts, the very dregs of the prisons, pale, thin lads, who looked like ghosts, and old women, that looked like horrible witches; their number amounted to eight thousand! This army had its chiefs, and each detachment was charged with the firing of a quarter. The order for the conflagration of public edifices bore the stamp of the Commune, and of the Central Committee, and the seal of the delegate at the Ministry of War. For the private houses more expeditive means were used. Small tickets, of the size of postage stamps, were found pasted upon walls of houses in different parts of Paris, with the letters B.P.B. (bon pour bruler), literally, good for burning. Some of the tickets were square, others oval, with a bacchante's head in the centre. They were affixed on spots designated by the chiefs. Every petroleuse was to receive ten francs for each house she fired. Sept. 5,1871. Amongst the insurgents tried at Versailles, three petroleuses were condemned to death, and one to imprisonment for life, a host of others being transported or otherwise punished.]



XCVIII.

It is seven in the evening, the circulation has become almost impossible. The streets are lined with patrols, and the regiments of the Line camp upon the outer boulevards. They dine, smoke, and bivouac, and drink with the citizens on the doorsteps of their houses. In the distance is heard the storm of sounds which tells of the despairing resistance of Belleville, and along the foot of the houses are seen square white patches, showing the walled-up cellars, every hole and crevice being plastered up to prevent insertion of the diabolical liquid—walled up against petroleurs and petroleuses, strings of prisoners, among whom are furious women and poor children, their hands tied behind their backs, pass along the boulevards towards Neuilly. Night comes on, not a lamp is lighted, and the streets become deserted as by degrees the sky becomes darker. At nine o'clock the solitude is almost absolute. The sound of a musket striking the pavement is heard from time to time; a sentinel passes here and there, and the lights in the houses grow more and more rare.



XCIX.

The hours and the days pass and resemble each other horribly. To write the history of the calamities is not yet possible. Each one sees but a corner of the picture, and the narratives that are collected are vague and contradictory; it appears certain now that the insurrection is approaching the end. It is said that the fort of Montrouge is taken; but it still hurls its shells upon Paris. Several have just fallen in the quarter of the Banque. There is fighting still at the Halles, at the Luxembourg, and at the Porte Saint-Martin. Neither the cannonading nor the fusillade has ceased, and our ears have become accustomed to the continued roar. But, in spite of the barbarous heroism of the Federals, the force of their resistance is being exhausted. What has become of the chiefs?

We continue to note down the incidents as they reach us.

It is said that Assy has been taken, close to the New Opera House. He was going the nightly rounds, almost alone—"Who's there!" cried a sentinel. Assy, thinking the man was a Federal, replied, "You should have challenged me sooner." In an instant he was surrounded, disarmed, and carried off. However, it is a very unlikely tale; it is most improbable that Assy should not know that the New Opera was in the hands of the Versaillais.

They say that Delescluze has fled, that Dombrowski has died[110] in an ambulance, and that Milliere is a prisoner at Saint-Denis. But these are merely rumours, and I am utterly ignorant as to their worth. The only thing certain is that the search is being carried on with vigour. Close by the smoking ruins of what was once the Hotel de Ville they caught Citizen Ferraigu, inspector of the barricades; he confessed to having received from the Committee of Public Safety particular orders to burn down the shop of the Bon-Diable. Had one of these committeemen been an assistant there, and did he owe his former master a grudge? Ferraigu had a bottle of petroleum in his pocket; he was shot. I am told that at the Theatre du Chatelet a court-martial has been established on the stage. The Federals are brought up twenty at a time, judged, and condemned, they are then marched out on to the Place, with their hands tied behind their backs. A mitrailleuse, standing a hundred yards off, mows them down like grass. It is an expeditious contrivance. In a yard, in the Rue Saint-Denis, is a stable filled with corpses; I have myself seen them there. The Porte Saint-Martin Theatre is quite destroyed, a guard is stationed near. This morning three petroleuses were shot there, the bodies are still lying on the boulevards. I have just seen two insurgents walking between four soldiers; one an old man, the other almost a lad. I heard the elder one say to the younger, "All our misery comes of our having arms. In '48 we had none, so we took those of the soldiers, and then they were without. Now there is more killing and less business done." A few minutes after the little procession passed up the Rue d'Hauteville, and I heard the reports of two rifles. Oh! what horrible days! I feel a prey to the deepest dejection—if it were but over! The town looks wretched; even where the fighting is not going on, the houses are closed and the streets deserted, except here and there: a lonely passenger hurrying along, or a wretched prisoner marching between four soldiers. It is all very dreadful! In the streets where the battle is still raging the shutters are not closed; as soon as the soldiers get into a new quarter of the town they cry out, "Shut the windows, open the shutters." The reason for this is, that the open barred outer shutters, or persiennes, form a capital screen through which aim maybe taken with a gun. As for me, in the midst of this horror and sadness, I feel like a madman in the night. The rumour that the hostages have been shot at Mazas gains ground.[111] I am told that the Archbishop, the Abbe Degueiry, and Chaudey have all been assassinated. It was Bigault who ordered these executions. He has since been taken, and fell, crying "Down with murderers!" This reminds one of Dumollard, the assassin, calling the jurymen "Canaille!" Milliere is said to have been shot in the Place du Pantheon. When they told him to kneel down he drew himself up to his full height, his eyes flashing defiance. Strange caprice of nature, to make these scoundrels brave.



