The shells of the Versaillais
fell on friend and foe alike, on women and on children, on homes,
on churches, and on public buildings. Three shots struck the Arch
of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared.

Such scenes as the following one, related by an American, might
be seen daily:--

"Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them. 'Oh,
you can look if you like,' cried one; so I drew back the checked
curtain. On a mattress was stretched a woman decently dressed,
with a child of two or three years lying on her breast. They both
looked very pale. One of the woman's arms was hanging down; her
hand had been carried away. 'Where are they wounded?' I asked.
'Wounded! they are dead,' was the reply. 'They are the wife and
child of the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram. If you will
go and break the news to him, you will do us a kindness.'"

The velocipede-maker may have been--probably was--a good, peaceable
citizen, with no sympathy for disorder or anarchy; but doubtless
from the moment that news was broken to him, he became a furious
Communist.

By order of General Cluseret every man in Paris was to be forced
to bear arms for the Commune. His neighbors were expected to see
that he did so, and to arrest him at once if he seemed anxious
to decline. "Thus, every man walking along the street was liable
to have the first Federal who passed him, seize him by the collar
and say: 'Come along, and be killed on behalf of my municipal
independence.'"

It would be hardly possible to follow the details of the fighting,
the arrests, the bombardment, or even the changes that took place
among those high in office in the Council of the Commune during the
seventy-three days that its power lasted; the state of things in
Paris will be best exhibited by detached sketches of what individuals
saw and experienced during those dreadful days.

Here is the narrative of an English lady who was compelled to visit
Paris on Easter Sunday, April 9, while it was under the administration
of Cluseret.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Catholic lady in "Red" Paris. London Spectator, April,
1871 (Living Age, May 13, 1871).]

The streets she found for the most part silent and empty. There were
a few omnibuses, filled with National Guards and men _en blouse_,
and heavy ammunition-wagons under the disorderly escort of men in
motley uniforms, with guns and bayonets. Here and there were groups
of "patriots" seated on the curbstones, playing pitch