Suddenly about
thirty men rush into the streets crying, "We must make a barricade." I
turn back, fearing to be pressed into the service. The cannonading
appears dreadfully near. A shell whistles over my head. I hear some
one say, "The batteries of Montmartre are bombarding the Arc de
Triomphe;" and strange enough, in this moment of horror and uncertainty,
the thought crosses my mind that now the side of the arch on which is
the bas-relief of Rude will be exposed to the shells. On the Boulevard
there is only here and there a passenger hurrying along. The shops are
closed; even the cafe's are shut up. The harsh screech of the
mitrailleuse grows louder and nearer. The battle seems to be close at
hand, all round me. A thousand contradictory suppositions rush through
my brain and hurry me along, and here on the Boulevard there is no one
that can tell me anything. I walk in the direction of the Madeleine,
drawn there by a violent desire to know what is going on, which
silences the voice of prudence. As I approach the Chaussee d'Antin I
perceive a multitude of men, women, and children running backwards and
forwards, carrying paving-stones. A barricade is being thrown up; it is
already more than three feet high. Suddenly I hear the rolling of heavy
wheels; I turn, and a strange sight is before me--a mass of women in
rags, livid, horrible, and yet grand, with the Phrygian cap on their
heads, and the skirts of their robes tied round their waists, were
harnessed to a mitrailleuse, which they dragged along at full speed;
other women pushing vigorously behind. The whole procession, in its
sombre colours, with dashes of red here and there, thunders past me; I
follow it as fast as I can. The mitrailleuse draws up a little in front
of the barricade, and is hailed with wild clamours by the insurgents.
The Amazons are being unharnessed as I come up. "Now," said a young
_gamin_, such as one used to see in the gallery of the Theatre Porte St.
Martin, "don't you be acting the spy here, or I will break your head
open as if you were a Versaillais."--"Don't waste ammunition," cried an
old man with a long white beard--a patriarch of civil war--"don't waste
ammunition; and as for the spy, let him help to carry paving-stones.
Monsieur," said he, turning to me with much politeness, "will you be so
kind as to go and fetch those stones from the corner there?"

[Illustration: Cafe Life Under the Commune.]

[Illustration: SPECTACLES DE PARIS.]

I