It cannot be true. I will not believe it. It cannot be possible that Paris is to be again bombarded: and by whom? By Frenchmen! In spite of the danger I was told there was to be apprehended near Neuilly, I wished to see with my own eyes what was going on. So this morning, the 8th April, I went to the Champs ElysÉes.

Until I reached the Rond Point there was nothing unusual, only perhaps fewer people to be seen about. The omnibus does not go any farther than the corner of the Avenue Marigny. An Englishwoman, whom the conductor had just helped down, came up to me and asked me the way; she wanted to go to the Rue GalilÉe, but did not like to walk up the wide avenue. I pointed out to her a side-street, and continued my way. A little higher up a line of National Guards, standing about ten feet distant from each other, had orders to stop passengers from going any farther. “You can’t pass.”—“But ...,” and I stopped to think of some plausible motive to justify my curiosity. However, I was saved the trouble. Although I had only uttered a hesitating “but,” the sentinel seemed to consider that sufficient, and replied, “Oh, very well, you can pass.”

The avenue seemed more and more deserted as I advanced. The shutters of all the houses were closed. Here and there a passenger slipped along close to the walls of the houses, ready to take refuge within the street-doors, which had been left open by order, directly they heard the whizzing of a shell. In front of the shop of a carriage-builder, securely closed, were piled heaps of rifles; most of the National Guards were stretched on the pavement fast asleep, while some few were walking up and down smoking their pipes, and others playing at the plebeian game of “bouchon.”^[46] I was told that a shell had burst a quarter of an hour before at the corner of the Rue de Morny. A captain was seated there on the ground beside his wife, who had just brought him his breakfast; the poor fellow was literally cut in two, and the woman had been carried away to a neighbouring chemist’s shop dangerously wounded. I was told she was still there, so I turned my steps in that direction. A small group of people were assembled before the door. I managed to get near, but saw nothing, as the poor thing had been carried into the surgery. They told me that she had been wounded in the neck by a bit of the shell, and that she was now under the care of one of the surgeons of the Press Ambulance. I then continued my walk up the avenue. The cannonading, which had seemed to cease for some little time, now began again with greater intensity than ever. Clouds of white smoke arose in the direction of the Porte Maillot, while bombs from Mont ValÉrien burst over the Arc de Triomphe. On the right and left of me were companies of Federals. A little further on a battalion, fully equipped, with blankets and saucepans strapped to their knapsacks, and loaves of bread stuck aloft on their bayonets, moved in the direction of Porte Maillot. By the side of the captain in command of the first company marched a woman in a strange costume, the skirt of a vivandiÈre and the jacket of a National Guard, a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, and a revolver stuck in her belt. From the distance at which I was standing she looked both young and pretty. I asked some Federals who she was; one told me she was the wife of Citizen Eudes,^[47] a member of the Commune, and another that she was a newspaper seller in the Avenue des Ternes, whose child had been killed in the Rue des Acacias the night before by a fragment of a shell, and that she had sworn to revenge him. It appeared the battalion was on its way to support the combatants at Neuilly, who were in want of help. From what I hear the gendarmes and sergents de ville had fought their way as far as the Rue des Huissiers. Now I had no doubt the Versailles generals had made use of the gendarmes and sergents de ville, who were most of them old and tried soldiers, but if in very truth they were wherever the imagination of the Federals persisted in placing them, they must either have been as numerous as the grains of sand on the sea-shore, or else their leaders must have found out a way of making them serve in several places at once. Having followed the battalion, I found myself a few yards in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Suddenly a hissing, whizzing sound is heard in the distance, and rapidly approaches us; it sounds very much like the noise of a sky-rocket. “A shell!” cried the sergeant, and the whole battalion to a man, threw itself on the ground with a load jingling of saucepans and bayonets. Indeed there was some danger. The terrible projectile lowered as it approached, and then fell with a terrific noise a little way from us, in front of the last house on the left-hand side of the avenue. I had never seen a shell burst so near me before; a good idea of what it is like may be had from those sinister looking paintings, that one sees sometimes suspended round the necks of certain blind beggars, supposed to represent an explosion in a mine. I think no one was hurt, and the mischief done seemed to consist in a Wide hole in the asphalte and a door reduced to splinters. The National Guards got up from the ground, and several of them proceeded to pick up fragments of the shell. They had, however, not gone many yards when another cry of alarm was given, and again we heard the ominous Whizzing sound; in an instant we were all on our faces. The second shell burst, but we did not see it; we only saw at the top of the house that had already been struck, a window open suddenly and broken panes fall to the ground. The shell had most likely gone through the roof and burst in the attic. Was there anyone in those upper stories? However, we were on our legs again and had doubled the Arc de Triomphe. I had succeeded in ingratiating myself with the men of the rear-guard, and I hoped to be able to go as far with them as I pleased. Strange enough, and I confess it with naif delight, I did not feel at all afraid. Although half an inch difference in the inclination of the cannon might have cost me my life, still I felt inclined to proceed on my way. I begin to think that it is not difficult to be brave when one is not naturally a coward! Beneath the great arch were assembled a hundred or so of persons who seemed to consider themselves in safety, and who from time to time ventured a few steps forward, for the purpose of examining the damage done to Etex’s sculptured group by three successive shells. But in the Avenue de la Grande ArmÉe only three Federals were to be seen, and I think I was the only man in plain clothes they had allowed to go so far. I could distinctly perceive a small barricade erected in front of the Porte Maillot on this side of the ramparts. The bastion to the right was hard at work cannonading the heights of Courbevoie; great columns of smoke, succeeded by terrific explosions, testified to the zeal of the Communist artillerymen. Beyond the ramparts the Avenue de Neuilly extended, dusty and deserted. Unfortunately the sun blinded me, and I could not distinguish well what was going on in the distance. By this time the sound of musketry was heard distinctly. I was told they were fighting principally at Saint James and in the park of Neuilly. I tried to pass out of the gates with the battalion, but an officer caught sight of me, and in no measured tones ordered me back. I ought not to complain, however, he rendered me good service; for although the fire of the Versaillais had somewhat diminished, I do not think the place could have been much longer tenable, to judge from the quantities of bits of shell that strewed the road; from the numerous litters that were being borne away with their bloody burthens; from the railway-station in ruins, and the condition of the neighbouring houses, which had nearly all of them great black holes in their fronts. The Federals did not seem at all impressed by their critical position; sounds of laughter reached me from the interior of a casemate, from the chimney of which smoke was arising, and guards running hither and thither were whistling merrily the Chant du DÉpart, with a look of complete satisfaction.

