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 MilliÈre 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 HÔtel 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 ThÉÂtre du ChÂtelet 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 pÉtroleuses 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 AbbÉ 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!” MilliÈre is said to have been shot in the Place du PanthÉon. 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 PÈre 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 PanthÉon. Trying hard to burst these bonds, tightly surrounded, now resisting, now flying, the Émeute 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 vivandiÈres 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!

NOTES:

[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 LariboisiÈre 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.

[111] At the prison of Sainte-PÉlagie, 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 SiÈcle, arrested at the office of the journal, and conducted, first to Mazas and afterwards to Sainte-PÉlagie. (Appendix 11).
According to the SiÈcle, 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 FerrÉ, 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 LefranÇais, 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 AbbÉ Allard, member of the International Society in Aid of the Wounded; of PÈre du Coudray, Superior of the School of Ste-GeneviÈve; and PÈre ClÈre, of the Brotherhood of Jesus; the last called being the AbbÉ Deguerry, curÉ 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.
“PÈre 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.”

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