e of the canal, we
endeavoured to reach the Bastille, but were stopped by a battery which
was firing at Pere-Lachaise, and which was receiving shells in reply
from the cemetery. We therefore retraced our steps past the long gaunt
skeleton of the Prefecture of the Police, which was still smoking, and
which had contained a body of political prisoners incarcerated by the
Insurgents, but released by them in order to work at barricades. This
proved their salvation, as they were enabled to effect their escape on
the approach of the troops. It is reported, nevertheless, that some
still lie buried beneath these smouldering ruins. To the right of the
Bastille we could see a heavy volume of smoke rising apparently from a
point corresponding to the position of the prison of Mazas. We are still
in utter darkness as to the fate of the Archbishop and the clergy in
confinement with him, but the tragedy of the Dominicans leaves us little
hope. About 20 of these priests were imprisoned on Friday, the 19th, at
Fort Bicetre. On Thursday, when this had to be abandoned, they were
hurried away to the Gobelins on the promise of being set at liberty.
Instead of this they were driven to work on the barricades, then dragged
to a prison in the Avenue d'Italie. At half-past 4 in the afternoon they
were visited by a certain M. Cerisier with a company of the 101st
battalion of the National Guards, who deliberately loaded in their
presence. The outside door of the prison was then thrown open, and they
were ordered to leave it one by one. As they marched out singly they
were shot successively by order of Cerisier, with the exception of the
narrator of the occurrence, and one or two others who were either missed
or slightly wounded and escaped. Twelve bodies of these unhappy men have
already been recovered.

There is also no doubt that M. Gustave Chaudey, one of the principal
editors of the _Siecle_, and a literary man of some eminence and high
character, who had incurred the displeasure of the Communists, has been
shot by them. On the other side the executions are wholesale. It is
estimated that upwards of 2,000 persons have been shot already on the
left bank of the Seine alone, evidently a small proportion of the total
number. Wherever women and children are to be observed leaning over the
parapet of the Seine intently regarding some object below, one may be
sure that the attraction is a group of hideously mutilated corpses of
men who have been broug