t an iron bar on a shop front. I heard a mass of
glass shiver into fragments on the pavement. I determined to return
home.

On my way back, I had to pass in front of a liqueur shop, the door of
which was open, and several men were talking there. I stopped to learn
the news. Montmartre is taken; the Federals had not opposed much
resistance; but a great deal of firing had gone on in the side streets
and lanes. Seven insurgents were surrounded. "Give yourselves up, and
your lives will be saved," cried out the soldiers. They replied, "We are
prisoners;" but one of them drew his revolver and shot an officer in the
leg. Then the soldiers took the seven men, threw them into a large hole,
and shot them from above like so many rabbits. Another man told me that
he had seen a child lying dead at the corner of the Rue de Rome. "A
pretty little fellow," he said, "his brains were strewed on the pavement
beside him." A third, that when all the fighting was over at the Place
Saint-Pierre a rifle shot was heard, and a captain of Chasseurs fell
dead. The major who was there, looked up and saw a man trying to hide
himself behind a chimney pot; the soldiers got into the house, seized
him on the roof, and brought him down into the Place. What did the
insurgent do, but walked up to the major, smiling, and hit him a blow on
the cheek. The major set him up against a wall, and blew his brains out
with a revolver. Another insurgent who was arrested, made an insulting
grimace at the soldiers; they shot him. On the southern sides of Paris,
the operations of the army have not been so fortunate as on this. In the
Faubourg St. Germain it advances very slowly, if it advance at all. The
Federals fight with heroic courage at the Mont-Parnasse Station, the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and the Croix-Rouge; from the corners of the
streets, from the windows, from the balconies proceed shots rarely
ineffective. This sort of warfare fatigues the soldiers, particularly
as the discipline prevents them from using the same measures. At
Saint-Quen, likewise, the march of the troops is stayed; the barricade
of the Rue de Clichy holds out, and will hold out some time. In other
quarters the advantages gained by the Versaillais are evident. Here and
there some small show of resistance is offered, but the insurgents are
flying. I cannot tell whether all these floating rumours are true. As I
return home, I look round; in the Rue Geoffrey-Marie, near the Faubourg
Montmartr