a battery on a sepulchre. The
shells of the Versaillais fall in the sacred enclosure, plough up the
earth, and unbury the dead. Something round rolled along a pathway, the
combatants thought it was a shell; it was a skull! What must these men
feel who are killing and being killed in the cemetery! To die among the
dead seems horrible. But they never give it a thought; the bloody thirst
for destruction which possesses them allows them only to think of one
thing, of killing! Some of them are gay, they are brave, these men.
That makes it only the more dreadful; these wretches are heroic! Behind
the barricades there have been instances of the most splendid valour. A
man at the Porte Saint-Martin, holding a red flag in his hand, was
standing, heedless of danger, on a pile of stones. The balls showered
around him, while he leant carelessly against an empty barrel which
stood behind.--"Lazy fellow," cried a comrade--"No," said he, "I am only
leaning that I may not fall when I die." Such are these men; they are
robbers, incendiaries, assassins, but they are fearless of death. They
have only that one good quality. They smile and they die. The
vivandieres allow themselves to be kissed behind the tombstones; the
wounded men drink with their comrades, and throw wine on their wounds,
saying, "Let us drink to the last." And yet, in an hour perhaps, the
soldiers will fight their way into the cemeteries, which their balls
reach already, they too mad with rage; then the horrible bayonet
fighting will commence, man against man among the tombs, flying over the
mounds, desecrating the monuments, everything that imagination can
conjure up of most profane and terrible--a battle in a cemetery!

[Illustration: MY NEIGHBOUR 'EN FACE'--BUSINESS CARRIED ON AS USUAL--]

[Illustration: MY NEIGHBOUR NEXT DOOR--WHO THINKS HIMSELF FORTUNATE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: The most reliable account of his death is given by a
medical student who attended him in his last moments. "Dombrowski was
passing with several members of the Commune in the Rue Myrrha, near the
Rue des Poissonniers, when he was struck by a bullet, which traversed
the lower part of his body. He was carried to a neighbouring chemist's,
where I bandaged the wound. Before his transportation to the
Lariboisiere Hospital, he ordered the fire to cease, but the troops
defending the barricade disobeyed the injunction. His sword was handed
by me to a captain of the 45th of the Line. His last