At last the unhappy inhabitants of Neuilly are able to leave their cellars. For three weeks, they have been hourly expecting the roofs of their houses to fall in and crush them; and with much difficulty have managed during the quieter moments of the day to procure enough to keep them from dying of starvation. For three weeks they have endured all the terrors, all the dangers of battle and bombardment. Many are dead—they all thought themselves sure to die. Horrible details are told. A little past Gilet’s restaurant, where the omnibus office used to be, lived an old couple, man and wife. At the beginning of the civil war, two shells burst, one after another, in their poor lodging, destroying every article of furniture. Utterly destitute, they took refuge in the cellar, where after a few hours of horrible suspense, the old man died. He was seventy, and the fright killed him; his wife was younger and stronger, and survived. In the rare intervals between the firing she went out and spoke to her neighbours through the cellar gratings—“My husband is dead. He must be buried; what am I to do?”—Carrying him to the cemetery was of course out of the question; no one could have been found to render this mournful duty. Besides, the bearers would probably have met a shell or a bullet on the way, and then others must have been found to carry them. One day, the old woman ventured as far as the Porte Maillot, and cried out as loud as she could, “My husband is dead in a cellar; come and fetch him, and let us both through the gates!”—The sentinel facetiously (let us hope it was nothing worse) took aim at her with his rifle, and she fled back to her cellar. At night, she slept by the side of the corpse, and when the light of morning filtered into her dreary place of refuge, and lighted up the body lying there, she sobbed with grief and terror. Her husband had been dead four days, when putrefaction set in, and she, able to bear it no longer, rushed out screaming to her neighbours: “You must bury him, or I will go into the middle of the avenue and await death there!”—They took pity on her, and came down into her cellar, dug a hole there and put the corpse in it. During three weeks she continued there, resting herself on the newly-turned earth. To-day, when they went to fetch her she fainted with horror; the grave had been dug too shallow, and one of the legs of the corpse was exposed to gaze.

This morning, the 25th of April, at nine o’clock, a dense crowd moved up the Champs ElysÉes: pedestrians of all ages and classes, and vehicles of every description. The truce obtained by the members of the Republican Union of the rights of Paris was about to begin, and relief was to be carried to the sufferers at Neuilly. However, some precautions were necessary, for neither the shooting nor the cannonade had ceased yet, and every moment one expected to see some projectile or other fall among the advancing multitude. In the Avenue de la Grande ArmÉe a shell had struck a house, and set fire to it. Gradually the sound of the artillery diminished, and then died away entirely; the crowd hastened to the ramparts.

The chapel was erected by Louis Philippe in memory of the Duke of Orleans, killed on the spot, July 18th, 1842.

The Porte Maillot has been entirely destroyed for some time, in spite of what the Commune has told us to the contrary; the drawbridge is torn from its place, the ruined walls and bastions have fallen into the moat. The railway-station is a shapeless mass of blackened bricks, broken stones, glass, and iron-work; the cutting where the trains used to pass is half filled up with the ruins. It is impossible to get along that way. Fancy the hopeless confusion here, arising among this myriad of anxious beings, these hundreds of carts and waggons, all crowding to the same spot. Each one presses onwards, pushing his neighbour, screaming and vociferating; the National Guards try in vain to keep order. To add to the difficulties there is some form to be gone through about passes. I manage to hang on to a cart which is just going over the bridge; after a thousand stoppages and a great deal of pushing and squeezing, I succeeded in getting out, my clothes in rags. A desolate scene meets my eyes. In front of us, is the open space called the military zone, a dusty desert, with but one building remaining, the chapel of Longchamps; it has been converted into an ambulance, and the white flag with the red cross is waving above it. Truly the wounded there must be in no little danger from the shells, as it lies directly in their path. To the left is the Bois de Boulogne, or rather what used to be the wood, for from where I stand but few trees are visible, the rest is a barren waste. I hasten on, besides I am hard pressed from behind. Here we are in Neuilly, at last. The desolation is fearful, the reality surpassing all I could have imagined. Nearly all the roofs of the houses are battered in, rafters stick out of the broken windows; some of the walls, too, have fallen, and those that remain standing are riddled with blackened holes. It is there that the dreadful shells have entered, breaking, grinding furniture, pictures, glasses, and even human beings. We crunch broken glass beneath our feet at every step; there is not a whole pane in all the windows. Here and there are houses which the bullets seemed to have delighted to pound to atoms, and from which dense clouds of red and white dust are wafted towards us. Well, Parisians, what do you say to that? Do you not think that Citizen Cluseret, although an American, is an excellent patriot, and “In consideration of Neuilly being in ruins, and of this happy result being chiefly due to the glorious resistance organized by the delegate Citizen Cluseret, decrees: That the destroyer of Neuilly, Citizen Cluseret, has merited the gratitude of France and the Republic.”

The firing ceased from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, when Paris cabs, furniture-vans, ambulance-waggons, band-barrows, and all sorts of vehicles were requisitioned to bring in the sad remains and dilapidated household goods of the suburban bombardÉs. They entered by the gate of Ternes—for that of Porte Maillot was in ruins and impassable. Many went to the Palais de l’Industrie, in the Champs ElysÉes, where a commission sat to allot vacant apartments in Paris. On this occasion some robberies were committed, and refractories escaped: it is even said that hard-hearted landlords wished to prevent their lodgers from departing—an object in which the proprietors were not very successful. The poor woman perched on the top of her relics, saved from the cellar in which she had lived in terror for fourteen days, deplores the loss of her husband and the shapeless mass of ruin and rubbish she once called her happy home; whilst her boys bring in green stuff from the surburban gardens, and a middle-aged neighbour stalks along with his pet parrot, the bird all the while amusing himself with elaborate imitations of the growl of the mitrailleuse and the hissing of shells ending with terrific and oft-repeated explosions.

Out of all the houses, or rather from what was once the houses, emerge the inhabitants carrying different articles of furniture, tables, mattresses, boxes. They come out as it were from their graves. Relations meet and embrace, after having suffered almost the bitterness of death. Thousands run backwards and forwards; the carts are heaped up to overflowing, everything that is not destroyed must be carried away. A large van filled with orphan children moves on towards the barrier; a sister of charity is seated beside the driver. The most impatient of the refugees are already through the Porte Maillot; who will give them hospitality there? No one seems to think of that. The excitement caused by all this movement is almost joyous under the brilliant rays of the sun. But time presses, in a few minutes the short truce will have expired. Stragglers hurry along with heavy loads. At the gates, the crowding and confusion are greater than in the morning. Carts heavily laden, move slowly and with difficulty; the contents of several are spilled on the highway. More shouting, crowding, and pushing, until the gates are passed at last, and the emigrant crowd disperses along the different streets and avenues into the heart of Paris. A happy release from bondage, but what a dismal promised land!

Then the cannonading and musketry on either side recommences. Destroy, kill, this horrible quarrel can only end with the annihilation of one of the two parties engaged. Go on killing each other if you will have it so, combatants, fellow-countrymen. Some wretched women and children will at least sleep in safety to-night, in spite of you!

Yes, my good friends and idlers, the sad scene would not have been complete without your presence to relieve its sadness. If respect for your persons kept you away from danger, it at least gives zest to the place, a locality that in a few short minutes will be dangerous again. At five the armistice was over, but for all that, the National Guard had great difficulty in clearing the ground, until real danger, the excitement sought for, arrived, and sent the spectators much further up the Avenue de la Grande ArmÉe.

5.30. Great Guns of ValÉrien, Why do you not begin? Know you that tubes charged with bright eyes are directed against you?

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