In the meantime, the Commune is in its death throes. Like the dragon of fairy lore, it dies, vomiting flames. La Villette is on fire, houses are burning at Belleville and on the Buttes-Chaumont. The resistance is concentrated on one side at Pere la Chaise, and on the other at the Mont-Parnasse cemetery. The insurrection was mistress of the whole of Paris, and then the army came stretching its long arms from the Arc de Triomphe to Belleville, from the Champ-de-Mars to the Pantheon. Trying hard to burst these bonds, tightly surrounded, now resisting, now flying, the emeute has at last retreated. It is over there now, in two cemeteries; it watches from behind tombstones; it rests the barrels of its rifles on marble crosses, and erects a battery on a sepulchre. The shells of the Versaillais fall in the sacred enclosure, plough up the earth, and unbury the dead. Something round rolled along a pathway, the combatants thought it was a shell; it was a skull! What must these men feel who are killing and being killed in the cemetery! To die among the dead seems horrible. But they never give it a thought; the bloody thirst for destruction which possesses them allows them only to think of one thing, of killing! Some of them are gay, they are brave, these men. That makes it only the more dreadful; these wretches are heroic! Behind the barricades there have been instances of the most splendid valour. A man at the Porte Saint-Martin, holding a red flag in his hand, was standing, heedless of danger, on a pile of stones. The balls showered around him, while he leant carelessly against an empty barrel which stood behind.—"Lazy fellow," cried a comrade—"No," said he, "I am only leaning that I may not fall when I die." Such are these men; they are robbers, incendiaries, assassins, but they are fearless of death. They have only that one good quality. They smile and they die. The vivandieres allow themselves to be kissed behind the tombstones; the wounded men drink with their comrades, and throw wine on their wounds, saying, "Let us drink to the last." And yet, in an hour perhaps, the soldiers will fight their way into the cemeteries, which their balls reach already, they too mad with rage; then the horrible bayonet fighting will commence, man against man among the tombs, flying over the mounds, desecrating the monuments, everything that imagination can conjure up of most profane and terrible—a battle in a cemetery!



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: The most reliable account of his death is given by a medical student who attended him in his last moments. "Dombrowski was passing with several members of the Commune in the Rue Myrrha, near the Rue des Poissonniers, when he was struck by a bullet, which traversed the lower part of his body. He was carried to a neighbouring chemist's, where I bandaged the wound. Before his transportation to the Lariboisiere Hospital, he ordered the fire to cease, but the troops defending the barricade disobeyed the injunction. His sword was handed by me to a captain of the 45th of the Line. His last words were nearly identical with those which he uttered as he fell: 'I am no traitor!'" His worst enemies have said of him that he was a good soldier in a bad cause.]

[Footnote 111: At the prison of Sainte-Pelagie, on Tuesday, the 23rd of May, the unfortunate gendarmes, who had been made prisoners on the 18th, were shot, together with M. Chaudey, a writer, on the Siecle, arrested at the office of the journal, and conducted, first to Mazas and afterwards to Sainte-Pelagie. (Appendix 11).

According to the Siecle, the "Procureur" of the Commune, Raoul Rigault, presented himself, at the office at about eleven at night, and having sent for M. Chaudey, said to him, without any preamble: "I am here to tell you that you have not an hour to live."

"You mean to say that I am to be assassinated," replied Chaudey.

"You are to be shot, and that directly," was the other's rejoinder.

