icade. But meantime the Regulars had advanced, and, therefore, the
enemies were at one moment within 40 paces of each other, though, being
in different streets, they were unconscious of each other's near
vicinity. Both parties seemed, as they well might, thoroughly at home,
the people, whatever might be their secret sympathies, showing a decent
appearance, at least, of impartiality to all men with arms in their
hands, and yet in a few minutes or seconds--for there was now no doubt
that they were about to fight--everybody was on the _qui vive_, getting
ready to escape if necessary. The extraordinary feature of these Paris
street fights is that many of them go on with a crowd of non-combatants,
men, women, and children, as close to them on both sides as if the whole
affair were a theatrical representation of a sensational melodramatic
kind, where a good deal of powder and blue lights would be burnt, but no
bullets or lives would be spent. In streets in which fighting actually
occurs no one of course shows except combatants, and these show as
little as possible, lying down or sheltering behind extempore
barricades and windows. The people indoors, as may be supposed, do not
keep near them, as the bullets fired down the sides of the streets under
cover of doorways or corner houses glance and ricochet about in the
wildest way. Scarcely a window escapes if the fight lasts long, but
adjoining streets running at right angles to the fighting ground are for
the moment comparatively safe, and the people crowd about the doorways
in these, the more venturesome getting close to street corners, and
every now and then cautiously craning their necks round to see, if
possible, whether shots tell.

Perhaps the strangest thing about a Paris street fight is that up to the
very last moment one sees people running quietly along, utterly
unconscious of danger, right between two lines of fire, with loaded
mitrailleuses within a hundred yards of them. One minute before the
fight I am describing began this morning, an old lady, with a large
market basket on her arm, was leisurely walking down the Rue d'Aboukir
between the barricades and soldiers mustering quietly at the corner of
the Rue Montmartre. She was probably making way to the Halles Centrales
close by to get something for breakfast, in happy ignorance of the fact
that at that very moment soldiers were firing, as far as we could see,
right into it. I found afterwards that the Reds were then