rown across the Boulevard
Voltaire, where he died a hero's death. At daybreak on the following
morning, the 26th, the Chateau d'Eau and Bastille positions were
carried, and the Communists, now reduced to a handful of brave men
who were resolved to sell their lives dearly, had only la Villette,
Belleville, and Charonne left to them, And for two more days they
remained and fought there with the fury of despair.

On Friday evening, as Jean was on his way from the Place du Carrousel
to the Rue des Orties, he witnessed a summary execution in the Rue
Richelieu that filled him with horror. For the last forty-eight hours
two courts-martial had been sitting, one at the Luxembourg, the other
at the Theatre du Chatelet; the prisoners convicted by the former were
taken into the garden and shot, while those found guilty by the latter
were dragged away to the Lobau barracks, where a platoon of soldiers
that was kept there in constant attendance for the purpose mowed them
down, almost at point-blank range. The scenes of slaughter there were
most horrible: there were men and women who had been condemned to death
on the flimsiest evidence: because they had a stain of powder on their
hands, because their feet were shod with army shoes; there were
innocent persons, the victims of private malice, who had been wrongfully
denounced, shrieking forth their entreaties and explanations and finding
no one to lend an ear to them; and all were driven pell-mell against a
wall, facing the muzzles of the muskets, often so many poor wretches in
the band at once that the bullets did not suffice for all and it became
necessary to finish the wounded with the bayonet. From morning until
night the place was streaming with blood; the tumbrils were kept busy
bearing away the bodies of the dead. And throughout the length and
breadth of the city, keeping pace with the revengeful clamors of the
people, other executions were continually taking place, in front of
barricades, against the walls in the deserted streets, on the steps of
the public buildings. It was under such circumstances that Jean saw a
woman and two men dragged by the residents of the quartier before
the officer commanding the detachment that was guarding the Theatre
Francais. The citizens showed themselves more bloodthirsty than the
soldiery, and those among the newspapers that had resumed publication
were howling for measures of extermination. A threatening crowd
surrounded the prisoners and was