union; and he had it in his power to
give the archbishop the highest consolation that could have been
offered him.

It had been intended to execute the hostages on the 23d; but the
director of the prison, endeavoring to evade the horrible task of
delivering up his prisoners, pronounced the first order he received
informal.

The accursed 24th of May dawned, brilliant and beautiful. The archbishop
went down in the early morning to obtain the breath of fresh air
allowed him. Judge Bonjean, who had never professed himself a believer,
came up to him and prayed him for his blessing, saying that he had
seen the truth, as it were on the right hand of Death, and he too
was about to depart in the true faith of a Christian.

By this time the insurgents held little more of Paris than the
heights of Belleville, Pere la Chaise, and the neighborhood of La
Roquette, which is not far from the Place de la Bastille. The Communal
Government had quitted the Hotel-de-Ville and taken refuge not far
from La Roquette, in the _Mairie_ of the Eleventh Arrondissement.

At six in the morning of May 24th,[1] a second order came to the
director of the prison to deliver up all hostages in his hands. He
remonstrated, saying he could not act upon an order to deliver up
prisoners who were not named. Finally, a compromise was effected;
six were to be chosen. The commander of the firing party asked for
the prison register. The names of the hostages were not there.
Then the list from Mazas was demanded. The director could not find
it. At last, after long searching, they discovered it themselves.
Genton, the man in command, sat down to pick out his six victims.
He wrote Darboy, Bonjean, Jecker, Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray. Then
he paused, rubbed out Jecker, and put in Duguerrey. Darboy, as we
know, was the archbishop; Bonjean, judge of the Court of Appeals;
Allard, head-chaplain to the hospitals, who had been unwearied
in his services to the wounded; Clerc and Ducoudray were Jesuit
fathers; Duguerrey was pastor of the Madeleine. Jecker was a banker
who had negotiated Mexican loans for the Government. The next day
the Commune made a present of him to Genton, who, after trying
in vain to get a few hundred thousand francs out of him for his
ransom, shot him, assisted by four others, one of whom was Ferre,
and flung his body into the cellar of a half-built house upon the
heights of Belleville.

[Footnote 1: Macmillan's Magazine, 1873.]

When the order draw