my only feelings towards the battalions
of beetle-browed ruffians from the faubourgs was disgust, now I am
beginning to feel a respect for them, but it makes the prospect here all
the darker.

"I have no doubt that as soon as McMahon has got all his batteries into
position he will open such a fire as will silence the forts and speedily
make breaches in the walls; but the real fighting won't begin till they
enter. The barricades were at first little more than breastworks, but
they have grown and grown until they have become formidable
fortifications, and, if stoutly defended, and with every house occupied
by desperate men, it will be terrible work carrying them by assault.
However, there are few places where the main defences cannot be turned,
for it is impossible to fortify every street. However, if the Communists
fight as desperately as we may now expect, in their despair, the work of
clearing the whole city must occupy many days."

"It will be very unpleasant in Passy when the batteries on all those
heights open fire."

"It would, indeed, if they were to direct their fire in this direction,
for they could wipe Passy out altogether in a few hours; but everything
shows that Thiers is anxious to spare Paris itself as much as possible.
Not a shot has been fired at random, and scarcely a house has been
injured. They fire only at the forts and at the batteries on this side,
and when they begin in earnest I have no doubt it will be the same. It
would be a mere waste of shot to fire up there, and if the Versailles
people were to do unnecessary damage it would bring them into odium
throughout all France, for it would be said that they were worse than
the Prussians."

On the 25th of April, at 8 o'clock in the morning, the long silence of
the besiegers' batteries ended. Cuthbert was taking his coffee when he
heard a sound like the rumble of a heavy wagon. He ran to his window.
There was quiet in the street below, for everyone had stopped abruptly
to listen to the roar, and from every window heads appeared. Completing
his dressing hastily, he went out and took the first fiacre he met and
drove to Passy. The rumble had deepened into a heavy roar; the air
quivered with the vibrations, and the shriek of the shells mingled with
the deep booming of the guns. When he entered Madame Michaud's, she, her
husband and Mary were standing at the open window.

"We have just come down from the top of the house," Mary said, "it is a
grand