as announced, and returned with some cognac, a
tumbler, and water. She poured him out a glass that seemed to herself to
be almost alarmingly strong, but he drank it at a draught.

"Don't be alarmed, Mary," he said, with a smile, at the consternation in
her face. "You won't often see me do this, and I can assure you that
spirit-drinking is not an habitual vice with me, but I really wanted it
then. They are still fighting fiercely from Porte St. Martin down to the
Place de la Bastille. I believe all resistance has been crushed out on
the south side of the river, and in a couple of days the whole thing
will be over."

"Fancy a week of fighting. It is awful to think of, Cuthbert. How many
do you suppose will be killed altogether?"

"I have not the least idea, and I don't suppose it will ever be known;
but if the resistance is as desperate for the next two days as it has
been for the last three, I should say fully 20,000 will have fallen,
besides those taken with arms in their hands, tried, and shot. I hear
there are two general court-martials sitting permanently, and that seven
or eight hundred prisoners are shot every day. Then there are some
eighteen or twenty thousand at Versailles, but as these will not be
tried until the fighting is over, and men's blood cooled down somewhat,
no doubt much greater leniency will be shown."

"There is a terrible cloud of smoke over Paris, still."

"Yes, fresh fires are constantly breaking out. The Louvre is safe, and
the firemen have checked the spread of the flames at the public
buildings, but there are streets where every house is alight for a
distance of a quarter of a mile; and yet, except at these spots, the
damage is less than you would expect considering how fierce a battle has
been raging. There are streets where scarce a bullet mark is to be seen
on the walls or a broken pane of glass in a window, while at points
where barricades have been defended, the scene of ruin is terrible."

Two days later a strange stillness succeeded the din and uproar that had
for a week gone on without cessation night and day. Paris was conquered,
the Commune was stamped out, its chiefs dead or fugitives, its rank and
file slaughtered, or prisoners awaiting trial. France breathed again. It
had been saved from a danger infinitely more terrible than a German
occupation. In a short time the hotels were opened and visitors began to
pour into Paris to gaze at the work of destruction wrought by the org