these fire balls on two occasions, having succeeded once in escaping. As
a general rule, the hand-dog look of the prisoners is their most
striking characteristic. I passed one gang of about 50 yesterday, and
tried in vain, as I walked by their side, to catch a man's eye, or even
to see a face turned fairly up to the light of day. With heads bare, and
eyes steadily fixed on the ground, they passed between rows of people,
who howled and hooted at them, and it was not till I reached the head of
the short column that I observed a slender figure walking alone in the
costume of the National Guard, with long, fair hair floating over the
shoulders, a bright blue eye, and a handsome, bold, young face that
seemed to know neither shame nor fear. When the female spectators
detected at a glance that this seeming young National Guardsman was a
woman, their indignation found vent in strong language, for the torrent
of execration seems to flow more freely from feminine lips when the
object is a woman than if it be one of the opposite sex; but the only
response of the victim was to glare right and left with heightened
colour and flashing eyes, in marked contrast to the cowardly crew that
followed her. If the French nation were composed only of French women
what a terrible nation it would be!

The aspect of the Boulevards is the strangest sight imaginable. I
followed them from the Porte St. Martin to the Rue de la Paix. There was
fighting at the Chateau d'Eau, and without either a pass or an ambulance
_brassard_ a nearer approach to the scene of action was undesirable;
indeed, until recently, the shells had been bursting here in every
direction, and their holes might be seen in the centre of those
pavements heretofore sacred to the _flaneurs_ of Paris. Strewn over the
streets were branches of trees; and fragments of masonry that had been
knocked from the houses, bricks and mortar, torn proclamations, shreds
of clothings half concealing bloodstains, were now the interesting and
leading features of that fashionable resort; foot passengers were few
and far between, the shops and _cafes_ hermetically sealed, excepting
where bullets had made air holes, and during my whole afternoon's
promenade I only met three other carriages besides my own. The Place de
l'Opera was a camping ground of artillery, the Place Vendome a confusion
of barricades, guarded by sentries and the Rue Royale a mass of
_debris_. Looked at from the Madeleine the desolation a