did as I was bid, although I thought, with anything but pleasure, that
if at that moment the barricade were attacked and taken, I might be shot
before I had the time to say, "Allow me to explain." But the scene which
surrounds me interests me in spite of myself. Those grim hags, with
their red headdresses, passing the stones I give them rapidly from hand
to hand, the men who are building them up only leaving off for a moment
now and then to swallow a cup of coffee, which a young girl prepares
over a small tin stove; the rifles symmetrically piled; the barricade,
which rises higher and higher; the solitude in which we are
working--only here and there a head appears at a window, and is quickly
withdrawn; the ever-increasing noise of the battle; and, over all, the
brightness of a dazzling morning sun--all this has something sinister
and yet horribly captivating about it. While we are at work, they talk;
I listen. The Versaillais have been coming in all night.[99] The Porte
de la Muette and the Porte Dauphine have been surrendered by the 13th
and the 113th battalions of the first arrondissement. "Those two numbers
13 will bring them ill-luck," says a woman. Vinoy is established at the
Trocadero, and Douai at the Point du Jour: they continue to advance. The
Champ de Mars has been taken from the Federals after two hours'
fighting. A battery is erected at the Arc de Triomphe, which sweeps the
Champs Elysees and bombards the Tuileries. A shell has fallen in the Rue
du Marche Saint Honore. In the Cours-la-Reine the 188th battalion stood
bravely. The Tuileries is armed with guns, and shells the Arc de
Triomphe. In the Avenue de Marigny the gendarmes have shot twelve
Federals who had surrendered; their bodies are still lying on the
pavement in front of the tobacconist's. Rue de Sevres, the _Vengeurs de
Flourens_ have put to flight a whole regiment of the line: the
_Vengeurs_ have sworn to resist to a man. They are fighting in the
Champs Elysees, around the Ministere de la Guerre, and on the Boulevard
Haussman. Dombrowski has been killed at the Chateau de la Muette. The
Versaillais have attacked the Western Saint Lazare station, and are
marching towards the Pepiniere barracks. "We have been sold, betrayed,
and surprised; but what does it matter, we will triumph. We want no more
chiefs or generals; behind the barricades every man is a marshal!"

[Illustration: _Place de la Concorde_]

[Illustration: _Poor Pradier's Statues. Lille su