But, on reaching the prison, the National Guards who had been summoned refused to do the odious work, and the Procureur went himself to find others more docile. Chaudey was led before them, Raoul Rigault drew his sword to give the signal, the muskets were levelled and fired, and Chaudey fell, but wounded only. A sergeant gave him the death blow by discharging his pistol at his head. The next day, a hundred and fifty hostages of the Commune, confined at the Prefecture of Police, amongst whom were Prince Galitzin and Andreoli, a journalist, were about to be shot by an order of Ferre, when the incendiary fires broke out and prevented the execution of the order. At eleven o'clock, Raoul Rigault commanded the prisoners to be released, and enjoined them to fight for the Commune; upon their refusal, a shower of balls was discharged at them. The prisoners rushed for refuge into the Rue du Harlay, which was in flames, and were afterwards rescued by a detachment of the line.

That same day was fatal to Raoul Rigault. He was perceived by a party of infantry at the moment when he was ringing at the door of a house in the Rue Gay Lussac. His colonel's uniform instantly made him a mark for the soldiers; he had time to enter the house, however, but was soon discovered, gave his name, and allowed himself to be taken off towards the Luxembourg, but before reaching it, he began to shout, "Vive la Commune!" "Down with the assassins!" and made an effort to escape. The soldiers thrust him against a wall and shot him down.

The next day, the 24th, marked the fate of the hostages, who, in expectation of an attack of the Versaillais, had been transferred from Mazas to La Roquette. "Monseigneur Darboy," writes an eye-witness (Monsieur Dubutte, miraculously saved by an error of name), "occupied cell No. 21 of the 4th division, and I was at a short distance from him, in No. 26. The cell in which the venerable prelate was confined had been the office of one of the gaolers; it was somewhat larger than the rest, and Monseigneur's companions in captivity had succeeded in obtaining for him a chair and a table. On Wednesday, the 24th, at half-past seven in the evening, the director of the prison—a certain Lefrancais, who had been a prisoner in the hulks for the space of six years—went up, at the head of fifty Federals, into the gallery, near which the most important prisoners were incarcerated. Here they ranged themselves along the walls, and a few moments later one of the head-gaolers opened the door of the archbishop's cell, and called him out. The prelate answered, "I am here!" Then the gaoler passed on to M. le President Bonjean's cell (Appendix 12), then to that of Abbe Allard, member of the International Society in Aid of the Wounded; of Pere du Coudray, Superior of the School of Ste-Genevieve; and Pere Clere, of the Brotherhood of Jesus; the last called being the Abbe Deguerry, cure of the Madeleine. As the names were called, each prisoner was led out into the gallery and down the staircase to the courtyard; each side, as far as I could judge, was lined with Federal guards, who insulted the prisoners in language that I cannot repeat. Amid the hues and cries of these wretches my unfortunate companions were conducted across the courtyard to the infirmary, before which a file of soldiers were drawn up for the execution. Monseigneur Darboy advanced and addressed his murderers—addressed them words of pardon: then two of the men approached the prelate, and falling on their knees implored his pardon. The rest of the Federals threw themselves upon them, and thrust them aside with oaths, then, turning to the prisoners, they heaped fresh insults upon them. The chief officer of the detachment, however, imposed silence on the men, and uttering an oath, said, 'You are here to shoot these men, not to insult them.' The Federals were silenced, and upon the command of their lieutenant, they loaded their muskets.

"Pere Allard was placed against the wall, and was the first who was struck; then Monseigneur Darboy fell, and the six prisoners were thus shot in turn, showing, at this supreme moment, a saintly dignity and a noble courage."]



C.

Where are these men going with hurried steps, and with lanterns in their hands? Their uniform is that of the National Guard, and consequently of Federals, but the tricolour band which they wear on the arm would seem to indicate that they belong to the Party of Order. They are making their way by one of the entries of the sewers, and preceded by an officer are disappearing beneath the sombre vaults. Calling to mind the sinister expression of a Communal artillery commander—"The reactionary quarters will all be blown up; not one shall be spared," it is impossible to avoid feeling a shudder of terror. What if the incendiaries all wearing the badge of the Party of Order, be about to set fire to mines prepared beforehand, or to barrels of petroleum ready to be staved in! The wild demons of the Commune are capable of everything; an invention of incendiary firemen is quoted as an example of the diabolical genius which presided over the work of destruction; individuals wearing the fireman's uniform were seen to throw combustible liquids by means of pumps and pails on the burning houses, instead of aiding to extinguish the flames.



