of Gobelin's tapestry,
the Prefecture of Police, eight whole streets, and innumerable
scattered private houses. The vengeance of the soldiers as they
made their way from street to street, from barricade to barricade,
was savage and indiscriminate. Every man arrested whose hands were
black with powder was carried to a street corner or a courtyard,
and summarily shot. Of course many wholly innocent persons perished,
for the troops of the Commune had been of two kinds,--the National
Guard and the Volunteers. Most of the latter were devils incarnate.
Among them were the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, who were foremost in
executions, and bands called by such names as _Les Enfants du Pere
Duchene_ and _Les Enfants Perdus_. The National Guards were of
three classes,--genuine Communists, workmen whose pay was their
only resource for the support of their families, and pressed men,
forced to fight, of whom there were a great many.

I have before me three narratives written by gentlemen who either
suffered or participated in the Great Revenge. One was a resident
in Paris who had taken no part either for or against the Commune;
one had served it on compulsion as a soldier; and one was an officer
of the Versailles army, who on May 21 led his troops through a breach
into the city, and fought on till May 27, when all was over.

It seems to me that such accounts of personal experience in troubled
times give a far more vivid picture of events than a mere formal
narration. I therefore quote them in this chapter in preference
to telling the story in my own words.

The first is by Count Joseph Orsi,[1] whose visit to Raoul Rigault's
office at the Prefecture of Police has already been told. He was
left unmolested by the Commune, most probably because in early
life he had been a member of those secret societies in Italy to
which Louis Napoleon himself belonged. He says,--

[Footnote 1: Published in Fraser's Magazine, 1879.]

"On May 22 Paris was entering the last stage of its death struggle.
The army of Versailles had entered it from four different points.
The fight was desperate. Barricades were erected in almost every
street. Prisoners on both sides were shot in scores at the
street-corners. Three of the largest houses in the Rue Royale,
where I lived, were on fire. Soldiers of the regular army were
beginning to appear in our quarter, and early on Thursday, May 25,
I heard the bell of my apartment ring violently. I opened it, and
found mys