dead
body lay stretched; and it was with this sad procession that I
re-entered Paris. From time to time the men deposited their load on the
ground, and went into a wine-shop to drink. I took advantage of one of
these moments when the corpse lay abandoned, to lift the cloak that had
been spread over it. It was the body of a young man, almost a lad; his
wound was hidden, but the collar of his shirt was dyed crimson with
blood. When the men returned for the third time, their gait was so
unsteady that it was with difficulty they raised the poor boy's bier,
and then went off staggering. At the turning of a street the corpse
fell, and I ran up as it was being picked from the ground; one of the
drunken men was shedding tears, and maudling out, "My poor brother!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 74: Megy, the famous governor of the Fort of Issy, was
implicated in the last, supposed, plot against the life of Napoleon III.
Having shot one of the police agents charged with his arrest, he was
tried and condemned to death. He was, however, delivered from prison on
the fourth of September, and appointed to the command of a battalion of
National Guards, with which he marched against the Hotel de Ville on the
thirty-first of October and the twentieth of January. He was named a
member of the Commune on the eighteenth of March, and set fire to the
Cour des Comptes and the Palace of the Legion d'Honneur on the
twenty-third of May, 1871.]

LXXI.

We shall see no more of Cluseret! Cluseret is done for, Cluseret is in
prison![75] What has he done? Is he in disgrace on account of Fort Issy?
This would scarcely be just, considering that if the fort were evacuated
yesterday it was reoccupied this morning; by the bye, I cannot explain
satisfactorily to myself why the Versaillais should have abandoned this
position, which they seem to have considered of some importance. If it
is not on account of Fort Issy that Cluseret was politely asked to go
and keep Monseigneur Darboy company, why was it? I remember hearing
yesterday and the day before something about a letter of General
Fabrice, in which that amiable Prussian, it is reported, begged General
Cluseret to intercede with the Commune in behalf of the imprisoned
priests. Is it possible that the Communal delegate, at the risk of
passing for a Jesuit, could have made the required demand? Why, M.
Cluseret, that was quite enough for you to be put in prison, and shot
too into the bargain. However,