e from the direction of Versailles.
It was late one afternoon that I went towards the Halles, and as I went
I saw a company of the Guard National, tramping northward to the Buttes
Montmartre where the cannons were. In their midst was a man with white
hair at whom I looked--the same whom we had seen at the market-stalls.
He marched bareheaded, and a pair of the scoundrels held him, one at
either sleeve.

Behind him came his daughter, weeping bitterly but silently, and with
the salt water fairly dripping upon her plain black dress.

"What is this?" I asked, thinking that the cordon of the Public Safety
would pass me, and that I might perhaps benefit my friend of the white
locks.

"Who may you be that asks so boldly?" said one of the soldiers
sneeringly.

They were ill-conditioned, white-livered hounds.

"Jules the garcon--Jules of the white apron!" cried one who knew me.
"Know you not that he is now Dictator? _Vive_ the Dictator Jules,
Emperor-of 'Encore-un-Bock'!"

So they mocked me, and I dared not try them further, for we came upon
another crowd of them with a poor frightened man in the centre. He was
crying out--"For me, I am a man of peace--gentlemen, I am no spy. I have
lived all my life in the Rue Scribe." But one after another struck at
him, some with the butt-end of their rifles, some with their bayonets,
those behind with the heels of their boots--till that which had been a
man when I stood on one side of the street, was something which would
not bear looking upon by the time that I had passed to the other. For
these horrors were the commonest things done under the rule of
Hell--which was the rule of the Commune. Then I desired greatly to have
done my commission and to be rid of Paris.

In a little the Nationals were thirsty. Ho, a wine-shop! There was one
with the shutters up, probably a beast of a German--or a Jew. It is the
same thing. So with the still bloody butts of their _chassepots_ they
made an entrance. They found nothing, however, but a few empty bottles
and stove-in barrels. This so annoyed them that they wrought wholesale
destruction, breaking with their guns and with their feet everything
that was breakable.

So in time we came to the Prison of Mazas, which in ordinary times would
have been strongly guarded; but now, save for a few National Guards
loafing about, it was deserted--the criminals all being liberated and
set plundering and fighting--the hostages all fusiladed.

When we arriv