Fortunately, the fear is unfounded, the object of these men, on the contrary, is to cut the wires which connect all parts with inflammable materials, torpedoes, and other atrocious machines. They have already passed several nights in destroying this underground telegraphic system. The duty is not without danger; for not only are they exposed to the terrible consequences of a sudden explosion, but also to the risk of being taken and shot without trial, as traitors to the Commune. That is, should they chance to fall in with hostile bands, or appear in unfriendly quarters. It appears that these determined and devoted citizens have already lost two of their companions in the execution of this perilous duty. The intention of the Commune was to charge the whole of the main sewers and subways with combustibles; but luckily they had not time to mature their schemes, the advance of the Versailles troops being too quick for them. The Catacombs were included in the arrangement; for did not the able Assy direct his agent Fosse to keep them open, as a means of escape? Alas! these subterranean passages that underlie so large a portion of ancient Paris, what stories could they not tell of starved fugitives and maimed culprits dragging their weary limbs into the darkness of these gloomy caverns, only that they might die there in peace! Men and women, whose forms will in a few short weeks be unrecognisable, whose whitened bones will be crushed and kicked aside by the future explorer, who may perchance penetrate the labyrinths, and whose dust will finally be mixed up and undistinguishable from that of the bones and skulls taken from ancient cemeteries and graveyards with which this terrible Golgotha is decorated in Mosaic.



CI.

The fire is out, let us contemplate the ruins.[112] The Commune is vanquished. Look at Paris, sad, motionless, laid waste. This is what we have come to! Consternation is in every breast, solitude is in every street. We feel no longer either anger or pity; we are resigned, broken by emotion; we see processions of prisoners pass on their way to Versailles, and we scarcely look at them; no one thinks of saying either, "Wretches!" or "Poor fellows!" The soldiers themselves are very silent. Although they, are the victors they are sad; they do not drink, they do not sing. Paris might be a town that had been assaulted and taken by dumb enemies; the irritation has worn itself off, and the tears have not yet come. The tricolour flags which float from all the windows surprise us; there does not seem any reason for rejoicing. Yet, of late especially, the triumph of the Versaillais has been ardently wished for by the greater portion of the population; but all are so tired that they have not the energy to rejoice. Let us look back for a moment. First the siege, with famine, separation and poverty; then the insurrection of Montmartre, surprises, hesitations, cannonading night and day, ceaseless musketry, mothers in tears, sons pursued, every calamity has fallen on this miserable city. It has been like Rome under Tiberius, then like Rome after the barbarians had overrun it. The cannon balls have fallen upon Sybaris. So much emotion, so many horrors have worn out the city; and then all this blood, this dreadful blood. Corpses in the streets, corpses within the houses, corpses everywhere! Of course they were terribly guilty, these men that were taken, that were killed; they were horrible criminals, those women who poured brandy into the glasses and petroleum on the houses! But, in the first moment of victory, were there no mistakes? Were those that were shot all guilty? Then the sight of these executions, however merited, was cruelly painful. The innocent shuddered at the doom of justice. True, Paris is quiet now, but it is the quiet of the battle-field on the morrow of a victory; quiet as night, and as the tomb! An unsupportable uneasiness oppresses us; shall we ever be able to shake off this apathy, to pierce through this gloom? Paris, rent and bleeding, turns with sadness from the past, and dares not yet raise her eyes to the future!



POOR PARIS!



On August 15th, the Times reporter gave the number awaiting trial at Versailles at 30,000. On the 7th September they had reached 39,000, daily arrests adding to the number; out of these, 35,000 only had their charges made out, of which 13,900 had been examined, 2,800 writs of release having been issued, though only a few hundreds have been set at liberty. There are only 94 reporting officers: 20 attached to the Council of War, 6 to the Orangerie, 4 to Satory, 3 to the Prison des Femmes, and 16 to the Western Ports: 17 more are to be added shortly.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 112: See Appendix 15, 16, 17, and 18.]



APPENDIX.



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PARISIAN INSURRECTION,

FROM THE 18th OF MARCH TO THE 29th MAY, 1871.

The dash (—) in each day after the commencement of military operations divides the civil from the military.

Saturday, 18th March: Early in the morning troops take possession of the Buttes Montmartre and Belleville. The soldiers charged with the recovery of the pieces of artillery fraternise with the people and the National Guard. Arrest of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas: they are shot at Montmartre without trial. National Guards take possession of the Hotel de Ville, the Prefecture of Police is invaded by Raoul Rigault, Duval, and others.

Sunday, 19th March: The Central Committee of the National Guard take possession of the offices of the Journal Officiel. Arrest of General Chanzy. Gustave Flourens, imprisoned at Mazas, is set at liberty by the new masters of Paris. M. Thiers addresses a circular to the country enjoining obedience to the only authority, that of the Assembly.

Tuesday, 21st March: Manifestation of the "Friends of Order." Procession for public demonstration. Sitting of the Assembly at Versailles. M. Jules Favre advises prompt measures. Appeal to the people and army.