Damaged on the other side. During the Prussian siege it was defended from injury, though no shells reached it. Uncovered before the civil war.

I managed to reach the Rue du DÉbarcadÈre, which is situated close to the ramparts. An acquaintance of mine lives there. I knew he was away, but I thought the porter would recognise and allow me to take up a position at one of the windows. Next door, the corner house, I found a shell had gone into a wine-merchant’s shop there, who could very well have dispensed with such a visitor, and had behaved in the most unruly fashion, breaking the glass, smashing the tables and counter, but neither killing nor wounding anybody. The porter knew me quite well, and invited me to walk upstairs to the apartments of my friend, situated on the third floor. From the windows I could not see the bastion, which was hidden by the station; but to the left, in the distance, beyond the Bois de Boulogne, wherein I fancied I perceived troops moving between the branches, but whether Versaillais or Parisians I could not tell, arose the tremendous Mont ValÉrien bathed in sunlight. The flashes from the cannon, which in daylight have a pale silver tint, succeeded each other rapidly; the explosions were formidable, and the fort was crowned with a wreath of smoke. They appeared to be firing in the direction of Levallois, rather than on the Porte Maillot. The Federals did not seem to attempt to reply. Turning myself towards the right I could scan nearly the whole length of the Avenue de Neuilly. The bare piece of ground which constitutes the military zone was completely deserted; several shells fell there that had been aimed doubtless at the Porte Maillot or the bastion. The position I had taken up at the window was rather a perilous one. I was just behind the bastion. Beyond the military zone most of the houses seemed uninhabited, but I saw distinctly the National Guards in front of the Restaurant Gilet, making their soup on the side-walk. I was too far away to judge of the extent of the mischief done by the cannonading, but I was told that several roofs had fallen in and many walls had been thrown down in that quarter. All that I could see of the market-place was empty; but the sound of musketry, and the smoke which issued from the houses on one side of it, told me that the Federals were there in sufficient numbers. A little further on I saw the barrels of the rifles sticking out of the windows, with little wreaths of smoke curling out of them; small knots of armed men every now and then marched hurriedly across the avenue, and disappeared into the opposite houses. Partly on account of the distance, and partly on account of the blinding sun, and partly, perhaps, on account of the emotion I experienced, which made me desire and yet fear to see, I could distinguish the bridge but indistinctly, with the dark line of a barricade in front of it. What surprised me most in the battle which I was busily observing, was the extraordinarily small number of combatants that were visible, when suddenly—it was about two o’clock in the afternoon—the Versailles batteries at Courbevoie, which had been silent for some time, began firing furiously. The horrid screech of the mitrailleuse drowned the hissing of the shells; the whole breadth of the long avenue was covered by a kind of white mist. The bastion in front of me replied energetically. It seemed to me as if the interior part of my ear was being rent asunder, when suddenly I heard a dull heavy sound, such as I had not heard before, and I felt the house tremble beneath me. Loud cries arose from the National Guards on the ramparts. I fancied that a rain of shot and shell had destroyed the drawbridge of the Porte Maillot; but it was not so; in the distance I saw that the clouds of smoke were rolling nearer and nearer, and that the roar of the musketry, which had greatly increased, sounded close by. I felt sure that a rush was being made from Courbevoie—that the Versaillais were advancing. The shells were flying over our heads in the direction of the Champs ElysÉes. I began to distinguish that a tumultuous mass of human beings were marching on in the smoke, in the dust, in the sun. The guns on the bastion now thundered forth incessantly. There was no mistaking by this time, there were the Versaillais; I could see the red trowsers of the men of the line. The Federals were shooting them down from the windows. Then I saw the advanced guard stop, hesitate beneath the balls which seemed to rain on them from the Place du MarchÉ, and presently retire. Whereupon a large number of Federals poured forth from the houses, and, walking close to the walls, to be as much as possible out of the way of the projectiles, hurried after the retreating enemy. But suddenly, when they had arrived a little too far for me to distinguish anything very clearly, they in their turn came to a standstill, and then retraced their steps, and returned to their positions within the houses. The fire from the Versaillais then sensibly diminished, but that of the bastions continued its furious attack. It was thus that I witnessed one of those chassÉ-croisÉs under fire, which have become so frequent since this dreadful civil war was concentrated at Neuilly.

Horse Chasseur acting as a communist artillery man, attended by a gamin sponger.